[Illustration]
HOST AND GUEST.
[Illustration]
“Come, pilgrim, I will bring you where you shall host.”
_All’s Well that Ends Well._
“Epicurean cooks, sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite.”
_Antony and Cleopatra._
“El que solo se come su gallo,
Solo ensilla su caballo.”
_Spanish Proverb._
“He who eats his fowl alone, will have to saddle his horse alone.”
“Tres mihi convivæ prope dissentire videntur,
Poscentes vario multum diversa palato.
Quid dem? quid non dem?”
HORACE.
_HOST AND GUEST._
A
BOOK ABOUT DINNERS,
DINNER-GIVING, WINES,
AND DESSERTS.
BY A. V. KIRWAN,
OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, ESQ.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
BELL AND DALDY, YORK STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
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PREFACE.
There is no want of cookery books in the principal languages of Europe,
and least of all in the English language, in which, even in our own
generation, several hundreds have been compiled and published. This
volume, however, is not a cookery book, nor what the French call a
_dispensaire_. It is a household book on the subject of Dinners,
Desserts, Wines, Liqueurs, and on foods in general; and is the result
of reading, observation, and a great deal of experience in foreign
countries. I have been myself, during a life now nearly prolonged to
threescore years, a diner out of some magnitude, and, as far as my
means allowed, a giver of dinners; and have often when younger and less
experienced, felt the want, and have heard my friends express their
sense of the want, of some work of the kind now first presented, so far
as I am aware, in an English dress.
Born in a country house--a messuage producing, to use a legal phrase,
within the curtilage, beef, mutton, fruits, and vegetables--I have
ventured to speak of the choice and quality of these good things from
an early and practical acquaintance with the subject. So much needs to
be said on a matter on which all are eloquent, though few agreeable--I
mean self. It is necessary to state that it is not from reading, but
actual practical experience, that I have learned all about the farm,
the garden, and the poultry-yard.
There are several works of a cognate character to this in Latin and
French, and some in Italian and Spanish. But these are scarce, costly,
old, and obsolete. Few are acquainted with the treatises of Nonnius,
Taillevant, cook to Charles VII., Champier, physician to Francis I.,
Bélon, Patin, Charles Etienne, Lémery, La Varenne, Schookius, Le Grand,
De Serres, and L’Etoile, some of them written in indifferent Latin,
and others in old French. I have extracted from these works a good
deal curious, and something valuable in the choice and preparation of
foods. I have endeavoured to show how the traditions of cookery have
occasionally survived codes and constitutions, and how these traditions
have been, in turn, occasionally set aside and overturned by some
new culinary fashion. The work presented to the reader is therefore,
in certain parts, historical, anecdotical, gossipping, and somewhat
discursive; but the main object of the author has been to induce well
informed and sensible people in England to adopt all that is good in
the excellent cookery, and agreeable and social life of our neighbours
of France, without in any wise abandoning the best of our British
customs, or the simplicity of our substantial food.
It is not for the author to say in how far he has succeeded. That
he leaves to the judgment, and they are a great majority, of those
who criticise in a fair and candid spirit. All, however, who affect
to criticise are not candid; but it may be said of a critic who
deliberately misrepresents a work, that he is unworthy of his vocation,
and as heinously criminal as the man who in social or commercial life
gives a false character of a servant, or a false warranty of goods or
merchandise.
73, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, W.
_March 1, 1864._
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.--ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL COOKERY COMPARED
WITH THE COOKERY OF THE LAST HALF CENTURY.
Garum--Pilau seasoned with garum, 2. The Feast of Trimalchio
in Petronius, 2. Macrobius’s description of a supper given by
Lentulus, 2. Hedge hogs, raw oysters, and asparagus, and purple
shell-fish, 2. Panes picences, 2. Greeks and Romans children
in preparation of viands, 3. Carème’s opinion, 3. Cookery a
practical art, 3. Characteristics of ancient and modern cookery,
4. The Monks, 4. Spanish cookery book of Ruberto de Nola, 4. Leo
X., Raphael, Guido, Baccio, Bandinelli, and John of Bologna,
5. Italian wars under Charles VIII. and Louis XII., 5. Cookery
under Henry III. became Italian, 6. Cookery under Henry IV., 6.
The cabaret, 7. Maître queux cuisiniers porte-chapes, 7. First
regular cookery book in France printed in 1692, 7. The “Dons
de Comus,” 9. Preface written by Father Brumoy, 9. Brumoy’s
comparison between ancient and modern cookery, 10. Idea of a
perfect cook, 10. “Lettre d’un Pâtissier Anglais,” 11. Mrs.
Rundell, 12. “La Science du Maître d’Hôtel Cuisinier,” 12.
Carème, 13. Molière, 13. St. Evremond, 14. Lavardin, 15. The
Regent Orleans, 15. The Duchess of Berri, 15. Filets de volaille
à la Bellevue, 16. Poulets à la Villeroy, 16. Chartreuse à
la Mauconseil, 16. Vol au vent à la Nesle, 16. Poularde à
la Montmorency, 16. Louis XV., 17. Marquis de Béchamel, 18.
Marshals Richelieu and Duras, Duke of La Vallière, the Marquis
de Brancas, and Count de Tessé, 18. Consumption of pheasants in
the kitchens of the Prince de Condé, 18. Louis XVI., 19. His
enormous appetite, 19. Effects of Revolution on cookery, 19.
Cardinal Caraffa, 20. Montaigne, 20. Restaurants, 21. Suppers
of Madame du Deffand, 22. Dinners of D’Holbach, 22. Pic-nics of
Crawford of Auchinames, 22. The epicure Barras, 23. Danton’s love
of morels, 23. Barras’ love of button mushrooms, 23. Napoleon’s
dinners, 23. M. de Bausset, M. de Cussy, Cambacères, Talleyrand,
25. The “Almanach des Gourmands,” 26. Purge your cooks, 28. Frog
dressing at Riom, 28. Veal of Pontoise, 29. Gastaldy and the
salmon, 29. Flesh killed by electricity, 30. Asses’ flesh, 30.
White grease of the fig-pecker, 31. Beauvilliers, 31. Brillat
Savarin, 31. Consumption of turkeys, 32. The Archbishop of
Bordeaux and truffled turkeys, 33. The “Cuisinière Bourgeoise,”
33. Fauche Borel, 33. “Cuisinier Royal,” 33. Shakespeare, Age
of Elizabeth, 34. Age of Anne, Wycherly, Vanbrugh, Congreve,
Pope, 34. Foote’s farce, 35. Bills of fare in Pope’s day, 36. The
“Queen’s Closet Opened,” 36. The “Treasure of Hidden Secrets,”
37. The “Gentleman’s Companion;” Dr. Hill, “Mrs. Glasse,” 37. The
“Connoisseur,” 39. White’s, Pontacs’, Dolly’s and Horsman’s, 39.
The “Art of Cookery,” by a lady, 39. The “Epicure’s Almanack,”
40. The “Cook and Confectioner’s Dictionary,” 40. Mrs. Dalgairns,
40. Scott’s “Dictionary of Cookery,” Kitchener’s “Cook’s Oracle,”
41. The “Housekeeper’s Oracle,” 41. Ude, 42. Walker’s “Original,”
42. “Domestic Cookery,” by a lady, 45. Carème, 47. Turtle soup,
48. Cookery of England and France, 50.
CHAPTER II.--ON MODERN COOKERY AND COOKERY BOOKS.
The object of sensible people should be to adopt all that is good
in the cookery of France, 61. French potages and purées, 61. The
gigot à l’ail aux haricots, 62. The filet de bœuf, 62. Vatel, La
Chapelle, Grimod de la Reynière, Beauvilliers, Ude, Laguipierre,
Carème, and Plumeret, 65.
CHAPTER III.--ON DINNERS AND DINNER-GIVING.
Jules Janin, 66. Dr. Johnson, 66. Sydney Smith, 67. Apicius, 67.
Nonnius, 67. Lémery, 68. Dr. Lister, 68. Dr. Kitchener, 68. Drs.
Pereira and Lankester, 68. London dinners, 69. The finer cuisine
bourgeoise of Paris, 69. The majority of Frenchmen thrifty, 70.
Bankers’ and financiers’ dinners, 70. French punctuality, 72. The
London season, 73. Difference between grand dinners in England
and France, 74. Pretentious and costly rivalry in dinners, 76.
Hints to dinner-givers, 78. Number of a company, 79. Expensive
cookery, 81. The pot-au-feu, 82. Carème’s consommés, 82.
French sauces, 82. Soles à la Normande, 82. Omelette aux fines
herbes, 82. Choice of company, 84. Italian cookery, ices, and
confectionery, 85. Spanish and German cookery, 85. Dutch cookery,
88. Dutch eel soup, 88. Flushing soup, 88. Russian cookery, 89.
Turkish and Indian cookery, 89.
CHAPTER IV.--ON LAYING OUT A TABLE.
Dinners à la Russe, 91. Two and three courses, 94, 95. The dessert,
97. Memorandum as to dinners, 97.
CHAPTER V.--HOW TO CHOOSE FISH, FLESH, FOWL, AND GAME.
Salmon in and out of season, 98. How to choose various fish, 98–109.
How to choose venison, 109. Mutton, 111. Lamb, veal, and
pork, 112, 113. Bacon and hams, 114, 115. Poultry, game, eggs,
cheese, and butter, 115–122.
CHAPTER VI.--ON SOUPS AND BROTHS.
Grand bouillon, 124. Rules for making nourishing broth, 125.
How to make a stock-pot, 126. Celery to flavour soup, 129. Broth,
130. The great English soups and broths, 131. Carème and turtle
soup, 133. Stocks for white soup, 133. French soups, 134. Purée
à la Reine, des carottes au riz, de lapins, à la Chantilly, &c., 134.
Soup for winter and spring months, 135.
CHAPTER VII.--HOW TO CLEAN AND BOIL FISH.
To clean cod-fish, 137. Pilchards, mackerel, and plaice, 138. Red
mullets, skate, and ling, 139. On boiling fish, 143, 144.
CHAPTER VIII.--ON FISH.
Fish naturally most voracious, 145. As a diet wholesome and
palatable, 146. Fish rarely served as an entrée in England,
146. Various ways of serving turbot in France, 146–7. Turbot of
Mediterranean, 148. Sturgeon, 148. Caviare, 149. French modes of
dressing sturgeon, 149. Modes of dressing sturgeon in England,
149. Sturgeon à la Napoleon, according to Carème, 150. American
sturgeon soup, 150. Salmon, 151. French mode of dressing salmon,
151. Nonnius on salmon, 152. Cod-fish, 152. Galen on haddock,
152. Nonnius and Pliny on haddock, 152. The sole, 153. French
modes of dressing, 153. Red mullet, 154. Red mullet en caisse,
and à la Cardinale, 154. John Dory and lamprey, 154. Quin, the
actor, 154. Receipts for dressing lamprey, 155. The Reformation
and fish diet, 155. Carème on lenten diet and Murat’s kitchen,
155. Fish dinners in Paris, 157. Dinner at the Rocher de Cancale,
1828, 157. Wine at 14 frs. and 25 frs. the bottle, 158–9.
CHAPTER IX.--THE ROAST.
Definition of roast, 160. Rôtisseries, 161. Rôtisseurs, 161. The
traiteur, 161. The cuisinier traiteur, 161. The maître cuisiniers,
162. The art of roasting, 162. The best joint for roasting, 163. Doing
to a turn, 164. Good roasters rarer than good cooks, 164. Great and
little roast, 164. English, roasting, 165. Our game finer than the
French, 165. Swift’s lines on mutton, 166. Rules for roasting pork,
lamb, veal, and poultry, 167. Table of time for roasting, 169.
CHAPTER X.--BOILING.
Rule as to boiling, 170. Advantage of slow boiling, 172. Time required
to boil poultry, 173. Frying, 173.
CHAPTER XI.--POULTRY.
Definition of poultry, 174. Requisites in a poultry yard, 174. Best
modes of feeding and cramming poultry, 175. Wholesomeness of poultry,
175. Lémery on fowls and capons, 176–7. How the fine flavour
is given to the poularde du Mans, 178. The barn-door fowl described by
Berchoux, 179. Roast and boiled fowl and turkey, 180. Ways of
serving fowls and turkeys in France, 180. Entrées of fowl in France,
180–1. Schools of cookery, 181. Christmas consumption of turkeys
in England and France, 181. Truffles with turkey, 181. Chaptal
on fowls, 182. Pros and cons for a dinde aux truffes, 182. Were
turkeys known to the ancients? 183. Madame de Sévigné on capons,
183. The crammer of fowls an officer of the royal household, 184.
Blackbirds and thrushes, 184.
CHAPTER XII.--GAME AND PASTRY.
Definition of game, 186. Keeper and taker of pheasants, 186.
Swanherd, 186. 17 Hen. VIII., falconry, 187. Cookery Book of
Taillevant, cook to Charles VII.; receipts for dressing herons,
187. Vultures, eagles, and falcons, eaten three centuries ago,
188. Game in Spain, partridges à la Medina Cœli, 189. Sautés,
filets, and recondite modes of dressing game in France, 190.
Filets and cutlets of hare and rabbit, 191. Pastry and cold
entrées, 191. Carème on pastry, 192. Suggestions as to patties
and pastry, 193. Pâtisserie, 194. Larks of Pithiviers, 194.
Partridges of Perigueux, 194. Poulardes of Angers, 194. Foies
gras of Versailles, 194. Foies d’oies of Strasbourg and Toulouse,
194. The Chancellor de l’Hôpital on petits pâtés, 194.
CHAPTER XIII.--CHEESE AND SALADS.
Soft and rich cheeses the best, 196. Stilton and Gruyère, 196. Best
English cheeses, 196. Best cheeses in France, 198. Roquefort, 198.
Gruyère, 198. Italian cheeses introduced into France in the reign of
Charles VIII., 199.
CHAPTER XIV.--ON SALAD.
