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<nomobile>[[File:{{#setmainimage:Leandro Bassano, Banquet Scene.jpg}}|thumb|''— You know it's it’s not good for you!''<br>{{small|By Leandro Bassano (ca. 1595)}}]]</nomobile>

<mobileonly>[[File:Leandro Bassano, Banquet Scene.jpg|thumb|''— You know it's it’s not good for you!''<br>{{small|By Leandro Bassano (ca. 1595)}}]]</mobileonly>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 “continuous and sublime recapitulation"recapitulation”.<ref>In the words of Brother Jorge in ''The Name of the Rose'' by Umberto Eco (quoted from memory).</ref>

Anyone reading about old European cuisine will sooner or later come across the term ``humoral dietetics"“humoral dietetics”. So let’s take a&nbsp;closer look today at the humoral theory which held sway in Europe for ages, until as late as the 19th century. But to understand what it’s all about, we’ve got to start with the basics, that is, the ancient ideas about the structure of matter and the workings of the human body. So let me invite you to travel in time to, say, the early 17th century and to a&nbsp;short lecture in physics and physiology according to the state of scientific knowledge at the time.

The problem is that there are exactly five regular convex polyhedra (which was mathematically proven already in antiquity). Which means there must exist a&nbsp;fifth element (also known as ``quintessence"“quintessence”, its Latin name), which would correspond to the fifth Platonic solid, the (12-faced) dodecahedron. In the far future, Luc Besson will imagine the fifth element to take the form of Ms. Milla Jovovich’s supple body, but ancient natural philosophers thought it was actually ''aether'', a&nbsp;very subtle substance of which heavenly bodies are made. As ''aether'' does not occur on Earth, we won’t be paying any more attention to it.

The most important and dominant humour is '''blood''' (known as ''``haima"“haima”'' in Greek and ''``sanguis"“sanguis”'' in Latin). The other three are: '''phlegm''', '''bile''' (or choler, from Greek ''``khole"“khole”'') and '''black bile''' (or melancholy, from Greek ''``melas"“melas”'', ``black" “black” + ''``khole"“khole”'', ``bile"“bile”). To be honest, no one has ever seen that ``black bile"“black bile”, but it must exist, otherwise the number of humours wouldn’t match the number of elements. Blood is ''moist'' and ''hot'', like ''air''; phlegm is ''moist'' and ''cold'', like ''water''; bile is ''dry'' and ''hot'', like ''fire''; and black bile is ''dry'' and ''cold'', like ''earth''. This is very important, so you may want to learn this little poem by heart:

The t'other t’other are more jovial, quick and jolly,

| tytuł = The Englishman's Englishman’s Doctor, or the School of Salerne

}}<br>* It may seem that the rhyme is off in the last verse, but ``like" “like” was actually pronounced ``leek" “leek” in Late Middle English.

The human body doesn’t contain all four humours in equal amounts. Blood, as I’ve mentioned, is the most abundant one, while the elusive black bile, the least. The perfect proportion is such that for each part of black bile there are four parts of regular bile, four times as many parts of phlegm and four times as much blood as the phlegm. This perfect balance, however, is never found in real life. Each person’s humoral complexion is more or less out of balance; there’s too much of this humour or not enough of that. Mind you, there’s no such thing as ``bad humour"“bad humour”; there’s only an imbalance of humours. Just as there’s no such thing as a&nbsp;perfectly healthy individual; everyone is more or less ill. Therefore, the goal of medicine is simple: to correct the amount of humours in the patient’s body in order to bring it as close to the perfect balance as possible.

<nomobile>[[File:4 fazy EN.png|thumb|The influence of one's one’s age and season of the year on one's one’s temperament]]</nomobile>As for the emotional side of the temperaments (which is what ``temperaments" “temperaments” will still mean in the 21st century), they can be distinguished by the rate at which emotions rise and recede in a&nbsp;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&nbsp;kind of distress known as spleen (after the organ which secretes the black bile).

