DINNERS AND DINERS
WHERE AND HOW TO DINE IN LONDON
BY
LIEUT.-COL. [NATHANIEL] NEWNHAM-DAVIS
London
GRANT RICHARDS
9 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
OFFICE OF THE PALL MALL PUBLICATIONS
18 CHARING CROSS ROAD, W.C.
1899
_To all the gentlemen, the managers of the various restaurants and the
masters of the culinary art, who have assisted me in the making of this
little book, I give my most grateful thanks_.
_THE AUTHOR_.
PREFACE
When the series of articles now collected in this volume was first
discussed between their author and myself in the early part of 1897,
we found it a matter of no slight difficulty to determine what range
they should take, and to what class of establishments they should be
confined. There is no accounting for the variety of people's tastes
in the matter of eating and drinking, and among the readers of the
_Pall Mall Gazette_ persons no doubt could be found ranging from the
Sybarite, who requires Lucullus-like banquets, to him of the simple
appetite for whom little more than a dinner with Duke Humphrey would
suffice. Consequently, the choice of places to be visited had to be
made in a catholic spirit, with the necessary result that a formidably
long list was prepared. In selecting Colonel Newnham-Davis to carry out
this commission for the _Pall Mall Gazette_, I knew I was availing
myself of the services of a thoroughly experienced, trustworthy, and
capable commissioner, who would deal with the task entrusted to him in
a pleasantly mixed anecdotal and critical spirit, while at the same
time supplying useful guidance to persons wanting to know where to dine
and what they would have to pay. In the following pages it will be seen
how well he carried out the duty he undertook, and I am able to add
that "Dinners and Diners" had a great vogue and very wide popularity
among the readers of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. There were very many
requests from various quarters that they should be collected into book
form, and this has now been done with some valuable additions included
in the shape of recipes and other information. In these days, when the
taste for dining at restaurants is so largely on the increase, I have
little doubt that the republication of these articles will be welcomed,
and that they will supply not only interesting but useful information.
THE EDITOR OF THE
_Pall Mall Gazette_.
_March_ 1899.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD Page
The Difficulties of Dining xvii
CHAPTER I
Princes' Hall (Piccadilly) 1
CHAPTER II
The Cheshire Cheese 9
CHAPTER III
The Holborn 15
CHAPTER IV
Romano's 22
CHAPTER V
Simpson's 31
CHAPTER VI
The Hans Crescent Hotel 38
CHAPTER VII
The Blue Posts (Cork Street) 45
CHAPTER VIII
Verrey's (Regent Street) 51
CHAPTER IX
The Hotel Cecil (the Strand) 59
CHAPTER X
Gatti's (the Strand) 67
CHAPTER XI
The Savoy (Thames Embankment) 73
Joseph at the Savoy 82
CHAPTER XII
The St. George's Café (St. Martin's Lane) 89
CHAPTER XIII
Willis's Rooms (King Street) 95
CHAPTER XIV
Le Restaurant des Gourmets (Lisle Street) 102
CHAPTER XV
The Trocadero (Shaftesbury Avenue) 108
CHAPTER XVI
The American Bar, Criterion (Piccadilly Circus) 116
CHAPTER XVII
The Hotel Continental (Regent Street) 122
CHAPTER XVIII
The Avondale (Piccadilly) 128
CHAPTER XIX
The Mercers' Hall (Cheapside) 137
CHAPTER XX
In ---- Street 143
CHAPTER XXI
A Regimental Dinner (Hotel Victoria, Northumberland
Avenue) 149
CHAPTER XXII
Dieudonné's (Ryder Street) 156
CHAPTER XXIII
The Berkeley (Piccadilly) 162
CHAPTER XXIV
The Ship (Greenwich) 175
CHAPTER XXV
The House of Commons 182
CHAPTER XXVI
Earl's Court 189
CHAPTER XXVII
The Star and Garter (Richmond) 196
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Cavour (Leicester Square) 203
CHAPTER XXIX
The Café Royal (Regent Street) 209
CHAPTER XXX
Frascati's (Oxford Street) 218
CHAPTER XXXI
The Freemasons' Tavern (Great Queen Street) 224
CHAPTER XXXII
Scott's (Piccadilly Circus) 231
CHAPTER XXXIII
The East Room (Criterion, Piccadilly Circus) 237
