parasites. Simo remarks to Tranio, in the “_Mostellaria_,” that he
lives on the best the cooks and vintners can procure for him,--a real
fiddler’s destiny:--
“_Musice hercle agitis ætatem: ita ut vos decet.
Vino et victu, piscatu probe electili,
Vitam colitis._”
Stalino complains in the “_Casina_,” that, clever as cooks are, they
cannot put a little essence of love into all their dishes,--a sauce,
he says, that would please everybody. Their reputation in Rome for
stealing was much the same as that enjoyed by their Grecian brethren.
The scene of the “_Casina_,” indeed, is in Athens; but Olympio utters
a Roman sentiment when he says, that cooks use their hands as much
for larceny as cookery, and that wherever they are they bring double
ruin, through extravagance and robbery, upon their masters: “_Ubi sunt,
duplici damno dominos multant._” This is further proved by the speech
of _Epidicus_, in the comedy so called, where that slave-cook speaks of
his master’s purse as if it were game, to disembowel which, he says, he
will use his professional knife:--
“_Acutum cultrum habeo, senis qui exenterem
Marsupium._”
We learn something of the pay of a cook from a speech of one of the
craft, in the “_Pseudolus_.” Ballio, seeing a single practitioner
remaining in the square to be hired, asks how it is that he has not
been engaged. “_Eloquar_,” says the cook, “here is the reason:--
“He who, now-a-days, comes here to hire cooks,
No longer seeks the best, that is, the dearest,
But some poor spoil-sauce who for nothing works.
Therefore you see me here alone to-day.
A poor drachma hath my brethren purchased;
But under a crown I cook a dish for no man.
For ’twixt the common herd and me, you see,
There is a diff’rence: they into a dish
Fling whole meadows, and the guests they treat, Sir,
As though they were but oxen out at grass.
Herbs season they with herbs, and grass with grass;
And in the mess, garlic, coriander, fennel,
Sorrel, rochet, beet-root, leeks, and greens,
All go together, with a pound of benzoin,
And mustard ditto, that compels the tears
From out the eyes of those that have to mix it.
* * * * *
“If men are short-lived now, the reason’s plain:
They put death into their stomachs, and so
Of indigestion and bad cookery die.
Their sauces but to think of, makes me shudder;
Yet men will eat what asses would not bend to.
* * * * *
“Who of _my_ dishes eats, obtains at least
Two hundred happy years of life renew’d.
I season Neptune’s fishes with a juice
Made up of Cicilindrum, Muscadel,
Sipolindrum, and Sancapatides.
The odour of my mutton, nicely stuffed
With Cicimandrum, Nappalopsides,
And of Cataractaria a pinch,
Feeds Jupiter himself, who, when I rest,
Sleeps on Olympus, sad and supperless.
As for my potions, he who deeply drinks,
Gulps with the draught the gift of endless youth.”
Finally, after inventing the above names unpronounceable of sauces that
do not exist, the boaster adds, that his fee is a crown, provided he is
not overlooked; but that if there be supervision to check him in his
perquisites, he is not to be hired under a mina:--
“_Si credis, nummos; si non, ne mina quidem!_”
I do not know if cooks more especially used different fingers in
mingling their sauces, according as they were employed on wedding
banquets, martial feasts, senatorial entertainments, _al-fresco
déjeuners_, or commercial suppers; but certain it is, that the fingers
were sacred to diverse deities. The thumb was devoted to Venus, the
index finger to Mars, the longest finger to Saturn, the next to the
Sun, and the little finger to Mercury.
I conclude with a remark that I hope will be gratifying to all
culinary artists who respect themselves and their calling, and who
are anxious to prove that their vocation is of ancient and honourable
descent. Cadmus, who introduced letters into Greece, had formerly
been cook to the King of Sidon. Thus learning ascended to us from
the kitchen; and to the ex-cook of the King of Sidon we perhaps owe
all the epics that have ever been written. By this genealogy, even
“Paradise Lost” may be traced to the patties of Cadmus. But cooks in
England may boast of a _noblesse de cuisine_, which dates from the
Norman Conquest. When William, who wooed his wife Matilda by knocking
her down, had established himself in England, he gave a banquet, at
which his cook, Tezelin, served a new white soup of such exquisite
flavour, that William sent for the artist, and inquired its name. “I
call it _Dillegrout_,” said Tezelin. “A scurvy name for so good a
soup,” said the Conqueror; “but let that pass. We make you Lord of the
Manor of Addington!” Thus modern cooks may boast of a descent from the
landed aristocracy of the Conquest! Some of their masters cannot do as
much; and this, perhaps, accounts for the pride of the one, and the
simplicity of the other.
THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE.
If it were necessary that the cook of the ancient world should be a
Sicilian, and that the _cuisinier_ of the ancient régime should be of
Languedoc, (the native place of “_blanc manger_,”) so in these modern
times he alone is considered a true graduate in the noble science _de
la gueule_ who is a Gaul by birth, or who has gone through his studies
in the University of French Kitchens. In England, it must be confessed
that great cooks have formed the exception rather than the rule; and
that our native culinary literature, however interesting in certain
national details, is chiefly based upon a French foundation. And yet we
may boast of some native professors who were illustrious in their way.
Master John Murrel, for instance, wrote a cookery book in 1630, and
dedicated it to the daughter of the Lord Mayor. He starts by asserting
that cookery books generally mar rather than make good meats; and then
shows what good meats were in his estimation, by teaching how to dress
“minced bullock’s kidney, a rack of veal, a farced leg of mutton, an
umble pie, and a chewit of stockfish.” He is succulently eloquent on a
compound production, consisting of marrow bones, a leg of mutton, fowls
and pullets, and a dozen larks, all in one dish.
The Duke of Newcastle, in the last century, had a female cook of some
renown, named “Chloe.” General Guise, at the siege of Carthagena, saw
some wild fowl on the wing, and, amid the din of war, he thought of
“Chloe” and her sauces. She was famous for her stewed mushrooms, and
there is an anecdote connected therewith that will bear repeating.
“Poor Dr. Shaw,” writes Horace Walpole, “being sent for in great haste
to Claremont, (it seems the Duchess had caught a violent cold by a hair
of her own whisker getting up her nose, and making her sneeze,) the
poor Doctor, I say, having eaten a few mushrooms before he set out,
was taken so ill that he was forced to stop at Kingston; and, being
carried to the first apothecary’s, prescribed a medicine for himself
which immediately cured him. This catastrophe so alarmed the Duke of
Newcastle, that he immediately ordered all the mushroom-beds to be
destroyed; and even the toadstools in the park did not escape scalping
in this general measure. And a voice of lamentation was heard at Ramah
in Claremont, ‘_Chloe_’ weeping for _her_ mushrooms, and they are not!”
But, let us turn to trace lightly the genealogy of the cooks of modern
times.
The descent of the barbarians from the north was the ruin of cooks as
well as of Kings, of kitchens as well as constitutions. Many of the
cooks of the classic period were slain like the Druid Priests at the
fire of their own altars. A patriotic few fled rather than feed the
invader; and the servile souls who tremblingly offered to prepare a
_fricassée_ of ostrich brains for the Northmen, were dismissed with
contempt by warrior princes, who lived on under-done beef, and very
much of it!
But as sure as the Saxon blood beats out the Norman, so does good
cookery prevail over barbarous appetites. The old cooks were a sacred
race, whose heirs took up the mission of their sires. This mission was
so far triumphant, that, at the period of Charlemagne, the imperial
kitchen recognised in its _chef_ the representative of the Emperor. The
oriental pheasant and the peacock, in all the glories of expanded tail,
took the place, or appeared at the side, of coarser viands. The dignity
and the mirth of Charlemagne’s table were heightened by the presence
of ladies. Brillat de Savarin states, that since that period the
presence of the fair sex has ever been a law of society. But in this he
errs; for the Marquis de Bouillé, in his admirable work on the Dukes of
Guise, affirms that the good civilizing custom had fallen into disuse,
but that a permanent improvement was commenced in the reign of Francis
I., when the Cardinal of Lorraine induced that Monarch to invite ladies
to be present at all entertainments given at Court. Society followed
the fashion of the Sovereign; and as it used to be said, “No feast, no
Levite,” so now it was felt that where there was no lady, there was no
refined enjoyment.
