vulgarity of heavy puddings and stodgy pies, will introduce an
amusing, a sprightly element. _Omelette soufflée_ claims the
privilege. But it must be light as air, all but ethereal in substance,
a mere nothing to melt in the mouth like a beautiful dream. And yet in
melting it must yield a flavour as soft as the fragrance of flowers,
and as evanescent. The sensation must be but a passing one that
piques the curiosity and soothes the excited palate. A dash of
orange-flower water, redolent of the graceful days that are no more,
another of wine from Andalusian vineyards, and the sensation may be
secured.
By the law of contrasts the vague must give way to the decided. The
stirring, glorious climax after the brief, gentle interlude, will be
had in _canapé des olives farcies_, the olives stuffed with anchovies
and capers, deluged with cayenne, prone on their beds of toast and
girded about with astonished watercress.
Fruit will seem a graceful afterthought; pears all golden, save where
the sun, a passionate lover, with his kisses set them to blushing a
rosy red; grapes, purple and white and voluptuous; figs, overflowing
with the exotic sweetness of their far southern home; peaches, tender
and juicy and desirable. To eat is to eschew all prose, to spread the
wings of the soul in glad poetic flight. What matter, indeed, if the
curtains shut out stormy night or monstrous fog?
Rejoice that no blue ribbon dangles unnecessarily and ignominiously
at your buttonhole. Wine, rich wine to sing in the glass with "odorous
music," the autumn dinner demands. Burgundy, rich red Burgundy, it
should be; Beaune or Pomard as you will, to fire the blood and set the
fancy free. And let none other but yourself warm it; study its
temperature as the lover might study the frowns and smiles of his
beloved. And the "Spirit of Wine" will sing in your hearts that you
too may triumph
In the savour and scent of his music,
His magnetic and mastering song.
And the Burgundy will make superfluous Port and Tokay, and all the
dessert wines, sweet or dry, which unsympathetic diners range before
them upon the coming of the fruit.
Drink nothing else until wineglass be pushed aside for cup of coffee,
black and sweet of savour, a blend of Mocha and Mysore. Rich, thick,
luxurious, Turkish coffee would be a most fitting epilogue. But then,
see that you refuse the more frivolous, feminine liqueurs. Cognac, old
and strong-hearted, alone would meet the hour's emotions--Cognac, the
gift of the gods, the immortal liquid. Lean back and smoke in
silence, unless speech, exchanged with the one kind spirit, may be
golden and perfect as the dinner.
A MIDSUMMER DINNER
At midsummer, the _gourmand_ subsists chiefly on hope of the good time
coming. The 12th ushers in season of glorious plenty. But, for the
moment, there is a lull in the market's activity. Green things there
are in abundance; but upon green things alone it is not good for man
to live. Consult the oracle; turn to the immortal, infallible
"Almanack," and confirmation of this sad truth will stare you in the
face plainly, relentlessly. Sucking-pig is sole consolation offered by
benevolent De la Reynière to well-nigh inconsolable man. But what a
poem in the sucking-pig that gambols gaily over his pages: a delicious
roasted creature, its little belly stuffed full of liver and truffles
and mushrooms, capers, anchovies, aromatic pepper, and salt, all
wrought together into one elegant _farce_; while in dish apart, as
indispensable acolyte, an orange sauce waits to complete the
masterpiece! _En daube_, this amiable little beast is not to be
despised, nor _en ragoût_ need it be dismissed with disdain, though,
let man of letters beware! The Society of Authors, with his welfare at
heart, should warn him while still there is time. What zest might be
given to the savourless _Author_, their organ, were its columns well
filled with stately and brilliant discourses upon food and good
eating. How the writer of delicate perceptions should eat: is that
not, as subject, prettier and more profitable far than how much money
he can make by publishing here and lecturing there?
The poor _gourmand_, in sorry plight during midsummer's famine, may
seek blessed light also from Filippini, Delmonico's cook. Out of the
fulness of his heart he speaketh, leaving not one of August's
thirty-one shortening days without elaborate _menu_. But London must
fast while New York feasts. At Delmonico's, happy diners may smile
gracious welcome to Lima beans and sweet corn, to succotash and
egg-plant, to chicken _à l'okra_ and clam chowder, but what hope for
the patrons of Verrey's and Nichol's? What hope, unless, forthwith,
they emigrate to that promised land beyond the broad Atlantic? For
the rest, Filippini reveals not the originality, the invention that
one would have hoped from him, even at the season when men are struck
dead by the sun in the streets of his dear town of adoption. Roast
turkey, with cranberry sauce, is suggestive of November's drear days;
Brussels sprouts sum up greengrocers' resources in midwinter. But why
falter? Hope need never be abandoned by the wise, whose faith is
strong in himself.