CHAPTER XXXIV
The Monico (Shaftesbury Avenue) 247
CHAPTER XXXV
Goldstein's (Bloomfield Street) 253
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Tivoli (the Strand) 259
CHAPTER XXXVII
The Gordon Hotels (Northumberland Avenue) 266
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Queen's Guard (St. James's Palace) 272
CHAPTER XXXIX
The Coburg (Carlos Place) 279
CHAPTER XL
The Midland Hotel (St. Pancras) 285
CHAPTER XLI
Kettner's (Church Street) 291
CHAPTER XLII
Pagani's (Great Portland Street) 297
CHAPTER XLIII
Claridge's (Brook Street) 304
CHAPTER XLIV
Hotel de Paris (Leicester Place) 311
CHAPTER XLV
The Walsingham House (Piccadilly) 317
CHAPTER XLVI
Challis's (Rupert Street) 324
CHAPTER XLVII
Epitaux's (The Haymarket) 330
[Transcriber's note: The advertisements bound in at the beginning and
end of the original publication have been grouped together at the end
of this digital edition.]
FOREWORD
THE DIFFICULTIES OF DINING
I would be willing to make you, my dear sir, a very small bet, that if
in the early afternoon you go into the restaurant where you intend to
dine in the evening and disturb the head waiter, who is reading a paper
at one of the side tables, suddenly breaking the news upon him that
you want a simple little dinner for two at eight o'clock, and wish to
commence the repast with clear soup, he, in reply, after pulling out
a book of order papers and biting his lead pencil, will, a moment of
thought intervening, suggest _petite marmite_.
It is not his fault. Hundreds of Britons have taken the _carte de
jour_ out of his hands, and, looking at the list of soups, puzzled by
the names which mean nothing to them, have fallen back upon _petite
marmite_ or _croûte au pot_, which they know are harmless homely soups
which the lady they are going to bring to dinner cannot object to.
It requires a certain amount of bravery, a little consciousness of
knowledge, for the ordinary man looking down a list of dishes to put
his finger on every third one and ask, "What is that?" He is much more
likely, the head waiter, who has summed him up, prompting him, to order
very much the dinner that he would have eaten in his suburban home had
he been dining there that night.
Every good cook has his little vanities. They are all inventors; and
when any one of them, breaking away from the strict lines of the
classic _haute cuisine_, finds that a pinch of this or two drops of
that improves some well-known dish, he immediately gives it a new name.
It is the same with explorers. Did any one of them find a goat with
half a twist more in its horns than another explorer had noticed, but
he called it a new species and christened it Ovis Jonesi, Browni, or
Robinsoni, according to his surname. If you see _filets de sole à la
Hercules John Jones_ on the _carte_ do not be afraid to ask what it is.
It is probably some old acquaintance slightly altered by the chef, who
has had a flash of inspiration when preparing it for Mr. Hercules John
Jones, a valued client of the restaurant.
I should have begun this foreword by warning all experienced diners to
skip it and go on to Chapter I. It is not too late to do so now. I, who
have gone through all the agonies that a simple Briton struggling in
the spider web of a _carte de jour_ can endure, am only trying to warn
other simple Britons with a liking for a good dinner by an account of
my experiences.
If you or I, in the absence of the _maître d'hôtel_ and the head
waiter, fall into the hands of an underling, Heaven help us. He will
lure you or me on to order the most expensive dinner that his limited
imagination can conceive, and thinks he is doing his duty to the
_patron_. Luckily, such ill-luck as this rarely occurs. The manager is
the man to look for, if possible, when composing a menu. The higher you
reach up that glorious scale of responsibility which runs from manager
to _marmiton_, the more intelligent help you will get in ordering your
dinner, the more certain you are to have an artistic meal, and not to
be spending money unworthily.
