Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-02
WHAT PEOPLE ATE
IN AGES PAST
Highly Spiced and Costly Dishes That Would
Not Find Favor Now.

/, spoons. Each guest brought his own spoon
"a custom not wholly without merit, as
any hostess who has served large companies
will agree. Even with good spoon, eat
ing was very sloppy process. Few could
dip their hands into the gravy as delicately
as Chaucer's prioress, who
'Jette morsel from her lippes falle,
Ne wette hire fingers with hire sauce dope.
Rise of the Fork.
During the reign of James l a young
Somersetshire squire Tom Coryate, made
the tour of the continent. Unlike many of
his eountrymen, Coryate travelled with an
open mind. He saw good in some things
which were not English. Forks. as used in
Italy, especially pleased the young traveller.
Returning to England, Coryate preached
the gospel of the fork the rest of his life.
The fight was long and bitter. Every rank
of English society ranged itself against the
innovation. Fingers were made before
forks became proverb. The stage ridi-
culed it. Beaumont and Fletcher made
great hit by showing up the carving trav
eler." Heylin. writing in 1852, aludes to
the use of silver forks which is by some
of our spruce gallants taken up of late"
The pulpit Illuminated against the new Gus
tom. To touch meat with a fork" de-
clared one divine, is to say impiously that
Gods comfortable creatures are not worthy
of being touched by human hands" Even
Coryate's friends teased him and called him
"Furcifer," only for using a fork at feed
ing, but no other cause" poor Tom
plains. AS late as the reign of George ",
although the fork was then in common use.
a certain effeminate set of writer's was
called derisively the silver fork school,"
FORKS however, were used in the kitchen
for removing meat from the pot as early as
the ninth century. Queen Elizabeth had
three jeweled forks. The queens forks,
though, were never used by that heavy
feeder, but were regarded by her as inter-
eSting toys.
The fork made nightly for cleanliness.
Indeed, many thrifty house wives put away
much of their table linen when forks came
into use, since, they said, fingers were NO
longer greasy. We often see references to
1.-The roast beef of old England AS a mat
ter of fact however. roast beef was almost
unknown in England until after the fork
came into use. Pork was the chief meat
used, and was usually pulveriZed in order
that 1t might be easily eaten from a spoon.
The introduction of the roast in conse
quence of the general use of the fork,
marks an era in the history of national hy-
giene. The science of hygiene, however,
advanced but slowly, is shown by the
following recipe given by Markham in his
manual of the Inward and outward Vir
tues which ought to be in a Compleat
Woman" published in 1915.
A Herring Pye.
Take white picked Herrings of one
nights watering, and boyl them little,
lnen take on the skin and take off the
backs Of them, and pick the flesh clean
from the bones; then take good store of
raisins of the Sun, and stone them; and put
them to the fish; then take Warden or
two and pare it, and slice 1t in small slices
from the core and put 1t likewise to the
fish; then with a very sharp Shedding
knife, shred all as small as may be; then
put to it good good store of Currants
Sugar, Cinnamon. sliced Dates, and so put
1t into the Coffin (paste France with good
store of sweet Butter. and so cover It, and
leave onley round vent-hole on the top of
the Id, and so bake it like pyes of that ma
ture When it is sufficiently baked draw
1t out and take Claret wine, and a little
Nerjuice, Sugar, Cinnamon and sweet But
ter, and boyl them together; then put II
into the vent-hole and shake the pye lit
tie, and put 1t again into the oven for a
little space, and so serve 1t up, the lid be-
ing candied over with sugar, and the sides
of the dish being trimmed with Sugar"
Cookery has introduced a good many
words and idioms into our language. For
instance, the entrails of an animal were
called umbles, and were usually served at
the lower table, below the salt, where the
interiors of the household sat. When a
young person of rank became obstreperous
he or she was often sent as a punishment
to the lower table, where umble pie was
served. Hence, our expression, 'eat hum
BILE pie"
The gluttony which marked the CAROLYN
gen relgns disguised the Puritans. Butler
in his satire, ''Hudibras," accuses the Puri-
tans of insincerty in their condemnation
of royalist feasting:
Rather than fail they will decry
That which they love most tenderIy;
Quarrel with minced pie and disparage
Their best and dearest friend, plum porridce
Eat pig and goose itself oppose
And blaspheme custard through the nose"