THERE was no scarcity of food amongst the Celta, when they came under the observation of the more polished nations of Europe, and their good living must have materially assisted in producing the strong limbs and large stature for which they were so remarkable. The vegetable kingdom, unimproved by horticultural skill, and the wild herds of the forest, afford the means of subsistence to mankind in the first stage of civilisation; but the nations of the west were not confined to these precarious supplies, having long before the commencement of our era, as may already appear, pastured numerous flocks of cattle, and cultivated, with success, extensive fields of corn. To this general observation the state of some of the remote and barbarous tribes will indeed be an exception. Strangers to the advantages of climate and intercourse with more refined nations, they continued in primitive rudeness, unaffected by commerce, and contented with their savage enjoyments; but the Gauls were far removed from that state in which human beings are under the necessity of appropriating the coarse fruits of the forest trees, or the wild herbs and roots of the field, for their chief subsistence. They were, as has been shown, supplied with abundance of venison from their wellstocked forests, and other meat from their tame herds, and the plenty which filled the land was evinced by their well-supplied tables and continued feasting, which were the theme of even Roman commendation. The Aquitani were famed for their sumptuous and frequent entertainments,* , and the Celtiberi were noted for being particularly nice and curious in their diet.†

Before manners have been changed by civilisation, or mankind has emerged from a state of nature, the savage beings subsist on the coarse and undressed articles of food which they may be able to procure. The roots of the field, and the produce of the forest trees, supply a * Marcellinus. + Pliny.

INDIFFERENCE TO FOOD.

317

ready, though precarious, means of sustenance, and, consistent with the plan hitherto pursued, it will be inquired how far the ancient Celts depended on the wild productions of nature, or had supplied themselves with vegetables and fruit, improved by horticultural industry.

The Germans, according to Tacitus and Appian, lived chiefly on raw herbs and wild fruit, and some of the Britons, also, were accustomed to satisfy the cravings of hunger with the same unsavory aliment; but this must have been in cases of necessity, and among the most barbarous of the tribes, for they certainly had, in general, ample supplies of other food. It is, besides, found that nations will continue the use of the hard fare which satisfied their fathers, when it is in their power to procure better provisions, as the Arcadians, who continued to eat acorns to the time that the Lacedemonians warred with them ;* and the Celtiberi, who used, throughout all the country, to serve up roasted mast as a second course,† notwithstanding they had all sorts of flesh in plenty, and were not obliged to use this plain diet. The Celts, although, as shall be shown, they by no means disregarded good living, seem to have considered temperance a virtue, being moderate, as Diodorus and Tacitus express themselves, in eating, banishing hunger by plain fare without curious dressing. This race have ever been noted for their contempt of delicacies, or aversion to epicurianism, and their ability to bear the privations of hunger and fatigue. It has been found that the Highlanders are, when surrounded with plenty, more sparing in their diet than others; and it is a fact, that they will continue a whole day at laborious field work, contenting themselves with only two meals of water brose, or a simple mixture of oatmeal and water. They will eat, says Mrs. Grant, with a keen appetite and sufficient discrimination; but were they to stop in any pursuit because it was meal time, growl over a bad dinner, or exult over a good one, the manly dignity of their character would be considered as fallen forever. I have seen a piper from "the head of the Highlands," at a sumptuous dinner on St. Andrew's day, select, from the various choice dishes around him, plain boiled sheep's trotters in preference to any thing else!

The ancient Celts held corpulence in so much abhorrence, that the young men had a girdle to determine their size, and if they were found to exceed its dimensions, they were subjected to a fine. A fat paunch has always been reckoned a great misfortune in the Highlands.

Health may be preserved with a much less quantity of food than is generally supposed; for repletion is more inimical to the system than a scanty meal. Martin justly observed, that if among the Highlanders there were no corpulent persons, none bore the appearance of starvation. The remark is still applicable; and although, from their hard living and frequent exposure to the severity of the weather, the appearance of old age is seen at a more early period of life than is the case with laborers in more favored climes, yet they live equally long, if not longer, enjoy + Pliny, xvi. + Diodorus.

