ROYAL EPICURES
Royalty in times past has had many an accomplished epicure, as learned
in culinary lore as in the practice of the cuisine. Charlemagne took a
warm personal interest in the management of his table, and Hardicanute,
one of our Danish kings, was so great a gourmand that he was designated
“Swine’s Mouth”--his table, it is said, having been covered four times a
day with the most costly viands that the air, sea, or land could
produce. It was Henry de Valois who brought into fashion aromatic sauces
and various spicy dainties, inheriting his taste for cooking from
Catherine de Medicis, who introduced into France not only ices, but much
of the culinary art from Italy; while the Prince de Soubise,
immortalised by the sauce named after him, was a connoisseur of no mean
order. He could boast of an excellent cook, but a man with princely
notions of expenditure. One day the Prince announced his intention to
him of giving a supper, and demanded an estimate. The first article on
which the Prince cast his eyes was this: “Fifty hams;” whereupon he
inquired, “Are you going to feast my whole regiment?”
“My lord,” replied the cook, “you do not understand our resources; give
the word, and these fifty hams which confound you, I will put them all
into a glass bottle no bigger than my thumb.” Accordingly the Prince
nodded, and the article passed.
Charlemagne once ate cheese mixed with parsley seeds at a bishop’s
palace, and liked it so much that ever after he had two cases of such
cheese sent yearly to Aix-la-Chapelle--a device which Gay has noted:--
“Marbled with sage, the hardened cheese she press’d.”
Charles the Great ate venison with special pleasure, and Henry IV. of
France ate melons and oysters whenever possible--a taste which reminds
us of that of Frederick, son of Ernest “the Iron,” who on recovering
from amputation of the leg one day resolved on dining on melons, his
favourite dish. He was told that such a diet would be fatal to him, as
it had already been to one Austrian archduke of his house; but he took
no heed of the advice. “I will have melons,” said he, “betide what may!”
Of melons, accordingly, he ate to his heart’s content, and death
followed shortly afterwards.
Louis XIII. was fond of early fruit, and he had strawberries in March,
and figs in June. Fagon, physician to Louis XIV., was a famous expert in
the culinary art, and in the declining days of his illustrious master
devised for him the _cotelette à la Maintenon_. It appears that the
mutton cutlets of Madame de Maintenon were enveloped in curl papers,
but Fagon arranged a more artistic and nourishing dish, in which unboned
cutlets were spread with nourishing sauce, minced vegetables, and
seasoning. The appetite of Louis XIV. in the prime of life had been
prodigious, and the Duchess of Orleans tells us in her Memoirs that she
had often seen him eat four plates full of soup, a whole pheasant, a
partridge, a plate of salad, mutton hashed with garlic, two slices of
ham, a dish of pastry, in addition to fruit and sweetmeats. Hence it is
not surprising that in this monarch’s reign cooking made the most rapid
advances, being at one time employed to give a zest to his glories, and
at another to console him in their decline.
It is fortunate for royalty that the history of gastronomy can boast of
few such rash acts as that committed by the ex-Emperor Wenceslaus, who,
when residing at Prague, where he reigned as King of Bohemia, after his
ejection from the imperial throne, once punished a cook who had sent up
to him an ill-dressed capon by roasting him on a spit before his own
fire. The story, as Dr. Doran says,[24] “might be held to be groundless,
were it not that of petty German potentates there are similar stories
told which are well authenticated.” But a tragic occurrence of a
different character happened in the reign of Louis XIV., who was devoted
to gastronomy, and for whose use liqueurs were invented in his old age
when, it is said, he could scarcely endure existence without a
succession of artificial stimulants. The closing scene of Vatel has
often been told, who, to quote the words of the _Almanach des
Gourmands_, “immolated himself with his own hands because the sea-fish
had not arrived some hours before it was to be served. So noble a death
ensures you, venerable shade, the most glorious immortality. You have
proved that the fanaticism of honour can exist in the kitchen as well as
in the camp, and that the spit and the saucepan have also their Catos
and Deciuses.” Madame de Sévigny, narrating this pathetic instance of
self-devotion, thus writes:--
“I wrote you yesterday that Vatel had killed himself. I here give you
the affair in detail. The King arrived on the evening of the Thursday;
the collation was served in a room hung with jonquils; all was as could
be wished. At supper there were some tables where the roast was wanting,
on account of several parties which had not been expected. This affected
Vatel. He said several times, ‘I am dishonoured; this is a disgrace that
I cannot endure.’ He said to Gourville, ‘My head is dizzy; I have not
slept for twelve nights; assist me in giving orders.’ Gourville assisted
him as much as he could. The roast which had been wanting, not at the
table of the King, but at the inferior tables, was constantly present to
his mind. Gourville mentioned it to the Prince; the Prince even went to
the chamber of Vatel and said to him, ‘Vatel, all is going well; nothing
could equal the supper of the King.’ He replied, ‘Monseigneur, your
goodness overpowers me; I know that the roast was wanting at two
tables.’ ‘Nothing of the sort,’ said the Prince; ‘do not distress
yourself, all is going on well.’ Night came; the fireworks failed; they
had cost sixteen thousand francs. He rose at four the next morning,
determined to attend to everything in person. He found everybody asleep.
