The art of dining, or, Gastronomy and gastronomers / by A. Hayward.

  • Hayward, A. (Abraham), 1801-1884.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The art of dining, or, Gastronomy and gastronomers / by A. Hayward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    sand pounds sterling left, killed himself for fear of dying of hunger. The period comprising the fall of the Roman em- pire and the greater portion of the middle ages, was one of unmitigated darkness for the fine arts. Charle- magne, as appears from his Capitularies, took a warm personal interest in the management of his table; and the Normans, two or three centuries later, are said to have prided themselves on their superior taste and discrimination in this respect. Sir Walter Scott had good authority for the graphic details of their real or affected refinement which are contained in his description of Prince John’s banquet in ‘Ivanhoe. But the revival of cookery, like that of learning, is due to Italy. We are unable to fix the precise time when it there began to be cultivated with success, but it met with the most enlightened encouragement from the merchant-princes of Florence, and the French received the first rudiments of the science from the professors who accompanied Catherine de Medicis to Paris.* There is a remarkable passage in Montaigne, which shows that the Italian cooks had leamt to put a proper estimate on their vocation, and that their mode of viewing it was still new to the French. “ I have seen amongst us,” says Montaigne, “ one of those artists who had been in the service of Cardinal Ca- raffa. He discoursed to me of this science de gueule with * It is clearly established that they introduced the use of ices into France. Fricandeaus were invented by the chef of Leo X. Coryat, in his ‘Crudities Gobbled Up,’ writing in the reign of James I., savs that he was called “ Furcifer ” by his friends, from his using their “ Italian neatnesses namely forks.”