"Le Roman de Claris," a manuscript which belongs to the commencement of the fourteenth century, says that in a town winch was taken by storm the following stores were found:--: "Maint bon tonnel de vin, Maint bon bacon (cochon), maint fromage à rostir." ("Many a ton of wine, Many a slice of good bacon, plenty of good roasted cheese.") [Illustration: Table Service of a Lady of Quality Fac-simile of a miniature from the Romance of Renaud de Montauban, a ms. of fifteenth century Bibl. de l'Arsenal] [Illustration: Ladies Hunting Costumes of the fifteenth century. From a miniature in a ms. copy of _Ovid's Epistles_. No 7231 _bis._ Bibl. nat'le de Paris.] Besides cheese and butter, the Normans, who had a great many cows in their rich pastures, made a sort of fermenting liquor from the butter-milk, which they called _serat_, by boiling the milk with onions and garlic, and letting it cool in closed vessels. [Illustration: Fig. 99.--Manufacture of Cheeses in Switzerland.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster, folio, Basle, 1549.] If the author of the "Ménagier" is to be believed, the women who sold milk by retail in the towns were well acquainted with the method of increasing its quantity at the expense of its quality. He describes how his _froumentée_, which consists of a sort of soup, is made, and states that when he sends his cook to make her purchases at the milk market held in the neighbourhood of the Rues de la Savonnerie, des Ecrivains, and de la Vieille-Monnaie, he enjoins her particularly "to get very fresh cow's milk, and to tell the person who sells it not to do so if she has put water to it; for, unless it be quite fresh, or if there be water in it, it will turn." Fish and Shellfish.--Freshwater fish, which was much more abundant in former days than now, was the ordinary food of those who lived on the borders of lakes, ponds, or rivers, or who, at all events, were not so far distant but that they could procure it fresh. There was of course much diversity at different periods and in different countries as regards the estimation in which the various kinds of fish were held. Thus Ausone, who was a native of Bordeaux, spoke highly of the delicacy of the perch, and asserted that shad, pike, and tench should be left to the lower orders; an opinion which was subsequently contradicted by the inhabitants of other parts of Gaul, and even by the countrymen of the Latin poet Gregory of Tours, who loudly praised the Geneva trout. But a time arrived when the higher classes preferred the freshwater fish of Orchies in Flanders, and even those of the Lyonnais. Thus we see in the thirteenth century the barbel of Saint-Florentin held in great estimation, whereas two hundred years later a man who was of no use, or a nonentity, was said to resemble a barbel, "which is neither good for roasting nor boiling."