* Pausanias, vii. i.

as good health, and perform as much work, and often of a great deal harder nature.*

The Caledonians, we learn from Dio, were obliged, when in the woods, to live on the fruits of the trees, and even on the leaves and roots of wild herbs; but game, the chief subsistence of an uncivilized people, formed their principal food, to which the vegetable kingdom afforded an estimable accession. In the woods and valleys were found the natural productions, which diversified the simple meals of the Celtic nations, and the herbs and esculents which nature had spread before them, they were long satisfied to gather from the open fields, before they thought of cultivating them around their dwellings. The Britons, in distant ages, paid some attention to this useful pursuit, yet many, in Strabo's time,† were totally ignorant of horticulture. The vegetable garden of the ancient Celt, we may believe, was but scantily stored; the natural meadows in the vicinity of his humble dwelling, and the mountain wilds, afforded him a sufficient and not uninviting supply. In summer, the Gaël could vary his repasts by many sweet and wholesome productions of his native land; he could gather subhans in the glen and avrons§ on the height; in the woods he could find various fruits and nutricious herbs-on the muirs he could pick the delicious blackberry, the aromatic aitnach, the luscious blæberry, and many others.

A people occupied in pasturage could not fail to become acquainted with the value of different vegetables, either as human food, or sustenance for their herds. Turnips were served up at table in Gaul, and were given to the cattle in winter, a part of rural economy which we thus see is far from being an improvement of modern times. || A sort of wild carrot was known in almost every country. The kind called Daucus grew spontaneously in the woods of Gaul and Britain, and was known in Italy as the Gallic. Leeks, of which the Welsh are reputed to be so fond, were plentiful in the Principality in the fifth century. The old Irish made great use of watercresses, sorrel, and scurvy grass; and even shamrock is said to have been eaten by them. The poor of that country were often obliged to make such articles a chief part of their food. In 1673, they are represented as "feeding much on watercresses, parsneps, potatoes, and sea weed," and Sir William Petty describes them as using potatoes from August to May, a pennyworth of cakes serving an individual a week; to which, eggs and rancid butter were added by some; others, it is said, used a preparation of curdled milk and horse's blood, and those who lived near the sea gathered mussels, cockles, and oysters, but flesh meat was seldom seen among the lower order.

* The alleged abstinence of some ancient nations is almost incredible. Pliny tells us the Sauromate took but one meal in three days! Lib. vii. 2.

t Lib. iv. p. 200.

Strawberries, used in the Low Countries of Mar and Banff for raspberries. § Otherwise oighreag, the cloudberry, rubus chamamorus.

Columella, ii. 10, p. 198, edit. 1595

¶ Dio.

VEGETABLES.-DAIRY.

319

The ancient Gaël had a certain vegetable, of which, about the size of a bean enabled them to resist, for some time, the effects of a want of either meat or drink. The Highlanders, at this day, occasionally use an article that was in much esteem with their ancestors, and which, if not the above, seems to possess similar qualities. The root braonan, which grows abundantly in the country, is delicious, and very nutritious when boiled. It is dug from November to April, and, when dried and ground, it makes good bread. Many, also, chew it like tobacco, and allege that it allays the sensation of hunger. Pennant confounds this with the cor-mheille, or blue button, the root of which is only used as a tonic. The Scythians, according to Pliny, who, it must be confessed, was credulous, had two herbs which can hardly be classed among those used for food, although they appear to have answered as most valuable substitutes. One received its name from the people among whom it was found, or who discovered its properties, being called Scythica; the other was called Hyppici, and by keeping either in the mouth, the want of meat or drink was not felt for a considerable time.* A knowledge of these excellent articles would be of inestimable value to hungry wights in the civilized society of the present day.

