Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome Part 5

We can hardly judge Apicius by what he has revealed but we rather should try to discover what he--purposely or otherwise--has concealed if we would get a good idea of the ancient kitchen. This thought occurred to us at the eleventh hour, after years of study of the text and after almost despairing of a plausible solution of its mysteries.

And it seems surprising that Apicius has never been suspected before of withholding information essential to the successful practice of his rather hypothetical and empirical formulae. The more we scrutinize them, the more we become convinced that the author has omitted vital directions--same as we did purposely with the two modern examples above. Many of the Apician recipes are dry enumerations of ingredients supposed to belong to a given dish or sauce. It is well-known that in chemistry (cookery is but applied chemistry) the knowledge of the rules governing the quant.i.ties and the sequence of the ingredients, their manipulation, either separately or jointly, either successively or simultaneously, is a very important matter, and that violation or ignorance of the process may spell failure at any stage of the experiment. In the kitchen this is particularly true of baking and soup and sauce making, the most intricate of culinary operations.

There may have been two chief reasons for concealing necessary information. Apicius, or more likely the professional collectors of the recipes, may have considered technical elaboration of the formulae quite superfluous on the a.s.sumption that the formulae were for professional use only. Every good pract.i.tioner knows, with ingredients or components given, what manipulations are required, what effects are desired. Even in the absence of detailed specifications, the experienced pract.i.tioner will be able to divine correct proportions, by intuition. As a matter of fact, in cookery the mention in the right place of a single ingredient, like in poetry the right word, often suffices to conjure up before the gourmet's mental eye vistas of delight. Call it inspiration, a.s.sociation of ideas or what you please, a single word may often prove a guide, a savior.

Let us remember that in Apicii days paper (parchment, papyrus) and writing materials were expensive and that, moreover, the ability of correct logical and literary expression was necessarily limited in the case of a practising cook who, after all, must have been the collector of the Apician formulae. This is sufficiently proven by the _lingua coquinaria_, the vulgar Latin of our old work. In our opinion, the ancient author did not consider it worth his while to give anything but the most indispensable information in the tersest form. This he certainly did. A comparison of his literary performance with that of the artistic and accomplished writer of the Renaissance, Platina, will at once show up Apicius as a hard-working practical cook, a man who knew his business but who could not tell what he knew.

Like ever so many of his successors, he could not refrain from beginning and concluding many of his articles with such superfluities as "take this" and "And serve," etc., all of which shows him up as a genuine cook. These articles, written in the most laconic language possible--the language of a very busy, very hara.s.sed, very hurried man, are the literary product of a cook, or several of them.

The other chief motive for condensing or obscuring his text has a more subtle foundation. Indeed, we are surprised that we should possess so great a collection of recipes, representing to him who could use them certain commercial and social value. The preservation of Apicius seems entirely accidental. Experienced cooks were in demand in Apicii times; the valuation of their ministrations increased proportionately to the progress in gastronomy and to the prosperity of the nation. During Rome's frugal era, up to 200 B.C. the primitive cooks were just slaves and household chattels; but the development of their trade into an art, stimulated by foreign precepts, imported princ.i.p.ally from Greece, Sicily and Asia Minor, opened up to the pract.i.tioners not only the door to freedom from servitude but it offered even positions of wealth with social and political standing, often arousing the envy, satire, criticism of bona-fide politicians, journalists, moralists, satirists and of the ever-present hordes of parasites and hangers-on. Some cooks became confidants, even friends and advisors of men in high places, emperors, (cf. life of Vitellius) and through their subtle influence upon the mighty they may have contributed in no mean measure to the fate of the nation. But such invisible string-pullers have not been confined to those days alone. (Take Rasputin! Take the valet to William I, reputed to have had more "say" than the mighty Bismarck, who, as it developed, got "the air" while the valet died in his berth.)

Such being the case, what potential power reposed in a greasy cookery ma.n.u.script! And, if so, why bare such wonderful secrets to Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry?

Weights and measures are given by Apicius in some instances. But just such figures can be used artfully to conceal a trap. Any mediocre cook, gaining possession of a choice collection of detailed and itemized recipes would have been placed in an enviable position.