John Evelyn “On Salets,” 202. Fournitures of salads, 202. Chicorée,
203. Winter salads, 203. Roman or Coss lettuce, 204. Hotchpotch
salads, 204. Salade à l’italienne, 204. Carème’s salade de poulets
à la Reine, 204. Wine vinegar to be used for salads, 206. Chaptal’s
receipt for dressing salad, 206. Sydney Smith’s ditto, 206–7. Spanish
proverb as to salad, 207. D’Albignac a famous salad-dresser, 208.
Eleven salads of the time of Champier, 210–11. Dr. Roques’ salad of
asparagus, 211. Quickness with which asparagus may be cooked, 211.
Napoleon’s salad of haricots de soissons, 212.
CHAPTER XV.--THE DESSERT.
Carème’s opinion of dessert, 213. La Chapelle’s opinion of
dessert, 214. Forced cherries sent from Poitevins, in 1560, to
Paris, 215. La Quintinié, head gardener of Louis XIV., served
strawberries in March, peas in April, and figs in June, 215.
Preserved pines at dessert in Paris, in 1694, 215. Italian
liqueur prepared from the pine, 215. Dates, 216. Tunisian
dates the best, 216. Oranges, 216. Fondness of Louis XIV. for,
216. Portuguese oranges, 217. Sweet citron, carried by ladies,
to produce red lips, 217. Figs common at dessert in France
270 years ago, 217. Fig-trees placed in wooden boxes by the
gardener of Louis XIV., 218. Figs at Worthing and Hampton Court,
218. Pomegranates, 218. Chestnuts, 219. Madame de Sévigné on
chestnuts, 219. Cherries, 220. Apricots, 220. The reine claude,
or greengage, 221. The peaches of Corbeil, of Troyes and,
Dauphiné, 222. Pêches de vigne, 223. Abricots en plein vent,
223. The New-town pippin, 223. Golden pippin, 223. The paradis
de Provence, 223. The capendu, 223. Pears and their different
species, 224. Gooseberries, 224–5. The chasselas of Fontainbleau,
and other grapes, 225. Strawberries and their varieties, 226.
Trois mendiants, 227. Olives of Provence and Languedoc, 227.
Gingerbread, 228. The drageoir, 229. Brandied fruits and
compotes, 229. Brillat Savarin on the dessert, 230. Melon eaten
with bouilli, 231. Madame de Sévigné on melons, 232.
CHAPTER XVI.--ON ICES.
Ices, 233. Turks had glacières in 1553, 233. Henry III. first
introduced ice, 233.
CHAPTER XVII.--COFFEE.
Coffee, 235. Drank in Paris in 1657, 235. Praises of coffee by
Rousseau, Buffon, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Delille, and Lebrun,
236. The retreat from Russia and coffee, 237. Twining’s coffee,
238. Brillat Savarin on pounded and ground coffee, 238. The
best coffee in Paris, though the finest qualities in the London
market, 240. Modes of making coffee, 241–3. Coffee sweetmeats,
242. Dr. Roques’ café à la creme frappé de glace, 243. Coffee
should be hot, clear, and strong, 244. Tea, 244.
CHAPTER XVIII.--ON DIFFERENT LIQUEURS, RATAFIAS, AND
ELIXIRS, TAKEN AFTER COFFEE.
Liqueurs, 245. Alkermes and rossolis, 245. Liqueurs of Batavia’,
Jamaica, Martinique, and Montpelier, 246. Ratafias; absinthe,
noyau, and curaçoa, 246. Eau d’or and eau de vie de Dantzic,
247. Patin on rossolis, 248. Madame Théanges and liqueurs, 248.
La fenouillette and other lawful liqueurs, 249. Liqueurs of
Montpelier and Lorraine, 249. Lémery on black currant ratafia,
250. Liqueurs of French West Indies, 251. L’huile de Venus, 252.
Cinnamon water, crême de girofle, curaçoa, usquebaugh, &c.,
253. Eau cordiale of Colladon, 254. Eau de vie d’Andaye, 254.
Eau divine, cordiale du chasseur nuptiale, 257. Anisette and
absinthe, 257. Cherry bounce, rum and pine-apple shrub, 257.
Petit lait de Henri IV., l’eau des braves, l’huile de Vénus,
le parfait amour, l’eau virginale, &c., 259. Adulterations of
liqueurs, 260. German liqueurs; Pomeranzen, Wackholder, Kummel,
&c., 260–61. Jean de Milan on liqueurs, 262. Famous cities for
liqueurs in France, 262.
CHAPTER XIX.--ALE, BEER, CIDER, AND PERRY.
Bass’s, Allsopp’s, and Guinness’s ale and stout, 263. Cider, its
origin and history, 264. Cocky Gee, 265. Perry and hydromel,
266. Different kinds of beer, 267. The zythus and curmi of the
Egyptians, 267. Fifteen hundred years ago the Parisians commenced
with beer, and finished with wine, 268. The descent from wine
to beer in France, 270. The French beer called godale, 271. The
beer of Cambrai, of Bavaria, of Berlin, and of Brussels, 272.
Beer should be light, brisk, and sparkling, 273. Forty brewers in
Paris 120 years ago, 273. Seventy years ago but twenty-three, of
whom Santerre the most celebrated, 273. Epitaph on Santerre, 273.
English and Scotch brewers flocked to Paris at the peace in 1815,
273. In seasons of dearth Paris brewers forbidden to make beer,
274.
CHAPTER XX.--ON WINES, ANCIENT AND MODERN.
Lord Bacon, Bacci, Barry, Redding, Shaw, and Denman on wines,
275, 276. Hippocrates on vinous mixtures, 276. Plato and Homer’s
praises of wine, 277. Virgil, Pliny, and Columella on wines,
278. The Setine wine commended by Martial, Juvenal, and Silius
Italiens, 278. Sand, powdered marble, and salt water added to
ancient wines, 279. Cato’s receipt for artificial Chian and
Falernian, 279. The Cæcuban, 280. The Falernian, 280. Galen and
Martial on Falernian, 280. Virgil on the vinum Rhæticum, 281.
The lighter wines of the Roman territory, 281. The earliest
Greek wines, 281. The Thrasian and Cretan wines, 282. Greeks
familiar with Asiatic and African wines, 282. Greeks drank wine
diluted with water, 282. Athenæus on the πεντε και δυο, 283. The
Greeks had casks, 283. Gauls knew the use of wine six centuries
before Christianity was introduced, 283. Athenæus calls the
wine of Marseilles good, 286. The Allobroges mixed pitch with
wine, 286. Dioscorides says pitch is a necessary ingredient in
Gaulish wine, 286. Secret as to the Bordelais wine, 287. The
Marseillaise boiled their wine, 287. Horace and Tibullus on
the smoking of wine, 288. Baccius on the wines of Alsace, 288.
Domitian publishes an order for rooting up one half of the vines
in some provinces, and for destroying them in others, 289. This
order abrogated by Probus, 289. The Roman legions spread in Gaul
employed in replanting the vine, 289. The Salique law, and law
of the Visigoths, as to the cutting of the vine and stealing
grapes, 290. Vine property regarded as sacred, 290. Tribute
decreed by Chilperic, 290. Massacre of the officer who was to
levy the tribute, 290. Passion for the culture of the vine among
French kings, 290. Wine-presses and utensils for making wine in
all the palaces, 290. Charlemagne and his Capitularies, 290.
The Louvre enclosed vineyards within its precincts, 290. “La
Bataille des Vins,” a fabliau of the thirteenth century, 291.
Philip Augustus had vineyards in many districts of France, 291.
Wines of Guyenne sold in Flanders and England, 291. Matthew
Paris, on the sale of Gascony wine in England, 292. Froissart on
the number of merchantmen that arrived at Bordeaux from England,
A.D. 1372, 292. Champier as to the consumption of French wine
and corn in England, 292. Charles IX. proscribed the vine in
1566, 292. His ordonnance respecting it, 293. In 1577 Henry III.
modifies this ordonnance, 293. Louis XV, in 1731, forbade any new
plantation of vines, 293. Origin of the expression, vendre à pot,
293. Adulterations 1800 years ago as frequent as now, 294. The
ancients understood the maturing of wines, 294. Customs survive
forms of polity and government, 294. Identity of the amphoræ to
vessels in present use at Asti, Montepulciano, and Montefiascone,
295. Use of casks unknown to Greeks and Romans, 295. Romans
employed glass, but a rude glass, 296. Invention of casks due to
the Gauls, 296. Ordonnance of Charlemagne as to employment of
barrels, 297. The άβαξ or abacus, 297. Misquotation of Barry as
to abaci, 297. The ancients had servants like our butlers, 297.
Business of the οἱνοπτης, 298. The cup-bearer and pourer out of
wine, 298. Cicero’s description of a supper, &c., 298–9. Deep
drinkers of a congius or gallon, 299. Cooling of wine by snow not
a modern invention, 299. Pliny ascribes it to Nero, 299. Drinking
of healths to absent friends, 299. Extract from Henderson as to
the manner of pledging friends and drinking healths, 300. Analogy
between the French and Greeks as to mixing wine and water,
300. The vin d’entremets; the wine for oysters and roast meat,
300. The coup-d’avant and du milieu, 300. The coup du milieu,
according to the “Manuel des Amphitryons,” 301. Wormwood, Jamaica
rum, or old cognac used for it, 301. Practice at Bordeaux in
this respect, 301. The coup-d’avant used in Russia, Sweden, and
Germany, 302. The coup-d’apres, what, 302. Wine used for it, 302.
Wine cellars of the ancients, 303. Precautions as to cellar,
303. Women forbidden to enter the cellars of the ancients, 303.
Principles of the ancients as to cellars, 303. An ante-cellar
advisable, 304. Salt used in cellars, 305. The ancients more
effectually preserved their wines than the moderns, 305. Wine
better tasted in quarts than in pints, 305. Ancient rules for
site of cellars, and on time for tasting and racking, still
sanctioned by practice, 305. Wine of middle age best and most
grateful, 305. Fancy prices paid for old wines, 306. No one
obliged to drink on compulsion among the ancients, 306. Irish
practice, 306. Some ancient sages great bibbers, but unexcited,
306. Cyrus a larger drinker than Artaxerxes, and therefore, in
his own thinking, worthier of the crown, 306. Darius’s capacity
of drinking, 307. Hippocrates rarely directs water, but almost
invariably wine mixed with water, 307. Cornaro before and after a
new vintage, 307. His plan of preserving his health, 308. Effect
of fresh sugar-canes on mules, 308. Pitching ancient and modern
wines, 308. Monster puncheons in Latium and Germany, 309–10.
The French constructed their wine-vats in brick or stone, 310.
Pierre de Blois’s denunciation of the luxury of the twelfth
century, 310. Repast of Philippe de Valois and his leathern
bottles, 311. Wine supplied by a miracle, 311. The tanners of
Amiens obliged to furnish the bishop with two leathern bottles,
312. The derivation of the word bottle, 312. The name afterwards
applied to decanters, 312. Charles VI., according to Froissart,
was supplied with wine out of leathern bottles, 312. Gregory of
Tours speaks of the wines of Maçon, Orleans, Cahors, and Dijon,
313. Wines of Rheims and Marne mentioned in a letter of Pandulus,
313. Henry I. and the wine of Rébréchien, 313. Louis le Jeune
and the wine of Orleans, 313. Wines of Auxerre, Beaune, &c.,
314. Wine of Chabli, Epernai, Rheims, &c., 314. The popes drank
Beaune at Avignon, 314. The queen of Louis XII. sent Beaune to
the ambassadors of the Emperor Maximilian at Blois, 314. Caprice
in the estimate of wine, 315. Wine of Romanée Conti, 315. Wine of
Mantes carried to Persia uninjured, 316. Burgundy and Champagne
in the fifteenth century, 316. Leo X., Charles V., Francis I.,
and Henry VIII., had vineyards in Champagne, 316. Erasmus and
Burgundy wine, 316. Champier on the excellence of French wines,
317. Rabelais vaunts Auxerre wine, 317. Canteperdrix wine, 317.
This wine sent to Rome for the pope, 317. Canteperdrix wine
now known as the vin de Beaucaire, 317. Favourite beverage of
Henry IV., 318. Paumier on the colours of wine, 318. Wines of
Château Thierry gout producing, 319. Gout does not come from
Champagne, 319. Baccius on the wines of France, 319–20. Paumier
on the wines of Paris, 320. Liebaut and Patin on wines, 320. The
vin de Condrieux, 321. The manner of making Orleans wines, 321.
Boileau on the wine of Orleans, 322. Vin de Grave, mentioned in
1550, 322. Why the wine is called Grave, 323. The Haut-Brion,
323. Hermitage, 323. Hermitage of Lord Castlereagh, afterwards
Marquis of Londonderry, 323. Hermitage divided into five classes,
323. Prices of Hermitage, 324. How the Burgundy wines got their
reputation, 325. The vin de Tonnerre, 325. The Abbé de Marolles’
list of Burgundy wines, 325. The wine of Olivotte, 326. The vin
de Chablis for oysters, 326. Vin de Pouilly and Bucellas good
with oysters, 326. Difficulty of transporting Burgundy, 327.
Extent of Burgundy vineyards, 328. Arthur Young on the vineyards,
328. Mr. James Busby on the Burgundy vineyards, 329. Clos
Vougeot, 329. The late notorious Ouvrard, 330. Père Perignon and
the wines of Hautvilliers, 330. Sparkling Burgundy and Moselle,
330. The vin de Nuits, 330. The St. George, Meursalt, and Mont
Rachet, 331. Volnay the finest wine in Barry’s time, 331. The vin
de Beaune, 331. The vin de Pomard, 332. Chambertin the wine of
Napoleon, 332. The Romanée Conti, 333. The Maçon and Beaujolais
wines, 334. Maçon a wholesome wine, 335. Adulterated at Paris,
335. Burgundy not to be iced, 335. Burgundy at the roast, 336.
Champagne wine, 337. Dispute, in the time of Louis XIV., between
the Burgundy doctor and the Champenois, 337. Fagon forbid the
use of Champagne to Louis XIV., 337. Opinion of the faculty of
the town of Rheims, 337. Colbert, a Champenois, but he did not
give renown to the wines, 338. Francis I., Leo. X., Charles V.,
and Henry VIII. had vineyards at Aï, 338. Volnay drank at the
coronation of Sobieski, 338. Beaune served at Venice to the
senators after the conquest of the Morea, 338. St. Evremond on
Champagne wine, 338. Champagne used in putrid fevers, 339.
