of that Of all parts of the fresh Cod the head lips and palate is preferred being a very light though a slimy meat Pectines Pectunculi Cocks and Cockles are commended by Scribonius Largus for strengthening the stomack Pliny saith they encrease flesh but certain it is that they encrease lust for they themselves are so hot of nature that they leap and fly above water like an arrow in the sommer nights to be cooled by the air Alexander Benedictus reporteth that some with eating too many Cockles have become stark fools Their broth loosneth the body but their flesh staies it Galen commends them for a good meat but dangerous to them that are subject to the stone or falling sickness The best Cockles keep in sandy seas which maketh the Purbeck and Selsey Cockles so highly esteemed they are best in the month of May for then are they fullest lustiest and cleanest of gravel To avoid their gravel keep them in salt water or brine a whole day before you eat them and if you shift them into fresh water or brine when the tide is comming they will open themselves and spue out all their gravel and filthiness Chuse the greatest and the whitest of them and of al shell fish they are best broild in a frying pan neither are they ill being sod in water with salt pepper parsly dried mints and cinamon after the French fashion Conger Conger is nothing but a sea-eele of a white sweet and fatty flesh little Congers are taken in great plenty in the Severn betwixt Glocester and Tewkesbury but the great ones keep onely in the salt seas which are whiter-flesht and more tender they feed as eels do upon fat waters at the mouths of rivers running into the sea they are hard of digestion for most stomacks engendring chollicks if they be eaten cold leprosies if they be eaten hot after their seething Philemon the Comical Poet seeing a Conger seething in a Cooks-shop for divers young Gentlemen that bespake it to dinner suddenly snacht away the pan wherein it boiled and ran away with it the Gentlemen followed and catcht at him like a number of Chickens whom he had crossed and turned and mocked for a great while till having sported himself enough he flang down pan and all with these words O humane folly how do fooles long for unwholsome meats for he thought Conger to be bad enough of its owne nature but far worse if it were eaten hot out of the pan In England we do not amiss first to boil it tender in water with salt time parsly baies and hot herbs then to lay it covered in vinegar and then to broil it for so is it a meetly good nourishment in Sommer for hot stomachs Merula The Cook-fish is so called of the seamen because he so pleasantly tasteth when he is well sod as though he had seasoned himself with salt and spices They are very rare but tender and light of nourishment and there is never seen of them past one at once which caused the Latins to call them Merulas that is to say the Solitarians or Hermits or Blackbirds of the Sea Cancri marini Crabs of the Sea be of divers sorts some smoothcrusted and some rough-casted as it were and full of prickles called Echinometrae The first sort hath the two formost clawes very big and long the other wanteth them wherefore as they go side wiâ—e so these move not themselves but round about like a spiral line the first sort are also very big or never growing to be of any reasonable sise The great ones are called Paguri whereof some weigh 10 l. weight furthermore one sort of the great ones which is the best of all goeth so fast upon the shore that the Grecians have termed them Hippeis or light horsemen The little sort of Crabs is softer shelld called Pinnotheres whose weakness is defended with abundance of wit for whilst he is little he hides himself in a little Oister and when he groweth bigger yet is he never so bigg as our common crabb he conveyeth himself into a bigger Oister of all sea-crabbs this is the lightest and wholesomest next unto them are our ordinary crabs but somewhat harder of digestion both of them nourish much and are highly commended in consumptions of lungs and spittings up of blood not onely by Dioscorides Pliny and Avicen but also by all writers especially if Asses milk be drunk with them As for their manner of preparation their vents are first to be stopped with a sticks end and then they are to be sodden in water for such as are costiff or in wine for them which are loose bellied some seeth them in vinegar water and salt but Galen saith that then they are best when they are sod in that water out of which they were taken the fuller of eggs the better they are for the female is preferred Our great sea-crabbs either of the smooth or rough kind full of a yellowish red and strong pulp lushish in taste and bought deerly are of a very hard digestion except they light upon a very strong stomach They also over-heat and enflame the body whereas contrariwise the lesser sort do cool and moisten it The broth of all of them consume the stone and cureth Quartains being drunk every morning fasting they are best in season in the spring and fall as also at the full of the moon Cuculi marini Currs are supposed by Dr Cajus to be all one with our Gurnard but it somewhat differeth being of a very firm whitish dry sound and wholesome flesh they are best sodden with salt water mace nutmegs parsly and vinegar Sepiae vel Lolligines calamariae Cuttles called also sleeves for their shape and scribes for their incky humour wherewith they are replenished are commended by Galen for great nourishers their skins be as smooth as any womans but their flesh as brawny as any ploughmans therefore I fear me Galen rather commended them upon hear-say then upon any just cause or true experience Apicius that great Master-cook makes sawsages of them with lard and other things which composition I would not have omitted if it had been worth the penning Canis Cetaceus Dog-fish is strong hard and of grose and bad juice albeit Hippocrates commends it in Pleuresies and also in the skin-dropsie or Anasarca The Dorry is very like to a Sea-bream of most excellent taste constitution and nourishment being either backt or sodden whilst it is alive in wine water salt vinegar and pennirial Mustelae Eele-powtes are best in April May and September their spawne is counted very hurtful but their flesh is white firm and of good nourishment and their livers most sweet and delicate seeth them as you do a Dorry and then broil them a little to make them easier of digestion or else boil them as you do Sturgian and so eat them cold Rhombi marini Sea-Flounders are very thick firm and yet light of digestion they are exceeding
pills made of dead mens brains Apollonius bad gums with dead mens teeth but far be it from any humane or Christian heart brag we of this foolish invention never so much to suck away one anothers life in the blood of young men wherein Charles the 9 King of France being but outwardly bathed for his leprosie died therefore and for other his cruel massacres a most bloody death wherefore let us content our selves with the blood of geese swans hoggs and sheep in our sawce and puddings which yet are but a gross and fulsome nourishment unless they meet with a strong and good stomack CHAP. XVII Of Fish generally and the difference thereof AS amongst Poets there is some called the Coryphaeus or Captain-poet so fareth it likewise amongst meats Some prefering fruit as being most ancient cleanly naturall and needing either none or very little preparation Others extoll flesh as most sutable to fleshy creatures and giving most and best nourishment But the finest feeders and dainty bellies did not delight in flesh with Hercules or in fruit with Plato and Arcesilaus but with Numa and Philocrates in variety of fish which Numa made a law that no fish without scales nor without finns should be eaten of the people whereupon I may justly collect and gather that he was not ignorant of Moses law Also according to the vain dream of Gregory the great Bishop of Rome and the author of the Carthusian order he put more holines in fish then in flesh falsly imagining flesh to be a greater motive to lust and lasciviousness then the use of fish which frivolous conceit is before sufficiently confuted in the seventh Chapter and needeth not to be shaken again in this place Now I will not deny that fish is a wholesome meat if such fish could be alwaies gotten as may sufficiently nourish the body but now a daies it so falleth out through iniquity of times or want of providence or that our Sea-coast and Rivers are more barren of fish then heretofore that in the Spring time when we ought to feed on the purest and most wholesome nourishment our blood is not cleansed but corrupted with filthy fish I mean saltherrings red-herrings sprats Haberdin and greenfish which are not amiss for Sailers and Ploughmen but yet most hurtful and dangerous for other persons Gatis Queen of Syria made a Law that no meal should pass through the year without fish which if it were as firmly made and executed in England no doubt much flesh would be spared and Navigation and fisher men maintained through the land neither should we need to imitate Gregory the Lent-maker perswading men to eat only fish at that time when it is most out of season most hardly gotten and most hurtfull to the bodies of most men Also in high Germany there is both fish and flesh continually set upon the table that every mans appetite humour and complexion may have that which is fittest for it in which Country though no Lent be observed except of a few Catholicks yet is there abundance of flesh all the year long restraint being onely made in Spring time of killing that which is young Differences of Fish in kind Concerning the kinds of Fishes Pliny maketh a hundred threescore and seventeen several sorts of them whereof some being never seen nor known of in our Country it were but folly to repeat them As for them which we have and feed on in England they are either scaled as Sturgian salmon grailings shuins carps breams base mullet barbel pike luce perch ruffs herrings sprats pilchers roch shads dorry gudgin and umbers or shell'd as scallopes oisters mustles cockles periwinckles or crusted over as crabs lobsters crevisses shrimps or neither scalld shell'd nor crusted as Tunny ling cod hake haberdine haddock seal conger lampreyes lamperns eeles plaise turbut flounder skate thorneback maides sole curs gildpoles smelts cuttles sleeves pouts dogfish poulps yards mackrels troutes tenches cooks whitings gournards and rochets To which also we may add Sticklebacks and minoes and spirlings and anchovaes because they are also neither scaled crusted nor defended with shells As for the goodness or badness of fish it is lessened or encreased upon three causes the place they live in the meat they feed on and their manner of dressing or preparation Concerning the first some live in the Sea some in Rivers some in Ponds some in Fenny creeks and meers Difference of Fish in respect of place Sea-fish as it is of all other the sweetest so likewise the least hurtfull for albeit they are of a thicker and more fleshy substance yet their flesh is most light and easie of concoction insomuch that Zeno and Crato two notable Physians in Plutarcks time commended them above all other to their sick patients and not without desert for as the Sea-aire is purest of all other because it is most tossed and purified with winds so the water thereof is most laboured and nourisheth for us the wholesomest and lightest meat lightest because continual exercise consumeth the sea-Sea-fishes superfluities wholesomest because the salt water like to buck-lye washeth away their inward filth and uncleaness Of Sea fish those are best which live not in a calm and muddy Sea tossed neither with tides nor windes for there they wax nought for want of exercise but they which live in a working Sea whose next continent is clean gravelly sandy or rocky running towards the North-east wind must needs be of a pure and wholesome nourishment less moist and clammy then the others easier also of concoction sooner turn'd into blood and every way fitter for mans body This is the cause why the Oritae and Northern-people live as wel with fish alone as we do here with such variety of flesh even I say the goodness lightness and wholesomness of their fish which is not brought unto us till it be either so stincking or salt that all their goodness is gone or dryed up River-Fish likewise are most wholesome and light when they swim in rocky sandy or gravel'd Rivers runing Northward or Eastward and the higher they swim up the better they are Contrariwise those which abide in slow short and muddy Rivers are not onely of an excremental and corrupt juice but also of a bad smell and ill taste Pond-fish is soon fatted through abundance of meat and want of exercise but they are nothing so sweet as river-River-fish unless they have been kept in some River to scoure themselves especially when they live in little standing ponds not fed with continual springs nor refreshed from some River or Sea with fresh water fenny-Fenny-fish of all other is most slimy excremental unsavory last digested and soonest corrupted having neither free aire nor sweet water nor good food to help or better themselves such are the fish of that lake in Armenia where all the fish be black and deadly and albeit our English meers be not so bad yet verily their fish is bad enough especially
