“I cannot tell how the wheat is prepared, as we procure it in a state of jelly from an old woman who knows the secret. A pint of this jelly is melted in a quart of milk; it is slightly boiled, lemon peel, and cinnamon, and sugar being then added; the yolks of five eggs beaten up, are mixed in, and it is served in a tureen. Raisins and currants, all stewed well, and plumped out with hot water, are served up separately; they are cold, a spoonful or so being added to each helping. The name isfrumenty; this shows perhaps the antiquity of the dish, and is an interesting specimen of etymology. It is only made at Easter.”[136]The Breber “Assowa.”[137]Carscones, pancakes, “Redemption cakes,” are eaten on Easter Monday.[138]These facts throw new light on the knowledge of the ancients, respecting the fermentation of liquors and brewing. They did malt grain, and indeed they seem to have been aware of the advantage of so treating it, for fattening animals. We know that Penelope steeped the grain which she gave to her geese.[139]Hollinger de Rel. Sabæ. b. i. ch. 8.[140]Herodot. l. ii. c.2.[141]“Their learned Rabbis were quite at a loss for the meaning of that text of the prophet Isaiah, 'I will sweep thee with the besom of destruction,’ till they heard accidentally an Arabian maid-servant call a broom by that same name, which was common to the Hebrew and Arabic tongue, the meaning of which was quite lost in the Hebrew, and only preserved in the Arabic.”Ockley.[142]The Passover breadKhak.[143]Bunuclos, Spanish for crumpet.[144]This word I have before explained.[145]Assowa, a preparation used by the Shellahs, similar to that called sowans in Scotland.—See Jackson’s Vocabulary.[146]The TeutonicBrod, made broth, broze, is contained inChebrodlapson.[147]Barr, whence the three words in the text.[148]Hamin Arabic is beef, but it is applied to dried flesh.[149]Zumeita(Breber),Zimita(Shellah),Azamotan, mentioned in Glass.Hist.of the Canaries, and described as “barley-meal fried in oil,” is the preparation used in crossing the Zahara. It is toasted barley-meal mixed with water in the corner of the haïk, exactly as the Highland drovers used to mix it in the corner of their plaid. It is also mixed with butter or with honey, and in this form it constitutes the early meal. “Meat,” and the Frenchmet, which signifies every kind of food, are going a begging for an etymology. From Zimita comeζυμίται(Poll.lib. vi.32),ζυμὸς, ζυμὴ, ψῶμι(leaven broth and bread), andZimid, the Turkish bread baked with butter,acemiti, Spanish.[150]Dr. Forbes, in his “Physician’s Holiday,” has given some valuable suggestions on this matter:—“In looking at the horrid compound sold in England as salt butter—at least, the cheaper sorts of it used by the poorer classes—I cannot but believe that its supersession by the boiled butter of Switzerland would be advantageous, both to the comfort and health of a large proportion of our countrymen. It can hardly be believed that such an offensive, briny, and semi-putrid mass, as the cheaper sorts of our salt butter, can be without serious detriment to the health of the consumers, any more than the salted meat formerly issued to our seamen was so.”He describes a melted butter used in Switzerland, and earnestly recommends the adoption of the same practice for culinary purposes. It consists in boiling it slowly after it is made: the process takes six hours, two to heat it, two to cool it, and two to simmer it. There is a white, hard cheesy sediment which has carefully to be removed. He also describes a process, by which the whole of the butter of these Alpine pastures is preserved sweet, without salt. “On a board, four or five inches wide, wooden pins two to three feet in length, are fixed upright; the butter is placed daily around these pins, beginning at the lower end, in a mass not exceeding the width of the board. Every day, as more butter is added around the pin, the diameter is gradually enlarged, until the upper part overhangs the base, like an inverted bee-hive. When one pin is filled, another is proceeded with. The exposed surface of these masses gets soon covered with a sort of hard film, which effectually excludes the air.”[151]“The cause why the idolaters magnify the kine, is their use in agriculture—as much as to say, it is not lawful to slay them.”—(Talmudists on the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, apud Hollinger de Religion. Sab. l. i. c. 8.) A Roman citizen was once indicted and condemned by the people for killing an ox. “For this beast,” says Pliny, “is our companion, and labours together with us in ploughing the field.” Yet in Rome everything was based upon pasturage, not tillage: libations of milk were used in sacrifice.Pecuniawas money, and the public revenuesPascua.For laws against the slaughter of cattle used in husbandry, see Ælian,Var. Hist., l. v. c.14;Athen. l. ix.ex Philloc.; Varro de Re Rustica,l. ii. c.5.The Hindoo code, of course, forbids the killing of cows at all ages. The Mussulman code forbids the killing of calves.[152]A line of Euripides might appear conclusive against me;καὶ τορὸς ὀπίας ἐστὶ καὶ βοὸς γάλα.-—Cycl.v.136.But he is speaking of the food, not of common men, but of Silenus. However, Athenæus will no way admit the thing, or even the word. He corrects it (l.14),Διὸς γάλα, or milkfitfor Jupiter, meaning goats’, not cows’ milk; so unnatural did the latter seem. ConsultEustath.inOdyss.δʹ. Homer calls the Hippomolgians galactophagoi, and otherwise commends them, (Il.νʹ. 6). He only twice mentions milk, and both times speaks of it as that of ewes or goats;—-πίονα μῆλα ἔμελγα,Od.ιʹ. 237;δ’ ἔμελγεν ὄϊς καὶ μηκάδας αἶγας,Od.ιʹ. 244. He mentions cheese twice (Od.κʹ. 234;Il.λʹ. 638): on the last occasion, he calls it goats’ cheese,αἴγειον τυρὸν, and it was hard, for it was raped with a bronze rape,κνήστι χαλκείῃ.