Millions of worthless Champagne sold at two francs and three
francs the bottle, 340. Dr. Henderson on Champagne, 340. The
briskest Champagne not the best, 340. Crêmants and demi-mousseux
wines, 341. Sillery Champagne, 341. Vin de la Maréchale, 342.
The rich, dry Sillery, 342. Champagne not a vin de garde,
342. Old Champagne, 343. Jaquesson’s cellars, 343. Champagne
always improved by ice, 343. Jullien on the high price of the
vins mousseux, 344. How to obtain a first-rate Champagne, 345.
Hundreds of thousands of bottles of Champagne at the docks are
not worth the duty, 345. When the bottling of Champagne begins,
345. Vins grand mousseux, 346. Precautions in packing Champagne
for exportation, 346. Champagne for India and America packed in
salt, 346. Burgundies so packed preserve their qualities, 347.
Claret, 347. Château Margaux and Château Lafitte, 348. Monton
and Léoville, 348. Kirwan and Château d’Issau, 348. St. Julien,
Béchevelle and St. Pierre, 348. Great management in Bordeaux
cellars, 349. Brandy ought to be put in in very small quantities,
349. Extract from Davies’ work on colouring Claret, 350. A freer
exchange of the vinous wealth of France with England desirable,
351. Difference in price between first and inferior wines, 352.
Mixture of Benicarlo and other wines with claret, 353. The age
of wine at Bordeaux counted par feuilles, 353. What Barry wrote
ninety years ago on Claret wines, 353. Names of the proprietors
of vineyards and factors, 110 years ago, 354. Irish Claret and
Irish wine merchants, 355. The Bordeaux wines celebrated in the
days of Ausonius, 355. A great proportion of the wine drank as
Claret is vin ordinaire, 355. Definition of the word Claret,
356. The Côte Rôti, 356–7. Hermitage and its division into five
classes, 357. White Hermitage of the late Lord Castlereagh, 357.
Hermitage of the late Marquis of Wellesley, 358. The cost of
wine cultivation in France immense, 359. The German wines, their
general character and durability, 359. Price of Rüdesheim, 359.
In Barry’s day the best old Hock sold at 50l. the auhm, 360.
Marcobrunner, Rüdesheimer and Niersteiner, 360. Julius Hospitalis
and Liesteinwein wines, 360. Spanish wines, 360–1. Cellars and
stock of Gordon and Co. of Cadiz, 361. Amontillado, 361. Port
and Madeira, 362. The Italian wines, 362. The wines of Hungary,
362. The Greek wines over-rated, 363. The Constantia wine of
the Cape, 363. The Russian Champagne, 363. The New South Wales
wines, 363. New vintages, 364. Advice as to purchase and stock of
wines, 365. Good and low-priced wine a myth, 366. Prices of wines
at sales in Edinburgh and Dublin, 366. Prices of Amontillado,
Montilla, and Manzinilla, 366. Fabulous prices given for old
Ports and Sherries, 366. First-rate Clarets rising in price,
367. Burgundies, 367. Dietetic qualités of wine, 367. The best
Burgundies and Champagnes, 368. The best Bordeaux wines, 368. Red
Constantin and Frontignan, 369. Consumption of Champagne doubled
in England since 1848, 369.
CHAPTER XXI.--THE CELLAR FOR WINES.
The cellar for wines, 370. Requisites of a wine-cellar, 370.
Lighter wines require a colder cellar than strong, 371.
APPENDIX.
Luxuries of the table in France and England in mediæval and
modern times, 373. Menu of a dinner given by Mathieu Molé, in
1652, 375. Menu of a supper of the Regent Orleans, 376. Menu of a
supper of Louis XV., 377. Carte dinatoire of the citizen General
Barras, 378. Menu of the family Buonaparte at the Tuileries on
Samedi Saint, 1811, 379. Bill of fare of the first dinner of
Louis XVIII. at Compiègne, 380. Bill of fare of a dinner given by
the Emperor Alexander on 11th September, 1815, 382. Bill of fare
of the first diplomatic dinner of the Duke of Wellington in 1815,
383. Menu of a royal banquet given at the Tuileries by Louis
XVIII. on Twelfth-day, 1820, 384. Bill of fare, 385. Luxuries in
the days of Queen Mary, 385. Common Council’s regulation as to
dinners, 385. Regulations for the aldermen, sheriffs, and city
corporation, 386. City venison feasts in time of Elizabeth, 386.
Letter of the Lord Mayor and aldermen to Lord Burleigh, 386. The
reign of Queen Anne the golden age of cookery, 386. Dr. King’s
“Art of Cookery,” 386. Sir John Hill, M.D., 386. The great Lord
Chesterfield, 386. La Chapelle his cook, 386. Cookery book of
La Chapelle, 386. Lord Chesterfield sitting on a chair outside
Chesterfield House, 387. Bill of fare of official dinner of Lord
Chesterfield, 387. Bill of fare of a supper of Lord Chesterfield,
389. The French emigrants in London, 390. Entertainments given
to the French royal family by the Marquis of Buckingham and
Earl of Moira, 390. Reception of the Count de Lille at Stowe,
390. Stowe, a scene of great festivity in 1805 and 1808, 390.
Bill of fare of Christmas-dinner in 1808, given by the Duke of
Buckingham to Louis XVIII, 391. The Prince Regent’s love of
French cookery, 392. Bill of fare for the coronation banquet of
George IV, 392. Bill of fare for a private dinner given at the
Pavilion, Brighton, in 1817, 393. Bills of fare for dinners in
January, April, May, and June, also for a dinner in plain English
fashion, 395. Anthony Carème, 396. Mr. Wm. Hall’s panegyric on
Carème, 398. Autobiography of Carème, 399 to 406. Fête given at
the Elysée for the marriage of Prince Jerome, 406. New invention
of Carème, 407. Aphorisms, thoughts, and maxims of Carème, 407.
Death of Carème in 1835 or 1836, 409. Carème bestowed fine names
on his soups, 409, Carème on maigre sauces, 409.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
TERMS IN USE IN THE KITCHEN.
_Atelets._--Small silver skewers.
_Au naturel._--Plainly done.
_Bain Marie._--A warm-water bath; to be purchased at the ironmonger’s.
_Barber._--To cover with slices of lard.
_Blanc._--A rich broth or gravy, in which the French cook palates,
lamb’s head, and many other things. It is made thus: A pound of beef
kidney fat, minced, put on with a sliced carrot, an onion stuck with
two cloves, parsley, green onions, slices of lemon without the peel or
seeds, or, if much is wanted, two pounds of fat and two lemons. When
the fat is a good deal melted, put in water made briny with salt; and
when done, keep the _blanc_ for use.
_Blanchir._--To blanch by giving some boils in water.
_Bourguignote._--A _ragoût_ of truffles.
_Braise._--A manner of stewing meat which greatly improves the taste by
preventing any sensible evaporation.
_Braisière._--Braising-pan--a copper vessel tinned, deep and long, with
two handles, the lid concave on the outside, that fire may be put in it.
_Brider._--To truss up a fowl or anything else with a needle and
pack-thread, or tape.
_Buisson._--A method of piling up pastry to a point.
_Bundle or Bunch._--Made with parsley and green onions,--when seasoned,
bay leaves, two bunches of thyme, a bit of sweet basil, two cloves, and
six leaves of mace are added.
_Capilotade._--A common hash of poultry.
_Cassis._--That part which is attached to the tail end of a loin of
veal: in beef, the same part is called the rump.
_Civet._--A hash of game or wild fowl.
_Compiegne._--A French sweet yeast cake, with fruit, &c., &c.
_Compote._--A fine mixed _ragoût_ to garnish white poultry, &c.; also a
method of stewing fruit for dessert.
_Compotier._--A dish amongst the dessert service appropriated to the
use of the _compote_.
_Couronne_ (_en_).--To serve any prescribed articles on a dish in the
form of a crown.
_Court ou Short._--To reduce a sauce very thick.
_Croustades._--Fried crusts of bread.
_Cuisson._--The manner in which meat, vegetables, pastry, or sugar is
dressed. It means also the broth or _ragoût_ in which meat or fish has
been dressed.
_Cullis_ or _Coulis_.--The gravy or juice of meat. A strong consommé.
_Dessert, entrée de._--Dish made of preceding day’s remains.
_Dorer._--To brush pastry, &c., with yolk of egg well beaten.
_Dorure._--Yolks of eggs well beaten.
_Entre côte de Bœuf._--This is the portion of the animal which lies
under the long ribs, or those thick slices of delicate meat which may
be got from between them.
_Entrées._--A name given to dishes served in the first course with the
fish dishes.
_Entremets_--is the second course, which comes between the roast meat
and the dessert.
_Escalopes._--Small pieces of meat cut in the form of some kind of coin.
_Fagot_--is a bunch of parsley (the size varies of course), a bay leaf,
and a sprig of thyme, tied up closely. When anything beyond this is
required it is specified in the article.
_Farce_.--This word is used in speaking of chopped meat, fish, or
herbs, with which poultry and other things are stuffed.
_Feuilletage._--Puff-paste.
_Filets Mignons._--Inside small fillets.
_Financière._--An expensive, highly flavoured, mixed _ragoût_.
_Glacer_ (_to glaze_).--To reduce a sauce by means of ebullition to a
consistency equal to that of ice. Well made glaze adheres firmly to the
meat.
_Godiveau._--A common veal forcemeat.
_Gras_ (_au_).--This signifies that the article specified is dressed
with meat gravy.
_Gratiner._--To crisp and obtain a grilled taste.
_Grosses pièces de Fonds._--There are in cookery two very distinct
kinds of _grosses pièces_: the first comprehends substantial pieces
for removes, &c.; the other _pièces montées_, or ornaments; by _pièces
de fonds_ is implied all dishes in pastry that, form one entire dish,
whether from its composition, or from its particular appearance; as
for example cold pies, Savoy cakes, _brioches_, _Babas_, _gâteaux de
Compiègne_, &c.; whilst the _pièces montées_, or ornamental pastries,
are more numerous.
_Hors d’œuvres._--Small dishes served with the first course.
_Larding-pin._--An utensil by means of which meat, &c., is larded.
_Lardoire_ (_larder_).--An instrument of wood or steel for larding meat.
_Lardons._--The pieces into which bacon and other things are cut, for
the purpose of larding meat, &c., &c.
_To Lard_ is when you put the bacon through the meat. Things larded
do not glaze well. Everything larded on the top or surface is called
_piqué._
_Madeleines._--Cakes made of the same composition as pound-cakes.
_Mariner._--Is said of meat or fish when put in oil or vinegar, with
strong herbs, to preserve it.
_Mark._--To prepare meat to be dressed in a stew-pan.
_Mask._--To cover a dish with a _ragoût_ or something of the
sort.
_Nourir_--is to put in more ham, bacon, butter, &c.
_Noix de Veau._--The leg of veal is divided into three distinct fleshy
parts, besides the middle bone; the larger part, to which the udder is
attached, is called the _noix_, the flat part under it _sous noix_, and
the side part, _contre noix_, &c. The _petites noix_ are in the side of
the shoulder of veal.
_Paillasse._--A grill over hot cinders.
_Pain de beurre._--An ounce, or an ounce and a half of butter, made in
the shape of a roll.
_Panner._--To sprinkle meat or fish which is dressed on the gridiron
with crumbs of bread dipped in butter and eggs.
_Panures._--Everything that is rolled in, or stewed with bread crumbs.
_Parer_--is freeing the meat of nerves, skin, and all unnecessary fat.
_Paupiettes._--Slices of meat, rather broad, to be rolled up.
_Piqué_--is to lard with a needle game, fowls, and other meats.
_Poëlé._--Almost the same operation as braising, the only difference
is, that what is _poëlé_ must be underdone; whereas a braise must be
done through.
_Puit._--A well, or the void left in the middle, when anything is
dished round as a crown.
A _Purée_ of onions, turnips, mushrooms, &c., is a pulpy mash, or sauce
of the vegetable specified, thinned with boiling cream or gravy.
_Quenelles._--Meat minced or potted, as _quenelles_ of meat, game,
fowls, and fish.
_Roux._--This is an indispensable article in cookery, and serves to
thicken sauces; the brown is for sauces of the same colour, and the
colour must be obtained by slow degrees, otherwise the flour will burn
and give it a bitter taste, and the sauces become spotted with black.
_Reduce._--To boil a soup down to a jelly, or till it becomes rich and
thick.
_Sabotière._--A pewter or tin vessel, in which are placed the moulds
containing the substance to be frozen.
_Sasser._--To stir and work a sauce with a spoon.
_Sauce tournée_ and _velouté_ are not the same, nor has the latter name
been substituted by the moderns for the former. _Sauce tournée_ is an
unfinished sauce; it is of itself a basis for many other white sauces,
but it is in no instance served alone as a sauce with any _entrée_
or _entremets_. _Velouté_ is served with hashes of chickens, veal,
_boudins à la reine_, _émincés_, and _entrées_ of _quenelles_, &c.
_Sautez_--is to mix or unite all the parts of a _ragoût_, by shaking it
about.
_Singez._--To dust flour from the dredging-box, which is afterwards to
be moistened in order to be dressed.
_Tamis_ (_Tammy_).--An instrument to strain broth and sauces.
_Tendrons_ (veal)--are found near the extremity of the ribs.
_Tourner._--To stir a sauce; also to pare and cut roots, vegetables,
&c., neatly.
_Tourte._--A puff-paste pie.
_Vanner._--To work a sauce well up with a spoon, by lifting it up and
letting it fall.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL COOKERY COMPARED WITH THE
COOKERY OF THE LAST HALF CENTURY.
