Salt has been defined humorously as that which, if not put in the soup,
spoils it.
Potatoes, eggs, and many other foods are thus "spoiled" if eaten
without a pinch of salt. It is, in fact, added to most cooked foods, by
whatever methods prepared.
Bread requires a considerable amount of salt to make it tasty.
American bakers usually put in too little, and that is not only one
of the reasons why our bread is so inferior to the best European, but
explains the prevalence of the habit of eating salted butter, which, as
previously pointed out, is as great a gastronomic barbarism as it would
be to eat salted ice cream or drink salted coffee or tea, although
under the circumstances it is more pardonable than it would be if the
bakers were not such bunglers.
In many countries some of the most important condiments--salt, sugar,
vinegar, mustard, and pepper--are placed on the table so that every one
may season his food to suit his individual taste. Yet in most cases
these condiments do not give such good results when used at table as
when added to the food while it is cooking.
It is well known that nothing so exasperates a French cook as to see
some one (Americans and Englishmen are the chief sinners) take a salt
shaker in one hand, a pepper box in the other, and sprinkle their
contents over the dish he has prepared, without even trying to find out
whether he had properly seasoned it in the kitchen.
Our addiction to such a habit is, of course, a lamentable confession
that _our_ cooks usually know not how to season food. It comes to us
generally in such an insipid condition that we take it for granted that
we must do something to make it palatable.
Apart from the table condiments just named there are many others which
are usually reserved for the kitchen. Among these are allspice, bay
leaf, capers, celery seed, cinnamon, cloves, curry, garlic, onions,
ginger, nutmeg, sage, thyme. Also, a great variety of bottled sauces
and of flavoring extracts, such as the essences of vanilla, lemon,
almonds, etc.
At the risk of wearying the reader by seeming always to harp on the
same string, I must call attention to the fact that, with the sole
important exception of sugar, all these diverse condiments have
practically no direct nutritive value but are used the world over
_simply because of their agreeable Flavors_.
If they lose these Flavors--as they do if their volatile essences
escape, or if they are adulterated (which is frequent, because so easy)
the only thing to do is to throw them into the garbage pail.
Greater even than the number of spices and condiments is that of
sauces. These, also, are of two kinds: some of them, like tomato,
walnut, or mushroom catsups, Worcestershire sauce, pickles, and
tabasco, are served at table, while another very large class of sauces
is usually made fresh in the kitchen for each meal.
All of these sauces--once more it must be parroted--like the spices
and condiments just discussed, are valued solely because of their
Flavors--their importance to the Science of _Savory_ Cooking.
One of the most important branches of this science relates to the
proper use of sauces and condiments.
Many persons commit the gastronomic sin of pouring a bottled sauce over
a plate of meat or fish without previously ascertaining whether it
needs any seasoning.
Surely, among all the food Flavors, nothing is more delicious than
the natural savor of fresh sole or salmon, or a juicy steak or chop
just off the grill. To put any kind of sauce--be it the best in the
world--on such a dish is as unpardonable as it would be to pour cologne
over a bunch of fragrant violets.
It is when the fish is a trifle "tired," or the meat without much
flavor of its own, as so often happens, that these commercial sauces
come to the rescue. Used only on such occasions, they have their value;
and they are also desirable because of the variety they supply in the
combination of flavors.
The French make hardly any use of bottled sauces; theirs are domestic,
made in their own kitchens, and they attach more importance to them
than to anything else in culinary art.
"Sauces, by the care and labor they require, by the costly sacrifices
which they necessarily involve, ought to be considered as the essential
basis of good cookery," according to Dubois-Bernard. "A man is never
a good cook," he adds, "if he does not possess a perfect knowledge
of sauces, and if he has not made a special study of the methodical
principles on which their perfection depends."
The sauces provided in Parisian restaurants and private houses are
certainly delicious; yet the French often err--and that is almost
their only serious gastronomic fault--in sacrificing to them the
delicious natural Flavors of diverse prime meats, just as Americans and
Englishmen do by pouring on their bottled sauces.
Butter has among its many virtues that of developing the natural
Flavors of meats and vegetables and may therefore often be used as
a sauce in plain cooking à l'Anglaise. But, except for occasional
variety, other sauces should be allowed to assert themselves over the
natural food flavors only when these are not of the best.