e seventeenth century. Then came a sudden change
for modernity, comparable to the rather abrupt change of languages
from the fashionable Latin to the national idioms and vernacular, in
England and Germany under the influence of literary giants like
Luther, Chaucer, Shakespeare.

All medieval food literature of the continent and indeed the early
cookery books of England prior to La Varenne (Le Cuisinier Francois,
1654) are deeply influenced by Apicius. The great change in eating,
resulting in a new gastronomic order, attained its highest peak of
perfection just prior to the French revolution. Temporarily suspended
by this social upheaval, it continued to flourish until about the
latter part of last century. The last decades of this new order is
often referred to as the classical period of gastronomy, with France
claiming the laurels for its development. "Classic" for reasons we do
not know (Urbain Dubois, outstanding master of this period wrote "La
Cuisine classique") except that its precepts appeal as classical to
our notion of eating. This may not correspond to the views of
posterity, we had therefore better wait a century or two before
proclaiming our system of cookery "classical."

Disposing of that old "classic," Apicius, as slowly as a conservative
cooking world could afford to do, the present nations set out to
cultivate a taste for things that a Roman would have pronounced unfit
for a slave. Still, the world moves on. Conquest, discovery of foreign
parts, the New World, contributed fine things to the modern
table,--old forgotten foods were rediscovered--endless lists of
materials and combinations, new daring, preposterous dishes that made
the younger generation rejoice while old folks looked on gasping with
dismay, despair, contempt.

Be it sufficient to remark that the older practitioners of our own
days, educated in "classic" cuisine again are quite apprehensive of
their traditions endangered by the spirit of revolt of the young
against the old. Again and again we hear of a decline that has set in,
and even by the best authorities alarmist notes are spread to the
effect that "we have begun our journey back, step by step to our
primitive tree and our primitive nuts" (Pennell. Does Spengler
consider food in his "Decline of the West?").

It matters not whether we share this pessimism, nor what we may have
to say _pro_ or _con_ this question of "progress" or "retrogression"
in eating (or in anything else for t