At whatever period the emancipation of the ladies from their forced
seclusion took place, from that period the tone of social life was
elevated. They went about, like Eve, “on hospitable thoughts intent.”
The highest in rank did not disdain to supervise the kitchen; they
displayed their talents in the invention of new dishes, as well as in
the preparation of the old; and they occasionally well-nigh ruined
their lords by the magnificence of their tastes, and their sublime
disregard of expense. All the sumptuary laws of Kings to restrain this
household extravagance were joyously evaded, and banquets became deadly
destructive to men’s estates.
The French Kings granted corporate rights to the different trades
connected with the kitchen and the table; and perhaps the most valued
privilege was that conceded by Charles IX. to the pastrycooks, who
alone were permitted to make bread for the service of the Mass.
Montaigne, in his pleasant way, recounts a conversation he had with an
Italian _chef_ who had served in the kitchen of Cardinal Caraffa, up
to the period of the death of his gastronomic Eminence. “I made him,”
says the great Essayist, “tell me something about his post. He gave
me a lecture on the science of eating, with a gravity and magisterial
countenance as if he had been determining some vexed question in
theology. He deciphered to me, as it were, the distinction that exists
between appetites:--the appetite at fasting; that which people have
at the end of the second or third service; the means of awaking and
exciting it; the general ‘police,’ so to speak, of his sauces; and
then particularized their ingredients and effects. The differences of
salads, according to the seasons, he next discoursed upon. He explained
what sorts ought to be prepared warm, and those which should always be
served cold; the way of adorning and embellishing them, in order to
render them seductive to the eye. After this he entered on the order of
table-services,--a subject full of fine and important considerations;
and all this was puffed up with rich and magnificent terms; phrases,
indeed, such as are employed by statesmen and diplomatists, when they
are discoursing on the government of an empire.” We see by this what
the “_art de la gueule_” was in the days of Charles IX., whose mother,
Catherine de Medicis, had introduced it into France, as a science
whereby men should enjoy life. The same lady introduced also poisoning,
as a science whereby men might be deprived of life. Her own career was
full of opposing facts like these,--facts which caused a poetic cook to
write the epitaph upon her, which says:--
“Here lieth a Queen, who was angel and devil,
Admirer of good, and a doer of evil;
She supported the State, and the State she destroyed;
She reconciled friends, and she friendships alloyed;
She brought forth three Kings, thrice endanger’d the Crown,
Built palaces up, and threw whole cities down;
Made many good laws, many bad ones as well,
And merited richly both heaven and hell.”
The mention of Cardinal de Caraffa, by Montaigne, reminds me that, for
a gastronome, the Cardinal was singularly sanguinary in spirit. I know
no one to compare with him, except Dr. Cahill, who is not averse to
good living, and who has earned so gloomy a notoriety by his terrible
sentiment of the massacre of Protestants being “a glorious idea.”
Caraffa was enabled to enjoy both his propensities, of swallowing good
things and slaughtering heretics. “Having obtained leave from the Pope
to establish the Inquisition at Rome, at a time when the resources of
the State ran low, he turned his private property to the use of his
zeal, and set up a small Inquisition at his own expense.” Thus he could
dine within hearing of the groans of his victims; his cook could inform
him that the hares and heretics had both been roasted; and he _may_
have been occasionally puzzled to know whether that smell of burning
came from the patties or the Protestants.
The Italian cooks were, for a season, fashionable in France; but they
had a passion for poetry as well as for pies, and were given to let
their sauces burn while they recited whole pages of “Orlando Furioso.”
