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{{data|27 September 2020}}

Did our ancestors maintain a healthy diet? We might assume that at the very least they wanted to. People have always wished to be fit and, since times immemorial, they've known that their health depends on what they eat. But did they know ''how'' to? Was a healthy diet even possible before anyone ever heard of calories, vitamins, proteins, carbs, lactose, gluten, allergies and food intolerances?

Well, yes, it was. Just like we (or some of us, at least) try and eat healthy, informed by the latest science, so did our forefathers and foremothers follow diets that were in line with the science that was available to them at the time. Not necessarily the latest science, though. As recently as some 500 years ago, the older the science, the more trustworthy it seemed; scholarly research wasn't so much about making new discoveries as it was about "continuous and sublime recapitulation".<ref>In the words of Brother Jorge in ''The Name of the Rose'' by Umberto Eco (quoted from memory).</ref>

== Elementary Particles ==

The world is made of invisibly small particles of various shapes and qualities. They come in a few kinds which correspond to the following '''elements''': ''earth, water, air'' and ''fire''. A single particle of each element has the shape of a regular convex polyhedron (also known as a Platonic solid). The particles of ''earth'' are cube-shaped, cubes being the only Platonic solids which can be arranged to fill space completely, which is why ''earth'' comes in solid phase. ''Water'' particles are little icosahedra (20-faced solids), which are most similar to a sphere, which is what makes water run smoothly through your fingers. ''Fire'' burns because its particles have the form of a (four-faced) tetrahedron with pointy vertices. A particle of ''air'', which is also gaseous, but not as light as ''fire'', is an octahedron, which has eight faces, or twice as many as a ''fire'' particle.

As for the emotional side of the temperaments (which is what "temperaments" will still mean in the 21st century), they can be distinguished by the rate at which emotions rise and recede in a given person. In sanguine people, emotions are quick to rise, but just as quick to recede, which makes them well-balanced extroverts, jovial and sociable. This is usually the most socially acceptable temperament, which is not surprising, as the predominance of blood, the most important of humours, is the least noxious. In cholerics, feelings rise quickly, but take time to recede, so if they lose their temper, as they often do, they're not going to calm down anytime soon. The cholerics are extroverts, but unstable ones, impatient, bold and expansive. Their explosive personality may be irritating, but they often exhibit good leadership skills. For phlegmatics, it's the other way around; emotions are slow to rise, but quick to recede, which makes them dull, calm, patient and introverted. As for melancholics, they're unlikely to lose their cool, but once they do, it's very hard for them to get it back. Their emotions tend to pile up faster than they recede, which results in their propensity to depression or a kind of distress known as spleen (after the organ which secretes the black bile).

<mobileonly>[[File:4 temperamenty EN.png|thumb|left|The four temperaments]]</mobileonly>

Each person has their own temperament, but it doesn't mean that it stays the same throughout your life. A child's temperament is generally closer to sanguine, but becomes more choleric during adolescence. Your organism becomes dryer as you age, so an adult is more prone to melancholy. Finally, in the old age, the body is still dry, but it tends to ooze an increased amount to phlegm, indicating a more phlegmatic temperament. We also go through a similar cycle each year; spring, being ''hot'' and ''moist'', intensifies the sanguine temperament; summer, ''hot'' and ''dry'', aggravates the choler; autumn, which is ''cold'' and ''dry'', reinforces melancholy; and winter, being ''cold'' and ''moist'', helps the phlegm to build up. It's important to keep these ageing and seasonal changes in mind when developing a sound dietary regimen.

Therapy typically involves fighting the latter, but also correcting the amount of humours, if something throws your humoral constitution even more off balance that usual. For example, if the symptoms include fever and profuse sweating, thus exhibiting an overabundance of the ''hot'' and ''moist'' blood, the therapy may involve bloodletting. But if you think bloodletting to be the Galenic cure-all, then think again. If it's a humour other than blood that the medic finds to be superfluous, then it's that humour that must be regulated. Possible procedures include applying emetics, laxatives, carminatives, etc. Did you know that great lords pay a great deal of money for the beneficial enemas prescribed for them by their personal physicians?

But on an everyday basis, prevention, as any doctor will tell you, is better than cure. This is done by controlling the six "non-naturals", which include: food and drink, sleep and wakefulness, excretions and retentions, exercise and rest, air, and mental affections. If you need help remembering them and you speak German, then you may use the following mnemotechnic, designed in the early 17th century by a Tyrolean doctor (who added God as the seventh "non-natural"):

But that's not all yet. You can modify the natural humoral complexion of a given ingredient by giving it the right thermal treatment. I suppose you won't be surprised to learn that roasting and baking makes things not only ''hotter'', but also ''drier''; frying ''dries'' them out, but to a lesser degree; and boiling adds ''moisture'' to your dish. This is why beef is good for boiling or stewing, but never for roasting, while pork – to the contrary – is good for the grill or the spit, but not for the pot. Veggies and fruits are for the most part so ''cold'' that you should almost never eat them raw; even lettuce should be at least scalded with boiling water before serving.

If you wish to neutralize the humoral properties of one or more of your ingredients, then a rather obvious method is to mix them with ingredients that have opposite complexions. For example, fat is rich in ''water'', so you can temper the ''dryness'' and ''hotness'' of red meat by larding. Sugar (''moist'' and ''warm'') is commonly added to most ''cold'' dishes, even if these aren't really desserts in the 21st-century sense. The natural ''moistness'' of fish is often counterbalanced by sprinkling it with vinegar or lime juice. This general neutralization method is even more effective, if you can break down the ingredients into tiny bits and mix them all thoroughly. You can, for instance, mix ''cold'' vinegar with ''hot'' mustard seeds, but it's better to first grind the seeds down to a paste – which, incidentally, is how you make [[Ketchup_vs_Mustard#Mustard, “an Uncommon Condiment”|mustard]]. This is why mortars, pestles, graters and sieves are among the most important kitchen utensils of an Early Modern kitchen.