to stomachs of other Conntries unacquainted with such muddy and unwholsome meats Differences of Fish in respect of their feeding Concerning the meats which fishes feed on some feed upon salt and saltish mud as neer Leptis in Africa and in Eubaea and about Dyrrhachium which maketh their flesh as salt as brine and altogether unwholesome for most stomacks Others upon bitter weeds and roots which maketh them as bitter as gall of which though we have none in our Seas or Rivers yet in the Island of of Pene and Clazomene they are very common Also if Pliny may be credited about Cephalenia Anipelos Paros and the Delian rocks fish are not only of a sweet taste but also of an aromatical smell whether it is by eating of sweet roots or devouring of amber and ambre-grice Some also feed and fat themselves neer to the common-sewers sincks chanels and draughts of great Cities whose chiefest meat is either carrion or dung whereas indeed the proper meat for fish is either flies frogs grashoppers young fry and spawne and chiefly certain wholsom roots herbs and weeds growing in the bottom or sides of Seas and Rivers Caesar Crasus and Curius fed them with livers and flesh so also did the Hieropolitans in Venus lake In Champagny they fed them with bread yea Vidius Pollio fed them with his condemned Slaves to make them the more fat and pleasant in taste But neither they that are fed with men nor with garbage or carrion nor with citty-filth nor with any thing we can devise are so truely sweet wholsome and pleasant as they which in good Seas and Rivers feed themselves enjoying both the benefit of fresh aire agreeable water and meat cor respondent to their own nature Difference of Fish in respect of preparation Concerning their difference of goodness in preparation I must needs agree with Diocles who being asked whether were the better fish a Pike or a Conger That said he sodden and this broild shewing us thereby that all flaggy slimy and moist fish as Eeles Congers Lampreys Oisters Cockles Mustles and Scallopes are best broild rosted or bakt but all other fish of a firm substance and drier constitution is rather to be sodden as the most part of fish before named Last of all we are to consider what fish we should chiefly choose namely the best grown the fattest and the newest How to chuse the best Fish The best grown sheweth that it is healthy and hath not been sick which made Philoxenus the Poet at Dionisius table to request him to send for Aesculapius Priest to cure the little barbles that were served in at the lower Mess where he sat If a fish be fat it is ever young if it be new it is ever sweet if it be fed in muddy or filthy water keep it not till the next day for it soon corrupteth but if it be taken out of clean feeding it will keep the longer Rules to be observed in the eating of fish Sodden fish or broild fish is presently to be eaten hot for being kept cold after it but one day unless it be covered with wine pickle or vinegar it is corrupted by the aire in such sort that sometimes like to poison-full mushroms it strangleth the eaters also fish coming out of a pan is not to be covered with a platter lest the vapour congeled in the platter drop down again upon the fish whereby that fish which might else have nourished will either cause vomiting or scouring or else corrupt within the veins Finally whosoever intendeth to eat a fish dinner let him not heat his body first with exercise least the juice of his meat being too soon drawn by the liver corrupt the whole mass of blood and let no fish be sodden or eaten without salt pepper wine onions or hot spices for all fish compared with flesh is cold and moist of little nourishment engendring watrish and thinn blood And if any shall think that because Crabs Skate Cockles and Oisters procure lust therefore they are likewise of great nourishment The argument is denied for though they blow up the body with wine and make good store of sharp nature which tickleth and inciteth us to venery yet that seed is unfruitful and that lust wanteth sufficiency because it cometh not from plenty of natural seed but from an itching quality of that which is unnatural Thus much generally of fish in the way of a Preface now let us speak particularly of every fish eaten or taken by us in this Island CHAP. XVIII Of sea-SEA-FISH sea-SEa-fish may be called that sort of fish which chiefly liveth feedeth breedeth and is taken in salt water of which I will write according to the letters of the Alphabet that every man may readily find out the fishes name whose nature or goodness he desires to know of Encrasicholi Anchovaes are but the Sea minoes of Provence and Sardinia which being poudred with salt wine-vinegar and origanum and so put up into little barrels are carried into all Greece and there esteemed for a most dainty meat It seemeth that the people of those hot Countries are very often distempered and distasted of their meat wherefore to recover their appetite they feed upon Anchovaes or rather taste one or two of them whereby not onely to them but also to us appetite is restored I could wish that the old manner of barrelling them up with origanum salt and and wine-vinegar were observed but now they taste onely of salt and are nothing so pleasant as they were wont to be They are fittest for stomachs oppressed with fleam for they will cut ripen and digest it and warm the stomack exceeding well they are of little nourishment but light enough if they were not so over-salted they are best drest with oil vinegar pepper and dryed origanum and they must be freed from their outward skin the ridge-bone be washt in wine before they be laid in the dish Variatae Alburni marini Bleaks of the Sea or Sea-bleaks called of Dr Cajus Variatae or Sea-cameleons because they are never of one colour but change with every light and object like to changeable silk are as sound firm and wholesome as any Carp there be great plenty of them in our Southern Seas betwixt Rye and Exceter and they are best sodden because they are so fine and so firm a meat Abramides marinae Breams of the Sea be of a white and solid substance good juice most easie digestion and good nourishment Piscis Capellanus Asellus medius Cod-fish is a great Sea-whiting called also a Keeling or Melwel of a tender flesh but not fully so dry and firm as the Whiting is Cods have a bladder in them full of eggs or spawne which the Northern men call the kelk and esteem it a very dainty meat they have also a thick and gluish substance at the end of their stomach called a sowne more pleasant in eating then good of nourishment for the toughest fish-glue is made
Musitian said That a sodden Thornback is like a piece of sodden Cloth but the flesh is best broiled after it hath been sodden to consume the watrishness Thynni Tunies are best when they are leanest namely towards the Fall and the dead of Winter When they are at the best their flesh is unsavoury enough cloying an indifferent stomach and engendering most gross and superfluous moistures As Porpesses must be baked while they are new so Tunny is never good till it have been long pouldred with salt vinegar coriander and hot spices No Tunny lives past two years waxing so fat that their bellies break at which time more gain is made of their fat by making Train-oyl for Clothiers then good by their flesh which is only good if good at all for Spanish and Italian Mariners Rhombi Turbuts which some call the Sea-Pheasant were in old time counted so good and delicate that this Proverb grew upon them Nihil ad Rhombum that is to say What is all this in comparison of a Turbutt Verily whilst they be young at which time they are called Butts their flesh is moist tender white and pleasant afterwards they are harder to be digested though more crumbling to feel to and as their prickles wax longer so their flesh waxeth tougher They are best being sodden as you seeth Thornback or rather as you seeth a grown Plaise Balaenae Whales flesh is the hardest of all other and unusuall to be eaten of our Countrymen no not when they are very young and tenderest yet the livers of Whales Sturgians and Dolphins smell like violets taste most pleasantly being salted and give competent nourishment as Cardan writeth Onisci Albulae Molliculae Whitings had never staid so long in the Court of England where they are never wanting upon a fish day unless they had done some notable service and still deserved their entertainment the best Whitings are taken in Tweede called Merlings of like shape and vertue with ours but far bigger all Physitians allow them for a light wholesome and good meat not denying them to sick persons and highly commending them to such as be in health they are good sodden with salt and time and their livers are very restorative yea more then of other fishes they are also good broild and dried after the manner of Stockfish into little Buckhorne but then they are fitter as Stockfish is to dry up moistures in a rhumatick stomach then to nourish the body Colybdaenae Yards or shamefishes so called because they resemble the yard of a man are by Galens judgement as agreeable to weak stomachs as Crabs Shrimps Crevisses Gesner in his book of fishes saith that the French men call this fish the Asses-prick and Dr Wotton termeth it grosly the Pintle fish How shameful a name so ever it beareth it needs not be ashamed of his vertues for it nourisheth much is light of concoction and encreaseth nature Yellow heads or Giltpoles are before spoken of next before Gurnards And thus much of Sea fish now fresh water fish challenge their due remembrance of which we will treat in the next Chapter CHAP. XIX Of Fresh water Fish Apium ALderlings are a kind of fish betwixt a Trout and a Grayling scaled as the Trout is not but not so great scaled as the Grailing is It lyeth ever in a deep water under some old and great alder his flesh being sod smelleth like to wild parsly whereupon I guess it had his Latin name and is of indifferent good nourishment and provoketh urine Barbellio Barbels are counted nothing but bearded-mullets It is most likely that this is the fish dedicated to Diana the Goddess of chastity for it is a very cold moist and gellied fish hurting the sinews quenching lust and greatly troubling both head and belly if it be usually and much eaten of some eat it hot after it is sodden in wine vinegar time and savory which is a good way to correct it others eat it cold laid in gelly which onely agreeth with hot and aguish stomachs in Summer time assuredly the eggs or spawne of Barbels is very sharp griping and corrosive driving many into bloody fluxes that have eaten them fasting Abramides Breams seem no other then flat Carps yet whiter of flesh and finer nourishment There is a kind of Bream called Scarus ruminas which we call a Cudbream because his lips are ever wagging like a Cow chawing the cud this of all other is the lightest sweetest and best fish of the River fitter for weak and sick persons then such as be in health because it is so fine A very good way how to dress most part of scaled fishes Prepare it after this sort set on a good quantity of white strong vinegar and stale Ale with a cursey of salt a little mints origanum parsly and rosemary and when your liquor boileth fast upon the fire stop the mouth of your Bream with a nutmeg thrust downe into his throat and cast him in skipping into the liquor keeping him downe till he be thorow dead and perfectly sodden dress Pikes Roches Carps Grailings Mullets and all great fish of the River in the like sort for it will make them to eat pleasant crisp brittle and firm not watrish and flaggy as most fish do because we know not how to use and order them Alburni Bleyes or Bleaks are soft flesht but never fat fitter to feed Pikes then to nourish men in the heat of Sommer they are troubled with a worme in their stomach which makes them so mad and frantick that rowing upon the Thames you shall have three or four in an evening leap into your boat A waterman once opened one and found a little worm in it not unlike to them which grow in oxens skins wherewith they are often enraged but far less they are counted a tender but never any wholesome meat because they are so subject to frensy and giddiness Cyprini Carpiones Carps are of a sweet taste and much good nourishment in which respects they were dedicated to Venus discommended for nothing but that they will not last long wherefore they are forthwith to be drest because through lightness of their substance they will soon corrupt The Portugals suppose that Carps feed upon gold because nothing almost is found in their bellies but a yellow glistering sand which opinion is also encreased in that they lye onely at the bottome of waters The River Carp is most wholesome if the ground of that River be gravel or clean sand otherwise take them out of gravelly ponds fed with springs and fatted with convenient meat where they will not onely encrease mightily in number and bigness but also get a very pleasant taste and a wholesome nature The middle sised Carp is ever best agreeing with all times ages and complexions The Tongue is the most nourishing part of all but the spawne is heavy and unwholesome howsoever it be drest The head of a Carp the tail of a Pike and the Belly of