They were critics as well as cooks, and the kitchens resounded with
their denunciations of all who objected to the merits of the divine
Ariosto. But even the Papal ennobling of a cook could not compensate
for an indifferent dinner; and though Leo X., in a fit of modest
delight at a sauce made by his cook during Lent, named him from
that circumstance “Jack o’ Lent,” or “_Jean de Carême_,” the French
would not allow that such an event authorized the _artiste_ to be
dreaming over epics, when he should be wide awake to the working of
his proper mystery. But the mystery itself was much obstructed by
the political events of the times. There were the bloody wars of the
Guises, the troubles of the League, the despotic reign of Richelieu,
the cacochymical temperament (as the editor of the “_Almanach des
Gourmands_” would call it) of Louis XIII., and the ridiculous war of
the Fronde. The glory of the French kitchen rose with that of the
_Grand Monarque_, and Vatel and Louis XIV. were contemporaries. Vatel
slew himself to save his honour! The King had come to dine with Condé;
but the cod had not arrived in time to be dressed for the King, and
thereupon the heroic artist fell upon his sword, like an ancient Roman,
and is immortalized for ever by his glorious folly!
But there was nothing really heroic in the death of Vatel, whose sword
was pointed at his breast by wounded vanity. Far more heroic was the
death of the cook of the Austrian Consul, in the late cruel massacre,
by the cowardly Russian fleet, at Sinope. The Consul’s cook was a young
woman of thirty years of age. The Muscovite murderers were at the very
height of their bloody enjoyment, and sending shots into the town,
when the cook attempted to cross a garden, to procure some herbs; for
Consuls _must_ dine, though half the world be dying. She had performed
her mission, and was returning, when a thirty-six pounder shot cut her
completely in two. Rather than give up the parsley for her master’s
soup, she thus encountered death. What was Vatel and his bodkin, to
this more modern cook and the thirty-six pounder, loaded by the Czar
for her destruction?
The cooks “looked up” in the nights and suppers of the Regency,
and the days and dinners of Louis XV. It would be difficult to say
whether under the Regent, or under the King, the culinary art and its
professors most flourished. I am inclined, however, to think, that,
during the tranquil and voluptuous period of the reign of Louis XV.,
the cooks of France rose to that importance from which they have never
descended. They became a recognised and esteemed class in society,
whose spoiled children they were; and, in return, it was very like
spoiled children that they behaved. But how could it be otherwise,
when the noble, the brave, and the fair girded aprons to their loins,
and stood over stew-pans, with the air of alchymists over alembics? It
is to the nobility and other distinguished persons in high life, yet
not noble, in France, that gastronomy owes many a dish, whose very name
betrays to ecstasy. And here are a few of these droll benefactors of
mankind.
The Marquis de Béchamel immortalized his name, in the reign of Louis
XIV., by his invention of cream-sauce, for turbot and cod. Madame de
Maintenon imagined the “cutlets in curl-papers” which go by her name,
and which her ingenuity created in order to guard the sacred stomach
of the Grand Monarque from the grease which he could not digest. The
“_Chartreuse à la Mauconseil_” is the work, and the most innocent
one, of the free and easy Marchioness of that name. A woman more free
and easy still, the Duchess of Villeroy, (Maréchale de Luxembourg,)
produced, in her hours of reflection, the dish known as the _poulets
à la Villeroy_. They were eaten with bread _à la Régent_, of which
the author was the _roué_ Duke of Orleans. His too “well-beloved”
daughter, the Duchess of Berry, had a gastronomic turn of mind, like
her illustrious father. She was an epicurean lady, who tasted of all
the pleasures of life without moderation, whose device was, “Short
and sweet,” and who was contented to die young, seeing that she had
exhausted all enjoyment, and had achieved a renown, that should embalm
her name for ever, as the inventor of the _filets de lapereau_. The
_gigot à la Mailly_ was the result of much study, on the part of
the first mistress of Louis XV., to rid herself of a sister who was
a rival. Madame de Pompadour, another of the same King’s “ladies,”
testified her gratitude for the present which the Monarch made her
of the Château de Bellevue, by the production of the _filets de
volaille à la Bellevue_. The Queen of Louis was more devout, but
not less epicurean, than his mistresses; and the _petites bouchées à
la Reine_, if they were not of her creating, were named in honour of
Maria Leczinzka. Louis himself had a contempt for female cooks; but
Madame Du Barry had one so well-trained, that with a charming dinner
of _coulis de faisans_, _croustades de la foie de lottes_, _salmis de
bécassine_, _pain de volaille à la suprême_, _poularde au cresson_,
_écrevisses au vin de Sauterne_, _bisquets de pêches au Noyau_, and
_crème de cerneaux_, the King was so overcome with ecstasy, that, after
recovering from the temporary disgust he experienced at hearing that it
was the handywork of a woman, he consented to ennoble her by conferring
upon her the _cordon bleu_,--which phrase, from that time, has been
accepted as signifying a skilled female cook.
