Ce fut un beau souper, ruisselant de surprises.
Les rôtis, cuits à point, n’arrivèrent pas froids:
Par ce beau soir d’hiver, on avait des cerises
Et du Johannisberg, ainsi que chez les rois.
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE, ODES FUNAMBULESQUES.
THE dining-room is large and lofty, having been planned with special
reference to ventilation, spaciousness, and the attractive views it
commands of the copse, the garden, and the rising and the setting sun.
If it is pleasant to dream in the well-furnished library, if it is a
delight to muse and study amid harmonious surroundings, how much more
important it is that the great nursery of a pleasing frame of mind, the
dining-room, should by its inviting surroundings and the care and
intelligence bestowed upon its adjuncts, the kitchen and the
wine-cellar, contribute equally to the felicity of the house and home!
With the exception of the ball-room, the dining-room should be the most
spacious apartment of the house. For is it not the most occupied and
visited? Three times daily, at least, the inmates assemble here; and in
the case of entertainments I observe it is invariably a shrine to which
the guests repair with almost one accord. To be sure, the host and
hostess are not entirely neglected, and the flow of conversation is
never wholly restrained in the drawing-room. Yet I have never failed to
notice, where a large assemblage of invited guests is present in any
house, how powerful a magnet the dining-room possesses. This not only to
the sleek and rubicund among the sterner sex—men who are known for their
fondness for good cheer; but even to the slim and ethereal among the
gentler sex, as well. Pale sylphs whom one would scarcely suspect
capable of an accomplished play of a knife and fork, staid matrons,
blooming rosebuds, and elderly dames, all seem no less fascinated with
the charms of the dining-room. It is the source and dispensator of joy
when its appointments are perfect—the one room of all rooms of the house
which may not be abolished.
How may I enjoy the other portions of my house if the dinner be poorly
served and the environments amid which it is partaken be dismal or
unattractive? The dinner should be the diapason to pitch one in the
right key for the evening, whether it be the perusal of a favorite
author, a moonlight stroll, a ball, or a symposium with one’s friends.
Carlyle’s dining-room, I venture to say, was a gloomy one; or his cook,
lacking a happy turn for an _entrée_, served him with ponderous _pièces
de résistance_, thereby the more intensifying his natural acerbity and
want of geniality. Is the German invariably happy, overflowing with
_Gemüthlichkeit_? He has three hundred and sixty-five soups, one for
every day in the year. Is the Frenchman proverbially polite and
effervescent? His delicate _ragoûts_ and fragrant Bordeaux are a
constant tonic to his spirits. “Repose is as much the result of a
well-organized digestion as of a quiet mind,” observes the axiomatic and
irrefutable author of the 366 Menus. Thrice blessèd he who has a good
conscience and a good cook. Your conscience may be as clear as a
mountain brook, however, but without a good digestion life becomes a
weariness.
A pleasant dining-room and a well-appointed kitchen, therefore, become
among the most important factors in the happiness of the household—the
best means of defeating that _ennui_ which, according to Schopenhauer,
fills the moiety of a man’s life. The Savarins, the La Reynières, and
the Baron Brisses can never be too many. “I regard the discovery of a
new dish,” said the late Henrion de Pensey, the magistrate (according to
M. Royer Collard), of whom regenerated France has most reason to be
proud, “as a far more interesting event than the discovery of a star,
for we always have stars enough, but we can never have too many dishes;
and I shall not regard the sciences as sufficiently honored or
adequately represented among us until I see a cook in the first class of
the Institute.”
They manage these things better in France, though the art of gastronomy
of late years has advanced as rapidly in this country, perhaps, as any
of its sister arts. It is no longer a burden to approach the
dinner-table; and while we may not have transposed the maxim that
Harpagon deemed so noble, nevertheless, it may be affirmed, in the
strict sense of the expression, that we no longer “eat to live.” For is
not this among the highest of arts—a sauce “that, when properly
prepared, will enable one to eat an elephant?” as Grimod de la Reynière
observes in the Almanach des Gourmands. With an abundant supply of herbs
and flavorings, a hygienic appreciation of their virtues, and a refined,
discriminating taste, all is possible. The “palate is flattered” and the
stomach is not fatigued. If the cook or the person who employs him would
only carry out the advice the Almanach prescribes, in order that the
cook’s palate may retain its exquisite sensibility, and the trained
papillæ of his tongue forever command their cunning!
