owne work commend the same in his third beam or how Plutarch and Avicen extol it above all others in that it not onely bringeth any aire to a good temper but also cleanseth the same of unclean spirits openeth it when it is clowdy attenuateth it when it is too thick refineth it when it is full of dreggy mixtures and consequently dispelleth melancholy from the head fear and ill vapours from the heart procuring natural and quiet sleep and therefore not unworthily consecrated to the Gods Now as the Egyptians burnt rosin in the morning and their Kuphi towards noon so albeit the sun set when many heavy vapours lye in the aire the Ancients were not to burn mirrhe and juniper which disperse those heavy vapours leaving in the house a rectified aire quickning the senses and correcting those melancholick fumes that pervert judgement Wherefore the Egyptians call mirrhe Bal and Juniper Dolech the purifiers of the aire and curers of madness Whereat let no man wonder sith the very noise of bells guns and Trumpets breaketh the clouds and cleanseth the aire yea Musick it self cureth the brain of madness and the heart of melancholy as many learned and credible Authors have affirmed Much more then may it be tempered and altered to the good or hurt of our inward parts by smells and perfumes whereby not onely a meer aire as in Sounds is carried to the inward parts but also invisible seeds and substances qualified with variety of divers things For who knoweth not that the smell of Opium bringeth on sleep drowsiness and sinking of the spirits contrariwise the the smell of Wine and strong vinegar out of a narrow mouth'd glass awaketh the heaviest headied man if possibly he can be awaked Furthermore because stincking smells unless one by little and little be accustomed to them as our dungfarmers and kennel rakers are in London and as a wench did eat Napellus a most cruel poyson ordinarily as a meat are both noysom to the head and hurtful to the lungs heart and stomack in such sort that they which live in a stinking house are seldom healthy It shall be good where the cause cannot wholly be removed to correct the accident in this sort with sweet waters sweet perfumes sweet pomanders and smelling unto sweet fragrant things Isabella Cortesa that dainty Lady of Italy comb'd her hair and sprinkled her gown every morning with this sweet water following whereby the aire circumfluent was so perfumed that wheresoever she stood no stinch could be discerned Take of Orenge flower water water of Violets water of the musk-geranium and the musk rose water of red and damask roses of each a pint powder of excellent sweet orris two ownces powder of Storax Calamite Benjoine and Indian wood of roses of each half an ounce Civet a dram and a half Mingle all together and let them stand in Balneo three daies Then after the water is throughly cold filtre it out with a fine filtre and keep it to your use in a glass very close stopt Marinellus maketh another not much inferior unto this whereof this is the description Take a pottle of damask-rose-water Benjoin Storax calamite cloves and wood of Aloes of each aâ— ounce ambre-grice and civet of each a scruple boil them together in Balneo in a glass very well stopt for 24 hours space filtre it out when it is cold and having hang'd fifteen grains of musk in it tied in a close cloth set it five daies in the sun and keep it to your use These waters are costly but verily exceeding good nevertheless sith men of mean fortune are likewise to be preserved I appoint for them these perfumed cakes and for the poorer sort a less costly perfume Take of Benjoin six drams wood of aloes four drams storax calamite four drams sweet orris two drams musk a scruple white sugar candy three ounces beat them into fine powder and with red-rose water work them into a stiff paste whereon make a sort of little cakes no bigger nor thicker then a threepence dry them in a cold shadowy place and then put them up very close into a glass and take out one or two or as many as you please and burn them upon quick coles The poorer sort may make them fire-cloves far better then you shall find any at the Apothecaries after this Receit Take of good Olbanum halfe a pound Storax Calamite an ounce and a halfe Ladanum halfe an ounce coles of Iuniper wood 2 drams make all into fine powder and then with 2 drams of gum Tragacanth mingled with rose water and macerated three daies together and an ounce of Storax liquida form the paste like great cloves or sugar-loves or birds or in what form you list and dry them in an oven when the bread hath been drawn kindle one of these at the top and set it in any room and it will make it exceeding sweet But forasmuch as no aire is so dangerous as that which is infected with pestilent influences let us consider how and in what sort that of all other is to be corrected Hippocrates for ought we read of when his own Countrey and the City of Athens were grievously surprised of the Plague used no other remedies to cure or preserve the rest then by making of great fires in each street and in every house especially in the night time to purifie the aire whereby the Citizens or Athens being delivered from so dangerous an enemy erected to Hippocrates an Image of beaten Gold and honoured him alive as if he had been a God And verily as running water like a broome cleanseth the earth so fire like a Lion eateth up the pollutions of the aire no less then it consumeth the drossie mettals So that cleanliness and good fires cannot but either extinguish or lessen any infection whereunto if we also add the use of other outward correctors and perfumers of the aire no doubt it will be much if not wholly amended The Pestilence as I have noted to my grief in mine own house taketh some first with a great chilness and shaking others with a hot sweat and often fainting In some place it raineth most in Winter others it never annoyeth but in Summer The first sort are to correct the air about them with good fires and burning of Lignum Aloes Ebony Cinamon bark Sassaphras and Juniper which as Matthiolus recordeth in his Herbal retaineth his sent and substance a hundred years Burn also the pils of Oringes Citrons and Lemons and Myrrh and Rosen and the poorer sort may perfume their chambers with Baies Rosemary and Broom it self Make also a vaporous perfume in this sort Take of Mastick and Frankincense of each an ounce Citron pils Calamint roots Herb-grass dried and Cloves of each three drams make all into a gross powder and boil it gently in a perfuming pot with spike-spike-water and white wine The second sort I mean such as are sick of the Plague in Summer or are the first