That you must pay on the higher scale for a really artistic dinner is,
I regret to say, a necessity. No doubt the luxurious surroundings, the
quick, quiet service appear indirectly in the bill; but the material
for the dinner is costly. No pains are spared nowadays to put on the
table of a first-class restaurant the very best food that the world
can produce. Not only France, but countries much farther afield are
systematically pillaged that Londoners may dine, and I do not despair
of some day eating mangostines for dessert. All this costs money; but
the _gourmets_, like the dilettanti in any other art, do not get a
_chef-d'œuvre_ for the price of a "pot-boiler."
I, personally, always prefer a dinner _à la carte_ to a _table-d'hôte_
one. The _table-d'hôte_ one--which is a misused word, for the
_table-d'hôte_ was the general table presided over by the host--has
advanced, with the more general appreciation that dining does not mean
simply eating, and at a good restaurant the dinner of the day is
cooked to the minute for the groups at each separate table; but it
has the disadvantage that you have to eat a dinner ordered according
to somebody else's idea, and you have no choice as to length or
composition. With a friendly _maître d'hôtel_ to assist, the composing
of a _menu_ for a small dinner is a pleasure. To eat a _table-d'hôte_
dinner is like landing a fish which has been hooked and played by
someone else.
Mr. Echenard, late of the Savoy, in chatting over the vagaries of
diners, shook his head over the want of knowledge of the wines that
should be drunk with the various kinds of food. No man knows better
what goes to make a perfect dinner than Mr. Echenard does, and as
to the sinfulness of Britons in this particular, I quite agreed
with him. In Paris no man dreams of drinking champagne, and nothing
but champagne, for dinner; but in London the climate and the taste
of the fair sex go before orthodox rules. A tired man in our heavy
atmosphere feels often that champagne is the one wine that will give
him life again; and as the ladies as a rule would think a dinner at a
restaurant incomplete without champagne, ninety-nine out of a hundred
Englishmen, in ordering a little dinner for two, turn instinctively to
the champagne page of the wine-card. It is wrong, but until we get a
new atmosphere and give up taking ladies out to dinner, champagne will
be practically the only wine drunk at restaurants.
On the subject of tips it is difficult to write. I have always found
that a shilling for every pound or part of a pound, or a shilling
for each member of a party brings a "thank you" from the waiter at
any first-class restaurant. I should be inclined to err a little
on the liberal side of this scale; for waiters do not have an easy
life, are mainly dependent on the tips they get, and have it in their
power to greatly add to, or detract from, the pleasure of a dinner.
I always find that the man who talks about "spoiling the market," in
this respect is thinking of protecting his own pocket and not his
neighbour's.
Finally--and I feel very much as if I had been preaching a sermon--I
should, to put it all as shortly as possible, advise you, my brother
simple Briton--not you, the experienced diners, who have been expressly
warned off from this lecture--in ordering your dinner to get the aid of
the manager, and failing him the _maître d'hôtel_, never to be hustled
by an underling into ordering a big dinner when you want a small one,
and never to be afraid of asking what the composition of a dish is.
* * * * *
The following little essay on the duties of a maître d'hôtel which
Mons. Joseph has sent me speaks most eloquently for itself:
MON CHER COLONEL--
Vous me demandez pour votre nouveau livre des recettes. Méfiez-vous
des recettes. Depuis la cuisinière bourgeoise et le Baron Brisse
on a chanté la chanson sur tous les airs et sur tous les tons. Et
qu'en reste-t'il; qui s'en souvient? Je veux dire dans le public
aristocratique pour qui vous écrivez, et que vous comptez intéresser
avec votre nouvelle publication, cherchez le nouveau dans les à propos
de table, donnez des conseils aux maîtresses de maison, qui dépensent
beaucoup d'argent pour donner des dîners fatiguants, trop longs,
trop compliqués; dîtes leur qu'un bon dîner doit être court, que
les convives doivent manger et non goûter, qu'elles exigent de leur
cuisinier ou cuisinière de n'être pas trop savants, qu'ils respectent
avant tout le goût que le bon Dieu a donné à toutes choses de ne pas
les dénaturer par des combinaisons, qui à force d'être raffinées
deviennent barbares.