The traditions of classic cookery may be said to be nearly effaced; but
sufficient remains recorded to afford grounds for comparison, and he
must be prejudiced who hesitates for an instant to award the palm to
the moderns. An impartial person need but to glance over the ten books
left us under the name of Apicius,[1] to come to the conclusion of the
ingenious Jean le Clerc, who says that “the work contains receipts for
extraordinary dishes and strange ragouts, which would ruin the stomach,
and burn up the blood.” One of the most nauseous of the condiments
which entered into the Roman ragouts was the _garum_, by some supposed
to be the expressed brine of the anchovy: while others contend it was
an acrid decoction of the mackerel. This abominable sauce has now been
banished Christendom, yet has found a refuge in the congenial cookery
of “our most ancient ally,” the Turk. Travellers who have visited
Turkey and Constantinople, will recur, as I do, with no pleasurable
sensations to the pilau seasoned with this acrid and ill-savoured
preparation.
Though the feast of Trimalchio, so graphically told in the pages of
Petronius, is somewhat overcharged, and too Asiatic in style and taste
to be true to the letter, yet it gives an idea of the domestic economy
of the Romans, and supports the opinion as to the superiority of modern
cookery; but if more positive evidence were wanting in support of these
views, it might be found in a passage of Macrobius, the description of
a supper given by Lentulus. For the first course, says the officer of
the household of Theodosius, there were sea hedge hogs, raw oysters,
and asparagus; for the second, a fat fowl, with another plate of
oysters and shell fish, several species of dates, fig-peckers, roebuck,
and wild boar, fowls encrusted with paste, and the purple shell fish,
then esteemed so great a delicacy. The third course was composed of a
wild boar’s head, of ducks, of a _compôte_ of river birds, of leverets,
roast fowl, and Ancona cakes, called _panes picences_, which must have
somewhat resembled Yorkshire pudding. There is one secret, however,
which we may well desire to learn from the Romans, namely, the manner
of preserving oysters alive, in any journey however long or however
distant. The possession of this secret is the more extraordinary, as
it is well known that a shower of rain will kill oysters subjected
to its influence, or the smallest grain of quick lime destroy their
vitality.[2] It will be seen from what I have stated, that epicurism
is an ancient vice; but all the French authorities, nevertheless,
agree in thinking that the Greeks and Romans, notwithstanding their
luxury and civilization, were mere children in the preparation of their
viands. The reason of this, says Carème, is, that they sacrificed
too much to sugars, fruits and flowers, and that they had not the
colonial spices and learned sauces of mediæval and modern cookery. It
is true that the “officers of the mouth” of Lucullus and Pompey were
possessed of secrets to stimulate the jaded appetite, and give tone to
the debilitated stomach: but notwithstanding all their profusion, I am
inclined to think that Carème and the corps of French cooks are right
in their disparaging observations touching ancient cookery.
Cookery is eminently an experimental and a practical art. Each day,
while it adds to our experience, increases also our knowledge, and as
we have come long after the Romans, and have had the benefit of their
experience, it is no marvel that we should have greatly surpassed them.
The characteristic of ancient cookery was profusion; the characteristic
of modern is delicacy and refinement. In the fifth century all trace
of the Roman cookery had already disappeared. The barbarians from afar
had savoured the scent of the Roman ragouts. The eternal city was
invested, and her kitchen destroyed. The consecutive incursions of
hordes of barbarous tribes and nations had put out at once the light
of science and the fire of cookery. Darkness was now abroad, and the
“glory” of the culinary art was, for a time, “extinguished,” but,
happily, not for ever. “Lorsque il n’y a plus de cuisine dans le monde,
il n’y a plus de lettres, il n’y a plus d’unité sociale,” says the
enlightened and ingenious Carème.
But the darkness of the world was not of long duration. The monks--the
much-abused and much mistaken monks--fanned the embers of a nascent
literature, and cherished the flame of a new cookery. The free cities
of Italy, Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Florence, the common mothers of poetry,
painting, sculpture, and architecture, contemporaneously revived the
gastronomic taste. The Mediterranean and the Adriatic offered their
fish, and the taste for table luxuries extended itself to the maritime
towns and other cities of the Peninsula, to Cadiz, to Barcelona, to St.
Sebastian, and to Seville.
Spain had the high honour of having furnished the first cookery book
in any modern tongue. It is entitled--“Libro de Cozina, compuesto por
Ruberto de Nola.” I also possess an edition of the “Arte de Cocina
compuesto por Francisco Martinez Montiño,” printed in Madrid in 1623,
and presented by His Royal Highness the late Duke of Sussex to Lady
Augusta Murray. This work is exceedingly rare. The cookery professed at
this epoch was no longer an imitation of the Greek or Roman kitchen,
or of the insipid dishes and thick sauces of the Byzantine cooks. It
was a new and improved and extended science. It recognised the palate,
stomach, and digestion of man. The opulent nobles of Italy, the rich
merchant princes, charged with the affairs and commissions of Europe
and Asia, the heads of the church--bishops, cardinals, and popes,
now cultivated and encouraged the culinary art. Arts, letters, and
cookery revived together, and among the gourmands of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, some of the most celebrated pontiffs and
artists of the time may be named, as Leo X., Raphael, Guido, Baccio
Bandinelli, and John of Bologna. Raphael, the divine Raphael, did not
think it beneath him to design plates and dishes for his great patron
the most holy father. While Italy had made this progress, France, the
nurse of modern, if not the mother of mediæval cooks, was in a state of
barbarism, from which she was raised by the Italian wars under Charles
VIII. and Louis XII. The Gauls learned a more refined cookery at the
siege of Naples, as the Cossacks did some hundreds of years later in
the Champs Elysées of Paris. Here ends the parallel, however; for while
the people of France, like most apt pupils, surpassed their masters,
we have yet to wait for the least glimmering of culinary art at Moscow,
Kieff or Novogorod, or even at that fag end of Finland (which is not
Russia) called St. Petersburgh. An attempt was made a couple of years
ago by Mr. Money to get up a sensation in favour of Russian cookery,
but the attempt was a failure.
It was under Henry III., about 1580, that the delicacies of the
Italian tables were introduced at Paris. The sister arts of design
and drawing were now called into requisition to decorate dishes and
dinner-tables. How great was the progress in the short space of 150
years, may be inferred from an edict of Charles VI., which forbad to
his liege subjects a dinner consisting of more than two dishes with
the soup: “Nemo audeat dare præter duo fercula cum potagio.” At this
period the dinner hour was ten o’clock in the morning, while the supper
was served at four. The social, friendly, and agreeable humour of
Henry IV., in a succeeding reign, contributed to the spread of a more
kindly spirit, and a better cookery. This monarch was eminently of a
frank and cordial nature, and his personal qualities contributed to the
security of his throne, to his successes both in negotiation and war,
and to the social comforts and material prosperity of his subjects. His
benevolent wish that every peasant in his dominions might have a fowl
in the pot for his Sunday dinner, discloses a warm and affectionate
heart, and was not lost on a nation combining the greatest share of
intellect with sensuality. The _cabaret_ then was what the _café_ is
now, and was the rendezvous of _marquis_ and _chevalier_, and people of
condition. Men learned to pursue the pleasures and enjoyments of life
in the _cabaret_, and their wants become multiplied, and their desires
extended. It was Henry IV. who first permitted the traiteurs to form a
community, with the title of “Maître queux cuisiniers porte-chapes,” in
1599.
The first regular cookery book published in France was, I believe,
printed at Rouen in 1692, the very year in which Sir George Rooke
struck so signal and successful a blow against the marine of our
neighbours. It was the production of the Sieur de la Varranne, esquire
of the kitchen of M. d’Uxelles. It is dedicated to MM. Louis Châlon du
Bled, Marquis d’Uxelles and of Cormartin. The first sentence of the
dedication is a curiosity in its way, and sufficiently indicates the
immense distance which feudalism then interposed between an esquire of
the kitchen and a French marquis and lieutenant-general, holding the
rank of governor of the citadel of Châlons-sur-Saone. “Monseigneur,”
says the book, “bien que ma condition ne me rende pas capable d’un
cœur heroïque, elle me donne cependant assez de ressentiment pour ne
pas oublier mon devoir. J’ai trouvé dans votre maison, par un emploi
de dix ans entiers, le secret d’apprester delicatement les viandes.”
The preface is not less curious than the dedication. The author
begins by stating that, as it is the first book of the kind which has
been published, he hopes it will not be found altogether useless. A
number of books, says he, have been published containing remedies and
cures at small cost; but no book has yet been printed with a view of
preserving and maintaining the health in a good state, and a perfect
disposition, teaching how to separate the ill quantity of viands by
good and diversified seasonings, which tend only to give substantial
nourishment, being well dressed. These are things conformable to
the appetite, which regulate corpulency, and ought to be no less
considered, &c. He expatiates on the thousand-and-one vegetables and
other “victual,” which people know not how to dress with honour and
contentment (“avec honneur et contentement”), and then exclaims that,
as France has borne off the bell from all other nations in courtesy
and bienséance, it is only right and proper that she should be no less
esteemed for her polite and delicate manner of living (“pour la façon
de vivre honneste et delicate”). Many of the receipts are curious, and
some of them useful. The frequency with which he introduces capers
into his cookery, an article for which we are indebted to Barbary,
and rarely introduced into the cookery of modern France, except in
sauces for turbot and salmon, and in a few _entrées_, _liaisons_, and
_ragouts_, is extraordinary.
La Varranne, after having given hundreds of other receipts, consoles
himself, at the conclusion of his labours, with the reflection, “That
as all other books, as well ancient as modern, were composed for the
aliment of the mind, it was but just that the body should be a little
considered,” and therefore it was, says he, that I meddled with a
subject so necessary to its conservation. Enjoy, then, my receipts,
dear reader, he exclaims, “Jouissez en, cher lecteur, pendant que je
m’étudierai à vous exposer en vente quelque chose qui méritera vos
emplois plus relevez et plus solides.”
The first edition of that remarkable cookery book, the “Dons de Comus,”
appeared about 1740, and is in every respect a superior work to the
droll production just mentioned. It was composed by M. Marin, cook
of the Duchesse de Chaulnes. The very learned and ingenious preface,
signed de Querlon, is by Father Brumoy, the Jesuit, the translator of
the “Théâtre des Grecs.” An Italian author calls a preface the sauce
of a book, “La Salsa del Libro;” and certainly never was there a more
piquant and spicy sauce than that of the erudite Father. He has brought
ancient and modern literature to bear on the matter in hand. Not
content with citing orators, poets and historians, he has also summoned
the doctors, in the persons of the Frenchman Hecquet and the Englishman
Cheyne. His comparison between ancient and modern cookery is ingenious.
“Modern cookery,” says he, “established on the foundations of the
ancient, possesses more variety, simplicity and cleanliness, with
infinitely less of labour and elaboration, and it is withal more
_sçavante_. The ancient _cuisine_ was complicated and full of details.
But the modern _cuisine_ is a perfect system of chemistry. The science
of the cook consists in decomposing, in rendering easy of digestion,
in quintessencing (so to speak) the viands, in extracting from them
light and nourishing juices, and in so mixing them together, that no
one flavour shall predominate, but that all shall be harmonised and
blended. This is the high aim and great effort of art. The harmony
which strikes the eye in a picture should in a sauce cause in the
palate as agreeable a sensation.” There is nothing new under the sun.
A friend has recently lent me a copy of St. Augustine, in which is the
very same thought, “Omina pulchritudinis formæ unitas est,” says the
learned father. The following is Father Brumoy’s idea of a perfect
cook: “A perfect cook should exactly understand the properties of the
substances he employs, that he may correct or render more perfect
(corriger ou perfectionner) such aliments as nature presents in a raw
state. He should have a sound head (la tête saine), a sure taste,
and a delicate palate, that he may cleverly combine the ingredients.
Seasoning is the rock of indifferent cooks (l’écueil des médiocres
ouvriers). A cook should have a ready hand to operate promptly and
should assiduously study the palate of his master, wholly conforming
his own thereto.”[3] All this is excellent in its way. It is rare
to find history, metaphysics and chemistry, the tone of a man of the
world, the taste of an erudite classic, and the talent of a really good
cook, so happily blended. Father Brumoy is the very opposite of that
Greek cook, of whom Pausanias makes mention, whom all the world praised
for his running, but whom no one praised for his ragouts: for in the
three volumes now before me there are a variety of admirable receipts,
which have made the stock in trade of many cookery books more vaunted
and better known than Father Brumoy’s.
The “Dons de Comus” was followed by a spruce little satire, intituled
“Lettre d’un Patissier Anglais au nouveau cuisinier Français,” in which
the _soi-disant_ pastry-cook deals some hard blows to the Jesuit.
In the “Dons de Comus” there had been much dissertation about
quintessences, and the giving the largest portion of nutriment in the
smallest possible compass. Hereupon the “Patissier Anglais” says,
“Thus the more the nourishment of the body shall be subtilised and
alembicated, the more will the qualities of the mind be rarefied and
quintessenced too. From these principles, demonstrated in your work,
great advantage may be reaped in all educational establishments.
Children lose an infinity of time in learning the dead languages,
and other trash of that kind, whereas, henceforward, it will only
be necessary, according to your system, to give them an alimentary
education, proper for the state for which they are destined. For
example: for a young lad destined to live in the atmosphere of a court,
whipped cream and calves’ trotters should be procured; for a sprig of
fashion, linnets’ heads, quintessences of May bugs, butterfly broth,
and other light trifles. For a lawyer, destined to the chicanery
of the Palais or who would shine at the bar, sauces of mustard and
vinegar and other condiments of a bitter and pungent nature would
be required.” Appended to the “Patissier Anglais” was “Le Cuisinier
Gascon,” an excellent and valuable little work, now extremely scarce.
There are many admirable receipts in this little volume, to which Mrs.
Rundell was deeply indebted. She has borrowed largely from it without
acknowledgment.
