GRAVIES AND SAUCES.
"The spirit of each dish, and ZEST of all,
Is what ingenious cooks the relish call;
For though the market sends in loads of food,
They are all tasteless, till that makes them good."
KING'S _Art of Cookery_.
"_Ex parvis componere magna._"
It is of as much importance that the cook should know how to make a boat
of good gravy for her poultry, &c. as that it should be sent up of
proper complexion, and nicely frothed.
In this chapter, we shall endeavour to introduce to her all the
materials[101-*] which give flavour in _sauce_, which is the _essence of
soup_, and intended to contain more relish in a _tea-spoonful_ than the
former does in a _table-spoonful_.
We hope to deserve as much praise from the _economist_ as we do from the
_bon vivant_; as we have taken great pains to introduce to him the
methods of making substitutes for those ingredients, which are always
expensive, and often not to be had at all. Many of these cheap articles
are as savoury and as salutary as the dearer ones, and those who have
large families and limited incomes, will, no doubt, be glad to avail
themselves of them.
The reader may rest assured, that whether he consults this book to
diminish the expense or increase the pleasures of hospitality, he will
find all the information that was to be obtained up to 1826,
communicated in the most unreserved and intelligible manner.
A great deal of the elegance of cookery depends upon the accompaniments
to each dish being appropriate and well adapted to it.
We can assure our readers, no attention has been wanting on our part to
render this department of the work worthy of their perusal; each receipt
is the faithful narrative of actual and repeated experiments, and has
received the most deliberate consideration before it was here presented
to them. It is given in the most circumstantial manner, and not in the
technical and mysterious language former writers on these subjects seem
to have preferred; by which their directions are useless and
unintelligible to all who have not regularly served an apprenticeship at
the stove.
Thus, instead of accurately enumerating the quantities, and explaining
the process of each composition, they order a ladleful of _stock_, a
pint of _consommé_, and a spoonful of _cullis_; as if a private-family
cook had always at hand a soup-kettle full of _stock_, a store of
_consommé_, and the larder of _Albion house_, and the _spoons_ and
_pennyworths_ were the same in all ages.
It will be to very little purpose that I have taken so much pains to
teach how to manage roasts and boils, if a cook cannot or will not make
the several sauces that are usually sent up with them.
The most homely fare may be made relishing, and the most excellent and
independent improved by a well-made sauce;[102-*] as the most perfect
picture may, by being well varnished.
We have, therefore, endeavoured to give the plainest directions how to
produce, with the least trouble and expense[102-+] possible, all the
various compositions the English kitchen affords; and hope to present
such a wholesome and palatable variety as will suit all tastes and all
pockets, so that a cook may give satisfaction in all families. The more
combinations of this sort she is acquainted with, the better she will
comprehend the management of every one of them.
We have rejected some _outlandish farragoes_, from a conviction that
they were by no means adapted to an English palate. If they have been
received into some English books, for the sake of swelling the volume,
we believe they will never be received by an Englishman's stomach,
unless for the reason they were admitted into the cookery book, _i. e._
because he has nothing else to put into it.
However "_les pompeuses bagatelles de la Cuisine Masquée_" may tickle
the fancy of _demi-connoisseurs_, who, leaving the substance to pursue
the shadow, prefer wonderful and whimsical metamorphoses, and things
extravagantly expensive to those which are intrinsically excellent; in
whose mouth mutton can hardly hope for a welcome, unless accompanied by
venison sauce; or a rabbit, any chance for a race down the red lane,
without assuming the form of a frog or a spider; or pork, without being
either "_goosified_" or "_lambified_" (see No. 51); and game and
poultry in the shape of crawfish or hedgehogs; these travesties rather
show the patience than the science of the cook, and the bad taste of
those who prefer such baby-tricks to nourishing and substantial plain
cookery.
I could have made this the biggest book with half the trouble it has
taken me to make it the best: concentration and perspicuity have been my
aim.
