Let us reflect. Stewed, though not as in America of old, until all
flavour is lost, it has the merit of simplicity by no means to be
underestimated: drained of the greater part of its juice, thickened
slightly with flour, it cannot disappoint. _Au gratin_, it aspires to
more delirious joys: the pleasure yielded develops in proportion to
the pains taken to produce it. Into a baking dish olive oil is poured
in moderation; a sprinkling of salt and pepper and fragrant herbs well
powdered, together with bread-crumbs duly grated, follows; next the
tomatoes, eager and blushing, whole or in dainty halves, as the
impulse of the moment may prompt; more bread-crumbs and pepper and
salt and herbs must cover them gently, more oil be poured upon the
stirring harmony; and an hour in the oven will turn you out as pretty
a side-dish as was ever devised by ingenious Mrs Glasse, who--O the
pity of it--lived too soon for fond dalliance with love's crowning
vegetable.
_Farcies_ tomatoes may not easily be surpassed. Upon your whim or
choice it will depend whether you stuff them whole, or cut them in
half for so ineffable a purpose. And upon your whim likewise depends
the special forcemeat used. Chopped mushrooms, parsley and shallot,
seasoned with discretion, leave little to ask for. Prepare, instead,
sausage meat, garlic, parsley, tarragon, and chives, and the tomatoes
so stuffed you may without pedantry call _à la Grimod de la Reynière_.
But whatever you call them, count upon happiness in the eating.
Second point of the meditation: the tomato as an auxiliary. If you
have learned the trick of association, at once you see before you a
steaming harmony in pale yellow and scarlet, the long soft tubes of
_macaroni_ or _spaghetti_ encompassed round about by a deep stream of
tomatoes stewed and seasoned; at once you feast upon _macaroni al
pomodoro_ and Chianti, and Italy lies, like a map, before your mind's
eye, its towns and villages marked by this dish of dishes. With rice,
tomatoes are no less in pleasant, peaceful unity; in stuffed
_paprika_, or pepper, they find their true affinity. Grilled, they
make a sympathetic garniture for _filet piqué à la Richelieu_;
stuffed, they are the proper accompaniment of _tournedos à la Leslie_;
neatly halved, they serve as a foundation to soles _à la Loie Fuller_.
Chickens clamour for them as ally, and so does the saltest of salt
cod. In a word, a new combination they might with ease provide for
every day in the year. Enough will have been said if this one truth is
established: there is scarce a fish or fowl, scarce any meat or
vegetable, that is not the better and the nobler for the temporary
union with the tomato.
And now, the third point of the meditation, which, too often, escapes
the prosaic, unmeditative islander: the tomato as a dish for
breakfast. Only recently it was thus that two of rare beauty and sweet
savour fulfilled their destiny: on a plate fashioned by barbarous
potters on the banks of the Danube, where the love-apple grows in gay
profusion, stretched a thin, crisp slice of bacon decoratively
streaked with fat and grilled to a turn; it bore, as twin flowers, the
two tomatoes, also grilled, fragrant, tender, delectable. Surely here
was a poetic prelude to the day's toil. To Belgium all praise be given
for teaching that, stewed and encircling buttered or scrambled eggs,
tomatoes may again enliven the breakfast table, that bitter test of
conjugal devotion; to France, the credit of spreading them at the
bottom of plate or dish as a bed for eggs artistically poached or
fried. History records the names of generals and dates of battles,
but what chronicler has immortalised the genius who first enclosed
tomatoes in an omelet? This is a brutal, ungrateful world we live in.
And now pass on to the fourth heading, and new ecstasies: the tomato
as salad. Remember that the tomatoes must be deftly sliced in their
skins or else the juice escapes; that a touch of onion or garlic is
indispensable; that the dressing must be of oil and vinegar, pepper
and salt; unless, of course, a _mayonnaise_ be made. Another weird
salad there is with qualities to endear it to the morbid and neurotic.
Let it be explained briefly, that lurid description may not be thought
to exaggerate lurid attraction: drop your tomatoes, brilliantly red as
the abhorred Scarlet Woman, into hot water in order to free them of
their skins; place them whole, and in passionate proximity, in a dish
of silver or delicate porcelain; smother them under a thick layer of
whipped cream. For the sake of decoration and the unexpected, stick in
here and there a pistachio nut, and thank the gods for the new
sensation.