The season presents difficulties, but the beautiful dinner may still
be designed. To meet August's flaming mood, it should be rich, and
frankly voluptuous. Let flowers that bespeak autumn's approach and the
fulness of harvest give the dinner its keynote. In Delft bowl, of
appropriate coarseness, heap the late summer's first dahlias, all
scarlet and gold as London's sunset at the fall of the year. To the
earth's ripeness and fertility their bold, unabashed hues bear loud
and triumphant witness.
Let the soup be at once tribute and farewell to spring that has gone.
Regret will be luxuriously expressed in _purée de petits pois_;
spinach added to the fresh peas to lend flavour and colour, a dash of
sugar for sweetness' sake, a pinch of _paprika_ to counteract it, a
suspicion of onion to strengthen it. Arrowroot, in discreet measure,
will answer for thickening, and impart more becoming consistency even
than flour. Pleasure in the eating will be tempered by sorrow in the
prospect of parting, and therefore intensified a hundredfold. Where
the joy in possession but for the ever-present fear of loss?
With the second course, banish regret. Forget yesterday; be
indifferent to to-morrow; revel riotously in to-day. _Hure de saumon à
la Cambacérès_ will point out the way to supreme surrender. Close to
the head, the delicate silver-rose of the fish must be cut in lavish
proportions; braised gently, its removal to the dish that is waiting
is signal to surround it with truffles and mushrooms and stoned
olives--garland beyond compare; a sauce of drawn butter, seasoned with
_paprika_ and lemon juice and parsley, is essential accompaniment. And
now the present truly has conquered!
The third course must not betray the second's promise. Gay and
fantastic, it must be well able to stand the dread test of
comparison. _Rognons d'agneau à l'éþicurienne_ enters nobly into the
breach; the lamb's dainty kidneys are split and grilled with decorum,
their fragrant centres are adorned with sympathetic _sauce Tartare_,
golden potatoes _à la Parisienne_ insist upon serving as garniture,
and Mr Senn demands, as finishing touch, the stimulating seduction of
_sauce Poivrade_. Who now will say that August is barren of delicious
devices?
To follow: _poulet sauté à l'Hongroise_, the clash of the Czardas
captured and imprisoned in a stew-pan. With the Racoczy's wild drumming
stirring memory into frenzy, stew the fowl, already cut into six
willing pieces, with butter, a well-minced onion, pepper--_paprika_
by choice--and salt; ten minutes will suffice--how, indeed, endure
the strain a second longer? Then to the notes of the cymbal, moisten
with _Béchamel_ sauce and fair quantity of cream, and rejoice in
the fine Romany rapture for just twenty minutes more. Decorate with
_croûtons_, and send fancy, without fetters, wandering across the
plains and over the mountains of song-bound Magyarland. To play the
gypsy, free as the deer in the forest, as the bird in the air, is not
this as it should be in the month, more than all others, pledged
to _pleinairisme_? Insipid, as life without love, is the dinner without
imagination.
Vegetables have no special place in the scheme of August's dinner. But
a salad will not come amiss. Remember, the feast is ordered in sheer
voluptuousness of spirit. The fifth course calls for the scarlet
splendour of tomatoes; and the presiding dahlias, in bowl of Delft,
clamour for the gold of _mayonnaise_ sauce to carry out the exulting
trumpeting harmony. A hint, here, to the earnest, ambitious
_gourmand_; if cream be worked, deftly and slowly, into the thickening
sauce, sublime will be the results.
A sweet, at this juncture, would err if over-chaste in conception.