As much pains have been taken in describing, in the most intelligible
manner, how to make, in the easiest, most agreeable, and economical way,
those common sauces that daily contribute to the comfort of the middle
ranks of society; as in directing the preparation of those extravagant
and elaborate double relishes, the most ingenious and accomplished
"_officers of the mouth_" have invented for the amusement of profound
palaticians, and thorough-bred _grands gourmands_ of the first
magnitude: these we have so reduced the trouble and expense of making,
as to bring them within the reach of moderate fortunes; still preserving
all that is valuable of their taste and qualities; so ordering them,
that they may delight the palate, without disordering the stomach, by
leaving out those inflammatory ingredients which are only fit for an
"iron throat and adamantine bowels," and those costly materials which no
rational being would destroy, for the wanton purpose of merely giving a
fine name to the compositions they enter into, to whose excellence they
contribute nothing else. For instance, consuming _two_ partridges to
make sauce for _one_: half a pint of game gravy (No. 329,) will be
infinitely more acceptable to the unsophisticated appetite of
Englishmen, for whose proper and rational recreation we sat down to
compose these receipts; whose approbation we have done our utmost to
deserve, by devoting much time to the business of the kitchen; and by
repeating the various processes that we thought admitted of the smallest
improvement.
We shall be fully gratified, if our book is not bought up with quite so
much avidity by those high-bred epicures, who are unhappily so much more
nice than wise, that they cannot eat any thing dressed by an English
cook; and vote it barbarously unrefined and intolerably ungenteel, to
endure the sight of the best bill of fare that can be contrived, if
written in the vulgar tongue of old England.[103-*]
Let your sauces each display a decided character; send up your plain
sauces (oyster, lobster, &c.) as pure as possible: they should only
taste of the materials from which they take their name.
The imagination of most cooks is so incessantly on the hunt for a
relish, that they seem to think they cannot make sauce sufficiently
savoury without putting into it every thing that ever was eaten; and
supposing every addition must be an improvement, they frequently
overpower the natural flavour of their PLAIN SAUCES, by overloading them
with salt and spices, &c.: but, remember, these will be deteriorated by
any addition, save only just salt enough to awaken the palate. The lover
of "_piquance_" and compound flavours, may have recourse to "_the
Magazine of Taste_," No. 462.
On the contrary, of COMPOUND SAUCES; the ingredients should be so nicely
proportioned, that no one be predominant; so that from the equal union
of the combined flavours such a fine mellow mixture is produced, whose
very novelty cannot fail of being acceptable to the persevering
_gourmand_, if it has not pretensions to a permanent place at his table.
An ingenious _cook_ will form as endless a variety of these compositions
as a _musician_ with his seven[104-*] notes, or a _painter_ with his
colours; no part of her business offers so fair and frequent an
opportunity to display her abilities: SPICES, HERBS, &c. are often very
absurdly and injudiciously jumbled together.
Why have clove and allspice, or mace and nutmeg, in the same sauce; or
marjoram, thyme, and savoury; or onions, leeks, eschalots, and garlic?
one will very well supply the place of the other, and the frugal cook
may save something considerable by attending to this, to the advantage
of her employers, and her own time and trouble. You might as well, to
make soup, order one quart of water from the _Thames_, another from the
_New River_, a third from _Hampstead_, and a fourth from _Chelsea_, with
a certain portion of _spring_ and _rain_ water.
In many of our receipts we have fallen in with the fashion of ordering a
mixture of spices, &c., which the above hint will enable the culinary
student to correct.
"PHARMACY is now much more simple; COOKERY may be made so too. A
prescription which is now compounded with five ingredients, had formerly
fifty in it: people begin to understand that the materia medica is
little more than a collection of evacuants and stimuli."--_Boswell's
Life of Johnson._
The _ragoûts of the last century_ had infinitely more ingredients than
we use now; the praise given to _Will. Rabisha_ for his Cookery, 12mo.
1673, is
"To fry and fricassee, his way's most neat,
For he compounds a thousand sorts of meat."
To become a perfect mistress of the art of cleverly extracting and
combining flavours,[105-*] besides the gift of a good taste, requires
all the experience and skill of the most accomplished professor, and,
especially, an intimate acquaintance with the palate she is working for.
Send your sauces to table as hot as possible.
Nothing can be more unsightly than the surface of a sauce in a frozen
state, or garnished with grease on the top. The best way to get rid of
this, is to pass it through a tamis or napkin previously soaked in cold
water; the coldness of the napkin will coagulate the fat, and only
suffer the pure gravy to pass through: if any particles of fat remain,
take them off by applying filtering paper, as blotting paper is applied
to writing.
Let your sauces boil up after you put in wine, anchovy, or thickening,
that their flavours may be well blended with the other ingredients;[105-+]
and keep in mind that the "_chef-d'oeuvre_" of COOKERY is, to entertain
the mouth without offending the stomach.
N.B. Although I have endeavoured to give the particular quantity of each
ingredient used in the following sauces, as they are generally made;
still the cook's judgment must direct her to lessen or increase either
of the ingredients, according to the taste of those she works for, and
will always be on the alert to ascertain what are the favourite
_accompaniments_ desired with each dish. See _Advice to Cooks_, page 50.
