“But, as a general rule, there is little that is serious in these frequently graceless but generally amusing compositions. There is a curious variety about them, and incidentally a crowd of lively touches of common life. The fisherman of the Seine starts for his day's work or sport with oar and tackle; the smith plies the forge; the bath plays a considerable part in the stories, and we learn that it was not an unknown habit to eat when bathing, which seems to be an unwise attempt to double luxuries. A short sketch of mediæval catering might be got out of the _fabliaux_, where figure not merely the usual dainties--capons, partridges, pies well peppered--but eels salted, dried, and then roasted, or more probably grilled, as we grill kippered salmon. Here we have a somewhat less grimy original--perhaps it was actually the original--of Skelton's "Tunning of Elinor Rumming"; and in many places other patterns, the later reproductions of which are well known to readers of Boccaccio and the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ of La Fontaine and his followers. Title after title--"Du Prestre Crucifié," "Du Prestre et d'Alison," &c.--tells us that the clergy are going to be lampooned. Sometimes, where the fun is no worse than childish, it is childish enough--plays on words, jokes on English mispronunciation of French, and so forth. But it very seldom, though it is sometimes intolerably nasty, approaches the sheer drivel which appears in some English would-be comic writing of the Middle Ages, or the very early Renaissance--such, for instance, as most of that in the prose "Pleasant Historie of Thomas of Reading,"[135] which the late Mr Thoms was pleased to call a romance. Yet the actual stuff of "Thomas of Reading" is very much of the nature of the _fabliaux_ (except of course the tragical part, which happens to be the only good part), and so the difference of the handling is noteworthy. So it is also in English verse-work of the kind--the "Hunting of the Hare"[136] and the like--to take examples necessarily a little later than our time.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
253. INGREDIENTS.--1 lb. of eels, a little chopped parsley, 1 shalot; grated nutmeg; pepper and salt to taste; the juice of 1/2 a lemon, small quantity of forcemeat, 1/4 pint of béchamel (see Sauces); puff paste. _Mode_.--Skin and wash the eels, cut them into pieces 2 inches long, and line the bottom of the pie-dish with forcemeat. Put in the eels, and sprinkle them with the parsley, shalots, nutmeg, seasoning, and lemon-juice, and cover with puff-paste. Bake for 1 hour, or rather more; make the béchamel hot, and pour it into the pie. _Time_.--Rather more than 1 hour. _Seasonable_ from August to March.
Sources: The passage is from George Saintsbury, The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory:, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — teal cloth, sheaf stamp.