The Anatomy of Melancholy

But in my judgement Bruyérin, book 22, chapter 13, easily settles this controversy. The difference arises from the position and nature of the ponds, some muddy and some fresh: the fish taste according to the place from which they are taken. We may reach much the same conclusion about other freshwater fish. For more, see Rondeletius, Bellonius, Oribasius, book 7, chapter 22, and Isaac, book 1; especially Hippolytus Salvianus, who “alone is worth them all,” and so forth.

However wholesome and well regarded fish may be, eating much of it is not good. Pieter van Foreest, in his Medical Observations, relates that Carthusian friars, whose diet is mostly fish, are more subject to melancholy than any other religious order. He discovered this by experience, having formerly been their regular physician at Delft in Holland.

He illustrates this with the case of one Buscodnese, a Carthusian with a ruddy complexion and a healthy appearance, who became afflicted in this way through solitary living and eating fish.

Among edible plants, I find gourds, cucumbers, coleworts and melons disapproved of, but especially cabbage. It causes disturbing dreams and sends black vapours up to the brain. Of all vegetables, Galen condemns cabbage in On the Affected Parts, book 3, chapter 6; and Isaac, book 2, chapter 1, says, “It makes the soul heavy”—it brings heaviness to the soul.

Some hold that all raw herbs and salads produce melancholic blood, except bugloss and lettuce. Crato, consultation 21, book 2, speaks against all herbs and vegetables except borage, bugloss, fennel, parsley, dill, balm and chicory. Magninus, in his Regimen of Health, part 3, chapter 31, says, “All herbs are simply bad when used as food.” All herbs are downright bad to eat, as he thinks. So, too, thought that mocking cook in Plautus:

I do not season dinner as other cooks do, Who serve me seasoned meadows on their platters, Make cattle of their guests and heap up greens.

I do not cook supper like other cooks, Who put whole meadows on a platter, Treat their guests no better than cattle, And fatten them with herbs and grass.

Our Italians and Spaniards make an entire dinner of herbs and salads—what Plautus calls “dinners from the earth,” and Horace “bloodless dinners.” By this means, as the cook goes on:

Here men live such short lives— Those who cram such herbs into their bellies, Fearful to speak of, let alone to eat: Men eat the plants that cattle will not eat.

Those who eat such herbs must have short lives; It is a fearful thing to have to tell, That men should feed upon the kind of food That even beasts of burden would refuse.

They cause wind and are therefore not suitable for everyone to eat raw, even when tempered with oil; they should be eaten in broth or prepared in some other way. See more about them in any writer on husbandry or herbs.

Roots, “although they are the wealth of some peoples,” as Bruyérin says—the wealth and sole food of some countries—cause wind and are bad for, or troublesome to, the head: onions, garlic, scallions, turnips, carrots, radishes and parsnips. Crato, book 2, consultation 11, disapproves of all roots, although some approve of parsnips and potatoes.