When you open a bottle of _catchup_ (No. 439), _essence of anchovy_ (No.
433), &c., throw away the old cork, and stop it closely with a new cork
that will fit it very tight. Use only the best superfine velvet
taper-corks.
Economy in corks is extremely unwise: in order to save a mere trifle in
the price of the cork, you run the risk of losing the valuable article
it is intended to preserve.
It is a _vulgar error_ that a bottle must be well stopped, when the cork
is forced down even with the mouth of it; it is rather a sign that the
cork is too small, and it should be redrawn and a larger one put in.
_To make bottle-cement._
Half a pound of black resin, same quantity of red sealing-wax, quarter
oz. bees' wax, melted in an earthen or iron pot; when it froths up,
before all is melted and likely to boil over, stir it with a tallow
candle, which will settle the froth till all is melted and fit for use.
Red wax, 10_d._ per lb. may be bought at Mr. Dew's Blackmore-street,
Clare-market.
N.B. This cement is of very great use in preserving things that you wish
to keep a long time, which without its help would soon spoil, from the
clumsy and ineffectual manner in which the bottles are corked.
FOOTNOTES:
[101-*] See, in pages 91, 92, A CATALOGUE OF THE INGREDIENTS now used in
soups, sauces, &c.
[102-*] "It is the duty of a good sauce," says the editor of the
_Almanach des Gourmands_ (vol. v. page 6), "to insinuate itself all
round and about the maxillary gland, and imperceptibly awaken into
activity each ramification of the organs of taste: if not sufficiently
savoury, it cannot produce this effect, and if too _piquante_, it will
paralyze, instead of exciting, those delicious titillations of tongue
and vibrations of palate, that only the most accomplished philosophers
of the mouth can produce on the highly-educated palates of thrice happy
_grands gourmands_."
[102-+] To save time and trouble is the most valuable frugality: and if
the mistress of a family will condescend to devote a little time to the
profitable and pleasant employment of preparing some of the STORE
SAUCES, especially Nos. 322. 402. 404. 413. 429. 433. 439. 454; these,
both epicures and economists will avail themselves of the advantage now
given them, of preparing at home.
By the help of these, many dishes may be dressed in half the usual time,
and with half the trouble and expense, and flavoured and finished with
much more certainty than by the common methods.
A small portion of the time which young ladies sacrifice to torturing
the strings of their _piano-forte_, employed in obtaining domestic
accomplishments, might not make them worse wives, or less agreeable
companions to their husbands. This was the opinion 200 years ago.
"To speak, then, of the knowledge which belongs unto our British
housewife, I hold the most principal to be a perfect skill in COOKERY:
she that is utterly ignorant therein, may not, by the lawes of strict
justice, challenge the freedom of marriage, because indeede she can
perform but half her vow: she may love and obey, but she cannot cherish
and keepe her husband."--G. MARKHAM'S _English Housewife_, 4to. 1637, p.
62.
We hope our fair readers will forgive us, for telling them that economy
in a wife, is the most certain charm to ensure the affection and
industry of a husband.
[103-*] Though some of these people seem at last to have found out, that
an Englishman's head may be as full of gravy as a Frenchman's, and
willing to give the preference to native talent, retain an Englishman or
woman as prime minister of their kitchen; still they seem ashamed to
confess it, and commonly insist as a "_sine quâ non_," that their
English domestics should understand the "_parlez vous_;" and
notwithstanding they are perfectly initiated in all the minutiæ of the
philosophy of the mouth, consider them uneligible, if they cannot
scribble _a bill of fare in pretty good bad French_.
[104-*] The principal agents now employed to flavour soups and sauces
are, MUSHROOMS (No. 439), ONIONS (No. 420), ANCHOVY (No. 433),
LEMON-JUICE and PEEL, or VINEGAR, WINE, (especially good CLARET), SWEET
HERBS, and SAVOURY SPICES.--Nos. 420-422, and 457. 459, 460.
[105-*] If your palate becomes dull by repeatedly tasting, the best way
to refresh it is to wash your mouth well with milk.
[105-+] Before you put eggs or cream into a sauce, have all your other
ingredients well boiled, and the sauce or soup of proper thickness;
because neither eggs nor cream will contribute to thicken it.--After you
have put them in, do not set the stew-pan on the stove again, but hold
it over the fire, and shake it round one way till the sauce is ready.