Experimenting for some time (at his master's expense) he would soon reach that perfection when he could demand a handsome compensation for his ministrations. Throughout antique times, throughout the middle ages down to the present day (when patent laws no longer protect a secret) strict secrecy was maintained around many useful and lucrative formulae, not only by cooks, but also by physicians, alchemists and the various scientists, artisans and craftsmen. Only the favorite apprentice would be made heir to or shareholder in this important stock in trade after his worthiness had been proven to his master's satisfaction, usually by the payment of a goodly sum of money--apprentice's pay. We remember reading in Lanciani (Rodolfo L.: Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries) how in the entire history of Rome there is but one voice, that of a solitary, n.o.ble-minded physician, complaining about the secrecy that was being maintained by his colleagues as regards their science. To be sure, those fellows had every reason in the world for keeping quiet: so preposterous were their methods in most cases! This secrecy indeed must have carried with it a blessing in disguise. Professional reserve was not its object. The motive was purely commercial.

Seeing where the information given by Apicius is out of reason and unintelligible we are led to believe that such text is by no means to be taken very literally. On the contrary, it is quite probable that weights and measures are not correct: they are quite likely to be of an artful and studied unreliability. A secret private code is often employed, necessitating the elimination or transposition of certain words, figures or letters before the whole will become intelligible and useful. If by any chance an uninitiated hand should attempt to grasp such veiled directions, failure would be certain. We confess to have employed at an early stage of our own career this same strategy and time-honored camouflage to protect a precious lot of recipes.

Promptly we lost this unctuous ma.n.u.script, as we feared we would; if not deciphered today, the book has long since been discarded as being a record of the ravings of a madman.

The advent of the printing press changed the situation. With Platina, ca. 1474, an avalanche of cookery literature started. The secrets of Scappi, "_cuoco secreto_" to the pope, were "scooped" by an enterprising Venetian printer in 1570. The guilds of French mustard makers and sauce cooks (precursors of modern food firms and manufacturers of ready-made condiments) were a powerful tribe of secret mongers in the middle ages. English gastronomic literature of the 16th, 17th and even the 18th century is crowded with "closets opened," "secrets let out" and other alluring t.i.tles purporting to regale the prospective reader with profitable and appetizing secrets of all sorts. Kitchen secrets became commercial articles.

These remarks should suffice to ill.u.s.trate the a.s.sumption that the Apicius book was not created for publication but that it is a collection of abridged formulae for private use, a treasure chest as it were, of some cook, which after the demise of its owner, collector, originator, a curious world could not resist to play with, although but a few experienced masters held the key, being able to make use of the recipes.

MEAT DIET

In perusing Apicius only one or two instances of cruelty to animals have come to our attention (cf. recipes No. 140 and 259). Cruel methods of slaughter were common. Some of the dumb beasts that were to feed man and even had to contribute to his pleasures and enjoyment of life by giving up their own lives often were tortured in cruel, unspeakable ways. The belief existed that such methods might increase the quality, palatability and flavor of the meat. Such beliefs and methods may still be encountered on the highways and byways in Europe and Asia today. Since the topic, strictly speaking does not belong here, we cannot depict it in detail, and in pa.s.sing make mention of it to refer students interested in the psychology of the ancients to such details as are found in the writings of Plutarch and other ancient writers during the early Christian era. It must be remembered, however, that such writers (including the irreproachable Plutarch) were advocates of vegetarianism. Some pa.s.sages are inspired by true humane feeling, but much appears to be written in the interest of vegetarianism.

The ancients were not such confirmed meat eaters as the modern Western nations, merely because the meat supply was not so ample. Beef was scarce because of the shortage of large pastures. The cow was sacred, the ox furnished motive power, and, after its usefulness was gone, the muscular old brute had little attraction for the gourmet. Today lives a race of beef eaters. Our beef diet, no doubt is bound to change somewhat. Already the world's grazing grounds are steadily diminishing. The North American prairies are being parcelled off into small farms the working conditions of which make beef raising expensive. The South American pampas and a strip of coastal land in Australia now furnish the bulk of the world's beef supply. Perhaps Northern Asia still holds in store a large future supply of meat but this no doubt will be claimed by Asia. Already North America is acclimating the Lapland reindeer to offset the waning beef, to utilize its Northern wastes.

With the increasing shortage of beef, with the increasing facilities for raising chicken and pork, a reversion to Apician methods of cookery and diet is not only probably but actually seems inevitable.

The ancient bill of fare and the ancient methods of cookery were entirely guided by the supply of raw materials--precisely like ours.

