PREFACE
TO THE
CURIOUS ANTIQUARIAN READER.
WITHOUT beginning ab ovo on a ſubject ſo light (a matter of importance, however, to many a modern Catius or Amaſinius), by inveſtigating the origin of the Art of Cookery, and the nature of it as practiſed by the Antediluvians[1]; without dilating on the ſeveral particulars concerning it afterwards
- ↑ If, according to Petavius and Le Clerc, the world was created in autumn, when the fruits of the earth were both plentiful and in the higheſt perfection, the firſt man had little occaſion for much culinary knowledge: roaſting or boiling the cruder productions, with modes of preſerving thoſe which were better ripened, ſeem to be all that was neceſſary for him in the way of Cury. And even after he was diſplaced from Paradiſe, I conceive, as many others do, he was not permitted the uſe of animal food [Gen. i. 29.]; but that this was indulged to us, by an enlargement of our charter, after the Flood, Gen. ix. 3. But, without wading any further in the argument here, the reader is referred to Gen. ii. 8. ſeq. iii. 17. ſeq. 23.
