Sales catalogue 645: Maggs Bros

Date:
1937
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/172
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 645: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/216 page 6
    Consider, next, the ancient Ecyptians. To them the importance of food did not cease even at death, for upon the very tombs of their ancestors they were wont to deposit savoury dishes. Nor were these idly chosen. Wall-paintings from the tomb of Rameses III at Thebes depict, in some detail, the art of the kitchen, shewing the cooking of meat over charcoal-pans, the stirring of stews with long forks, and the seasoning of them with salt and pepper. Even the addition of the hors d’ceuvre, or appetizer, before the meal can be traced back to the Land of the Nile, for the Greek writer Athenaeus states, in so many words, that the Ptolemys used to serve raw cabbage before dinner in order to stimulate the desire for wine. The Greeks themselves were not without a relish for good food, and it is, perhaps, not by chance that some of the world’s greatest philosophy was produced by Socrates and his circle in discussion around the festive board. In later times, it will be remembered, none other than Julius Cesar sought to serve the more practical ends of diplomacy by insisting “let me have men about me that are fat,” whilst the shameful degradation of good living into mere gluttony on the part of the later Roman Emperors does not escape the all-embracing censure of their biographer, Suetonius. In modern Europe, each nation possesses its native dishes, yet its citizens appear to be ever endowed with an irresistible urge to try those of their neighbours. This fact illustrates at once the insularity and the internationalism of contemporary man. Soho is assuredly a melting-pot in more than a purely culinary sense. In the stress and stir of modern life, the individual gets used to having things done for him en gros, and the preparation of food has become a form of mass-production where it was once an accomplishment of the individual — and a craft. Dishes tend to-day to become stereotyped. The luncheon of modern man can seldom be described as a “dream made flesh,” but merely a “sausage and mash.’ Moreover, in these days of tinned foods and synthetic products, the aromas of the table are more likely to come from Birmingham than Babylon. With this rationalisation of cooking, men begin to lose their interest in the way wherein their food is prepared, and the average diner, unlike the ancient Jewish rabbins, would never rack his head over the identity of that “ pygarg”’ which a gracious providence had permitted for his consumption but omitted to describe. In the present catalogue are described nearly eight hundred items; the earliest is a Babylonian clay tablet inscribed with details of food 2,500 years before Christ, and the latest is a new work by X. M. Boulestin, The Finer Cooking, published while this catalogue was in the press. Das: [v1
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3