Too, some of our own shams are liable to misinterpretation. In centuries to come our own modern recipes for "Scotch Woodcock" or "Welsh rabbit" may be interpreted as attempts on our part to hoodwink guests by making game birds and rabbits out of cheese and bread, like Trimalchio's culinary artists are reputed to have made suckling pigs out of dough, partridges of veal, chicken of tunny fish, and _vice versa_. What indeed would a serious-minded research worker a thousand years hence if unfamiliar with our culinary practice and traditions make of such terms as _pette de nonne_ as found in many old French cookery books, or of the famous _suttelties_ (subtleties)--the confections once so popular at medieval weddings? The ramifications of the _lingua coquinaria_ in any country are manifold, and the culinary wonderland is full of pitfalls even for the experienced gourmet. REACHING THE LIMIT Like in all other branches of ancient endeavor, cookery had reached a state of perfection around the time of Apicius when the only chance for successful continuation of the art lay in the conquest of new fields, i.e., in expansion, generalization, elaboration and in influence from foreign sources. We have witnessed this in French cookery which for the last hundred years has successfully expanded and has virtually captured the civilized parts of the globe, subject however, always to regional and territorial modifications. This desirable expansion of antique cookery did not take place. It was violently and rather suddenly checked principally by political and economic events during the centuries following Apicius, perhaps principally by the forces that caused the great migration (the very quest of food!). Suspension ensued instead. The heirs to the ancient culture were not yet ready for their marvelous heritage. Besides their cultural unpreparedness, the cookery of the ancients, like their humor, did not readily appeal to the "Nordic" heirs. Both are so subtle and they depend so much upon the psychology and the economic conditions of a people, and they thus presented almost unsurmountable obstacles to the invaders. Still lo! already in the fifth century, the Goth Vinithaharjis, started to collect the Apician precepts. OUR PREDECESSORS The usefulness in our days of Apicius as a practical cookery book has been questioned, but we leave this to our readers to decide after the perusal of this translation. If not useful in the kitchen, if we cannot grasp its moral, what, then, is Apicius? Merely a curio? The existing manuscripts cannot be bought; the old printed editions are highly priced by collectors, and they are rare. Still, the few persons able to read the messages therein cannot use them: they are not practitioners in cookery.