taken with a dissolving heat should rather burn sweet Cipres Lignum Rhodium Sanders sprigs of Tamarisk Gum tragacanth Elemi Cherri-tree gum and a little Camphire Likewise their vaporing perfumes should be of red-rose-leaves Lignum Rhodium and Sanders with rose-rose-water and Vinegar boil'd together So that according to the kind of taking and the season of the year is the air to be corrected in the time of pestilence and not alike at all times with one perfume which Marsilius Ficinus so diligently observeth that he blameth many Physicians for their general preferring of this or that masticatory some extolling the chewing of sage as one goes abroad others the chewing of Setwall roots others of Elecampana Cloves Angelica or Citron pils which indeed are best in a cold season but in the hot time of the year and a hot Plague the chewing of Coriander seeds prepared grains Sanders and the pulpe of Oringes Lemons Citrons or Pearmains is far to be preferred before them The like may be said of sweet Pomanders strong of musk civet ambre and storax which are no doubt good correctors of the pestilent aire but yet in hot seasons and pestilences nothing so good as the smel of a Lemon stickt with lignum Rhodium instead of cloves and inwardly stuffed with a sponge throughly soaked in vinegar of red-roses and violets But here a great question ariseth whether sweet smels correct the pestilent aire or rather be as a guide to bring it the sooner into our hearts To determin which question I call all the dwellers in Bucklers berry in London to give their sentence which only street by reason that it is wholly replenished with Physick Drugs and Spicery and was daily perfumed in the time of the plague with pounding of Spices melting of gums and making perfumes for others escaped that great plague brought from Newhaven whereof there died so many that scarce any house was left unvisited Of variety and change of Aire Hitherto of the correcting and tempering of distempered and infected aire which being clean and purified may yet through ignorance of wilfulness be abused For as Satyrus would needs kiss the glowing cole and children delight to put their fingers in the candle so some know not how to use this general nourishment which is not given as all other nourisments be unto one particular man or Country but equally and universally unto all Now there be two sorts of aire as every man knoweth the one open and wide unto all men the other private shut within the compass of a house or chamber that permitted to any man which is in health this proper to very many and sickly persons who receiving but the least blast of the outward aire upon a suddain fall into great extremities and make the recidival sickness to be worse then the former Many and amongst them my Lord Rich his brother can justifie this who almost recovered of the small pox looked but out of a casement and presently was striken with death So likewise one Harwood of Suffolk a rich Clothier coming suddenly in an extream frost from a very hot fire into the cold aire his blood was presently so corrupted that he became a leaper which is an ordinary cause of the same disease in high Germany as Paracelsus and many other writers have truely noted Again some men tie themselves so to one aire that if they go but a mile from home like to fresh-water soldiers they are presently sick others are so delighted with variety that no one aire or Country can contain them of which humor was Agesilaus Phocion Diogenes Cato yea and Socrates himself who sometimes lay abroad in the fields sometimes at home sometimes travailed one Country and sometimes another that being accustomed to all airs they might if necessity served the better abide all Furthermore in long diseases it is not the worst but the best physick to change airs which few can endure that are tied in conceit or by custom only to one and therefore that of both fantastical humors is the most dangerous Besides this the time of going abroad in the open aire is to be considered for some go out early before the dew be off and the sun up which is very unwholsom others also walk at night after the dew falling which is as perilous for the dew to mans body is as rust unto iron in so much that it blasteth the face and maketh it scabby especially in some months if a man do wash himself with it Furthermore some men delight to travel in tempests and winds which the very hedghog reproveth and the beasts of the field eschue by seeking coverture for strong and violent winds be as Cardan cals them the whales of the aire rowling clouds and meteors where and whether they list beating down trees houses and castles yea shaking otherwhiles the earths foundation Now as some goe abroad too much so others with over-fearfulness take the open aire too little sitting at home like cramb'd Capons in a close room and not daring in a manner to behold the light better it were by degrees to go abroad then with such certainty of danger to stay at home yet so that a calm mild and temperate day be chosen lest we make more haste outward then good speed and bewail the alteration of aire through decrease of health For as contrariety of meats make tumults and rebellions in our stomacks so contrary changes of aire upon the sudden maketh dangerous combats in our bodies Yea though a fenny aire be thick and loathsome yet suddenly to go dwel upon the high mountains in a clear aire is a posting to death rather then a course to life and albeit a Southern Country be pregnant of corruption for all trees lose their leaves first on the Southside and on the Southside houses decay soonest and the Southside of corn is soonest blasted and malt lying in the Southside of a Garner is first tainted with weevels yet suddenly to depart to a Northern soil where the North wind chiefly bloweth is to leave the Sea to be forzen in ice and bringeth imminent peril if not hasty death to the patient yea to them that are otherwise sound of body wherefore use the open aire in his due time season quantity and order else shalt thou be offended with that nourishment which simply of all other is most necessary for as this invisible milk for so Severinus cals the aire in time season and quantity nourisheth these lower and perhaps the upper bodies so being taken out of time and longer and lesser then we should it is both the child the mother and the nurse of infinite mischiefs CHAP. V. 1. Of Meat and the differences thereof in Kind Substance Temperature and Taste PUrposing now to treat of Meats I will keep this method First I will shew their differences then the particular natures of every one of them Last of all in what variety quantity and order they are to be eaten Their differences
neither are they forbidden in a strait and thin diet did they not nourish oversoon Gesner sheweth a good reason why new white and long eggs be the best of all other First because new eggs are ever full but old eggs lose every day somewhat of their substance and in the end waxing addle stink like urine whereupon they were called of the Latins Ova urinae Secondly the whitest eggs have the palest yolks and most thin fine little bloody strings swiming upon them Thirdly the longest eggs are commonly cock-eggs and therefore of better nourishment Some eggs are almost all yolk and no white yea some have two yolks in them others have in a manner no yolk at all or at the most nothing proportionable the former sort nourish most the other are fittest for hot stomacks The dressing of Eggs. Concerning the preparation of them a rare egg any way drest is lightest of digestion a hard egg is most rebellious an egg betwixt both is of strongest nourishment Brassavola reporteth a Monk to have been made so costiff with hard eggs that no art was available to give him on stool Furthermore all hard eggs especially hardened by frying get from the fire a smoky and hot nature and from the frying-pan and burnt butter a maligne quality not onely as offenssive to the stomack as rotten eggs but also sending up bad vapours to the brain and heart Eggs potcht into water or verjuce are fittest for hot complexions or men distempered with agues sodden rare in the shell they are soonest converted into blood but being rare-roasted in embers they make thickest and strongest blood and are fittest for weak cold and watrish stomachs Thus much of Birds eggs which in a little quantity nourish much and are called of Ficinus the quintescence of flesh because they yeild so speedy and fine nourishment Now it resteth to discourse something of Tortesses eggs which be not poisonable