“[1657] There are two fish known by the name of _squilla_; the one apparently a small fish (perhaps a _river_ fish, as Martial mentions their abounding in the Liris: lib. xiii., Ep. 83), used as a sauce or garnish for larger fish. Vid. Hor., ii., Sat. viii., 42, "Affertur _squillas_ inter muræna natantes," which Orell. explains as a conger served up with crabs. The other is a large fish forming a dish of itself. Cf. Juv., v., 80, "Quam _longo_ distendat _pectore_ lancem quæ fertur domino _squilla_," etc. If it is represented by the Greek κᾶρις, it is something of the lobster or prawn kind. It appears to have been dressed sometimes with sorrel sauce. Cf. Athen., iii., 92, 66. The _acipenser_ is probably _not_ the sturgeon: from its etymology it is some sharp-headed fish. (Acies et penna, or pinna.) Salmas., Ex. Plin., 1316: but what it _really was_ is not known. It was a _royal_ fish, like the sturgeon (Mart., xiii., Ep. 91), and when brought to table was ushered in with great solemnities: the servant who bore it had a chaplet round his head, and was preceded by another playing the flute. Publius Gallonius, the præco, is said to have been the first who introduced this luxury. Macrob., Sat. ii., 12. In Pliny's time, however, he tells us, it had gone out of fashion. H. N., ix., 26.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Take some sturgeon and mince it with a fresh eel, put to it some sweet herbs minc't small, some grated bread, yolks of eggs, salt, nutmeg, pepper, some gooseberries, grapes or barberries, and make it into little balls or rolls. Then have fresh fish scal'd, washed, dryed, and parted into equal pieces, season them with pepper, nutmeg, salt, and set them by; then make ready shell-fish, and season them as the other fishes lightly with the same spices. Then make ready roots, as potatoes, skirrets, artichocks and chesnuts, boil them, cleanse them, and season them with the former spices.
Sources: The passage is from Persius, The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius: Literally tra, tr. Evans, Lewis, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from May, The accomplisht cook of 1660, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — navy cloth, amphora stamp.