Goose's liver was in extreme request both at Rome and Athens.1 Another dainty was a cock served up with a rich sauce, containing much vinegar. Aristophanes speaks of the pheasant in his comedy of the Birds; and, again, in the Clouds, Athenæus rightly supposes him to mean this bird, where others imagine he alludes to the horses of the Phasis. Mnesilochos, a writer of the middle comedy, classes a plucked pheasant with hen's milk, among things equally difficult to be met with, which shows that the bird had not then become common. It obtained its name from being found in immense numbers about the embouchure of the Phasis, and the bird was evidently propagated very slowly in Greece and Egypt, since we find Ptolemy Philadelphos, in a grand public festival at Alexandria, exhibiting it, among other rarities, such as parroquets, peacocks, guinea-fowl, and Ethiopian birds in cages.

Among the favourite game of the Athenian gourmands was the Attagas," or francolin, a little larger than the partridge, variegated with numerous spots, and of common tile colour, somewhat inclining to red. It is said to have been introduced from Lydia into Greece, and was found in extraordinary abun

1 See the fragment of Eubulos's Garland-Seller, in Athen. ix. 33.

2 Athen. ix. 38.

3 No bird appears to have puzzled commentators more than the attagas, some supposing it to be the francolin, or grouse, which is Schneider's opinion; others, as Passow, the hazel-hen; others, again, as Ainsworth, consider it to have been a delicious bird, resembling our wood-cock, or snipe. Mr. Mitchell's edit. of the Acharnæ of Aristophanes, 783.-This learned writer professes not to understand what Schneider means by francolin. The word in Ita

lian is francolino, as appears from Bellon. v. 6: Les Italiens ont nommé cet oiseau Francolin, que parcequ'il est franc dans ce pays, c'est-à-dire, qu'il est defendu au peuple d'en tuer: il n'y a que les princes qui aient cette prérogative. Valmont de Bomare, ii. 739.- Hardouin thinks, that the Attagas is the gallina rustica, or gelinotte de bois, which Laveaux explains to be a sort of partridge. -Cf. Dict. Franç. in voce, and Plin. Hist. Nat. xi. 68. ed. Franz. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 257. This bird was plentiful about Marathon, Pac. 249.

dance in the Megaris. Another of their favourites was the porphyrion, a bird which might with great advantage be introduced into many countries of modern Europe, since it was exceedingly domestic, and kept strict watch over the married women, whose faux pas it immediately detected and revealed to their husbands, after which, knowing the revengeful spirit of ladies so situated, it very prudently hung itself. It is no wonder, therefore, that the breed has long been extinct, or that the remnant surviving has taken refuge in some remote region, where wives require no such vigilant guardians. In the matter of eating it agreed exactly with Lord Byron, loving to feast alone, and in retired nooks, where none could observe. Aristotle describes this half fabulous bird as unwebfooted, of blue colour, with long legs, and red beak. The porphyrion was about the size of a cock, and originally a native of Libya, where it was esteemed sacred.1

con

Another bird common in Greece, but now no longer known, was the porphyris, by some founded with the foregoing. Of the partridge, common throughout Europe, we need merely remark, that both the gray and the red (the bartavelle of the French) were common in Greece.

2

3

If we pass from the poultry to puddings and soups, we shall find that the Athenians were not illprovided with these dainties. They even converted gruel into a delicacy, and it is said, that the best was made at Megara. They had bean soup, flour soup, ptisans made with pearl-barley or groats.* We hear, also, of a delicately-powdered dish or soup

1 Athen. ix. 40. Aristoph. Hist. Anim. i. 17. viii. 6.

Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 103. 3 Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 803.It was thought, also, to deserve a place among the offerings to Asclepios, especially by pious old women, who, having lost their

teeth, could eat nothing else. In lieu of the classical name of ἀθάρα, this gruel obtained, in the dialect of the common people, the more homely designation of κουρκούτη. Schol. Plut. 673.

• Athen. iii. 101. iv. 30.

which was sprinkled over with fine flour and olives. The polphos, evidently soupe à la julienne, is said, by some, to have been composed of scraped roots, vegetables, and flour. Others take it to mean a sort of made-dish, resembling macaroni or vermicelli. Another kind of soup was the kidron, which, according to Pollux,' they made of green wheat, roasted and reduced to powder.