nor hurtful as the eggs of Snakes Lizards and Chamaeleons but very fit to nourish men in hot agues when all birds eggs may be suspected of inflaming the blood for they are of a more flegmatick nature tempering hot humours procuring sleep to the watchful moisture to the dryed person and inspiring as it were a second life to such as seem desperately consumed of hot fevers Sir Wil. Pelham that worthy valiant Knight kept them in his garden at the Minories by the Tower of London where I wondred much at the beast and more at her eggs for contrary to the nature of hens eggs the most spotted were the best and the hardest of shell the best likewise and they are worst when they are newest best when they are three months old Last of all as touching that question made by Plutack and disputed of him more wittily then wisely of either side Whether the Hen or the Egg be first in nature I omit it as a foolish and superfluous doubt sith common sence and reason telleth us that the perfecter creatures were first made and the whole is more ancient then that which is gotten of the whole Of Blood Blood being the charet-man or coacher of life was expresly forbidden the Israelites though it were but the blood of beasts partly because they were naturally given to be revengeful and cruel hearted partly also because no blood is much nourishing out of the body albeit in the body it is the onely matter of true nourishment Nevertheless the Laconians black broth so highly commended of Dionysius was made of kidds blood sodden with water vinegar and salt yea the Bisalta of Scythia make pottage of horses blood milk accounting it their best and strongest meat Also in Aegira Bulls blood is so far from being poisonable as it is in all other places that it is held both delicate and restorative so likewise is the blood of a Mare that was never covered for if she once have taken horse her bloud is dangerous Drusus the Tribune purposing to accuse Quintus Caepio of giving him poison drank Goats blood a good while before whereby he waxed so pale and colourless that many indeed suspected him to have been poisoned by Caepio whereby it is manifest that bloud hath been a very ancient nourishment and not lately devised by our country pudding writes or curious sawce makers as Iason Pratensis and other foolish dietists have imagined Nay which is more not onely the blood of beasts hath been given for meat but also the blood of men and striplings hath been drunk for a restorative yea in Rome the seat and nurse of all inhumanity Physicians did prescribe their patients the blood of Wrestlers causing them to suck it warm breathing and spinning out of their veins drawing into their corrupt bodies a sound mans life and sucking that in with both lips which a dogg is not suffered to lick with his tongue yea they were not ashamed to prescribe them a meat made of mans marrow and infants brains The Grecians afterwards were as bold and impious as the Romans tasting of every inward and outward part of mans body not leaving the nails unprosecuted But of all other I wonder most at Marsilius Ficinus a most famous Scholer and accounted for a good Catholick who hath thus written of the use of mans blood No doubt saith he the milk of a young and sound woman is very restorative for old men but the liquor of mans blood is far better which old women-witches knowing to be true they get young children unto them and prick or wound them and suck their blood to preserve their own health and life And why may not then old men I pray you for a need suck likewise the blood of a young man or maid which is merry lusty sound and willing to spare some of his superfluous blood for another mans life wherefore I advise them to suck an ounce or two of blood fasting out of the veine of the left arm at a little orifice towards the full of the moon drinking presently upon it some wine and sugar c. Which though he protesteth himself to have uttered as a great secret though the Prince of Abohaly writ as much before in his Old-mans diet and to be as lawful as it is helpful in Physicks practise yet by his leave I dare again protest and prove the contrary for it is unlawful to gaze upon a mans carcase and is it lawful to eat or drink his blood what remedy call you that which is more savage and abominable then the grief it self what law what reason nay what conjecture found out this canibals diet well let it proceed from the Americans and Barbarians nay from the Grecians that were counted civil Let Democritus dream and comment that some diseases are best cured with anointing the blood of strangers and malefactors others with the blood of our friends and kinsfolks let Miletus cure sore eyes with mens galls Artemon the falling sickness with dead mens sculls Antheus convulsions with
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-FISH 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-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
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
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-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
Plaise called the sea-sparrows because they are brown above and white beneath are of good wholesome and fine nourishment Arnoldus de villa nova writeth thus of them Of all sea-fish Rochets and Gurnards are to be preferred for their flesh is firm and their substance purest of all other Next unto them Plaise and Soles are to be numbred being eaten in time for if either of them be once stale there is no flesh more carrion-like nor more â—roublesome to the belly of man the best Plaise have blackest spots as the best flounders reddest the thicker is most commended and such as are taken upon the Eastern cost as Rye Sandwich and Dover could we have store at all times of such wholesome fish at any reasonable rate Jackalent would be a cock-horse all the year long and butchers meat would go a begging Alausae minores Pilchers differ not only in age as some dream but even in substance and form from Herrings for their flesh is firmer and fuller and their body rounder neither are they of so aguish an operation they are best broild having lien a day in salt and eaten with butter salt pepper Porci marini Porpesses Tursions or sea-hogs are of the nature of swine never good till they be fat contrary to the disposion of Tunnies whose flesh is ever best when they are leanest it is an unsavory meat engendring many superfluous humours augmenting fleagm and troubling no less an indifferent stomach then they trouble the water against a tempest yet many Ladies and Gentlemen love it exceedingly bak't like venison yea I knew a great Gentle-woman in Warwick lane once send for a pasty of it given from a Courtier when the prisoners of Newgate had refused the fellow of it out of the Beggers basket Thus like lips like lettice and that which is most mens bane may be fittest to delight and nourish others Polâ—pi Poulps are hard of digestion naught howsoever they be drest as Platina thinketh But sith Hyppocrates commendeth them to women in childbed I dare not absolutely diswade the eating of them especially sith Diphilus Paulus Aegineta and Aetius commend them likewise saying that they nourish much and excessively provoke lust Indeed if any would eat a live pulp to anger others and to kill himself as Diogenes did though some say that he died of a raw cow-heel others that he stiffeld himself in his cloke no doubt he shall find it a dangerous morsel but being well sodden in salt water and wine and sweet herbs it is as dainty and far more wholesomer then a Mackrel Anates marini Puffins whom I may