On a beaucoup parlé du cuisinier. Si nous exposions un peu ce que doit
être le Maître d'Hôtel.
LE MAÎTRE D'HÔTEL FRANÇAIS
La plus grande force du Maître d'hôtel français, je dis maître d'hôtel
français à dessein, car si le cuisinier français a su tirer parti des
produits de la nature avec un art infini, pour en faire des aliments
aimables, agréables, et bienfaisants, le Maître d'hôtel français seul
est susceptible de les faire accepter et désirer. Or voilà pour le
Maître d'hôtel le champ qu'il a à explorer. Champ vaste s'il en fût,
car déviner avec tact ce qui peut plaire à celui-ci et ne pas plaire à
celui-là, est un problème à résoudre selon la nature, le tempérament
et la nationalité de celui qu'il doit faire manger. Il doit donc être
le conseil, le tentateur, et le metteur en scène. Il faut pour être un
maître d'hôtel accompli, mettre de côté, ou du moins ne pas laisser
percer le but commercial, tout en étant un commerçant hors ligne (je
parle ici du maître d'hôtel public de restaurant, attendu que dans la
maison particulière, le commerce n'a rien à voir, ce qui simplifie
énormement le rôle du maître d'hôtel. Pour cela il faut être un peu
diplomate, et un peu artiste dans l'art de dire, afin de colorer
le projet de repas que l'on doit soumettre à son dîneur). Il faut
donc agir sur l'imagination pour fair oublier la machine que l'on va
alimenter, en un mot masquer le côté matériel de manger. J'ai acquis la
certitude qu'un plat savamment préparé par un cuisinier hors ligne peut
passer inaperçu, ou inapprecié si le maître d'hôtel, qui devient alors
metteur en scène, ne sait pas présenter l'œuvre, de façon à le faire
désirer, de sorte que si ce mets est servi par un maître d'hôtel qui
n'en comprend pas le caractère, il lui sera impossible de lui donner
tout son relief, et alors l'œuvre du cuisinier sera anéanti et passera
inaperçu.
Ce maître d'hôtel doit être aussi un observateur et un juge et doit
transmettre son appréciation au chef de cuisine, mais pour apprécier il
faut savoir, pour savoir il faut aimer son art, le maître d'hôtel doit
être un apôtre.
Il doit transmettre les observations qu'il a pu entendre pendant le
cours d'un dîner de la part des convives, observations favorables ou
défavorables, il doit les transmettre au chef et aviser avec lui. Il
doit aussi être en observation, car il arrive le plus souvent que les
convives ne disent rien à cause de leur amphitryon mais ne mangent pas
avec plaisir et entrain le mets présenté: là encore le maître d'hôtel
doit chercher le pourquoi. Il y a aussi dans un déjeuner ou un dîner un
rôle très important réservé au maître d'hôtel. La variété agréable des
hors-d'œuvre, la salade qui accompagne le rôti, le façon de découper
ce rôti avec élégance, de bien disposer ce rôti sur son plat une fois
découpé, découper bien et vite, afin d'éviter le réchaud qui sèche.
Savoir mettre à point une selle de mouton, avec juste ce qu'il faut de
sel sur la partie grasse, qui lui donnera un goût agréable.
Pour découper le maître d'hôtel doit se placer ni trop près ni trop
loin des convives, afin que ceux-ci soient intéressés, et voient que
tous les détails sont observés avec goût et élégance, de façon à tenter
encore les appétits qui n'en peuvent presque plus mais qui renaissent
encore un peu aiguillonnés par le désir qu'a su faire naître l'artiste
préposé au repas, et qui a su donner encore envie à l'imagination,
quand l'estomac commençait à capituler.
