Part 13

About the same date melons begin to appear; but the management of this vegetable fruit was not much known. It was so imperfectly cultivated in the northern provinces, that, in the middle of the sixteenth century, Bruyérin Champier speaks of the Languedocians as alone knowing how to produce excellent sucrins--"thus called," say both Charles Estienne and Liébault in the "Maison Rustique," "because gardeners watered them with honeyed or sweetened water." The water-melons have never been cultivated but in the south.

Cabbages, the alimentary reputation of which dates from the remotest times, were already of several kinds, most of which have descended to us; amongst them may be mentioned the apple-headed, the Roman, the white, the common white head, the Easter cabbage, &c.; but the one held in the highest estimation was the famous cabbage of Senlis, whose leaves, says an ancient author, when opened, exhaled a smell more agreeable than musk or amber. This species no doubt fell into disuse when the plan of employing aromatic herbs in cooking, which was so much in repute by our ancestors, was abandoned.

By a strange coincidence, at the same period as marjoram, carraway seed, sweet basil, coriander, lavender, and rosemary were used to add their pungent flavour to sauces and hashes, on the same tables might be found herbs of the coldest and most insipid kinds, such as mallows, some kinds of mosses, &c.

Cucumber, though rather in request, was supposed to be an unwholesome vegetable, because it was said that the inhabitants of Forez, who ate much of it, were subject to periodical fevers, which might really have been caused by noxious emanation from the ponds with which that country abounded. Lentils, now considered so wholesome, were also long looked upon as a doubtful vegetable; according to Liébault, they were difficult to digest and otherwise injurious; they inflamed the inside, affected the sight, and brought on the nightmare, &c. On the other hand, small fresh beans, especially those sold at Landit fair, were used in the most delicate repasts; peas passed as a royal dish in the sixteenth century, when the custom was to eat them with salt pork.

Turnips were also most esteemed by the Parisians. "This vegetable is to them," says Charles Estienne, "what large radishes are to the Limousins." The best were supposed to come from Maisons, Vaugirard, and Aubervilliers. Lastly, there were four kinds of lettuces grown in France, according to Liébault, in 1574: the small, the common, the curled, and the Roman: the seed of the last-named was sent to France by François Rabelais when he was in Rome with Cardinal du Bellay in 1537; and the salad made from it consequently received the name of Roman salad, which it has ever since retained. In fact, our ancestors much appreciated salads, for there was not a banquet without at least three or four different kinds.

Fruits.--Western Europe was originally very poor in fruits, and it only improved by foreign importations, mostly from Asia by the Romans. The apricot came from Armenia, the pistachio-nuts and plums from Syria, the peach and nut from Persia, the cherry from Cerasus, the lemon from Media, the filbert from the Hellespont, and chestnuts from Castana, a town of Magnesia. We are also indebted to Asia for almonds; the pomegranate, according to some, came from Africa, to others from Cyprus; the quince from Cydon in Crete; the olive, fig, pear, and apple, from Greece.

The statutes of Charlemagne show us that almost all these fruits were reared in his gardens, and that some of them were of several kinds or varieties.

A considerable period, however, elapsed before the finest and more luscious productions of the garden became as it were almost forced on nature by artificial means. Thus in the sixteenth century we find Rabelais, Charles Estienne, and La Framboisière, physician to Henry IV., praising the Corbeil peach, which was only an inferior and almost wild sort, and describing it as having "dry and solid flesh, not adhering to the stone." The culture of this fruit, which was not larger than a damask plum, had then, according to Champier, only just been introduced into France. It must be remarked here that Jacques Coythier, physician to Louis XI., in order to curry favour with his master, who was very fond of new fruits, took as his crest an apricot-tree, from which he was jokingly called Abri-Coythier.

It must be owned that great progress has been made in the culture of the plum, the pear, and the apple. Champier says that the best plums are the royale, the perdrigon, and the damas of Tours; Olivier de Serres mentions eighteen kinds--amongst which, however, we do not find the celebrated Reine Claude (greengage), which owes its name to the daughter of Louis XII., first wife of Francis I.

Of pears, the most esteemed in the thirteenth century were the hastiveau, which was an early sort, and no doubt the golden pear now called St. Jean, the caillou or chaillou, a hard pear, which came from Cailloux in Burgundy and l'angoisse (agony), so called on account of its bitterness--which, however, totally disappeared in cooking. In the sixteenth century the palm is given to the cuisse dame, or madame; the bon chrétien, brought, it is said, by St. François de Paule to Louis XI.; the bergamote, which came from Bergamo, in Lombardy; the tant-bonne, so named from its aroma; and the caillou rosat, our rosewater pear.

Amongst apples, the blandureau (hard white) of Auvergne, the rouveau, and the paradis of Provence, are of oldest repute. This reminds us of the couplet by the author of the "Street Cries of Paris," thirteenth century:--

"Primes ai pommes de rouviau, Et d'Auvergne le blanc duriau."

("Give me first the russet apple, And the hard white fruit of Auvergne.")