He meets one of the inferior purveyors, who brought only two packages of
sea-fish; he asks, ‘Is that all?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ The man was not aware that
Vatel had sent to all the seaports. Vatel waits some time; the other
purveyors did not arrive; his brain began to burn; he believed that
there would be no more fish. He finds Gourville; he says to him,
‘Monsieur, I shall never survive this disgrace.’ Gourville made light of
it. Vatel goes upstairs to his room, places his sword against the door,
and stabs himself to the heart; but it was not until the third blow,
after giving himself two not mortal, that he fell dead. The fish,
however, arrives from all quarters; they seek Vatel to distribute it;
they go to his room, they knock, they force open the door; he is found
bathed in his blood. They hasten to tell the Prince, who is in despair.
The Duke wept; it was on Vatel that his journey from Burgundy hinged.
The Prince related what had passed to the King with marks of the deepest
sorrow.”[25]
Amidst his other luxuries, Louis XV. was not unmindful of the pleasures
of the table, and it is generally understood that _tables volantes_ were
invented under his eye. “At the _petits soupers_ of Choisy,” says the
poet Rogers, “were first introduced those admirable pieces of
mechanism--a table and a sideboard which descended and rose again
covered with viands and wines. And thus the most luxurious Court in
Europe, after all its boastful refinements, was glad to return at last,
by its singular contrivance, to the quiet and privacy of humble life.”
Louis XVI., on the other hand, is said to have been somewhat neglectful
of his table, a circumstance which, it has been remarked, “was utterly
inexcusable, since for a time the great Ude was a member of his
establishment.”
But Louis XVIII. was an epicure of the first water, and was nicknamed
“Des-huitres” (a pun on _dix-huit_), because like all the Bourbons he
was a great feeder, and especially fond of oysters. One day, when his
physician reproached his cook with “ruining the royal health by savoury
juices, the dignitary of the kitchen remarked that it was the office of
the cook to supply his Majesty with pleasant dishes, and that it was the
duty of the doctor to enable the King to digest them.”[26] He had the
Duc d’Escars for his _grand maître d’hôtel_, a disappointed man,
however, as he died inconsolable at not having given his name to a
single dish after having devoted his whole life to the culinary art. He
did not lose the confidence of his royal master, with whom, when he was
closeted to discuss some new dish, the ministers were kept waiting in
the antechamber, and the next day the following announcement regularly
appeared in the official journals: “M. le Duc d’Escars a travaillé dans
le Cabinet.” The fate of M. d’Escars was the harder because he died a
victim to gastronomy. It appears that Louis XVIII. had invented the
_truffes à la purée d’ortolans_, and, reluctant to disclose the secret
to an unreliable menial, he invariably prepared the dish with his own
hands, assisted by the Duc. On one occasion they had conjointly prepared
a dish of more than ordinary dimensions, and duly consumed the whole of
it. In the middle of the night the Duc was seized with a fit of
indigestion, and his case was declared hopeless. Loyal to the last, he
ordered an attendant to awake and inform the King, who might be exposed
to a similar attack. His Majesty was roused and told that the Duc was
dying of his invention. “Dying!” exclaimed Louis; “dying of my _truffes
à la purée_? I was right then. I always said that I had the better
stomach of the two!”
The _petits soupers_ of the Regent Duke of Orleans were famous, and
conferred a celebrity on the scene of them sufficient to justify the
reply of the Frenchman who, on being asked by a stranger in a remote
part of Europe if he could tell him the direction of Paris, made answer:
“Monsieur, ce chemin-là vous conduira au Palais Royal.” There is a vague
tradition that the chef of the Regent was pre-eminent in a _dinde aux
truffes_.