as the Sun cannot warm us when Clouds be between So excess either fetters or divides the minds faculties How careful is the mind alwaies to preserve life yet many a drunkard sinks under water because reason cannot teach him the art of swiming the inward sences being choaked with abundance of clammy vapours Divine Hippocrate whom I can never sufficiently name nor honour compareth diet most fitly to a Potters wheele going neither forward nor backward but as the world it self moveth equally round moistning that which is too dry drying up that which is too moist restoring true flesh if it be decaid abating proud flesh by abstinence if it be too much neither drawing too much upward nor downward as peevish Sawyers do neither clapping on too much nor too little Sail like unskilfull Mariners but giving like a wise Steward every part his allowance by geometrical proportion that the whole household and family may be kept in health Such a steward was Asclepiades who cured by onely Diet infinite diseases Such an one was Galen that famous Physitian who being three or four times sick before he was twenty eight years old looked afterwards more strictly to his diet in such sort that a hundred years following he was never sick but once and died onely through want of radical moisture Such an one finally was Hippocrates who lived till he was a hundred and nine years old or at the least till he was fourscore and five without any memorable sickness and yet he had by nature but a weak head insomuch that he ever wore a night cap. Wherefore let us neither with the impudent call diet a frivolous knowledge or a curious science with the imprudent but embrace it as the leader to perfit health which as the wise man saith is above gold and a sound body above all riches The Romans once banished Physitians out of Rome under pretence that physick druggs weakened the peoples stomacks and Cooks for corrupting and enforcing appetites with strange sawces and seasonings and Perfumers and Anointers and Bathe-masters because they did rather mollifie and effeminante the Romans mindes then any whit profit or help their bodies Yet they retained Cato the chief dietist of that time and all them that were able without physick to prevent or cure diseases esteeming diet as it is indeed to be so honest pleasant and profitable a science that even malice it self cannot but commend it and her enemies are forced to retaine it Thus much or rather too much in the commendation of Diet for which some Spartane censor would severely punish me as Antalaides did the Orator that prais'd Hercules whom no wiseman ever discommended For howsoever idle heads have made these addle proverbs 1. Dieted bodies are but bridges to Physicians mindes 2. We shall live till we dye in despight of Diet 3. Every dissease will have his course 4. More Rubarb and less Diet c. Yet the wisest man and King of all others hath established it upon such grounds as neither can nor shall ever be shaken with all their malice CHAP. II. 1. How many sorts of Diet there be 2. Wherein Diet consisteth materially 3. Wherein Diet consisteth formally 1. THere be especially three sorts of Diets a full Diet a moderate Diet and a thin Diet. The first increaseth flesh spirits and humors the second repaireth onely them that were lost and the third lesseneth them all for a time to preserve life Full Diet is proper unto them which be young growing strong lusty and able through their good constitution to endure much exercise Moderate Diet is fittest for persons of a middle health whose estate of body is neither perfectly strong nor over-weak Thin Diets are never to be used especially in the strictest kind but where violent diseases caused either of fulness or corruption have the preheminence wherein how much the body wanteth sufficient food so much the sickness wanteth his tyrannical vigour 2. The matter of Diet is neither iron nor steel nor silver nor coral nor pearl no nor gold it self from which worthy simples albeit most rare and effectual sustenances be drawn as our own Countryman of all other most learnedly proveth to strengthen our body and to thicken our radical moisture which is soon consumed like a fine spirit of wine when it is too thin and subtile yet neither have they neither can they have a nourishing power because our natural heat will be tired before it can convert their oyle into our oyle their substance into our substance be it never so cunningly and finely exalted Furthermore if it be true which Hippocrates and reason telleth us that as contraries are expelled by contraries so like is sustained by his like How should the liquors of gold pearl and precious stones which the Chymists have named Immortal essences nourish or augment our mortal substance Nay doth not that soonest restore decayed flesh as milk gellie strong broaths and young lamb which soonest corrupteth if it be not presently eaten Is not a young snite more nourishing yet it keeps not long sweet then a peacock that will not corrupt nor putrifie in a whole year no not in thirty years saith Kiranides though it be buried in the ground yet as a candles end of an inch long being set in cold water burneth twice as long as another out of water not because water nourisheth the flame which by nature it quencheth nor because it encreaseth the tallow which admits no water but by moistning the circumfluent aire and thickning the tallow whereby the flame is neither so light nor lively as it would be otherwise in like sort the substances powders and liquors of the things aforesaid may perhaps hinder the speedy spending of natural heat by outward cooling of fiery spirits inward thickning of too liquid moistures hardning or condensating of flaggy parts but their durableness and immortality if they be immortal are sufficient proofs that they are no nourishments for corruptible men But they are pure essences and therefore suitable to our radical moisture which the best Physicians derive from a starr-like substance Alas pure fools what doe you vaunt and brag of purity when the purest things do least nourish for had not the aire water and earth certain impurities how should men beasts birds fishs and plants continue for the finer the aire the less it nourishes the clearer the water the less it fatneth the simpler the ground the less it succoureth yea were we in an air such as the element of aire it self is defined to be void of invisible seeds and those impalpable substances or resekens that are sometimes descried by the Sun-beams our spirits should find no more sustenance by it then a dry man drink in an empty hogshead And though we see Pikes to live a great while in Cisterns with clear water alone yet were that water so pure as the element it self they would clean consume for want of nourishment The like may
be said of plants growing in a dry crumbling sapless and unmingled earth wherein we should see them quickly so far from sprouting that for want of their restorrative moisture they would come to withering Wherefore I conclude Neither Oriental stones for their clearness nor pearls for their goodliness nor coral for his temperating of bloud nor gold for his firmness nor liquor of gold for his purity nor the quintessences of them all for their immortality are to be counted nourishments or the matters of Diet. Object not the Ostrich his consuming of stone and mettals to prove that therefore they may nourish man no more then the duck nightingale or stork to prove that toads adders and spiders are nourishing meats For our nourishment properly taken is that nature or substance which encreaseth or fostereth our body by being converted into our substance Now for as much as our bodies like the bodies of all sensible and living creatures else consist of a treble substance namely aerial Spirits liquid humors and confirmed parts it is therefore necessary it should have a treble nourishment answerable to the same which Hippocrates truly affirmeth to be Air Meat and Liquors Meat is a more gross and corporeal substance taken either from vegetables in the earth or creatures living upon the earth or living ever or sometimes in the water whereby the grosser part of our body is preserved-liquors are thin and liquid nourishment serving as a sled to convey meat to every member and converted most easily into humors Now whereas Pliny nameth some which never eat meat and Apollonius and Athenaeus other which never drank they are but few and particular persons yea perhaps the sons of Devils which cannot overthrow the general rule and course of nature It is possible to God as the Devil truly objected to make stones as nourishing as bread to feed men with locusts a most fretting burning and scalding vermin as he did John Baptist to give us stones instead of bread and to give us scorpions when we ask eggs yet usually he doth not transgress the course of nature by which as by his bayliff he rules the world so that when any man lived without meat or drink as Moses and Elias did forty daies it is rather to be counted a miraculous working then to be imputed to the strength of nature CHAP. III. Of AIRE 1. How it is to be chosen 1. AS Hippocrates said of Meats Like Food like flesh so may I justly say of the aire like aire like spirits for hence cometh it that in pure clear and temperate aire our spirits are as jocund pleasant active and ready as butterflies in Summer but in thick dark cloudy and unseasonable weather they are dul drowsie idle and as heavy as lead working neither perfectly what they ought nor chearfully what they would Witty Cardan supposeth a like resemblance to be betwixt our bodies and the aire as there is betwixt the soul and heaven So that as they encline the soul so the aire altereth the body every way let the aire be cloudy how can the body be warm Let it be hot how can that be cold let it be chilled with frost or snow our skin yea our inwards themselves begin to shiver How staggers the head and how presently finks the heart at the smel of a damp or the insensible sense of deadly and subtile spirits carried from the ugh-trees of Thasus or the hole of a Cokatrice or the breathing of Aspes or the dens of Dragons or the carcases of dead Serpents wherewith the aire is not so soon infected as the hearts and brains of men whereunto it is carried Galen saith That the inhabitants of the Palestine lake are ever sickly their cattle unsound and their Countrey barren through the brimstone and pitchy vapor ascending from thence over all the Countrey in such sort that birds flying over it or beasts drinking of it do suddenly die And verily no bird hateth that Lake nor the Lakes of Avernum Lucrine or Padua like unto it no frogs and serpents can less live in Ireland foxes in Crete staggs in Africa hares in Ithaca and fishes in warm water then the heart of man can abide impure smels or live long in health with infected airs which if they do not alwaies corrupt men yet they shew their force and exercise their power over cattle hearbs grass corn fruits and waters a great while after poysoning us as it were at a second draught whilst we feed of infected things and as Eclipses are wont to do spitting out their venom when they are almost forgotten Sicil is recorded to be seldom void of the Plague and the dwellers of Sardinia quitted their Country oftentimes for the same cause But how could it be otherwise when the wind blows there most commonly out of Africa the mother of all venomous and filthy beasts Is not Middleborough Roterdam Delf and divers other Cities in Zealand and Holland stinched every dry Autumn with infinite swarms of dead frogs putrifying the aire worse then carrion Rome also was greatly annoyed with agues and pestilence till by Asclepiades his councel their common sewers were monthly cleansed their privy-vaults yearly emptied and their soil and offal daily carried forth into the fields whereby receiving the benefit of sweet aire and health both at once no marvel as Mr. Ajax his Father hath well noted though the Skavenger and Gun-farmer that is Stercutius and Cloacina were honoured as Gods And verily had that worthy Author lived amongst those Romans as he liveth in this unthankful and wicked age wherein to speak with Hippocrates admirantur fatui calumniantur plerique intelligunt pauci no doubt ere this he had been very highly exalted and stood in some solemn Capitol betwixt Stercutius and Cloacina as King Ludd doth upon Ludd-Gate betwixt his two sons For I assure you and let us not but give the Devil his right he hath truely plainly and perfectly set down such an art of Privy-making that if we would put it in practice many a house should be thought in London to have never a Privy which now smels all over of nothing else Neither is the aire only infected with venemous winds and vapours sinks sewers kennels charnel houses moors or common lestals as in great Camps and Cities nor only with privy vaults but also Biesius maketh mention that a house in Spain seated among many elder trees wherewithall the grounds were headged cast every man out of it like Sejus horse either dead or diseased till such time as he caused them to be rooted up and so made it both wholsome and habitable to the dwellers Furthermore it is recorded That as the aire in Cyprus cureth any ulcers of the lungs so the air of Sardinia makes and enlargeth them And as the aire of Anticyra helpeth madness so contrariwise the aire of Thasus especially in a hot and dry summer brought almost all the inhabitants into a lunacy which no
that wanteth either fins as the Poulpe Periwinkles Lobsters and Crabs or scales as the Eele Lamprey Plaise Turbot and Conger c. doth he not expresly forbid them to eat of Poulps Periwinkles Lobsters Crabs Eeles Lampres Plaise Turbot and Conger and a hundred fish more wanting either scales or fins Fish is therefore no purer meat then flesh neither can a Carthusian eat a Sole being a meat forbidden the Israelites with a sounder conscience then a piece of Bief or Swines flesh Finally where he saith that the actions of Christ should be our instruction and his works our imitation Why do not those fishy Friars eat flesh every Maundy Thursday sith Christ himself did so whom we ought to imitate But let these alone to the conformity of their Church injunction remembring also with St. Paul to abstain from no meats which God hath created for our life and health It is recorded by St. Jerom in his Epistles that Seneca upon a foolish conceit abstained so long from flesh and fed only upon fruit and fish infected perhaps with the leaven of the Egyptian Priests that when upon Neroes commandment he was to bleed to death there did not spring from him a drop of bloud The like is written of St. Genovese the holy Maid of Paris who like the Egyptian Prophetess abstained wholly from flesh because it is the mother of lust she would eat no milk because it is white bloud she would eat no eggs because they are nothing but liquid flesh Thus pining and consuming her body both against nature and godliness she lived in a foolish error thinking flesh more ready to inflame lust then fruit or fish the contrary whereof is proved by the Islanders Groenlanders Orites and other Nations who feeding upon nothing but fish for no beast nor fruit can live there for cold yea having no other bread then is made of dried Stockfish grinded into powder are nevertheless both exceeding lecherous and also their women very fruitfull Yea Venus the mother of lust and lechery is said to have sprung from the fome of fish and to have been born in the Sea because nothing is more availeable to engender ust then the eating of certain fishes and sea-plants which I had rather in this lascivious age to conceal from posterity then to specifie them unto my Countrymen as the Grecians and Arabians have done to theirs What Nation more lascivious then the fenny Egyptians and the Poeonians yet their meat was only fish yea they fed their horses with them as Herodotus writeth Also in the Isle of Rhodes the Mother-seat of a strong and Warlike Nation the people heretofore fed chiefly