Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) - 2.4.3. lyrics

‘If you hate tasteless meat, let an Umbrian boar Fed on acorns from holm-oaks flex your round dish: Since Laurentian's no good, fattened on reeds and sedge. Roe-deer reared in a vineyard aren't always edible. The gourmet will hunt for forelegs of pregnant hare. What the age and qualities of fish and fowl should be Is a question previously hid from all but my palate. There are some whose only talent is finding new pastries. But it's not enough to have only one specialisation: As if one were worried solely that the wine's not bad, And then careless what oil was poured over the fish. If you decant Ma**ic wine under a flawless sky, Any cloudiness will be cleared by the night-time air, The bouquet that sets the nerves on edge will fade: But its full flavour's lost if it's strained through linen. Cleverly add the lees of Falernian to Surrentine, And collect the sediment using a pigeon's egg, The yolk sinks to the depths with any impurity. Fried prawns and African snails will revive the flagging Drinker: for, after wine, lettuce floats in an acid Stomach that prefers instead to be stimulated And freshened by sausage and ham, in fact prefers Something piping hot brought in from a greasy stall. The recipe for a rich dressing is worth careful Study. The base consists of sweet olive oil: mix in Undiluted wine, and salt, the sort a Byzantine jar Smells of: when it's been boiled with chopped herbs, And sprinkled with Corycian saffron, let it stand, Then add the oil squeezed from Venafran olives.'