[153]Chandler (vol. ii. p.245) describes the process of making butter in Greece, by puttingcreamin a goat’s skin, and trampling on it. The method referred to I shall presently describe: no cream is used.Silvestre de Sacy translates the title of Kholil Daheri’s work on Egypt; “Creamof the Exposition.” It occurs in the taunting letter of Shah Rock to Timour; he says,—“Your expressions are theZebedof language.” The word is translated elsewherefoam(caïmah).—Cf. Chresth. Arabe,t. ii. pp.11, 76.“That they skimmed the milk is evident, whatever they may have done with the cream. Philostrates mentions vessels filled to the brim with milk, on which the cream lies rich and shining.”—St. John’sAncient Greece,vol. ii. p.286.The passage referred to has not a word about cream; it is as follows;ψυκτῆρες γάλακτος, οὐ λευκοῦ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ στίλπνου. καὶ γὰρ στιλβεῖν ἔοικεν ὑπὸ τῆς ἐπιπολαζούσης αὐτῷ πιμελῆς.—Icon.i. xxxi. p.809. “Vases of milk, not only white but shining, for they appeared to shine from the floating fat.” The shining skin which covers boiled milk is here accurately described.[154]The art of making tea consists in pouring the water on and off immediately, so as to get the flavour. Coffee-making is a more intricate affair, and cannot be conveyed in a recipe. A docile spirit, that will dismiss every received idea, and not reason, may make something out of the hints I now submit. The fire must be very low, half embers (wood), half ashes; the cup of coffee small; and a small pot so as to make it cup by cup. The coffee must be slowly roasted, not burnt, and brought only to an umber brown; it must be roasted day by day. The flavour dissipates in a few hours; it must be reduced by pounding to an impalpable powder. These are the conditions under which coffee can be made. In making it, two opposite and apparently incompatible ends are to be secured,—strength and flavour; to obtain the first it must be boiled,—by boiling, the second is lost. The difficulty is surmounted by a double process; onethoroughcooking, oneslightone; by the first a strong infusion is obtained, by the second that infusion is flavoured. Thus, a large pot with coffee-lees stands simmering by the fire; this is thesherbet: when a cup is wanted, the pounded coffee is put in the little tin or copper pan and placed on the embers; it fumes for a moment; then the sherbet is poured on; in a few seconds the froth (caïmah) rises; presently an indication that it is about to boil is made manifest, when the coffee is instantly taken from the fire, and carried to the apartment, and turned into the cup and drunk.[155]There is one thing new under the sun, and that is an egg cup: no egg cups are to be found in Etruscan sepulchres, in Egyptian pyramids, or Assyrian palaces; eggs were only boiled hard in the shell. Small spoons, egg-, or tea-, or salt-spoons, are also a modern discovery, and all pertain to the new meal.[156]One of the four-and-twenty romances of the Arabs before the times of Mahomet, turns on a jar of butter. Zouhaji pushes with his bow an old woman who brought it. Thence arises a tribe-encounter, in which the chief loses his life. There have been handed down a lament by his son, and a pæan by his conqueror, which Antar soon turned to an elegy.[157]The discus of the ancients, as that used by the modern Italians, was supposed to be cheese.[158]It is an ingredient in Vancouver cement.[159]The recent attempt to preserve it for use at sea.[160]A pastoral scene in Homer comes near this;Ἐξόμενος δ' ἔμελγεν ὄϊς καὶ μηκάδας αἶγαςΠάντα κατὰ μοῖραν, καὶ ὑπ' ἔμβρυον ἧκεν ἑκάστῃ.Αὐτίκα δ' ἥμισυ μὲν θρέψας λευκοῖο γάλακτοςΠλεκτοῖς ἐν ταλάροισιν ἀμησάμενος κατέθηκεν.Ἥμισυ δ' αὖτ' ἔστησεν ἐν ἄγγεσιν, ὄφρα οἱ εἴηΠίνειν δαινυμένῳ, καί οἱ ποτιδόρπιον εἴη.—Od.ιʹ. 244-249.which in substance is;—he milked the ewes and goats, and divided the milk into two parts: the one heturned, and laid the curd to drain in wicker baskets, the other he kept for supper.[161]L. iv. c.2.[162]Ἐγχέοντες γὰρ τὸ γάλα ἐς ξύλα κοῖλα σείουσι. Τὸ δὲ ταρασσόμενον ἀφριεὶ καὶ διακρίνεται, καὶ τὸ μὲν πῖον βούτηρον καλέουσιν, ἐπιπολῆς διΐσταται, ἐλαφρόν ἐόν· τὸ δὲ βαρὺ καὶ παχὺ κάτω ἵσταται, ὃ καὶ ἀποκρίναντες ξηραίνουσιν· ὁ δὲ ὀῤῥὸς τοῦ γάλακτος ἐν μέσῳ ἐστίν. Αὕτως δὲ καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ταρασσομένον, κ.τ.λ.—De Moribus,l. iii. sec.5.[163]“The Tartar tribes prepare a spirit from milk, by allowing it to ferment with frequent agitation. This agitation converts the milk sugar into lactic acid, and another portion into grape sugar, which becomes converted into alcohol. Animals that live entirely on vegetable matter, produce the largest quantity of spirit.”—Fownes.[164]Richardson meets a few Touanez women in the Desert by themselves; the men having gone to Fezzan, he asks them why they have not gone also; one of them asks, “Why should I go away? what better shall I find in Mouryuk of Ghat? can they give me more than milk! God is everywhere!” They bring him milk, he dwells with pleasure on the hospitality and modesty of his entertainers: “Nothing was given for the milk for we had nothing to give. But if offered, it would not be accepted by the laws of hospitality among these desert Arcadians.”—Sahara,vol. ii. p.204.[165]The ancients used it largely as a medicine. Cows’ milk was for this purpose not only used, but preferred as more aromatic. It was applied externally for all diseases of the skin, abstinence from animal food being at the same time enjoined. It was prescribed at Rome for ague; in Arcadia it was given for atrophy and gout; it was considered an antidote to various poisons, and a specific for hardness of the spleen. Uncooked, it was held to be unwholesome; a prejudice still subsisting in the East.[166]One other food resembles it, and that is eggs.[167]All the blood, the muscular fibre, cellular tissue, nervous matter, and bones, derive their origin from the nitrogenized constituent of milk, the caseine—the butter and sugar containing no nitrogen.