The Forme of Cury | Page 5

148. vol. VI. 355. and the several plays mentioned in a note to the first mentioned passage in the Edit. 1780 [69].
I observe further, in regard to this point, that the quantities of things are seldom specified [70], but are too much left to the taste and judgement of the cook, if he should happen to be rash and inconsiderate, or of a bad and undistinguishing taste, was capable of doing much harm to the guests, to invalids especially.
Though the cooks at Rome, as has been already noted, were amongst the lowest slaves, yet it was not so more anciently; Sarah and Rebecca cook, and so do Patroclus and Automedon in the ninth Iliad. It were to be wished indeed, that the Reader could be made acquainted with the names of our _master-cooks_, but it is not in the power of the Editor to gratify him in that; this, however, he may be assured of, that as the Art was of consequence in the reign of Richard, a prince renowned and celebrated in the Roll [71], for the splendor and elegance of his table, they must have been persons of no inconsiderable rank: the king's first and second cooks are now esquires by their office, and there is all the reason in the world to believe they were of equal dignity heretofore [72]. To say a word of king _Richard_: he is said in the proeme to have been 'acounted the best and ryallest vyaund [curioso in eating] of all esten kynges.' This, however, must rest upon the testimony of our cooks, since it does not appear otherwise by the suffrage of history, that he was particularly remarkable for his niceness and delicacy in eating, like Heliogabalus, whose favourite dishes are said to have been the tongues of peacocks and nightingales, and the brains of parrots and pheasants [73]; or like Sept. Geta, who, according to Jul. Capitolinus [74], was so curious, so whimsical, as to order the dishes at his dinners to consist of things which all began with the same letters. Sardanapalus again as we have it in Athen?us [75], gave a _pr?mium_ to any one that invented and served him with some novel cate; and Sergius Orata built a house at the entrance of the Lucrine lake, purposely for the pleasure and convenience of eating the oysters perfectly fresh. Richard II is certainly not represented in story as resembling any such epicures, or capriccioso's, as these [76]. It may, however, be fairly presumed, that good living was not wanting among the luxuries of that effeminate and dissipated reign.
[Addenda: after _ninth Iliad_, add, 'And Dr. Shaw writes, p. 301, that even now in the East, the greatest prince is not ashamed to fetch a lamb from his herd and kill it, whilst the princess is impatient till she hath prepared her fire and her kettle to dress it.']
[Addenda: after heretofore add, 'we have some good families in England of the name of Cook or Coke. I know not what they may think; but we may depend upon it, they all originally sprang from real and professional cooks; and they need not be ashamed of their extraction, any more than the _Butlers_, _Parkers_, _Spencers_, &c.']
My next observation is, that the messes both in the roll and the Editor's MS, are chiefly soups, potages, ragouts, hashes, and the like hotche-potches; entire joints of meat being never _served_, and animals, whether fish or fowl, seldom brought to table whole, but hacked and hewed, and cut in pieces or gobbets [77]; the mortar also was in great request, some messes being actually denominated from it, as _mortrews_, or morterelys as in the Editor's MS. Now in this state of things, the general mode of eating must either have been with the spoon or the fingers; and this perhaps may have been the reason that spoons became an usual present from gossips to their god-children at christenings [78]; nnd that the bason and ewer, for washing before and after dinner, was introduced, whence the ewerer was a great officer [79], and the ewery is retained at Court to this day [80]; we meet with damaske water after dinner [81], I presume, perfumed; and the words ewer &c. plainly come from the Saxon ete or French eau, water.
Thus, to return, in that little anecdote relative to the Conqueror and William Fitz-Osbern, mentioned above, not the crane, but the flesh of the crane is said to have been under-roasted. Table, or case-knives, would be of little use at this time [82], and the art of carving so perfectly useless, as to be almost unknown. In about a century afterwards, however, as appears from archbishop Neville's entertainment, many articles were served whole, and lord Wylloughby was the carver [83]. So that carving began now to be