_The Gastronomic Regenerator._--_The Modern Cook._--“Any body can dine,”
says the clever and profound author of the ‘Original,’ “but very few
know how to dine so as to ensure the greatest quantity of health and
enjoyment.” The pith and truth of this remark are unquestionable; and,
indeed, we know nothing more painful than that utter disregard of the
very first principles of gastronomic science evinced by so many
unprincipled and reckless individuals of the present day, who eat as
though the sole object of eating were to sustain life. Not that they
take the best means for accomplishing even that ignoble end. The rules,
whose observance renders eating a luxury and an art, also conduce in the
highest degree to health. Sacrifices to Ceres and Bacchus, in the very
act of the offering, should have a sweet fragrance in the nostrils of
Hygeia.
Who shall affix a boundary to the possible progress of an art? Let the
vulgar do so, who, struck by apparent perfection, conclude at once that
the force of genius “can no further go.” We assert fearlessly that the
limits of human creation and improvement are yet unknown. Least of all
are they to be defined with reference to that great art which has been
styled “the standard and gauge of human civilization,” and which
Montaigne, with less respect, denominated the _science de la gueule_.
Sceptics were they who, revelling at the table of Louis XIV in the
sauces of a Bechamel, or lingering at the board of the great Condé over
the _chefs d’œuvre_ of a Vatel--that illustrious martyr to a point of
culinary honour!--or inhaling gently and delicately, and degustating
slowly, and with marvellous discrimination, the exquisite and
quintessential results of the vigils of an Ude, who refused, in their
turns, to believe that the science professed by these great men could be
capable of improvement, or was susceptible of higher elevation. Alas!
have we not lived to vote the resources of all _perruque_ and _rococo_,
and to behold the precious laurels that wreathed the temples of the
culinary demigods of the 18th century, transferred by acclamation in the
19th to the mighty brows of a Carême and a Beauvilliers, a Soyer and a
Francatelli--great names every one--poetizers of the spit, philosophers
of the larder, sublime fire-worshippers, high priests of a kitchen
fuller than Druidical groves of deep and sacred mysteries?
The two bulky and important volumes before us are characteristic of the
distinguished artists to whom we own them. Written, the one by a
Frenchman, the other by an Englishman (for Mr. Francatelli, in spite of
his name, boasts of an Anglican origin), they differ greatly in form,
although in substance, as far as the uninitiated may judge, they are
equally excellent. The Modern Cook enters upon his task in a grave and
business-like fashion, never tempted into digression, never moved into
metaphor, ever keeping in view his main object, which, we an proud to
say, is eminently patriotic, for he seeks to elevate the character and
position of the English Cook, and to produce a work creditable to the
gastronomic knowledge of the nation. “The Gastronomic Regenerator” is a
different personage. He can afford to garnish his prose with the flowers
of fancy, as his material dishes are crowned with _croustades_ and
_atelettes_; he handles with equal ability the quill of Pegasus and the
larding-needle, and records with the former the achievements of the
latter, in a strain of enthusiasm and heroic sensibility that are not to
be surpassed even in the odes of a poet laureate. We confess at the
outset that there is much to marvel at in the recondite pages of the
Regenerator, but there is nothing to admire more than his matchless
modesty, his courteous urbanity, his devotion to the fair sex, and his
occasional touching and highly imaginative digressions.
“Why do you not write and publish a Cookery-book? was a question
continually put to me. For a considerable time this scientific word
caused a thrill of horror to pervade my frame, and brought back to my
mind that one day, being in a most superb library in the midst of a
splendid baronial hall, by chance I met with one of Milton’s allegorical
works, the profound ideas of Locke, the several _chefs d’œuvre_ of
one of the noblest champions of literature, Shakspeare; when all at
once my attention was attracted by the nineteenth edition of a
voluminous work: such an immense success of publication caused me to
say, ‘Oh! you celebrated man, posterity counts every hour of fame upon
your regretted ashes!’ Opening this work with intense curiosity, to my
great disappointment what did I see,--a receipt for Ox-tail Soup! The
terrifying effect produced upon me by this succulent volume made me
determine that my few ideas, whether culinary or domestic, should never
encumber a sanctuary which should be entirely devoted to works worthy of
a place in the Temple of the Muses.”