In soup, thin or clear, the tomato knows no rival; in sauce, it
stands supreme, ranking worthily with the four classical sauces of the
French _cuisine_. And here, a suggestion to be received with loud,
jubilant _Alleluias_! Follow the example of Attila's heirs, and, as
last touch, pour cream upon your tomato sauce. He who has known and
eaten and loved _paprika gefüllte_ in the wilds of Transylvania, will
bear willing witness to the admirable nature of this expedient.
The more devout, the professed worshipper, will eat his love-apple
without artificial device of cookery or dressing, with only salt for
savour. For this excess of devotion, however, unqualified commendation
would not be just. Unadorned the tomato is not adorned the most.
But cook or serve it as you will, see that it be eaten by you and
yours--that is the main thing. The tomatoes that make glad the heart
of the loiterer in Covent Garden are fresh as the sweet breath of May.
A DISH OF SUNSHINE
"The weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational
topics." How can the ingenious housewife talk of aught else in the
Winter season? Not because, as Mr Stevenson argues, "the dramatic
element in scenery is far more tractable in language, and far more
human both in import and suggestion, than the stable features of the
landscape," but because upon it she is dependent for ease and success
in making her every luncheon and dinner a culinary triumph.
Of what avail the morning's conference with the greengrocer's boy, or
even the conscientious visit to the greengrocer's shop or the ramble
through the market--unless, perhaps, and happily, her pockets be lined
with gold, when hothouse vegetables, and out-of-season delicacies,
must be paid for with the alacrity of a Croesus? Otherwise, dark,
hopeless despair seizes upon her? Must she not brood in abject
melancholy when the hideous truth is revealed to her that earth's
resources are limited to turnip-tops and Brussels sprouts, with, it
may be, a few Jerusalem artichokes thrown in? Celery, the lordly, is
frozen. Cauliflower, the fragrant, frost-bitten irretrievably, will
not yield to the most urgent inducements of hot water. Lettuce is a
thing of the past and of the future. Sad and drear indeed is the
immediate prospect. For surely turnip-tops are a delusion, and against
the monotony of sprouts the aspiring soul rebels.
It is at this crisis that hope flames right in a strangely neglected
corner. Italian sunshine and blue skies, concentrated in flour paste,
wrought into tubes and ribbons, squares and lozenges, come to gladden
the sinking heart and cheer the drooping spirits. Why despair when
_macaroni_ is always to be had, inestimable as a vegetable, unrivalled
as an _entrée_, a perfect meal, if you choose, in itself?
Upon the imagination of those to whom food is something besides a mere
satisfaction to carnal appetite, _macaroni_ works a strange, subtle
spell. The very name conjures up sweet poetic visions; it is the
magic crystal or beryl stone, in which may be seen known things, dear
to the memory: smiling valleys where the vines are festooned, not as
Virgil saw them, from elm to elm, but from mulberry to mulberry; and
where the beautiful, broad-horned, white oxen drag, in solemn dignity,
the crawling plough; olive-clad slopes and lonely stone palms; the
gleam of sunlit rivers winding with the reeds and the tall, slim
poplars; the friendly wayside _trattoria_ and the pleasant refrain of
the beaming _cameriere_, "_Subito Signora; ecco!_"--a refrain
ceaseless as the buzzing of bees among the clover. In a dish of
_macaroni_ lies all Italy for the woman with eyes to see or a heart to
feel.
Or visions more personal, more intimate, she may summon for her own
delight; the midday halt and lunch in Castiglione del Lago on its
gentle hill-top, the blue of Thrasymene's lake shining between the
olives, and all fair to behold, save the _padrone_ with his
conscienceless charges for the bowl of _macaroni_ that had been so
good in the eating. Or else, perhaps, the evening meal in the long
refectory at Monte Oliveto, with the white-robed brothers; or, again,
the unforgettable breakfast at Pompeii's _Albergo del Sole_, the good
wine ranged upon the old tree trunk that serves as central column, the
peacock, tail outspread, strutting about among the chairs and tables,
the overpowering sweetness of the flowering bean stealing, from near
fields, through open doors and windows. Or, still again, the thought
of Pompeii sends one off upon the journey from its ruined streets to
Naples--on one side the Bay, on the other the uninterrupted line of
villages, every low white house adorned with garlands of _macaroni_
drying peacefully and swiftly in the hot sun. And a few pence only
will it cost to dream such dreams of beauty and of gladness.