of fish abhorring with such a kind of detestation from flesh that they called the eaters of it savages and bellies And verily if a strong lusty and Warlike Nation sprang from the eaters of fish alone why should we deny that fish is as much provoking to venery as any flesh So then I having fully proved that flesh is as lawfull as pure and as holy a meat as fish Now let us try which of them is the more ancient and best nourishment Did we but mark saith Plutarch the greasie fowlness of Butchers the bloudy fingers of Cooks and the smell of every beasts puddings and offal we must needs confess that first every thing was eaten before flesh which even still we naturally abhor to see whilst it is in killing and few touch without loathing when it is killed The Indian Philosophers called Brachmanes being at length induced to feed upon living creatures killed fish for their sustenance but abhorred from flesh And though the Babylonians delighted much after Nimrods example in hunting and killing of wild beasts yet as Herodotus reporteth they abstained from flesh and lived wholly upon fruit and fish For answer of which Objections I oppose to the Babylonians Abraham and the holy Scriptures which making mention of a Calf drest and eaten in Abrahams house before ever any mention is made of eating of fish it is very probable that flesh was foremost after the general permission to eat both To the Indian Sophisters I oppose Pythagoras and his Schollars who being perswaded at the length to eat of certain beasts and birds utterly yet abstained from eating of flesh perhaps upon these causes First because it is a cruel and unmanlike thing to kill those creatures which cannot possibly hurt the inhabitants of the earth Secondly what necessity is there to use them Nature having replenished the earth with fruit herbs grain beasts also and birds of all sorts Thirdly Had fish been eaten first no doubt it had been first eaten of the Islanders and Sea-borderers but neither the inhabitants of Hellespont nor the Islanders of Phoeacum nor the Wooers of Penelope bringing all manner of dainties to their feasts are ever read in Homer to have brought or eaten fish No nor Ulysses his companions are recorded to have made their Sea-provision of fish but of flesh fruit salt and meal neither used they any hook to catch fish withall till they were almost famished for want of victual as you may read at large in Homer his Ulysses which is a manifest argument That fish was not used or at the least not eaten of till men were unfurnished of other meats Last of all whereas Plutarch objecteth how loathsom a thing it is to see Butchers and Cooks sprinkled with bloud in killing and dressing flesh I answer him That the sight is not so loathsom to nature but to niceness and conceit For what God permits to be eaten nature permits to dress and kill neither rebelleth she more at the death of an Ox then at the cutting down of hay or corn Nay furthermore sith all was made for mans use and man for God she giveth us liberty to kill all things that may make for the maintenance of our life or preservation and restoring of our health Hippocrates most wittily having shewed that some men are deceitful by nature and that therefore nature taught them the art of making Dice the instruments of deceit he sheweth consequently that because nature is provident for mens health therefore she hath likewise invented the arts of building plaistering weavin g and tillage wherefore to imitate and urge Hippocrates argument if nature have provided flesh and fish that a substantial this a more light nourishment for our bodies how squemish soever we are to see them killed yet it is no unnatural thing to see it no not to do it our selves Concerning the last question Whether flesh or fish be the better nourishment I cannot answer better then as Galen did being asked the like question of wine and water For as wine is best for one man and water for another so likewise flesh is most nourishing to some constitutions and fish to others Timothie was young but yet sickly and weak stomacked his youth required water but his sickness wine wherefore Paul like a
good Physician advised him to drink no longer water but a little wine for his stomacks sake and his often infirmities So likewise Severus the Emperor being sick at York of a hot gout his Physicians forbad him all flesh especially of the stronger sort but he refusing their councel nourished his disease with forbidden meats and soon died Contrariwise Seneca was forbidden by Serenus the Physician to eat any more of fish being too too watrish a nourishment for his weak body which whilst he refused to do and forbare to eat flesh his bloud was all turned to a gellied water So then in respect of particular persons neither flesh nor fish be of better nourishment but both alike yet generally flesh engendreth the better purer and more perfect bloud as the very colour and face of men which use either of them apart doth perfectly declare and consequently for sound men it is and ought to be accounted the best sustenance CHAP. VIII 1. Of the Flesh of tame Beasts VEAL CAlves Flesh is of a temperate constitution agreeing with all ages times and temperatures Calves are either Sucklings or Wainlings The first are of easier digestion making good bloud and driving choler from the heart So likewise is the Wainlings but somewhat harder either of them agree with hot and dry persons howsoever it is drest but to flaggy and moist stomacks Veal is unwholsom unless it be dry roasted for roasted meats give drie nourishment and boil'd meats moist as Galen writeth The Italians are so in love with Veal that they call Veal Vitellam that is to say their little life as though it gave not only nourishment but also life to their dry bodies which albeit I confess to be true by reason neither their Calves flesh nor their own bodies be so moist as ours yet in our Country it falls out otherwise through abundance of moisture so that howsoever sound bodies do well digest it yet languishing and weak stomacks find it too slimy and can hardly overcome it Did we not kill them so soon as commonly we do namely before they be fully a month old they would give the more sound and wholsome nourishment for till they be five or six weeks old their flesh is but a gelly hardened afterwards it is firm flesh void of superfluous moisture and most temperate of constitution Likewise in the choice of Veal the Bull Calf is thought the sweeter and better flesh whereas in all other beasts for the most part the female is preferred BEEF Ox-beef the older it is after his full growth the worse it is engendring as Galen dreamed of all beef quartane agues leprosies scabs cankers dropsies stoppings of the spleen and liver c. but whilst it is young or growing forwards in flesh and fatness it is of all meats by nature complexion and custome most nourishing unto English bodies which may easily appear in the diffecence of their strength and clean making which feed chiefly upon it and betwixt them that are accustomed to finer meats Chuse we therefore the youngest fattest and best grown Ox having awhile first been exercised in wain or plough to dispel his foggie moisture and I dare undertake that for sound men and those that labour or use exercise there is not a better meat under the Sun for an English man so that it be also corned with salt before it be roasted or well and sufficiently poudred before it be sod for so is it cleansed from much impurity and made also more savory to the stomach but if it be over salted poudred or dried as commonly it happeneth in Ship provision and rich Farmers houses that keep beefe a whole twelve-month till they eat it it is tough hard heavy and of ill nourishment requiring rather the stomach of another Hercules who is said to have fed chiefly of Bulls flesh then of any ordinary and common ploughman Wherefore howsoever we may taste of it to bring on appetite let it be but a touch and go for being eaten much and often it will heat and corrupt our blood dry up our bodies choke the mesaraical veins and bring forth many dangerous inward and outward griefs The Romans when they first ventured to dress an Oxe fearing belike what event might follow the eating of an unknown meat roasted the Oxe all at once and stuft his belly with all sorts of sweet hearbs and good flesh that the season yeelded making no small pudding in his belly which the people called Equm Trojanum the Trojan horse because it contained no fewer kinds of meats then that did Soldiers but had they known the wholesomness of the meat and our manner of dressing they needed not to have mingled so many antidotes and to have corrupted rather then corrected so good a nourishment Cow Biefe Cowbiefe is supposed by the Irish people and also by the Normans in France to be best of all neither do they account so much of Oxen either because they think the unperfit creatures or rather as I take it because they know not how to use and diet them in the gelding But were they as skilful in that point as also in the killing and dressing of Oxen as was Prometheus no doubt they would make higher estimation of one Oxe then of all the fat Cowes in Ceres stall Nevertheless I deny not yea I affirm with Galen that a fat and young Heifer kept up a while with dry meat will prove a convenient temperate and good nourishment especially if it be kil'd after the French fashion as I saw the Norman butchers kill them in our Camp whilst I lay there in Camp with that flower of Chivalry the Earl of Essex When the Cow is strook down with the axe presently they lay her upon her back and make a hole about the navel as big as to receive a swans quill through which the butcher blowes wind so long till the whole skin swell round about like a bladder in such sort that the beast seems of a double bigness then whilst one holdeth the quill close and bloweth continually two or three others beat the Cow as hard as they can with cudgils round about which beating never bruseth the flesh for wind is ever betwixt it and the skin but maketh both the hide to prove better Leather and the flesh to eat better and tenderer then otherwise it would Bull Beife Bull Beife unless it be very young is utterly unwholesome and hard of digestion yea almost invincible Of how hard and binding a nature Bulls blood is may appear by the place where they are killed for it glaseth the ground and maketh it of a stony hardness To prevent which mischief either Bulls in old time were torne by Lions or hunted by men or baited to death by dogs as we use them to the intent that violent heat and motion might attenuate their blood resolve their hardness and make their flesh softer in digestion Bulls flesh being thus prepared strong stomachs
as Ithaca never bred nor fostered them so in all Grece they hardly lived Here thanks be to God they are plentiful in such sort that Alborne Chase affordeth above a hundred thousand couple a year to the benefit of good house-keeping and the poors maintenance Rabbet suckers are best in March agreeing as well with old melancholick dry and weak stomacks as disagreeing with strong and moist complexions A Midsomer Rabbets flesh is less moist and more nourishing but a Michaelmas or Winter Rabbet is of firm wholesome temperate and most laudable flesh best roasted because their nourishing juice is soon soked out with the least seething making good broth and bad meat Chuse the Female before the Male the fat before the lean and both from out a chalky ground and a sweet laire Hedghoggs When I considered how cleanly the Hedghogg feedeth namely upon Cows milk if he can come by it or upon fruit and mast I saw no reason to discontinue this meat any longer upon some fantastical dislike sith books nature and experience hath commended it unto us For as Martial made Hares flesh the daintiest dish of the Romans so in Hippocrates time the Hedghogg was not of least account among the Grecians which he commendeth for an excellent nourishment were it not something too moist and diuretical Nay as some affirm it nourisheth plentifully procureth appetite and sleep strengthneth Travailers preserveth Women with child from miscarrying dissolveth knots and kernelly tumours helps the Lepry Consumption Palsy Dropsie Stone and Convulsion onely it is forbidden unto Melancholick and Flegmatick persons and such as are vexed with Piles or Hemorhoids Squirrels Squirrels are much troubled with two diseases Choler and the Falling-sickness yet their hinder parts are indifferent good whilst they are young fried with parsly and butter but being no usual nor warrantable good meat let me skip with them and over them to another tree for it is time to write of the winged nation which promise us a second course of more dainty I will not say of more wholesome meats Neither shall any discourse of Asses flesh which Maecenas so highly loved that all Italy was too little to find him Asses enough nor of horse flesh for longing after which Gregory the third excommunicated the Germans nor of Foxes flesh which the Vandales eat for restorative nor of Lions flesh wherewith Achilles was dieted in his pupillage nor of Beares flesh which the Moscovite calls his great venison nor of Apes flesh though it most resembleth a man which the Zygantes in Africa highly esteam eat of in their solemn feasts nor of Lysards Tortesses or any other four-footed beasts nor of mans flesh albeit the Canibals praise it above all other as Osorius writeth and Cambletes King of Lydia having eaten of his own wife said he was sorry to have been ignorant so long of so good a dish As for the flesh also of young puppies commended of Hippocrates afterwards of Galen howsoever in the Isles of Corsica Alalta they are still esteemed as good meat yet Cardan saith in his divers history that they made the people like to doggs that is to say cruel stout rash bould and nimble Wherefore leaping over these insolent and bad meats which neither use nor reason hath confirmed I now to come treat of Birds and fowl and then of fish and the fruits of the earth and waters according to my first division CHAP. 10. Of the Flesh of tame Birds THat the Flesh of tame foul nourisheth more then wild foul Isaac the Physitian proveth by three arguments