[168]In the life of Cornaro it is stated, that up to the age of forty he laboured under various diseases, which made his existence a burden to him. He then commenced a diet of bread andmilk as drawn from the animal; he became robust, vigorous, and enjoyed perfect health, for one hundred years. Had he omitted the bread, and drunk the milk alone, he might perhaps have drawn out his lease of life to the fabled limit of the patriarchs of the Zahara.[169]There is a work by Maimonides upon this subject. The title, as translated, is“Carnis cum lacte non commedenda.”[170]Genesisxviii.8.[171]Jobxx.17.[172]Jobxxix.6.[173]Judgesv.25.[174]2 Samuelxvii.29.[175]Proverbsxxx.33.[176]המיאח.[177]There is an Arab counterpart to the story of Sisera, and a fact. Shanfara asks a woman of the Salamana tribes for water; she gives himagitandraïb—salt cheese and spirits—from milk; he is thus driven by thirst, in the dead of night, to a well where his enemies are lying in wait for him.[178]Leben also signifies butter-milk, &c. See Burckhardt’s Notes,vol. i. pp.239, 241.[179]Among the Tartars, the districts are termed “Yourts,” as the Armatobo Greeks used to term their districts,Psomi, bread.[180]Καὶ τρυφαλὶς ἐφ’ ἑτέρου φύλλου νεοπαγὴς καὶ σαλεύουσα.—Philost.Icon,p.809,i.31.A celebrated cheese of goats’ milk made at Tromileia, calledὀπίας, was curdled not by rennet, but by the sap of the fig tree.—Athen.lib. xiv.76;Eurip.Cyclopv. 136.The Dutch cheese calledGoudais turned by muriatic acid.[181]Devonshire Junket is made by pouring gently a spoonful of vinegar into a bowl of milk; the top is then brased. Pounded sugar-candy is dusted on and brased again; this is several times repeated. It may also be made with rennet, and seasoned with brandy.[182]See St. John’s Ancient Greece,vol. ii. p.288.[183]Copper pans and coal fires are common in the North of Devonshire; but probably in twenty years, all recollection of pottery and wood will have died away.[184]Tamer,Philleg(Pheleg),Cuddan,Chynhals,Barrak,Lieber, TheMozins,Zeinior,Carracks,Stam,Oaz. Search the rest of England through, and you will not find two names in one county that could be strained into Phœnician.[185]These have not long gone out. Pope in describing the death scene of the Duke of Buckingham, says:“In the worst inn’s worst room, with mats half hung,The floor of plaster and the walls of dung.”[186]That of Erzerum is much esteemed: it is sent to Constantinople.[187]“This Aristæus, the companion of Zeus, according to Diodorus, was called the augur, the inventor of the art of healing, and father of bees; according to Aristotle, the inventor of the olive (as Buddha in India, and Hercules among the Greeks); according to him and Appian, he was the discoverer of theART OF MAKING BUTTER(τὴν τὲ τοῦ γάλακτος πῆξιν), which, hitherto unknown to the Greeks, was, according to Herodotus and Hippocrates (who found it of great service as a medicine), known to the Scythians, to the north of the sea of Pontus, by the native name of butter, and made from mares’ milk. This name was consequently northern, and has remained German, and probably from the name, is of Buddhistic origin,” &c.Πῆξιςis fromπήγνυμι, to coagulate, and means cheese. Cheese is not known to the Hindoos; nor butter to the Buddhists.[188]Hippocrates introduces it in various unguents and emulsions, with a certain produce of Arabia, oil of cedar, and other strange and rare ingredients from the south; one of these is “the liver of the sea-serpent dried in the shade.”[189]“Compare the profound and astute observations of Ritter (Vorhalli Euro. Völler,p.357) on the source of the preparation of butter (buttervercitung), which came from the barbarians to the Greeks, and has remained a distinguishing character of the northern and German people. That it belonged to the Iberians demonstrates the source of that people.” Dendit auf den Ursprung des Volkes kin; Prüfunz uber die Überv der Urbewohnu.In the same page he says, “butter is only mentioned among the mountaineers of the north.” For this statement he does not quote his authority. That it was used by them and only by them, is sufficiently attested, by the subsisting habits and language, but it would be interesting to find the statement in an ancient writer.[190]Brocense, Aldrete, &c. describe nata as the part of the milk thrown upby boiling; in the seventeenth century, the Spaniards were still unacquainted with cream.[191]Humboldt derives this word from acorn. “If the edible gland is formed in the north of Spain, and if this name (artea) is there given to the oak that bears it, then it may be supposed that the Basqueartoa, comes from this and from the ancient habit of acorn bread,” referred to by Juvenal (Sat. vi.10), “glandem ructante marito,” this is nearer thanAratuto plough, or the Greekἄρτος. I cannot answer for the three suppositions, but when acorns are eaten, they are not made into bread. Juvenal speaks of acorns, not of bread. Larramandi in his introduction, gives the etymology I have quoted in the text; as to deriving a Basque word from the Greek, as well might you so derive a Hebrew or Egyptian one.[192]Elephas (in the genitive, elephantos) in Greek applies to “ivory,” and the “elephant,” the etymon of it, as accepted in our dictionaries, is the “el fil,” of the Arabs; but in Basque it isElefandia;Elia, “great,”Andia, “bull,” or “beast.”[193]This is the name given by the clans to their tongue, as distinguished from the Celtic.[194]In corroboration of the former use of gee, I may cite the following words.Blathachis “butter-milk,” fromblath, “warm,” “curds and cream,” areGruth 'us ce, as if Devonshire cream was meant, which is the first stage to gee, or to caïmac, the difference being, that greater heat is used in the first case, and a slow one in the second: they have a mixture ofcurds and butter, but for that there is another name,crowdyin Scotch,fuaragin Erse.[195]In Welsh it isEcaus, buttermenin, creamhefen.