“This is a numerous herb; for there is no less abundance of it than of any other whatsoever. Some of these plants are spherical, some rhomboid, and some of an oblong shape, and all of those either black, bright-coloured, or tawny, rude to the touch, and mantled with a quickly-blasted-away coat, yet such a one as is of a delicious taste and savour to all shrill and sweetly-singing birds, such as linnets, goldfinches, larks, canary birds, yellow-hammers, and others of that airy chirping choir; but it would quite extinguish the natural heat and procreative virtue of the semence of any man who would eat much and often of it. And although that of old amongst the Greeks there was certain kinds of fritters and pancakes, buns and tarts, made thereof, which commonly for a liquorish daintiness were presented on the table after supper to delight the palate and make the wine relish the better; yet is it of a difficult concoction, and offensive to the stomach. For it engendereth bad and unwholesome blood, and with its exorbitant heat woundeth them with grievous, hurtful, smart, and noisome vapours. And, as in divers plants and trees there are two sexes, male and female, which is perceptible in laurels, palms, cypresses, oaks, holms, the daffodil, mandrake, fern, the agaric, mushroom, birthwort, turpentine, pennyroyal, peony, rose of the mount, and many other such like, even so in this herb there is a male which beareth no flower at all, yet it is very copious of and abundant in seed. There is likewise in it a female, which hath great store and plenty of whitish flowers, serviceable to little or no purpose, nor doth it carry in it seed of any worth at all, at least comparable to that of the male. It hath also a larger leaf, and much softer than that of the male, nor doth it altogether grow to so great a height. This Pantagruelion is to be sown at the first coming of the swallows, and is to be plucked out of the ground when the grasshoppers begin to be a little hoarse.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
_The Second Course._ 1. A Dish of Eels spichcockt. 2. A Fricasie of Eels. 3. A Dish of fryed Puffs. 4. A Dish of Potatoes stewed. 5. A Dish of fryed Oysters. 6. A Dish of blanched Manchet. 7. An Oyster Pie with Parsneps. 8. A Pippin Pie Buttered. 9. A Dish of Buttered Shrimps. 10. Two Lobsters rosted. 11. A Dish of Tarts of Herbs. 12. A Dish of souced Fish. 13. A Dish of pickled Oysters. 14. A Dish of Anchovies and Caveare. * * * * * _A Bill of Fare without feasting; only such a number of Dishes as are used in Great and Noble Houses for their own Family, and for familiar Friends with them._
Sources: The passage is from François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, tr. Motteux, Peter Anthony, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Woolley, The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet of 1670, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — burgundy cloth, tankard stamp.