Picture to yourself the absurd figure cut by tapioca pudding or apple
dumpling on conscientiously voluptuous _menu_? A _macédoine méringuée_
would have more legitimate claim to close the banquet with
distinction. August supplies fruit without stint: plums and greengages
and apricots and nectarines and peaches and pears and grapes and
bananas; all join together to sweet purpose, with ecstatic intent; a
large wineglass of Claret, a generous sprinkling of Cognac will guard
against puerility. The protecting _méringue_ should be crisp and pale
golden brown; and later it will need the reinforcement of thick
luscious cream.
A sweet fails to delight, unless a savoury comes speedily after.
_Caviar de Russie en crêpes_ is worthy successor of _macédoine
méringue_. Mingle cream with the _caviar_, and none who eats will have
cause to complain. It reconciles to the barbarous, even where Tolstoi
and Marie Bashkirtseff may have failed.
To dally with fruit is graceful excuse to linger longer over wine.
Plums and greengages, their bloom still fresh, their plump roundness
never yet submitted to trial by fire, figs--pale northern ghosts,
alas!--peaches, grapes, make exquisite interlude--between dinner and
coffee. Refrain not: abstinence, of all follies created by man, is the
most wicked, the most unpardonable.
Drink Chambertin, that the song in your heart may be fervent and firm.
Drink, that your courage may be strong for the feasting. Shake off
the shackles of timidity. Be fearless and brave, turning a deaf ear to
the temptations of the temperate. To be moderate at midsummer is to
disregard the imperative commands of immoderate nature.
Coffee, made as the Turks make it, will bring languorous, irresistible
message from the sensuous East. _Fine Champagne_ will add the energy
of the fiery West. Adorable combination! Oh, East is East, and West is
West; but the twain the day of the August dinner shall meet.
TWO SUPPERS
Tradition is a kindly tyrant. Why then strive to shake off its
shackles? To bow the neck gladly beneath the yoke is at times to win
rich reward, first in charm of association, and then in pleasantness
of actual fact.
Is there not a tradition in England that supper is more appropriate to
the quiet of Sunday evenings than dinner? No use to ask whence it
arose or whither it leads. There it is, though many would evade it as
senseless makeshift. To forswear dinner for all time and eternity
would be worse than folly; it is life's most solemn, most joyous
ceremony. But once and again, for dear sake of contrast, to find a
seducing substitute is wisdom in a world where all pleasures fail, and
man is constant to one thing never. And now that summer has come and
holds the green earth in its ardent embrace, now that days are long,
and sweetest hours are those when the sun sinks low, there is new
delight in the evening meal that leaves one free to dream in the
twilight, that does not summon one indoors just as all outdoors is
loveliest. Supper on every day in the week would be a mistake; but on
one in seven it may well be commended, especially when the month is
June. In the afternoon, tea is served in the garden, or whatever
London can offer in the garden's stead. There are a few strawberries
in a pretty old porcelain dish to lend an air of dainty substance, and
there is rich cream in which they may hide their pretty blushes; and
there is gay talk and happy silence. Indolent hours follow. Is it not
Sunday, and are not all weekly cares pigeon-holed out of sight?
Nor do the advantages of the occasional supper end here. It is
excellent excuse for the ice-cold banquet which in the warm
summer-time has its own immeasurable virtues. A supper should be cold;
else it deteriorates into mere sham dinner. Never do cold dishes seem
more delicious than when cruel thermometer is at fever heat. You see?
There is logic in the Sunday evening supper, at this season of all
seasons for love, and eating, and drinking.
But supper does not mean, necessarily, veal and ham pie, above which
British imagination dares not soar. It is not limited to the
half-demolished joint--sad wreck of midday's meal. It may be as fair
and harmonious as dinner itself, as noble a tribute to the artist, as
superb a creation. Only the thoughtless and prosaic will dismiss it
carelessly in the ordering, believing that any odds and ends will
answer. Whatever is left over is to many the one possible conception
of the late evening meal. But the _gourmand_, exulting in his
gluttony, makes of it a work of art, good in the eating, good in the
remembrance thereof.
Summer allows wide scope for his fertile fancy. He may begin with
salmon, refreshing to the eye in its arrangement of pale silver and
rose, cold as the glaciers of Greenland after its long hours of repose
on voluptuous bed of ice. A _mayonnaise_ sauce, creamy and rich,
turning the silver to gold, like a fairy godmother of legend, is the
cherished accompaniment. The feeling of wonder, aroused in the hours
of watching under the trees, being still upper-most, it will seem as
if the soft hues of the afterglow had been embodied in this exquisite
prologue, with its rose and citron, its gold and soft grey tints.