“La Science du Maître d’Hôtel Cuisinier” was the next published in
point of chronological order. This was an attempt to render cookery the
handmaid of medicine, and had great success. The plan, though not new
in the conception, for the germ of it may be found in Terence, “Coquina
medicinæ famulatrix est,”[4] was undoubtedly so in the execution; and
the associated booksellers reaped a profitable harvest.
The cookery of France at this epoch, and indeed from the time of Louis
XIV., was distinguished by luxury and sumptuousness, but, according to
Carème, was wanting in “delicate sensualism.” They ate well, indeed,
at the court, says the professor of the culinary art, but the rich
citizens, the men of letters, the artists, “were only _in the course_
of learning to dine, drink, and laugh with _convenance_. Vatel, of whom
so much has been said,” says Carème, “had only a mind deeply intent
on his subject, you but see in him the _conscientious man of duty and
etiquette_. His death astonishes but does not melt you (sa mort frappe
mais ne touche pas), for he had not reached the highest elevation of
his art.” You cannot think, you who read these lines, that any one of
our cooks of the present day, brought up by Carème, could ever fall
into his faults. For whatever may happen, a cook, like a commander,
and, indeed, like the great masters of the art, Laguipière and Carème,
“should always have splendid and imposing reserves.”
This dictum of Carème must be taken, like many of his dishes and
sauces, _cum grano salis_. Molière lived and wrote at this period;
and though it would be unfair not to concede that he was greatly in
advance of his age, and, like Shakspeare, seemed to be universally
informed, and by intuition, yet on the other hand there is scarcely a
better description of a gourmand than is to be found in the “Bourgeois
Gentilhomme,” act iv. sc. 1. The language of the art, too, is as much
superior to the jargon of professional cooks, as Paques is (the pun
was inevitable) to Carème. But here is the passage _in extenso_, from
which all may judge:--“Si Damis s’en étoit mêlé, tout seroit dans les
règles; il y auroit par-tout de l’élégance et de l’érudition, et il ne
manqueroit pas de vous exagérer lui-même toutes les pièces du repas
qu’il vous donneroit, et de vous faire tomber d’accord de sa haute
capacité dans la science des tous morceaux; de vous parler d’un pain de
rive à bizeau doré, relevé de croûte par-tout, croquant tendrement sous
la dent; d’un vin à seve velouté, armé d’un vert qui n’est point trop
commandant; d’un carré du mouton gourmandé de persil; d’une longe de
veau de rivière, longue, blanche, délicate, et qui, sous les dents, est
une vraie pâte d’amande; de perdrix relevées, d’un fumet surprenant; et
pour son opéra, d’une soupe á bouillon perlé, soutenue d’un jeune gros
dindon, cantonnée de pigeonneaux, et couronnée d’oignons blancs, mariés
avec la chicorée.”[5] It should also be observed that St. Evremond, a
man of letters as well as a soldier and a gentleman, rendered himself
celebrated even in 1654, for the exquisiteness of his taste in cookery,
and that the coterie in which he lived were equally famous for their
good cheer. The dinners of the Commandeur de Souvré, of the Comte
d’Oloure, and of the Marquis de Bois Dauphin, were celebrated for equal
refinement and delicacy. Lavardin, Bishop of Mans, in speaking of
the clique, says, “Ils ne sauroient manger que du veau de rivière: il
faut que leurs perdrix viennent d’Auverge: que leurs lapins soit de la
Roche Guyon.”[6] The same thought may be found in the fifth Satire of
Juvenal, though somewhat differently expressed.
“Mullus erit domino, quem misit Corsica, vel quem
Taurominitanæ rupes, quando omne peractum est,
Et jam deficit nostrum mare.”
With the qualifying restrictions previously made, it may fairly be
admitted that it is not to the Grand Monarque, but to the Regent
Orleans, that the French of the present day owe the exquisite _cuisine_
of the eighteenth century. The _Pain à la d’Orleans_ was the invention
of the regent himself; the _filets de lapereau à la Berri_ were
invented by his abandoned daughter, the Duchess de Berri, who plunged
into every sensual excess, and whose motto was “_Courte et bonne_.” Her
suppers were the best, and, it must be added, the most profligate in
Paris.
As the Duchess de Berri, the daughter of the regent, was _gourmande_ as
well as _galante_, she is deified by the race of cooks and epicures,
one of whom says that the alimentary art owes to her fertile genius a
great number of receipts. Nor was she the only female who distinguished
herself at this era in cookery, for it became _à-la-mode_ to be the
creator of a _plat_. The _filets de volaille à la Bellevue_ were
invented by the Marquise de Pompadour, in the château of Bellevue, for
the _petits soupers_ of the king. The _poulets à la Villeroy_ owe their
birth to the Maréchale de Luxembourg, then Duchess of Villeroy, one of
the most sensual “gourmandes” of the court of Louis XV. The _Chartreuse
à la Mauconseil_ has been transmitted to us by the Marquise de
Mauconseil, celebrated alike by her taste and her gallantries. The _vol
au vent à la Nesle_ proceeded from the fertile brain of the Marquis de
Nesle, who refused the peerage to remain premier marquis of France, and
the _poularde à la Montmorency_ was the production of the duke of that
name. _Filets de veau à la Montgolfier_, are so named because they are
of the shape of balloons. The _petites bouchées à la reine_ owe their
origin to Maria Leczinska, wife of Louis XV., whose devotions, however
self-denying in other respects, never prevented her from relishing
a good dinner. All the _entrées_ bearing the name of Bayonnaises
were invented by the Maréchal Duke de Richelieu. The _perdreaux à
la Montglas_ acknowledge as their father a worthy magistrate of
Montpelier, whilst the _cailles à la Mirepoix_ were imagined by the
marechal of that name, who in gourmandise, but in gourmandise only,
rivalled the Marechal de Luxembourg; and last, though not least, the
_cotelettes à la Maintenon_ were the favourite dish of that frigid
piece of pompous and demure hypocrisy, Madame de Maintenon herself.
It may be concluded, that the regency and the reign of Louis XV.
were among the grand epochs of French cookery. The long peace which
followed the treaty of Utrecht, the large fortunes made by the tribe
of financiers, who, in ruining the state, enriched themselves--the
tranquil and voluptuous life of a monarch who gave himself more concern
about his personal pleasures and enjoyments than his royal renown--the
character of the courtiers and public men of the day--all contributed
to stamp an intensely sensual character on the age of Louis XV. A
taste for English equipages and horses was now introduced, and our
puddings and beef-steaks were also imitated. The example of the regent
was refined on and extended in this reign. The _petits soupers_ of the
king were cited as models of delicacy and _gourmandise_. The kitchen in
France, as in all the world over, requires “the cankers of a calm world
and a long peace,” to sustain and support it; while the troubles of the
League and the Fronde, the temperament of Louis XIV., and the despotic
and tempestuous character of Richelieu, interfered with its progress
in former reigns. There were great cooks as well as great captains in
the reign of Louis XIV., notwithstanding the disparaging remarks which
Carème casts on the memory of Vatel; but a witty author maintains that
the only ineffaceable and immortal reputation of that time handed down
to us in cookery, is that of the Marquis de Bechamel, who introduced
into the sauce for turbot and cod fish an infusion of cream. The
_Bechamel de turbot et de cabillaud_ still maintain their popularity,
though kings, dynasties, and empires have fallen, and half the globe
has been revolutionized.
In the royal kitchen of Louis XVI., the art as an art declined; but
the sacred fire of cookery (to use the inflated language of some of
the craft) was preserved in many old houses, as, for instance, in
the establishments of Marshals Richelieu and Duras, the Duke of La
Vallière, the Marquis de Brancas, the Count de Tessé, and some others,
who equalled in the delicacy of their tables the elegant sumptuosity of
the reign of Louis XV. The excesses of some of the French nobility of
this day would now appear incredible. One hundred and twenty pheasants
were, at this period, weekly consumed in the kitchens of the Prince de
Condé; and the Duke de Penthievre, in going to preside over the estates
of Burgundy, was preceded by one hundred and fifty-two _hommes de
bouche_! Can any, after this, wonder at the excesses of the Revolution?
The unexpected death of Louis XV. (says a gourmand of the succeeding
reign, and who survived the Revolution and the Consulate) struck a
mortal blow at cookery. His successor, young and vigorous, ate with
more voracity than delicacy, and did not pride himself on (the words
are untranslateable) a “grand finesse de gout”--an exquisite delicacy
of taste in the choice of his food. Large joints of butchers’ meat,
and dishes essentially nutritive, represented his ideas of good living.
His enormous appetite contented itself in satisfying hunger; learned
efforts were not necessary to stimulate its vast cravings.
The French Revolution at length broke forth, and the historians of the
kitchen speak with mournfulness of its effect on the science, which
Montaigne quaintly calls _l’art de la gueule_. The kitchens of the
faubourg of St. Germain and the Chaussée d’Antin no longer smoked, the
perfumes of truffles were exhaled and vanished, the great and noble of
the land were obliged to fly for their lives, and too often to dine
with Duke Humphrey, or at best to dine frugally and sparingly. The
financiers, who aped the luxuries and mimicked the extravagance of the
court, were all ruined or denounced. The stoic’s fare--the radish and
the egg, the _Jus nigrum_ of the severe Spartans, and the black
bread of the Germans of the middle ages, scarcely fit food for horses,
were now revived. For three long years this spare Spartan régime
continued. Had the Goths and Vandals gone on a little longer, says a
witty epicure, who survived the Revolution, the receipt for a fricassee
of chicken had been infallibly lost. The markets were no longer
supplied. Beef, mutton, ham, and veal, had disappeared; as to fish,
it was preposterous to think of it.[7] Not a good turbot, or salmon,
or sturgeon, says Grimod, appeared during the Revolution. Fowls and
game had become a “sick epicure’s dream,” not a solid reality. Nor were
these miseries confined to Paris alone. “You might go into a country
market,” says the same author, “with a ream of assignats in your hand,
and not be able to buy a sack of flour.” A return to a gold currency
produced a visible alteration in the _Res Cibaria_. The louis and
five-franc pieces again peopled the markets with a populace of poultry
and partridges. Cooks again began to talk in the language which the
Italian _maître d’hôtel_ of Cardinal Caraffa addressed to the
pleasant and witty Montaigne, language which the laughing author has
imperishably recorded in those inimitable volumes, which will be read
and admired so long as the French language and literature endure. “Il
m’a fait un discours de cette science de gueule avec une gravité et
contenance magistrale, comme s’il m’eust parlé de quelque grand poinct
de theologie. Il m’a dechiffré une difference d’appetits; la police
de ses sauces; les qualités des ingredients et leurs effects, les
differences des salades. Après cela il est entré sur l’ordre de service
plein de belles et importantes considerations, et tout cela enflé de
riches et magnifiques paroles; et celles mêmes qu’on employe à traiter
du gouvernement d’un empire.”
The oxen of Auvergne and Normandy were now again marched slowly and
gravely up from the provinces to be slaughtered in Paris. The sheep
of Beauvais, of Cotentin and the Ardennes, were again, as under the
old régime, cut up into cutlets, and the cooks soon appeared. Instead
of serving as _chefs de cuisine_, butlers, intendants, and _maîtres
d’hôtel_, they now were called _citoyens_, _pensionnaires_, and
_rentiers_; for there were no _grands seigneurs_ to employ them. For a
while there was some inconvenience, but a Frenchman sooner accommodates
himself to circumstances than any other human being, and such of the
_cuisiniers_ as had saved somewhat from the shipwreck of the Revolution
formed eating-houses, taverns, and _restaurants_. These establishments
have since become the temples of good cheer and gourmandise, in which
wandering Englishmen spend and have spent millions upon millions of
money; but it is an historical fact known to few, that the greater
number of these _restaurants_ owe their origin to the Revolution.[8]
The complete overthrow of the French kitchen, the work of three
centuries, might have been effected at this season, had not its
traditions been preserved. Happily there were Acolytes and Neophytes
sufficient in existence, says one of the historians, to catch and
perpetuate the scientific savour of the ancient “flesh pots.” In such
a loss as this, weightier interests had been imperilled than mere
cookery. More than half the intelligence, and nearly all of the French
agreeability of the past age, had been in a great degree promoted by
the French cuisine. The cook of the Condés and the Soubises contributed
in no mean degree to give a zest and a vivacity to the dinners at
which Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Helvetius, D’Alembert, Duclos,
and Vauvenargues so often met; and this remark applies, in a great
degree, to the suppers of Madame du Deffand, the dinners of the Baron
D’Holbach, and the dinners, suppers, and pic-nics of the agreeable
Crawford of Auchinames, whose “Tableau of French Literature” is
not sufficiently known nor read in our day. It was at these social
_réunions_ that French conversation, then indeed a _style parlé_ became
animated and improved by the exquisite cheer which the “cunning hand”
of the cook provided. A few hours of delightful, easy, unrestrained
conversation between polite and well-informed men, did more to advance
the progress of the human mind than the labours of a wilderness of
speculative bookmaking academies. The solution of many great and grave
questions--the propagation of new and enlarged views, the production
of ingenious essays and instructive memoirs, are all owing to that
elegant and agreeable body of men and women, kept together in a main
degree by the exquisite attraction of _petits soupers_ and luxurious
dinners.
From the moment of the Executive Directory, 1795, to the period of the
18th Brumaire, all the historians among; the great cooks admit that
their illustrious art was under the greatest obligations to Barras,
that well-born tribune of the people, of whose family it was said,
“noble comme les Barras, aussi anciens que les rochers de Provence.”
Whether as Commissary of the government at Toulon--at whose siege, by
the way, he first became acquainted with Bonaparte--or as Director, or
as residing as a private gentleman at his château of Grosbois, Barras
always exhibited those epicurean tastes which were either natural to
him, or which he had acquired from a residence at the French settlement
of Pondicherry.
During the most ferocious periods of the Revolution, there were but
two splendid exceptions to the self-denying ordinances of the time.
That desperate demagogue Danton loved and copiously indulged himself in
morels, and is recorded to have given dinners at 400 francs a head; and
Barras, when in the Directory, had his button mushrooms conveyed to him
_en poste_ from the Bouches du Rhone.
