In direct connection with cookery as with horticulture, are the utensils¹ and appliances which were at the command of those who had to do with these matters in days of yore; and in both cases an inquirer finds that he has to turn from the vain search for actual specimens³ belonging to remoter antiquity⁴ to casual representations or descriptions in Mss. and printed books. Our own museums appear to be very weakly furnished with examples of the vessels⁵ and implements⁸ in common use for culinary purposes in ancient times, and, judging from the comparatively limited information which we get upon this subject from the pages of Lacroix, the paucity¹⁰ of material is not confined to ourselves. The destruction and disappearance¹¹ of such humble¹² monuments of the civilisation¹³ of the past are easily explained; and the survival of a slender salvage¹⁴ is to be treated as a circumstance not less remarkable¹⁵ than fortunate.

It seems that the practice was to cut up, if not to slaughter¹⁶, the animals used for food in the kitchen, and to prepare the whole carcase, some parts in one way and some in another. We incidentally collect from an ancient tale that the hearts of swine were much prized as dainties.

Besides a general notion of the appointments of the cooking department, we are enabled to form some conception of the aspect of the early kitchen itself from extant representations in the “Archaeological Album,” the “Penny Magazine” for 1836, and Lacroix [Footnote: “Moeurs, Usages et Costumes au Moyen Age,” 1872, pp 166, 170, 177]. The last-named authority furnishes us with two interesting sixteenth century interiors from Jost Amman, and (from the same source) a

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