call the feathered fishes are accounted even by the holy fatherhood of Cardinals to be no flesh but rather fish whose Catholique censure I will not here oppugne though I have just reason for it because I will not encrease the Popes Coffers which no doubt would be filled if every Puffin eater bought a pardon upon true and certain knowledge that a Puffin were flesh albeit perhaps if his Holiness would say that a shoulder of Muton were fish they either would not or could not think it flesh Aranei marini Quawiners for so the Scots and Northen English term them are very subtile and crafty fishes but utterly unwholesome for indifferent stomachs though the poorer sort of the Orcadians eat them for hunger Rubelliones Rochets or rather Rougets because they are so red differ from Gurnards and Curs in that they are redder by a great deal and also lesser they are of the like flesh and goodness yet better fryed with onions butter and vinegar then sodden because they are so little that seething would soke out their best nourishing substance Pectines veneris Scallopes are called Venus Cockles either because she was borne in one of them or because she loved them above all other meat Pliny extolleth the Scallops of Alexandria in Egypt but now the most and best be in Spaine by Compostella whether many lecherous men and women resort to eat Scallops fot the kindling of lust and encrease of nature under the name of a Pilgrimage to Saint James his shrine The whitest are best and least hot all of them encrease lust provoke much urine and nourish strongly Selsey and Purbeck have gotten them credit for them and for Cockles above all the Costs of England they are best being broild with their owne water vinegar pepper and butter but sodden they are held to be unwholesome Phocae Seales flesh is counted as hard of digestion as it is gross of substance especially being old wherefore I leave it to Mariners and Sailers for whose stomachs it is fittest and who know the best way how to prepare it Triches Clupeae Shads have a tender and pleasant flesh but in some months they are so full of bones that the danger in eating them lessneth the pleasure they nourish plentifully especially the Severn shad which in my judgement is void of that viscous humour whereby other shads no less then Mackrels enforce sleepiness to the eater They are best in May June and July for then they are full of flesh and freest of bones Squillae Shrimps are of two sorts the one crookbacked the other straitbacked the first sort is called of Frenchmen Caramots de la sante healthful shrimps because they recover sick and consumed persons of all other they are most nimble witty and skipping and of best juice Shrimps were of great request amongst the Romans and brought in as a principal dish in Venus feasts The best way of preparing them for healthful persons is to boil them in sea or salt water with a little vinegar but for sick and consumed bodies dress them after this sort first wash them clean in barly water then unscale them whilst they are alive and seeth them in chicken broth so are they as much or rather more restorative as the best crabs and crevisses most highly commended by Physitians Futhermore they are unscaled to vent the windiness which is in them being sodden with their scales whereof lust and disposition to venery might arise but no better nor sounder nourishment There is a great kind of Shrimps which are called Prawnes in English and Crangones by Rondeletius highly prized in hectick fevers and consumptions but the crook-backt Shrimp far suprasseth them for that purpose as being of a sweeter taste and more temperate constitution Squatina Skate is skin'd like a File of the same nature with a Thorneback but pleasanter more tender and more available to stir up letchery it is so neer a Thorneback in shape that they often couple and engender together Lingulacae Soleae Soles or Tongue fishes are counted the Partridges of the sea and the fittest meat of all other for sick folks for they are of a good smell a pleasant taste neither of too hard nor too soft a flesh engendring neither too thick nor too thin blood of easie concoction leaving none or few excrements after they be digested Platina fried them as we
do with persly butter and verjuce and sawced them with butter and juce of orenges but for sick persons they are best sodden in water butter and verjuce with a little falt it is a fish impatient of winter and therefore then it lurketh in deep holes but in summer it sporteth it self abroad and offereth it self to be seen when it is most seasonable Chalcides Sprats need no description being one of Jack-a-lents principle pages They smell well being new and fresh resembling therein the river-smelt but their flesh is quezy corruptible and aguish especially if they light on a weak stomach they are worst being smoked or fried indifferent sodden and best broild Chalcides majores Spurlings are but broad Sprats taken chiefly upon our Northern coast which being drest and pickled as Anchovaes be in Provence rather surpass them then come behind them in taste and goodness Were English men as industrious as I could wish we should sel them deerer to the French and Italians then their Anchovaes are sold to us for I have seen some prepared by Dr. Turner which far exceeded theirs but strange things are ever best liked according to that saying of Galen Peregrina quae ignorant magis celebrant mortales quà m quod nativum est quodque esse praeclarum nôrunt Mortal men saith he do more extoll forreign things albeit they know them not then home bred and familiar things though they know them to be excellent Apuae infumatae As for Red Sprats and Spurlings I vonchsafe them not the name of any wholesome nourishment or rather of no nourishment at all commending them for nothing but that they are bawdes to enforce appetite and serve well the poor mans turn to quench hunger Asellus aridus Stockfish whilst is is unbeaten is called Buckhorne because it is so tough when it is beaten upon the stock it is termed stockfish Rondelitius calleth the first Merlucium and Stock-fish Moluam it may be Salpa Plinij for that is a great fish and made tender by age and beating Erasmus thinketh it to be called Stockfish because it nourisheth no more then a dryed stock wherefore howsoever it be sod buter'd fried or baked and made both toothsomer and delectable by good and chargeable cookery yet a stone will be a stone and an ape an ape howsoever the one be set up for a Saint and the other apparelled like a Judge The Stilliard Merchants lay it twenty four hours in strong lye and then as long again in warm waters afterwards they boil it in abundance of butter and so serve it in with pepper and salt which way if any way it is most nourishing because it is made not onely tender but also more moist and warm Now let us stay longer upon the Sturgian esteemed sometime the Monarch of all sea-fish Acipenser Sturgian is thought of Mr. Cogan to be a fish of hard substance not much better in his judgement then Bacon or Brawne although for the rareness it be esteemed of great Estates which I will not deny to be true in old and resty Sturgian but young Sturgian is so far of from being tough or unwholesome that of all other fish it is and was ever most preferred Severus and his followers did so esteem it though Trajan for an in borne hatred could not abide it that whensoever any great feast was kept the chiefe Gentleman of his Court carried up the Sturgian all gilded over with gold and attended with minstrelsy and carolling as though a solemn Pageant or Saints shrine were to be carried