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At Table with the Clergy: Spain

The true date of the turkey's flight into history is the early part of the sixteenth century, when the learned confessor and historian to Cortez, Fra Agapida, returned to Spain from his first visit to Mexico, and wrote a brief narrative of the wonders of the New World. In this account he called attention to the abundance of fine fish-food, and the excellence of the venison and a variety of "wild cattle." "There is also a bird," adds the discerning presbyter, "much greater in bigness than a peacock, that is found within the forests and vegas (meadows) all over this country.

It surpasses as food any wild bird we have found up to this time. The natives do shoot these birds with arrows and catch them in various kinds of springes and snares. They are sometimes very large, being as much as thirty pounds in weight. They can fly, but prefer to run, which they can do with exceeding swiftness." No less is the introduction of the potato from South America due to the monks, who first brought it to Europe in the proud galleons of Spain.

In Canon Barham's "A Lay of St. Nicholas," where the temptations of the flesh proved stronger than the spiritual powers of the head of the abbey, turkey and chine figure as the pieces of "resistance," with old sherris sack, hippocras, and malmsey to flank them,- "The Abbot hath donn'd his mitre and ring, His rich dalmatic and maniple fine; And the choristers sing as the lay-brothers bring To the board a magnificent turkey and chine."

The capon, however, appears to have been the greatest favourite with the clergy; its frequent companion, the carp, doubtless owing its popularity to the fact that it is so easily raised, rather than that it is more esteemed than numerous other species of fish.

Even more than the capon, the carp suggests the cenobites, bringing up a whole train of monastic orderswith the cloister and the abbey as its most congenial home. It is inalienably associated with the cassock and chasuble, the rosary and censer, the peal of the organ and the glory of old stained glass. It is essentially the sacred fish the true "sole" of piety. It whispers of sanctity and breathes of Benedicites. In fancy one sees the abbot, rotund and rubicund, presiding at table, with one eye upon the fish and the other lifted aloft, uttering his Bonum est confiteri ere the loud "Amen" resounds through the vaulted chamber, and carp and capon are bathed in the red juices of the monastery vineyard. Or it may be a pike, a mullet, or a dish of eels that, cunningly prepared by the master-cook of the brotherhood, steeps the refectory with the perfume of shallots and fine herbs, and justly merits a Benedic, anima mea from the partakers of the repast. From an anecdote related by the Franciscan Jean Paulli de Thann, it would appear that the olden monks had learned from the Scriptures a particular method of carving fowls when they partook of them in secular company. A gentleman had invited his confessor, who was a monk, to dine in company with his wife, his two sons, and two daughters. There was a fine capon for the roast, which the host requested the guest to carve. The latter excused himself, but the host insisted. "Inasmuch as you demand it," replied the monk, "I will carve the fowl according to biblical principles." "Yes," exclaimed the hostess, "act according to the Scriptures."

The theologian therefore began the carving. The baron was tendered the head of the fowl, the baroness the neck, the two daughters a wing apiece, and the two sons a first joint, the monk retaining the remainder. "According to what interpretation do you make such a division?" inquired the host of his confessor, as he regarded the monk's heaping plate and the scant portions doled out to the family. "From an interpretation of my own," replied the 1 monk. "As the master of your house, the head belongs to you by right; the baroness, being most near to you, should receive the neck, which is nearest the head; in the wings the young girls will recognize a symbol of their mobile thoughts, that fly from one desire to another; as to the young barons, the drumsticks they have received will remind them that they are responsible for supporting your house, as the legs of the capon support the bird itself."