Many as are the devices for preparing this stuff that dreams are made
of, none can excel the simplest of all. Eat it the way the Italian
loves it, and for yourself you open up new vistas of pleasure. And
what could be easier? In water well salted--upon the salt much
depends--the _macaroni_, preferably in the large generous tubes, is
boiled for twenty minutes, or half an hour, until it is as soft as
soft may be without breaking. A capacious bowl, its sides well
buttered and sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese, must wait in
readiness. Into it put the _macaroni_, well drained of the water, into
its midst drop a large piece of sweet, fresh butter, and sprinkle,
without stint, more of the indispensable Parmesan; mix wisely and with
discrimination; and then eat to your soul's, or stomach's, content. To
further your joy, have at your side a flash of Chianti, pure and
strong, standing in no need of baptism. The gods never fared better.
But, one word of advice: if this dish you serve for luncheon, defy
convention, and make it the first and last and only course. It may
seem meagre in the telling. But to treat it with due respect and
justice much must be eaten, and this much makes more impossible even
to the hopeful.
Another word of advice: never break or cut the _macaroni_ into small
pieces; the cook who dares to disobey in this particular deserves
instant and peremptory dismissal. Where is the poetry, where the art,
if it can be eaten with as little trouble and planning as an everyday
potato, or a mess of greens? Who, that has seen, can forget the
skilful Italian winding the long steaming tubes around and around his
fork, his whole soul and intelligence concentrated upon the pretty
feat of transposing these tubes from his fork to his mouth. It is
difficult; yes, especially for the foreigner; but where is the
pleasure without pain? As well tear your Troyon or your Diaz into
shreds, and enjoy it in bits, as violate the virginal lengths of your
_macaroni_.
In more lavish mood, prepare it _al sugo_, and no cause need you fear
for regret. It is well-nigh as simple; the _macaroni_, or better still
_spaghetti_, the smaller, daintier variety, once boiled, is taken from
the water only to be plunged in rich gravy, its quantity varying
according to the quantity of _spaghetti_ used; let it boil anew, or
rather simmer, until each long tube is well saturated; then, add the
cheese and butter, and say your _Benedicite_ with a full heart.
Or, would you have it richer still, and so tempt Providence? Make
tomato the foundation of the gravy, spice it with cloves, bring out
the sweet _bouquet garni_, serve with butter and Parmesan cheese as
before, and call the result _Macaroni à la Napolitaine_. _Spaghetti_,
here again, will answer the purpose as well, nor will the pretty,
flat, wavy ribbon species come amiss. To court perfection, rely upon
mushrooms for one of the chief elements in this adorable concoction,
and the whole world over you may travel without finding a dish worthy
to compete with it. _Macaroni_ can yield nothing more exquisite,
though not yet are its resources exhausted.
_Au gratin_ it is also to be commended. The preliminary boiling may
now, as always, be taken for granted. With its chosen and well-tried
accompaniments of butter and Parmesan cheese, and steeped in a good
white sauce, it may simmer gently over the fire until the sympathetic
butter be absorbed; then in a decently prepared dish, and covered with
bread-crumbs, it should bake until it is warmed into a golden-brown
harmony that enraptures the eye. Or with stronger seasoning, with
onion and pepper and cayenne, you may create a savoury beyond compare.
Or combined with the same ingredients you may stew your _macaroni_ in
milk, and revel in _macaroni sauté_; worse a hundred times, truly,
might you fare.
But, if you would be wholly reckless, why, then try _Macaroni à la
Pontife_, and know that human ambition may scarce pretend to nobler
achievements. For a mould of goodly proportions you fill with
_macaroni_ and forcemeat of fowl and larks and bits of bacon and
mushrooms and game filleted; and this ineffable arrangement you
moisten with gravy and allow to simmer slowly, as befits its
importance, for an hour; eat it, and at last you too, with Faust, may
hail the fleeting moment, and bid it stay, because it is so fair!
In puddings and pies _macaroni_ is most excellent. But if you be not
lost beyond redemption, never sweeten either one or the other; the
suggestion of such sacrilege alone is horrid. Into little croquettes
it may by cunning hands be modelled; _en timbale_, in well-shaped
mould, it reveals new and welcome possibilities. With fish it
assimilates admirably; in soup it is above criticism. It will
strengthen the flavour of chestnuts, nor will it disdain the
stimulating influence of wine, white or red. And in the guise of
_nouilles_, or nudels, it may be stuffed with forcemeat of fowl or
beef, and so clamour for the rich tomato sauce.