First because they are more usually eaten of and so by custom a second nature made more agreeable to our stomacks Secondly where al other Birds fly from us and are not gotten without cost and travel nature hath caused tame Birds to converse with us and to offer themselves as it were to be killed at our pleasure which verily she would never have done had they been of a small or a bad nourishment Thirdly wild foul for the most part especially such as flye far for a little meat and trust more to their wings then their feet though they are more light in digestion because they are of a more spirituous aiery substance yet they are not of so abundant nourishment as tame houshold Birds which feed not at randome of what they can get but of good corne such as men themselves eate and therefore most fit to nourish man Now of all kind of fowl remember that the youngest is tenderest and lightest old Birds flesh is heaviest but they which are proceeding to their full growth are most nourishing for ungrown Birds and much more nestlers give but a weak thin and gelly-like substance old Birds are tough and dry those which are almost fully grown are of a more fleshy and firm nature Furthermore all Birds feeding themselves abroad fat with wholesome meat are of better nourishment then such as be cram'd in a coop or little house for as prisoners smell of the Gaol so do they of their own dung And thus much generally of birds Now let us come to every particular Pulli Gallenacei Chickens saith Avicen are so pure and fine a meat that they engender no excrements in our bodies having in themselves no illaudable substance Wherefore Caius Famius being sick of a burning feaver which had almost consumed all his flesh was advised by his Physicians to eat of no other meat then Chickens whereby he recovered his consumption and the eleventh year after the second Carthaginian Wars made a Law that nothing but Chickens or young Pullets fed in the Camp should be brought to him at his meals The young Cockrels are counted the best in this kind being of all flesh the most commendable nourishing strongly augmenting seed and stirring up lust For which purpose Boleslaus Duke of Silesia did eat thirteen Cock-chickens at a meal whereof he died without having his purpose fulfilled because he knew not how to use so wholsom a creature We doe not amiss in England to eat sodden Chickens and Bacon together for if they were eaten first and Bacon after they would oversoon be digested and if they were eaten after Bacon they would be corrupted but they are best being rosted because they are a moist meat and if they be sawced with Sorrel and Sugar or with a little Butter and Grape-Verjuice they are a most temperate meat for weak stomacks as Platina and Bucinus set down for no man I think is so foolish as to commend them to Ploughmen and Besomers White Chickens are found by experience to be hardest of digeston as Gilbert our Countryman writ a great while since Yet Griunerius preferreth them for Hectick persons because they are coldest and moistest of complexion They are all best in Summer as contrariwise Pullets and Hens be best in Winter Cock-chickens are best before they crow lowd Hen-chickens before the cock offereth to tread
good for aguish persons being well sod and for some men being fried in vinegar and butter Lucernae Gilt-heads or Golden-poles are very little unlike the Gournard save that it seems about the noddle of the head as though it were all besprinkled with gold-filings it is something harder of digestion as Galen writeth Cuculi majores Gurnards are of two sorts Swart or Reddish either of them are within of a white firm dry firm and wholsome substance giving our bodies a competent nourishment being sodden in white wine-vinegar salt mace and onions or else being sodden onely in wine and then sowced Asellus Islandicus Haberdine is nothing but an Island Cod bigger somewhat then ours and also firmer Asselluli Haddocks are little Cods of light substance crumbling flesh and good nourishment in the Sommer time especially whilst Venison is in season Aselluli longi Hakes be of the same nature resembling a Cod in taste but a Ling in likeness Aquila marina The Sea-Hawke is of hard flesh slow digestion as Galen avoucheth from Philotimus mouth smelling strong and heavily not to be eaten without leeks onions and garlick Haleces Herrings are an usual and common meat coveted as much of the Nobility for variety and wantoness as used of poor men for want of other provision it is one of the Cardinal supporters of our holy Lent and therefore not to be ill spoken of yet Thomas Cogan in his Haven of Health saith that by eating of fresh Herring many fall into fevers and that Red-herring gives as good nourishment to the body as resty Bacon And truely I dare avouch that new bloat-herrings are little better and pickeld herrings far worse though you correct them with never so much vinegar salt pepper and oil As for salt Herring well watred or qualified in warm milk they taste not ill after they are broild but yet they give none or a bad nourishment saving to Ploughmen Sailers Souldiers Mariners or labouring persons to whom gross and heavy meats are most familiar and convenient Rhinocerotes Acus Horne-beaks are ever lean as some think because they are ever fighting yet are they good and tender whether they be eaten fresh or poudred Highly be they commended of Alexander Benedictus in the plague time because they breed no unwholesome or excremental humours Leucisci marini Javelings or Sea-darts are plentiful in the Venecian gulf and all the Adriatique Sea where having taken the young ones they salt them and send them to Constantinople in infinite number for Anchovaes the greater sort they fry and boil at home being of a very sweet and soft flesh Miluus marinus Keelings differ nothing but in name from Cod. The Sea-Kite called of Pliny Hirundo volans the flying Swallow resembleth much the flying Herrings so plentiful about the West-Indies which finding not proper meat within the waters flieth after gnats and muskitoes like a swallow Sir Francis Drake whom thankful posterity will worthily esteem did first shew me one of them dead and I think he was one of the first of our Nation that did ever eat them they are of a good taste tender flesh but somewhat aguish after the nature of fresh Herrings Asellus Ling perhaps looks for great extolling being counted the beefe of the Sea and standing every fish day as a cold supporter at my Lord Maiors table yet is it nothing but a long Cod whereof the greater sised is called Organe Ling and the other Codling because it is no longer then a Cod and yet hath the taste of Ling whilst it is new it is called green-fish when it is salted it is called Ling perhaps of lying because the longer it lyeth being conveniently turned and the Peace-straw often shifted wherein it lyeth the better it is waxing in the end as yellow as the gold noble at which time they are worth a noble a piece They are taken onely in the far Nothern Seas where the sweetest and biggest live but Codlings are taken in great plenty neer to Bedwell in Northumberland shire Locustae marinae Lobsters are of a strong and hard flesh and hard of concoction the belly clawes and upper parts are most tender the tail parts tough when they are seething their mouth and lower vent should be stopped with towe lest the liquor being bettered with their juice they themselves prove flashy and unpleasant in taste As the River Lobster or Crevisse seemeth as Dorion said to be made onely for weak stomacks so I think these are ordained onely for the stronger sort for I have known many weak persons venture on them to their great hurt as contrariwise sound stomacks do well digest them Pliny saith that in the North-west Indian Seas there be Lobsters taken of two yards length whereof we have none or if we had yet can they not be so wholesome for the least is tendrest and the middle sised is best flesht as for the great ones they be old and tough will cause sorrow enough before they be well concocted They come into season with the Buck and go out of season when the Doe comes in also in the wane of the moon they are little worth and best towards and in the full clove-vinegar and gilly flour-vinegar is their best sawce and if you butter them after they are well sodden with store of vinegar and pepper they will give a strong nourishment to an indifferent stomack when their spawne lies greatest in their head then are they in prime but when all their spawn is out then is their spawn good and they wax bad Lucij Luces are properly called Pikes of the Sea so rare in Spaine that they are never seen But our English Seas especially which wash the Southern shore have store of them which are large fat and good Mr Huzzy of Cookfield sent me once a Luce out of Sussex a yard and a half long which being presented by me to the Mirror of Chivalry the Lord Willoughby of Eresby was thought and truly thought a most dainty fish for it eateth more sweet tender and crisper then our river Pikes and may be eaten of aguish persons weak stomacks and women in child-bed Their feed is chiefly upon young fry and spawnes of fish and by continual swimming whereunto they are forced by beating of the surges they become tenderer then our fresh water Pikes though not so fat Orbes Lumps are of two sorts the one as round almost as a bowle the other resembling the fillets of a Calfe either of them is deformed shapeless and ugly so that my Maides once at Ipswich were afraid to touch it being flayed they resemble a soft and gellied substance whereupon the Hollanders call them Snot-fishes I liked not their substance taste nor qualities for they were as they are written of a curde raw and fleagmatick meat much like to a Thorne-back half sodden they are best being boiled and pickled like Sturgian and so eaten cold Scombri Mackrels were in old time in such request that two gallons of their
pickle called the pickle of good fellows was sold for a thousand pieces of silver but time and experience described them to be of a thick clammy and suffocating substance offensive to the brain head and brest though pleasant in taste and acceptable to the stomach Certain it is that they cause drousiness in the best stomacks and apoplexies or palsies or lethargies or dulness at the least of sense and sinews to them that be weak Tralianus rightly adviseth all persons sick of fleagmatick diseases and of stoppings to beware of Mackrels as a most dangerous meat albeit their liver helpeth the jaundies being sod in vinegar and their flesh sod in vinegar cureth the suffocation of the matrix they are best being sod in wine-vinegar with mints parsly rosemary and time and if afterwards they be kept in pickle made of Rhennish wine ginger pepper and dill they prove a very dainty and no unwholesome meat they are worst of all buttered The French men lay Southernwood upon a gridiron them upon the Southernwood and so broil them both upon the fire basting them well with wine and butter and so serve them in with vinegar pepper and butter as hot as can be by which way no doubt their malignity is much lessened and their goodness no less encreased Rajolae Maides are as little and tender Skates feeding chiefly upon flesh livers and spawne of fish whereas other fish bring forth eggs which are in time converted into their parents shape onely Maides Skate and Thorne-back bring forth their young ones without eggs after the kind of propagation of beasts they are very nourishing and of good juice fit for weak stomacks and such as have through wantoness spoiled themselves and robbed nature Boil them in wine water and salt with a sprig of rosemary and then eat them with vinegar pepper and sweet butter Mugiles marini Italice Cephalo Sea-Mullets differ little or nothing in shape from Barbels saving that they are very little or nothing bearded and those that have beards have them onely on the neither lip There is store of them in the mouth of the river of Usk and perhaps as many as at Lateran in Province They are so swift that they often outswim the lightest Ships which argueth them to be of a light and aeireal substance It is strange what is written of this fish namely that it should hurt Venus game yea that the very broth of it or the wine wherein it is sodden should make a man unable to get and a woman unable to conceive children Nay furthermore Terpsides avoucheth that a little of that broth being mingled with hens meat maketh them barren though never so well trodden of the Cock whereupon he saith The Poets have consecrated the Sea-Mullets to Diana as being the procurer and preserver of chastity which if it be true as I can hardly think it is then farewell Paracelsus his cabalistical conclusion or rather the follies of Avicen and many Arabians which give the stones brains and combs of most lascivious birds as Cocks Phesants Partridges Drakes and Sparrows to stir up lust and encrease seed for the Sea-Mullet is so lascivious that a thousand Females swim after one Male as soon as they have spawned and the Males likewise strive as much if they have not choice of Females yea whereas in a manner all kind of fish spawne but once a year they come like to swine among beasts thrice a year at the least yet are they as men say and as many have written since abaters of courage extinguishers of seed and charmes as it were against conception Nevertheless sith their flesh is wholesome white sweet and tender and they feed clean and good I dare boldly aver them to be much nourishing being first well sodden in wine salt and water and then either sowced like a Gurnard or kept in gelly like a Tench or eaten hot with vinegar and pepper Of the eggs and blood of this fish mixed with salt which must not be omitted in this discourse is also made that which the Italians call Botargo from the Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or salted eggs Mityli Chamae Mussels were never in credit but amongst the poorer sort till lately the lilly white Mussel was found out about Romers-wall as we sail betwixt Flushing and Bergen-â—p-Zon where indeed in the heat of Sommer they are commonly and much eaten without any offence to the head liver or stomach yea my self whom once twenty