Page:The forme of cury (1780).djvu/17

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[iii]

As to the Romans; they would of courſe borrow much of their culinary arts from the Greeks, though the Cook with them, we are told, was one of the lowest of their ſlaves[1]. In the latter times, however, they had many authors on the ſubject as well as the Greeks, and the practitioners were men of ſome ſcience[2], but, unhappily for us, their compoſitions are all loſt except that which goes under the name of Apicius; concerning which work and its author, the prevailing opinion now ſeems to be, that it was written about the time of Heliogabalus[3], by one Cælius, (whether Aurelianus is not ſo certain) and that Apicius is only the title of it[4]. However, the compilation, though not in any great repute, has been ſeveral times publiſhed by learned men.

The Aborigines of Britain, to come nearer home, could have no great expertneſs in Cookery, as they had no oil, and we hear nothing of their butter. They uſed only ſheep and oxen, eating neither hares, though ſo greatly eſteemed at Rome, nor hens, nor geeſe, from a notion of ſuperſtition. Nor did they eat fiſh. There was little corn in the interior part of the

  1. ↑ Priv. Life of the Romans, p. 171, Liſter's Præf. p. iii. but ſee Ter. An. i. 1. Caſaub. ad. Jul. Capitolin. cap. 5.
  2. ↑ Caſaub. ad Capitolin. l. c.
  3. ↑ Liſter's Præf. p. ii. vi. xii.
  4. ↑ Fabric. Bibl. Lat. tom. II. p. 794. Hence Dr. Bentley ad Hor. ii. ſerm. 8. 29. ſtiles it Pſeudapicius. Vide Liſterum, p. iv.

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