about the City Galen likewise and Tully affirm it to be of a sweet delicate and good nourishment Cordan compareth it with Veal but indeed it is far sweeter Sturgians livers are so exceeding sweet that at Hamborough they rub them over with the broken gall lest the stomach should be cloyed with over swetness The great and full grown Sturgians are better then the less and the Male then the Female and they which suck and lye at the mouths of Rivers are counted sweeter then they which are taken in the main sea it feeds not as other fish do upon flies worms fish-spawne or roots but sucketh like a Lamprey because it hath no teeth of such sweet morsels or offall as happily it findeth One thing is admirable in this fish that albeit clean contrary to other fishes the scales turn toward the head yet against the side and stream it swimeth fasteth Physicians forbid all Sturgian especially the head and fore-rand to aguish persons and such as be lately recovered of agues because they are so fat and oily that their stomachs will convert them into choler At Danske and Hamborough whence we have the best sometimes they are roasted being stickt full of cloves but then the belly onely is toothsome which eateth like Veal or rather better if such sawce be made unto it as we use to roasted Venison Otherwhiles they are broild and basted with oil and vinegar having been first a little corned with salt but if Sturgian be well sod and then kept in convenient pickle of all other preparations it is the chiefest being eaten with vinegar and sweet fennel They are first sod in two parts of water one of white wine and one of white wine vinegar with sufficient salt verveine and dill as long as one would seeth a legg of Veal then being cold they are divided into jouls and rands and put up into barrels or kegs with store of Rhenish wine wine vinegar and seawater wherein having lain half a year they become a light toothsome and singular good meat to an indifferent and temperate stomach As for Cavialie or their eggs being poudred let Turks Grecians Venetians and Spaniards celebrate them never so much yet the Italian Proverb will ever be true Chi mangia di Caviale Mangia moschi merdi salae He that eateth of Cavialies Eateth falt dung and flies I commend the flesh of Sturgian chiefly to hot and distasted stomachs to young men and especially in Sommer at which time eaten with gilly-flour vinegar it slaketh thirst sharpneth appetite setleth the stomach delayeth heat and giveth both a temperate and a sound nourishment Xiphij Sword-fishes are much whiter and pleasanter in taste then Tunny but as hard of digestion and therefore unworthy any longer discourse Raja Thornback which Charles Chester merily and not unfitly calleth Neptunes beard was extolled by Antiphanes in Athenaeus history for a dainty fish indeed it is of a pleasant taste but of a stronger smell then Skate over-moist to nourish much but not so much as to hinder lust which it mightily encreaseth Albertus thinks it as hard to be concocted as any beefe whose judgement I suspect sith Hippocrates permits it in long Consumptions Assuredly if not the flesh yet the liver is marvelous sweet and of great nourishment which the very taste and consistence thereof will sufficiently demonstrate Thorneback is good sodden especially the liver of it though Dorion the
a Bream are most esteemed for their tenderness shortness and well rellishing Some bake a Carp with spice fruit and butter but in my judgment being sodden like a Bream it is of as good a taste and better nourishment A red Cavialie is made of their spawne in Italy much eaten and desired of the Iewes for that they dare not eat of the Cavialie of Sturgians Seales and Tunny because they are onely to feed upon scaled fish and such as carry fins above all things see that your Carps stink not of mud nor fenny filth for they cannot then be wholesome for mans body Locustellae Astaci Carabi Crevisses and Shrimps were appointed by God saith Dorion as Athenaeus writeth for quezy stomachs and give also a kind of exercise for such as be weak for head and brest must first be divided from their bodies then each of them must be dis scaled and clean picked with much pidling then the long gut lying along the back of the Crevisse is to be voided Lastly the small clawes are to be broken wherein lyeth part of the best meat Crevisses feed upon fish water-herbs and sweet clay but most gladly upon the livers of young beasts before we are to use them it were good to diet them in a cistern with crumbs of white bread for three or four dayes together so will they be cleans`d of all impurities and give a more strong and fine nourishment They should be sodden in the water whence they were taken with a little salt and never kept above a day after for they will soon smell and putrifie we do foolishly to eat them last being a fine temperate and nourishing meat They are best from the Spring until Autumn and at the full of the Moon they are most commendable The Females likewise are better then the Males which a wise man will soon discern for consumed persons they are first to be washed in barly water and then to be sodden in milk being first dis-caled till they be tender according as before I wrote of Shrimps Leucisci Daces or Darts or Dares be of a sweet taste a soft flesh and good nourishment either sod or broild or pickled like Anchovaes after the Italian manner Anguillae Eeles have so sweet a flesh that they and Lampreyes were dedicated to that filthy Goddess Gula or gluttony yet withall it is so unwholesome that some Zoilus or Momus would have accused nature for putting so sweet a taste into so dangerous a meat for Eeles as Hippocrates writeth live most willingly in muddy places and in his Epidemiques he rehearseth many mischiefs to have happened to divers through eating of Eeles they give much nourishment but very corruptible they loosen the belly but bring fluxes they open the wind-pipes but stop the liver they clear the voice but infect the lungs they encrease seed but yet no good seed finally they bring agues hurt the stomach and kidneys engender gravel cause the strangury sharpen the gout and fill us full of many diseases they are worst in Sommer but never wholesom the elder ones are least hurtful and if any be harmless it is the silver-bellied and the sandy Eele Arnoldus de villa nova saith that no Eele is free from a venemous malignity and a kind of gluish suffocating juice But Jovius reporteth that some Eeles are engendred in a little River by Cremona less a great deal then our little griggs hurtful in no disease but of a pure wholesome and good nourishment which I will believe because so grave a Chronicler reporteth it otherwise I should think ill with Hippocrates of all Eeles even of those little ones as well as the Eeles in Ganges which are thirty foot long as Pliny writeth Verily when Eeles only sink to the bottom and all other fishes float after they are dead it cannot but argue them to be of a muddy nature little participating of that aâ—ereal substance which moveth and lightneth other fishes Again sith like an Owle it never comes abroad to feed but in the night time it argueth a melancholick disposition in it self and a likelihood to beget the like in us Great Eeles are best roasted and broild because their maligne humour lieth more next under the skin then in their flesh which is corrected or evapourated by the fire Next of all they are best poudred and sowced and baked with butter salt and pepper but worst being sodden in water ale and yeast as commonly they are for the yeast addeth one maglinnity to another