Tender spring chickens may then give greeting to the summer-time. They
also will have spent hours in close communion with solid blocks of
ice, and will be as cool as the breezes that blow over the high snow
fields of Switzerland. For, be it noted in passing, without a
refrigerator the perfect supper is sheer impossibility. Success
depends largely upon temperature. Lukewarm supper would be as
detestable as a lukewarm dinner. With the innocent chickens, chilling
and chaste, a green salad will be as appropriate as edelweiss on
Alpine slopes. It should be made of the hearts of the youngest of
young cabbage lettuces, touched with onions, and fatigued with the one
most admirable salad dressing that man ever devised. Linger as long as
may be, for this surely is one of the beautiful moments that repay the
artist for his toiling and his intervals of despair.
Asparagus will prove most seemly successor. Let it also be cold beyond
suspicion. A sauce of vinegar and oil, pepper and salt, force it to
yield its most subtle sweetness. It will prove another course to call
for lingering. Unless happiness be realised, of what use is it to be
happy? He who is not conscious of pleasure when he eats is not worthy
to sit at table with the elect. Like the animals, he is content to
feed, and the art of the cook is, alas! lost upon him.
A savoury at this banquet would be superfluous. The presence of cheese
would be but deference to convention, and faithfulness to tradition
does not demand as its price sacrifice of all freedom in detail. The
asparagus would be dishonoured were it to give place to aught more
substantial than strawberries. Sometimes in the day's _menu_, as in a
decorative scheme, loveliness is enhanced by repetition. As a second
curve emphasises the grace of the first, so strawberries at supper
carry out with great elegance the strawberry scheme of afternoon tea.
Pretty hillocks of sugar, and deep pools of cream, make a rich setting
for this jewel among fruits.
The wine, clearly, should be white, and it, too, should be
iced--remember the month is June. Few Rhine wines could consistently
refuse to be pressed into service. But French vineyards have greater
charm than German, though the Lorelei may sing in near waters, and to
Graves, or Barsac, preference will be wisely proffered.
Be fearful of striking a false note. See that the coffee, black and
strong though it be, is as cold as wine and salmon, chicken and salad.
And pour the green Chartreuse into glasses that have been first filled
with crushed ice. And as you smoke your cigarette, ask yourself if the
Sunday evening supper tradition be not one crying for preservation at
all costs.
When another week has rolled by and disappeared into the _Ewigkeit_,
vary the _menu_. An element of the _bizarre_, the strange, the
unaccustomed, often lends irresistible piquancy. Be faithful to the
refrigerator, however fickle to other loves. Open the banquet with a
stirring salad fashioned of red herring and potatoes, and, perhaps, a
few leaves of lettuce. It savours of the sensational, and stimulates
appetite.
That disappointment may not ensue, desert well-trodden paths, and,
borrowing from Germany, serve a dish of meat, amusing in its quaint
variety. Slices of lamb may provide a pretty centre, surrounding them,
scatter slices of the sausage of Brunswick and Bologna, here and there
set in relief against a piece of grey _Leberwurst_. As garniture,
encircle the dish with a garland of anchovies, curled up into
enchanting little balls, and gherkins, and hard-boiled eggs cut in
delicate rounds. Memories will crowd fast upon you as you eat;
memories of the little German towns and their forgotten hilltops,
visited in summers long since gone, of the little German inn, and the
friendly land-lord, eager to please; of the foaming mugs of beer, and
the tall, slender goblets of white wine. Before supper is done, you
will have travelled leagues upon leagues into the playtime of the
past.
Cheese now is as essential as it would have been intrusive in the
other _menu_. Gruyère should be your choice, and if you would have it
of fine flavour, seek it not at the English cheesemonger's, but at the
little German _delicatessen_ shop. Brown bread would best enter into
the spirit of the feast.
As epilogue, fruit can never be discordant, and what fruit in early
June insists upon being eaten with such sweet persistency as the
strawberry. But, on your German evening, fatigue it with Kirsch, leave
it on its icy couch until the very last minute, and memories of the
Lapérouse will mingle with those of the smoky inn of the Fatherland.