They had no great food stores nor very efficient marketing and transportation systems, food cold storage. They knew, however, to take care of what there was. They were good managers.

Such atrocities as the willful destruction of huge quant.i.ties of food of every description on the one side and starving mult.i.tudes on the other as seen today never occurred in antiquity.

Many of the Apician dishes will not appeal to the beef eaters. It is worthy of note that much criticism was heaped upon Apicius some 200 years ago in England when beef eating became fashionable in that country. The art of Apicius requires pract.i.tioners of superior intellect. Indeed, it requires a superior clientele to appreciate Apician dishes. But pract.i.tioners that would pa.s.s the requirements of the Apician school are scarce in the kitchens of the beef eaters. We cannot blame meat eaters for rejecting the average _chef d'uvre_ set before them by a mediocre cook who has learned little besides the roasting or broiling of meats. Once the average man has acquired a taste for the refined compositions made by a talented and experienced cook, say, a composition of meats, vegetables or cereals, properly "balanced" by that intuition that never fails the real artist, the fortunate diner will eventually curtail the preponderant meat diet. A glance at some Chinese and j.a.panese methods of cookery may perhaps convince us of the probability of these remarks.

Nothing is more perplexing and more alarming than a new dish, but we can see in a reversion to Apician cookery methods only a dietetic benefit accruing to this so-called white race of beef eaters.

Apicius certainly excels in the preparation of vegetable dishes (cf.

his cabbage and asparagus) and in the utilization of parts of food materials that are today considered inferior, hardly worth preparing for the table except by the very careful and economical housekeeper.

Properly prepared, many of these things are good, often more nutritious than the dearer cuts, and sometimes they are really delicious.

One has but to study the methods of ancient and intelligent people who have suffered for thousands of years under the perennial shortage of food supplies in order to understand and to appreciate Apician methods. Be it far from us to advocate their methods, or to wish upon us the conditions that engendered such methods; for such practices have been pounded into these people by dire necessity. They have graduated from the merciless school of hunger.

Food materials, we repeat, were never as cheap and as abundant as they are today. But who can say that they always will be so in the future?

SCIENCE CONFIRMING ANCIENT METHODS

We must not overlook the remarkable intuition displayed by the ancients in giving preference to foods with body- and blood-building properties. For instance, the use of liver, particularly fish liver already referred to. The correctness of their choice is now being confirmed by scientific re-discoveries. The young science of nutrition is important enough to an individual who would stimulate or preserve his health. But since const.i.tutions are different, the most carefully conceived dietary may apply to one particular individual only, provided, however, that our present knowledge of nutrition be correct and final. This knowledge, as a matter of fact, is being revised and changed constantly.

If dietetics, therefore, were important enough to have any bearing at all upon the well-defined methods of cookery, we might go into detail a.n.a.lyzing ancient methods from that point of view. To call attention to the "economy," the stewardship, or craftsmanship, in ancient methods and to the truly remarkable intuition that guided the ancient cooks is more important. Without these qualities there can be no higher gastronomy. Without high gastronomy no high civilization is possible. The honest and experienced nutrition expert, though perhaps personally opposed to elaborate dining, will discover through close study of the ancient precepts interesting pre-scientific and well-balanced combinations and methods designed to jealously guard the vitamins and dietetic values in dishes that may appear curiously "new"

to the layman that would nevertheless receive the unqualified approval of modern science.

We respect the efforts of modern diet.i.tians and food reformers; but we are far removed from the so-called "simple" and "plain" foods advocated by some well-meaning individuals. With the progress of civilization we are farther and farther drifting away from it. Even barbaric and beastly food is not "simple."

This furtive "intuition" in cookery (in the absence of scientific facts because of the inability of cooks to transform empirical traditions into practical rules emanating from understood principles) still prevails today. It guides great chefs, saves time spent in scientific study.

The much criticized "unnatural union of sugar and meats" of the ancients still exists today in many popular examples of cookery: lamb and mint sauce, steak and catsup, mutton and currant jelly, pork and apples (in various forms), oyster c.o.c.ktail, poultry and compote, goose with apple and raisin dressing, venison and c.u.mberland sauce, mince pie, plum pudding--typical survivals of ancient traditions.

"Intuition" is still preceding exact science, and "unnatural unions"

as in social, political and any other form of life, seem to be the rule rather than the exception.