and doth more hurt then I can express to the stomach liver and blood Rhombi fluviatiles Flounders if they be thick and well grown are a most wholesome and light meat being sod with water and verjuice or fried with vinegar and butter but the little Flounders called Dabs as they are little esteemed of so their watrish and flaggy flesh doth justly deserve it Thymi Grailings called both of Greeks and Latins Thymi because their flesh smelleth like thime when they be in season are a white firm and yet a tender meat tasting no worse then it smels and nourishing plentifully Seeth it in such sort as was described in our Treatise before of dressing Breams and you will find few fishes comparable unto it of all scaled fishes they only want a gall which perhaps is the cause of their greater excellency Gobiones Gudgins are of two sorts one whiter and very little the other bigger and blackish both are as wholesome as a Perch but if any be found yellowish they are dry lean and unseasonable Galen commendeth their flesh exceedingly not onely because it is short and pleasant in taste being fat and friable but also for that it is soon concocted nourisheth much and encreaseth good blood They are best which lye about rocky and gravelly places for fenny and lake Gudgeons be not wholesome Paganelli Rondeletius in his book of fishes mentioneth two Sea Gudgins called Paganelli of a far greater length and bigness then ours are of which our Western fishermen call by the name of Sea-cobs they sometimes come up the River of Vske where they are taken and brought to Exceter and accounted as they are indeed a most sound light wholesom and nourishing meat Capitones Gulls Guffs Pulches Chevins and Millers thombs are a kind of jolt-headed Gudgins very sweet tender and wholesome especially when they be with spawne for their eggs are many and fat giving good nourishment and though their flesh be hard in Albertus judgment yet it never putrifieth and is well digested Funduli Groundlings are also a kind of Gudgins never lying from the ground freckled as it were on each side with seven or eight spots they are seasonable in March April and May the best lye lowest and feed finest sucking upon gravel but they which lye neer to great Cities feed upon filth and delight in the dead carcasses of men and beasts therefore called of the Germans Leijtessers All sorts of Gudgins be wholesom either sod or fried
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-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
may fat himself with froggs and filth Futhermore when a Pike is big and full grown is not his flesh rather to be counted hard then firm indeed I will not deny but a Pike of a middle sise fed in gravelly ponds with fresh livers of beasts sodden crisp in wine-vinegar and sweet-herbs is of no bad nourishment for any man but fittest for hot chollerick stomachs and young persons Macrobius writeth that the best Pike is taken in a clear River betwixt two bridges but I never saw them fat in any clear River and therefore I suspect their goodness Certain it is that old great Pikes are very hard tough and ill to digest young ones called Jacks are contrariwise to watrish and moist Chuse therefore one of a middle growth for it is most likely to nourish us best The Germans having split them along the back thrust their tails into their mouths and then fry them a little with sweet butter then they take them out of the frying pan and boil them as long as one would seeth an egg with wine water vinegar and salt gallopping on the fire and last of all having sprinckled it over with the powder of cloves cinamon and ginger they serve it to the Table Rutili Roches or Roch fishes called so of Saint Roch that Legendary Aesculapius and giver of health are esteemed and thought uncapable of any disease according to the old Proverb As sound as a Roch. Hence have men collected that the flesh of them is light sound and wholesome which verily is not to be denied being sodden like a Bream they are full of bones which maketh them the less regarded though wisemen know well enough that roses are roses albeit their tree be dangerous and full of thornes Cernuae Aspredines Ruffs or Ruggels are not much unlike to Perches for the goodness of their flesh though their skin be rougher the best live in sandy places where they wax exceeding fat and sweet dress them as you do perches some take them for the Base and verily by Gesners description they disagree as much as nothing Salmones Salmons are of a fatty tender short and sweet flesh quickly filling the stomach and soon glutting Gesner commendeth them that go fardest up into fresh Rivers accounting them worst which are taken nearest the Sea which I find to be true in the difference betwixt the Salmons of upper Severn betwixt Shrewsbury and Beaudly and the Salmons taken betwixt Glocester and Bristowe Nevertheless if they go too high up the River they wax leaner for want of sufficient nourishment as manifestly appeareth which I my self have seen in the Salmon of the Rhine taken at Ringfielden beyond Basel and at Oppenheim above the City of Ments Salmons come in and go out with the Buck for towards Winter they wax kipper full of kernels under their throate like a measeld hogg and lose both their redness of flesh and also the pleasure of tast which else it giveth they are to be sodden wholly in wine or wholly in water for if they be sodden in both they prove tough and unpleasant it is best to seeth them in wine vinegar and salt or else parboile them onely in water being cut into certain pieces and having stickt those pieces full of cloves broil them upon a gridiron and bast them with butter and serve them in with sawce made of vinegar cinamon and sugar Some have pickled Salmon as Sturgian is used and find it to be as dainty and no less wholesom but salt Salmon loseth a double goodness the one of a good taste the other of a good nourishment Hot Salmon is counted unwholesome in England and suspected as a leprous meat without all reason for if it be sodden in wine and afterwards well spiced there is no danger of any such accident As for Salmon peales which indeed are nothing but Sea Trouts howsoever they be highly commended of the Western and Welch people yet are they never enough commended being a more light wholesom and well tasted meat then the Salmon it self Salmunculi Shuins seem unto me akind of Salmon whereof plenty is taken in the River running by Cardiff castle but it surpasseth the Salmon as much in goodness as it is surpassed by him in length and greatness boil it in wine vinegar salt and sweet herbs and you shall find it a delicate and wholesome fish Violaceae Epelani Rondeletij Smellts are so called because they smell so sweet yea if you draw them and then dry them in a shadowy place being seasonably taken they still retain a smell as it were of violets Their flesh is of the finest lightest softest and best juce of all other fish their excellency is in winter and whensoever they are full of spawne Western smelts have the greatest commendation for their greatness and goodness Void the gall cleanly and then use the livers guts bellies and fat for great restoratives The best are taken by Kew and Brainford within eight miles of London and at Westchester Seeth them in hot boiling water and salt and take them out as soon as they are sodden for lying long in the water they will wax flaggy their sawce is butter and verjuce mingled with a little gross pepper but if you fry them in butter eat them with the juice of civil-orenges for that is their best sawce Truttae Trouts are so great in Northumberland