ON SALADS
To speak of salads in aught but the most reverential spirit were
sacrilege. To be honoured aright, they should be eaten only in the
company of the devout or in complete solitude--and perhaps this latter
is the wiser plan. Who, but the outer barbarian, will not with a good
salad,
A book, a taper, and a cup
Of country wine, divinely sup?
Over your hot meats you cannot linger; if alone with them, and read
you must, a common newspaper, opened at the day's despatches, best
serves your purpose; else, your gravies and sauces congeal into a
horrid white mess upon your plate, and tepid is every unsavoury morsel
your fork carries to your mouth. But over any one of the "salad
clan"--lettuce or tomato, beans or potato, as fancy prompts--you can
revel at leisure in your Balzac, your Heine, your Montaigne, which,
surely, it would be desecration to spread open by the side of the
steaming roast or the prosaic bacon and eggs. There has always seemed
one thing lacking in Omar's Paradise: a salad, he should have
bargained for with his Book of Verses, his Jug of Wine, and Loaf of
Bread "underneath the Bough."
Far behind has the Continent left Great Britain in the matter of
salads. To eat them in perfection you must cross the Channel--as,
indeed, you must in the pursuit of all the daintiest dishes--and
travel still farther than France. The French will give you for
breakfast a bowl of _Soissons_, for dinner a _Romaine_, which long
survive as tender memories; even the humble dandelion they have
enlisted in the good cause. With the Italian you will fare no less
well; better it may be, for, with the poetic feeling that has
disappeared for ever from their art and architecture, they fill the
salad bowl at times with such delicate conceits as tender young violet
leaves, so that you may smell the spring in the blossoms at your
throat, while you devour it in the greens set before you. But in
Germany, though there may be less play of fancy in the choice of
materials, there is far greater poetry in the mixing of them. As an
atonement for that offence against civilisation, the midday dinner,
the Germans have invented a late supper that defies the critic: the
very meanest _Speise-Saal_ is transfigured when the gaslight falls
softly on the delicious potato or cucumber or herring salads of the
country, flanked by the tall slim glasses of amber Rhenish wine. But,
excelling Germany, even as Germany excels France, Hungary is the true
home of the salad. It would take a book to exhaust the praise it there
inspires. To die eating salad on the banks of the Danube to the wail
of the Czardas--that would be the true death! What, however, save the
ideals realised, is to be effected in a land where tomatoes are as
plentiful as are potatoes in Ireland?
The Briton, it must be admitted, has of late progressed. Gone is the
time when his favourite salad was a horror unspeakable: an onion and a
lettuce served whole, chopped up by himself, smothered in salt and
pepper, and fairly sluiced with vinegar. To understand the full
iniquity of it, you must remember what an excess of vinegar the
stalwart Briton was equal to in those days, now happily past. An
imperial pint, Mr Weller's friend, the coachman with the hoarse voice,
took with his oysters without betraying the least emotion. As
benighted, smacking no less of the Dark Ages, is the custom of serving
with cheese a lettuce (of the long crisp species known as _cos_ in the
cookery books), cut ruthlessly in halves. You are supposed to dip the
leaves into salt, and afterwards return thanks with a grateful heart.
Many there are who will still eat lettuce in this fashion with their
tea; the curious student of evolution can point to it as a survival of
the old barbarism; to the mustard and cress or cucumber sandwiches
which have replaced it, as a higher phase of development.
But, though these sorry customs still survive here and there, even as
superstitions linger among ignorant peasants, British eyes are opening
to the truth. The coming of the salad in England marks the passing of
the Englishman from barbarous depth to civilised heights. Has he not
exchanged his old-love Frith for Whistler, and has he not risen from
G. P. R. James to George Meredith? Not a whit less important in the
history of his civilisation is his emancipation from that vile,
vinegar-drenched abomination to the succulent tomato, the unrivalled
potato, well "fatigued" in the "capacious salad-bowl."
