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Updated: May 4, 2025
And now the slaves hurried hither and thither, bearing costly dishes with elaborately dressed viands: dormice strewed with honey and poppy seeds; beccaficoes surrounded by yolks of eggs, seasoned with pepper and made to resemble peafowls' eggs in a nest whereon the stuffed bird was sitting; fish floating in rich gravies that spouted from the mouths of four tritons at the corners of the dish; crammed fowls, hares fitted with wings to resemble Pegasus, thrushes in pastry stuffed with raisins and nuts, oysters, scallops, snails on silver gridirons, boar stuffed with fieldfares, with baskets of figs and dates hanging from his tusks, sweetmeats, cold tarts with Spanish honey these and a hundred other dishes, strange or costly, followed each other in quick succession, and, all the while, the carvers flourished their knives in time with music, now of instruments, again of choruses of boys and girls.
Nor can I doubt the accuracy of the historian, who assures us that a Roman emperor, one of the most moderate of those imperial gluttons, took for his breakfast, 500 figs, 100 peaches, 10 melons, 100 beccaficoes, and 400 oysters. Epicurism was scarcely more prevalent during the decline of the Roman empire than it is at this day amongst some of the wealthy and noble youths of Britain.
Rolfe also had visited the island, and remembered it much more agreeably, his impressions seeming to be chiefly gastronomic; he recalled the exquisite flavour of Cyprian hares, the fat francolin, the delicious beccaficoes in commanderia wine; with merry banter from Carnaby, professing to despise a man who knew nothing of game but its taste.
Wild boar, pasties, goats, every kind of shell-fish, thrushes, beccaficoes, vegetables of all descriptions, and poultry, were removed to make way for the pheasant, the guinea-hen, the capon, venison, ducks, woodcocks, and turtle-doves.
The material for a feast was ever at hand in days when, if there was grim want in the cottage, there was at least rude plenty in the castle. Within an hour the guests were seated around a board which creaked under the great pasties and joints of meat, varied by those more dainty dishes in which the French excelled, the spiced ortolan and the truffled beccaficoes.
Fountains of perfumed water shoot aloft from the floor, and fish swim in rocky channels round about the room, waiting to be caught and killed for the banquet. We dine; and we feast on the head of the ostrich, the brains of the peacock, the liver of the bream, the milk of the murena, and the tongue of the flamingo. A flight of doves, nightingales, beccaficoes are concentrated into one dish.
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