that they seem thicker then Salmons and are therefore called Bull-trouts there are especially two sorts of them Red-trouts resembling little fresh-water Salmons and therefore termed Salmon-trouts and Gray-trouts or Skurffs which keep not in the chanel of Bournes or Rivers but lurk like the Alderlings under the roots of great Alders they are both a very pleasant and good meat for sound persons but they are fouly mistaken which prefer them in agues before Perches whose flesh is tender friable light of good juice and speedy concoction when they are in no one thing comparable unto them they are best being sodden like a Bream and eaten hot for being eaten cold they lose much of their grace and more of their goodness Tincae Tenches are naturally such friends to Pikes that pitty it is they should be separated yet sith I have followed the order of the Alphabet I could not but divide them in name though they agree in nature Old writers hardly vouchsafe to mention them because they were onely esteemed as beggers meat the very feeling and smell of them shew that a Tench is but a muddy and slimy fish Albertus living 1252 years after Christ was the first that ever wrote of the nature of the Tench His flesh is stopping slimy viscous and very unwholesome and as Alexander Benedictus writeth of a most unclean and damnable nourishment Antonius Gazius saith that a fried Tench is a secret poison and I remember that Dr. Cajus whose learning I reverence was wont to call Tenches good plaisters but bad nourishers For indeed being outwardly laid to the soles of ones feet they oftentimes draw away
the ague but inwardly taken they engender palsies stop the lungs putrifie in the stomach and bring a man that much eats them to infinite diseases they are very hard of digestion burdensome to the stomach encreasing slimy nourishment and breeding palsies and appoplexies in the head From May to November they are very dangerous afterwards hot cholerick and labouring men may be refreshed by them but none else they are worst being fried best being kept in gelly made strong of wine and spices Umbrae Umbers have a dry and whitish flesh like the flesh of gray-trouts being of the like substance quality and goodness and needing no other preparation The belly of it is preferred before the other parts and is wholesomest in the Dog daies Pisanellus saith that it is called Umbra in Latin because it swimmeth in the river like a shaddow and he commendeth it exceedingly for young and hot stomacks as that also it is soon concocted and encreaseth seed CHAP. XX. Of such living Creatures and Meats as be neither Flesh nor Fish and yet give good nourishment to the body Cochelae terrestres SNails are little esteemed of us in England but in Barbarie Spaine and Italy they are eaten as a most dainty wholesome nourishing and restoring meat Let us beware when and in what sort we use them for they are naught whilst they feed but towards winter having scoured themselves from all excrements and batled themselves fat with sleep then are they wholesomest also if they feed in woods or in gardens full of Physick-hearbs they are strong both of smell and taste and dangerous to eat of They desire of all other herbs to feed of deffadills and asphodils but then they are not so good as those that feed upon other herbs and fruits but especially upon Dew-berries In Cales and Spain they feed chiefly upon orenge flouers which makes them very pleasant in eating In the Islands of Majorca and Minorca they never come out of their caves but live by sucking one anothers shell hanging together like a gluster of grapes which no doubt are of a purer substance then ours that suck and feed upon all herbs Fulvius Hilpinus not long before the civil war betwixt Caesar and Pompey made in his garden several snail-parks as I may call them keeping every kind by themselves there might one find the white snails of Reate the gray and great snails of Illyricum the fruitful snails of Africa and the Solitan snails most famous and excellent of all others which he suffered not to feed upon what they listed but made certain papp with sweet wine hony and flour whereby they were fed so fat and became so wholsome sweet and delicate that they were highly esteemed being sold every dishfull for Fourscore Quadrants But sith no man is in hope to gain so much by that Occupation they which must needs use them may chuse them in this sort First let them choose them of middle size feeding all Sommer time in hilly places upon wholesome Herbs Secondly let them not eat them till September be past for by that time they are thoroughly purged of all Excrements Also they are unfit for weak cold and moist Complexions because they themselves are cold in the first degree and moist in the second They are best for hot stomacks cholerick constitutions thirsty distemperatures watchfull brains and men troubled with Ulcers of the lungs and free from all stoppings and inflammations of the Kidneys Pliny wills them to be first parboyl'd in warm Water with sweet Herbs and then to be broyld upon the Coles and to be eaten ever in an odd number but if you dress them as Apicius appoints Periwinckles to be drest which I before described in the Treatise of Periwinckles they will prove a light wholsome and good nourishment Testudines Tortisses are likewise no usuall Meat amongst us yet because I see no reason but that Riot may bring them in and make them as familiar unto us as Turkies are I will write something of their choice use hurtfulness correction and degrees of Temperature Choose ever the greatest fullest of Eggs liveliest eyed and fatted at home with the best meat Their flesh nourishes plentifully and recovers men out of Consumptions Yet is it slowly digested of weak stomacks engendering thick and phlegmatick blood and making the eaters sleepy and sloathfull Wherefore seeth him thoroughly in many Waters with sweet Herbs and hot Spices especially for that it is no less cold then Snailes and fully as moist agreeing only at such times of the year and for such kinde of persons as Snails be thought convenient for Ramae Frogs are of hard concoction troublesome to the stomack breeding much phlegme and giving no sound yea rather a bad juice Yet Water frogs are best of the bigger sort and both bred and taken in a dry season Their hinder parts and Livers which be two in each are the best to be eaten and being throughly sodd in oyle salt-salt-water and Vinegar and eaten with sawce made of sweet Herbs Onions and Scallions they are no bad meat for cholerick young men though for old and phlegmatick persons they be wholly unprofitable They are moist in the first degree and cold in the second and therefore to be corrected with hot and drying simples Mel Honey and Bread was a great Meat with Pythagoras and his Scholars and counted a sufficient food for a temperate life For Bread strengthens the body and Hony both nourishes much and also cleanseth away superfluities Pollio Romulus being asked by Augustus the Emperor how he lived so long By nourishing saith he my inwards with Honey and my outward parts with oyle The like answer likewise made Democritus being demanded the like question Furthermore it is so generall a Meat thorough all Russia that the Children eat it on their bread every morning as ours do Butter to their breakfast with whom and with Old men it agreeth exceeding well clensing their breasts opening their pipes warming their stomachs resisting putrifaction procuring solubleness and urine and engendring sweet and commendable blood but young men whose moisture is less then childrens through sharpness of heat and whose stomachs are hotter then old mens by much eating of hony inflame their blood encrease choler bloody fluxes wind and obstructions together with a continual loathing of meat and a disposition to vomit hony-cakes were wont to be a great dish in old times at the end of bankets as ginger-bread is with us which custome Macrobius and Gellius have justly reproved because sweet things being last eaten open the mouth of the stomach which after meat should be closed and as it were sealed up to help concoction Wherefore Pisanellus doth very well in prescribing us to eat sugar-rosat or some soure fruits after hony to prevent the engendring of choler in the stomach and to help the same whilst it concocteth Raw hony is never good therefore clarifie it throughly at the fire and