Why, then, great artist, transgress this noble resolution? Why commit a
desecration which, indeed, is no desecration, save to your own
pre-eminent and too fastidious judgment? Ah, shall we confess it? It is
the old story, familiar to the playgoing public, and to the printers of
playbills. “The particular desire of several persons of distinction,”
and especially of the ladies, to whose appeals M. Soyer Informs us he
could never turn a deaf ear, has dragged the sage from his retirement,
and compelled him to do violence to a settled conviction and a holy
purpose. Some idea of the sacrifice which M. Soyer was called upon to
make by the entreaties of the ladies and the distinguished individuals
adverted to, may be gathered from the history of the hero during the
composition of his work. For ten months he laboured at the pyramid which
the remotest posterity shall applaud; and during the whole of that
period he was intent upon providing the countless meals which a living
generation have already approved and fully digested. Talk of the labours
of a Prime Minister or Lord Chancellor! Sir R. Peel was not an idle man.
Lord Brougham is a tolerably busy one. Could either, we ask, in the
short space of ten months--ten “little months”--have written ‘The
Gastronomic Regenerator,’ and furnished 25,000 dinners, 38 banquets of
importance, comprising above 70,000 dishes, besides providing daily for
60 servants, and receiving the visits of 15,000 strangers, all too eager
to inspect the renowned altar of a great Apician temple? All this did M.
Soyer, and we back him for industry against even the indefatigable
Brougham.
That more than one of the 38 banquets were of the highest moment, and
must at the time have engrossed the mind of their accomplished author,
to the serious derangement of his literary avocations, admits of no
question the moment we peruse one bill of fare which M. Soyer places
before our dazzled and admiring eyes. A memorable dinner was given at
the Reform Club, upon the 9th day of May of the present year, to a
select party of ten highly-gifted connoisseurs; none of your
gobble-and-gulp people, who, in their melancholy ignorance, swallow a
_potage à la Comte de Paris_, or a _rissolette à la Pompadour_, with the
same frightful _nonchalance_ as a sailor will devour his pea-soup, or a
rustic bolt his bacon; but creatures of ethereal natures, devotees of
what the painters call “high art;” men who feed their bodies only to
give elasticity and vigour to their souls. The _Diner Lucullusian à la
Sampayo_ was ordered with a magnificent contempt of expense. No money
was to be spared in obtaining the most novel, luxurious, and rare
compounds that ingenuity could discover or gold procure. Stimulated by
the anxious and repeated visits of a noble-spirited, and judicious
guide, a Grove and a Jay, a Townsend and a Morel, a Slater and a
Solomon, surpassed themselves in the quality of the viands they
purveyed. One dish, the “_Buisson d’Ecrévisses Pagodatique au vin de
Champagne à la Sampayo_” cost something more than seven guineas--a
trifle! Two large bottles of Perigord truffles, value four guineas, were
stewed with the _écrévisses_ in champagne. We have no heart to proceed,
for “the author regrets that, in fulfilment of an agreement between him
and M. Sampayo, he is restricted from giving the receipt of crawfish _à
la Sampayo_.” Why was the dish mentioned at all, if the world is still
to be deprived of the receipt? The loss is a national one. Doubtless it
would have been very popular at the small clubs, and in great request
with gentlemen of limited incomes! But to return to the incomparable
dinner. There were _dotrelles aux feuilles de vignes_, and there was
_miroton de homard aux œufs de pluvier_, and there were many other
dishes, too, enough as you would think to crown the happiness of a cook,
and to satisfy the ambition of the proudest caterer in Christendom. You
know not cooks. At page 608 of ‘The Regenerator,’ the soft sigh of a
Soyer falls painfully upon the reader’s ear; and no wonder! A brilliant
thought--one of those superb inspirations, the property of great
minds--had occurred to our author during the procreation of this
matchless banquet. Mentioned by him to the mysterious and too exclusive
Sampayo and his friends, they caught with joy the idea. Two dozen of
ortolans and twelve of the largest and finest truffles were to be
procured, and in each of the latter a hole was to be dug, wherein one of
the unctuous and semi-transparent little volatiles was to be buried.