The Revolution in France bade fair to seriously check the progress of
the culinary art, and “the destruction of the pre-existing races of
Amphitryons and diners-out was actually and most efficiently
accomplished by it.” But eventually the upstart chiefs of the Republic
and the plundering marshals and parvenu nobles of Napoleon proved, as
far as gastronomy was concerned, no bad substitutes for the old feudal
nobility. When Napoleon was in good humour at the result of a diplomatic
conference, he was in the habit of taking leave of the plenipotentiaries
with, “Go and dine with Cambacérès,” who was second consul under the
Republic and arch-chancellor under the Empire--a man who never allowed
the cares of government to distract his attention from what he conceived
to be the great object of life. His table was, in fact, an important
state-engine, as appears from the anecdote of the Genevese trout sent to
him by the municipality of Geneva, and charged 300 francs in their
accounts. The imperial _Cour des Comptes_, having disallowed the item,
was interdicted from meddling with municipal affairs in future. Among
the many stories told of Cambacérès, it is said that on one occasion,
being detained in consultation with Napoleon beyond the appointed hour
of dinner, when the fate of the Duc d’Enghien was the topic under
discussion, he was observed to grow restless and impatient. At last he
wrote a note, the contents of which Napoleon suspecting, nodded to an
aide-de-camp to intercept the despatch, which he found to be a note to
the cook, conveying this message: “Gardez les entremets--les rôtis sont
perdus.”
Napoleon himself was a very fast eater, and at a _grand couvert_ at the
Tuileries, from the moment he and his guests sat down till coffee was
served, not more than forty-three minutes elapsed. They were then bowed
out. It was a rule, too, with Napoleon that the moment appetite was
felt, it should be satisfied; and his establishment was so arranged that
at all hours chicken, cutlets, and coffee might be forthcoming at a
word. But this habit of eating fast and carelessly is commonly supposed
to have paralysed him “on two of the most critical occasions of his
life--the battles of Borodino and Leipsic, which he might have converted
into decisive victories by pushing his advantages as he was wont. On
each of these occasions he is known to have been suffering from
indigestion.” On the third day of Dresden, too, the German novelist,
Hoffman, who was present in the town, asserts that the Emperor would
have done much more than he did, but for the effects of a shoulder of
mutton stuffed with onions.
The general order to his household was to have cutlets and roast chicken
ready at all hours, night and day, a rule which was carefully observed
by his _maître d’hôtel_, Dunand, who had been a celebrated cook. One day
when Napoleon returned from the Conseil d’Etat in one of his worst
tempers, a _déjeuner à la fourchette_, comprising his favourite dishes,
was served up, and Napoleon, who had fasted since daybreak, took his
seat. But he had scarcely partaken of a mouthful when “apparently some
inopportune thought or recollection stung his brain to madness,” and,
receding from the table without rising from his chair, he uplifted his
foot--dash! went the table, crash! went the _déjeuner_, and the Emperor
springing up paced the room with rapid strides. Dunand looked on, and
quick as thought the wreck was cleared away, an exact duplicate of the
_déjeuner_ appeared as if by magic, and its presence was quietly
announced by the customary, “Sa Majesté est servie.” Napoleon felt the
delicacy, and “Merci bien, mon cher Dunand,” with one of his inimitable
smiles, showed that the hurricane had blown over.
Prince Henry of Condé, in addition to his many other faults, was accused
of being too fond of his ease, and when he was reproached with his
immoderate taste for the pleasures of the table, he was wont to say, in
a dull way, “They affirm that I am always at eating-houses since I left
Paris; I have been there only twice.”
Another epicure of a high order was Frederick the Great, who was
extremely fond of highly seasoned meats and French or Italian made
dishes. Every morning, and sometimes the evening before, the bill of
fare was presented to him, which he often altered himself; and during
dinner he would make pencil marks against the different items of the
bill of fare, which he discussed afterwards with the _maître d’hôtel_.
In a kitchen account of the year 1784, it was stated that the extra
consumption amounted to 25 dollars, 10 groschen, 1⅕ pfennig; but
Frederick wrote under it: “Robbery, for there were about one hundred
oysters on the table, price 4 dollars; cakes, 2 dollars; liver, 1
dollar; fish, 2 dollars; Russian cakes, 2 dollars--total, 11 dollars. As
there has been an extra dish to-day, herrings and peas, which may cost 1
dollar, everything beyond 12 dollars is barefaced robbery.”[27]
The King kept at all times a sharp look out, and one day he remarked to
his Minister of State, Von Herder, after reprimanding a servant who had
put a bottle of wine in his pocket: “Have I not every reason to knock
these ragamuffins on the head? Don’t you see that if I let them have
their own rascally way I should soon not have a penny left to assist my
distressed subjects.” His table was generally served with eight
dishes--four French, two Italian, and two prepared according to his
peculiar fancy, and from his own receipts. And it was one of his
favourite maxims that “he who is not content with eight dishes will not
be satisfied with eighty.” One of the last bills of fare--August 5,
1786--twelve days before his death, was as follows:--
_August 5._--DINNER: HIS MAJESTY’S TABLE
Name of the
Cook.