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Any questions? No questions.<ref>As Sgt. Sukhov used to say in ''White Sun of the Desert'' by Vladimir Motyl (that's another quote from memory).</ref> Well, no, there is one:

Much later, under the Roman Empire (1st–2nd centuries CE), Greek medics working in what will once be Turkey, will once again be only allowed to dissect animals (leading, for example, to a long-held notion that the human liver has not two, but five lobes, like in a dog) and will only ever have the chance to study human anatomy while looking after wounded soldiers and gladiators. What '''Dioscorides of Anazarbus''' and '''Galen of Pergamon''' will be remembered for is summarising all medical knowledge in books that will be read by generations of medics for centuries after the works of their predecessors will have gone up in smoke together with the library of the Alexandrian museum. Galen's book, in particular, will be crucial for preserving the theory of humours, which will come to be known as Galenic theory.

<mobileonly>[[File:Anagni 2.JPG|thumb|left|Yet another infographic illustrating the relations between elements and seasons (outer circles), and humours and stages of human life (inner circles enclosing a human figure). This one comes from the 13th century and can be found on the ceiling of a crypt in the cathedral of Anagni, Italy. On the wall below you can see Hippocrates (ca.&nbsp;460&nbsp;BCE – ca.&nbsp;360&nbsp;BCE) conferring with Galen (129&nbsp;CE – ca.&nbsp;216&nbsp;CE).]]</mobileonly>

Like much of the achievements of the Greco-Roman civilisation, Galenic medicine will be largely forgotten after the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire, but will survive in its Byzantine part, from where it will be gleaned by the Arabs and from them, by the Persians. A man who will make the greatest contributions to further develop the theory will live in 11th-century Uzbekistan under the name Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdillah ibn al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Sina (or '''Avicenna''' for short). In the following century, the medical knowledge preserved and expanded by the Muslims, will filter back into western Europe thanks to, among others, '''Constantine the African''', who will bring it from Tunisia to Salerno, Italy. It's in Salerno where Europe's first medical school will be located and where Greek medical texts will be translated from Arabic and Hebrew, the chief languages of medicine. This is how Galen, along with "his" humoral theory, will be rediscovered in Europe and popularised among aristocrats by such court physicians as '''Michele Savonarola''' (his better-known grandson, Girolamo, will study medicine too, but then he's going to quit the studies and get busy with religion and politics). Finally, in the 1470s, Bartolomeo Sacchi (better known as '''Platina''') will publish the first ever printed cookbook, ''De honesta voluptate et valetudine'' (''Of Honest Pleasure and Good Health''), which will introduce wider European populace to recipes marrying the pleasure of eating and humoral medicine.

In the 16th century, after the discoveries made by da Gama, Columbus and others, Europeans will finally realize that if ancient authorities got it wrong about geography, then it's possible they also got it wrong about other things. It will be the time of the first medics to question Galenic theory, with Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (or '''Parecelsus''' for short) at the helm. Two years after his death, though, all works of Galen will be finally published in print, in the Greek original, leading to new translations and a renewed interestest in Galenism. By mid-17th century, with European book market finally saturated with humoral medical-dietary handbooks, Galen's authority will have been thrown into doubt once again, following the discoveries of the likes of Andries van Wesel (or '''Vesalius''', who will prove Galen wrong about the structure of human heart), '''William Harvey''' (who will discover that veins and arteries form a closed circuit) and '''Jan Baptist van Helmont''' (who will show that digestion is due to gastric acids and not to an "inner heat"). But all that is not say that humoral dietetics will have been completely forgotten.

And this way we've travelled back to the 17th century. Now that we know more or less what humoral theory is, let's see how it can be put into practice. Let's begin with a fairly obvious observation (which will still stand in the 21st century) that usually the only people to think about healthy eating are the ones who can afford to do so. The poor are just happy, if they have anything to put into their pots. Those with a middle income (and who are literate) may be able to buy dietary handbooks to try and design their regimens by themselves. But only the most affluent can afford to employ a private medic/dietitian whose job would be to make sure that nothing unhealthy finds its way onto their lord's table.

At a great lord's court, every meal is a feast, not just for the lord himself, but for also for his family, guests and major retainers. How, then, do you ensure that each person at the table gets a diet that is appropriate for their particular temperament? The only way to do so is to serve a variety of dishes with different humoral qualities all at once and let each diner pick whatever their medic advised them to eat (or what they've read is good for them in a book). Known as "''service à la française''", or service in the French way, it's the been the predominant way of serving food at banquets in Europe since the Middle Ages and will continue to be until the 19th century, when "''service à la russe''", or service in the Russian way, will take over, with each dish served to each diner separately in a strict order.

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Sancho would fire the doctor right after his first meal. And while this one is fictitious, real-world dietitians who wanted to keep their jobs had to learn how to adjust medical theory to their employers' expectations and how to come up with dishes that are not only healthful, but also tasty, in line with religious commandments, available in the local climate and, last but not least, allowing them to show off their affluence.

In any case, it's increasingly common knowledge in our 17th century that humoral medicine is mostly a way for quacks to rip wealthy patients off. Those physicians who keep swearing by ancient theories are now ridiculed by satirists and comedians, such as Cervantes, Shakespeare and Molière. ''The Imaginary Invalid'' by the latter is perhaps the best example of this trend.

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| <poem>– {{...}} What does your doctor order you for food?

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And to wrap it up, here's a short Polish poem to show you just how little respect humoral medicine commands nowadays.