Is there any question that Hock is the wine, when sausage and red
herring and Gruyère cheese figure so prominently in the _menu's_
composition? Drink it from tall slender glass, that it may take you
fully into its confidence. Coffee need not be iced. In fact, it should
positively be hot--can you doubt it? And Cognac now will prove more
responsive to your mood than Chartreuse. There is no written law to
regulate these matters. But the true artist needs no code to guide
him. He knows instinctively what is right and what is wrong, and
doubts can never assail him.
ON SOUP
"When all around the wind doth blow," draw close the curtains, build
up a roaring fire, light lamp and candles, and begin your dinner with
a good--_good_, mind you--dish of soup. Words of wisdom are these, to
be pondered over by the woman who would make her evening dinner a
joyful anticipation, a cherished memory.
Soup, with so much else good and great, is misunderstood in an England
merrier than dainty in her feasting. Better is this matter ordered
across the Border. For the healthy-minded, Scotch mists have their
compensation in Scotch broth; odoriferous and appetising is its very
name. But in England, soup long since became synonymous with turtle,
and the guzzling alderman of legend. Richness is held its one
essential quality--richness, not strength. Too often, a thick, greasy
mess, that could appeal but to the coarsest hunger, will be set
before you, instead of the dish that can be comforting and sustaining
both, and yet meddles not with the appetite. It should be but a
prelude to the meal--the prologue, as it were, to the play--its
excellence, a welcome forecast of delights to follow, a welcome
stimulus to light talk and lighter laughter. Over _Julienne_ or
_bisque_ frowns are smoothed away, and guests who sat down to table in
monosyllabic gloom will plunge boldly into epigrammatic or anecdotic
gaiety ere ever the fish be served.
Magical, indeed, is the spell good soup can cast. Of its services as
medicine or tonic, why speak? Beef tea gives courage to battle with
pain and suffering; _consommé_ cheers the hours of convalescence. Let
all honour be done to it for its virtues in the sick-room; but with so
cheerful a subject, it is pleasanter to dwell on its more cheerful
aspects.
More legitimate is it to consider the happy part it plays in the
traveller's programme. And for this--it must be repeated, as for all
the best things in the _gourmand's_ life--one journeys to France. But
first remember--that contrast may add piquancy to the French
_menu_--the fare that awaits the weary, disconsolate traveller at
English railway station: the stodgy bun, Bath and penny varieties
both, and the triangular sandwich; the tea drawn overnight, and the
lukewarm bovril, hopelessly inadequate substitute for soup freshly
made from beef or stock. At a luncheon bar thus wickedly equipped,
eating becomes what it never should be!--a sad, terrible necessity, a
pleasureless safeguard against pangs of hunger, a mere animal
function, and therefore a degradation to the human being educated to
look upon food and drink--even so might the painter regard his
colours, the sculptor his clay and marble--as means only to a perfect
artistic end.
Or, consider also, to make the contrast stronger, the choicest banquet
American railways, for all the famed American enterprise, provide. To
journey by the "Pullman vestibuled train" from New York to Chicago is
luxury, if you will. Upon your point of view depends the exact amount
of enjoyment yielded by meals eaten while you dash through the world
at the rate of eighty miles an hour, more or less, and generally
less. There is charm in the coloured waiters, each with gay flower in
his buttonhole, and gayer smile on his jolly, black face; there is
pretence in the cheap, heavy, clumsy Limoges off which you eat, out of
which you drink, in the sham silver case in which your Champagne
bottle is brought, if for Champagne you are foolish enough to call.
But bitterness is in your wine cup, for the wine is flat; heaviness is
in your breakfast or dinner, for bread is underdone and sodden, and
butter is bad, and the endless array of little plates discourages with
its suggestion of vulgar plenty and artless selection; and all is
vanity and vexation, save the corn bread--the beautiful golden corn
bread, which deserves a chapter to itself--and the fruit: the bananas
and grapes, and peaches and oranges, luscious and ravishing as they
seldom are on any but American soil. Nor will you mend matters by
bestowing your patronage upon the railway restaurants of the big towns
where you stop: the dirty, fly-bitten lunch counters. Pretentious,
gorgeous, magnificent, they maybe; but good, no! All, even the
privilege of journeying at the rate of eighty miles an hour, would
you give for one bowl of good soup at the Amiens _buffet_.