_Henaunt_ 1 Soupe aux choux à la Fouqué.^{+}
_Pfund_ 1 Du bœuf aux pandis et carottes.^{+}
_Voigt_ 1 Des poulets en cannelon au concombres farcis
au blanc à l’Anglaise (was struck out; the King
substituted, Des cotelettes dans du papier).
_Dionisius_ Petits patés à la Romaine.
1 Young pigeon, roasted.
_Pfund_ 1 Du saumon à la Dessau.
_Blesson_ 1 De filets de volaille à la Pompadour avec langue
de bœuf et croquets.
_Dionisius_ Portuguese cake (struck out; Des gaufres put instead).
_Pfund_ Green peas.^{+}
Fresh herrings.^{+}
Pickled gherkins.
(The crosses indicated his Majesty’s approval of the dish.)
On the other hand, Frederick William I. was served in the plainest
manner, partly with the coarsest food, such as bacon and peas, or ham
and green kale--his favourite dish. His two special fish were lobsters
and oysters. There is still the draught of a bill of fare in existence
which Frederick William gave as an example to the Crown Prince, when the
latter was at Cüstrin:--
Soup of veal with force meat balls of river pike, sorrel and chevril.
Beef with white kale.
Mutton-carbonade with green peas.
River carp from the Spree, with cherry fool.
Craw-fish with butter.
Fricassee of young chicken.
Pickled ox cheek and cow heel.
Roast mutton with cucumber sauce.
But the pertinacity with which Charles V. of Spain gratified his
appetite, under all circumstances, rivalled even that of Frederick the
Great. It is said that before rising in the morning, potted capon was
usually served to him, prepared with sugar, milk, and spices, after
partaking of which he would turn to sleep again. At noon he dined on a
variety of dishes, soon after vespers he partook of another meal, and
later in the evening he supped heartily on anchovies, or some other
savoury food; and after his abdication the same propensity accompanied
him to his monastic retreat at Yuste. Fish of every kind was his
taste--eels, frogs, and oysters occupying an important place in the
royal bill of fare. Potted fish, especially anchovies, found special
favour with him, and on an eel pasty he particularly doted. Soles,
lampreys, and flounders were sent in large quantities from Seville and
Portugal. The nobles in the neighbourhood, who knew his weakness for the
pleasures of the table, constantly sent him presents of game and
vegetables, and the churchmen were equally attentive. The Prior of our
Lady of Guadalupe, the Archbishop of Saragossa, the Bishop of Plasencia,
and the Archbishop of Toledo were liberal in their contributions. To
wash down this extraordinary quantity of food, Charles drank in
proportion. And Sastrow, who saw Charles V. at the Diet of Augsburg in
the year 1546, states in his “Pomeranian Chronicle”: “His dinner was
served by young princes and counts, four courses always of six dishes
each. The dishes being placed before him, the covers were removed, and
he shook his head at those of which he did not wish to partake; but if
he fancied one he nodded, and drew it towards him. Goodly pasties,
venison, and savoury-made dishes were sometimes taken away, while he
kept back a sucking pig, calf’s head, or such like. He had no one to
carve for him, nor did he use the knife much himself; but he first cut
his bread in small pieces, then stuck his knife into the joint where he
fancied a piece, scooped it out, or otherwise tore it with his
fingers.”[28]
He was just turned thirty when his confessor, Cardinal Loaysa, wrote to
him to urge him to leave off eating fish, which always disagreed with
him, and he added, “I am told that your chest can often be heard farther
off than your tongue.” Subsequent letters from the same honest
counsellor contain many similar warnings, one of which closes with these
words: “If your Majesty will give the reins to your appetite, I tell you
that your conscience and bodily health must go down-hill.”
But these gastronomic excesses brought on intense suffering, nor did
experience teach him moderation. With few teeth and impaired digestion,
he “continued to eat from as many dishes, and to empty as many flasks,
as in the days when his powers were great, his health flourishing, and
his exercise regular. His medical men were his abettors, for they
allowed him to satisfy every appetite, without attempting to restrain
him.”[29] And it was by a strange irony of fate that when Death began
to close his jaws upon the Emperor, there were those in his vicinity
“who were suffering from a worse vertigo than that which springs from
old age and an abused stomach--the vertigo of famine. In their
sufferings the hungry peasantry forgot their respect for him. They
stripped his kitchen-garden, plundered his orchards, impounded his
cattle, drew the fish from his ponds, and waylaid and rifled his mules
which traversed the hunger-district laden with dainties.”
