See Food, Diet, Drink, &c.

Amongst the Jews, several kinds of animals were forbidden to be used as food. The flesh with the blood, and the blood without the flesh, were prohibited; the fat also of sacrificed animals was not to be eaten. Roast meat, boiled meat, and ragouts, were in use amongst the Hebrews, but we meet with no kind of seasoning except salt, bitter herbs, and honey.—They never mingled milk in any ragout or hash, and never eat at the same meal both meat and milk, butter or cheese. The daily provision for Solomon's table was 30 measures of fine wheat flour, 60 of common flour, 20 stalls of oxen, 20 pasture oxen, 100 sheep, besides venison and wild-fowl. See Luxury.

The principal and most necessary food among the ancient Greeks was bread, which they called ἀρτοῦς, and produced in a wicker basket called καστόν. Their loaves were sometimes baked under the ashes, and sometimes in an oven. They also used a sort of bread called Μάζα. Barley meal was used amongst the Greeks, which they called αρτοῦς. They had a frequent dish called βρώμιον, which was a composition of rice, cheese, eggs, and honey, wrapped in fig-leaves. The Μορταίνιον was made of cheese, garlic, and eggs, beaten and mixed together. Their bread, and other substitutes for bread, were baked in the form of hollow plates, into which they poured a sauce. Garlic, onions, and figs, seem to have been a very common food amongst the poorer Athenians. The Greeks, especially in the heroic times, ate flesh roasted; boiled meat seldom was used. Fish seems not to have been used for food in the early ages of Greece. The young people only, amongst the Lacedemonians, ate animal food; the men and the old men were supported by a black soup called μύκης τυρος, which to people of other nations was always a disagreeable mess. Grasshoppers and the extremities or tender shoots of trees were frequently eaten by the poor among the Greeks. Eels dressed with beet root was esteemed a delicate dish, and they were fond of the jowl and belly of salt-fish. Neither were they without their sweet-meats: the desert consisted frequently of fruits, almonds, nuts, figs, peaches, &c. In every kind of food we find salt to have been used.

The diet of the first Romans consisted wholly of milk, herbs, and roots, which they cultivated and drested with their own hands; they also had a kind of gruel, or coarse, grofs pap, composed of meal and boiling water; this served for bread: And when they began to use bread, they had none for a great while but of unmixed rye. Barley-meal was eaten by them, which they called Polenta. When they began to eat animal food, it was esteemed a piece of luxury, and an indulgence not to be justified but by some particular occasion. After animal food had grown into common use, the meat which they most frequently produced upon their tables was pork.

Method of Preserving Flesh-Meat without Spices, and with very little Salt. Jones, in his Miscellanea Curiosa, gives us the following description of the Moorish Elchebolle, which is made of beef, mutton, or camel's flesh, but chiefly beef, and which they cut all in long slices, and let it lie for 24 hours in a pickle. They then remove it out of those jars or tubs into others with water; and when it has lain a night, they take it out, and put it on ropes in the sun and air to dry. When it is thoroughly dried and hard, they cut it into pieces of two or three inches long, and throw it into a pan or caldron, which is ready with boiling oil and fuel sufficient to hold it, where it boils till it be very clear and red when cut. After this they take it out, and set it to drain; and when all is thus done it stands to cool, and jars are prepared to put it up in, pouring upon it the liquor in which it was fried; and as soon as it is thoroughly cold, they stop it up close. It will keep two years; will be hard, and the hardest they look upon to be the best done. This they dish up cold, sometimes fried with eggs and garlic, sometimes stewed, and lemon squeezed on it. It is very good any way, either hot or cold.