Et Heliogabalus, cui nulla fuit vita nisi in voluptatis novae exquisita ratione, saepius ex {Apitii aemulatione} <Apicii imitatione>, ut [295] {Spartanus} <Spartianus[1] – Lampridius>[2] prodit, cristas Gallinaceis viventibus voravit, item camelorum calcanea, Pavonum linguas, et Lusciniarum. Cerebrum etiam coquitur, editurque maxime leviter assum cum pauco sale. Acuit autem privatim intellectum. Laudat eiusmodi cerebella Baptista Fiera medicus, ac poeta, sed adiecto pipere humiditatem obtundendam: ait autem:

Quadruped<i>um praestant oculi, cerebella volucrum:

Uda tamen nimium, ni piper addis erunt.

And Heliogabalus, who had no other kind of life than to seek the way to get a renewed pleasure, quite often in order to imitate Apicius, as Aelius Lampridius reports, ate the combs of alive roosters, as well as the shins of camels, the tongues of peacocks and nightingales. Also the brain is cooked, and it is especially eaten slightly roasted with a little salt. In truth it sharpens in special manner the mind. The physician and poet Giovanni Battista Fiera praises these small brains, but with the addition of pepper to attenuate their moisture: for he says:

The eyes of quadrupeds, the brains of birds are excellent.

However the latter will be too moist unless you add pepper to them.

Iecinora harum avium inter omnia edulia Cardanus celebrat. Rasis vero ex Galeno[3] inter hepat<i>a primatum Anserino tribuit, idque quia humidius, et tenerius, ita etiam sapore suavius esse ait, secundam vero laudem Gallinaceo ascribit. Est tamen, et hoc humidum quod idem Fiera hoc carmine docet, inquiens.

 Colla iecurque calent, sed colla fluentibus hument,

 Gallina, Anser, Anas mollius hepar habent.

Gerolamo Cardano praises the livers of these birds among all the edible things. But Razi, drawing it from Galen, among livers is awarding the supremacy to that of goose because it is more moist and tender, and therefore he says that it is also more delicious in taste, but he awards the second praise to that of chicken. Nevertheless also this is moist, as Fiera himself is teaching with these verses, when saying:

The necks and the liver are full of heat, but the necks are full of moisture,

Hen, goose, duck have a softer liver.

Id super prunas assatum labentes vires brevi reparat, superbibito pauco vino albo. Ventriculus si coquatur uberrime nutrit, teste Galeno[4], ac inter omnes Gallinae, et Anseris praestantissimus ei censetur: et alibi, si bene memini[5], ita habet: Ventriculi in cibo laudantur, prae intestinis, praesertim altilium Gallinarum, magisque etiam Anserum: sunt enim perquam suaves<:> caeterum crassi,<> durique, eoque ad concoquendum difficiles, sed quibus semel coctis multum alimenti insit. Et Villanovanus nullos animalium ventriculos in cibo laudari asserit, praeter ventriculos Gallinarum, Anserum, et Gruis.

The liver, roasted upon coals, in a short time restores the fading strengths, drinking on its top a little white wine. As Galen testifies, the gizzard, if is digested, nourishes in a marvelous way, and among all the gizzards he judges as best that of hen and goose: and elsewhere, if I well remember, he is expressing himself as follows: The gizzards as food are praised before the bowels, especially of fattened hens, and even more of geese: for they are exceptionally tasty: otherwise they are fat and hard, and therefore of difficult digestion, but once they are cooked there would be inside of them quite a lot of nourishment. And Arnaldo from Villanova affirms that no stomach of animal is praised as food, except the gizzards of hens, geese and cranes.

Intestina etiam privatim cum aliis quibusdam rebus incocta edebant, ea gigleria, teste Hermolao, vocant, alii gigeria[6] legunt. Inter reliquas partes testes maxime commendantur, Galeno maxime, ac omnibus medicis, potissimum si Galli lacte nutriti essent. Hi enim concoctu facillimi sunt, et amplissimi. Cuius rei mentionem facit Alexander Aphrodisiensis[7]. Uropygium Gallorum, Gallinarum, et Caponum cibum militarem esse Galli existimant. Veteranos enim milites uropygiorum voratores appellant: Certum autem est altilium, et praepinguium gulae mirifice placere: et luxuriosis vulgo exhiberi per iocum solet[8]. Sanguis item Gallinarum non est inferior sanguine suum, sed multo peior leporino. Erant Galeni[9] tempore, qui eum ederent. Nostri dum Gallinas occidunt, eas ex pedibus suspendunt, ut simul collectus ad locum affectum sanguis conglobetur, et postea in cibum cedat.

They especially ate bowels cooked along with some other things, and they call them, as Ermolao Barbaro reports, gigleria, others say gigeria – as well as gizeria, giblets. Among remaining parts the testicles are particularly recommended, especially by Galen and all physicians, most of all if roosters were fed on milk. For they are of easy digestion, and very large. Alexander of Afrodisia makes mention of this. The French reckon the uropygial gland of roosters, hens and capons as military food. For they call veteran soldiers as eaters of uropygial gland: really it is certain that that one from fattened and very fat subjects is most pleasing to glutton: and anywhere it is usually shown as joke to lustful persons. Likewise hens’ blood is not inferior to pigs’ blood, but it is very worse than that of a hare. In Galen’s time there were some who ate it. When our contemporaries kill hens they suspend them by feet so that the blood after coagulated near the wound assumes a spherical shape, and then becomes food.