[196]Anat. Hist. Animal.l. iii. c.20.[197]The following words are from the same dialect,agroumiandikfeemilk,dahanbutter,swaagbeaten milk,agroumibread.[198]“They give new-born infants fresh butter to take away themiconium, and this they do for several days.”—Martin’sWestern Islands(p.195). In the western islands there was a supposition that cream could be charmed away to another churn. The use of butter must have extended far beyond the period when it was first known in Europe. They have a proper name for churnmuidhe.[199]In Ireland they churn the whole milk. The striplings (the last milk from each cow, which is the richest) are put together in a deep crock, morning and evening till full. Any cream or whole milk which has remained over is added, it is not churned till it has become quite thick, this takes two or three days in summer, but in winter more, unless the temperature is kept up. The butter milk that remains, is far more nutritive than that from the churned cream, and is used for various domestic, culinary, nursery, and poultry-yard purposes.[200]“One of the ladies of the dwelling brought a plate of fresh and exquisite honey, and a small plate of fresh butter, as part of our meal, and instructed us how they were to be eaten together.”—Carne.[201]Gen. xliii.11.[202]Travels,vol. ii. p.144.[203]Crock, obsolete Irish for butter, may apply to this dish.[204]Maslooriginally meant oil, and does so yet in certain Sclavonic dictionaries. Butter is a secondary signification—Durick, apud Lindi PolishDic.[205]The Greek termγάλαis a form of the Arabic. In the genitive, it isγάλακτος(galactos) hence the Latinlac; by transposition the verbἀμέλγω, to milk, is held to be formed, whence the Latinmulgere, we, from the verb, have re-formed a substantive, mulg, mulk, milk, which is spread over the north of Europe as the derivatives of lac are over the south; in the Polish and Russian it ismleko.[206]A remarkable preparation ishatted kit, in Erse,Bainne ce. Buttermilk is put into a kit with a spiket, and left to stand for twenty-four hours: warm milk is poured on twice a day, for three or four days; the top is then a sort of coagulated cream; the lower part is let to run off. It is now, like Carstophine cream, falling into disuse. It is mentioned in the Gowrie trial, two centuries and a half ago. “Ane fyne hattilkit wt sukar, comfietis, and wyn.”—Pitcairn’sTrials, partiv. p.285.Crowdy butteris made as follows: The milk is yearned, and then placed on a dish, and left till the whole of the whey has run off. The curds are then worked up with butter or cream, and it will keep for a month: it spreads soft like butter, and gets softer the longer it is kept.[207]For instance, curdsgruth, wheymiog, curds and wheyslomban, frothed wheyadhan, kinds of syllabubchranochan,bainne-cobhar-bhar,bainne sadte, biestings,nos.[208]Talbot’s Etymologies, Introduction.[209]I must make a reservation in favour of Northumberland, where I have fallen upon persons who did know how to boil. They spoke of “seasoning” the water, and of things being spoilt that were “knocked about” in the pot. Here was the apprehension of the two points to be kept in view, that the water be not hungry so as to exhaust the meat, that the bubbles should not be generated at the bottom of the pot so as to scorch it and harden the fibre. Any one born with the instinct of a cook, will, however bred in prejudice, from these two hints, gain all that is requisite. He who has not these instincts, will not learn how to boil if a waggon load of cookery books were shot over him. Strange it is, that the only people who have not a conception of boiling, should alone persist, generation after generation, in sending up to table vegetables and fish plain boiled! Fish, however, differs from flesh in this, that the hotter it is boiled the better; thus oil or butter, which rises to 600° before boiling, is best for it.[210]Thence also the Greek wordδαῆρες.—SeeEur. Phœn. v.90. The convents in Syria are calledderr.[211]The peculiarity of the “singed head” is, that the skin is left on, which of course is connected with the manner of slaughtering and flaying animals. The Egyptians, as Herodotus mentions (l. ii. c.38), “cut off the head and then skin the body.” He says that no Egyptian will eat the head of any animal, which Wilkinson contradicts (Thebes,vol. ii. p.232), because a mendicant receives one: this rather confirms than confutes the assertion.
“I cannot tell how the wheat is prepared, as we procure it in a state of jelly from an old woman who knows the secret. A pint of this jelly is melted in a quart of milk; it is slightly boiled, lemon peel, and cinnamon, and sugar being then added; the yolks of five eggs beaten up, are mixed in, and it is served in a tureen. Raisins and currants, all stewed well, and plumped out with hot water, are served up separately; they are cold, a spoonful or so being added to each helping. The name isfrumenty; this shows perhaps the antiquity of the dish, and is an interesting specimen of etymology. It is only made at Easter.”
[136]The Breber “Assowa.”
[137]Carscones, pancakes, “Redemption cakes,” are eaten on Easter Monday.
[138]These facts throw new light on the knowledge of the ancients, respecting the fermentation of liquors and brewing. They did malt grain, and indeed they seem to have been aware of the advantage of so treating it, for fattening animals. We know that Penelope steeped the grain which she gave to her geese.
[139]Hollinger de Rel. Sabæ. b. i. ch. 8.
[140]Herodot. l. ii. c.2.
[141]“Their learned Rabbis were quite at a loss for the meaning of that text of the prophet Isaiah, 'I will sweep thee with the besom of destruction,’ till they heard accidentally an Arabian maid-servant call a broom by that same name, which was common to the Hebrew and Arabic tongue, the meaning of which was quite lost in the Hebrew, and only preserved in the Arabic.”Ockley.