Le maître d'hôtel a de plus cette partie de la fin du dîner, le choix
d'un bon fromage, les fruits, les soins de température à donner aux
vins, la façon de décanter ceux-ci pour leur donner le maximum de
bouquet; le maître d'hôtel ne peut-il encore être un tentateur avec la
fraise frappée (à la Marivaux)? La pêche à la cardinal, qu'accompagne
si bien le doux parfum de la framboise, légèrement acidulé d'un de jus
de groseille, notre grand carême qualifiait.
Certains plats de "manger des Dieux," combien l'expression est heureuse.
Depuis que je suis à Londres j'ai trouvé un nombre incalculable
"d'inventeurs de ma pêche à la cardinal." Il me faudra leur donner la
recette un jour que j'en aurai l'occasion.
N'est-ce pas de l'art chez le maître d'hôtel qui tente et charme les
convives par ces raffinements, et qui comme un cavalier sur une moture
essoufflée sait encore relever son courage et lui faire faire la
dernière foulée qui décide de la victoire? Après un bon repas le maître
d'hôtel a la grande satisfaction d'avoir donné un peu de bonheur à de
pauvres gens riches, qui ne sont pas toujours des heureux.
Et comme l'a dit Brillat Savarin "Le plaisir de la table ne nuit pas
aux autres plaisirs." Au contraire, qui sait si _indirectement_ je ne
suis pas le papa de bien des Bébés rieurs, ou la cause au moins de
certaines aventures que mes jolies clientes n'évoquent qu'en souriant
derrière leur éventail?
JOSEPH
_Directeur du Savoy Restaurant, Londres,
et du Restaurant de Marivaux, Paris_.
CHAPTER I
PRINCES' HALL (PICCADILLY)
She is a charming little lady, and her husband, to tell the truth,
spoils her just a little. Most married dames would have been content,
if they wished to dine at a restaurant on the occasion of their
birthday, with one dinner; but Mrs. Daffodil--if I may so call her,
from her favourite flower--insisted on having a dinner out on Saturday,
and another on Sunday, and another on Monday, because, though her
twenty-first birthday really fell on Saturday, she was going to keep
it on Monday, when a great party of her husband's people were to meet
at the Savoy, and on Sunday her people were organising a feast at
the Berkley; but Mrs. Daffodil said that unless she dined out on the
evening of her _real_ birthday she was sure she would have no luck
during the coming year, and I was told that I was to have the privilege
of being the third at the little dinner which was to be the veritable
birthday dinner, and that, as a return for this great favour, I was to
order the dinner and choose the restaurant.
I was too wise to take the full responsibility of anything so
important, and in a council of three we ran down the list of dining
places. Of those we paused over in consideration, the Princes' Hall was
the nearest to Mrs. Daffodil's flat, and the little lady remembered
that she had not dined there this year, and suddenly decided that it
was the very place for a birthday dinner; and should she wear her new
white dress, or would the black dress with the handsome bit of lace
suit her better? Her husband looked a little helpless at the mention of
dress, and I at a venture suggested the black, for I remembered that
the roof of the grand salon of the Princes', with its heavy mouldings,
was white picked out with gold, while the great panels of brick red,
powdered with golden fleurs-de-lys and the palms filling-in the
corners, would show up a black dress just as well as a white one.
Black it was to be, and, this important matter decided, I was sent
off as an advance messenger in a hansom cab to order the best table
available and a dinner, not too elaborate and not too small, which was
to be ready by the time little Mrs. Daffodil had dressed and could
drive down to the restaurant in her brougham.
My hansom was a fleet one. A party of guests at one of the tables by
the windows, evidently bound for a theatre, had finished their dinner
and were just off and away as I arrived, and I pounced like a hawk
upon the table they left vacant. The first preliminaries were soon
over, for the little dapper _maître d'hôtel_, whom I had known in
previous days at the East Room of the Criterion, had the table cleared
at once, found some yellow flowers which, if they were not daffodils,
were very like them, and had big bouquets of them put upon the table.