<nomobile>[[File:A_peeping-tom_spying_on_a_fashionable_lady_receiving_an_enem_Wellcome_L0006476.jpg|thumb|upright|left|''— Oh, hi! So nice you've you’ve dropped by, do come in! I'm I’m having an enema just now, but pay no mind.''<br>{{small|By Pierre Maleuvre (18th cent.)}}]]</nomobile>

<mobileonly>[[File:4 fazy EN.png|thumb|The influence of one's one’s age and season of the year on one's one’s temperament]]</mobileonly>

<mobileonly>[[File:A_peeping-tom_spying_on_a_fashionable_lady_receiving_an_enem_Wellcome_L0006476.jpg|thumb|upright|left|''— Oh, hi! So nice you've you’ve dropped by, do come in! I'm I’m having an enema just now, but pay no mind.''<br>{{small|By Pierre Maleuvre (18th cent.)}}]]</mobileonly>But on an everyday basis, prevention, as any doctor will tell you, is better than cure. This is done by controlling the six ``non“non-naturals"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&nbsp;Tyrolean doctor (who added God as the seventh ``non“non-natural"natural”):

{| style="max-width: 90%; font-family:'Amiri'’Amiri’, serif; font-size:110%; background-color:FloralWhite; padding:1em; margin-right: auto; border-spacing: 0;"

In case of doubt, you can use taste as a&nbsp;good indicator. Things that taste sweet are often humorally close to ''air''; sugar is ''hot'' in the first and ''moist'' in the second degree. Foods that are sour or bitter are akin to ''earth''; vinegar is ''cold'' in the first and ''dry'' in the third degree (this is also why, even in the 21st century, tart-tasting wines will still be referred to as ``dry"“dry”). Salty or pungent flavours indicate humoral affinity to ''fire''; salt is ''hot'' in the second and ''dry'' in the third degree, while black pepper is both ''hot'' and ''dry'' in the fourth degree (and of course, long in the future, the word ``hot" “hot” will still be used to describe spiciness as well as temperature). Finally, things that are insipid or watery are typically ''cold'' and ''moist''; spinach, for example, is ''cold'' and ''moist'' in the first degree.

| Take a &nbsp;live capon, pour wine vinegar down its gullet through a &nbsp;funnel, bind it and hang for five hours. Pluck it, gut it, and roast it in the usual manner or boil it as you like.

If you’re still here, then I’m inviting you to yet another voyage through time and space, all the way to Croton, a&nbsp;Greek town at the tip of the Italian Boot, in the earlier half of the 5th century BCE. The town’s intellectual and religious life is dominated by the sect of Pythagoreans. Yes, this is a&nbsp;time when celebrity mathematicians are a&nbsp;thing. Sadly, after '''Pythagoras''' had died, his followers were quick to turn his science into a&nbsp;dogmatic religion, which they observe by worshipping numbers and by refraining from eating meat and legumes. Instead of elegant mathematical proofs, they’re now content with ``the “the Master said so" so” as an argument. A&nbsp;few, however, preferring to think for themselves, have managed to wriggle themselves out of the cult. Among them is '''Empedocles of Acraga''', a&nbsp;Greek colony on Sicily. What he’s particularly interested in is the structure of matter. Earlier thinkers, who lived in Ionia on the western shore of what will once be called Turkey, were trying to identify the primordial substance, from which all other matter derives, proposing various specific elements: '''Thales of Miletus''' suggested water; '''Heraclitus of Ephesus''', fire; '''Xenophanes of Colophon''', earth… Empedocles, who proved the existence of air in a&nbsp;simple experiment with a&nbsp;water clock, tried to reconcile them all by proposing not one, but four primordial substances, that is, ''earth, water, air'' and ''fire''. It will take one more generation for '''Plato''' to add ''aether'' to this number, so that he can assign to each of the five elements one of the five regular polyhedra, including the recently discovered dodecahedron.

<nomobile>[[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 &nbsp;human figure). This one comes from the 13th century and can be found on the ceiling of a &nbsp;crypt in the cathedral of Anagni, Italy. On the wall below you can see Hippocrates (ca.&nbsp;460&nbsp;BCE – ca.&nbsp;370&nbsp;BCE) conferring with Galen (129&nbsp;CE – ca.&nbsp;216&nbsp;CE).]]</nomobile>

In the meantime, another former Pythagorean, who was born here, in Croton, and who goes by the name '''Alcmeon''', is doing natural philosophy with a&nbsp;medical bent. Dissecting human corpses is forbidden for religious reasons, but his studies on animal eyes and brains, have led him to the conclusion that it’s the brain, rather than the heart, that is the seat of mind and emotions. Similëarly Similarly to the Pythagoreans, Alcmeon views the world as a&nbsp;constant struggle of opposites. This includes the human body, where ''warmth'' competes against ''coldness'', ''moistness'' against ''dryness'', and so forth. A&nbsp;balance between them all is what keeps you in good health, while the predominance of any one quality leads to illness.

