1 meal in this book
“The meal was served. It consisted of a soup of salted water, seasoned with pepper and rancid oil. The last ingredient played a very prominent part in the salad; stale eggs and roasted cocks'-combs furnished the grand dish of the repast; the wine even was not without a disgusting taste--it was like a medicinal draught.”
Very sensible way of using cabbage stalks that are usually thrown away. Note the almost scientific procedure: the stalks are separated from the leaves, split to facilitate cooking; they are cooked separately because they require more time than the tender greens. Our present method appears barbarous in comparison. We quarter the cabbage head, and either boil it or steam it. As a result either the tender leaves are cooked to death or the stems are still hard. The overcooked parts are not palatable, the underdone ones indigestible. Such being the case, our boiled cabbage is a complete loss, unless prepared the Apician way.
Recipe from Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome.
Sources: Every passage above is quoted verbatim from Andersen's Fairy Tales, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipes come from cookbooks of the period, also free in full. All are in the public domain in the United States. The binding is ours — plum cloth, sheaf stamp.