[142]The Passover breadKhak.
[143]Bunuclos, Spanish for crumpet.
[144]This word I have before explained.
[145]Assowa, a preparation used by the Shellahs, similar to that called sowans in Scotland.—See Jackson’s Vocabulary.
[146]The TeutonicBrod, made broth, broze, is contained inChebrodlapson.
[147]Barr, whence the three words in the text.
[148]Hamin Arabic is beef, but it is applied to dried flesh.
[149]Zumeita(Breber),Zimita(Shellah),Azamotan, mentioned in Glass.Hist.of the Canaries, and described as “barley-meal fried in oil,” is the preparation used in crossing the Zahara. It is toasted barley-meal mixed with water in the corner of the haïk, exactly as the Highland drovers used to mix it in the corner of their plaid. It is also mixed with butter or with honey, and in this form it constitutes the early meal. “Meat,” and the Frenchmet, which signifies every kind of food, are going a begging for an etymology. From Zimita comeζυμίται(Poll.lib. vi.32),ζυμὸς, ζυμὴ, ψῶμι(leaven broth and bread), andZimid, the Turkish bread baked with butter,acemiti, Spanish.
[150]Dr. Forbes, in his “Physician’s Holiday,” has given some valuable suggestions on this matter:—
“In looking at the horrid compound sold in England as salt butter—at least, the cheaper sorts of it used by the poorer classes—I cannot but believe that its supersession by the boiled butter of Switzerland would be advantageous, both to the comfort and health of a large proportion of our countrymen. It can hardly be believed that such an offensive, briny, and semi-putrid mass, as the cheaper sorts of our salt butter, can be without serious detriment to the health of the consumers, any more than the salted meat formerly issued to our seamen was so.”
He describes a melted butter used in Switzerland, and earnestly recommends the adoption of the same practice for culinary purposes. It consists in boiling it slowly after it is made: the process takes six hours, two to heat it, two to cool it, and two to simmer it. There is a white, hard cheesy sediment which has carefully to be removed. He also describes a process, by which the whole of the butter of these Alpine pastures is preserved sweet, without salt. “On a board, four or five inches wide, wooden pins two to three feet in length, are fixed upright; the butter is placed daily around these pins, beginning at the lower end, in a mass not exceeding the width of the board. Every day, as more butter is added around the pin, the diameter is gradually enlarged, until the upper part overhangs the base, like an inverted bee-hive. When one pin is filled, another is proceeded with. The exposed surface of these masses gets soon covered with a sort of hard film, which effectually excludes the air.”
[151]“The cause why the idolaters magnify the kine, is their use in agriculture—as much as to say, it is not lawful to slay them.”—(Talmudists on the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, apud Hollinger de Religion. Sab. l. i. c. 8.) A Roman citizen was once indicted and condemned by the people for killing an ox. “For this beast,” says Pliny, “is our companion, and labours together with us in ploughing the field.” Yet in Rome everything was based upon pasturage, not tillage: libations of milk were used in sacrifice.Pecuniawas money, and the public revenuesPascua.
For laws against the slaughter of cattle used in husbandry, see Ælian,Var. Hist., l. v. c.14;Athen. l. ix.ex Philloc.; Varro de Re Rustica,l. ii. c.5.
The Hindoo code, of course, forbids the killing of cows at all ages. The Mussulman code forbids the killing of calves.
[152]A line of Euripides might appear conclusive against me;
καὶ τορὸς ὀπίας ἐστὶ καὶ βοὸς γάλα.-—Cycl.v.136.
But he is speaking of the food, not of common men, but of Silenus. However, Athenæus will no way admit the thing, or even the word. He corrects it (l.14),Διὸς γάλα, or milkfitfor Jupiter, meaning goats’, not cows’ milk; so unnatural did the latter seem. ConsultEustath.inOdyss.δʹ. Homer calls the Hippomolgians galactophagoi, and otherwise commends them, (Il.νʹ. 6). He only twice mentions milk, and both times speaks of it as that of ewes or goats;—-πίονα μῆλα ἔμελγα,Od.ιʹ. 237;δ’ ἔμελγεν ὄϊς καὶ μηκάδας αἶγας,Od.ιʹ. 244. He mentions cheese twice (Od.κʹ. 234;Il.λʹ. 638): on the last occasion, he calls it goats’ cheese,αἴγειον τυρὸν, and it was hard, for it was raped with a bronze rape,κνήστι χαλκείῃ.
[153]Chandler (vol. ii. p.245) describes the process of making butter in Greece, by puttingcreamin a goat’s skin, and trampling on it. The method referred to I shall presently describe: no cream is used.
Silvestre de Sacy translates the title of Kholil Daheri’s work on Egypt; “Creamof the Exposition.” It occurs in the taunting letter of Shah Rock to Timour; he says,—
“Your expressions are theZebedof language.” The word is translated elsewherefoam(caïmah).—Cf. Chresth. Arabe,t. ii. pp.11, 76.
“That they skimmed the milk is evident, whatever they may have done with the cream. Philostrates mentions vessels filled to the brim with milk, on which the cream lies rich and shining.”—St. John’sAncient Greece,vol. ii. p.286.
The passage referred to has not a word about cream; it is as follows;ψυκτῆρες γάλακτος, οὐ λευκοῦ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ στίλπνου. καὶ γὰρ στιλβεῖν ἔοικεν ὑπὸ τῆς ἐπιπολαζούσης αὐτῷ πιμελῆς.—Icon.i. xxxi. p.809. “Vases of milk, not only white but shining, for they appeared to shine from the floating fat.” The shining skin which covers boiled milk is here accurately described.
