THE PIG IN ANCIENT ROME.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1523, 19 March 1886, Page 3

THE PIG IN ANCIENT ROME.

Far above all other dishes did the Roman value pork; and no wonder. His pigs were fattened upon figs, and died of apoplexy, brought on by the sudden administration of a dose of honey and wine. Mr. Coote observes that this "Is the nearest approach ever made in sober fact to dying of a rose in aromatic pain." It reminds of the story of the Duke of Clarence and the butt of Malmsey. Pliny tells us that pork was the most lucrative dish they had at the cook-shops, and they could give it nearly 50 flavours ; by the time of the Emperor Heliogabalus additional ones had been invented, and Apicius giv -8 ovc r 80 recipes for cooking pork. They roasted it, broiled it, fried it, baked it, boiled it, and stewed it; they cut it up into all sorts of dishes ; they cooked sucking pig in 16 different ways; they did the kidneys in methods that would charm the Cambridge undergraduate; they made haggis of p rV, and here we trace tie national dish of Scotland, ag we do its national music, to the Romans; but the Romans made the haggis of pork, the Scots make it of mutton.—The Antiquary.