Napoleon, who may be said to have succeeded to power at the epoch of
the 18th Brumaire, is falsely represented as an enemy of the pleasures
of the table. It is true, a love of good cheer was not a dominant
passion with him; he did not exhibit the crapulous gluttony of an
over-fed sensualist, but he was not insensible to the pleasures of
good eating. M. de Bausset,[9] the prefect of the Imperial palace, has
handed down in his most interesting work some of the Emperor’s ordinary
bills of fare. They are distinguished by simplicity and moderation, but
there is also a pervading suitableness and taste very significant of
the man, and of the nation over which he “reigned and governed.”
M. de Cussy, also attached to the kitchen and household of the Emperor,
and who obtained from his patron, or assumed, the title of Marquis de
Cussy, has also left us interesting details on the subject. One day at
breakfast, says he (this was some time after his marriage), Napoleon,
after having eaten, with his habitual haste, a wing of a chicken _à la
Tartare_, turned towards M. de Cussy (who was always present at the
Emperor’s meals), and the following dialogue took place between them:
“The deuce! I have always hitherto found chicken-meat flat and insipid,
but this is excellent.” “Sire, if your Majesty would permit, I would
desire to have the honour of serving a fowl every day in a different
fashion.” “What! M. de Cussy, you are then master of 365 different
ways of dressing fowl?” “Yes, Sire, and perhaps your Majesty, after a
trial, would take a pleasure _à la science gastronomique_. All great
men have encouraged that science, and, without citing to your Majesty
the example of the great Frederick, who had a special cook for each
favourite dish, I might invoke, in support of my assertion, all the
great names immortalized by glory.” “Well, then, M. de Cussy,” replied
the Emperor, “we shall put your abilities to the test.” The case might
be left to a jury of gourmands on this evidence, and the Emperor would
be convicted, if not of _gourmandise_, at least of _friandises_.
Who will, however, deny the _gourmandise_ of his arch-chancellor,
Cambacères, or of his minister of foreign affairs, Talleyrand? “The
first clouds of smoke” (says Ude) “which announced the resurrection of
cookery, appeared from the kitchen of a _quondam_ bishop.” Napoleon
himself was in the habit of saying that more fortunate treaties,
more happy arrangements and reconciliations were due to the cook of
Cambacères than to the crowds of diplomatic nonentities who thronged
the ante-chambers of the Tuileries. On one occasion the town of Geneva
sent to the arch-chancellor a monster trout, together with the sauce,
the expense of which was verified by the Cour des Comptes as amounting
to 6000 francs, or 240_l._ of our money.
A rare epoch in the history of cookery was the publication of the
first number of the “Almanach des Gourmands,” which appeared in the
beginning of the year 1803, and which the late Duke of York called
the most delightful book that was ever printed. The sale of this work
was prodigious. 22,000 copies of the four first years were speedily
disposed of, and the work subsequently went through new editions. As
the book is very scarce everywhere, and not to be found in England,
I may be pardoned for dwelling on it. Gastronomy became the fashion
of that day. Every one spoke on the subject; many wrote on it.
Cookery passed from the kitchen to the shop, from the shop to the
counting-house, from the counting-house to the studies of lawyers and
physicians; thence to the salons and cabinets of ladies and statesmen.
The object of life, according, at least, to our simple English
notions, seemed reversed: people in England eat to live; in France,
they appeared to live only to eat. This was in consonance with French
character and practice.
To return, however, to the “Almanach des Gourmands.” Each volume
contained an almanac for the year in which it was published, and
a species of nutritive itinerary of the different _traiteurs_,
_rotisseurs_, _restaurateurs_, pork-men, poulterers, butchers, bakers,
provision, sauce, and spice shops, milkmen, oilmen, &c. Nor were the
_cafés_, _limonadiers_, _glaciers_, nor wine and liqueur merchants
neglected; for ample and amusing accounts of almost all the principal
_magasins de comestibles_ are given. The volumes are generally written
in a playful, humorous style, and occasionally indicate originality
and research. The first four numbers are by far the best, though there
are passages in the seventh, eighth, and ninth equal to anything which
appeared in the preceding numbers. The author and editor was Grimod
de la Reyniere. His father, a _fermier général_ was choked, in 1754,
by attempting to swallow rather too voraciously a slice of a _pâté de
foies gras_. The son inherited the hereditary passion for the pleasures
of the table, joined to a sprightly yet quaint humour, which rendered
him a general favourite. It must be admitted, that while he inspired a
taste for cookery, he ennobled its language.
As a specimen of his manner, take a short extract from the second
volume, under the head of the health of cooks. “The finger of a
good cook should alternate perpetually between the stewpan and his
mouth, and it is only thus in tasting every moment his _ragouts_,
that he can hit upon the precise medium. His palate should therefore
have an extreme delicacy, and be in some sort virgin, in order that
the slightest trifle may stimulate it, and thus forewarn him of its
faults. But the continual odour of ovens--the necessity under which
a cook lies to drink often, and sometimes of bad wine, the vapour
of charcoal, the accumulation of bile, and many other things, each
and all contribute to interfere with his organs of sense, and most
quickly to derange and alter his sense of taste. His palate becomes
indurated; he has no longer that tact, that _finesse_, that exquisite
sensibility, on which depends susceptibility of taste. His palate at
length becomes case-hardened. The only means of restoring to him that
flower which he has lost (cette fleur qu’il a perdue), and recruiting
his strength, his suppleness, and his _delicatesse_, is to purge him,
despite of any resistance he may be induced to make; for there are
cooks deaf to the voice of glory, who see no need to take physic when
they are in health. Oh, ye then who wish to enjoy at your daily board
delicate and _recherché_ fare, cause your cooks to be purged frequently
(faites purger souvent vos cuisiniers), for there is no other means to
accomplish your wishes.”
In another volume, published in 1806, the author says that in Riom,
in Auvergne, there was an innkeeper named Simon, who had a special
talent for dressing frogs. The process of feeding and dressing them is
given in detail, admirably and graphically told, but at far too great
a length to extract. “What proves the goodness of the dish, and the
impossibility of counterfeiting it,” says Grimod, “is, that the author
has gained 200,000 francs at this art, though he gives you for 24 sous
a dish containing three dozen of frogs.”
The three “Frères Provenceaux,” we learn in the same volume, were even
thus early renowned for Provençal _ragouts_, and, above all, for their
_Brandades de Merluche_; and the veal of Pontoise was then, as now, fed
on cream and biscuits, and carried to Paris in carriages made expressly
for the purpose. It is in this year’s almanac also that the author
speaks of the death of a celebrated gourmand and friend of his, Doctor
Gastaldy, physician to the late Duke of Cumberland. The last dinner
which he partook of was on Wednesday, the 20th December, at Cardinal
Belloy’s, Archbishop of Paris, where, having eaten three times of the
belly part of the salmon, he died of the effects of this invincible
gluttony. The doctor would have gone to the salmon a fourth time,
but that the prelate “tenderly upbraided him for his imprudence, and
ordered the desired dish to be removed” (le reprit tendrement de son
imprudence, et fit enlever ce sujet de convoitise). But alas, it was
too late--the gulosity of Gastaldy caused his death, and he was hastily
buried the day after his demise. Let this be a warning to priests in
high places, whether Protestant, Popish, or Presbyterian, as to helping
their guests too often to the richest part of a salmon.
In one of the volumes there is a long chapter on the opening of
oysters, from which the concluding portion is extracted.
“It is not until the oyster is detached from the under shell that it
ceases to live. The real lovers of oysters (such, for example, as
the late M. Grimod de Verneuil), won’t allow the oyster-women to
open their fish, reserving to themselves the important privilege of
performing this operation on their own plate, in order that they may
have the pleasure of swallowing this interesting fish alive.”
It is in this volume that the important secret is disclosed that
the flesh of beasts, fowls, and game killed by electricity, is much
more tender than if killed in the usual manner. “The discoverer of
this important truth,” says Grimod, “was a Dr. Beyer, of the Rue de
Clichy, who deserves to be ranked with the Rechaud, the Morillon, and
the Robert, who had so worthily illustrated the culinary art, towards
the end of the last century; and who, like the Raphaels, the Michael
Angelos, and the Rubens, have been the founders of the three great
schools of good living.”
Here also is a dissertation on asses’ flesh, wherein the author states
that, during the blockade of Malta by the English and Neapolitans, the
inhabitants, having had recourse to horseflesh, dogflesh, cats, rats,
&c., at length tried asses’ flesh, and found it so excellent, that the
gourmands of Valetta preferred this strange diet to the best beef and
veal. When an ass was killed, there was great competition for the prime
bits. “Your ass,” says Isouard, father of the musical composer of that
name, “should not be more than three or four years old, and fat.”
There is also an account of a seasoning used by the gourmands of Terra
Nova, a small town situated on the southern coast of Sicily, between
Gergali and Scoglietti, on the sea-shore. This is a white grease,
extracted from the fig-pecker, much sought after by the gourmands of
Sicily and Naples. At Malta all respectable families use it in lieu
of oil and butter. An immense number of birds, taken in nets, are
necessary to produce so much grease. When killed they are thrown, in
immense heaps, into an enormous oven, and the fat is thus melted out.
It is bottled, and the carcasses of the birds thrown away.
The “Manuel des Amphytrions,” by the author of the almanac, is as
curious and amusing, and a more succinct work than the “Almanach des
Gourmands.”
The first work of any note, published in 1814, after the Restoration,
was that of Beauvilliers. The author had been cook to the Count de
Provence (Louis XVIII.), but at this period followed the business of
a _restaurateur_ in the Rue de Richelieu. Any eulogium on such a work
would be supererogatory. The artist, who had been many years cook to
the inventor of the _soupe à la Xavier_, that consummate and gouty
gourmand, Louis XVIII., and who had often served and satisfied the
Count d’Artois, afterwards Charles X., the inventor of the _ris de veau
à la d’Artois_, must have been a cook of surpassing merit.
The “Physiologie du Goût” appeared in 1828. The author was M. Brillat
Savarin, Conseillier en la Cour de Cassation. He had been bred to the
bar, and was already in practice when the Revolution broke out. By the
suffrages of his townsmen he was sent as a deputy to the Constituent
Assembly. But in 1793, having resisted the progress of anarchy, he was
forced to emigrate. He embarked for the United States, and established
himself at New York, where he remained for two years, giving lessons
in the French language, and filling nightly one of the first places in
the orchestra of the theatre; for, among his other accomplishments,
he was distinguished as a musician. During the Directory he returned,
and the last twenty-five years of his life were spent in the Court of
Cassation. It was in the leisure which this honourable retreat afforded
him that he composed this work. It is, however, more a scientific
essay, or a book of aphorisms, in the short and sententious style of
the ancients, than a practical work on cookery.
Some of the statistics of this book are curious. It appears that,
from the 1st of November to the end of February, there is a daily
consumption of 300 turkeys, making, in all, but 36,000 turkeys. The
work also contains a number of witty and curious anecdotes, from which
I venture to extract one.
M. de Sanzai, Archbishop of Bordeaux, was an agreeable man and a
respected prelate. He had won from one of his grand vicars a truffled
turkey, which the loser seemed in no haste to pay. Towards the close
of the carnival, the archbishop reminded his subordinate of the lost
wager. “Monseigneur,” said the vicar, “the truffles are good for
nothing this year.” “Bah, bah!” replied the archbishop, “that’s a
report spread by the turkeys,” (c’est un bruit que les dindons font
courir).
A vast number of editions of the “Cuisinière Bourgeoise” have appeared
both in France and Switzerland, and, to speak truly, there is no more
useful work. A greater number of copies have been sold, for the last
seventy years, than even of the “Fables” of La Fontaine. The receipts
are by no means expensive, and there is no better cookery for the
middle classes of all countries. Even in England the dishes might be
adopted among the better classes, occasionally abridging any undue
portion of garlic or onion. This work was pirated at Neufchatel,
in 1798, by the celebrated Fauche Borel, employed in many delicate
negotiations by the emigrants, and he made a large sum by the piracy.
The “Cuisinier Royal,” published by Barba, is also a good work. It is
of a more ostentatious character than the “Cuisinière Bourgeoise,” but
the receipts are very numerous and varied, and there are no learned
disquisitions on the art, which many would consider an advantage.
I have now gone through the chief culinary works of France, and it
remains for me to speak of English cookery and cookery books. And
first of the former. The traditions of English cookery are faint,
few, and far between. In the earlier comedies there are few allusions
to the art, and even in Shakespeare himself, though we find mention
of barley-broth, of calf’s head and capon, of collops, cod’s head,
soused gurnet, and salmon tail, of roasted pig and rashers, of beef and
mustard, and “thick Tewkesbury mustard,” of hot venison pasty and hodge
pudding, and lastly (in ridicule of foreign cookery), of “adders’ heads
and toads carbonadoed;” yet still from these names no other inference
can be drawn than that such dishes were in vogue. From the reign of
Elizabeth to the Revolution, the style of cookery was undoubtedly heavy
and substantial. Chines of beef and pork smoked on the early dinner
tables, and the remains were eaten cold, and washed down with foaming
tankards of ale on the following morning.
The age of Anne was distinguished by an extraordinary burst of
intellectual vigour and great progress in the culinary art. Though the
comedies of Congreve, Wycherly, and Vanbrugh, are fair specimens of
the society of that day, still they throw little light on the social
habits of the people. From the manner in which Lady Wishfort drinks,
in the “Way of the World,” and the exhibition of Sir Wilful Witwold’s
drunkenness, in the same piece, one would infer that immoderate
inebriety was the characteristic of the time. Valentine, in “Love for
Love,” calls for a bottle of sack and a toast; and Careless, in “The
Double Dealer,” exclaims “I’m weary of guzzling.”
The pages of Pope throw an important light on the cookery of his time.
His imitation of the second satire of the second book of Horace has a
value which cannot always be affixed to his more important pieces. A
light is not only thrown on the personal habits of the man, but on the
social characteristics of the epoch.
“Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men
Will choose a pheasant still before a hen;
Yet hens of Guinea full as good I hold,
Except you eat the feathers green and gold.