Mussels had almost poisoned at Cambridg and who have seen sharp filthy and cruel diseases follow the eating of English Mussels did fill my self with those Mussels of the Low Country being never a whit distempered with my bold adventure Dr Wotton saith that the least Mussels be ever best because they are whitest softest and soonest digested but the great ones give a stronger and larger nourishment the red ones are very dangerous yellow ones are suspected but the white ones are wholesome and much commended save unto hot and distempered stomacks they are best sodden in the water out of which they were taken which being not obtained seeth them in water and salt and a little strong Ale and Vinegar broild Mussels encrease heat and draught fryed Mussels do easily corrupt in our bodies and turn to a bad juice If they be kept in the like pickle as lately is devised by Serjeant Goodrons to keep Oisters in made of sea water wine vinegar bayleaves mints pepper ginger and cinamon I durst warrant them as wholesome and questionless more pleasant then the Oister As for horse-mussels they deserve not the remembrance sith neither experience custome nor reason approveth them a wholesome meat nay as Pliny saith Salem virusque refipiunt they taste brackish and strong having a hidden poison within their flesh yet have I seen them ordinarily sold in Venice which maketh me think that some Sea and River may have wholesome ones of that kind though ours be neither wholesome nor pleasant of taste They are exceeding bigg in Spaine and the West Indies but the greatest that ever I read of is that which Juba recordeth in his volumes writen to Cajus Augustus son being as big in compass as three pecks Monachae Nunfishes were not seen in England till Sir Francis Drake and Mr Caundish brought them no man knows out of what Seas cleaving to the keels of their happy Vessels It is a kind of shell-fish not winding like a Periwinckle nor opening his shell as Oisters Mussels and Cockles do but creeping out of his craggy cabine like a sea-snail but that as I said his hole goeth strait inward and windeth not the face of it is very white the head is covered as it were with a black vail like the Nuns of Saint Bridgets order whereof I suppose it took the name It feedeth upon sweet mud sticking upon Ships sides whilst they lye at Anchor and is as wholesome and delicate a meat as any Periwinckle
Ostreae Oisters do justly deserve a full treatice being so common and whithall so wholesome a meat they differ in colour substance and bigness but the best are thick little and round sheld not sli ppery nor flaggy through abundance of a gellied humour but short firm and thick of flesh riseing up round like a womans breast being in a manner all belly and no fins or at the most having very short fins of a green colour and listed about as with a purple haire which will make them indeed to be justly called Calliblephara that is to say The fair eye lidded Oisters such are our Walfleet and Colchester Oisters whose good rellish substance and wholesomeness far exceedeth the Oisters of Vsk Pool Southampton Whitstable Rye or any other Port or Haven in England Thus much concerning the body of Oisters now somewhat concerning their bigness Alexander with his Friends and Physitians wondred to find Oisters in the Indian seas a foot long And in Plinies time they marvelled at an Oister which might be divided into three morsels calling it therefore Tridacnon by a peculiar name but I dare and do truly affirm that at my eldest Brothers marriage at Aldham hall in Essex I did see a Pelden Oister divided into eight good morsels whose shell was nothing less then that of Alexanders but as the Greek Proverb saith Goodness is not tied to greatness but greatness to goodness wherefore sith the little round Oisters be commonly best rellished and less fulsome let them be of the greatest account especially to be eaten raw which of all other is thought to be the best way Galen saith that they are somewhat heavy of digestion and engender fleagm but as he knew not the goodness of English beefe when he condemned the use of all Ox-flesh so had he tryed the goodness of our Oisters which Pliny maketh the second best of the world no doubt he would have given Oisters a better censure That they are wholesome and to be desired of every man this may be no small reason that almost every man loves them Item whereas no flesh or other fish is or can be dangerless being eaten raw raw Oisters are never offensive to any indifferent stomack Nay furthermore they settle a wayward appetite and confirm a weak stomack and give good nourishment to decayed members either through their owne goodness or that they are so much desired Finally if they were an ill and heavy meat why were they appointed to be eaten first which is no new custome brought in by some late Physitian for one asking Dromeas who lived long before Athenaeus and Macrobius time whether he liked best the Feast of Athens or Chalcis I like said he the Athenians Prologue better then the Chalcidians for they began their feasts with Oisters and these with hony cakes which argueth them to have been ever held for a meat of light digestion else had they not alwaies been eaten in the first place It is great pitty of the loss of Asellius the Sabins book written Dialogue-wise betwixt the Fig-finch the Thrush and the Oisters wherein upon just grounds he so preferred them before the Birds that Tiberius Caesar rewarded him with a thousand pound Sterling The fattest Oisters are taken in salt water at the mouth of Rivers but the wholesomest and lightest are in the main upon shelfs and rocks which also procure urine and stools and are helps to cure the chollick and dropsy if they be eaten raw for sodden Oisters bind the belly stop urine and encrease the collick How dangerous it is to drink small drink upon Oisters it appeareth by Andronicus the elder who having made a great Dinner of Oisters drank cold water upon them whereupon he died being not able to overcome them And truly as Oisters do hardly corrupt of themselves so if cold drink follow them they concoct as hardly wherefore especially having eaten many drink either wine or some strong and hot beer after them for fear of a mischiefe Little Oisters are best raw great Oisters should be stued with wine onions pepper and butter or roasted with vinegar pepper and butter or bak't with onions pepper andbutter or pickled with white-wine-vinegar their owne water bayes mints and hot spices for of all wayes they are worst sod unless you seeth them in that sea water from whence they were brought All Oisters are dangeours whilst they be full of milk which commonly is betwixt May and August Raw Oisters are best in cold weather when the stomach is hottest namely from September to April albeit the Italians dare not venture on a raw Oister at any time but broil them in the shell with their water the juice of an orenge pepper and oil which way I must needs confess it eates daintily Pickled Oisters may be eaten at all times and to my taste and judgement they are more commendable chiefly to cold weak windy distasted stomachs then any way else prepared I wonder whether it be true or no which I have heard of and Pliny seemeth also to affirm That Oisters may be kept all the year long covered in snow and so be eaten in Sommer as cold as can be which if it prove answerable to the likelihood I conceive of it I will cry out with Pliny in the same Chapter Quanti quanti es luxuria quae summa montium maris ima commisces How great and powerful is riot which maketh the highest covering of mountains and the lowest creatures of the seas to meet together Yet it is recorded that Apicius the Roman kept Oisters so long sweet were it in snow pickle or brine that he sent them from thence sweet and good to the Emperour Trajan warring against the Parthians Cochleae marinae Perwinckles or Whelks are nothing but sea-snails feeding upon the finest mud of the shore and the best weeds they are very nourishing and restorative being sod at the sea-side in their own sea water the whitest flesht are ever best tenderest they which are taken in clean creeks eat pleasant but they which are gathered upon muddy shores eat very strongly and offend the eyesight They are best in winter and in the spring for a stomack and liver resolved as it were and disposessed of strength Apicius warneth us to pick away the covering of their holes for it is a most unwholesome thing being nothing but a collection of all their slime hardned with seething The best way to prepare them for sound persons is to seeth them in their owne sea-water or else in river water with salt and vinegar But for weak and consumed persons Apicius willeth them in the Book and Chapter aforesaid to be thus drest take first the skin from their holes and lay them for a day or two covered in salt and milk the third day lay them onely in new milk then seeth them in milk till they be dead or fry them in a pan with butter and salt Passeres
agreeing with all constitutions of body sicknesses and ages Pungitij Spinachiae Hackles or Sticklebacks are supposed to come of the seed of fishes spilt or miscarrying in the water some think they engender of their own accord from mud or rain putrified in ponds howsoever it is they are nought and unwholesome sufficient to quench poor mens hunger but not to nourish either rich or poor Iacks or young Pickrels shall be described hereafter when we speak of the nature of Pikes Kobs or Sea-gudgins taken yet in fresh water are before spoken of in the discourse of Gudgions Lampretae Muraenae Lampreys and Lamprons differ in bigness only and in goodness they are both a very sweet and nourishing meat encreasing much lust through superfluous nourishment were they as wholesome as sweet I would not much discommend Lucius Mutaena and the Nobles of England for so much coveting after them but how ill they are even for strong stomachs and how easily a man may surfet on them not onely the death of King Henry the first but also of many brave men and Captains may sufficiently demonstrate Pliny avoucheth that they engender with the land Snake but sith they engender and have eggs at all times of the year I see no reason for it Aristotle saith that another long fish like a Lamprey called Myrus is the Sire which Licinius Macer oppugneth affirming constantly that he hath found Lampreys upon the land engendring with Serpents and that Fisher-men counterfetting the Serpents hiss can call them out of the water and take them at pleasure They are best if ever good in March and April for then are they so fat that they have in a manner no back bone at all towards Summer they wax harder and then have they a manifest bone but their flesh is consumed Seeth or bake them thoroughly for otherwise they are of hard and very dangerous digestion Old men gowty men and aguish persons and whosoever is troubled in the sinews or sinewy parts should shun the eating of them no less then as if they were Serpents indeed The Italians dress them after this sort first they beat them on the tail with a wand where their life is thought to lye till they be almost dead then they gagg their mouth with a whole Nutmeg and stop every oilet-hole with a clove afterwards they cast them into oil and malmsie boiling together casting in after them some crumbs of bread a few almonds blancht and minced whereby their malignity is corrected and their flesh bettered Cajus Hercius was the first that ever hem'd them in ponds where they multiplied and prospered in such sort that at Caesar the Dictators triumphall suppers he gave him six thousand Lampreys for each supper he fed them with the liver and blood of beasts but Vidius Pollio a Roman Knight and one of Augustus minions fed his Lampreys with his slaves carcasses not because beasts were not sufficient to feed them but that he took a pleasure to see a thousand Lampreys sucking altogether like horse-leeches upon one man Concerning our English preparation of them a certain friend of mine gave me this Receit of bakeing and dressing Lampreys namely first to pouder them after parboiling with salt time origanum then either to broil them as Spitchcocks or to bake them with wine pepper nutmegs mace cloves ginger and good store of butter The little ones called Lamprons are best broild but the great ones called Lampreys are best baked Of all our English Lampreys the Severn-dweller is most worthily commended for it is whiter purer sweeter and fatter and of less malignity then any other Lochae Loches meat as the Greek word importeth for women in child-bed are very light and of excellent nourishment they have a flesh like liver and a red spleen which are most delicate in taste and as wholesome in operation Apuae Cobitae Gesneri Aliniatae Caij Phoxini Bellonij Minoes so called either for their littleness or as Dr. Cajus imagined because their fins be of so lively a red as if they were died with the true Cinnabre-lake called Minium They are less then Loches feeding upon nothing but licking one another Gesner thinks them to engender of the wast seed of Gudgins others that they engender of themselves out of unknown matter yet certain it is that they are ever full of spawn which should argue a natural copulation of them with some littlefish or other they are a most delicate and light meat their gall being warily voided without breaking either fried or sodden Mulli Mullets of the River be of like goodness with the Sea-Mullets though not fully of so fine and pure substance Philoxenus the Poet supping at the lower mess in Dionisius Court took suddenly a little leane Mullet out of the dish and set his ear to the mouth of it whereat Dionysius laughing and asking him what newes marry quoth he he tells me of some strange newes in the River whereof none as he saith can more fully enform me then yonder great Mullet in the upper dish so for his pleasant jest he got the greater and withall gives us to note that unless a Mullet be large and fat it is but a frivolous dish making a great shew on the Table but little nourishing how they are best to be drest is already specified when I wrote of Breams Vetulae Olaffes or rather Old wives because of their mumping and soure countenance are as dainty and wholesome of substance as they are large in body it was my chance to buy one about Putny as I came from Mr. Secretary Walsingham his house about ten years since which I caused to be boild with salt wine and vinegar and a little thime and I protest that I never did eat a more white firm dainty and wholesome fish Percae Perches are a most wholesome fish firm tender white and nourishing Ausonius calleth them delicias mensae the delight of feasts preferring them before Pikes Roches Mullets and all other fish Eobanus Hessus in his poetical Dietary termeth them the River-partridges Diocles the Physitian writ a just volumn in the praise of Perches and Hippocrates and Galen most highly extoll them They are ever in season save in March and April when they spawne As the oldest and greatest Eele is ever best so contrariwise the middle Perch and Pike is ever most wholesome Seeth them in wine-vinegar water and salt and then either eat them hot or cover them in wine-vinegar to be eaten cold for so they both cool a distempered feverous stomach and give also much nourishment to a weak body Lupi Pikes or River-wolves are greatly commended by Gesner and divers learned Authors for a wholesom meat permitted yea enjoined to sick persons and women in child bed yet verily to speak like a Lawyer I cannot perceive quo warranto for if fenney or muddy-rivered fishes be unwholesome the Pike is not so good as Authors make him living most naturally and willingly in such places where he
