United States or Saudi Arabia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There is certainly an error in the account. Apicius. Why, the establishment of Lucullus for his suppers in the Apollo I mean for every supper he sat down to in the room which he called by that name was 5,000 drachms, which is in your money 1,614 pounds 11s. 8d. Darteneuf. Would I had supped with him there! But are you sure there is no blunder in these calculations? Apicius.
There are turtle-boats that go regularly to London and Bristol from the West Indies. I have just received this information from a fat alderman, who died in London last week of a surfeit he got at a turtle feast in that city. Darteneuf. What does he say? Does he affirm to you that turtle is better than venison? Apicius.
I am afraid you do really excel us in wines; not to mention your beer, your cider, and your perry, of all which I have heard great fame from your countrymen, and their report has been confirmed by the testimony of their neighbours who have travelled into England. Wonderful things have been also said to me of an English liquor called punch. Darteneuf.
I should have been afraid that the Britons would have eaten me. Darteneuf. I am sorry for you, very sorry; for if you never were in Britain you never ate the best oysters. Apicius. Pardon me, sir, your Sandwich oysters were brought to Rome in my time. Darteneuf. They could not be fresh; they were good for nothing there. You should have come to Sandwich to eat them.
Our cooks were so excellent that they could give to hog's flesh the taste of all other meats. Darteneuf. I should never have endured their imitations. You might as easily have imposed on a good connoisseur in painting the copy of a fine picture for the original.
The single advantage of having sugar to sweeten everything with, instead of honey, which you, for want of the other, were obliged to make use of, is inestimable. Apicius. I confess your superiority in that important article. But what grieves me most is that I never ate a turtle. They tell me that it is absolutely the best of all foods. Darteneuf.
Darteneuf. A sum of fourscore thousand pounds not keep you from starving! Would I had had it! I should have been twenty years in spending it, with the best table in London. Apicius. Alas, poor man! This shows that you English have no idea of the luxury that reigned in our tables. Before I died I had spent in my kitchen 807,291 pounds 13s. 4d. Darteneuf. I don't believe a word of it.
The fat paps of a sow, the livers of scari, the brains of phoenicopters, and the tripotanum, which consisted of three excellent sorts of fish, for which you English have no names, the lupus marinus, the myxo, and the muraena. Darteneuf. I thought the muraena had been our lamprey. We have delicate ones in the Severn. Apicius.
Darteneuf. Alas! poor Apicius, I pity thee from my heart for not having lived in my age and in my country. How many good dishes, unknown at Rome in thy days, have I feasted upon in England! Apicius. Keep your pity for yourself.
Word Of The Day