Food in the First Eclogue

 

           There are two places I would like to draw attention to in Eclogue 1 where food is referenced. The first occurs in line 35 “pinguis et ingratae premeretur caseus urbi (and rich cheese pressed for the ungrateful town)” and the second occurs in line 82 “et pressi copia lactis (and an abundance of pressed milk (i.e. cheese)” (Lewis and Short even cite line 82 in their definition of “premo” as an example: “pressum lac,” i. e. cheese, Verg. E. 1, 82.” I find these two lines significant because it seems the speaker (Tityrus both times) is contrasting the cheese making process used by those adhering to a simplistic lifestyle akin to the Golden Age with the cheese making process used to sell to city-dwellers.

            In book one of the Metamorphosis, Ovid describes the Golden Age as a time when humans didn’t have to worry about war, farming, or travel and food was abundant and ready-grown (“Contented with food that grew without cultivation, they collected mountain strawberries and the fruit of the strawberry tree, wild cherries, blackberries clinging to the tough brambles, and acorns fallen from Jupiter’s spreading oak-tree” (Translated by A.S. Kline)). Besides cheese, the other mentions of food in Eclogue 1 are of fruit or nuts which need little to no preparation and therefore resemble the Golden Age diet.

            When I first read Eclogue 1 I wondered about the different vocabulary used to describe what is essentially the same thing: cheese. While I’m usually pretty comfortable categorizing any potential issue in Latin poetry as “metrical reasons”, it seemed more likely in this case that there was another reason behind the different phrases, leading me to search for how to make cheese in ancient Rome. For the methods of cheese production, I turned to book 7 of Columella’s De Re Rustica in which he goes off on a cheese making tangent in between his discussions of goat diseases (and how to cure them!) and pigs. Columella explains two of the ways to make cheese. The first takes over nine days and makes a cheese that can even be sold across the sea. The second is prepared with less care and is made to be eaten within a few days (essentially as soon as the curds and whey separate, you pour the mixture into a cheese mold, the whey drains out and the curds, after adding salt and letting it dry a bit, are ready to eat). Upon reading Columella and contextualizing his description within Eclogue 1, it seems clear that Tityrus is also referring to two different types of cheese production and is perhaps associating them with two distinct lifestyles. On the one hand, there is the non-Golden Age life where Tityrus, under the yoke of Galatea, expended great energy and saw no returns, while on the other hand, there is the Golden Age lifestyle Tityrus now lives, carefree and happy, teaching the woods to echo fair Amaryllis (who it seems saved Tityrus from becoming a real curd-mugeon), and able to offer Meliboeus part of his idyllic meal. 

 

Below find 7.8-9 of Columella, On Agriculture from the Loeb (Translated by E. S. Forster, Edward H. Heffner. Loeb Classical Library 407. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954.) I have bolded the most relevant parts in both the Latin and English.

 

Casei quoque faciendi non erit omittenda cura, utique longinquis regionibus, ubi mulctram⁸ devehere non expedit. Is porro si tenui liquore conficitur, quam celerrime vendendus est, dum adhuc viridis succum retinet: si pingui et opimo, longiorem patitur⁹ custodiam. Sed lacte fieri debet sincero et quam recentissimo. Nam requietum vel aqua mixtum¹⁰ celeriter acorem concipit. Id plerumque cogi agni aut haedi coagulo; quamvis possit et agrestis¹¹ cardui¹² flore conduci, et seminibus cneci, nec minus ficulneo lacte, quod emittit arbor, si 2eius virentem saucies corticem. Verum optimus caseus est, qui exiguum medicaminis habet. Minimum autem coagulum¹ recipit sinum lactis argentei pondus denarii.² Nec dubium quin fici ramulis 3glaciatus caseus iucundissime sapiat. Sed mulctra,³ cum est repleta lacte, non sine tepore aliquo debet esse. Nec tamen admovenda est flammis, ut quibusdam placet, sed haud procul igne constituenda, et confestim cum concrevit liquor, in fiscellas aut in calathos vel formas transferendus est. Nam maxime refert primo quoque tempore serum percolari et a 4concreta materia separari. Quam ob causam rustici nec patiuntur quidem sua sponte pigro humore defluere, sed cum paulo solidior caseus factus est, pondera superponunt, quibus exprimatur serum: deinde ut formis aut calathis exemptus⁴ est, opaco ac frigido loco, ne possit vitiari: quamvis mundissimis tabulis componitur, aspergitur tritis salibus, ut exudet acidum liquorem: atque ubi duratus est, vehementius premitur, ut conspissetur. Et rursus torrido sale contingitur, rursusque ponderibus condensatur. 5Hoc cum per dies novem factum est, aqua dulci abluitur,⁵ et sub umbra cratibus in hoc factis⁶ ita ordinatur, ne alter alterum caseus contingat, et ut modice siccetur: deinde, quo tenerior permaneat, clauso neque ventis obnoxio loco stipatur per complura tabulata. Sic neque¹ fistulosus neque salsus neque aridus provenit. Quorum vitiorum primum solet accidere, si parum pressus; secundum, si nimio 6sale imbutus: tertium,² si sole exustus est. Hoc genus casei potest etiam trans maria permitti. Nam is, qui recens intra paucos dies absumi debet, leviore cura conficitur. Quippe fiscellis exemptus in salem muriamque³ demittitur, et mox in sole paulum siccatur. Nonnulli antequam pecus numellis induant,⁴ virides pineas nuces in mulctram demittunt, et mox super eas emulgent, nec separant, nisi cum transmiserint⁵ in formas coactam materiam. Ipsos quidam virides conterunt nucleos, et lacti permiscent, 7atque ita congelant. Sunt qui thymum contritum cribroque colatum cum lacte cogant. Similiter qualiscunque velis saporis efficere possis, adiecto quod elegeris condimento. Illa vero notissima est ratio faciendi casei, quem dicimus manu⁶ pressum.⁷ Namque is paulum gelatus⁸ in mulctra dum⁹ est tepefacta,¹⁰ rescinditur et fervente aqua perfusus vel manu figuratur,¹¹ vel buxeis formis exprimitur. Est etiam non ingrati saporis muria perduratus, atque ita malini ligni vel culmi fumo coloratus. Sed iam redeamus ad originem.