Yes, the delicate native of Provence gloriously interred in the choicest
production of Perigord; then must a piece of calf or lamb’s caul
(exquisite minuteness of description!) cover the aperture and shelter
the imprisoned bird; then was there to be braising in a gravy of fowls
and Lachrymæ Christi, poached forcemeat upon the dish, the truffles in
pyramid. Upon that, a _purée_ with the truffle that bad been dug out of
the graves, and a _garniture_ of roasted ortolans. Stupendous thought!
we have read of superior minds overcoming obstacles long deemed
insurmountable, and have gathered from the perusal strength for the
difficult struggle of life. Such strength find we here. “An ortolan,”
said Alexis Soyer, pondering on the difficult and self-appointed task,
“an ortolan can hardly be truffled, but I will undertake that a truffle
shall be ortolaned!” He might have added, “‘Tis not in mortals to
command success; we’ll do more, Sampayo, we’ll deserve it;” for great as
the Regenerator’s conception was, it was not destined to be realized.
The elements were unpropitious, and the ortolans did not arrive in time
from Paris, whence they had been ordered. This, however, was the only
failure. Everything else was to the turn, the minute. At seven o’clock
the Severn salmon arrived alive, and by express from Gloucester. Ten
minutes later it smoked upon the board. Happy Sampayo!--happier
guests!--immortal Soyer!
We turn to the pictorial portion of this notable book. After the
agreeable portrait of the author, which faces the title-page, the first
of the woodcuts that attracts attention is “The Table of the Wealthy,”
with the motto, “_Rien ne dispose mieux l’esprit humain à des
transactions amicales qu’un dîner bien conçu et artistement préparé_.” A
great maxim of diplomacy! How many treaties of peace and commerce have
owed their conclusion to the mollifying effects of a series of good
dinners! What numerous misunderstandings have been arranged and thorny
points happily settled, less by the wisdom of the ambassador than by the
ability of the ambassador’s cook! On a judiciously-compounded sauce, or
a _rôti cuit à point_, or the seasoning of a _salmi_, or the twirl of a
_casserole_, may depend the fate of a crowned head,--the marriage of a
prince,--the weal or woe of a nation. Is cookery, then, no art? Truly is
it--the highest, the noblest!
A second plate, “My Table at Home,” represents M. Soyer, in his
_foyers_, presiding over a select party assembled round his hospitable
and well-furnished board. Behold again the unrivalled gallantry of the
country, and the individual finding a vent in a poetic and touching
smile. “A gastronomical _réunion_, without ladies,” says the chief cook
of the Reform Club,” is a parterre without flowers, the ocean without
waves, a fleet without sails.”
Talking of fleets, let us pass on at once to the Turkey _à la Nelson_,
which deceased but much honoured bird is placed with its tail in the
prow of a Roman galley, duly provided with anchor, sail, and all fitting
appurtenances, and surmounted by fictitious ducklings, manufactured, as
we are informed, but should never have divined, of the legs of fowls.
Further on we have the _Gateau Britannique à l‘Amiral_, a comely
corvette of cake, coppered with chocolate, displaying wafer sails and
sugar rigging, tossing upon waves of _gelée à la Bacchante_,--her canvas
swelling to a favouring breeze,--her sides dripping with wine and
marmalade,--her interior, even to the hatchways, filled with such a
freight as none but Soyer could provide, and perfect _gourmets_
thoroughly appreciate. It is whispered that upon this gallant ship
Commodore Napier did fearful execution in the presence of his quondam
foe and present friend, Ibrahim Pacha, when that illustrious individual
dined with the Commodore at his club. Assaulting the craft with the
fierce impetuosity for which the hero of Acre is so renowned, and
thrusting his boarding-pike--his spoon we would say--deep into the hold
of the luscious craft, he destroyed in an instant Soyer’s labour of a
day. Timbers were stove in or out,--sails came down by the run,--masts
went by the board,--and all was wreck, where a second before all had
been symmetry and perfection.
