EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS
buy provisions in the great towns, he will be obliged to a very severe diet, in a country that he should think flow'd with milk and honey."[1]
At all events, tourists who consulted their own comfort did not trust the larder of the wayside inn or even that of the more pretentious hostelry in towns of considerable size. Mariana Starke's party, when going to Palestrina, took provisions with them, though, as she says, the inn was "not very bad." The inn at Frascati was "tolerably good," but it was "advisable … for travellers to carry cold meat with them."[2] And this was late in the eighteenth century.
But in the days of slow and costly transportation, the traveler who could not carry a kitchen and a storehouse with him was usually compelled to accept the unmodified fare of each district, and this naturally varied with every posting-station. In any case, the wealthy Englishman, accustomed to a generous table with abundance of meat, found the usual Italian fare very meager, and he was not reconciled to the lack of roast beef and mutton by the abundance of salad and macaroni. The difference in English and Italian temperament and habits was fundamental. "Few Italians," says Baretti, "can endure beef at their tables. Many English ministers residing at our courts and many English gentlemen habituated in the country, finding the beef to their taste in several parts of Italy, have kindly endeavoured to bring it into fashion, and would persuade us to eat it roasted."[3] The place of beef was supplied by "kid, dressed in various manners, the staple food of the Italian travellers, and which is often so various in quality, that some have thought its place is occasionally supplied by a canine representative."[4]
In the middle of the nineteenth century, we are told, "Butter was nearly unknown in Rome forty years since. There is now, however, a large dairy near the tomb to Cecilia Metella, where it may be had very good. This progress is owing to the arrival at Rome of numerous English travellers. As the Roman dairies, however, do not pro-
93
- ↑ Misson agrees with Burnet: "The inns in the little towns, especially on certain roads, are very ill furnish'd with provisions. The first course, which they call the Antipasto, is a dish of giblets boil'd with salt and pepper, and mix'd with whites of eggs. After which course, come one after another of different ragous. Between Rome and Naples the traveller is sometimes regal'd with buffalos and crows; and he's a happy man that can meet with such dainties." New Voyage to Italy, ii2, 392.
- ↑ Letters from Italy, ii, 58, 59.
- ↑ Manners and Customs of Italy, ii, 199.
- ↑ Smith, Tour on the Continent, ii, 318.
