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An arch-cook insinuates that there remain only two “pillars of the state,” besides himself, of the school of Sinon, one of the great masters of the condimenting art. Sinon, we are told, applied the elements of all the arts and sciences to this favourite one. Natural philosophy could produce a secret seasoning for a dish; and architecture the art of conducting the smoke out of a chimney: which, says he, if ungovernable, makes a great difference in the dressing. From the military science he derived a sublime idea of order; drilling the under cooks, marshalling the kitchen, hastening one, and making another a sentinel. We find, however, that a portion of this divine art, one of the professors acknowledges to be vapouring and bragging!–a seasoning in this art, as well as in others. A cook ought never to come unaccompanied by all the pomp and parade of the kitchen: with a scurvy appearance, he will be turned away at sight; for all have eyes, but few only understanding.[5]

Another occult part of this profound mystery, besides vapouring, consisted, it seems, in filching. Such is the counsel of a patriarch to an apprentice! a precept which contains a truth for all ages of cookery.

Carian! time well thy ambidextrous part,
Nor always filch. It was but yesterday,
Blundering, they nearly caught thee in the fact;
None of thy balls had livers, and the guests,
In horror, pierced their airy emptiness.
Not even the brains were there, thou brainless hound!
If thou art hired among the middling class,
Who pay thee freely, be thou honourable!
But for this day, where now we go to cook,
E’en cut the master’s throat for all I care;
“A word to th’ wise,” and show thyself my scholar!
There thou mayst filch and revel; all may yield
Some secret profit to thy sharking hand.
‘Tis an old miser gives a sordid dinner,
And weeps o’er every sparing dish at table;
Then if I do not find thou dost devour
All thou canst touch, e’en to the very coals,
I will disown thee! Lo! old Skin-flint comes;
In his dry eyes what parsimony stares!

These cooks of the ancients, who appear to have been hired for a grand dinner, carried their art to the most whimsical perfection. They were so dexterous as to be able to serve up a whole pig boiled on one side, and roasted on the other. The cook who performed this feat defies his guests to detect the place where the knife had separated the animal, or how it was contrived to stuff the belly with an olio composed of thrushes and other birds, slices of the matrices of a sow, the yolks of eggs, the bellies of hens with their soft eggs flavoured with a rich juice, and minced meats highly spiced. When this cook is entreated to explain his secret art, he solemnly swears by the manes of those who braved all the dangers of the plain of Marathon, and combated at sea at Salamis, that he will not reveal the secret that year. But of an incident so triumphant in the annals of the gastric art, our philosopher would not deprive posterity of the knowledge. The animal had been bled to death by a wound under the shoulder, whence, after a copious effusion, the master-cook extracted the entrails, washed them with wine, and hanging the animal by the feet, he crammed down the throat the stuffings already prepared. Then covering the half of the pig with a paste of barley, thickened with wine and oil, he put it in a small oven, or on a heated table of brass, where it was gently roasted with all due care: when the skin was browned, he boiled the other side; and then, taking away the barley paste, the pig was served up, at once boiled and roasted. These cooks, with a vegetable, could counterfeit the shape and the taste of fish and flesh. The king of Bithynia, in some expedition against the Scythians, in the winter, and at a great distance from the sea, had a violent longing for a small fish called aphy–a pilchard, a herring, or an anchovy. His cook cut a turnip to the perfect imitation of its shape; then fried in oil, salted, and well powdered with the grains of a dozen black poppies, his majesty’s taste was so exquisitely deceived, that he praised the root to his guests as an excellent fish. This transmutation of vegetables into meat or fish is a province of the culinary art which we appear to have lost; yet these are cibi innocentes, compared with the things themselves. No people are such gorgers of mere animal food as our own; the art of preparing vegetables, pulse, and roots, is scarcely known in this country. This cheaper and healthful food should be introduced among the common people, who neglect them from not knowing how to dress them. The peasant, for want of this skill, treads under foot the best meat in the world; and sometimes the best way of dressing it is least costly.