Then came the important question of the dinner. _Hors-d'œuvre variés_,
suggested the little _maître d'hôtel_; but I moved as an amendment
that it should be caviar, for the caviar at the Princes' is Benoist's,
and no man imports better. "Turtle," suggested the _maître d'hôtel_, a
little doubtfully, after being defeated in his first venture, and as
I passed the suggestion with a nod _potage tortue_ went down on the
slip of paper. Mrs. Daffodil had made a suggestion as to salmon which
she withdrew as soon as made, but I had remembered it, and _saumon à
la Grenobloise_ was scribbled down. "Now," said the _maître d'hôtel_
a little decisively, "since the soup and the fish are brown, we must
have a white _entrée_," and as I was not prepared at the moment with
any practical suggestion, having thought of _noisettes de mouton_ and
a woodcock as the rest of the solid part of the dinner, I allowed the
proposal to go by default, and _fricassée de poulet à l'Ancienne_ was
ordered. "A tiny saddle of lamb?" was the next suggestion, and although
I regretted my prospective woodcock I let the matter go, for we had
a bird already in the menu. "_Pommes nouvelles risolées. Salade de
mâche, céleri, betterave. Asperges anglaises_," reeled off my mentor,
and I nodded at the mention of the English asparagus; and then to show
that I was going to have a word in the ordering of the dinner I added
_macédoine de fruits à l'orientale_ and _friandises_ without requiring
any prompting.
I waited in the bright, French-looking entrance hall, with its mirrors
and screens decorated with painted flowers, and watched the people
coming in and going out. A party of smart young men from the Stock
Exchange, most of whom I knew, on their way to a row of stalls they
had taken at the Gaiety, passed and chaffed me for my waiting; but
the sound of the band within in the great white railed-in musicians'
gallery was cheerful--and an excellent band it is, each artist in it
being a soloist of some celebrity--and presently M. Fourault, the
manager, who is the brother-in-law of M. Benoist, came out and talked
to me, saying that M. Azema, the _chef_, was personally superintending
the cooking of the dinner, to which I replied that I was much obliged
that the great artist from the Café Anglais should have paid me the
compliment. Then M. Fourault launched forth into details of the service
and the building: how the dishes are brought direct to the guests by
hand so as to avoid the chance of draughts in lifts; of the beauty of
the kitchen; the arrangements to keep in touch with and co-operate with
the Royal Institute on the top floor, and a variety of other topics.
And as he talked Signor Bocchi's band inside was softly playing, and I
was growing hungry waiting for little Mrs. Daffodil, for I knew that it
would not be her husband who caused the delay.
The brougham drew up before the glass portico with its brass
ornamentations, and Mrs. Daffodil in the wonderful black dress was
helped out. She would bring her ermine cape in with her, she thought;
and having arrived at the table smiled graciously at seeing her
name-flowers there. I explained that the table by the door protected by
the glass screens was my favourite one, and that I should have taken it
if possible, but that it had been engaged for days, and Mrs. Daffodil
was pleased to think the one we had obtained was quite as nice. Didn't
she think the room, with its big panels, its few long mirrors, its
clusters of electric lights and electric candles on the tables, and its
musicians' gallery over the entrance to the offices and kitchen, very
handsome? I asked. And as she helped herself to the caviar, each little
ball as separate as if they had been pellets of shot, she assented; but
to show that she was critical, thought there ought to have been more
palms. Then the little lady took up the questioning, and wanted to know
who everybody was who was dining. I was able to point out a well-known
artist taking a quiet meal with his wife, who at one time was an
ornament of the comedy-stage; a party of soldier officers up from
Aldershot (and I had a story of the gallantry of one of them, and how
he should have won by right a Victoria Cross); an ex-Gaiety girl who
was the heroine of a breach of promise case, and who had at the table
she occupied quite a crowd of gilded youths; a youngster whose good
looks have won him a very rich but not too young wife--and there I had
to pause, for though the room was full of well-dressed, smart-looking
people, I knew no more of them by name.
