[Illustration:  Fig. 123.—­The Issue de Table.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Treatise of Christoforo di Messisburgo, “Banchetti compositioni di Vivende,” 4to., Ferrara, 1549.]

Verjuice, or green juice, which, with vinegar, formed the essential basis of sauces, and is now extracted from a species of green grape, which never ripens, was originally the juice of sorrel; another sort was extracted by pounding the green blades of wheat.  Vinegar was originally merely soured wine, as the word vin-aigre denotes.  The mode of manufacturing it by artificial means, in order to render the taste more pungent and the quality better, is very ancient.  It is needless to state that it was scented by the infusion of herbs or flowers—­roses, elder, cloves, &c.; but it was not much before the sixteenth century that it was used for pickling herbs or fruits and vegetables, such as gherkins, onions, cucumber, purslain, &c.

Salt, which from the remotest periods was the condiment par excellence, and the trade in which had been free up to the fourteenth century, became, from that period, the subject of repeated taxation.  The levying of these taxes was a frequent cause of tumult amongst the people, who saw with marked displeasure the exigencies of the excise gradually raising the price of an article of primary necessity.  We have already mentioned times during which the price of salt was so exorbitant that the rich alone could put it in their bread.  Thus, in the reign of Francis I., it was almost as dear as Indian spices.

Sweet Dishes, Desserts, &c.—­In the fourteenth century, the first courses of a repast were called mets or assiettes; the last, “entremets, dorures, issue de table, desserte, and boule-hors.”

The dessert consisted generally of baked pears, medlars, pealed walnuts, figs, dates, peaches, grapes, filberts, spices, and white or red sugar-plums.

At the issue de table wafers or some other light pastry were introduced, which were eaten with the hypocras wine.  The boute-hors, which was served when the guests, after having washed their hands and said grace, had passed into the drawing-room, consisted of spices, different from those which had appeared at dessert, and intended specially to assist the digestion; and for this object they must have been much needed, considering that a repast lasted several hours.  Whilst eating these spices they drank Grenache, Malmsey, or aromatic wines (Fig. 123).

It was only at the banquets and great repeats that sweet dishes and dorures appeared, and they seem to have been introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the power of the imagination and the talent in execution of the master-cook.

The dorures consisted of jellies of all sorts and colours; swans, peacocks, bitterns, and herons, on gala feasts, were served in full feather on a raised platform in the middle of the table, and hence the name of “raised dishes.”  As for the side-dishes, properly so called, the long list collected in the “Menagier” shows us that they were served at table indiscriminately, for stuffed chickens at times followed hashed porpoise in sauce, lark pies succeeded lamb sausages, and pike’s-eggs fritters appeared after orange preserve.