r meat. Therefore,
as those philosophers who were called Elpistics (from the Greek word
signifying hope, which above all others they cried up) averred that
there was nothing in the world which concurred more to the preservation
of life than hope, without whose gracious influence life would be a
burden and altogether intolerable; in the like manner that of all other
things may be said to get us a stomach to our meat without which all
meat would be unpalatable and nauseous. And among all those things the
earth yields, we find no such things as salt, which we can only have
from the sea. First of all, without salt, there would be nothing eatable
which mixed with flour seasons bread also. Neptune and Ceres had both
the same temple. Besides, salt is the most pleasant of all condiments.
For those heroes who like athletes used themselves to a spare diet,
banishing from their tables all vain and superfluous delicacies, to such
a degree that when they encamped by the Hellespont they abstained from
fish, yet for all this could not eat flesh without salt; which is a
sufficient evidence that salt is the most desirable of all relishes. For
as colors need light, so tastes require salt, that they may affect the
sense, unless you would have them very nauseous and unpleasant. For, as
Heraclitus used to say, a carcass is more abominable than dung. Now all
flesh is dead and part of a lifeless carcass; but the virtue of salt,
being added to it, like a soul, gives it a pleasing relish and a
poignancy. Hence it comes to pass that before meat men use to take sharp
things, and such as have much salt in them; for these beguile us into
an appetite. And whoever has his stomach sharpened with these sets
cheerfully and freshly upon all other sorts of meat. But if he begin
with any other kind of food, all on a sudden his stomach grows dull and
languid. And therefore salt doth not only make meat but drink palatable.
For Homer's onion, which, he tells us, they were used to eat before they
drank, was fitter for seamen and boatmen than kings. Things moderately
salt, by being pleasing to the mouth, make all sorts of wine mild and
palateable, and water itself of a pleasing taste. Besides, salt creates
none of those troubles which an onion does, but digests all other kinds
of meat, making them tender and fitter for concoction; so that at the
same time it is sauce to the palate and physic to the body. But all
other seafood, besides this pleasantness, is also v