[Illustration:  Fig. 117.—­Banner of the Corporation of Pastrycooks of Caen.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 118.—­Banner of the Corporation of Pastrycooks of Bordeaux.]

It was only in the course of the sixteenth century that the name of potage ceased to be applied to stews, whose number equalled their variety, for on a bill of fare of a banquet of that period we find more than fifty different sorts of potages mentioned.  The greater number of these dishes have disappeared from our books on cookery, having gone out of fashion; but there are two stews which were popular during many centuries, and which have maintained their reputation, although they do not now exactly represent what they formerly did.  The pot-pourri, which was composed of veal, beef, mutton, bacon, and vegetables, and the galimafree, a fricassee of poultry, sprinkled with verjuice, flavoured with spices, and surrounded by a sauce composed of vinegar, bread crumbs, cinnamon, ginger, &c. (Fig. 119).

The highest aim of the cooks of the Taillevent school was to make dishes not only palatable, but also pleasing to the eye.  These masters in the art of cooking might be said to be both sculptors and painters, so much did they decorate their works, their object being to surprise or amuse the guests by concealing the real nature of the disbes.  Froissart, speaking of a repast given in his time, says that there were a number of “dishes so curious and disguised that it was impossible to guess what they were.”  For instance, the bill of fare above referred to mentions a lion and a sun made of white chicken, a pink jelly, with diamond-shaped points; and, as if the object of cookery was to disguise food and deceive epicures, Taillevent facetiously gives us a receipt for making fried or roast butter and for cooking eggs on the spit.

[Illustration:  Fig. 119.—­Interior of Italian Kitchen.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Book on Cookery of Christoforo di Messisburgo, “Banchetti compositioni di Vivende,” 4to., Ferrara, 1549.]

The roasts were as numerous as the stews.  A treatise of the fourteenth century names about thirty, beginning with a sirloin of beef, which must have been one of the most common, and ending with a swan, which appeared on table in full plumage.  This last was the triumph of cookery, inasmuch as it presented this magnificent bird to the eyes of the astonished guests just as if he were living and swimming.  His beak was gilt, his body silvered, resting ’on a mass of brown pastry, painted green in order to represent a grass field.  Eight banners of silk were placed round, and a cloth of the same material served as a carpet for the whole dish, which towered above the other appointments of the table.

[Illustration:  Fig. 120.—­Hunting-Meal.—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of the “Livre du Roy Modus” (National Library of Paris).]