These fine savors, these subtle aromas of a delicious dish, delicate as
the fragrance of a wild flower, and companions of the liquid essences of
the Gironde, the Côte d’Or, the Marne, and the Rheingau—when conceived
and executed by a true priest or priestess of the range, how they
refresh the jaded spirits and turn the lowering winter sky into _couleur
de rose_! It remained for a woman, the late Mrs. Mary Booth, to give to
posterity the most delicious epigram that has yet been uttered regarding
dinners and dinner-giving: “A successful dinner is the best thing which
the world can do in the pursuit of pleasure. It is the apotheosis of the
present, and the present moment is all we can call our own.” Neither let
us forget for a single instant, where dinner-giving is concerned, the
golden maxim of Baron Brisse: “A host whose guest has had to ask for
anything is a dishonored man!”
Let the dinner be served in a well-lighted, spacious, and pleasantly
furnished room; let the chairs be easy, the guests not less than eight
nor more than ten (_les dîners fins se font en petit comité_), the linen
spotless, the service faultless. Let the wines not exceed four—a light
hock, redolent of the fruit of the Riesling; a glass or two of
Montepulciano or of Pichon-Longueville, two _flûtes_ of half dry
champagne (cider rather than “_brût_”) or sparkling dry Saint-Péray; and
for the after-taste—the last taste of sweets—the perfumed sunshine of
Sauternes, Lafaurie, or La Tour Blanche of a well-succeeded year, iced
to snow. “A glass of wine,” Richard Sheridan used to say, “would
encourage the bright thought to come; and then it was right to take
another to reward it for coming.” Let the courses not exceed seven,
including the salad; let the room be well ventilated; the flowers mildly
stimulating rather than cloying in their fragrance; let the repast not
exceed two and a half hours in duration—and, for the present at least,
we are—
Notes in that great symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres.
The senseless practice of decanting wine can not be too strongly
condemned. A delicate wine seems never the same as when poured from the
bottle in which it has ripened and in which it has concentrated its
odors. The practice, moreover, is incongruous; for even he who decants
his “claret” would not think of needlessly dissipating the bouquet of
his hock. As for the matter of sediment being avoided by decanting,
decanted wines are invariably seen in a clouded condition, their bloom
having been brushed off by the very process of decanting. By laying all
bottles on their side, with the label uppermost, while they remain in
the repose of the cellar, and then placing them upright a day or a few
hours before they are required, the question of sediment is at once
disposed of. Then, if the wine be carefully poured, label upward, it
wells forth as limpid as a woodland spring.
Equally to be censured is the increasing custom of serving wine in
colored glasses—a fashion inaugurated by the gentler sex in order to add
a supposititious life to the table. Apart from the great mistake of thus
masking the color of the wine itself, and thereby impairing its
attractiveness to the eye, there is no color produced by the most
cunning artificer in glass which approaches the colors extracted from
the skin of the grapes themselves.
What green Bohemian glass may equal in hue this golden green of
Liebfrauenmilch that so enhances the flavor of these speckled trout
which but yesterday were swimming amid the waving water-cresses of the
stream?
Or shall I obliterate the lovely color of Bordeaux which, captivating
the sense of seeing, thus additionally heightens through the imagination
the exquisite bouquet and flavor of the grand growths of the Médoc?
Disguised in an opaque receptacle, how may I enjoy the liquid gold of
Sauternes or the deep violets and purples which dance and gleam in a
glass of Côte Rôtie? Yet more than clear crystal is required in the
ideal wine-glass. The most delicious nectar loses half its virtues if
drunk from a thick glass or a sharp, rough rim, as the foaming juice of
Champagne is deprived of its greatest charm—its bewitching, mantling
life—when served in the flat tumbler that deadens its sparkle and its
bead.
It was not without just reason that Boileau declared:
On est savant quand on boit bien;
Qui ne sait boire ne sait rien.
Who drinketh well his wisdom shows;
Who knows not drinking nothing knows.
And Jean le Houx, in the dedication of his sparkling Vaux de
Vire—anacreontics which are unique in the languages—asserts that his
best verses were produced by drinking good wine, while inferior wine was
responsible for the poorest. It would be interesting to know what
special wines inspired the incomparable tribute to his nose—
... Duquel la couleur richement particippe
Du rouge et violet,
or whether it was white or red wine that drew forth the frolicsome
stanzas addressed to Magdaleine.
Le Houx deserves to be classed among the great philosophers. It is to be
regretted, however, that his philosophy did not extend to dining as well
as wining—though, for that matter, the eight little 18mo volumes of the
Almanach des Gourmands,[11] justly classed by Monselet among the great
forgotten books, leave nothing to be desired on the subject of epicurism
in its most infinitesimal and far-extending details. The humor and
_verve_ are exquisite, while La Reynière’s style might come under the
definition of Remy Belleau-“well-coupled and properly sewn words, graces
and favors of a well-chosen subject, and I do not know what happy chance
(_et ne sçay quel heur_), which truly accompanies those who write well.”