'''Hippocrates of Kos''', born about half a&nbsp;century after Alcmeon, will eventually combine the latter’s theory with Empedocles’s by assigning one humour (including the imaginary black bile) to each of the four elements in order to explain the struggles of ''hot'' vs ''cold'' and ''moist'' vs ''dry''. He will be also known for introducing the general rule that the physician’s duty is to make the patient feel better or at least not worse; and for contributing so much to medical theory that it becomes a&nbsp;stand-alone scholarly discipline. And all this without ever peeking inside a&nbsp;human body. This opportunity will only become available in the following century (4th BCE) to doctors working in Alexandria, such as '''Herophilus of Chalcedon''' and '''Erasistratus of Ceos'''. This they will owe to the first Greek rulers of Egypt, of the house of Ptolemy, who, for the benefit of science, will allow dissections of human corpses to take place on the premises of the Alexandrian temple of the muses (known as a&nbsp;``museum"“museum”, but really more like a&nbsp;university).

<nomobile>[[File:Rembrandt - The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp.jpg|thumb|Only once it became acceptable to dissect human corpses for anatomical research was it possible to discover that Galen wasn't wasn’t always right.<br>{{small|By Rembrandt van Rijn (1632)}}]]</nomobile><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 &nbsp;human figure). This one comes from the 13th century and can be found on the ceiling of a &nbsp;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, whence it will be gleaned by the Arabs and from them, by the Persians. The man who will make the greatest contributions to further developing 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" “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 his studies and get busy with religion and politics instead). 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 recipës marrying the pleasure of eating and humoral medicine.

<mobileonly>[[File:Rembrandt - The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp.jpg|thumb|Only once it became acceptable to dissect human corpses for anatomical research was it possible to discover that Galen wasn't wasn’t always right.<br>{{small|By Rembrandt van Rijn (1632)}}]]</mobileonly>In the 16th century, after the discoveries made by da Gama, Columbus and others, Europeans will finally realise 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&nbsp;renewed interest 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&nbsp;closed circuit) and '''Jan Baptist van Helmont''' (who will show that digestion is due to gastric acids and not to an ``inner heat"“inner heat”). But all that is not say that humoral dietetics will have been completely forgotten.

[[File:Poskromienie złośnicy.jpg|Poskromienie złośnicy|thumb|upright|One of the ways to tame a &nbsp;shrew in one of William Shakespeare's Shakespeare’s comedies was to remove from her diet anything that was too ''hot'' and choler-engendering, such as beef with mustard.<br>{{small|By John Augustus Atkinson (18th/19th cent.)}}]]

At a&nbsp;great lord’s court, every meal is a&nbsp;feast, not just for the lord himself, but also for his family, guests and major retainers. How, then, do you ensure that each person at the table gets a&nbsp;diet that is appropriate for their own particular temperament? The only way to do so is to serve a&nbsp;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&nbsp;book). Known as ''``service “service à la française"française”'', or service in the French way, it’s 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 “service à la russe"russe”'', or service in the Russian way, will take over, with each dish served to each diner separately in a&nbsp;strict order.

So on the one hand there’s the doctor griping about unruly patients who prefer to eat tasty rather than healthy, and on the other, there’s the patient, suspecting his own dietitian of trying to starve him to death. It’s exactly this kind of a&nbsp;stereotypically authoritarian physician who served at the court of Sancho Panza, the former squire to Don Quixote. Throughout Sancho’s dinner he would stand at his lord’s side and order the servants to take away every dish as soon as it was put in front of the hungry Panza (who certainly liked to eat, as you can even see by his last name, which is the Spanish word for ``belly"“belly”).