Ex capitibus, et inter{r}aneis Caponum, et Gallinarum Platina eiusmodi describit patinam[10]. Gallinarum, atque avium iecuscula, pulmones, pedes, capita et colla bene lavabis. Lota, et elixa in patinam sine iure transferes. Indes anethum, mentam, petroselinum, inspergesque piper, aut cinnamonum, ac statim convivis appones. Iuscula denique harum avium non ingrata sunt.

Bartolomeo Sacchi called Platina describes the following pie made from heads and giblets of capons and hens. You will wash properly the small livers, lungs, legs, heads and necks of hens and birds. When washed and boiled you will transfer them without broth to a dish. You will add dill, mint, parsley and sprinkle pepper or cinnamon, and at once you will serve them to dinner guests. Finally broths of these birds are not unpleasing.

Quinim<m>o apud Aegyptias mulieres ius pinguium Gallinarum nigrarum arte pinguefactum in familiarissimo usu esse legimus in balneis, ut se pinguefaciant. Etenim ipsum totum ex unica Gallina confectum {unaquaeque} <unaquisque> mulier potat, totamque Gallinam in balneo devorat. Alias accipiunt Gallinam nigram probe pinguem ac carnosam, in cuius ventrem iniiciunt avellanarum contusarum, amygdalarum dulcium, pistac{h}iorum, pinearum, pisorum ana drachmas tres: quam hoc pacto paratam in aqua decoquunt, ipsamque percoctam unica die in balneo mulier unica totam depascitur, eiusque ius, in quo etiam Sarcocolla<m> ebulliunt, absorbet, pluribusque diebus hoc mulier pinguefacienda continuat.

Or better still, we read that among Egyptian women the broth of plump black hens deliberately made fatty is in very common use in public baths, to fatten themselves. And really each woman drinks the entire broth made from a single hen, and when bathing she devours the whole hen. Or else they take a very fat and fleshy black hen and stuff in her belly three drachms each [around 10 g] of crushed hazelnuts, sweet almonds, pistachios, pine nuts and peas: after prepared her in this fashion they properly boil her in water, and a single woman while in the bath within only one day eats all of her overcooked, and she drinks her broth, in which they also boil sarcocolla, and the woman who has to fatten continues to do this for several days.

Eodem fere modo aliam Gallinam decoctam comedunt, et ius eius bibunt: sed prius tritici mundi in aqua decocti libram unam comedendam exhibent: quod cum ipsa comederit, Gallinam decapitat[11], coquit, totamque in balneo comedit, et totum insuper ius ebibit. Idem quoque factitant aliae, sed alio modo Gallinam coquendam praeparant. Nam pisa, et triticum ad libram semis in aqua decoctum Gallinae comedendum exhibent, quod ubi totum comederit, decapitatam decoquunt, solamque comedunt, eiusque ius potant illa die, quinquiesque hoc illae factitare solent. Author horum omnium est Prosper Alpinus[12].

In almost the same way they eat another well cooked hen and drink its broth: but first they give it to eat a pound [327.45 g] of clean wheat overcooked in water: when the hen has eaten it she cuts off the head of the hen, cooks the hen, and eats all the hen while is in the bath, and in addition drinks all the broth. Also other women usually do the same thing but they prepare the hen to be cooked in another way. For they give the hen around half a pound of peas and wheat to be eaten and after she ate the whole they cook her after cut off her head and they eat her alone, and drink her broth on that day, and they are accustomed to do this five times. Author of all these things is Prospero Alpino.

Insuper Antagoras poeta tanti Gallinaceum ius fecit, ut Athenaeus scribat[13], ire noluisse in balneum cum aliquando Gallinam elixaret, ne pueri, absente eo, absorberent iusculum.

Furthermore the poet Antagoras of Rhodes has extolled the chicken’s broth to such an extent that Athenaeus is writing that he didn't want to go into the bath when sometimes he was cooking a hen, lest the young slaves should drink the broth in his absence.

Ut modo de apparatu harum avium cum aliis rebus aliquid dicamus{.}<,> Apicium in primis, et Platinam sequi placuit. Sunt certe apparatus varii. Apicius[14] cum conchiclas quasdam (sic dicta edulia a faba conch{id}e, ut puto[15],) cum faba, et cum pisa descripsisset: aliter, inquit, conchiclam sic facies: Pullum {levas} <lavas>, exossas, concidis minu<t>atim cepam, coriandrum, cerebella enervata, mittis in eundem pullum, liquamine, oleo, et vino ferveat: cum coctus fuerit, concidis minutatim cepam, et coriandrum, colas ibi pisam coctam non conditam, accipies conchiclam pro modo, componis varie: deinde teres piper, cuminum: suffundis ius de suo sibi. Item in mortario ova duo dissolves, temperas, ius de suo sibi suffundis pisae integrae elixae, vel nucleis adornabis, et lento igni fervere facies, et inferes.

Now, in order to say something along with other data about the preparation of these birds, I thought proper to follow first of all Apicius and Platina. Certainly there are different ways for preparing them. Apicius described certain little fava beans - or soups from fava beans with peelings - (they are foods so called from fava bean with its peel, as I think) done with fava bean and pea, and he says: You will make a little fava beans soup in another manner as follows: Wash a chicken, bone it, cut into little pieces onion, coriander, brains without nerves, put them in the chicken itself, it has to boil with sauce of fish, oil and wine: when it will be cooked chop up onion and coriander, strain over this cooked unseasoned pea, you will take little fava beans soup in proportion, arrange in different ways: then you will crush pepper, cumin: you pour on them its broth. You also break two eggs in a mortar, beat them, scatter their juice on entire boiled peas, or you will garnish with nut's kernels, and cook on a slow heat, and you will dish.