Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1883 — Oysters in Ancient Times. [ARTICLE]

Oysters in Ancient Times.

From the oldgst times the oyster has been in demand, and in the shell-heaps of our country and the kitchen-middens of Europe are found the remains of shells, y Vitelius was supposed to eat 1,000 oysteis a day. Calisthenes and Caligula were both fond of the savory mollusk, and Seneca and Cicero were also lovers of them. Lucuilus so appreciated them that he had sea water brpught to his villa from Campania and bred them for his friends; and to the Roman, Sergius Grata, is due the origin of tne oyster park. Louis IX. feasted the famous doctors of Sobornne once a year on an oyster his cook with an order of nobility lor his skill in preparing them. Cervantes, though he satired oystermen, was fond of their wares, while Marshal Turgot, Rousseau, HelveTius, Diderot, the Abbe llaynal and Voltaire, were all noted for the .number of oysters they ate at a sitting, the first named considering IQO as a fair appetizer, while Dr. Gastaldi, the famous epicure, was equal to forty dozen at a sitting.—Philadelphia Tinies.