With respect to other dishes and their authors, the _vol au vent
à la Nèsle_ owns a Marquis for its father; and the _poularde à la
Montmorency_ is the offspring of a Duke. The _Bayonnoise_, or the
_Mabonnoise_ rather, recalls one of the victories of the Duke de
Richelieu; and _veau à la Montgolfier_, well inflated, was the tribute
of a culinary artist to the hero who first rode the air at the tail
of a balloon. The _sorbet à la Donizetti_ was the masterpiece of the
Italian confectioner of the late Duke of Beaufort. He had been to
the Opera; and one of the composer’s charming airs having given him
an idea, he brooded over it, till, an hour or so before dawn, it was
hatched into reality, when he rushed to the Duke’s bed-chamber, and,
“drawing Priam’s bed-curtains in the night,” announced to his startled
Grace the achievement of a new _sorbet_.
The _tendrons d’agneaux au soleil_, and the _filets de poulets à la
Pompadour_, were two of the dishes invented by the famous lady of
that name. The _carbonnade à la Soubise_, and the _carré de veau à
la Guemenée_, date--the first from the reign of Louis XV., the last
from that of Louis XVI.,--periods when the people were famishing.
The Pompadour was a great patron of the arts, and especially of the
culinary art; and the _cuisine des petits appartements_, during _her_
reign, was at the very height of its savoury reputation. The Prince of
Soubise was a poor General, but a rich glutton; and his son-in-law, the
Prince de Guemenée, was famous for his invention of various _ragoûts_,
his inordinate extravagance, and his bankruptcy, with liabilities
against him amounting to twenty-eight millions of francs. Madame la
Maréchale de Mirepoix was the authoress of _cailles à la Mirepoix_;
and her descendants live on the reputation acquired thereby by their
epicurean ancestress. The Bourbons vied with the aristocracy in taxing
their genius, and cudgelling their brains, in order to produce new
dishes. Thus, the _potage à la Xavier_ was the production of Louis
XVIII., in the days of his early manhood; while the _soupe à la Condé_
was a rival dish invented by his princely cousin,--a cousin, by the
way, who, when a refugee in England, used to pass his evenings at
Astley’s, with his pockets full of apples, which he gallantly presented
to ladies as highly, but not as naturally, coloured as the fruit.
Perhaps the reputation of the Maréchal de Richelieu rests more on his
_boudins à la carpe_, than on his battles and _billets-doux_. Finally,
a mysterious obscurity conceals from us the name of the inventor of
the _petites bouchées de foie gras_. He is the Junius of gastronomic
literature; but if he be guessed at in vain, he is blessed abundantly,
as one who has concentrated paradise, (an Epicurean’s paradise,) and
given an antepast thereof, in a single mouthful.
The Prince de Soubise was famous in the reign of Louis XV. for giving
great dinners, and paying nobody but his cooks, and the young ladies of
the opera. He once varied his extravagance by a splendid fête, which
was to terminate by a supper. His _chef_ waited on him with the bill
of fare for the banquet, and the first article which attracted his
attention was “fifty hams.” “Half a hundred hams!” said the Prince,
“that’s a coarse idea, Bertrand. You have not got to feed my regiment
of cavalry.” “Truly, Prince! and only one ham will appear on the table;
I want the remaining forty-nine for adjuncts, seasonings, flavourings,
and a dozen other purposes.” “Bertrand,” replied the Prince, “you are
robbing me, and I cannot allow this article to pass.” “Monseigneur!”
exclaimed the offended _artiste_, “you doubt my morals, and libel my
merit. You do not know what a treasure you possess in me; you have only
to order it, and those fifty hams which so terribly offend you, why, I
will put them all into a phial not bigger than my thumb!” The Prince
smiled, and Bertrand triumphed.