It will be necessary too not to neglect the task of cheese-making, especially in distant parts of the country, where it is not convenient to take milk to the market in pails. Further, if the cheese is made of a thin consistency, it must be sold as quickly as possible while it is still fresh and retains its moisture; if, however, it is of a rich and thick consistency, it bears being kept for a longer period. Cheese should be made of pure milk which is as fresh as possible, for if it is left to stand or mixed with water, it quickly turns sour. It should usually be curdled with rennet obtained from a lamb or a kid, though it can also be coagulated with the flower of the wild thistle or the seeds of the safflower,[ ^aCarthamus tinctorius]. and equally well with the liquid which flows from a fig-tree if you make an incision in the bark while it is still green. The best cheese, however,2 is that which contains only a very small quantity of any drug. The least amount of rennet that a pail of milk requires weighs a silver denarius; and there is no doubt that cheese which has been solidified by means of small shoots from a fig-tree has a very pleasant flavour. A pail when it has been filled with milk3 should always be kept at some degree of heat; it should not, however, be brought into contact with the flames, as some people think it proper to do, but should be put to stand not far from the fire, and, when the liquid has thickened, it should immediately be transferred to wicker vessels or baskets or moulds; for it is of the utmost importance that the whey should percolate as quickly as possible and become separated from the solid matter. For this reason the country-folk4 do not even allow the whey to drain away slowly of its own accord, but, as soon as the cheese has become somewhat more solid, they place weights on the top of it, so that the whey may be pressed out; then, when the cheese has been taken out of the moulds or baskets, it is placed in a cool, shady place, that it may not go bad, and, although it is placed on very clean boards, it is sprinkled with pounded salt, so that it may exude the acid liquid; and, when it has hardened, it is still more violently compressed, so that it may become more compact; and then it is again treated with parched salt and again compressed by means of weights.5 When this has been done for nine days it is washed with fresh water. Then the cheeses are set in rows on wickerwork trays made for the purpose under the shade in such a manner that one does not touch another, and that they become moderately dry; then, that the cheese may remain the more tender, it is closely packed on several shelves in an enclosed place which is not exposed to the winds. Under these conditions it does not become full of holes or salty or dry, the first of these bad conditions being generally due to too little pressure, the second to its being over-salted, and the third to its being scorched by the sun. This kind of cheese can even be6 exported beyond the sea. Cheese which is to be eaten within a few days while still fresh, is prepared with less trouble; for it is taken out of the wickerbaskets and dipped into salt and brine and then dried a little in the sun. Some people, before they put the shackles[^aI.e. to restrain them while they are being milked.] on the she-goats, drop green pinecones into the pail and then milk the she-goats over them and only remove them when they have transferred the curdled milk into the moulds. Some crush the green pine-kernels by themselves and mix them with the milk and curdle it in this way. Others7 allow thyme which has been crushed and strained through a sieve to coagulate with the milk; similarly, you can give the cheese any flavour you like by adding any seasoning which you choose. The method of making what we call “hand-pressed” cheese is the best-known of all: when the milk is slightly congealed in the pail and still warm, it is broken up and hot water is poured over it, and then it is either shaped by hand or else pressed into box-wood moulds. Cheese also which is hardened in brine and then coloured with the smoke of apple-tree wood or stubble has a not unpleasant flavour. But let us now return to the point from which we digressed[^bThe author regards this chapter on cheese-making as a digression from his real subject, which is a description of the smaller domestic animals.]