[154]The art of making tea consists in pouring the water on and off immediately, so as to get the flavour. Coffee-making is a more intricate affair, and cannot be conveyed in a recipe. A docile spirit, that will dismiss every received idea, and not reason, may make something out of the hints I now submit. The fire must be very low, half embers (wood), half ashes; the cup of coffee small; and a small pot so as to make it cup by cup. The coffee must be slowly roasted, not burnt, and brought only to an umber brown; it must be roasted day by day. The flavour dissipates in a few hours; it must be reduced by pounding to an impalpable powder. These are the conditions under which coffee can be made. In making it, two opposite and apparently incompatible ends are to be secured,—strength and flavour; to obtain the first it must be boiled,—by boiling, the second is lost. The difficulty is surmounted by a double process; onethoroughcooking, oneslightone; by the first a strong infusion is obtained, by the second that infusion is flavoured. Thus, a large pot with coffee-lees stands simmering by the fire; this is thesherbet: when a cup is wanted, the pounded coffee is put in the little tin or copper pan and placed on the embers; it fumes for a moment; then the sherbet is poured on; in a few seconds the froth (caïmah) rises; presently an indication that it is about to boil is made manifest, when the coffee is instantly taken from the fire, and carried to the apartment, and turned into the cup and drunk.
[155]There is one thing new under the sun, and that is an egg cup: no egg cups are to be found in Etruscan sepulchres, in Egyptian pyramids, or Assyrian palaces; eggs were only boiled hard in the shell. Small spoons, egg-, or tea-, or salt-spoons, are also a modern discovery, and all pertain to the new meal.
[156]One of the four-and-twenty romances of the Arabs before the times of Mahomet, turns on a jar of butter. Zouhaji pushes with his bow an old woman who brought it. Thence arises a tribe-encounter, in which the chief loses his life. There have been handed down a lament by his son, and a pæan by his conqueror, which Antar soon turned to an elegy.
[157]The discus of the ancients, as that used by the modern Italians, was supposed to be cheese.
[158]It is an ingredient in Vancouver cement.
[159]The recent attempt to preserve it for use at sea.
[160]A pastoral scene in Homer comes near this;
Ἐξόμενος δ' ἔμελγεν ὄϊς καὶ μηκάδας αἶγαςΠάντα κατὰ μοῖραν, καὶ ὑπ' ἔμβρυον ἧκεν ἑκάστῃ.Αὐτίκα δ' ἥμισυ μὲν θρέψας λευκοῖο γάλακτοςΠλεκτοῖς ἐν ταλάροισιν ἀμησάμενος κατέθηκεν.Ἥμισυ δ' αὖτ' ἔστησεν ἐν ἄγγεσιν, ὄφρα οἱ εἴηΠίνειν δαινυμένῳ, καί οἱ ποτιδόρπιον εἴη.—Od.ιʹ. 244-249.
Ἐξόμενος δ' ἔμελγεν ὄϊς καὶ μηκάδας αἶγαςΠάντα κατὰ μοῖραν, καὶ ὑπ' ἔμβρυον ἧκεν ἑκάστῃ.Αὐτίκα δ' ἥμισυ μὲν θρέψας λευκοῖο γάλακτοςΠλεκτοῖς ἐν ταλάροισιν ἀμησάμενος κατέθηκεν.Ἥμισυ δ' αὖτ' ἔστησεν ἐν ἄγγεσιν, ὄφρα οἱ εἴηΠίνειν δαινυμένῳ, καί οἱ ποτιδόρπιον εἴη.—Od.ιʹ. 244-249.
Ἐξόμενος δ' ἔμελγεν ὄϊς καὶ μηκάδας αἶγαςΠάντα κατὰ μοῖραν, καὶ ὑπ' ἔμβρυον ἧκεν ἑκάστῃ.Αὐτίκα δ' ἥμισυ μὲν θρέψας λευκοῖο γάλακτοςΠλεκτοῖς ἐν ταλάροισιν ἀμησάμενος κατέθηκεν.Ἥμισυ δ' αὖτ' ἔστησεν ἐν ἄγγεσιν, ὄφρα οἱ εἴηΠίνειν δαινυμένῳ, καί οἱ ποτιδόρπιον εἴη.—Od.ιʹ. 244-249.
Ἐξόμενος δ' ἔμελγεν ὄϊς καὶ μηκάδας αἶγας
Πάντα κατὰ μοῖραν, καὶ ὑπ' ἔμβρυον ἧκεν ἑκάστῃ.
Αὐτίκα δ' ἥμισυ μὲν θρέψας λευκοῖο γάλακτος
Πλεκτοῖς ἐν ταλάροισιν ἀμησάμενος κατέθηκεν.
Ἥμισυ δ' αὖτ' ἔστησεν ἐν ἄγγεσιν, ὄφρα οἱ εἴη
Πίνειν δαινυμένῳ, καί οἱ ποτιδόρπιον εἴη.—Od.ιʹ. 244-249.
which in substance is;—he milked the ewes and goats, and divided the milk into two parts: the one heturned, and laid the curd to drain in wicker baskets, the other he kept for supper.
[161]L. iv. c.2.
[162]Ἐγχέοντες γὰρ τὸ γάλα ἐς ξύλα κοῖλα σείουσι. Τὸ δὲ ταρασσόμενον ἀφριεὶ καὶ διακρίνεται, καὶ τὸ μὲν πῖον βούτηρον καλέουσιν, ἐπιπολῆς διΐσταται, ἐλαφρόν ἐόν· τὸ δὲ βαρὺ καὶ παχὺ κάτω ἵσταται, ὃ καὶ ἀποκρίναντες ξηραίνουσιν· ὁ δὲ ὀῤῥὸς τοῦ γάλακτος ἐν μέσῳ ἐστίν. Αὕτως δὲ καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ταρασσομένον, κ.τ.λ.—De Moribus,l. iii. sec.5.