the chiefe use thereof The differences of Bread Concerning the differences of Bread some are taken from the meats we eat for the Romans had panem Ostrearium which they onely did eat with Oisters They had also their dainty Bread made with hony spice and flour they had also a hasty cake called panis speuticus learned first in Greece likewise their bread differed in baking some being baked upon the hearth others broild it upon gridirons others fried it like pancakes others baked it in ovens others sod it in seam like fritters others boild it in water like cimnels being called panes aquatici which the Parthians taught them But the chiefe differences are in the variety of matter whereof they consist and the variety of goodness which I will declare in order Some Countries where Corn was either never sown at all or being sowed cannot prosper make bread of such things made into meal as their soil yeeldeth The Oritae Green landers and North-Icelanders make it of dried fish which being thorough dried in the Sun they beat it first with hammers then pound it with pestils and form cakes with water which they tost at their fires made onely of great fishes bones for they have no wood and eat it instead of Bread yet live they well and look well and enjoy pleasures saith Hector Boethius in his Scottish History abounding in children strength and contentment though not in wealth The Brasilians make Bread of the root of a herb ressembling Purcelane and of the barks of trees as Osorius writeth whom I may believe because I have eaten of the same Bread brought home by Sir Francis Drake The most part of Egyptians make Bread of Lotus seed resembling poppy but they which dwell by the River Astupas made it of dried roots beaten to pouder which they formed like a Tilestone and baked it hard in the Sun Like Bread made the Thracians of Tribulus or water-nut roots and the Arabians of Dates But the best is made of Graine which the Romans for 600 years after their City was built had not yet learned and was not afterwards publikely practised by bakers till the Persian wars As for wheaten bread it was so rare in Caesars time that none knew how to make it save his own Baker And again white manchet was so hard to come by in the Grecian Courts that Lucian protested a man could never get enough of it no not in his dream Spiced Bread was more ancient for Diogines loved it above all meats and Hippocrates and Plato make mention of it Brown-bread was used in Philoxenus his age and long before who having eaten up all the White-bread at the Sophists table one set him a great brown-loaf on the table on whom he bestowed this jest Ho la not too much not too much good fellow least it be night too soon Thus much of the ancient making of Bread now let us consider The usual mattter of Bread First whereof Bread is made in our daies Secondly how it is made Thirdly when and in what order Fourthly in what quantity it is to be eaten Touching the first Bread is usually made of Rye Barly Oates Missellin or pure Wheate Rye-bread is cold and of hard concoction breeding wind and gripings in the belly engendring gross humours being as unwholesome for indifferent stomachs as it agreeth with strong bodies and labourious persons yet openeth it and cureth the hemorrhoids Barly Bread is little or nothing better being tough and heavy of digestion choking the small veins engendring crudities and stuffing the stomach Oaten-bread is very light being well made more scowring then nourishing if the Oat-meal be new and too much binding if it be old Howbeit Oates in Greece are recorded to be so temperate that they neither stir nor stay the belly Misslin or Munckcorn-bread made of Rye and Wheate together is esteemed better or worse accordingly as it is mingled more with this or that grain But of all other Wheaten-bread is generally the best for all stomachs yet of so stopping a nature if it be too fine because it is of best temper and agreeth with all natures and complexions Things to be observed in the well making of Bread Concerning the well making whereof we must have great choice and care 1. Of the Wheate it self 2. Of the Meal 3. Of the Water 4. Of the Salt 5. Of the Leven 6. Of the Dough or Past 7. Of the Moulding 8. Of the Oven 9. Of the baking All which circumstances I most willingly prosecute to the ful because as Bread is the best nourishment of all other being well made so is it simply the worst being marred in the ill handling 1. Concerning the Wheate it must be thorough ripe ere it is gathered two months old ere it be thrashed and a month or two old after that at the least ere it be grinded Chuse ever the yellowest without and smoothest growing in a hot and fat soil hard white and full within clean thrasht and winowed then clean washt and dryed afterwards grosly grinded for that makes the best flour in a Mill wherein the grind-stones are of French Marble or some other close or hard stone 2. The Meal must neither be so finely grinded as I said least the bran mingle with it nor too grosly least you lose much flour but moderately gross that the Bran may be easily separated and the fine Flour not hardly boulted You must not presently mould up your meal after grinding lest it prove too hot nor keep it too long lest it prove fusty and breed worms or be otherwise tainted with long lying Likewise though the best manchet called panis Siligineus of Pliny be made of the finest flour passed through a very fine boulter yet that Bread which is made of courser Meal called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Grecians is of lighter digestion and of stronger nourishment 3. The Water must be pure from a clear River or Spring not too hot least the Dough cling nor too cold least it crumble but lukewarm 4. The Salt must be very white finely beaten not too much nor too little but to give an indifferent seasoning 5. The Leaven must be made of pure Wheate it must not be too old least it prove too soure nor too new least it work to no purpose nor too much in quantity least the Bread receive not a digesting but a fretting quality Where by the way note that loaves made of pure Wheaten-meal require both more leaven and more labouring and more baking then either course cheate or then Bread mingled of meal and grudgins In England our finest Manchet is made without Leaven which maketh Cheate Bread to be the lighter of both and also the more wholesome for unleavened Bread is good for no man 6. The Dough of white Bread must be throughly wrought and the manner of moulding must be first with strong kneading then with rouling to and fro and last of
the greater being asked dayly by his Stuard what he should provide for his Supper never gave him other answer then this Onely Bread shewing us thereby that as our breakfast must be of the moistest meats and our Dinners moderately mingled with driness and moisture so our Suppers should be either onely of of Bread or at the most of meats as dry as Bread especially in these Islands and moist Countries so subject to rhumes and superfluous moistures CHAP. XXVI Of Salt Sugar and Spice THere was a sect of Philosophers called Elpistici commending Hope so highly above all vertues that they termed it the sawce of life as without which our life were either none at all or else very loathsom tedious and unsavory May I not in like manner say the like of Salt to which Homer giveth the title of Divinity and Plato calleth it Jupiters Minion for tell me to what meat be it flesh fish or fruit or to what broth Salt is not required either to preserve season or rellish the same Nay bread the very staff and strength of our sustenance is it not unwholesom heavy and untoothsom some without Salt Wherefore in the same Temple Neptune and Ceres ever stood together because no Grain is good unsalted be it never so well spiced or sugared or otherwise artificially handled Besides this the famous Warriours in old time accustomed to hard and sparing Diet howsoever voluntarily they eschewed flesh and fish as meats too delicate for Souldiers stomachs living onely upon bread onions leeks garlick town-cresses and roots yet they did eat Salt with every thing as without the which nothing was deemed wholesome And truly what is flesh but a peece of carrion and an unsavory carcass till Salt quickens graces and preserves it infusing thorough out it as it were another soul what is fish but an unrellished froth of the water before Salt correcteth the flashiness thereof and addeth firmness yea milke cheese butter eggs tree-fruit garden fruit field-fruit finally all things ordained and given for nourishment are either altogether unwholesome without Salt or at the least not so wholesome as otherwise they would be Plutarch moveth a question in his Natural Disputations why Salt should be so much esteemed when beasts and fruits give a rellish of others tastes but none of Salt For many meats are fatty of themselves Olives are bitterish and many fruits are sweet many soure divers astringent some sharpe and some harsh but none are salt of their own nature what should be gathered of this that the use of salt is unnaturall or unwholesome nothing less It is enough for nature to give us meat and elsewhere to give us wherewith to season them And truly sith Salt may either be found or made in all Countries what needed fruit flesh or fish to have that taste within them which out wardly was to be had at mans pleasure Now if any shall object unto me the Egyptian Priests abstaining wholly from Salt even in their bread eggs because it engendereth heat and stirreth up lust Or Apollonius Herophilus his Scholer who by his Physicians counsel abstained wholly from any thing wherein Salt was because he was very lean and grew to be exceeding fat by eating hony-sops and sugared Panadoes I will answer them many wayes and perhaps sufficiently First that long custome is a second nature and that it had been dangerous for the Egyptian Priests to have eaten Salt which even from their infancy they never tasted Again whereas it was said that they abstained from it for fear of lust no doubt they did wisely in it for of all other things it is very effectual to stir up Venus whom Poets fain therefore to have been breed in the Salt Sea And experience teacheth that Mice lying in Hoyes laden from Rochel with Salt breed thrice faster there then if they were laden with other Merchandize Huntsmen likewise and Shepherds seeing a slowness of lust in their Dogs and Cattle feed them with Salt meats to hasten coupling and what maketh Doves and Goats so lusty and lacivious but that they desire to feed upon salt things Finally remember that lechery in Latin is not idlely or at adventure termed Salaritas Saltishness for every man knows that the salter our humours be the more prone and inclinable we are to lechery As manifestly appeareth in Lazars whose blood being over salt causeth a continual tickling and desire of venery though for want of good nourishment they perform little Wherefore whosoever coveteth to be freed of that desire with the Egyptian Priests which is an unnatural thing to covet let them altogether abstaine from Salt in every thing but look how much they gain in impotency that way so much they lose of health another way For as sheep feeding in salt Marshes never dye of the rot and be never barren but contrariwise are rotted as well as fatted in fresh pastures so likewise whosoever moderately useth Salt shall be freed of putrifaction and stoppings and live long in health no disorder being elsewhere committed when they which wholly abstain from it both in bread and meat shall fall into many diseases and grievous accidents as did Apollonius himself for all his fatness and as it hapned to Dr. Penny who after he had abstained certain years from Salt fell into divers stoppings cruel vomitings intolerable headache and strange migrams whereby his memory and all inward and outward senses were much weakned Remember here That I said whosoever moderately useth Salt for as wholly to refuse it causeth many inconveniencies so to abuse the same in excess is no less dangerous engendring choler drying up natural moisture enflaming blood stopping the veins hardning the stone gathering together viscous and crude humours making sharpness of urine consuming the flesh and fat of our bodies breeding salacity and the colt evil bringing finally upon us scabs itch skurfe cankers gangrena's and foul leprousies They which are cold fat watrish and phlegmatick may feed more plentifully on salt and salt-meats then other persons but cholerick and melancholick complexions must use it more sparingly and sanguineans must take no more of it then lightly to rellish their unsavory meat Our Wiches in Cheshire afford so good Salt through God's singular Providence and mercy towards us that I am eased of a great labour in shewing the differences of salt Onely thus much I leave to be noted that Bay-salt is best to make brine of but our white salt is fittest to be eaten at table Finally sith not onely we in England but also all other Nations yea the old Romans and Grecians as Pliny and Alexander remember placed Salt ever first at the Table and took it last away insinuating thereby the necessary use thereof with all kinds of meats let us conclude with the Scholers of Salern in good rhime and better reason Sal primo debet poni non primo reponi Omnis mensa male ponitur absque sale Here I might speak of Sal Sacerdotale Aetii