Peter the Great was another very decided epicure, and one of his
favourite dinners was the following: A soup with four cabbages in it,
gruel, pig, with sour cream for sauce, cold roast meat, with pickled
cucumbers or salad, lemons and lamprey, salt meat, ham, and Limburg
cheese. And, it may be added, there is preserved in Ballard’s Collection
in the Bodleian Library the bill of fare of a breakfast and dinner,
which the Czar and his party--twenty-one in number--partook of at
Godalming on his return from a visit to Portsmouth, consisting at
breakfast of half a sheep, a quarter of lamb, ten pullets, twelve
chickens, seven dozen of eggs, and salad in proportion, three quarts of
brandy and six quarts of mulled wine; at dinner, five ribs of beef,
weight three stone; one sheep, fifty-six pounds; three quarters of lamb,
a shoulder and loin of veal boiled, eight pullets, eight rabbits; two
dozen and a half of sack, and one dozen of claret. But, as it has been
remarked, some of our own countrymen have almost rivalled the Czar and
his companions. At Godalming--probably at the same inn that Peter the
Great patronised--two nobles, dukes, are reported to have stopped, as
they intended, for a few minutes, while sitting in their carriages, to
eat a mutton chop, which they found so good that they devoured eighteen
chops, and drank five bottles of claret.
Catherine II. of Russia did not care for elaborate cookery: her
favourite dish was boiled beef with salted cucumber; her drink, water
with gooseberry syrup. Among her cooks there was one who cooked
abominably; but, when this was pointed out to her, “she refused to
dismiss the man, as he had been in her service too long.” She merely
inquired when his turn came, and on sitting down to table would say,
“Ladies and gentlemen, we must exercise our patience, we have a week’s
fast before us.”[30]
An enthusiastic epicure was the Polish King, Stanislaus Leczinski, who
invented many a new dish, and succeeded in vastly improving the style of
cooking, astonishing the Lorrainers, amongst other things, by having
served up at his table dishes of meat with fruits, both of which had
been cooked together. Geese which had been plucked when alive, then
whipped to death, and _marinées_ were set down in his bill of fare as
foreign birds; and after a similar fashion turkeys were metamorphosed
into _coqs de bruyères_, and were served at table buried under the
strong-smelling herbs of Lorraine. One year was remarkable for the
entire failure of the fruit crop, but Stanislaus would not be deprived
of his dessert; for, turning his attention to confectionery, he made
delicate compositions of sugared vegetables, especially turnips, and
even now the Lorrainers dip their _babas_--cakes in which there are
_raisins de caisse_ and saffron--into their wine, and think of the royal
inventor.
The story goes that on one occasion there appeared on the table of
Stanislaus a large pie, and the guests were admiring its dimensions,
beauty, and odour, when all of a sudden the almond cakes which covered
it flew in all directions, and from beneath them leaped up Bébé, the
ex-king’s favourite dwarf, armed like a knight. The whole table was in a
roar of laughter, with the exception of one noble guest, whose nose the
dwarf had pricked with his lance, and who vowed vengeance for the two or
three drops of blood which fell. But, it is said, Stanislaus loved his
dwarf so well that he provided for his security by placing him under the
care of two soldiers of his bodyguard.
Then again, Ferdinand I. of Naples was an epicure in fruit, and was wont
to pride himself on the excellent varieties which were produced in his
royal gardens, one of which was designated “Paradise.” Many years ago,
too, Prince Metternich first tasted rhubarb in this country, and was so
delighted with it that he had some plants sent to his Austrian garden.
On the occasion of a large party in the following year, the Prince
ordered rhubarb to be served up dressed as it was in this country. But
the cook knew nothing of the English mode of cooking it, and selecting
the large leaves served them up as spinach. As might be expected, the
guests made wry faces at this unsavoury dish, and henceforth rhubarb was
discarded from the Prince’s table. And, it may remembered, Ludovico, the
Duke of Milan, carried this kind of epicurean luxury so far that he
actually had a travelling fruit garden, the trees being brought to his
table that he might gratify his taste by gathering the fruit with his
own hands. Charles XII. of Sweden was often satisfied with simple bread
and butter, and Joseph II. of Austria with omelets and hard bread.
Don Sebastian of Portugal, being no epicure himself, determined to train
his people by issuing a sumptuary edict that none of his subjects might
have more than two dishes, and those of the simplest character, for
their meals; but he forgot that no decree could alter the daily life of
his people.
