The art of stuffing one animal inside another before bringing it to the dinner table is called engastration, a word that derives from the Greek en, meaning in, and gaster, meaning belly. Engastration may involve a mere two creatures, or dozens, so long as each is smaller than the previous. Although slaying the beasts before attempting their engastration seems prudent, Petronius, an ancient Roman satirist, wrote a fictional account of a feast where, to the astonishment of every guest, live sparrows flew out of the belly of a roast boar. Despite being an ancient practice, engastration was not referred to by name in English until the early nineteenth century.