has changed. There are now in the market compounds,
extracts, mixtures not used in the old days. Many modern spices come
to us ready ground or mixed, or compounded ready for kitchen use. This
has the disadvantage in that volatile properties deteriorate more
rapidly and that the goods may be easily adulterated. The Bavarians,
under Duke Albrecht, in 1553 prohibited the grinding of spices for
that very reason! Ground spices are time and labor savers, however.
Modern kitchen methods have put the old mortar practically out of
existence, at the expense of quality of the finished product.

THE "LABOR ITEM"

The enviable Apicius cared naught for either time or labor. He gave
these two important factors in modern life not a single thought. His
culinary procedures required a prodigious amount of labor and effort
on the part of the cooks and their helpers. The labor item never
worried any ancient employer. It was either very cheap or entirely
free of charge.

The selfish gourmet (which gourmet is not selfish?) almost wonders
whether the abolition of slavery was a well-advised measure in modern
social and economic life. Few people appreciate the labor cost in
excellent cookery and few have any conception of the cost of good food
service today. Yet all demand both, when "dining out," at least. Who,
on the other hand, but a brute would care to dine well, "taking it out
of the hide of others?"

Hence we moderns with a craving for _gourmandise_ but minus
appropriations for skilled labor would do well to follow the example
of Alexandre Dumas who cheerfully and successfully attended to his own
cuisine. Despite an extensive fiction practice he found time to edit
"Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine" and was not above writing mustard
advertisements, either.

SUMPTUARY LAWS

The appetite of the ancients was at times successfully curbed by
sumptuary laws, cropping out at fairly regular intervals. These laws,
usually given under the pretext of safeguarding the morals of the
people and accompanied by similar euphonious phrases were, like modern
prohibitions, vicious and virulent effusions of the predatory instinct
in mankind. We cannot give a chronological list of them here, and are
citing them merely to illustrate the difficulty confronting the
prospective ancient host.

During the reign of Caesar and Augustus severe laws were passed, fixing
the sums to be spent for public and private dinners and specifying the
edibles to be cons