These expensive habits could only suit the most opulent and least numerous class of Romans. The honest citizen modestly provided himself at the fish-market, and the part not eaten by him the first day was submitted to a very simple process, which assured its preservation. For this, it was only necessary to cover it with boiling vinegar as soon as it had been fried.[XXI-284] Fish was also well preserved by surrounding it with snow, and placing it at the bottom of an ice-house.[XXI-285] XXII. THE COOK. The author of a rare and very curious work,[XXII-1] which no one at present has time to read, formed the charitable project of reconciling medicine and gastronomy. This was a noble enterprize, worthy of a true philanthropist, and which assuredly presented less difficulties than people may think. In effect, what was the moot question? To agree, _de forma_, without interfering with the substance; to examine whether culinary preparations poison, as has been said, the food which nature gives us, and unceasingly paralyze the salutary action of the dietetic, which the faculty prescribe. For many centuries cooking has been exposed to these odious reproaches, the gravity of which we do not pretend to attenuate; and yet, ever pursuing its brilliant career amidst revolutions and ruins, the magiric art, endowed with eternal youth, embellishes each new era of civilization, receives its most constant homage, and survives it when it fades away. Let us speak plainly: mankind has thrown on cooks all the faults of which they ought to accuse their own intemperance. It was no doubt easier, than to avoid the fatal abuse of pleasure, and the evils it brings with it; but there was the crying injustice, which we do not hesitate to denounce; _there_ lay the obstacle it was necessary to overcome, in order to bring about a peaceful understanding between the disciples of Galen and the followers of Apicius. _Gourmandise_ would never have rebelled against the kitchen if all polyphagists had obtained from the good Ceres the gift she granted to Pandarea--a celebrated eater, who could pass days and nights at table, without experiencing the slightest indigestion.[XXII-2] “But,” say you, “Seneca, the philosopher, perpetually combats, with the authority of his virtuous language, those dangerous men who are busied with a single stomach,[XXII-3] and who lay the foundation for a train of maladies.”