other commending bad things because of emptiness As for Salt the second sawce of the Ancients I have already enough commended it in the former Chapter nevertheless it is not sufficient nay it is not convenient for all stomachs For even old times afforded two sawces Salt and Vinegar the one for hot stomachs the other for cold knowing well enough that appetites are not procured in all men alike because want of appetite ariseth from divers fountains Plutarch raileth mightily against sawces and seasonnings avouching them to be needless to healthful persons and unprofitable to the sick because they never eat but when they are hungry and these ought not to be made hungry lest they oppress nature by eating too much But I deny both his arguments for as many sound men abhor divers things in their health roasted which they love sodden so likewise they love some things seasoned after one fashion which seasoned or sawced after another fashion they cannot abide no though they be urged unto it by great hunger As for them that be sick whosoever dreameth that no sick man should be allured to meat by delightful and pleasant sawces seemeth as froward and fantastical as he that would never whet his Knife And tell me I pray you why hath nature brought forth such variety of herbs roots fruits spices and juices fit for nothing but sawces but that by them the sound should be refreshed and the sick men allured to feed upon meat for whom an overstraite abstinence is as dangerous as fulness and satiety is inconvenient All which I write not to tickle the Epicures of our age who to the further craming of their filthy corps make curious sawces for every meat or to force appetite daily where no exercise is used for as Morris-dancers at Burials make no sport but rather give cause of further lamenting so appetites continually forced weaken a diseased stomach either making men for a time to eat more then they should or else afterwards bereaving them of all appetite Socrates compared the over-curious seasoning of meat and these Epicurean sawce-makers to common Courtisans curiously painted and sumptuously adorned before they entertain their lovers whereby they stir up new lust in withered stocks and make even the gray-headed spend and consume themselves Even so saith he these new found sawces what are they but Whores to edge our appetite making us to feast when we should fast or at least to feed more then nature willeth Also he resembleth them to tickling under the sides and arm-pits which causeth not a true hearty but rather a convulsive and hurtful laughter doing no more good to pensive persons then hard scratching is profitable to a scald head wherein yet it delighteth to his own hurt There is a notable Hystory written of Alexander and Queen Ada who purposing to present the Conquerour with her best jewels sent him two of her best sawce-makers to season and dress his meat commending their skill exceedingly in her Letters But Alexander having bountifully rewarded them for their travail returned them with this message that he had along time entertained two for that purpose which made him better sawce to his meat then any other could make in his judgment namely Nyctoporia Night-marching who ever got him a stomach to his Dinner and Oligaristia littledining who ever procured him a stomach to his Supper Shewing thereby that exercise before Dinner and Supper are the best sawce-makers because they bring forth hunger which tasteth yea which causeth us also to digest all things And verily for strong and able persons what need we prescribe more sawces then exercise and hunger Nevertheless because many mens trade of life and estate of health is such that either they cannot exercise themselves abroad or else are not able thorugh weakness to do it at home whereupon want of appetite and want of digestion the onely founders of sawces must ensue it will not be amiss to set down some simples which may be the matter of sawces for both those inconveniencies The most usual and best simples whereof Sawces are made If the stomach want appetite by reason of cold and raw humours furring the same and dulling the sense of feeling in the mouth thereof Hot Sawces Make sawce of Dill fennel mints origanum parsly dryed gilli-flowers galinga mustardseed garlick onions leeks juniper-berries sage time varvein betony salt cinamon ginger mace cloves nutmegs pepper pills of citrons limons and orenges grains cubebs and such like mingle some one two or three of them together according as occasion most requireth with wine or vinegar strong of rosemary or gilly-flowers Cold Sawces Contrariwise wanteth your stomach appetite through abundance of choler or adust and putrified phlegm then restore it with sawces made of sorrel lettice spinache purselane or saunders mingled with vinegar verjuice cider alegar or water it self or with the pulp of prunes apples currens and such like As for digestion it waxeth slow and weak either because the stomach is too cold or because the meat is of bad digestion which is put into it Sawces for slow digestion Cold stomachs must be quickned with sawces hot of spice and meats hard of digestion must be helped with hot things therfore I commend the use of mustard with biefe and all kind of salted flesh and fish and onion-saw with Duck Widgin Teal and all water Foul salt and pepper with Venison and galinga sawce with the flesh of Cygnets and garlick or onions boild in milk with a stuble Goose sugar and mustard with red Deer Crane Shovelar and Bustard Sawces for temperate Meats But for temperate Meats and speedy of digestion as Pork Mutton Lamb Veal Kid Hen Capon Pullet Chicken Rabbet Partridge Pheasant c. we must likewise devise temperate sawces as mustard and green-sawce for Pork verjuice and salt for Mutton the juice of Orenges or Limons with wine salt and sugar for Capons Pheasants and Partridges water and pepper for Woodcocks vinegar and butter or the gravet of roasted meat with Rabbets Pigeons or Chickens for if their sawces should be either too cold or too hot such meats would soon corrupt in our stomachs being otherwise most nourishing of their own nature As for the just quantity and proportion of every thing belonging unto sawces and pickles albeit Apicius took great pains therein writing whole volums of that argument yet few of those sawces agreed with most mens natures and some of them perhaps if we might peruse those books were grounded upon little or no reason wherefore I leave the directing of them to particular Cooks who by experience can best aime at every mans appetite and know also sufficiently how to correct that flesh by Artificial preparation and appropriated sawce which nature hath made queazy or heavy to indifferent stomachs Some have put the question Whether there be any sawce but appetite or whether it be good to use sawces CHAP. XXVIII Of Variety of Meats that it is necessary and
convenient PHilo a most excellent Physician having invited Philinus to Supper entertained him with all kind of fowl fish and fruit killing also as many beasts as if he had purposed to celebrate an Hecatombe But his eloquent guest for he was counted the best Councellor at the Bar of Athens either to reprove his Friend or to try his Oratory accused him at the Table of a double trespass the one against himself the other against nature Against himself because he allured him to surfet by variety of dishes against nature because nature teacheth us to feed but upon meat and yet Philo himself did feed upon many But tell me Philinus for I am a Physitian likewise and sworne to defend my Teachers no less then my Parents how is it an unnatural thing to feed upon many dishes Mary saith he nature teacheth us to feed upon that which will make us to remain longest in life and health wherefore if we would feed as beasts do upon some one thing we should outlive them whereas now through our variety of dishes they outlive us Again do not you Physitians being but Natures Ministers disswade men in agues from diversity of meats bringing unto them only some one dish of a Chicken or Rabbet simply roasted or boiled neither smelling nor tasting of any mixture nor marred or infected with variety of sawces Furthermore doth not the Diars Art instruct us no colour to keep so long in cloth or silk as that which is made by one simple And is not the sweetest oil marred by mingling which being kept alone by it self would be ever fragrant even so fareth it likewise in meats for any one meat of an indifferent constitution will be easily concocted when many strive so one with another whether of them shall go out formost into the guts that one stayeth too long and is corrupted whilst the other is not half changed And tell me Philo why should it not be in meats as it is in wines doth not variety of wines make bad distribution and cause drunkenness sooner then if we kept to one wine no doubt it doth else had the Law contra Allaenias been frivolous and vaine precisely forbidding Vintners and Waiters at the Table to mixe one wine with another Musicians likewise by tuning all their instruments into one harmony plainly shew what hurt cometh by inequality and change of things Socrates was wont to say whom the great Oracle of Apollo hath crowned for the wisest Grecian that variety of meats is like a common house of Courtisans which with variety of faces trickings and dressings rather empty then fill up Venus Treasury kindling rather a flame to consume our lust then giving a gentle heat to conserve our lives Wherefore when the jars of crowders shall be thought good musick and mingled wines allowed for wholesomness and whorish allurements taken for preservers of life then will I also confess variety of dishes to be tollerable and that one man at once may taste and feed safely of many dishes In the mean time let me still commend the old Romans who judged as ill of common Feasters as of them which erected a bawdy-house and give me leave to imitate Plato who at a great feast fed on nothing but Olives thinking one dish most wholesome where many are Other Objections against Variety of Meats Thus much said Philinus against Philo as Plutarch writeth whose Arguments I will then answer in order when I have first given a further strength to his assertion by other proofs and authorities that himself perhaps did never dream of namely these Rogatianus a noble Senator of Rome having spent much mony in Physick to no good purpose fed afterwards by his Friends advice never but upon one dish whereby he was quit of his grief for many years Epicurus also placing all felicity in health and pleasure fed but sparingly and simply upon one dish were it roots apples peares plums or puls-pottadge for he never eat fish nor flesh also he did eate but one kind of Bread and never drank but one sort of drink were it wine or water Iovinianus Pontanus being asked why he never fed but upon one dish I abstaine said he from many meats that many nay that all Physitians may abstaine from me A Cook in Lacon being bidden by his Master to dress him a peece of flesh he asked of him Cheese and Oile to make the sawce to whom his Master answered away fool away if I had either Cheese or Oile what needed I to have bought a peece of flesh whereby we perceive that in old times men fed onely upon one dish thinking it folly to kill hunger with many meats when it may be killed with one Epaminondas also being invited to a friends house seeing their variety of dishes departed with these flouting speeches I will not trouble thee for I see thou art sacrificing to the Gods not making a dinner to thy friend And yet the tables of the ancient Gods being but indeed Divels had no great variety upon them For when the Athenians did celebrate the great festivals of Castor and Pollux their dishes were onely these Cheese Mace Olives and Leeks afterwards when Solon to imitate Agamemnons example in Homer added a Spice-cake he was rather counted a giver of ill presidents to men then any whit the more bountiful to the Gods The like may we say of the Romans who offered first to their Gods no flesh nor fish but a little Orchard and Garden-fruit and of the Egyptians whilst the Mameluks ruled over them and of the Carthaginians whose famous quaternal Feast consisted onely of four dishes Dry-figs Ripe-dates green-leeks and sour milk Nay to come nearer to our owne selves the Scots â—our fellow-Islanders and northern-countrymen beginning the morning with a slender breakfast did in old times fast till Supper feeding then but onely of one dish using generally so temperate a diet that not Judges and Kings but Philosophers and Physitians seemed to have given them precepts what need I remember That Moschus Antimolus the great Sophister lived all his life time onely with figs Stilpo only with garlick Saint Genovefue the holy maide of Paris five and thirty years onely with Beanes and Zoroaster that silverheaded Nestor twenty years in the wilderness onely with Cheese or that the Kings of Egypt fed never upon more meats then either Veal or Goslings whereby we may understand that with one dish men lived a long and healthful life and that variety of diseases sprang first from confusion and variety of meats It is written of the Romans that whilst their greatest feasts had but three dishes the people were sound healthful and sober but when Augustus the Emperor brought in three more and permitted the Romans to have three in their houses and six in their temple-feasts his riot is said to have corrupted Rome and brought in Physick Also whilst the Laconians had little dishes and little tables