2

There was one dish fashionable among the ancient Greeks mistaken by our neighbours, the French, for plum-pudding, which is still found in perfection in the Levant, where I have many times eaten of it. Julius Pollux has preserved the recipe for making it, and we can assure our gourmands, that nothing more exquisite was ever tasted, even in the best café of the Palais Royal. They took a certain quantity of the finest clarified lard, and, mixing it up with milk until it was quite thick, added an equal portion of new cheese, yolks of eggs, and the finest flour. The whole rolled up tight in a fragrant fig-leaf, was then cooked in chicken-broth, or soup made with kid's flesh. When they considered it well done, the leaf was removed and the pudding soused in boiling honey. It was then served up hissing-hot. All the ingredients were used in equal proportions, excepting the yolks of eggs, of which there was somewhat more than of anything else, in order to give firmness and consistency to the whole.3

Black puddings, made with blood, suet, and the other materials now used were also common at Athens. Mushrooms and snails were great favourites; and Poliochos speaks of going out in the dewy mornings in search of these luxuries." In spring, before the arrival of the swallow, the nettle

1 Onomast. vi. 62.-Made usually from panic seed in Caria.Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 580, et Eq. 803. Cf. Goguet, Origine des Loix, i. 212.

2 Onomast. i. 237. vi. 57, 69. 3 Vid. Schol. Arist. Eq. 949. Acharn. 1066.

Aristoph. Eq. 208. 5 Athen. ii. 19.

was collected and eaten, it being then young and tender.1 Leeks, onions, garlic, were in much request, the last particularly, which grew in great plenty in the Megarean territory, and hence, perhaps, the inhabitants were accounted hot and quarrelsome, garlic being supposed to inspire game, even in fighting cocks, to which it was accordingly given in great quantities.

2

Among the herbs eaten by his countrymen, Hesiod enumerates the mallow, and the asphodel, which are likewise said by Aristophanes to have constituted a great part of the food of the early Greeks. Goettling, therefore, not without reason, wonders that Pythagoras should have prohibited the use of the mallow. Lupines, pomegranates, horse-radish, the dregs of grapes and olives, all of which entered into the material of an Attic entertainment, were commonly cried about the streets of Athens. But these edible lupines, (go) still eaten by the Egyptian peasantry and the poor generally throughout the Levant, must be distinguished from the common species. An anecdote of Zeno, of Cittion, will illustrate the character of this kind of pulse, with which the philosopher was evidently familiar. Being one day asked why, though naturally morose, he became quite affable when half-seas-over: "I am like the lupine," he replied, "which, when dry, is very bitter, but perfectly sweet and agreeable after it has been well soaked." 5 Kidney-beans, too, were in much request, and pickled olives, slightly flavoured with fennel.

The radish was esteemed a great delicacy, par

1 Aristoph. Eq. 422. Brunck. 2 Aristoph. Pac. 503.

3 Cf. Lucian. Amor. § 33. 4 Cf. Arist. Acharn. 166. Eq. 493. Athen. xiii. 22.

5 This is as good as the reply of an English labourer who, being reproached for babbling in hist

drink, replied, "Sir, I am like a "hedgehog when I'm wet I "open."

Hesiod. Oper. et Dies, 41. ed. Gottling. Aristoph. Plut. 543. Brunck. Lobeck. Aglaoph. p.

899.

ticularly that of Thasos and Boeotia. And the seeds of the ground-pine,' still eaten as a dessert in Italy, entered, in Greece, also into the list of edible fruits. The tree, I am informed, has been introduced into England, but I have nowhere seen its fruit brought among pears, walnuts, and apples, to table. Hen's milk has already been spoken of among the good things of Hellas; but lest the reader should suspect us of amusing him with fables, it should be explained, that the white of an egg was so called by Anaxagoras. Eggs of all kinds were much esteemed. Sometimes they were boiled hard, and cut in two with a hair; but, many writers, confounding őa, the berries of the service-tree, with da, eggs, have imagined that the Athenians, in the capriciousness of their culinary taste, actually ate pickled eggs, an idea which stirs to the bottom the erudite bile of David Ruhnken.5 Generally, eggs were eaten soft, as with us, or swallowed quite raw. Those of the pea-hen were considered the most delicate; next to these, the eggs of the chenalopex bergander, or Egyptian goose, and, lastly, those of the hen. This, at least, is the opinion of Epicrates and Heracleides, of Syracuse, in their treatises on cookery."

As when an entertainment was given the host necessarily expected his guests to make a good dinner, they usually commenced the business of the day with an antecœnium or whet, consisting of herbs of the sharpest taste. At Athens, the articles which generally composed this course were colewort, eggs, oysters, œnomel-a mixture of honey and wine-all supposed to create appetite. To these even in later

1 The kernels of the stone-pine are brought to table in Turkey. They are very common in the kitchens of Aleppo.-Russell ap. Walp. Mem. i. 236.

2 Tim. Lex. Platon. v. orέμovλa, p. 239. Ruhnken. Athen. ii. 45.

3 Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 505.

4 Athen. ix. 37.

5 Not. ad Timæi Lex. Plat. p. 189. Cf. Platon. Conviv. Oper. iv. 404. Bekk. Athen. ii. 50.

6 Athen. ii. 50.

7 Potter, Archæol. Græc. iv. 20. Stuck. Antiq. Conviv. iii. 11. Petron. Satyr. § 31. 33.