_Liquamen_ and _Garum_ were synonymous terms for the same thing; the former adopted in the room of the latter, about the age of _Aurelian_. It was a liquid, and thus prepared: the _guts_ of large fish, and a variety of small fish, were put into a vessel and well salted, and exposed to the sun till they became putrid. A liquor was produced in a short time, which being strained off, was the _liquamen_.--Vide LISTER _in Apicium_, p. 16, notes.
_Essence of anchovy_, as it is usually made for sale, when it has been opened about ten days, is not much unlike the Roman _liquamen_. See No. 433. Some suppose it was the same thing as the Russian _Caviar_, which is prepared from the roe of the sturgeon.
The BLACK BROTH of _Lacedæmon_ will long continue to excite the wonder of the philosopher, and the disgust of the epicure. What the ingredients of this sable composition were, we cannot exactly ascertain. _Jul. Pollux_ says, the Lacedæmonian black broth was _blood_, thickened in a certain way: Dr. LISTER (_in Apicium_) supposes it to have been _hog's blood_; if so, this celebrated Spartan dish bore no very distant resemblance to the _black-puddings_ of our days. It could not be a very _alluring_ mess, since a citizen of _Sybaris_ having tasted it, declared it was no longer a matter of astonishment with him, why the _Spartans_ were so fearless of death, since any one in his senses would much rather die, than exist on such execrable food.--Vide _Athenæum_, lib. iv. c. 3. When Dionysius the tyrant had tasted the _black broth_, he exclaimed against it as miserable stuff; the cook replied--"It was no wonder, for the sauce was wanting." "What sauce?" says Dionysius. The answer was,--"_Labour and exercise, hunger and thirst, these are the sauces we Lacedæmonians use_," and they make the coarsest fare agreeable.--CICERO, 3 Tuscul.
[15-*] "The STOMACH is the grand organ of the human system, upon the state of which all the powers and feelings of the individual depend."--_See_ HUNTER'S _Culina_, p. 13.
"The faculty the stomach has of communicating the impressions made by the various substances that are put into it, is such, that it seems more like a nervous expansion of the brain, than a mere receptacle for food."--Dr. WATERHOUSE'S _Lecture on Health_, p. 4.