STUFFED DORMOUSE
IS STUFFED WITH A FORCEMEAT OF PORK AND SMALL PIECES OF DORMOUSE MEAT TRIMMINGS, ALL POUNDED WITH PEPPER, NUTS, LASER, BROTH. PUT THE DORMOUSE THUS STUFFED IN AN EARTHEN CASSEROLE, ROAST IT IN THE OVEN, OR BOIL IT IN THE STOCK POT.
From the aforementioned cookbook by Apicius, Book VIII, Chapter IX.
The translator adds this helpful note:
Glis, dormouse, a special favorite of the ancients, has nothing to do with mice. The fat dormouse of the South of Europe is the size of a rat, arboreal rodent, living in trees.
Galen, III, de Alim.; Plinius, VIII, 57/82; Varro, III, describing the glirarium, place where the dormouse was raised for the table.Petronius, Cap. 31, describes another way of preparing dormouse. Nonnus, Diæteticon, p. 194/5, says that Fluvius Hirpinus was the first man to raise dormouse in the glirarium.Dormouse, as an article of diet, should not astonish Americans who relish squirrel, opossum, muskrat, “coon,” etc.
You're welcome.
:-D
