Healths improvement: or, Rules comprizing and discovering the nature, method, and manner of preparing all sorts of food used in this nation. Written by that ever famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick: corrected and enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in Physick, and fellow of the Colledg of Physitians in London.

CHAP. XXIV.

Of such Fruits of the Field, as are nourishing.

THe chief fruits of the field are Wheate, Rye, Rice, Barly, Oates, Beanes, Chiches, Pease and Lentils.

Triticum.

Wheate is divided into divers kinds by Pliny, Colu∣mella, Dodonaeus, Pena and Lobelius; it shall be suffici∣ent for us to describe the sorts of this Country, which are especially two: The one red called Robus by Co∣lumella, and the other very white and light called Siligo, whereof is made our purest manchet. Being made into Furmity and sodden with milk and sugar, or artificially made into bread; Wheate nourisheth exceeding much and strongly: the hardest, thickest, heaviest, cleanest, brightest and growing in a fat soil, is ever to be chosen; for such Wheate (in Dioscorides and Galens judgement) is most nourishing.

Secale.

Rye seemeth to be nothing but a wild kind of wheate, meet for Labourers, Servants and Workmen, but hea∣vy of digestion to indifferent stomachs.

Oriza.

Rice is a most strong and restorative meat, discommen∣dable onely in that it is over-binding; very wholesome pottage is made thereof with new milk, sugar, cinamon, mace and nutmegs: whose astringency if any man fear, let him soke the Rice one night before in sweet Whey, and afterwards boil it in new milk with sugar, butter, cloves and nutmegs, leaving out cinamon and mace. Thus shall the body be nourished, costiveness prevent∣ed, and nature much strengthened and encreased.

Hordeum.

Barly used any way in bread, drink or broth, is ever cooling (saith Galen) and engendreth but a thin and weak juice. Before we use it in broths or Ptisan, it should be clean hulld, and washed in many waters. The decoction of Barly in chicken-broth, strained with a few blauncht almonds, and sweetned with sugar, and rosewater, is a ve∣ry covenient meat for sound men, but more for them which are sick and abhor flesh.

Cardan saith that Galen maketh mention of a kind of Barly in Greece▪ growing without a husk, and hulld by nature; which place he never citeth, because he was mistaken; for through all Galen I could never find any such thing, though of purpose I searched for it very diligently. The best Barly is the biggest and yellowest without, and fullest, closest and heaviest within; it is never to be used in meat till it be half a year old, be∣cause lying causeth it to ripen better, and to be also far less windy. Being made into Malt by a sweet fire and good cunning, it is the foundation of our English wine, which being as well made as it is at Not••ingam, proveth meat drink and cloth to the poorer sort. Parched Barly or Malt is hot and dry, but otherwise it is temperately cooling and less drying. That Wheate and Rye is far more nourishing then Barly. Plutarch would thence prove, because they are half a year longer in the earth, and are of a more thick, sappy, and firm substance. But Rice (being counted and called by Tragus German Bar∣ly) disarmeth that reason, which is not sowed till March and yet is of as great or rather greater nourishment.

Avenae.

Oates termed by Galen the Asses and Horses proven∣der, are of the like nature with Barly, but more astrin∣gent, especially being old and thorough dry. Had Ga∣len

seen the Oaten cakes of the North; the Janocks of Lancashire, and the Grues of Cheshire, he would have confessed that Oates and Oatmeal are not onely meat for beasts▪ but also for tall, fair and strong men and wo∣men of all callings and complexions: but we pardon the Grecians delicacy, or else ascribe it to the badness of their soile, which could bring forth▪ no Oates fit for nou∣rishment. Chuse the largest, heaviest, sweetest, fullest and blackest to make your Oatmeal groats of, for they are least windy and most nourishing.

Fabae.

Beans were first a field fruit, howsoever (to make them more sappy) they have lately been set and kept in gardens. Pythagoras forbad his Scholers to eat of them (especially coming once to be great and black-taild) be∣cause they hinder sleep and procure watchfulness (for which cause they were given to Iudges as they sate down in judgement) or else in sleep cause fearful and troublesome dreams, as you may read in Tullius second book of Divination; wherefore howsoever Camathe∣rus (Immanuel Commenaeus his Secretary) ventured for them, or men now affect them in these dayes; assuredly they are a very hurtful meat, unless they be eaten very young, and sod in fat broth, and afterwards (being freed of their husk) be eaten in the beginning or midst of meal, buttered throughly and sufficiently sprinkled with gross pepper and salt; then will they nourish much, and too too much encrease seed to lusty wantons.

Ciceres.

Chiches of England are very hard and unwholesome; but in Italy and France there is a kind of red Chich, yeelding a sweet, fine and nourishing flour: whereof thick pap or pottage being made with sugar, you shall hardly find any grain or pulse of comparable nourish∣ment;

as my most honourable good Lord, the Lord Wil∣loughby of Eresby, in his most dangerous consumption did well testifie. Perhaps this broth was that, for a mess whereof Esau sold his birth-right; for no pulse but this maketh a red pottage.

Pisa.

Pease are not fully so windy as Beans, and also of better nourishment, because they are less abstersive. French-pease, Hasty pease, and Gray-pease, be the ten∣derest and sweetest of all others; for the common field-pease or green-pease is too hard of digestion for indiffe∣rent stomachs. Take the youngest, and seeth them thoroughly, butter them plentifully, and season them well with salt and pepper; so will they prove a light meat, and give convenient nourishment in Summer time.

Lentes.

Lentiles were so prized in Athenaeus time, that one wrote a whole treatise in their commendation; and Di∣ogenes commended them above all meats to his Scho∣lers, because they have a peculiar vertue to quicken the wit. Let us (for shame) not discontinue any longer this wholesome nourishment, but rather strive to find out some preparation, whereby they may be restored to their former or greater goodness.

Notes

• Dios. l. 2. c. 78. Gal. 1. de alim. fac. cap. 2.
• lib. de alim. fac. cap. 9.
• lib. 6. cap. 20. de rer. var.
• Plut. in. Nat. Quest
• 1 de alim. fac. cap. 14.
• Suidas.
• Nicetas l. 3. de reb. Immanuel.
• Athe. l. 4. c. 18.