Of every woman worthy of the name, it is the duty to master the secret
of the perfect salad, and to prepare it for her own--and man's--greater
comfort and joy in this life, and--who knows?--salvation in the
next. This secret is all in the dressing. It is easy enough to buy
in the market, or order at the greengrocer's a lettuce, or a cucumber,
or a pound of tomatoes. But to make of them a masterpiece, there's
the rub. Upon the dressing and "fatiguing" success depends. The
mission of the lettuce, the resources of the bean were undreamed
of until the first woman--it must have been a woman!--divined
the virtue that lies in the harmonious combination of oil and
vinegar. Vinegar alone and undiluted is for the vulgar; mixed
with oil it as much surpasses nectar and ambrosia as these hitherto
have been reckoned superior to the liquors of mere human brewing. Of
_mayonnaise_ nothing need as yet be said; it ranks rather with sauces,
irreproachable when poured upon salmon, or chicken, or lobster--upon
the simpler and more delicate salads it seems well-nigh too strong and
coarse. The one legitimate dressing in these cases is made of vinegar
and oil, pepper and salt, and, on certain rare occasions, mustard.
As with sauces, it is simple to put down in black and white the
several ingredients of the good dressing. But what of the proportions?
What of the methods of mixing? In the large towns of the United States
where men and women delight in the pleasures of the table, are
specialists who spend their afternoons going from house to house,
preparing the salads for the day's coming great event. And perhaps, in
the end, all mankind may see advantages in this division of labour.
For only the genius born can mix a salad dressing as it should be
mixed. Quantities of pepper and salt, of oil and vinegar for him (or
her) are not measured by rule or recipe, but by inspiration. You may
generalise and insist upon one spoonful of oil for every guest and one
for the bowl--somewhat in the manner of tea-making--and then
one-third the quantity of vinegar. But out of these proportions the
Philistine will evolve for you a nauseating concoction; the initiated,
a dressing of transcendental merit.
As much depends upon the mixing as upon the proportions. The foolish
pour in first their oil, then their vinegar, and leave the rest to
chance, with results one shudders to remember. The two must be mixed
together even as they are poured over the salad, and here the task but
begins. For next, they must be mixed with the salad. To "fatigue" it
the French call this special part of the process, and indeed, to
create a work of art, you must mix and mix and mix until you are
fatigued yourself, and your tomatoes or potatoes reduced to one-half
their original bulk. Then will the dressing have soaked through and
through them, then will every mouthful be a special plea for gluttony,
an eloquent argument for the one vice that need not pall with years.
One other ingredient must not be omitted here, since it is as
essential as the oil itself. This is the onion--
Rose among roots, the maiden fair,
Wine-scented and poetic soul
of every salad. You may rub with it the bowl, you may chop it up fine
and sprinkle with it the lettuce, as you might sprinkle an omelet with
herbs. But there, in one form or another, it must be. The French have
a tendency to abuse it; they will cut it in great slices to spread
between layers of tomatoes or cucumbers. But there is a touch of
grossness in this device. It is just the _soupçon_ you crave, just the
subtle flavour it alone can impart. You do not want your salad, when
it comes on the table, to suggest nothing so much as the stewed steak
and onions shops in the Strand! The fates forbid.
"What diversities soever there be in herbs, all are shuffled up
together under the name of sallade." And Montaigne wrote in sadness,
knowing well that there could be no error more fatal. Have you ever
asked for a salad at the greengrocer's, and been offered a collection
of weeds befitting nothing so much as Betsy Prig's capacious pocket?
Have you ever, at the table of the indifferent, been served with the
same collection plentifully drenched with "salad cream"? But these are
painful memories, speedily to be put aside and banished for evermore.
Some combinations there are of herbs or greens or vegetables
unspeakably delicious, even in the thought thereof. But it is not at
haphazard, by an unsympathetic greengrocer, they can be made; not in
haste, from bottles of atrocities, they can be dressed. They are the
result of conscientious study, of consummate art.
Besides, some varieties there be of flavour too delicate to be
tampered with: for instance, the cabbage lettuce, as the vulgar call
it, which comes in about Easter time, but which, at the cost of a
little trouble, can be had all the year round. For some reason
unknown, your hard-hearted greengrocer, half the time, objects to it
seriously, declares it not to be found from end to end of Covent
Garden. But let him understand that upon his providing it depends your
custom, and he fetches it--the unprincipled one--fast enough. The
ragged outer leaves pulled away, crisp and fresh is the heart, a cool
green and white harmony not to be touched by brutal knife. The leaves
must be torn apart, gently and lovingly, as the painter plays with the
colours on his palette. Then, thrown into the bowl which already has
been well rubbed with onion, and slices of hard-boiled egg laid upon
the top for adornment and flavouring alike, at once may the dressing
of oil and vinegar and salt and pepper be poured on, and the process
of "fatiguing" begin. You need add nothing more, to know, as you eat,
that life, so long as salads are left to us, is well worth the living.