Of carps and mullets why prefer the great,
Though cut in pieces as my lord can eat;
Yet for small turbots such esteem profess,
Because God made these large, the other less.
Oldfield, with more than harpy throat endued,
Cries, send me, gods! a whole hog barbecued!”
The hog barbacued is a West India term of gluttony. It was a hog
roasted whole, stuffed with spice and basted with Madeira wine.
Allusion is made to this dish in Foote’s “Patron,” where Sir Peter
Pepperpot says, “I am invited to dinner on a barbacue, and the villains
have forgot my bottle of chian.”
It is plain from every line of these imitations of Pope, that the
science of cookery had made great strides in the reign of Anne, nor
is this to be wondered at. “La Reine Anne,” says a French author,
“était très gourmande; elle ne dédaignait pas de s’entretenir avec
son cuisinier, et les dispensaires Anglais contiennent beaucoup de
préparations designées à la manière de la Reine Anne.” The following
glimpse at the table of the poet himself has an attractive interest:
“Content with little I can piddle here
On brocoli and mutton round the year;
But ancient friends, tho’ poor, or out of play,
That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.
’Tis true, no turbots dignify my boards,
But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords:
To Hounslow Heath I point, and Bansted-Down,
Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own.
From yon old walnut-tree a shower shall fall;
And grapes, long lingering on my only wall;
And figs from standard and espalier join;
The devil is in you if you cannot dine.”
The bill of fare at this time often consisted in the month of April
of the following: green geese, or veal and bacon--haunch of venison
roasted--a lumber pie--rabbits and tarts. Second course: cold
lamb--cold neat’s-tongue pie--salmon, lobsters, and prawns--asparagus.
But in other months the following dishes were given--brawn and mustard,
hashed shoulder of mutton, broiled geese, minced pies, a loin of
veal, marrow pie, venison pasty, a lambstone pie, Westphalia bacon,
a Westphalia ham, artichoke pie, neat’s-tongue, and udder roasted,
a roast turkey stuck with cloves, and for a second course, Bologna
sausages, anchovies, mushrooms, caviare, and pickled oysters, in a dish
together.
And now a word as to English cookery books. The “Queen’s Closet
Opened,” published in 1662, is the first English cookery book I have
been able to meet with, for the “Treasure of Hidden Secrets, or Good
Huswife’s Closet,” published in 1600, is but a congeries of receipts
for perfumes, essences, and candies. Some of the dishes in the
“Queen’s Closet,” maintain their popularity to the present day,--as,
for instance, chicken and pigeon pie, boiled rump of beef, and potted
venison; but others have wholly passed away,--as, for example, a baked
red deer, a capon larded with lemons, a steak pie with a French pudding
in it, a fricase (we retain the spelling) of campigneons, a salet of
smelts, flounders, or plaice, with garlick and mustard, an olive pie,
and dressed snails.
The “Gentleman’s Companion,” published in 1673, is the earliest work
of the kind met with after the “Queen’s Closet,” for “May’s Cookery,”
“The Ladies’ Companion,” or even “Mrs. Glasse,” written by Dr. Hill,
and which has become exceedingly scarce, I do not possess. To what a
civilized and social state our gentlewomen had attained 171 years ago,
will be apparent from the following extract from Mrs. Woolley.
Some choice observations for a gentlewoman’s behaviour at table.
“Gentlewoman, the first thing you are to observe, is to keep your
body straight in the chair, and do not lean your elbows on the table.
Discover not by any ravenous gesture your angry appetite, nor fix your
eyes too greedily on the meat before you, as if you would devour more
that way than your throat can swallow. In carving at your own table,
distribute the best pieces first, and it will appear very comely and
decent to use a fork, if so, touch no piece of meat without it.
“I have been invited to dinner, where I have seen the good gentlewoman
of the house sweat more in cutting up a fowl, than the cookmaid in
roasting it, and when she had soundly beliquored her joints, hath smelt
her knuckles, and to work with them again in the dish; at the sight
whereof my belly hath been three-quarters full, before I had swallowed
one bit!”--Page 65.
“Do not eat spoon-meat so hot, that the tears stand in your eyes, or
that thereby you betray your intolerable greediness. Do not bite your
bread, but cut or break it, and keep not your knife always in your
hand, for that is as unseemly as a gentlewoman who pretended to have as
little a stomach as she had a mouth, and therefore would not swallow
her peas in spoonfuls, but took them one by one, and cut them in two
before she would eat them.
“Fill not your mouth so full that your cheeks shall swell like a pair
of Scotch bag-pipes.”--Page 71.
Many remarks are made by our countrymen and women about the filth of
the French, but Englishmen should read the following, written about a
century and a half ago, for the guidance of their own countrywomen.
“It is uncivil to rub your teeth in company, or to pick them at or
after meals, with your knife or otherwise, for it is a thing both
indecent and distasteful.”--Page 72.
The following is the advice “to the female younger sort.”
“You will show yourself too saucy by calling for sauce or any dainty
thing. Avoid smacking in your eating. Forbear putting both hands to
your mouth at once; nor gnaw your meat, but cut it handsomely, and eat
sparingly. Let your nose and hands be always kept clean. When you have
dined or supped, rise from the table, and carry your trencher or plate
with you, doing your obeisance to the company.”--Pp. 19, 20.
Some insight into the cookery of 1754, maybe obtained from the pages
of the “Connoisseur.” The fools of quality of that day “drove to the
Star and Garter to regale on macaroni, or piddle with an ortolan at
White’s or Pontac’s.” At Dolly’s and Horsman’s beef steaks were eaten
with gill ale; and behind the Change, a man worth a plum used to order
a twopenny mess of broth with a boiled chop in it; placing the chop
between the two crusts of a halfpenny roll, he would wrap it up in his
check handkerchief, and carry it away for the morrow’s dinner.
The “Art of Cookery,” by a Lady, was published by Miller, Tonson, and
Strahan, in 1765. There are many good receipts in the work, and it is
written in a plain style. The author sensibly says in her preface,
“The great cooks have such a high way of expressing themselves, that
the poor girls are at a loss to know what they mean.” This book has one
great fault, it is disfigured by a strong anti-Gallican prejudice.
An attempt was made by Longman and Co. to start a sort of “English
Almanach des Gourmands,” in 1815, but it was a complete failure. It was
called the “Epicure’s Almanack.” Only one number was published.
The “Cook and Confectioner’s Dictionary,” which appeared in 1747,
contains a vast deal of curious west country and Cornish cookery. It is
a rare book, and was obligingly lent to me by Mr. Cyrus Redding, who
deserves the gratitude of all for his intrepid and successful attempts
to introduce a pure sherry at the English tables.
Mrs. Dalgairns’ is one of the best of cookery books for persons in the
upper class of life not overburdened with wealth. It ought to be an
invaluable book to the middle classes. Sir Walter Scott contributed
largely to this work. The only fault with which the worthy old lady
may be reproached is, that she is somewhat over national and exhibits
too palpable an addiction to Scotch dishes. This is a prevailing
peccadillo--if not the heinous fault of all Picts, old or young, male
or female.
“Scott’s Dictionary of Cookery,” is a pretentious failure, published in
1828 by Colburn. The author was a Scotch doctor, practising at some
small continental town. The work seems to have been got up with the
view of rivalling Mrs. Rundell’s publication.
The “Cook’s Oracle,” by Dr. Kitchener, was first published in 1817. It
had great success, but never did a book less deserve renown. Totally
destitute of arrangement and originality, it is an odd confused _olla
podrida_ of receipts, observations, maxims, and remarks, drawn from
all sources, ancient and modern, foreign as well as domestic. It is
written in a vain-glorious, assuming style, and filled with gasconading
vulgarisms and obsolete pedantry. The attempts at wit are ludicrously
heavy and unsuccessful. It is a reproach to the national taste to have
patronized a book of no theoretical, and of little practical worth.
The greater part of these observations also apply to that exceedingly
indigested posthumous book of scraps and patches, called the
“Housekeeper’s Oracle,” published in 1829.
The “French Cook,” by Ude, “officier de la bouche,” first to the Earl
of Sefton, and afterwards to Crockford’s Club, has gone through many
editions. It contains a disquisition on the rise and progress of
cookery, which is not without merit; but the greater portion of it
is taken from the “Cuisinier des Cuisiniers.” The partiality of our
countrymen for melted butter in a variety of shapes is happily hit off,
and is about as reasonable, in point of taste, as the antipathy of that
choleric Frenchman, who exclaimed, “Je deteste ces vilains Anglais,
parcequ’ils versent du beurre fondu sur leur veau rôti.”
The work of Ude is intended for the higher ranks, and for people of
fortune. The book and the cook have been a little over-rated. It is
neither French nor English--neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring.
The late Lord Sefton, who was too much of a mere glutton, would have
perverted the taste of any cook, however good, who had been long in his
service.
There is not a more amusing and racy volume than the “Original,” by Mr.
Walker, formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge, and afterwards a police
magistrate. Although several extracts have been already made from the
book in the “Quarterly Review,” the following may be reproduced with
advantage:--
“To order dinner is a matter of invention and combination. It involves
novelty, simplicity, and taste; whereas, in the generality of dinners,
there is no character but that of dull routine, according to the season.
“Any body can dine, but very few know how to dine, so as to ensure the
greatest quantity of health and enjoyment--indeed, many people contrive
to destroy their health; and as to enjoyment, I shudder when I think
how often I have been doomed to only a solemn mockery of it, how often
I have sat in durance stately, to go through the ceremony of a dinner,
the essence of which is to be without ceremony, and how often in this
land of liberty have I felt myself a slave.
“There are three kinds of dinners--solitary dinners, every day social
dinners, and set dinners. All these involving the consideration of
cheer, and the last two of society also. Solitary dinners, I think,
ought to be avoided as much as possible, because solitude tends to
produce thought, and thought tends to the suspension of the digestive
powers. When, however, dining alone is necessary, the mind should be
disposed to cheerfulness by a previous interval of relaxation. As
contentment ought to be an accompaniment to every meal, punctuality
is essential, and the diner and the dinner ought to be ready at the
same time. A chief maxim in dining with comfort, is to have whatever
you want when you want it. It is ruinous to have to wait just for one
thing, and then another, and to have the little additions brought,
when what they belong to is half or entirely finished. To avoid
this, a little oversight is good, and, by way of instance, it is
sound practical philosophy to have mustard upon the table before the
arrival of toasted cheese. This very omission has caused as many small
vexations in the world as would, by this time, make a mountain of
misery. Indeed, I recommend an habitual consideration of what adjuncts
will be required to the main matters; and I think an attention to
this, on the part of females, might often be preventive of sour looks
and cross words, and their anti-conjugal consequences. There is not
only the usual adjuncts, but to those who have anything like genius
for dinners, little additions will sometimes suggest themselves,
which give a sort of poetry to a repast, and please the palate to the
promotion of health.
“The present system of dinner giving I consider thoroughly tainted
with barbarism and vulgarity, and far removed from real and refined
enjoyment. As tables are now arranged, one is never at peace from an
arm continually setting on or taking off a side dish, or reaching
over to a wine cooler in the centre; then comes the more laborious
changing of courses, with the leanings right and left, to admit a host
of dishes, that are set on only to be taken off again, after being
declined in succession by each of the guests, to whom they are handed
round; yet this is fashion, and not to be departed from. With respect
to wine, it is often offered when not wanted, and when wanted, is
perhaps not to be had till long waited for. It is dreary to observe two
persons, glass in hand, waiting the butler’s leisure to be able to take
wine together, and then, perchance, being helped in despair to what
they did not ask for; and it is still more dreary to be one of the two
yourself. How different when you can put your hand upon a decanter the
moment you want it! I have been speaking hitherto of attendance in its
most perfect state; but then comes the greater inconvenience, and the
monstrous absurdity, of the same forms with inadequate establishments.
Those who are overwhelmed with an establishment, are, as it were,
obliged in self-defence to devise work for their attendants, whilst
those who have no such reason ape an example which, under the most
appropriate circumstances, is a state of restraint and discomfort, but
which, when followed merely for fashion’s sake, becomes absolutely
intolerable. I remember once receiving a severe frown from a lady at
the head of her table, next to whom I was sitting, because I offered
to take some fish from her, to which she had helped me, instead of
waiting till it could be handed me by her one servant; and she was not
deficient either in good breeding or sense. It is one of the evils of
the present day, that every body strives after the same dull style, so
that, when comfort might be expected, it is often least to be found.
State, without the machinery of state, is of all states the worst. In
conclusion of this part of my subject, I will observe that I think
the affluent would render themselves and their country an essential
service, if they were to fall into the simple, refined style of living,
discarding everything incompatible with real enjoyment, and I believe
that, if the history of overgrown luxury were traced, it has always
had its origin from the vulgar--rich--the very last class worthy of
imitation.”
The 243rd Thousand of “Domestic Cookery, by a Lady,” has been
published in the present year. This is perhaps the most popular and
practical work of the kind which has ever appeared in England, but
it is exclusively a middle-class book, and intended for the rich
bourgeoisie. The compiler, Mrs. Rundell, had spent the early part
of her life in India, and the work is enriched with many receipts
of Indian cookery. It is on the whole a succinct and judicious
compilation, but though well worth its price, it is yet far from being
a perfect production. For many years, if report speaks truly, it has
produced 1000_l._ a year to the publisher, and he is said to have
very liberally presented the authoress with a present of 2000_l._
I have not hitherto spoken of the “Cookery Book of Carème,” nor did
I notice it among the French works on cookery, for two reasons:
first, because Carème had been cook to George IV.; to the Marquis
of Wellesley, and to the Marquis of Londonderry; and had spent a
considerable portion of his life in England, or in the service of
Englishmen; and, secondly, because the book has been translated by Mr.