DISGUISING FOODS

Apicius is often blamed for his endeavor to serve one thing under the guise of another. The reasons for such deceptions are various ones.

Fashion dictated it. Cooks were not considered "clever" unless they could surprise guests with a commonplace food material so skillfully prepared that identification was difficult or impossible. Another reason was the absence of good refrigeration, making "masking"

necessary. Also the ambition of hosts to serve a cheaper food for a more expensive one--veal for chicken, pork for partridge, and so on.

But do we not indulge in the same "stunts" today? We either do it with the intention of deceiving or to "show off." Have we not "Mock Turtle Soup," _Mouton a la Cha.s.seur_, mutton prepared to taste like venison, "chicken" salad made of veal or of rabbit? In Europe even today much of the traditional roast hare is caught in the alley, and it belongs to a feline species. "Roof hare."

FOOD ADULTERATIONS

There is positive evidence of downright frauds and vicious food adulteration in the times of Apicius. The old rascal himself is not above giving directions for rose wine without roses, or how to make a spoiled honey marketable, and other similar adulterations. Those of our readers with sensitive gastronomic instinct had better skip the paragraphs discussing the treatment of "birds with a goatish smell."

But the old food adulterators are no match for their modern successors.

Too, some of our own shams are liable to misinterpretation. In centuries to come our own modern recipes for "Scotch Woodc.o.c.k" or "Welsh rabbit" may be interpreted as attempts on our part to hoodwink guests by making game birds and rabbits out of cheese and bread, like Trimalchio's culinary artists are reputed to have made suckling pigs out of dough, partridges of veal, chicken of tunny fish, and _vice versa_. What indeed would a serious-minded research worker a thousand years hence if unfamiliar with our culinary practice and traditions make of such terms as _pette de nonne_ as found in many old French cookery books, or of the famous _suttelties_ (subtleties)--the confections once so popular at medieval weddings?

The ramifications of the _lingua coquinaria_ in any country are manifold, and the culinary wonderland is full of pitfalls even for the experienced gourmet.

REACHING THE LIMIT

Like in all other branches of ancient endeavor, cookery had reached a state of perfection around the time of Apicius when the only chance for successful continuation of the art lay in the conquest of new fields, i.e., in expansion, generalization, elaboration and in influence from foreign sources. We have witnessed this in French cookery which for the last hundred years has successfully expanded and has virtually captured the civilized parts of the globe, subject however, always to regional and territorial modifications.

This desirable expansion of antique cookery did not take place. It was violently and rather suddenly checked princ.i.p.ally by political and economic events during the centuries following Apicius, perhaps princ.i.p.ally by the forces that caused the great migration (the very quest of food!). Suspension ensued instead. The heirs to the ancient culture were not yet ready for their marvelous heritage. Besides their cultural unpreparedness, the cookery of the ancients, like their humor, did not readily appeal to the "Nordic" heirs. Both are so subtle and they depend so much upon the psychology and the economic conditions of a people, and they thus presented almost unsurmountable obstacles to the invaders. Still lo! already in the fifth century, the Goth Vinithaharjis, started to collect the Apician precepts.

OUR PREDECESSORS

The usefulness in our days of Apicius as a practical cookery book has been questioned, but we leave this to our readers to decide after the perusal of this translation.

If not useful in the kitchen, if we cannot grasp its moral, what, then, is Apicius? Merely a curio?

The existing ma.n.u.scripts cannot be bought; the old printed editions are highly priced by collectors, and they are rare. Still, the few persons able to read the messages therein cannot use them: they are not pract.i.tioners in cookery.

None of the Apician editors (except Danneil and the writer) were experienced practising gastronomers. Humelbergius, Lister, Bernhold were medical men. Two serious students, Schuch and Wuestemann, gave up academic positions to devote a year to the study of modern cookery in order to be able to interpret Apicius. These enthusiasts overlooked, however, two facts: Apicius cannot be understood by inquiring into modern average cookery methods, nor can complete mastery of cookery, practical as well as theoretical, including the historical and physiological aspects of gastronomy be acquired in one year. Richard Gollmer, another Apicius editor, declares that the results of this course in gastronomy were negative. We might add here that Schuch's edition of Apicius, apart from the unwarranted inclusion of the _excerpta_ of Vinidarius is the least reliable of all editions.