SOME years ago a contemporary philosopher told us that there was nothing an Englishman would not do ; nothing an American would not say ; nothing an Italian would not sing ; no music to which the Frenchman would not dance ; nothing the German would not covet ; and nothing the Chinese would not eat .sx It is not our purpose to discuss this dictum .sx Suffice to say that few of us stop to marvel at the progress of civilisation which allows a dish borrowed straight from the prehistoric .sx How many centuries ago , in some cave or hilly hide , did our forebears home from the chase hold forth from a spear the welcome gobbet of meat or fish burnt and roasted in the homely and protecting flame .sx How many centuries later did the mercenary in the Roman wars thus impale on pike or lance his evening meal .sx Later came the thrifty peasant , later still the young Victorian buck adventuring in Paris , and even later our attractive young ladies toying with these primitive morsels in the gleam and glitter of our latter-day restaurants .sx And , if certain dishes and modes of food have persisted down the ages , the motive that preserved them has always been the same .sx Apart from the need for nourishment , the instinct of hospitality has always been strong in mankind .sx The sharing of a meal in those earliest dangerous days was an admittance into an acquaintanceship far more important than the casual meetings of the present day ; the desire to share something more intimate than mere converse has always been there .sx The truth is that good food offers a programme of entertainment almost unlimited in its variety and its presentation affords an opportunity of showing a guest something of ourselves .sx AN AMAZING EPOCH OF GROSSNESS AND DELICACY .sx It is a far enough cry from the primitive meal-times of a simpler world to the banquets of later days , when the table groaned under its load of complicated dishes , and for all the blossoming of the arts around them the diners were little removed :sx it was still fingers before forks- from their prototype , the hungry hunter .sx There was always the spice of an orgy in those Roman feasts , for instance , with all their peacocks and nightingales' tongues ; unreasonable surfeit , too , in the elaborate fashion of eating brought out of Italy into France , we are told , by Catherine de Medici .sx The peasant in those days , as ever , ate sparingly , but generously enough in his own fashion , save at feast times , when he , too , let himself go ; and it was from his simpler food that the later renaissance of cooking was to come .sx Epicures and gourmands , sated by the unending procession of dishes from those mammoth kitchens of the 18th century- that amazing epoch of grossness and delicacy- sought inspiration at last from the dishes of the country , and , instead of gorging the eye with magnitude , began to understand the value of intelligent selection and comparative simplicity , though nowadays their simplified meals would seem quite monstrous .sx THE FLESHPOTS OF EGYPT FOR WHICH ISRAEL SIGHED .sx Does one , however , know who first thought of boiling water and food ?sx The ancient Britons , I believe , used to make water hot by dropping a red-hot poker into it , because their pots would not stand fire ; but Jacob must have had one that would , because Esau sold his birthright to him for a mess of pottage- and then we hear of the fleshpots of Egypt after which the Israelites sighed .sx Anyhow , Homer does not seem to have known any way of cooking meat except by roasting and boiling .sx When Achilles gave a royal feast the principal dish was a grill , which he cooked himself , and he knew how to do it , too :sx - When the languid flames at length subside , He throws a bed of glowing embers wide ; Above the coals the smoking fragment turns , And sprinkles sacred salt from lifted urns .sx When , however , the Greeks did learn the art of making fireproof earthenware from the Egyptians , their cookery made rapid progress , because they were men of taste and intellect .sx RICHLY-DISTILLED PERFUMES AS AN AID TO DIGESTION .sx A remarkable peculiarity in the banquets of the ancient world was the fact that they did not confine the resources of the table to the gratification of one sense alone .sx Having exhausted their invention in the preparation of stimulants for the palate , they broke fresh ground and called another sense to their aid .sx By delicate application of odours and richly-distilled perfumes , these refined voluptuaries aroused the fainting appetite and added a more exquisite and ethereal enjoyment to the grosser pleasures of the board .sx The gratification of the sense of smelling was a subject of no little importance to the Romans .sx They considered flowers as forming a very essential article in their festal preparations ; and it is the opinion of Bassius that at their desserts the number of flowers far exceeded the number of fruits .sx When Nero supped in his Golden House , a mingled shower of flowers and odorous essences fell upon him ; and one of the recreations of Heliogabalus was to smother his courtiers with flowers .sx Nor was it entirely as an object of luxury that the ancients made use of flowers ; they were considered to possess sanative and medicinal qualities .sx According to Pliny , and others , certain herbs and flowers proved of sovereign power in preventing the approaches of ebriety , or , as Bassius less clearly expresses it , in clarifying the functions of the brain .sx THE QUEER DINNERS OF STRANGE LANDS .sx It is said that there is nothing new under the sun , but regarding foodstuffs the traveller occasionally encounters a certain measure of novelty .sx In China , for instance , dried rats are esteemed a delicacy .sx The visitor is told that they restore the hair of the bald and that a stewed black rat will ward off a fever .sx A number of newly-born white mice served alive , dipped in treacle and swallowed like a prairie oyster is considered a piece of resistance .sx [SIC] Among the natives of Northern Australia lizards roasted on