[163]“The Tartar tribes prepare a spirit from milk, by allowing it to ferment with frequent agitation. This agitation converts the milk sugar into lactic acid, and another portion into grape sugar, which becomes converted into alcohol. Animals that live entirely on vegetable matter, produce the largest quantity of spirit.”—Fownes.
[164]Richardson meets a few Touanez women in the Desert by themselves; the men having gone to Fezzan, he asks them why they have not gone also; one of them asks, “Why should I go away? what better shall I find in Mouryuk of Ghat? can they give me more than milk! God is everywhere!” They bring him milk, he dwells with pleasure on the hospitality and modesty of his entertainers: “Nothing was given for the milk for we had nothing to give. But if offered, it would not be accepted by the laws of hospitality among these desert Arcadians.”—Sahara,vol. ii. p.204.
[165]The ancients used it largely as a medicine. Cows’ milk was for this purpose not only used, but preferred as more aromatic. It was applied externally for all diseases of the skin, abstinence from animal food being at the same time enjoined. It was prescribed at Rome for ague; in Arcadia it was given for atrophy and gout; it was considered an antidote to various poisons, and a specific for hardness of the spleen. Uncooked, it was held to be unwholesome; a prejudice still subsisting in the East.
[166]One other food resembles it, and that is eggs.
[167]All the blood, the muscular fibre, cellular tissue, nervous matter, and bones, derive their origin from the nitrogenized constituent of milk, the caseine—the butter and sugar containing no nitrogen.
[168]In the life of Cornaro it is stated, that up to the age of forty he laboured under various diseases, which made his existence a burden to him. He then commenced a diet of bread andmilk as drawn from the animal; he became robust, vigorous, and enjoyed perfect health, for one hundred years. Had he omitted the bread, and drunk the milk alone, he might perhaps have drawn out his lease of life to the fabled limit of the patriarchs of the Zahara.
[169]There is a work by Maimonides upon this subject. The title, as translated, is“Carnis cum lacte non commedenda.”
[170]Genesisxviii.8.
[171]Jobxx.17.
[172]Jobxxix.6.
[173]Judgesv.25.
[174]2 Samuelxvii.29.
[175]Proverbsxxx.33.
[176]המיאח.
[177]There is an Arab counterpart to the story of Sisera, and a fact. Shanfara asks a woman of the Salamana tribes for water; she gives himagitandraïb—salt cheese and spirits—from milk; he is thus driven by thirst, in the dead of night, to a well where his enemies are lying in wait for him.
[178]Leben also signifies butter-milk, &c. See Burckhardt’s Notes,vol. i. pp.239, 241.
[179]Among the Tartars, the districts are termed “Yourts,” as the Armatobo Greeks used to term their districts,Psomi, bread.
[180]Καὶ τρυφαλὶς ἐφ’ ἑτέρου φύλλου νεοπαγὴς καὶ σαλεύουσα.—Philost.Icon,p.809,i.31.
A celebrated cheese of goats’ milk made at Tromileia, calledὀπίας, was curdled not by rennet, but by the sap of the fig tree.—Athen.lib. xiv.76;Eurip.Cyclopv. 136.
The Dutch cheese calledGoudais turned by muriatic acid.
[181]Devonshire Junket is made by pouring gently a spoonful of vinegar into a bowl of milk; the top is then brased. Pounded sugar-candy is dusted on and brased again; this is several times repeated. It may also be made with rennet, and seasoned with brandy.
[182]See St. John’s Ancient Greece,vol. ii. p.288.
[183]Copper pans and coal fires are common in the North of Devonshire; but probably in twenty years, all recollection of pottery and wood will have died away.
[184]Tamer,Philleg(Pheleg),Cuddan,Chynhals,Barrak,Lieber, TheMozins,Zeinior,Carracks,Stam,Oaz. Search the rest of England through, and you will not find two names in one county that could be strained into Phœnician.
[185]These have not long gone out. Pope in describing the death scene of the Duke of Buckingham, says:
“In the worst inn’s worst room, with mats half hung,The floor of plaster and the walls of dung.”
“In the worst inn’s worst room, with mats half hung,The floor of plaster and the walls of dung.”
“In the worst inn’s worst room, with mats half hung,The floor of plaster and the walls of dung.”
“In the worst inn’s worst room, with mats half hung,
The floor of plaster and the walls of dung.”
[186]That of Erzerum is much esteemed: it is sent to Constantinople.
[187]“This Aristæus, the companion of Zeus, according to Diodorus, was called the augur, the inventor of the art of healing, and father of bees; according to Aristotle, the inventor of the olive (as Buddha in India, and Hercules among the Greeks); according to him and Appian, he was the discoverer of theART OF MAKING BUTTER(τὴν τὲ τοῦ γάλακτος πῆξιν), which, hitherto unknown to the Greeks, was, according to Herodotus and Hippocrates (who found it of great service as a medicine), known to the Scythians, to the north of the sea of Pontus, by the native name of butter, and made from mares’ milk. This name was consequently northern, and has remained German, and probably from the name, is of Buddhistic origin,” &c.
Πῆξιςis fromπήγνυμι, to coagulate, and means cheese. Cheese is not known to the Hindoos; nor butter to the Buddhists.
[188]Hippocrates introduces it in various unguents and emulsions, with a certain produce of Arabia, oil of cedar, and other strange and rare ingredients from the south; one of these is “the liver of the sea-serpent dried in the shade.”
[189]“Compare the profound and astute observations of Ritter (Vorhalli Euro. Völler,p.357) on the source of the preparation of butter (buttervercitung), which came from the barbarians to the Greeks, and has remained a distinguishing character of the northern and German people. That it belonged to the Iberians demonstrates the source of that people.” Dendit auf den Ursprung des Volkes kin; Prüfunz uber die Überv der Urbewohnu.
In the same page he says, “butter is only mentioned among the mountaineers of the north.” For this statement he does not quote his authority. That it was used by them and only by them, is sufficiently attested, by the subsisting habits and language, but it would be interesting to find the statement in an ancient writer.
