y bad. On him rests the
responsibility of the cooking generally, whilst a speciality of his
department, is to prepare the rich soups, stews, ragouts, and such
dishes as enter into the more refined and complicated portions of his
art, and such as are not usually understood by ordinary professors. He,
therefore, holds a high position in a household, being inferior in rank,
as already shown (21), only to the house steward, the valet, and the
butler.

In the luxurious ages of Grecian antiquity, Sicilian cooks were
the most esteemed, and received high rewards for their services.
Among them, one called Trimalcio was such an adept in his art,
that he could impart to common fish both the form and flavour of
the most esteemed of the piscatory tribes. A chief cook in the
palmy days of Roman voluptuousness had about L800 a year, and
Antony rewarded the one that cooked the supper which pleased
Cleopatra, with the present of a city. With the fall of the
empire, the culinary art sank into less consideration. In the
middle ages, cooks laboured to acquire a reputation for their
sauces, which they composed of strange combinations, for the
sake of novelty, as well as singularity.

79. THE DUTIES OF THE COOK, THE KITCHEN AND THE SCULLERY MAIDS, are so
intimately associated, that they can hardly be treated of separately.
The cook, however, is at the head of the kitchen; and in proportion to
her possession of the qualities of cleanliness, neatness, order,
regularity, and celerity of action, so will her influence appear in the
conduct of those who are under her; as it is upon her that the whole
responsibility of the business of the kitchen rests, whilst the others
must lend her, both a ready and a willing assistance, and be especially
tidy in their appearance, and active, in their movements.

In the larger establishments of the middle ages, cooks, with the
authority of feudal chiefs, gave their orders from a high chair
in which they ensconced themselves, and commanded a view of all
that was going on throughout their several domains. Each held a
long wooden spoon, with which he tasted, without leaving his
seat, the various comestibles that were cooking on the stoves,
and which he frequently used as a rod of punishment on the backs
of those whose idleness and gluttony too largely predominated
over their diligence and temperance.

80. IF, AS WE HAVE SAID (3