The enlightened gluttony of the Greeks and Romans inspired them with a host of combinations more or less ingenious, and destined to revive a failing appetite, or one already greatly compromised by vigorous onslaughts. Some of these pastries would appear very nice to us in the present day; others we should think but little worthy of the epicures of Rome and Athens. However, let us not be in too great a hurry to condemn these great masters. Doubtless they had excellent reasons to like that which modern taste may despise and dislike. In return, they might have thought some of our most fashionable dishes detestable; perhaps Apicius might have made a strange grimace at the sight of a dish of sour-crout, an olla-podrida, or an immense plum-pudding. _Oublies_, a light dainty for those who have weak stomachs, were thin sheets of paste composed of flour and honey, which rolled into a spiral form as soon as they approached the oven. They were eaten soaked in cooked wine.[XXIV-4] Persons of taste preferred _oublies_ to fritters--a bold mixture of flour kneaded with wine, seasoned with pepper, and then worked up with milk, and, finally, with a little fat or oil.[XXIV-5] Some cooks employed the finest flour only, mixed with oil, and served this paste after having cooked it in a dish.[XXIV-6] Others worked sesame flour a long time with honey and oil, and fried it.[XXIV-7] These various kinds of fritters were, doubtless, much sought after by the populace, for Cicero speaks of them with profound disdain.[XXIV-8] The Jews, less dainty than the eloquent orator, offered some of this paste in sacrifice. The recipe for its composition is given in Leviticus; it was made of the finest flour, moistened with oil, and cooked in the frying-pan.[XXIV-9] Women and children--those two fragile roots of society--were always fond of sweet and delicate cakes. The pastry-cooks of Attica prepared for them some very excellent kinds; sometimes it was merely a sweet mixture of honey and milk;[XXIV-10] others were made of honey, sesame flour, and cheese or oil.[XXIV-11] Delicious fruit was frequently covered with a light and perfumed paste.[XXIV-12] These Athenian dumplings met with a great success. Rome made the conquest of these precious recipes,[XXIV-13] and vanquished Greece, conquered by her, had still the glory of dictating laws to her haughty enemy: she imposed her cookery. Gingerbread was not unknown to the ancients. Rhodes owed its reputation to it. It was sweetened with honey, and that island furnished it to the whole of Europe. The Greeks called this delicacy _Melitates_, and eat it with pleasure at the close of their repasts.[XXIV-14] Let us not forget, in this rapid survey of ancient sweets, that learned and exquisite mixture now designated under the name of _Nougat_, which, among the Greeks was composed of dried currants and almonds, and which has lost none of its attractions, nothing of its celebrity, after so many centuries.[XXIV-15]