Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Cookery is eminently an experimental and a practi cal art. Each day, while it adds to our experience, increases also our knowledge; and as we have come long after the Greeks and Romans, and have had the benefit of their experience, it is no marvel that we should have greatly surpassed them. In the fifth cen tury, all trace of the Roman cookery had already dis appeared. The Eternal City was invested, and her kitchen destroyed by barbarians. The consecutive in cursions of hordes of barbarous tribes and nations had put out at once the light of science and the fire of cookery.