Bianca of Milan, whom Maximilian the “Moneyless” married for her dowry,
died of indigestion brought on by eating too freely of snails--“the
large and lively sort,” reared for the market in the fierce heat below.
Royal fatalities of this kind have been numerous. Thus in 1740 Charles,
the brother and successor of Joseph I., not only went out hunting in the
wet when he had the gout, but persisted in eating voraciously of
mushrooms stewed in oil. Like Louis Philippe, he would not believe his
medical advisers as they stood at his bedside “disputing as to whether
mushrooms were a digestible diet or the contrary;” but, dismissing them
from his presence, he ordered his favourite delicacy, the penalty for
eating which was his death.
Among our early kings who in some measure patronised the culinary art
may be mentioned Richard Cœur de Lion, who loved venison, “the stealers
of which he punished by the most horrible of mutilations;” while his
brother John, who was equally fond of venison, is reported to have given
great offence to certain clerical gentlemen by a joke at dinner upon a
fat haunch, which, he said, “had come from a noble hart that had never
heard mass,” which was regarded as a reflection on their corpulency.
Edward III. paid every attention to good cheer; and as many as two
thousand cooks are said to have been employed in the royal kitchen of
Richard II., his chief _cuisinier_ having been known by the initials C.
S. S., under which he wrote a culinary work, “On the Forme of Cury,” in
which Richard II. is spoken of as his royal master, “the best and
royallest viander of all Christian kynges.”
A porpoise was a fashionable dish in the time of Henry V., who first had
it at the royal table, and England, it is said, had never seen a king
who gave dinners on so extravagantly profuse a scale as Edward IV.[31]
Henry VIII. was an epicure, and a liberal rewarder “of that sort of
merit which ministered to the gratification” of his palate, on one
occasion having been so well pleased with the flavour of a new pudding
that he gave a manor to the inventor. It may be added that Cardinal
Campeggio--one of the legates charged to treat with Henry VIII.
concerning his divorce from Catherine--drew up a report on the state of
the English cookery, as compared with that of Italy and France, for the
special use of the Pope.
Anne Boleyn appears to have been very much of an epicure, and when
staying, in the year 1527, at Windsor, Henry sent her by Heneage, who
was the gentleman-in-waiting, a dish from his own table for supper; and
yet even that did not content her, for all the time, it is said, she was
hankering after Wolsey’s dainties, and expressing her wish “for some of
his good meat, as carpes, shrimpes, and other delicacies.” And when in
the year 1535 Viscountess Lisle, who was ambitious of obtaining
appointments for two of her daughters in the royal household, sent her
some dotterels, which were at that time esteemed a dainty dish, and
calculated to tickle the palate of an epicure queen, she received from a
friend the following note: “The Queen did appoint six of your dotterels
for her supper, six for Monday dinner, and six for supper. My Lord of
Rochford presented them himself, and showed her how they were killed new
at twelve of the clock in Dover, of the which she was glad, and spake
many good words towards your ladyship’s good report, as I was informed
by them that stood by.”[32]
As for the royal table of Elizabeth, nothing could surpass the solemn
order in which it was laid out, or the number of triple genuflections
which accompanied every movement of the noble waiters; but all this was
only for show, as the meat was finally taken off the table into an inner
room, where the Queen herself dined in the utmost privacy and
simplicity.[33] Her Sunday’s dinner on the 19th of November 1576
consisted of beef, mutton, veal, swan, goose, capons, conies, friants,
custards, and fritters for the first course. For the second, lamb, kid,
herons, pheasant, fowls, godwits, peacocks, larks, tarts, and fritters.
Her average dinner was varied with plovers, veal pies, custards, boiled
partridges, boiled beef, snipes, pheasants, chicken pies, and tarts, and
cost on an average £4 a dinner.
Her fish dinners were of great variety. The first course included long
pike, salmon, haddock, whiting, gurnet, tench, and brill; the second,
sturgeon, conger, carp, eels, lamperns, chine of salmon, perch, lobster,
tarts, and creams; the side dishes were sturgeon, porpoise, fish collops
and eggs, dories, soles and lampern pies, cod, boiled conger, bream, and
red fish; the second course occasionally included warden pie, smelts,
boiled veal, boiled mutton, pullets, partridges, and panado.
In the succeeding reign feasting was carried to a riotous extent, and it
has been computed that the household expenditure of James I. was twice
as much as that of Queen Elizabeth, amounting to £100,000 a year. A pig
was an animal of which James had an abhorrence, and in his “Counterblast
to Tobacco” he says, that were he to invite the devil to dinner he
would place three dishes before him--first, a pig; secondly, a poll of
ling and mustard; and thirdly, a pipe of tobacco to assist digestion.
