hough their virtue must have been somewhat delusive, for, after
having boiled down various materials in a close kettle and at a slow fire,
they then distilled from this, and the water thus obtained was
administered as a sovereign remedy. The common sense of Bernard Palissy
did not fail to make him see this absurdity, and to protest against this
ridiculous custom: "Take a capon," he says, "a partridge, or anything
else, cook it well, and then if you smell the broth you will find it very
good, and if you taste it you will find it has plenty of flavour; so much
so that you will feel that it contains something to invigorate you. Distil
this, on the contrary, and take the water then collected and taste it, and
you will find it insipid, and without smell except that of burning. This
should convince you that your restorer does not give that nourishment to
the weak body for which you recommend it as a means of making good blood,
and restoring and strengthening the spirits."

The taste for broths made of flour was formerly almost universal in France
and over the whole of Europe; it is spoken of repeatedly in the histories
and annals of monasteries; and we know that the Normans, who made it their
principal nutriment, were surnamed _bouilleux_. They were indeed almost
like the Romans who in olden times, before their wars with eastern
nations, gave up making bread, and ate their corn simply boiled in water.

In the fourteenth century the broths and soups were made with
millet-flour and mixed wheats. The pure wheat flour was steeped in milk
seasoned with sugar, saffron, honey, sweet wine or aromatic herbs, and
sometimes butter, fat, and yolks of eggs were added. It was on account of
this that the bread of the ancients so much resembled cakes, and it was
also from this fact that the art of the pastrycook took its rise.

Wheat made into gruel for a long time was an important ingredient in
cooking, being the basis of a famous preparation called _fromentee_, which
was a _bouillie_ of milk, made creamy by the addition of yolks of eggs,
and which served as a liquor in which to roast meats and fish. There were,
besides, several sorts of _fromentee_, all equally esteemed, and
Taillevent recommended the following receipt, which differs from the one
above given:--"First boil your wheat in water, then put into it the juice
or gravy of fat meat, or, if you like it better, milk of almonds, and by
this means you will make a soup fit for fasts, be