"The saddest of legal blunders is that which tries to limit man's enjoyment of innocent pleasures." From the wise words of the philosopher we learn how it can be that rulers repeat this particular mistake over and over again. "We learn from history, that we learn nothing from history" says the savant.
Most laws against pleasure have succeeded only in developing the victim's ingenuity, for he energetically applies himself to the business of finding devious ways in which to outwit the blue stockings. Thus is has come about that those laws which proscribed the pursuit of happiness have not always been unfruitful.
The Fannin Law was one of them. It was passed when Rome was at the height of its glory; at the apex of a civilization of which the keynote was luxury and extravagance. The Senators, chosen leaders of the people, sat with furrowed brows at their conference tables, and discussed with honest concern the ever-increasing excesses of the citizenry. Something had to be done. Romans of great wealth were expending unbelievable enormous sums on entertainment; and banquets where hundreds of gluttonous guest gorged themselves day after day on flamingo's tongues, shark's livers, and similar rare and costly delicacies, were commonplace. Extravagance ran riot, and the Senators knew that discontent was sure to follow on its heels. So, the worried elders put their grave heads together, and composed the Lex Fannia; the stringent provisions of the law indicated the extent of their desperation.
The law established a maximum beyond which the cost of no feast could go; it restricted the number of guest who might be invited to dine, to three on ordinary days, and to five on gala occasions, and it specifically forbade the serving of any fowl except a hen at any such repast, with the further injunction that the hen could not be especially fattened.
It was the last provision, outrageous and obviously unjust, which caused the most grumbling. The citizens muttered angrily of reprisals at the next election, against the authors of this diabolical legal contrivance which would sacrifice the useful hen (unfattened, at that) and her strutting rooster for the life of well-fed worthlessness. As ever free men will, when their intimate personal liberty is snatched from them, the Romans revolted. Hens destined for the table grew plump and sleek as if by happy coincidence. Chicken yards became hen heavens, where no clucking bird was permitted to scratch for food, lest she risk the loss of a fraction of an ounce of tender flesh.
In the meantime, a great deal of attention was being devoted to the problem of making the sacred rooster eatable within the law. Philosophers, farmers, perhaps even a renegade senator or two, studied the problem thoughtfully. But is was a skilled surgeon who found the way. With his expert knife he performed a trick which transformed the rooster into the eunuch of the barnyard. The bird grew plump of its own nature, without compelling its owner to disobey the law against fattening chickens. Its flavor was superior to that of the hen, its flesh more tender and yet more succulent. The new bird was a huge success, and took its place among the supreme delicacies of the table, a place of honor to which its right has not been challenged. Thus was the capon created -- by man's unending revolt against injustice.
Not as large as the turkey, nor as small as the roasting chicken, the capon is a happy compromise between the two. The golden fat of this bird is marbled throughout the lean tissue, and the flesh is a pale delicate pink in color, firm yet meltingly soft, so that thin and succulent slices fall from the sharp knife that cuts it.
Carving the capon is simple enough. Its structure is identical with that of the turkey and the chicken, and the same procedure should be followed. Since the capon is more fleshy, however, it is possible to get a greater number of slices of white meat from its breast, pound for pound, than from those of either of the other birds.
The individual delicacy of the capon is frequently passed over too lightly in gastronomic literature, and instructions for its use too often comment briefly on the capon's resemblance to chicken, and recommend the same methods of preparation. There is at least one famous exception to this rule of general neglect, for Alexandre Dumas, gourmet author of the Grand Dictionnaire de la Cuisine, whose lyric tributes to fine viands are as honored in the history of literature as they are in the annals of gastronomy, created one formula for the preparation of capon which is worthy of this exquisitely flavored bird. The recipe was modernized by the chef at the Hotel du Pavillon, at Cannes, where it was among the most cherished and most famous specialties of the house. (Note a Norfolk capon is not a fowl but a red herring. Capon was used in Old English to designate a fish.)"
The Gold Cook Book, Louis P. De Gouy, Chilton, 1947, pp 485. Note: There is none better than this book!
***
"Brillat-Savarin was convalescing and his doctor had ordered him on a diet. He was found to be devouring a fat hen from Le Mans.
"Is that a diet for a sick-man?" he was asked.
"My friend," said Brillat-Savarin, "I am subsisting on barley and
buckwheat only."
"And the hen?"
"She lived on it for two months. Now she gives me life in her turn. Ah!
what a fine thing the Moors did for us when they sent us buckwheat!
Nothing else makes a chicken so seductive, so fine, so exquisite!"
Alexandre Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine, ed, ab, trans by Louis Colman, Simon and Schuster, 1958, pp 88.
And for another "birds of a feather", try Sparrows.
***
Just goes to show that even the bureaucrats in their infinite wisdom can actually make a contribution to society. And if you visit the Sparrows site you will discover how military service broadens one's horizons.
ABOUT Joe Wortham