Shunis, or Scots' parsley, is much valued by the Highlanders, who use it both as food and medicine. The vegetables which they usually cultivated were cabbages, onions, carrots, beans, and peas. The kale yard, or garden for the vegetable, Cole, was formerly an important adjunct to a cottage in the Lowlands, but since the introduction of potatoes it is in less esteem. The Highlanders, about one hundred years ago, had in general an aversion to the productions of the kitchen garden. The Grants appear to have been the first among the clans who cultivated the above-noticed vegetable, and they are, at this day, often alluded to as "the soft kale-eating Grants." The old Highlanders were chiefly carnivorous and lactophagious, and even yet they are indifferent to the use of vegetables. The kale and cabbage which they require for planting, are purchased in the Low Country. Kale seems derived from the Latin, Caulis, a stalk or stem, but the original plant does not appear to be well-known.

66

The Celta paid great attention to the management of the dairy, the produce of which is necessarily a principal part of the subsistence of a pastoral people, and they were able to make butter, the nature of which was unknown to the Romans.† Pliny describes the churn as longa vasa angusto foramine," but although a handle is not mentioned, the cream is said to have been shaken.‡ The name buyd ur, chief or excellent food, is believed to have arisen from its being confined to the use of the chiefs.§ The better sort, who were thus distinguished from the poor, had so much that they sold of it, and it is probable that the

*Pliny, xxv. 8.
§ Whitaker.

+ Pliny, xxvii.

+ Ibid.

|| Dalechamp. Comment. on Pliny, xxviii. 9.

nobles received butter of their followers as a perquisite. In Gaëlic it is called Im.

*

The Irish are described as very "unmannerly in making their butter," and the process is certainly not likely to have been inviting when they thought it extremely unlucky ever to wash their milk vessels, and by a practice of hiding it in the bogs it was usually rancid. It would be unfair, however, to let it appear that the Irish alone were addicted to this filthy and superstitious practice, for in some parts of Scotland, I have been informed, the same prejudice exists, or did exist, which is

humorously noticed in the " Cottagers of Glenburnie,"-" Do you not clean the churn before you put in the cream?" asked Mrs. Mason "Na, na," returned Mrs. Mac Clarty, "that wadna be canny ye ken. Næbody hereabouts wad clean their kirn for ony consideration. I never heard o sic a thing in a my life." In some parts of the Highlands the gudewife takes the following method to procure fresh butter in winter. Salt butter being mixed with sweet milk, in the proportion of one pound to the chopin, or quart, of milk, is put through the same process as cream undergoes in a small churn: the butter, consequently, becomes sweet, and the milk turns salt. This is sometimes practised by the Irish also.

The Gauls made excellent cheeses: they were highly aromatic, and Pliny extols them as medicinal. The best of those at Rome were procured from Nismes, and two villages in the Gevaudan. They were excellent for present use, but were not made to be kept long. Pliny expresses his surprise that some nations, who thickened their milk into a pleasant curd and rich butter, should not make cheese; † an ignorance with which some of the Britons are charged by Strabo. Cais is the proper Gaelic name of cheese-cabog, the Scots kebbuck, seems to denote the shape. The process of making cheese in the Highlands has been before alluded to. There is one sort, of which some people are very fond, called cais tennal, or gathered curd, which is thus made: -the whey being pressed from the curd, it is put, without any salt, into a damp and dark place, where it is allowed to remain for fourteen or twenty days, when it is broken down, mixed with salt in the usual proportion, and put into the cheese press, becoming ripe for use in six or eight months. It is generally made of sweet milk, but cream is sometimes added when the salt is mixed with it. Cheese of goat and ewe milk is only used by the poorer people; the former yields scarce any cream, the latter makes tolerable cheese, but white rancid butter. It was usually mixed with that of the cow, and the mixture produced the best of all cheese. Little goats' milk is now to be seen in the Highlands; and, since the establishment of large sheep farms, no ewes' milk at all.

A great accession to the supply of food is procured from the cultivaf The Germans used coagulated milk. Tae. de Mor. Germanorum. Lib. iv. p. 200.

* Riche.