Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each fact links straight to the page it comes from.

Medieval carving demanded a different verb for every creature on the table. The old "boke of Keruynge" lists the correct term for each dish: you *unlace* a rabbit, *splay* a bream, *dismember* a heron, *display* a crane and *disfigure* a peacock, while a lobster is *barbed* and a crab *tamed*. Getting the word wrong was as bad as botching the cut. Read it in the book →
A Swiss guard reckoned his lark capacity as simply "always". Questioned by the Maréchal de Villars about his famous appetite, the guard allowed that he needed "five or six" sirloins of beef at most, seven or eight legs of mutton, a dozen fat pullets, and — "As to pigeons, Monseigneur, not many-forty, perhaps fifty." Asked about larks, he answered: "Larks, Monseigneur? - always!" Read it in the book →
A host whose guest has to ask for anything is "a dishonoured man". Baron Brisse, whose dinners were cooked under the direction of Gouffé himself, deserves "abiding reverence by all entertainers that are worthy of the name, if only for his splendid axiom": "The host whose guest has been obliged to ask him for anything is a dishonoured man!" Read it in the book →
Greek comic poets gave their cooks the power to raise the dead. Philemon, "the witty Athenian bard," has a cook plume himself on his cunning with the boast that "Those who are dead already, when they 've smelled / One of my dishes, come to life again." Read it in the book →
The chef who could turn a funeral supper into a wedding feast. In Hegesander's "Brothers" an archimagirus boasts of the mourners just returned, "silent and sad, / Clothed in funereal habits-I but raise / The cover of my pot, and every face / Assumes a smile, the tears are wash'd away." Charmed by the flavour, they believe themselves at a wedding. Read it in the book →
A specially chosen baron of beef travelled from Windsor to Osborne every Christmas. "From time immemorial the double loin or baron of beef has been a royal dish," and one especially selected was always sent from Windsor to Osborne for the royal dinner-table — accompanied by the other Christmas dish, the boar's head, "sent of late from Germany." Read it in the book →
The truffle has been called the diamond of the kitchen and the holy of holies of gastronomy. Brillat-Savarin "defined it as the diamond of the kitchen"; La Reynière called it a sample of Paradise and later "a torrent of delights"; Dumas pronounced it the *sacrum sacrorum*. "Unseen, it is sought for by entire communities; and discovered, it is treasured as a priceless gem of the table." Read it in the book →
A French captain bet that his drummer could eat an entire calf. The drummer, "proud of his distinction, promised to do honour to the captain's compliment," and the calf was duly prepared in various appetising ways. Read it in the book →
English cookbook titles once promised kickshaws, unembowelled nature and a School for the Officers of the Mouth. The seventeenth-century shelf included "Murrell's Cookerie and Manner of making Kickshawes" (1630), "Rose's School for the Officers of the Mouth" (1682), "The Cupboard Door Opened" (1689) and, best of all, "Nature unembowelled, or 1720 Receipts" (1655). Read it in the book →
In Scotland the beef arrived under the family's battle-honours. The baron of beef was brought in with a procession of nobles, knights and ladies — and north of the border "it was sometimes brought to table surrounded by banners displaying the colours and achievements of the baron at whose board it was served." Read it in the book →
The boar's head took its leave of the country on Twelfth Night. The oldest boar's head carol, from the Balliol MS., declares the head "cheffe seruyce in all this londe" and then sets its term of office: "anon after the xijth day he taketh his leve and goth a-way." Read it in the book →
Martial noticed that Romans preferred partridge simply because it cost more. "Whether woodcock or partridge, what does it signify, if the taste is the same? But the partridge is dearer, and therefore thought preferable." Read it in the book →
Rome's national dish was porridge until Athens sent bread. The early Romans were frugal, and porridge served as the national dish "until wheaten bread was introduced from Athens." They took their cookery lessons from Attica too, importing their first masters — and "soon outrivalled their instructors." Read it in the book →
A good salad is as rare in the average house as an antique prayer-rug. The making of one is "among the most simple" of table processes — oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, onion and the mixing — "and yet an unexceptionable salad is as rare in the average household as a piece of old Gubbio, or a fine old Ghiordes prayer-rug." Read it in the book →
Complaints that cookery is in decline are as regular as complaints about the vintage. "But the cry of the decadence of cookery is an ancient one, and occurs periodically, like that of the failure of vintages. It has always existed, and always will exist." Chefs die and famous restaurants lose their fame, but "other artists appear." Read it in the book →
Taste has its own muse — the tenth. The book opens with Brillat-Savarin's dictum: "Gasteria is the Tenth Muse; she presides over the enjoyments of Taste." Read it in the book →
Early English cookbooks are prized for rarity rather than recipes. "The main attraction of the very early English cook-book, it must be confessed, is its rarity." Its text is hard to interpret and offers little beyond "singular alimentary mixtures which attest the remarkable receptive qualities of our forefathers." Read it in the book →