[190]Brocense, Aldrete, &c. describe nata as the part of the milk thrown upby boiling; in the seventeenth century, the Spaniards were still unacquainted with cream.
[191]Humboldt derives this word from acorn. “If the edible gland is formed in the north of Spain, and if this name (artea) is there given to the oak that bears it, then it may be supposed that the Basqueartoa, comes from this and from the ancient habit of acorn bread,” referred to by Juvenal (Sat. vi.10), “glandem ructante marito,” this is nearer thanAratuto plough, or the Greekἄρτος. I cannot answer for the three suppositions, but when acorns are eaten, they are not made into bread. Juvenal speaks of acorns, not of bread. Larramandi in his introduction, gives the etymology I have quoted in the text; as to deriving a Basque word from the Greek, as well might you so derive a Hebrew or Egyptian one.
[192]Elephas (in the genitive, elephantos) in Greek applies to “ivory,” and the “elephant,” the etymon of it, as accepted in our dictionaries, is the “el fil,” of the Arabs; but in Basque it isElefandia;Elia, “great,”Andia, “bull,” or “beast.”
[193]This is the name given by the clans to their tongue, as distinguished from the Celtic.
[194]In corroboration of the former use of gee, I may cite the following words.Blathachis “butter-milk,” fromblath, “warm,” “curds and cream,” areGruth 'us ce, as if Devonshire cream was meant, which is the first stage to gee, or to caïmac, the difference being, that greater heat is used in the first case, and a slow one in the second: they have a mixture ofcurds and butter, but for that there is another name,crowdyin Scotch,fuaragin Erse.
[195]In Welsh it isEcaus, buttermenin, creamhefen.
[196]Anat. Hist. Animal.l. iii. c.20.
[197]The following words are from the same dialect,agroumiandikfeemilk,dahanbutter,swaagbeaten milk,agroumibread.
[198]“They give new-born infants fresh butter to take away themiconium, and this they do for several days.”—Martin’sWestern Islands(p.195). In the western islands there was a supposition that cream could be charmed away to another churn. The use of butter must have extended far beyond the period when it was first known in Europe. They have a proper name for churnmuidhe.
[199]In Ireland they churn the whole milk. The striplings (the last milk from each cow, which is the richest) are put together in a deep crock, morning and evening till full. Any cream or whole milk which has remained over is added, it is not churned till it has become quite thick, this takes two or three days in summer, but in winter more, unless the temperature is kept up. The butter milk that remains, is far more nutritive than that from the churned cream, and is used for various domestic, culinary, nursery, and poultry-yard purposes.
[200]“One of the ladies of the dwelling brought a plate of fresh and exquisite honey, and a small plate of fresh butter, as part of our meal, and instructed us how they were to be eaten together.”—Carne.
[201]Gen. xliii.11.
[202]Travels,vol. ii. p.144.
[203]Crock, obsolete Irish for butter, may apply to this dish.
[204]Maslooriginally meant oil, and does so yet in certain Sclavonic dictionaries. Butter is a secondary signification—Durick, apud Lindi PolishDic.
[205]The Greek termγάλαis a form of the Arabic. In the genitive, it isγάλακτος(galactos) hence the Latinlac; by transposition the verbἀμέλγω, to milk, is held to be formed, whence the Latinmulgere, we, from the verb, have re-formed a substantive, mulg, mulk, milk, which is spread over the north of Europe as the derivatives of lac are over the south; in the Polish and Russian it ismleko.
[206]A remarkable preparation ishatted kit, in Erse,Bainne ce. Buttermilk is put into a kit with a spiket, and left to stand for twenty-four hours: warm milk is poured on twice a day, for three or four days; the top is then a sort of coagulated cream; the lower part is let to run off. It is now, like Carstophine cream, falling into disuse. It is mentioned in the Gowrie trial, two centuries and a half ago. “Ane fyne hattilkit wt sukar, comfietis, and wyn.”—Pitcairn’sTrials, partiv. p.285.
Crowdy butteris made as follows: The milk is yearned, and then placed on a dish, and left till the whole of the whey has run off. The curds are then worked up with butter or cream, and it will keep for a month: it spreads soft like butter, and gets softer the longer it is kept.
[207]For instance, curdsgruth, wheymiog, curds and wheyslomban, frothed wheyadhan, kinds of syllabubchranochan,bainne-cobhar-bhar,bainne sadte, biestings,nos.
[208]Talbot’s Etymologies, Introduction.
[209]I must make a reservation in favour of Northumberland, where I have fallen upon persons who did know how to boil. They spoke of “seasoning” the water, and of things being spoilt that were “knocked about” in the pot. Here was the apprehension of the two points to be kept in view, that the water be not hungry so as to exhaust the meat, that the bubbles should not be generated at the bottom of the pot so as to scorch it and harden the fibre. Any one born with the instinct of a cook, will, however bred in prejudice, from these two hints, gain all that is requisite. He who has not these instincts, will not learn how to boil if a waggon load of cookery books were shot over him. Strange it is, that the only people who have not a conception of boiling, should alone persist, generation after generation, in sending up to table vegetables and fish plain boiled! Fish, however, differs from flesh in this, that the hotter it is boiled the better; thus oil or butter, which rises to 600° before boiling, is best for it.
[210]Thence also the Greek wordδαῆρες.—SeeEur. Phœn. v.90. The convents in Syria are calledderr.
[211]The peculiarity of the “singed head” is, that the skin is left on, which of course is connected with the manner of slaughtering and flaying animals. The Egyptians, as Herodotus mentions (l. ii. c.38), “cut off the head and then skin the body.” He says that no Egyptian will eat the head of any animal, which Wilkinson contradicts (Thebes,vol. ii. p.232), because a mendicant receives one: this rather confirms than confutes the assertion.