The state of cookery under Charles II. is indicated by the names of
Chiffinch and Chaubert, to whose skill Sir Walter Scott has borne
testimony in his “Peveril of the Peak.” But it is questionable whether
epicures of the present day would appreciate the Duke of York’s taste,
who, when instructed by the Spanish ambassador to prepare a sauce,
recommended one consisting of parsley, dried toast pounded in a mortar,
with vinegar, salt, and pepper. Charles II., however, if not a decided
epicure, was fond of gastronomy, and in a ballad of the “New Sir John
Barleycorn,” the knighting of the loin of beef has been ascribed to
him:--
“Our Second Charles of fame facéte,
On loin of beef did dine;
He held his sword, pleased, o’er the meat,
Arise, thou fam’d Sir Loin.”
But Fuller, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” relates of Henry VIII. at
the Abbey of Reading, how “a sirloin of beef was set before him, so
knighted, saith tradition, by this King Henry;” and, according to
another account, James I., on his return from a hunting excursion, so
much enjoyed his dinner, consisting of a loin of roast beef, that he
laid his sword across it and dubbed it Sir Loin. And at Chingford, in
Essex, is a house called “Friday Hill House,” in one of the rooms of
which is an oak table with a brass plate thus inscribed: “All lovers of
roast beef will like to know that on this table a loin was knighted by
King James I. on his return from hunting in Epping Forest.”
When Cosmo III., the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was in England, Charles II.,
on the evening before his departure, supped with him at the house of his
Highness, when a singular adventure occurred, which the Grand Duke thus
relates:--
“The entertainment was most superb, both as to the quantity and quality
of the dishes. The supper was served up in eighty magnificent dishes,
many of which were decorated with other smaller ones, filled with
various delicious meats. To the service of fruit succeeded a most
excellent course of confectionery, both those of Portugal and other
countries famous for the choiceness of their sweetmeats. But scarcely
was it set upon the table when the whole was carried off and plundered
by the people who came to see the spectacle of the entertainment; nor
was the presence of the King sufficient to restrain them from the
pillage of these very delicate viands, much less his Majesty’s soldiers,
armed with carbines, who guarded the entrance of the saloon, to prevent
all ingress into the inside, lest the confinement and too great heat
should prove annoying; so that his Majesty, to avoid the crowd, was
obliged to rise from the table and retire to his Highness’s apartment.”
An amusing little anecdote is told by Lady Marlborough of William III.,
who thus writes: “I give an instance of his worse than vulgar behaviour
at his own table when the Princess dined with him. It was the beginning
of his reign, and some weeks before the birth of the Duke of Gloucester.
There happened to be just before her a plate of green peas, the first
that had been seen that year. The King, without offering the Princess
the least share of them, drew the plate before him, and devoured them
all. The Princess Anne confessed when she came home, that she had so
much mind for the peas that she was afraid to look at them, and yet
could hardly keep her eyes off them.”
Prince George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne, was renowned for his
appetite, and for the bent of it towards pastry, which reminds us of the
readiness with which Charles XII. was wont to swallow raspberry tarts,
and Frederick II. Savoy cakes.
Under Queen Anne, who had Lister, one of the editors of the _Apicius_,
for her pet physician, and who “achieved the highest honour of
gastronomy by giving her name to a pudding,” cookery did not suffer from
any lack of encouragement; but soon after the accession of the House of
Brunswick a fashion was introduced which somewhat threatened to retard
the progress of cookery. “The last branch of our fashion,” says Horace
Walpole, “into which the close observation of nature has been
introduced, is our desserts.” Jellies, biscuits, sugar-plums, and creams
have long since given way to harlequins, gondoliers, Turks, Chinese, and
shepherdesses of Saxon China. But these, unconnected, and only seeming
to wander among groves of curled paper and silk flowers, were soon
discovered to be too insipid and unmeaning. By degrees, meadows of
cattle, of the same brittle materials, spread themselves over the table;
cottages rose in sugar, and temples in barley-sugar; pigmy Neptunes in
cars of cockle-shells triumphed over oceans of looking-glass, or seas of
silver-tissue.... The Intendant of Gascony, on the birth of the Duke of
Burgundy, amidst many other magnificent festivities, treated the
noblesse of the province with a dinner and a dessert, the latter of
which concluded with a representation, by wax figures moved by
clock-work, of the whole labour of the Dauphiness, and the happy birth
of an heir to the monarchy.”[34]
George I. was fond of good living, and was indiscreet, it is said, in
what he ate. His too free indulgence in sturgeon and other strong food,
and his custom of partaking of hearty suppers at late hours of the
night, counteracted the exertions made by nature in his behalf. On the
3rd of June 1727 the King left Greenwich for Holland, and on reaching
Delden, and taking supper with the Count de Twittel, he indulged too
freely in melons, an act of imprudence to which was ascribed the
disorder that caused his death.