Only, the Almanach is in prose. With all due regard for Berchoux and his
poem in four cantos, La Gastronomie, the editions of which are almost as
numerous as the stars in the Milky Way, the French genius is yet to
appear who may do full justice in verse to the pleasures of the table.
Footnote 11:
Almanach des Gourmands. Servant de Guide dans les Moyens de Faire
Excellente Chère; Par un Viel Amateur. Troisième Édition. A Paris
1804-1812.
Le Houx, how fine his touch! and how melodiously he plays upon all the
strings of the œnologistic harp!
I am brave as a Cæsar in wars where they fight
With a glass in the left hand and jug in the right.
Let me rather be riddled by drinking my fill
Than by those cruel balls that so suddenly kill!
’Tis the clashing of bottles to which I incline;
And the pipes and the rundlets, all full of red wine,
Are my cannon of siege, which are aimed without fault
At the thirst, the true fortress I mean to assault.
———————
’Tis far better in tumbler to shelter one’s nose,
Where ’tis safer than in a war-helmet from blows.
Better leader than trumpet or banner is sign
Of the ivy and yew bush that show where there’s wine.
It is better by fireside to drink muscadel
Than to go on a rampart to mount sentinel.
I would rather the tavern attend without fail
Than I’d follow my captain the breach to assail.
All excesses, however, I hate and disclaim,
Not a toper by nature, but only in name.
Jolly wine, bringing laughter and friendly carouse,
I have promised, and ever will pay you my vows.[12]
Footnote 12:
Translation of J. P. Muirhead, M. A.
And in another of his mirthful, vinous phantasies:
To flee from my sadness, yet stay in one place,
I take horn and staff, and I practice the chase.
Catch, catch!
Drink, drink!
Hip, hip!
Catch, catch!
Keep watch
Lest it slip!
My game is the thirst, which I don’t want to catch.
But only to make it decamp with dispatch.
The goblet’s my bugle, which splendidly sounds
When I lustily blow; the bottle’s my hounds.
The table’s my forest and hunting-field green
When close set with covers for friends and me seen.
I blow on my bugle, and, loud though he cry,
Thirst soon will break cover, or else he must die.
O sweet-sounding bugle, mouth-instrument dear!
This pastime is charming when bedtime is near.
Catch, catch!
Drink, drink!
Hip, hip!
Catch, catch!
Keep watch
Lest it slip![13]
Footnote 13:
Translation of J. P. Muirhead, M. A.
But Le Houx’s charming eulogies are by no means confined to wine. Cider,
among the most refreshing and prophylactic of summer beverages when well
made, evokes almost equally the playful strains of his lyre. Not less
renowned than the juice of the apple of Devonshire is the potent apple
juice of Normandy, and even in his reference to this there constantly
occurs the oft-repeated refrain:
Drinking is sweeter than a kiss to me.
The true _raison d’être_ of the Vaux de Vire, it may be stated, was a
jealous wife. Since the time of Le Houx there have been other jealous
spouses that have driven their husbands to the bottle or to something
worse; but none have done so with such smiling effect as the wife of the
wine-loving lawyer-poet of Vire.
With the wine at the proper temperature (and this point it is the
bounden duty of the host to personally superintend), a few well-prepared
courses partaken of with congenial friends amid pleasant surroundings
will prove far more agreeable and leave more grateful remembrances than
the most elaborate banquet. In dining, more than in anything else,
quality rather than quantity paves the way to happiness. The _petit_,
and not the _grand dîner_ is the grace of the table. Like many of the
accidental things of life—the chance meeting, the suddenly conceived
excursion, the unexpected visit from out-of-town friends—it is often the
impromptu repast which inspires the most delightful souvenirs.
It was years ago, though I remember it as distinctly as if it were
yesterday, when I found my friend St. Ange, after an absence of many
months, ensconced in the library, La Gastronomie in one hand and the
epicurean epigrams of Martial in the other.
A Julienne soup, some smelt with a tartare sauce, sheep’s tongues _à la
Jardinière_, quail, and an endive salad were to compose the dinner. My
guest’s rosy face took on an added luster. His eyes brightened
perceptibly at the mention of the quail.
“Let me prepare them!” he exclaimed. “I will show you how to make a
_salmis_ of quail that is not down in the cook-books; it is composed as
you would blend and form an exquisite perfume:
Thy crown of roses or of spikenard be;
A crown of thrushes is the crown for me.[14]
I term it a _salmis à la bourgeois gentilhomme_; like Molière’s
_comédie-ballet_, it is piquant and full of delightful surprises. Give
me the quail, the shallots, the truffles, the mushrooms, and you will
never forget me!”