| I, señor, am a &nbsp;physician, and I am paid a &nbsp;salary in this island to serve its governors as such, and I have a &nbsp;much greater regard for their health than for my own, studying day and night and making myself acquainted with the governor's governor’s constitution, in order to be able to cure him when he falls sick. The chief thing I have to do is to attend at his dinners and suppers and allow him to eat what appears to me to be fit for him, and keep from him what I think will do him harm and be injurious to his stomach; and therefore I ordered that plate of fruit to be removed as being too moist, and that other dish I ordered to be removed as being too hot and containing many spices that stimulate thirst; for he who drinks much kills and consumes the radical moisture wherein life consists.

| Garlic, as Galen writes {{...}}, is hot and dry in the fourth degree {{...}} Garlic is irritating and burning; it hurts, dries and bloats the stomach, it induces thirst, makes the head spin and clouds the eyes, therefore wise men do well to be wary of it. {{...}} Garlic is greatly beneficial {{...}} to those who travel to foreign lands and overseas, especially where there are venomous reptiles and noxious, foul-smelling waters. Likewise, it is good against the plague, but only to gross people (peasantry), who are accustomed to garlic, {{...}} because it amplifies their innate heat and helps burn all excess matter; but in a &nbsp;luxurious man it does much harm.

[[File:Pęczek czosnku.jpg|thumb|left|upright|``Garlic “Garlic is irritating and burning; it hurts, dries and bloats the stomach, it induces thirst, makes the head spin and clouds the eyes…"eyes…”]]

There’s only one problem here: garlic is tasty. And it’s not just the peasants who find it so. Why then should the nobles abstain from eating something that makes food so flavourful? Thank God for a&nbsp;loophole: you can ennoble lowly foods like garlic by combining them with more exclusive ingredients. Degli Arienti himself admitted in the end that ``garlic “garlic is always food for peasants, and this even when it is sometimes artificially civilised by inserting it into roasted geese." ” And this is the difference between garlic and a&nbsp;peasant: one can hope for eventual social advancement, the other cannot.<ref>{{Cyt

| {{...}} It does not really matter whether or not we accept that the flesh of pheasant is temperately warm and temperately moist, or even that we agree with Averroes that pheasant is the supremely preferable fowl for eating, in order to enjoy a&nbsp;good English Mawmenee made with shredded pheasant meat, wine, sugar, rice flour, pine-nuts, dates, ginger, cinnamon and cloves. We don't don’t have to be aware that crayfish are both warm and dry in the second degree in order to be convinced that the Italian Pastello de gamari is delectable when it combines the meat of crayfish, that is first boiled and then fried in olive oil and onion, with pepper and saffron, ground walnuts and filberts, and sugar, and then baked all together in a&nbsp;pieshell. And why should we care that sorrel is held to be cold and dry in the second degree, if {{...}} sorrel verjuice is rationally combined with (bitter) orange juice in a&nbsp;delicious French dressing for fried sole? Or that barley is held to be cold and dry in the first degree when, boiled until thick with warm-and-moist almond milk and warm-and-dry honey, the Catalan Ordiat is such a&nbsp;simple yet mouth-watering delicacy?

<nomobile>[[File:Lekarz i&nbsp;pacjent.jpg|thumb|Doctor vs Patient: an emaciated patient is holding a &nbsp;prescription for diuretic dandelion tea and ``pointy bouillon" “pointy bouillon” (i.e., enema), while watching the doctor stuff his face for the patient's patient’s money and advise, ``do “do as I say, not as I do."”<br>{{small|By Louis-Franc̦ois Charon (18th/19th cent.)}}]]</nomobile>

– And at night a &nbsp;few prunes to relax the bowels.

<mobileonly>[[File:Lekarz i&nbsp;pacjent.jpg|thumb|Doctor vs Patient: an emaciated patient is holding a &nbsp;prescription for diuretic dandelion tea and ``pointy bouillon" “pointy bouillon” (i.e., enema), while watching the doctor stuff his face for the patient's patient’s money and advise, ``do “do as I say, not as I do."”<br>{{small|By Louis-Franc̦ois Charon (18th/19th cent.)}}]]</mobileonly>

| <poem>Eating fish gives you phlegm – or that's that’s what you claim –

I'm I’m sorry for you, fool, now listen to me:Eat fish, spit the phlegm out – and healthy you'll you’ll be.</poem>

| rozdział = Hippocrates as Galen's Galen’s Teacher