the point of a spear are definitely a delicacy while Mediterranean peoples have a high opinion of the octopus as an article of diet .sx So have the Japanese and the Chinese .sx The Celestials , apart from eating it fresh , squash it , press it and dry it , in which form , dusted over with flour , you will find a stack of it in almost any provision shop .sx Bats are eagerly eaten in Dahomey , some of the Polynesian islands , the Malay Archipelago and elsewhere .sx Badger hams are a delicacy in China while mole is eaten in many parts of Africa .sx TASTE AND TEMPERAMENT IN CURIOSITIES OF DIET .sx The old saying , " One man's meat is another man's " , therefore possesses a great deal of truth .sx Taste and temperament in fact play a great part in life , and there are many instances of eccentricity in diet and dishes , as in everything else in life .sx Mankind has tried all kinds of food from roots to bird's nests , and from snails to elephant's feet or walrus blubber .sx Though English folk to-day enjoy shrimps and eat periwinkles with a pin , they shudder at the Frenchman who relishes snails and frogs .sx The West Indian negro refuses to look at stewed rabbit , but will eat palm worms fried in oils and is fond of baked snakes .sx In Brazil and Siam the natives eat ants .sx The entrails of animals are relished in Salonica ; they are eaten just as the Italian eats his macaroni .sx The heads of the lambs are considered great delicacies and go first .sx When roasted , the unbounded joy of the native cracking the skull and picking out the tasty bits is nauseating in the extreme .sx Siberian peasants view with disgust the idea of eating hare .sx But there are West Indian natives who declare that no food in the world comes up to fricassee of rats that have fattened themselves in the sugar-cane plantations .sx Each to his taste , therefore , seems to be a reasonable policy to pursue .sx A knowledge of the world's foods , in any case , ought to increase international tolerance .sx NATIONAL FOODS WHICH AFFECT THE TEMPERAMENT .sx Foodlore reflects much more of national temperament than is customarily imagined as well as entering human activities to a greater extent than is usually assumed .sx We naturally cannot overlook that Magyar cookery owes one of its most classic features to the Turkish rule under which the Hungarians groaned for nearly 200 years .sx If that country had not been for so long a battlefield red with the blood shed to defend Christian civilisation , Hungary would have been deprived of the condiment which provides many Magyar dishes with a vivid and brilliant scarlet hue .sx The Austrian cuisine embraces the delectable 6Wiener Schnitzel as well as dishes and stews heightened with aromatics where the paprika insinuates its perfidious fire , aerian creams , ingenious pastries and a crescent-shaped breakfast roll created by a pastry cook to celebrate the victory against the Turks in 1683 .sx Spanish cookery is reminiscent of bull-fights , of Spanish dancing and of Goja :sx it is vivid , highly coloured , sometimes Quixotic and withal it has a sombre ardour , with streaks of poetry , meat disguised under heavy and vehement sauces , pimentos and rancid butter .sx The Czechoslovak kitchen , again , is so languorous , so passionate , and possibly comparable alone to a gypsy melody .sx The paprika and caraway perfume the meats with their antithesis .sx The opulent varieties of Czechoslovak pastries recall in fact the rich heritage of rich embroideries and costumes specifically national .sx ART AND SCIENCE OF THE KITCHEN :sx .sx The art and science of cookery , however , is essentially French , and , irrespective of the fact that I have never run across anyone in Gaul who has been a glutton , I can positively say that it has been equally difficult to find one who has not been an epicure .sx The French have an inborn appreciation of good food and the gusto which they derive from gastronomy is intellectual and aesthetic as well as physical .sx There is the same finesse about their feeding , the same subtle delicacy of touch , the same unfailing sense of proportion as exists among her writers , music composers and other exponents of things that are typically French .sx The " pot-au-feu " is as much a national institution in France as is tea drinking among ourselves and it is prepared at least once a week in every bourgeois household .sx Thackeray , of course , waxed enthusiastic about Bouillabaisse and sang- This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is , A sort of soup , or broth , or brew , A hotch-potch of all sorts of fishes That Greenwich never could outdo ; Green herbs , red peppers , mussels , saffron , Soles , onions , garlic , roach and dace .sx GENIUS & FOOD- FOOD FOR THOUGHT .sx A fascinating study also opens up in the dietary welcomed by men of genius as well as the foods for which they have had an aversion .sx Shelley , for example , had a great contempt for animal food , believing that it impaired the intellectual faculties .sx Bunyan's breakfast and supper consisted of a piece of coarse bread and a bowl of milk .sx Dante Gabriel Rossetti had simple tastes in food .sx At one dinner he is said to have been blind to the charms of turbot and to have been much more interested in the dish in which it was served .sx He turned it over on the table cloth to examine the marks on the back without going through the formality of having his turbot removed first .sx Wagner was a highly practical feeder .sx He ate very fast , placing his food in his mouth and gulping it down as he talked .sx Brigham Young would make a dinner on tripe which he washed down with beer .sx A writer who had dinner with Dickens says the menu was Whitstable oysters , a brown sole , a baked leg of mutton with oyster & veal stuffing and a gin punch .sx The same man went to see Carlyle , and , after mentioning that he had dined with Longfellow told the sage a very funny story which made Carlyle absolutely laugh ; but all the Chelsea philosopher did in return was to ask if his guest would have a cup of tea !sx