The Portland daily press., 1880-02-05

announces the uncovering OF wild boar surrounded
by farrow in sweetmeats The boar contains a
flock of field-fares and the carver making cash
in its side with hunting knife they fly out
Falernian one hundred years old.
An enormous pig, stuffed with puddings and sau-
sages. This is piece de resistance, and Trimalehio
silver leaves and a drinking cup.
DESSERT.
Thrushes in pastry stuffed with raisins and nuts.
Ounces made to resemble sea-urchins
Snails a silver gridron.
A fat goose surrounded by fish and fowl made out
of pork.
(2.)
Falernian rd lib.
(3.)
hot bath.
a.
A light repast in Nine. Trimalchio's saloon.
More Falernian.
Trimalchio, full of wine, represents his own
funeral.
(5.)
A hubbub-Enter the watchman, exeunt the
guests.
What sorry figure the average American
would have cut at Trimalchio's where the pie
and the Falernian were the bases of the entire
course. He would have appeared to better adj
vantage in the dinner talk. The set OF which
Trimalchio was the center did not affect
knowledge of protoplasin, COCOON or anthropo.
morphic types; but they talked inordinately OF
the piles Of money they had made out OF wool
and bees, ships and slave trading. Nine. Tri-
malchio was according to Petronius, vulgar,
chattering old dame, with keen relish for
scandal and an affectation for Homeric recita-
tions. Their vulgarity, however, was re-
deemed in some degree by the majestic SIM
plicty and the robustiousness Of their pies,
which attest corpus sanum if not a nlens sdna;
but shoddyism, that pampers itself with sickly
custard and is equal to nothing stronger than
hotel pastry, is intolerably odious. The Tri-
malchian epoch was not by any means the
great pie epoch. The pie proper never flour
ishes in corrupt and degenerate times, teste its
disappearance from Roman tables with the
arrival of those Greek cooks who, accompany
ing the armies of the republic on their return
from Macedonia, destroyed the simple Roman
tastes and the virility of the Roman people.
Witness also its gradual extinction in the
United States with the decline of public mo-
rality and the perverson of the doctrines OF the
fathers. But from Trimalchio's pies we may
Judge of what the ancients were capable in
their best days. When the pie fell Rome fell.
In vain her ships brought kids from Melos,
congers from Sicyon, whiting from Megara,
almonds from Naxos, peacocks from Samos
ducks from B9Otia or oysters from Britain.
The meat pie having gone out from her, her
glory departed never to return. To what ex-
tent the declenson of the pie is connected
with the decay of the American marine, the
rag-money agitation, the third term proposal,
Casarsm and the general scurvy that just now
infests the American eagle, is one OF those ab,
struse questions not to be proftably discussed
in newspaper column; but to those who have
studied the subject it is quite clear that the
substitution of the wretched pumpkin for the
vigorous and odorous meat and tish-ple
marked the beginning of an unhappy era in
New England history, of which Butler, the
Fall River defalcations, Blaine Transcenden-
talism and Gov. Garcelou are few unpleas-
ant features.
In the heroic days of North America the pie
was the standard dish. 1t was the dish OF
Washington, of the revolted colonies, and two
centuries before that it enabled the pioneers
and missionaries of New France to subdue the
Indians and the forest. These were the COM
poment parts of the pie of New France. as
given by De Gaspe, Lower Canadian writer
who, bearing witness in his own person to the
sterling virtues, began authorship at seventy:
A fat turkey, two chickens. three partridges,
two pigeons and the backs and thighs of three
hares, the whole covered with layer OF fat
pork and seasoned with onions and spices; the
crust three inches thick. 1t was the
love of God and the desire to serve
him that weaned the young mobiles OF Nor
mandy and Brittany away from the corruptions
of the French Court and inspired them to go
forth and preach the gospel among the Montag-
nais and Abenaquis Of this continent; but this
pie helped them also. Can anybody suppose
that custard or pumpkin would have enabled
Lalemant and Brebeuf to stand at the stake
on the shores Of Lake Sincoe and rejoice In the
smoke of their own pile? Would Marquette,
the lion-hearted, have had strength to pene-
trate the West If the appetite his wanderngs
gave him had been confined by arunclal taste
to lemon or rhubarb pie with saleratus crust?
The hardest and the only honest men In
America to-day are the fishermen OF Gaspe5ia,
and their food is pie called t,aade, composed
of alternate layers of fresh cod and pork with
thick crust. The shanty-men OF Michigan,
and the Canadian forests, the descendants OF
the old couresrS des boiS, cherish the savory
pork and venison or partridge pie as the staff
of their ardnous life; and pemmican, the food
of the aborigine, is simply buffalo meat pie,
the peltry bag being the crust. The pie was
the staple dish in the great days OF England.
William the Conqueror was a wonderful pie
eater, and Richard III, "the best and royalist
wander of all Christian kynges." In the
reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, 'umble
pies made of the internal economy OF deer, ,yen-
ison pies and buck pastries were royal food,
and at the dinners of the London guilds the
piece de resistance was always a meat pie,
which the yeomen carried in amid the blare OF
trumpets. The pie held its ground until the
beginning of this century, when the kickshaws
of the French cuisine supplanted it; then Eng
land began to decline. The men who sought
in defense of right against the great powers of
evil, Philip III, Louis XIV. and Napoleon were
pe-eaters; the modern heroes, who with Cat
ling guns and breechloaders make war on bar
barians having no means of defense but their
naked valor, are fed on Liebig's extract and
condensed milk-a machine-made diet as arti-
fetal as their Christianity.
1t is worthy of note also, that the decline, or
rather the persecution, of the mincemeat pie
marked the beginning of the decay of religion.
In the olden time, the mince pie represented
the burial of him crucified. The Evangelists
tell us that Ncodemus, Joseph of Arimathea.
and the women who were with him, brought
myrriI and aloes for the embalming, and
wound the body in linen with spices, "as the
manner of the Jews is to bury" Our fore
fathers, who, in their simple devotion to the
faith, were much given to introducing its de-
tails and symbols in every day life, represented
this ceremony in the making of their mince
pies. The practice prevails in Brittany to this
day. Fifty years ago it prevailed in Lower
Canada, whose people are the descendants of
Bretons and the inheritors of their pious tra-
ditions Here is the formula as given in the
minor journal of the Mere Juchereau of the
Hotel Dieu, Quebec The meat represents
the body and should be of the best quality,
well kept and carefully prepared The rose
mary is the myrrh, and the brandy or noyau
the oil; the sweet herbs are the spices; the
crust in which it is encased, the tomb, and the
small ball of pastry on the top the stone that
was rolled to the mouth of the sepulcher.'
The pies of those days sometimes weighed half
hundred weight. The Puritans suppressed
them partly because they were Romish insti-
tuition, and partly because the eating of them
was pleasant and therefore obnoxious to those
ill conditioned iconoclasts. From being q
holiday, Christmas soon became holiday
shorn of its ancient observances. and given up
to registering and horse-play. The mince pie
fingers in an emasculated form; it is no longer
eaten reverently by men, but devoured by
youngsters. The Puritans believed they were
saving the faith, but there is less of it i'll the
world to-day than there ever was. The story
of the shepherds and of the vision on the
plains, and of the manger in Bethlehem is de-
rided; evolutons supplanting the eternal AID
the plastic cell and prilnordial germ the sepul-
cher typitied by our pious and happier ances-
tor in the humble mincemeat pie.
A large black bear was seen by George