I was reproved for not knowing my London better, and tried to turn
the conversation by telling my host that I would sooner share the
burgundy with him than drink the champagne which Mrs. Daffodil thought
a necessary part of her birthday dinner, but at that moment, the soup
being brought, we all relapsed into serious criticism. The turtle
soup was good undoubtedly, as good as at any City dinner, with its
jade-coloured semi-solid floating in the darker liquor, and we praised
that unreservedly, but I was told that I was in a carping mood because
I stated that I like my salmon as plainly cooked as possible. As to the
_fricassée_, I liked it immensely; but Mrs. Daffodil, because her shoe
pinched, or for some other good reason, said that she hated truffles.
The lamb, the most delicate little _selle d'agneau de lait_, with
the potatoes and the dark green salad relieved by the crimson of the
beetroot, was admirable. English asparagus never can be anything but
good, and though my hostess insisted on my eating a cherry from among
the _friandises_, I left the sweets, as is my custom, alone.
And the bill. I asked my host to let me look at it, and here it
is:--three couverts, 3s.; caviar, 3s.; tortue, 6s.; saumon, 6s.;
fricassée de poulet, 7s.; selle d'agneau, 8s.; pommes risolées, 2s.;
salade, 1s. 6d.; asperges, 10s. 6d.; macédoine de fruits, 4s. 6d.; one
'67 (Burgundy), 12s.; ½ 140 (champagne), 7s. 6d., three cafés special,
1s. 6d.; three liqueurs fine champagne (1800), 6s.; total, £4: 0: 6.
1_st February_.
* * * * *
This was a dinner ordered in a hurry and without perhaps due
consideration. Talking over it some days later on with Mons. Fourault,
I asked him to give me a suggestion as to what he considered a typical
Princes' Hall dinner for a larger number, and I also asked him to be my
ambassador to M. Azema, the _chef_, for the _recette_ of the _poulet à
l'Ancienne_, which I had liked so much.
This is the _menu_ for a dinner of six covers, a very admirable dinner
of ceremony. As to its cost, I am not prepared to guess.
Le Signi du Volga.
Les petits coulibiacs à la Czarine.
La crème Ste-Marie.
Les suprêmes de truites à la Princesse.
Les poulardes à la Georges Sand.
Le Baron de Pauillac aux primeurs.
Les bécasses au champagne.
La salade Impériale.
Les asperges d'Argenteuil Ste-Mousseleine.
Le soufflé chaud succès.
La glace Leda.
Une corbeille de friandise.
Les canapés Diane.
Dessert.
Mons. Azema thought the _fricassée Ancienne_, the _recette_ of which I
had asked for, too simple a dish, and instead sent me the _recette_ for
the _poularde Georges Sand_, which is a very lordly dish. Here it is as
Mons. Azema wrote it, and a translation for any good people who, like
myself, are puzzled sometimes by the terms employed in la Haute Cuisine.
_Recette de la poularde G. Sand_
_Lever les membres d'une belle poularde très blanche bien
régulièrement. Faire la tomber à blond, avec un oignon émincé,
une bonne pointe de paprika, et deux verres de vin blanc, environ
quarante-cinq minutes. Retirer la poularde et passer le fonds à
l'étamine, le monter avec un bon beurre d'écrevisse, et garnir
avec queues d'écrevisse, belles truffes, en olives, et croûtons de
feuilletage. Servir très chaud_.
[Illustration]
Dismember a large white fowl very carefully. Stew it in white stock,
with a chopped onion, a good pinch of paprika, and two glasses of white
wine, for about forty-five minutes. Take out the fowl, and pass the
stock through the tammy. Flavour with a good cray-fish butter, and
garnish with tails of cray-fish, large truffles, olives, and croûtons
of French puff-paste (_feuilletage_). Serve very hot.