A characteristic anecdote is told of George II., to the effect that the
House of Commons having gratified him on some point in which the
interests of Hanover were concerned, he sent for his German cook, and
said to him: “Get me a very good supper, get me all the varieties;” and
he added, “I don’t mind expense.”[35] The mention of his German cook
reminds us of the poor opinion he had of our own cooks, insisting that
“no English cooks knew how to roast.”
George III. lived like an ascetic, for fear of corpulence and gout; and
light diet was one of the grand fundamentals in his idea of health. In
“A Sketch of their Majesties’ Domestic Life at Kew during the Summer
Season” of 1775, in the _Annual Register_, it is said: “His Majesty
feeds chiefly on vegetables, and drinks but little wine. The Queen is
what many private gentlewomen would call whimsically abstemious; for, at
a table covered with dainties, she prefers the plainest and simplest
dish, and seldom eats of more than two things at a meal.”
The excellent health which George III. long enjoyed, as well as his
exemption from the obesity which was constitutional in his family was
once, in the course of a conversation with Lord Mansfield, attributed by
him to the following circumstance. He happened to pay a visit to his
uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, when the conversation turned on the
Duke’s increased corpulency. “It was a constitutional malady,” remarked
his Royal Highness, from which on reaching middle age he could scarcely
be absolved. But temperance and abstinence, he said, were the best
remedies, and if neglected, he added, “depend upon it that nothing can
prevent your Majesty arising to my size.” Such was the impression made
upon the King’s mind that, as he assured Lord Mansfield, from that
moment he resolved to check his tendency to obesity by inuring himself
to habits of the strictest temperance.[36] And many years afterwards,
congratulating himself on his excellent health, he remarked: “The fault
of his constitution was a tendency to excessive fat, which, however, he
kept in order by the most vigorous exercise and by the strictest
attention to a simple diet.” Mrs. Delaney, one of the company,
commending him for his remarkable forbearance, he exclaimed, “No, no; I
only prefer eating plain and little to growing diseased and infirm.”[37]
It would seem the pet potage of George III. was a rich vermicelli soup,
with a very few green chevril leaves in it--a preparation which with his
more epicurean successor was also equally a favourite.
Carème, a lineal descendant of the celebrated _chef_ of Leo X., who
received the name of Jean de Carème--Jack of Lent--for a _soup-maigre_
which he invented for the Pope, was induced, by persevering
solicitations and the promise of a salary of £1000 a year, to become
_chef_ to George IV., then Regent, but he left him at the end of a few
months. The Emperors of Russia and Austria then made new advances to
him, but in vain, for Carème accepted an engagement with Baron
Rothschild of Paris. But, however great an epicure George IV. might be,
he was of opinion that a roast neck of mutton is a dinner fit for a
prince. When Prince of Wales he happened on one occasion to partake of
bubble-and-squeak at a bachelor’s table in Shropshire, this homely dish
so pleasing him that it was afterwards very often seen at Carlton House.
A roast fowl was the favourite dish of William IV., a black bottle of
sherry being uniformly placed on the table near his Majesty.
It is evident that the gastronomic tastes of royalty, at one time or
another, have been diverse and numerous. The late Duke of Cambridge,
being on a visit to Belvoir Castle for the celebration of its owner’s
birthday, was shown the bill of fare for the day, skilfully arranged by
an admirable _chef_, and on being asked whether there was anything else
that he fancied, replied, “Yes, a roast pig and an apple dumpling.”
Messengers were at once despatched in all directions, and at length a
pig was happily found, notwithstanding the season.
A wild boar’s head from the Black Forest would elevate the plainest
dinner into dignity, and the late King of Hanover was clearly of this
opinion, for he used to send one to each of his most esteemed friends in
England every Christmas; and it was a test of political consistency to
remain long upon his list, for “all who abandoned his Majesty’s somewhat
rigid creed of orthodoxy in Church and State were periodically weeded
out.”
Queen Victoria was most simple in her diet, luncheon being her favourite
meal, at which we are told a sirloin of beef and a boiled chicken
generally appeared on the bill of fare. Of Scotch cookery she was very
fond, and was even known to partake of the national dish of “haggis.”