cause it dissolves
slowly, is of slow digestion and nourishes much. In this way, too, you can
make _ordiat_, or barley soup, which is more generally approved than the
said _fromentee_."

[Illustration: Fig. 116.--Interior of a Kitchen.--Fac-simile from a
Woodcut in the "Calendarium Romanum" of J. Staeffler, folio, Tubingen,
1518.]

Semolina, vermicelli, macaroni, &c., which were called Italian because
they originally came from that country, have been in use in France longer
than is generally supposed. They were first introduced after the
expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy, and the conquest of the kingdom of
Naples; that is, in the reign of Louis XII., or the first years of the
sixteenth century.

Pies, Stews, Roasts, Salads, &c.--Pastry made with fat, which might be
supposed to have been the invention of modern kitchens, was in great
repute amongst our ancestors. The manufacture of sweet and savoury pastry
was intrusted to the care of the good _menagiers_ of all ranks and
conditions, and to the corporation of pastrycooks, who obtained their
statutes only in the middle of the sixteenth century; the united skill of
these, both in Paris and in the provinces, multiplied the different sorts
of tarts and meat pies to a very great extent. So much was this the case
that these ingenious productions became a special art, worthy of rivalling
even cookery itself (Figs. 117, 118, and 130). One of the earliest known
receipts for making pies is that of Gaces de la Bigne, first chaplain of
Kings John, Charles V., and Charles VI. We find it in a sporting poem, and
it deserves to be quoted verbatim as a record of the royal kitchen of the
fourteenth century. It will be observed on perusing it that nothing was
spared either in pastry or in cookery, and that expense was not considered
when it was a question of satisfying the appetite.

"Trois perdriaulx gros et reffais
Au milieu du pate me mets;
Mais gardes bien que tu ne failles
A moi prendre six grosses cailles,
De quoi tu les apuyeras.
Et puis apres tu me prendras
Une douzaine d'alouetes
Qu'environ les cailles me mettes,
Et puis pendras de ces maches
Et de ces petits oiseles:
Selon ce que tu en auras,
Le pate m'en billeteras.
Or te fault faire pourveance
D'un pen de lart, sans point de rance,
Que tu tailleras comme de:
S'en sera le paste pouldre.
S tu le veux de bonne guise,
Du vertjus la grappe y soit mise,
D'un bien peu de sel soi