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Arviragus. How angel-like he sings!

Guiderius. But his neat cookery! he cut our roots in characters,

And sauc’d our broths as Juno had been sick

And he her dieter.

Cymbeline iv. 2.

In this passage Shakespeare exalts cookery above songs that are merely angel-like, and anyone who has dined at a modern restaurant with “music off” as part of the stage directions will agree with Guiderius that it is impertinent to consider the merit of song at moments that should be given to the praise of cookery. Incidentally, too, the passage has a value for the cuisinologist of an antiquarian turn of mind by pointing out that the decoration of dishes with alphabetical carrots and turnips, “roots cut in characters,” was a commonplace of the Shakespearean table.

And if in a detached passage from a dramatic writer we can find so much culinary thought, how much more remains to be sought after in those masterpieces of kitchen literature given to the world by the great artist cooks of bygone centuries.