but somewhat of too dry a nature yet prove they moist enough to give plentiful nourishment after they have been preserved in syrupe or candied with ginger encreasing blood seed and lust and restoring such as by lechery have been much consumed Radices Sisari Skirret-roots were so sweet delicate in ancient times that Tiberius Caesar caused the Inhabitants of Gelduba a certain signory upon the Rhine to pay him tribute at Rome in Skirret-roots bringing them weekly thither whilst they were in season They have a long string or pith within them which being taken away before they are thorough sod maketh them eat exceeding sweet usually they are boild till they be tender and then eaten cold with vinegar oil and pepper but if they be roasted four or five together in a wet paper under embers as one would roast a Potado or strain'd into tart-stuff and so baked with sugar butter and rosewater they are far more pleasant and of stronger nourishment agreeing with all complexions sexes and ages being also of a mild heat and a temperate moisture Did we know all the strength and vertues of them they would be much nourished in our Gardens and equally esteemed with any Potado root Cepa Ascalonites Skallions are a kind of little Onions brought first from Ascalon a Town of Jewry very hot and dry yea hotter and drier by one degree then any Onions Cold stomachs and barren weaklings may safely eat them raw to procure appetite and lust but they are not nourishing to indifferent stomachs till they have been perboild in new milk Some correct them by mincing them small and steeping them a good while in warm water afterwards they eat them with vinegar oil and salt after the Italian fashion Spinachia Spinache being boiled soft and then eaten with butter small currens and sugar heat together upon a chafing dish giveth no bad nor little nourishment to dried bodies and is onely hurtful to such as be over-phlegmatick Fragulae Strawberries of the garden be they white red or green but the red are best being once come to their full ripeness in a warm Summer and growing in a warm ground are to a young hot stomach both meat and medicine Medicin to cool his choler excessive heat meat by his temperate and agreeable moisture fit at that time of the year to be converted into blood especially being eaten raw with wine and sugar or else made into tart stuff and so baked howsoever they be prepared let every man take heed by Melchior Duke of Brunswick how he eateth too much of them who is recorded to have burst a sunder at Rostock with surfeiting upon them Cranz lib. 9. cap. 9. Hist Vandal Radix spirae albae Thistle-roots I mean of the white thistle when it first springeth are exceeding restorative and nourishing being sodden in white stued broth or else baked in Tarts or in Pies like Artichoks few men would think so good meat to lye hidden in so base and abject an herb had not trial and cookery found out the vertue of it Rapae rotunde Turneps in commendation whereof Moschio the Grecian wrote a large volumn are nothing but round Rapes whereof heretofore we writ in this Chapter Nastureia aquatica Water-cresses and Town-cresses nourish raw and cold stomachs very well but for hot or indifferent stomachs they are of a contrary nature Xenophon saith that the Persians children going to School carry nothing with them to eat and drink but Cresses in the one hand and Bread in the other and an earthen cruse at their girdle to take up water in whereby we may perceive that they agree well with moist natures and such as are accustomed to drink water Otherwise no doubt they nourish nothing but rather over heat and burn the blood As for Anise Blites Blood-wort Broom-buds Gapars Calamint Clary Dill Fennel Galangal Hisope Marigolds Mustard-seed Mints Nettles Orache Patience Primroses Rosemary Saffron Sage Samphire Savory Tamarisk Tansy Tarragon Time Violets and Wormwood howsoever they are used sometimes in broths pottage farrings sawces salads and tansies yet no nourishment is gotten by them or at the least so little that they need not nor ought not to be counted amongst nourishments CHAP. XXIV Of such Fruits of the Field as are nourishing THe chief fruits of the field are Wheate Rye Rice Barly Oates Beanes Chiches Pease and Lentils Triticum Wheate is divided into divers kinds by Pliny Columella Dodonaeus Pena and Lobelius it shall be sufficient for us to describe the sorts of this Country which are especially two The one red called Robus by Columella and the other very white and light called Siligo whereof is made our purest manchet Being made into Furmity and sodden with milk and sugar or artificially made into bread Wheate nourisheth exceeding much and strongly the hardest thickest heaviest cleanest brightest and growing in a fat soil is ever to be chosen for such Wheate in Dioscorides and Galens judgement is most nourishing Secale Rye seemeth to be nothing but a wild kind of wheate meet for Labourers Servants and Workmen but heavy of digestion to indifferent stomachs Oriza Rice is a most strong and restorative meat discommendable onely in that it is over-binding very wholesome pottage is made thereof with new milk sugar cinamon mace and nutmegs whose astringency if any man fear let him soke the Rice one night before in sweet Whey and afterwards boil it in new milk with sugar butter cloves and nutmegs leaving out cinamon and mace Thus shall the body be nourished costiveness prevented and nature much strengthened and encreased Hordeum Barly used any way in bread drink or broth is ever cooling saith Galen and engendreth but a thin and weak juice Before we use it in broths or Ptisan it should be clean hulld and washed in many waters The decoction of Barly in chicken-broth strained with a few blauncht almonds and sweetned with sugar and rosewater is a very covenient meat for sound men but more for them which are sick and abhor flesh Cardan saith that Galen maketh mention of a kind of Barly in Greece growing without a husk and hulld by nature which place he never citeth because he was mistaken for through all Galen I could never find any such thing though of purpose I searched for it very diligently The best Barly is the biggest and yellowest without and fullest closest and heaviest within it is never to be used in meat till it be half a year old because lying causeth it to ripen better and to be also far less windy Being made into Malt by a sweet fire and good cunning it is the foundation of our English wine which being as well made as it is at Notâ—ingam proveth meat drink and cloth to the poorer sort Parched Barly or Malt is hot and dry but otherwise it is temperately cooling and less drying That Wheate and Rye is far more nourishing then Barly Plutarch would thence prove because they are half a year
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