Footnote 14:
Martial. Elphinston’s translation.
There were four larded quails, freshly roasted.
He took a piece of unsalted butter the size of an egg, placed it in the
porcelain sauce-pan, and allowed it to liquefy. When it began to bubble,
he put in two shallots and two sprigs of parsley finely minced, stirring
until browned, adding a teaspoonful of sifted flour. When well
incorporated, he supplemented this with two cupfuls of bouillon, a pinch
of salt, and for the _bouquet garni_ a third of a bay-leaf, two cloves,
a small piece of cinnamon, a pinch of thyme, a dash of allspice and the
merest trifle of nutmeg. Next he added two sliced truffles of Périgord,
the juice of a can of button mushrooms, a tablespoonful of cognac, a
tablespoonful of water, and a wine-glass each of Chablis and St. Julien.
His face glowed, his hazel eyes sparkled, and every little while he
tasted of the savory _liaison_.
After pouring in the wine, he allowed the sauce to boil until reduced to
the desired consistency. The can of mushrooms was then added; and about
ten minutes before serving, one of the quail was permitted to simmer in
the perfumed sauce. Immediately previous to placing the _salmis_ in the
chafing-dish, and decorating it with _croutons_, he dropped in a
pepper-corn and stirred briskly.
“_‘Voilà qui est bien;’ c’est parfait, mon cher!_” he said with a smile;
“_le salmis a bien réussi!_
“I always use a good many herbs and seasonings,” he continued, “though I
employ them only in very small quantities. By using them, infinite
variety of flavorings may be produced, and they are, moreover, a great
tonic to the stomach if dealt out by a judicious hand. Hence the
superiority of good French cooking; variety is the spice of digestion.
Indeed, pleasing savors or sapid impressions usually exert the greatest
influence upon the function of digestion. If they are good and
agreeable, the secretion of the gastric juice is abundant, mastication
is prolonged, deglutition and chylification are easy and rapid. If they
are bad or repugnant, mastication becomes a labor, deglutition
difficult, and a distressed feeling is the inevitable result.
“Perfection in cooking consists in rendering all such substances as may
be utilized for food as agreeable to the taste as they are easy to
digest. The cook, therefore, besides possessing a palate of extreme
delicacy, should be thoroughly acquainted with the hygienic properties
of all the herbs and seasonings he employs, and this equally with
reference to their effect upon the stomach as with regard to their
pleasing impression upon the organ of taste. All spices and kindred
stimulants should be used with the utmost tact and discrimination.
“But the pleasures that flit about the well-appointed table—the appetite
which is, after all, the best of sauces and that leads to good digestion
and consequent health and enjoyment of the other pleasures of
life—depend upon more than the _chef_ and the _cuisine_. Back of the
most seductive dish and piquant sauce, there remains the capacity to
enjoy them, which is alone to be attained in its fullest measure by
regular habits (habits as regular, at least, as rational pleasure and
recreation will allow); and that greatest and purest of tonics and
prophylactics—exercise in the open air.”
In due time the _entrée_ was partaken of. The impromptu _chef_ had upset
the kitchen from casserole to _pot-au-feu_, but his _salmis_ was worthy
of Carème.
There was a great bunch of double violets on the table, the lovely dark
blue variety (_Viola odoratissima fl. pl._) with the short stems,
freshly plucked from the violet frame of the garden, and the room was
scented by their delicious breath.
A bowl of broad-leaved Batavian endive blanched to a nicety and alluring
as a siren’s smile was placed upon the table. I almost fancied it was
smiling at the violets. A blue-violet salad, by all means! there are
violets, and to spare.
On a separate dish there was a little minced celery, parsley, and
chives. Four heaping salad-spoonfuls of olive oil were poured upon the
herbs, with a dessertspoonful of white-wine vinegar (the best in the
world comes from Orléans, France), the necessary salt and white pepper,
and a tablespoonful of Bordeaux. The petals of two dozen violets were
detached from the stems, and two thirds of them were incorporated with
the dressing. The dressing being thoroughly mixed with the endive, the
remaining flower petals were sprinkled over the salad and a half-dozen
whole violets placed in the center.
The lovely blue sapphires glowed upon the white bosom of the endive! It
was the true sequence of the _salmis_.
A white-labeled bottle, capsuled Yquem, and the cork branded “Lur
Saluces,” was served with the salad. You note the subtle aroma of
pine-apple and fragrance of flower ottos with the detonation of the
cork—the fine vintages of Yquem have a pronounced _Ananassa_ flavor and
bouquet that steeps the palate with its richness and scents the
surrounding atmosphere.
Now try your blue-violet salad.
Is it fragrant? is it cool? is it delicious? is it divine?
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