as they are requisite. The too abundant use of a certain condiment or spice, the lack of another or the injudicious mingling of certain others will ruin the finest pudding, sauce or soup ever compounded. Condiments and spices are as ancient as civilization. The oldest books of the scriptures, notably Exodus, Leviticus, Job and the Canticles, make frequent reference to salt and spices, substances which were then costly, chiefly dedicated to royalty and the uses of temple and altar. The Greeks followed the Semitic customs to some extent in their disposition of spices, not using them as largely in their food as have later races. They were fond of aromatic flavorings and it is said that the laurels of Greece, of which the cinnamon is a species, possessed that quality to a greater extent than those of any other country, although all laurels have aromatic leaves. Homer in the Iliad refers with naïve surprise to those people unaccustomed to the use of salt, and in the ninth book pictures Patroclus as “He strews a bed of glowing embers wide, Above the coals the smoking fragments turns, And sprinkles sacred salt upon the urns.” By the mediæval Romans condiments were well liked. They made, according to one author, a pickle from the tunny fish, just as their languorous descendants are doing to-day, and also prepared a condiment from the intestines of the mackerel. “Liver of the capon, steeped in milk and beccaficoes, and dressed with pepper” was another of their highly seasoned dishes. In the thirteenth century Dante, in the description of the alchemists and forgers of the tenth gulf of the Inferno, referred to one Niccolo of Sienna, “who first the spice’s luxury discovered.” Contemporary with him in England, William Langland, in his “Vision of Piers the Plowman,” inquired if thou “hast in thy purse any hot spices?” Frequent reference by the writers of that day indicates that these substances were expensive and used mainly by the luxurious. Venice had for many years controlled the trade in spices, which were brought overland from the Orient in immense caravans, and not until Diaz and Vasco de Gama, in the fifteenth century, rounded the cape of Good Hope did their costliness diminish. After that event spices and condiments ceased to be regarded merely as luxuries and became as necessary to the plainest of soups as to the _Puree de volaille a la Bearnise_ of the French chef. All classes of people use condiments in some form, from the wealthy epicure who flavors his terrapin with mace, salt, pepper, and sherry to the negro who sifts okra through his fingers into his gumbo soup or the Indian, stirring the contents of a steaming kettle with twigs of sassafras. Condiments have been defined as those substances eaten with meat and combined with salt while spices are chiefly added to articles containing sugar. They may be classified as follows: