Once the "glory of fair Sicily," there must ever linger about it sweet
echoes of Sicilian song sung under the wild olives and beneath the
elms, where Theocritus "watched the visionary flocks." Did not "a
great white cream-cheese" buy that wondrous bowl--the "miracle of
varied work"--for which Thyrsis sang the pastoral song? Cheese-fed
were the shepherds who piped in the shadow of the ilex tree, while the
calves were dancing in the soft green grass; cheese-scented was the
breath of the fair maidens and beautiful youths they loved. Is there a
woman with soul so dead, who, when in a little country inn fresh
cheese is laid before her, cannot fancy that she sees the goats and
kids among the tamarisks of the sun-kissed Sicilian hills, and hears
the perfect voices of Daphnis and Menalcas, the two herdsmen "skilled
in song"?
Perhaps because cheese has been relegated to the last course at midday
breakfast, or at dinner, has it lost much of its charm for the
heedless. But who, indeed, playing with peach or orange at dessert,
knows the fruit's true flavour as well as he who plucks it fresh from
the tree while wandering through the peach orchards of Delaware or the
orange groves of Florida? Take a long walk over the moors and through
the heather, or cycle for hours along winding lanes, and then, at
noon, eat a lunch of bread and cheese, and--even without the
kisses--you will find in the frugal fare a godlike banquet. Time was
when bits cut from the huge carcase of a well-battered Cheddar, washed
down with foaming shandygaff, seemed more delicious far than the
choicest dishes at the Lapérouse or Voisin's. Memory journeys back
with joy to the fragrant, tough, little goat's cheese, with flask of
Chianti, set out upon the rough wooden table in front of some wayside
vine-trellised _albergo_, while traveller and cycle rested at the hour
when shade is most pleasant to men. How many a tramp, through the
valleys and over the passes of Switzerland, has been made the easier
by the substantial slice of good Gruyère and the cup of wine well
cooled in near snow-drifts! How many rides awheel through the pleasant
land of France have been the swifter for the Camembert and roll
devoured by the way!
Places and hours there are when cheese is best. But seldom is it
wholly unwelcome. From dinner, whatever may then be its limitations,
some think it must never be omitted. Remember, they say, as well a
woman with but one eye as a last course without cheese. But see that
you show sympathy and discretion in selecting the variety most in
harmony with your _menu_, or else the epicure's labours will indeed be
lost. It is not enough to visit the cheesemonger's, and to accept any
and every kind offered. The matter is one requiring time and thought
and long experience. You must understand the possibilities of each
cheese chosen, you must bear in mind the special requirements of each
meal prepared. Preposterous it would be truly to serve the
mild-flavoured plebeian species from Canada or America after a
carefully ordered dinner at Verrey's; wasteful, to use adorable Port
Salut or aromatic Rocquefort for a pudding or a Welsh rabbit.
Study gastronomic proprieties, cultivate your imagination, and as the
days follow each other fewer will be your mistakes. Heavy Stilton and
nutritious Cheddar, you will know, belong by right to undisguised
joint and irrepressible greens: to a "good old-fashioned English
dinner" they prove becoming accompaniments. Excellent they are, after
their fashion, to be honoured and respected; but something of the
seriousness and the stolidity of their native land has entered into
them, and to gayer, more frivolous moods they are as unsuited as a
sermon to a ballroom. If, however, to the joint you cling with
tenacity, and solemn Stilton be the cheese of your election, do not
fail to ripen it with port of the finest vintage or good old ale
gently poured into holes, here and there scooped out for the purpose,
and then filled once more with the cheese itself.
Strength, fierce in perfume and flavour alike, lies in Limburger, but
it is strength which demands not beef or mutton, but _wurst_ and
_sauerkraut_. Take it not home with you, unless you would place a
highly-scented barrier between yourself and your friends; but, in deep
thankfulness of heart, eat it after you have lunched well and heartily
in the Vienna Cafe, which overlooks Leicester Square, or in that other
which commands Mudie's and Oxford Street. And thanks will be deepened
a hundredfold if, while eating, you call for a long refreshing draught
of Munich beer.
Sweet, redolent of herbs, are gracious Gorgonzola, of which such
ribald tales are told by the irreverent, and royal Rocquefort, in its
silver wrapping; eaten after "the perfect dinner," each has merit
immeasurable--merit heightened by a glass of Beaune or Chambertin.
Then, too, is the hour for Port Salut, with its soothing suggestion
of monastic peace and contentment, alone a safeguard against
indigestion and other unspeakable horrors; if you respect your
appetite seek it nowhere save in the German _delicatessen_ shop, but
there order it with an easy conscience and confidence in the
white-coated, white-aproned ministering spirit at the counter. Thither
also turn for good Camembert; but, as you hope for pleasure in the
eating, be not too ready to accept the first box offered: test the
cheese within with sensitive finger, and value it according to its
softness, for an unripe Camembert, that crumbles at touch of the
knife, is deadlier far than all the seven deadly sins. It should be
soft and flowing almost as languid _Fromage de Brie_, indolent and
melting on its couch of straw. Beyond all cheese, Gruyère calls for
study and reflection, so many are the shams, by an unscrupulous market
furnished, in its place. As palely yellow as a Liberty scarf, as
riddled with holes as cellular cotton, it should be sweet as Port
Salut, and yet with a reserve of strength that makes it the rival of
Limburger.
But blessed among cheeses, a romance in itself, is the creamy, subtle
little _Suisse_, delectable as Dumas calls it. Soft and sweet as the
breath of spring, it belongs to the season of lilacs and love. Its
name evokes a vision of Paris, radiant in the Maytime, the long
avenues and boulevards all white and pink with blossoming
horse-chestnuts, the air heavy laden with the fragrance of flowers; a
vision of the accustomed corner in the old restaurant looking out upon
the Seine, and of the paternal waiter bearing the fresh _Suisse_ on
dainty green leaf. Life holds few such thrilling interludes! You may
eat it with salt, and think yourself old and wise; but why not be true
to the spirit of spring? Why not let yourself go a little, and, eating
your _Suisse_ with sugar, be young and foolish and unreasonably happy
again?
Authorities there be who rank the _Broccio_ of Corsica above the
_Suisse_, and credit it with delicious freshness and Virgilian
flavour. To taste it among its wild hills, then, would be well worth
the long journey to the island in the Mediterranean. In the meantime,
however, none need quarrel with _Suisse_. Hardly a country or district
in the world really that has not its own special cheese; he who would
discover them all and catalogue them must needs write a treatise on
geography.
But to eat cheese in its many varieties, with butter or salt or sugar,
as the case may be, and to think its mission thus fulfilled, would be
to underestimate its inexhaustible resources. Innumerable are the
masterpieces the culinary artist will make of it. In an omelet you
would pronounce it unsurpassable, so long as kind fate did not set
before you the consummate _Fondue_. As a pudding you would declare it
not to be approached, if sometimes crisp cheese straws were not served
with dinner's last course. On an ocean voyage, Welsh-rabbit late at
night will seem to you the marvel of marvels; on a railway journey a
cheese sandwich at noon you will think still more miraculous--but let
the sandwich be made of brown bread, and mix butter and mustard and
anchovies with the cheese. The wonders that may be worked with
Parmesan alone--whether in conjunction with _macaroni_, or soup, or
cauliflower, or many a dish beside--would be eloquent text for a new
chapter.
A STUDY IN GREEN AND RED
You may search from end to end of the vast Louvre; you may wander from
room to room in England's National Gallery; you may travel to the
Pitti, to the Ryks Museum, to the Prado; and no richer, more stirring
arrangement of colour will you find than in that corner of your
kitchen garden where June's strawberries grow ripe. From under the
green of broad leaves the red fruit looks out and up to the sun in
splendour unsurpassed by paint upon canvas. And the country, with
lavish prodigality born of great plenty, takes pity upon the drear,
drab town, and, packing this glory of colour in baskets and crates,
despatches it to adorn greengrocer's window and costermonger's cart.
"Strawberries all ripe, sixpence a pound," is the itinerant sign which
now sends a thrill through Fleet Street and brings joy to the Strand.
To modern weakling the strawberry is strong with the strength of
classical approval. The Greek loved it; the Latin vied with him in the
ardour of his affection. Poets sang its wonders and immortalised its
charms. Its perfume was sweet in the nostrils of Virgil; its flavour
enraptured the palate of Ovid; and at banquets under the shadow of the
Acropolis and on sunny Pincian Hill, the strawberry, cultivated and
wild, held place of honour among the dear fruits of the earth.
Nor did it disappear before the barbarian's inroads. Europe might be
laid waste; beauty and learning and art might be aliens in the land
that was once their home; human enjoyment might centre upon a
millennium to come rather than upon delights already warm within men's
grasp. But still the strawberry survived. Life grew ugly and rue and
barren. But from under broad leaves the little red fruit still looked
out and up to the sun; and, by loveliness of colour and form, of
flavour and scent, proved one of the chief factors in reclaiming man
from barbarism, in leading him gently along the high road to
civilisation and the joy of life.
Respect for its exquisite perfection was ever deep and heartfelt.
Gooseberries might be turned to wine and figure as fools; raspberries
and currants might be imprisoned within stodgy puddings. But the
strawberry, giver of health, creator of pleasure, seldom was submitted
to desecration by fire. As it ripened, thus was it eaten: cool,
scarlet, and adorable. At times when, according to the shifting of the
seasons, its presence no longer made glad the hearts of its lovers,
desire invented a substitute. As the deserted swain takes what cold
comfort he can from the portrait of his mistress, so the faithful
stayed themselves with the strawberry's counterfeit. And thus was it
made: "Take the paste of Massepain, and roul it in your hands in form
of a Strawberry, then wet it in the juice of Barberries or red
Gooseberries, turn them about in this juice pretty hard, then take
them out and put them into a dish and dry them before a fire, then wet
them again for three or four times together in the same juice, and
they will seem like perfect Strawberries." Master Cook Giles Rose is
the authority, and none knew better.
If, in moment of folly, in an effort to escape monotony, however
sweet, the strawberry was robbed of its freshness, it was that it
might be enclosed in a tart. Then--how account for man's
inconsistency?--it was so disguised, so modified by this, that, or the
other companion in misery, that it seemed less a strawberry than ever
Master Rose's ingenious counterfeit. And, in witness thereof, read
Robert May, the Accomplished Cook, his recipe: "Wash the strawberries
and put them into the tart; season them with cinnamon, ginger, and a
little red wine, then put on the sugar, bake it half an hour, ice it,
scrape on sugar, and serve it." A pretty mess, in truth, and yet, for
sentiment's sake, worth repetition in this degenerate latter day.
Queen Anne preserved the tradition of her Stuart forefathers, and in
"The Queen's Royal Cooker," a little book graced by the Royal
portrait, Robert May's tart reappears, cinnamon, ginger, and all. So
it was handed down from generation to generation, cropping up here and
there with mild persistency, and now at last, after long career of
unpopularity, receiving distinction anew.
One tart in a season, as tribute to the past, will suffice. It were a
shame to defile the delicate fruit in more unstinted quantities.
Reserve it rather for dessert, that in fragile porcelain dish or frail
glass bowl it may lose nothing of the fragrance and crispness and glow
of colour that distinguished it as it lay upon the brown earth under
cool green shelter. To let it retain unto the very last its little
green stem is to lend to dinner or breakfast table the same stirring,
splendid harmony that lit up, as with a flame, the kitchen garden's
memorable corner. But if with cream the fruit is to be eaten, then
comfort and elegance insist upon green stem's removal before ever the
bowl be filled or the dish receive its dainty burden.
At early "little breakfast" of coffee and rolls, or tea and toast, as
you will, what more delicious, what fresher beginning to the day's
heat and struggles, then the plate of strawberries newly picked from
their bed? Banish cream and sugar from this initiative meal. At the
dawn of daily duty and pleasure, food should be light and airy and
unsubstantial. Then the stem, clinging fast to the fruit's luscious
flesh, is surely in place. Half the delight is in plucking the berry
from the plate as if from the bush.
After midday breakfast, after evening dinner, however, it is another
matter. Cream now is in order; cream, thick and sweet and pure,
covering the departing strawberry with a white pall, as loving and
tender as the snow that protects desolate pastures and defenceless
slopes from winter's icy, inexorable fingers. Sprinkle sugar with the
cream, as flowers might be strewn before the altars of Dionysius and
Demeter.
Cream may, for time being, seem wholly without rivals as the
strawberry's mate, the two joined together by a bond that no man would
dare put asunder. But the strawberry has been proven fickle in its
loves--a very Cressida among fruits. For to Kirsch it offers ecstatic
welcome, while Champagne meets with no less riotous greeting. To
Cognac it will dispense its favours with easy graciousness, and from
the hot embrace of Maraschino it makes no endeavour to escape. Now, it
may seem as simple and guileless as Chloe, and again as wily and
well-versed as Egypt's far-famed Queen. But with the results of its
several unions who will dare find fault? In each it reveals new,
unsuspecting qualities, subtle and ravishing. On pretty, white-draped
tea-table, rose-embowered, carnation-scented, the strawberry figures
to fairest advantage when Champagne holds it in thrall; in this hour
and bower cream would savour of undue heaviness, would reveal itself
all too substantial and palpable a lover. Again, when elaborate dinner
draws to an end, and dessert follows upon long procession of soup and
fish and _entrées_ and roasts and vegetables and salads and poultry
and sweets and savouries, and who knows what--then the strawberry
becomes most irresistible upon yielding itself, a willing victim, to
the bold demands of Kirsch. A _macédoine_ of Kirsch-drowned
strawberries, iced to a point, is a dish for which gods might languish
without shame.
She who loves justice never fears to tell the whole truth and nothing
but the truth. To cook the strawberry is to rob it of its sweetest
bloom and freshness. But there have been others to think otherwise, as
it must in fairness be added. To the American, strawberry short-cake
represents one of the summits of earthly bliss. In ices, many will see
the little fruit buried without a pang of regret; and the device has
its merits. As syrup, distended with soda-water and ice-cream, the
conservative Londoner may now drink it at Fuller's. In the flat, open,
national tart, the Frenchman places it, and congratulates himself upon
the work of art which is the outcome. Or, accepting Gouffé as master,
he will soar, one day, to the extraordinary heights of _coupe en
nougat garnie de fraises_, and find a flamboyant colour-print to serve
as guide; the next he will descend to the mere homeliness of _beignets
de fraises_; and, as he waxes more adventurous, he will produce
_bouchées de dame_, or _pain à la duchesse_, _madeleines en surprise_
or _profiteroles_, each and all with the strawberry for motive. The
spirit of enterprise is to be commended, and not one of Gouffé's list
but will repay the student in wealth of experience gained. The lover,
however, finds it not always easy to remember the student within him,
and if joy in the eating be his chief ambition, he will be constant to
the fresh fruit ever.
A MESSAGE FROM THE SOUTH
What know we of the orange in our barbarous North? To us it is an
alien, a makeshift, that answers well when, our own harvests over,
winter, sterile and gloomy, settles upon the land. But in the joyous
South all the year round it ripens, its golden liquid a solace when
heat and dust parch the throat, as when winds from the frozen North
blow with unwonted cold. The tree that bears it is as eager to produce
as the mothers of Israel, and, in its haste and impatience, often it
whitens its branches with blossoms while still they glow with fruit,
even as Beckford long since saw them in the groves of Naples.
Bright, rich colour the costermonger's barrow, piled high with oranges
from distant Southern shores, gives to London's dingy streets; and not
a greengrocer's window but takes on new beauty and resplendence when
decorated by the brilliant heaps. But meretricious seems the
loveliness of the orange here, when once it has been seen hanging from
heavy-laden boughs, gleaming between cool dark leaves in its own home,
whether on Guadalquivir's banks or Naples' bay, whether in western
Florida or eastern Jaffa. What has a fruit that languishes in the
garden of Lindajara and basks in Amalfi's sunshine, to do with London
costermongers and fog-drenched shops?
Wearied and jaded by the long journey, disheartened by the injustice
done to it when plucked in its young, green immaturity, it grows sour
and bitter by the way, until, when it comes to the country of its
exile, but a faint, feeble suggestion of its original flavour remains.
With us, for instance, does not the orange of Valencia mean a little,
thin-skinned, acid, miserable fruit, only endurable when smothered in
sugar or drowned in Cognac? But eaten in Valencia, what is it then and
there? Large and ample are its seductive proportions; its skin,
deeply, gloriously golden, forswears all meagreness, though never too
thick to shut out the mellowing sunshine; its juice flows in splendid
streams as if to vie with the Sierra's quenchless springs; and the
fruit is soft and sweet as the sweet, soft Southern maidens whose
white teeth meet and gleam in its pulp of pure, uncontaminated gold. A
fruit this for romance--a fruit for the Houris of Paradise; not to be
peddled about in brutal barrows among feather-bearing 'Arriets.
In the South, it were a crime not to eat this fruit, created for the
immortals, just as God made it. Sugar could be added but to its
dishonour; the pots and pans of the sacrilegious cook would be
desecration unspeakable. Feast then, upon its natural charms, and as
the hot Southern breeze brings to you the scent of strange Southern
blossoms, and the sky stretches blindingly blue above, and _One_ sits
at your side feasting in silent sympathy, fancy yourself, if you will,
the new Adam--or Eve--for whom the flaming swords have been lowered,
and the long-closed gates of the Garden of Eden thrown wide open.