The quince, which was so generally cultivated in the Middle Ages, was looked upon as the most useful of all fruits. Not only did it form the basis of the farmers' dried preserves of Orleans, called cotignac, a sort of marmalade, but it was also used for seasoning meat. The Portugal quince was the most esteemed; and the cotignac of Orleans had such a reputation, that boxes of this fruit were always given to kings, queens, and princes on entering the towns of France. It was the first offering made to Joan of Arc on her bringing reinforcements into Orleans during the English siege.

Several sorts of cherries were known, but these did not prevent the small wild or wood cherry from being appreciated at the tables of the citizens; whilst the cornouille, or wild cornelian cherry, was hardly touched, excepting by the peasants; thence came the proverbial expression, more particularly in use at Orleans, when a person made a silly remark, "He has eaten cornelians," i.e., he speaks like a rustic.

In the thirteenth century, chestnuts from Lombardy were hawked in the streets; but, in the sixteenth century, the chestnuts of the Lyonnais and Auvergne were substituted, and were to be found on the royal table. Four different sorts of figs, in equal estimation, were brought from Marseilles, Nismes, Saint-Andéol, and Pont Saint-Esprit; and in Provence, filberts were to be had in such profusion that they supplied from there all the tables of the kingdom.

The Portuguese claim the honour of having introduced oranges from China; however, in an account of the house of Humbert, Dauphin of Viennois, in 1333, that is, long before the expeditions of the Portuguese to India, mention is made of a sum of money being paid for transplanting orange-trees.

In the time of Bruyérin Champier, physician to Henry II., raspberries were still completely wild; the same author states that wood strawberries had only just at that time been introduced into gardens, "by which," he says, "they had attained a larger size, though they at the same time lost their quality."

The vine, acclimatised and propagated by the Gauls, ever since the followers of Brennus had brought it from Italy, five hundred years before the Christian era, never ceased to be productive, and even to constitute the natural wealth of the country (Fig. 81 and 82). In the sixteenth century, Liébault enumerated nineteen sorts of grapes, and Olivier de Serres twenty-four, amongst which, notwithstanding the eccentricities of the ancient names, we believe that we can trace the greater part of those plants which are now cultivated in France. For instance, it is known that the excellent vines of Thomery, near Fontainebleau, which yield in abundance the most beautiful table grape which art and care can produce, were already in use in the reign of Henry IV. (Fig. 83).

In the time of the Gauls the custom of drying grapes by exposing them to the sun, or to a certain amount of artificial heat, was already known; and very soon after, the same means were adopted for preserving plums, an industry in which then, as now, the people of Tours and Rheims excelled. Drying apples in an oven was also the custom, and formed a delicacy which was reserved for winter and spring banquets. Dried fruits were also brought from abroad, as mentioned in the "Book of Street Cries in Paris:"--

"Figues de Mélités sans fin, J'ai roisin d'outre mer, roisin."

("Figs from Malta without end, And grapes from over the sea.")

Butchers' Meat.--According to Strabo, the Gauls were great eaters of meat, especially of pork, whether fresh or salted. "Gaul," says he, "feeds so many flocks, and, above all, so many pigs, that it supplies not only Rome, but all Italy, with grease and salt meat." The second chapter of the Salic law, comprising nineteen articles, relates entirely to penalties for pig-stealing; and in the laws of the Visigoths we find four articles on the same subject.

Illustration: Fig 85.--A Burgess at Meals.

Miniatures from the Calendar of a Book of Hours.--Manuscript of the Sixteenth Century.]

In those remote days, in which the land was still covered with enormous forests of oak, great facilities were offered for breeding pigs, whose special liking for acorns is well known. Thus the bishops, princes, and lords caused numerous droves of pigs to be fed on their domains, both for the purpose of supplying their own tables as well as for the fairs and markets. At a subsequent period, it became the custom for each household, whether in town or country, to rear and fatten a pig, which was killed and salted at a stated period of the year; and this custom still exists in many provinces. In Paris, for instance, there was scarcely a bourgeois who had not two or three young pigs. During the day these unsightly creatures were allowed to roam in the streets; which, however, they helped to keep clean by eating up the refuse of all sorts which was thrown out of the houses. One of the sons of Louis le Gros, while passing, on the 2nd of October, 1131, in the Rue du Martroi, between the Hôtel de Ville and the church of St. Gervais, fractured his skull by a fall from his horse, caused by a pig running between that animal's legs. This accident led to the first order being issued by the provosts, to the effect that breeding pigs within the town was forbidden. Custom, however, deep-rooted for centuries, resisted this order, and many others on the same subject which followed it: for we find, under Francis I., a license was issued to the executioner, empowering him to capture all the stray pigs which he could find in Paris, and to take them to the Hôtel Dieu, when he should receive either five sous in silver or the head of the animal.

It is said that the holy men of St. Antoine, in virtue of the privilege attached to the popular legend of their patron, who was generally represented with a pig, objected to this order, and long after maintained the exclusive right of allowing their pigs to roam in the streets of the capital.

The obstinate determination with which every one tried to evade the administrative laws on this subject, is explained, in fact, by the general taste of the French nation for pork. This taste appears somewhat strange at a time when this kind of food was supposed to engender leprosy, a disease with which France was at that time overrun.