Nothing that relates to the kitchen or the table has been neglected or
overlooked by the Regenerator. We have plans and drawings of kitchens of
every description, from the matchless establishments of the Reform Club,
with its ice drawers, slate wells, steam closets, _bains marie_, and
fifty other modern refinements, to the unpretending cooking-places of
the cottage or the bachelor. But perhaps the section of the book to be
chiefly prized by the general reader and indifferent gastronome, is the
short one relating to carving. Good carvers are almost as rare as good
tenor singers. The proper dissection of flesh and fowl is a matter of
high importance, rarely excelled in, but should be always studied. It is
an accomplishment almost as indispensable as reading and writing, and
quite as graceful. “If you should, unhappily,” says Launcelot Sturgeon,
in his Essays, Moral, Philosophical, and Stomachic, “be forced to carve
at table, neither labour at the joint till you put yourself in a heat,
nor make such a desperate effort to dissect it as may put your
neighbours in fear of their lives; however, if an accident should
happen, make no excuses, for they are only an acknowledgment of
awkwardness. We remember to have seen a man of high fashion deposit a
turkey in this way in the lap of a lady, but with admirable composure,
and without offering the slightest apology, he finished a story which he
was telling at the same time, and then quietly turning to her, merely
said, ‘Madam, I’ll thank you for that turkey.’” To those who may not
possess similar coolness, and the same stoical indifference to the fate
of ladies’ dresses and the results of ladies’ indignation, M. Soyer’s
improvements in carving are valuable indeed.
“Nature, says I to myself, compels us to dine more or less once a day;
each of those days you are, honorable reader, subject to meet en
_tête-à-tête_ with a fowl, poularde, duck, pheasant, or other volatile
species; is it not bad enough to have sacrificed the lives of those
_amimaus bienfaisans_ to satisfy our indefatigable appetites, without
pulling and tearing to atoms the remains of our benefactors? it is high
time for the credit of humanity and the comfort of quiet families, to
put an end to the massacre of those innocents.”
Incomparable benevolence! Tenderest commiseration! Perfect humanity! “We
will be sacrificers, not butchers, Caius Cassius.” The philanthropic
progress of the century has reached the kitchen, and animal love is most
intense in the vicinity of the stockpot. What would the kitchen of the
Reform Club be without humanity and the liberal sentiments? No more will
barbarous cooks be haunted by horrid visons of the night! Incipient
porkers shall no longer pine away their sweetness, and strive to toughen
their crackling in anticipation of a final flagellation. Eels shall no
longer be required to give up their skins before their ghosts, and some
humaner process than a surfeit of food, a deprivation of drink, and a
gradual roasting near a scorching fire, will, let us hope, be
discovered, to give to the livers of ducks that glorious expansion and
pinguid richness so much appreciated by the epicure. We will not despair
of witnessing, under the dominion of M. Soyer, the introduction and use
of some instrument analogous to the guillotine, which by a stroke shall
do its deadly necessary work: nay, might not advances lately made in
Mesmerism be turned to good account in procuring painless death to those
whom the feeling Soyer so beautifully calls our “benefactors?” A goose,
in a state of coma, would be uncognizant of the penknife that divides
its jugular; calves and sheep properly subjected to the action of the
magnetic fluid would pass from life into the larder without a struggle
or a groan. But to carving! For joints, our author gives most lucid
directions, which, if properly studied, cannot fail to convert the
merest tyro into an admirable carver. For game and poultry he has done
more. He has invented an instrument, to be had at Bramah’s, in
Piccadilly, and with which printed directions are given, by the aid of
which the joints of birds are severed without the smallest detriment to
their good looks. “Formerly,” he says, “nothing was more difficult to
carve than wild fowl, the continual motion (when alive) of the wings and
legs making the sinews almost as tough as wires, puzzling the best of
carvers to separate them; my new method has quite abolished such a
domestic tribulation.” For which, as well as for the many other benefits
conferred by him upon the human race and the brute creation, we beg to
reiterate our humble hearty thanks to the talented author of ‘The
Gastronomic Regenerator.’