But in the North, banish romance, banish imagination; bring to the
study of the orange the prose of necessity, and realism of the
earnest student. And sometimes, from prose--who knows?--poetry may
spring; from realism will be evolved wild dreaming.
If the orange be from Jaffa, or "hail" from Florida, and care bestowed
upon it during its long voyaging, then will it need no Northern
artifice to enhance the pleasure in its power to give. True that
something--much, indeed--it will have lost; but something of its
Southern, spicy, subtle sweetness still survives--of the Orient's
glamour, of the mystery of the Western wilderness of flower and fruit.
Eat it, therefore, as it is, unadorned, unspoiled. Tear away tenderly
the covering that cleaves to it so closely; tear the fruit apart with
intelligent fingers; to cut it is to sacrifice its cooling juice to
inanimate china, and to deprive yourself of the first freshness of its
charms.
When, however, as generally--to our sorrow, be it said--the orange
arrives a parody of itself, it were better to join it to one of its
several dearest affinities. In well-selected company, it may recover
the shadow, and more, of the splendour it elsewhere enjoys in solitary
state. Thus disguised, it may wander from dessert to the course of
sweets, and by so wandering save the resourceless from the monotony of
rice and rizine, batter and bread-and-butter puddings, whose fitting
realm is the nursery, and from an eternity of tarts which do not, like
a good design, gain by repetition. In cocoanut, the orange recognises
a fellow exile, and the two, coming together, yield a new flavour, a
new delight. For this purpose, the orange must be cut that the juice
may flow, and if in symmetrical rounds, the effect will be more
satisfying to the critical. Let the slices be laid at once in the bowl
destined to hold them at the moment of serving, that not a drop of
juice may escape, and arrange them so that over every layer of orange
reposes a layer of sugar. Then taking the cocoanut that has been well
drained, grate it as fine as patience will allow; under it bury the
orange until the gold is all concealed, and the dish looks white and
light and soft as the driven snow. No harm will be done, but, on the
contrary, much good, by preparing some hours before dinner. It is a
pretty conceit; half unwillingly the spoon disturbs this summery
snow-field. But well that it does, for the combination pleases the
palate no less than the eye. The orange summons forth the most
excellent qualities of the cocoanut; the cocoanut suppresses the
acidity and crudeness of the expatriated orange.
With sugar alone, the orange--of this secondary order be it
remembered--comes not amiss, when the soul yearns for placidness and
peace. If more stirring sensations be craved, baste the cut-up oranges
and sugar with Cognac, and eat to your own edification. Again prepare
some hours before serving, and be not stingy with the Cognac: keep
basting constantly; and be certain that if the result please you not,
the fault lies not with the fruit and spirits, both exultant in the
unexpected union.
The conservative, unused to such devices, envelop oranges in soulless
fritters and imprison them in stodgy puddings. Beware their example!
One followed, there is no telling the depths of plodding imbecility to
which you may be plunged. Not for the frying-pan or the pudding-bowl
was the golden fruit predestined. Better eat no sweets whatever than
thus degrade the orange and reveal our own shortcomings.
Who will deny that in the world's great drinks the orange has played
its part with much distinction? In bitters it is supreme, if gin in
due proportions be added. And where would mankind be by now, had the
orange-evolved liqueurs remained undiscovered? How many happy
after-dinner hours would never have been! How insipid the flavour of
Claret and Champagne-cup! Even temperance drinks may be endured when
orange is their basis. Go to Madrid or Granada, drink _bebida helada
de naranja_, and confess that in Spain the teetotallers, if any such
exist, have their compensation. A _purée neigeuse, une espèce de glace
liquide_, Gautier described it in a moment of expansion; and, when art
is in question, what Gautier has praised who would revile? With the
Spanish _bebida de naranja_, the American orange water ice may dispute
the palm.
In humbler incarnation it appears as marmalade, without which the
well-regulated household can do as little as without sapolio or
Reckitt's blue. Who throughout the British Isles does not know the
name of Keiller? Bread and butter might better go than this most
British of British institutions, the country's stay and support in
time of peace, its bulwark when war drives Tommy Atkins into action.
Thus has the North turned the South to its own everyday uses, and the
fruit of poets passes into the food of millions.