Hall, “cook to T. P. Williams, Esq., of Temple House, near Marlow,
and conductor of the parliamentary dinners of Lord Canterbury.” The
translation is very clumsily and sometimes incorrectly executed, but
as the translator is himself a cook and a conductor of dinners! (the
office seems to us new and original) it will be more convenient to
take his version of the original. Mr. Hall has at least one requisite
for his task, namely, admiration of his author. “I conceive (says he
in his preface) I am laying before my readers the productions of a
man whose abilities transcended the generality of writers in the art,
whose imagination greatly enlarged the variety of _entrées_ and
_entrémêts_ previously practised, and whose clear and perspicuous
details render them facile not only to the artist who has already an
advance in his profession, but also to those whose knowledge of the
higher code of the kitchen has been necessarily limited.” The following
are Carème’s notions on large dishes of fish, not rendered certainly
into very pure and undefiled English by Mr. Hall. The sense and
substance of the author are however preserved:
“OF LARGE DISHES OF FISH.
“I had remarked,” says M. Carème, “at the grand dinners of
Prince Talleyrand, that the larger pieces of cookery of the
first course never corresponded with the elegance of the
bronzes, the glass, and the plate. Delivering myself up entirely
to cookery, I promised myself that I would reform an infinity
of old usages, though practised as they were by the greatest
masters of the art. When I became chief of the kitchen of the
Emperor Alexander, I commenced this great reform. In the years
1816 and 1817 I was in England with the Prince Regent, and I was
there gratified, for this truly royal table was always served
in the French manner, and the service of silver was so superb
and elegant that I was struck with wonder. It appeared then,
that it would advance my reputation to commence the reform that
I had proposed. What could be more ridiculous and absurd than,
for instance, to see served pike or carp à la Chambord, the
garniture of which were composed of larded sweetbreads, young
pigeons, cocks’ combs, and kidneys? But such was, however, the
practice of men highest in reputation.
“When at Vienna with Lord Stewart (now Marquis of Londonderry),
his Britannic Majesty’s ambassador at the court of Austria, I
for the first time served the carp à la Chambord, surrounded
with my new garnitures of fish: this large piece was noticed,
and the nobility of Vienna, as well as my illustrious employer,
approved this novelty; for it is certain that in the Austrian
capital, until then, the French cooks in reputation there had
preserved the ancient customs of Paris. I think that a cook
can never make too many pecuniary sacrifices to accelerate the
progress of his art. I each day feel a grateful satisfaction in
my work, from the flattering encouragements I receive from the
noble personages I serve, but to accomplish it I have not only
made great sacrifices in money, but every day have meditated on
some new thing: this work will afford proofs of it.”
The following is Carème’s idea of our English turtle soup, which we
will reproduce in speaking of soups:--
“TURTLE SOUP.
“This soup is, without contradiction, the most lengthened in its
details of any that are known; the composition of its seasoning
claims an able hand and a strong memory. The palate of the cook
who executes it should be very fine; none of the ingredients
should predominate, not even the cayenne or allspice, which the
English cooks inconsiderately employ.”
How well expressed is this! What parliamentary language! An able
hand and a strong memory; and then the “inconsiderate” use of spices
is as delicately and dexterously hinted as though Carème had taken
practical lessons of the late Sir Robert Peel, or studied Hamilton’s
Parliamentary Logic.
Notwithstanding the dictum of the author of the “Manuel des
Amphitryons,” that “Un grand cuisinier ne doit point se livrer à la
patisserie, dans laquelle il ne pourroit jamais être que mediocre,”
it is in pastry and such small trifles that Carème chiefly shines.
His work is unsuited to the mass of even the higher classes in this
or any other country, and its use must be limited to persons of
colossal fortune, who have thousands a year to expend in magnificent
entertainments. The sale of such a work must, under any circumstances,
be extremely limited, even though the price did not amount to the
extravagant sum of twenty-one shillings.
Having now gone through the principal cookery books of England and
France, I may be indulged in a few remarks on the _cuisine_ of
both countries. The cookery of England is, with the greater part of the
nation, an object, not of luxurious desire or morning meditation, but
of plain necessity and solid and substantial comfort.
“Due nourishment we seek, not gluttonous delight,”
to use the words of Milton. Men dine to satisfy hunger in England,
and to sustain and strengthen themselves for those avocations,
professional, parliamentary, and commercial, into which they throw more
eager energy, more properly-directed vigour, force, and intensity than
any other nation under the sun, not even excepting the Americans. It
may be a humiliating confession, but in England no learned treatises
have been written on the art of dining or dinner giving. We are wholly
without “meditations” or “contemplations gastronomiques;” we do not
spend thousands of pounds in the gingerbread gilding of _cafés_ and
_restaurants_; nor have we “magasins de comestibles,” in the style
of Chevet and Corcellet. Our inventive powers are not turned in the
direction of luxury, nor do we make our bill of fare our calendar,
nor measure the seasons by their dainty productions. We talk little
of dining or dishes, however much the most luxurious and sensual
among us may think about it. We can knead and bake, and roast and
boil, and stew plain food as well, perhaps better, than our livelier
neighbours; but we are not so expert in _petits plats_, in _entrées_,
_entremets_, and _ragouts_, and are therefore justly obnoxious to the
pert remark of Voltaire, that though we have twenty-four religions,
we have but one sauce. We can compare, combine and search out causes
in morals, science, and legislation, but we have given no heed to
the canons or combinations of cookery. We have given birth to a
Bacon, a Locke, a Shakespeare, a Milton, a Watt; but we are without
a Vatel, a Bechamel, a Laguipierre, a Beauvilliers, or a Carème. We
have perfected railroads, steam-boats, and canals, but we cannot
make a _suprème de volaille_ in perfection, nor arrange _des petits
choux en profiteroles_. We have produced the best quadrants, the best
sextants, the best achromatic telescopes, and the best chronometers;
but the truffles we grow in Derbyshire and Hampshire are pale and
flavourless, and we cannot make larks _au gratin_. We have built the
best steam-ships, the best steam-carriages, the best vehicles of
every description for draught, business, pleasure, and amusement; but
we cannot fatten frogs with the science of a Simon, and we do not
render our mutton tender by electricity. We have beaten the nations
of the earth in fabrics of linen, woollen, and cotton; but we are
ignorant of epigrams of lamb, and know nothing of _salpicons à la
Vénetienne_. We have invented the safety-lamp, the stocking-frame,
and the spinning-jenny; but we hopelessly try our hands at _filets de
lapereaux en turban_, and ignominiously fail in _salmis_ of partridge
_à la bourguinote_. We have excelled in everything requiring a union of
enterprise, energy, perseverance, and wealth; but we have no _pâtés
de foies-gras_ of home invention, and no _terrines de Nerac_. We
have discovered and planted colonies which will perpetuate our name,
our language, our literature, and our free institutions, to the last
syllable of recorded time; but we cannot make _veloutés_ of vegetables,
nor _haricots blancs à la maître d’hôtel_. We have given liberty to
the slave, and preached the pure word of the gospel to the nations
subjected to our dominion and sway; but we still eat butter badly
melted with our roast veal, and we have not invented three hundred and
sixty-four ways to dress eggs. Our schoolmaster has indeed been “long
abroad;” but though he has so far yielded to innovation and reform
as to cast off the cauliflower wig of the time of the great Busby,
yet he will not hear of _chouf-leurs au gratin_ or _au jus_, but will
still eat his esculent boiled hard in plain water. But a truce with
comparisons, which are somewhat odious. Mankind undoubtedly owe to our
neighbours many ingenious culinary processes by which the productions
of nature are artfully and pleasantly disguised--many delicate
combinations of sauces by which the palate is alternately stimulated
and palled; but though we are indebted to the French for these
nick-nackeries--though we owe to them hats and hair-powder, bon-bons
and busks, caps and crinolines, stays and swaddling-clothes, sabots,
wigs, and waistcoats, filigrams and foulardes, gold thread, gloves,
and the guillotine--yet the world is but little their debtor in any
invention which does not turn on vanity, epicurism, or sensuality. They
are a people who, according to their own historian, De Thou, discovered
how to make tapestry before they had learned how to make broad cloth.
The metropolis of England exceeds that of France in extent and
population; it commands a greater supply of all articles of
consumption, and contains a greater number and variety of markets,
which are better supplied. There are also some articles of meat and
some articles of cookery in which England exceeds France. Though we
are also undoubtedly inferior to the Gauls in the articles of veal
and fowl, yet we greatly surpass them in mutton, produce better beef,
lamb, and pork, and are immeasurably superior both in the quantity and
quality of our fish, our venison, and our game.
This was admitted by St. Evremond nearly two hundred years ago in some
stanzas, entitled “Les Avantages de l’Angleterre,” wherein he says--
“Roche-guyon, Bene, verfine,
Ne vantez plus votre lapin;
Windsor en fournit la cuisine
D’un fumet encore plus fin.”
In the same poem he alludes to the profuse supply of woodcocks,
snipe, pheasant, and larks, and to the fine flavour and colour of the
Bath mutton. It is in fish, however, that we have been always most
pre-eminent.
The turbot brought to Billingsgate in large quantities from the
sand-banks, on the coast of Holland and St. George’s Channel,
sufficiently attest our energy and enterprise. The coast of Holland,
and the sea beyond our western coast, are as open to the French as to
the British, yet when has any Paris market disclosed such a supply of
fish as may be seen daily at Billingsgate, even after the hundreds of
thousands of retail fishmongers have been supplied. In a few soups,
such as turtle, which we possess in the greatest perfection, owing to
our colonial trade, and ox tail, mock turtle, giblet, hare, pea, and
mutton broth, we also surpass the French--but in the making of the
latter admirable broth for invalids, there is still much to desire at
coffee-houses and clubs. There is scarcely known a public establishment
where it may be eaten in perfection, excepting at Brooke’s in St.
James’s-street. It were most desirable that we should learn how to
make a French _bouillon_ or a _lait de poule_, for here indeed we are
ignorant and at fault. In the boiling of all plain fish we surpass our
neighbours. There is nothing in Paris equal to a first-rate English
turbot, cod-fish, haddock, john-dorey, or Southampton water or Severn
salmon, but the sauces used for these fishes in France are infinitely
preferable. It is a remark of the late Lady Holland, that no fish
should be eaten with another, and, therefore, lobster sauce was
excluded from her table. Dutch sauce is unquestionably more favourable
to the flavour of all boiled fish.
The French certainly beat us in sturgeon cutlets, _filets de sole_,
and _béchamels_ of fish. The oysters of Cancale, of Etretat, of
Ostend, and Marenne, are equal, if not superior, to the generality of
English oysters, because they are less artificially fed, and have not
their flavour washed away. But if the London tradesmen would spare
their oatmeal and fresh water, the Milton native oyster would be
found superior to its Gallic brother. In other shell-fish, also, we
have a decided superiority. The corpulent, respectable, full-fed crab
is almost unknown to the Gauls, and they have but a small quantity
of lobsters and prawns, but they cultivate the smaller cray-fish in
great quantities--a fish which is not common in England. Nor is there
anything in French cookery equal to our barons of beef, our noble
sirloins, our exquisite haunches, and saddles, and legs, and loins of
Southdown mutton; our noble rounds of boiled beef, and those prime five
guinea haunches of venison, which one sees from June till September,
at the establishments of the Messrs. Grove, at Charing Cross and Bond
Street. In cutlets of all kinds, in _fricassées_, in _ragouts_, in
_salmis_, _quenelles_, _purées_, _filets_, and more especially in the
dressing of vegetables, our neighbours surpass us; but we roast our
game more perfectly, and can hash mutton and venison better than any
one of the myriads of French cooks. In bread, cream, butter, eggs,
whether with reference to size or freshness, England is not to compare
with France; and a French _poularde_ of La Bresse or du Mans is worth
all the Dorking fowl hatched since the time of the deluge. Though,
therefore, the French _cuisine_ be more luxurious, more varied, more
palatable, more fair and dainty to look on than our ruder, more simple,
more frugal, and less luxurious kitchen, yet our aliments (with the
single exception of our vegetables) are infinitely more nutritious,
and to English stomachs, at least, just as easy of digestion--perhaps,
indeed, easier than the more refined and _recherché_ fare of our
livelier neighbours. It were undoubtedly desirable that we should learn
a little from them in the way of white and brown sauces in _veloutés_,
in the dressing of vegetables, in the making that simple, excellent
thing, an omelette, in cooking beef-steaks, veal cutlets, and mutton
chops, in seasoning and flavouring with ham instead of with salt; and
in a more profuse use of eggs, oil, and butter. The great objection to
the more general employment of these good things hitherto has been the
expense, but now that the extended operation of the tariff has rendered
all kinds of provisions cheaper, a great improvement in the kitchen
even of the middle classes should be expected. Within the last thirty
years great improvements have been introduced into the domestic cookery
of the highest nobility, and within the last twenty years, owing to
frequent intercommunication, such has been the rapid progress that one
may fancy oneself dining in the Rue de Bourbon, the Rue de Grenelle,
or the Rue St. Florentin, instead of in Grosvenor or Belgrave-square
or Park Lane; but still while anything is imperfect, something remains
to be done, and with the continuation of peace, we may look forward
with hopefulness, not alone to a more extended commerce, but to an
improved cookery. No one desires to see Englishmen gluttons, gourmands,
or refined sensualists, but only to see them adopt some few culinary
improvements which would contribute to their material comfort, to their
physical health, and to their mental enjoyment. “Comer à gusto y vestir
al uso,” is philosophy in England as well as in Spain. Dr. Johnson
declared that the subject on which a man most frequently and most
earnestly thought was his dinner, and the great leviathan spoke truly
in so far as he was personally concerned. “I could,” says he, “write
a better book of cookery than has ever yet been written; it should
be a book on philosophical principles; I would tell what is the best
butcher’s meat, the proper seasons of different vegetables, and then
how to roast and boil and to compound.”
Would that the doctor had lived to complete the task. The work would
have been as useful as popular, and as well executed as the dictionary;
and there can scarcely be a doubt that it would be comprehensive and
cosmopolitan in its character, and lucid and well-arranged in its
details. Such a work yet remains to be written, and the only wonder is,
that it has not been long since attempted and accomplished. When it
is considered that no body of men in this our country, from a parish
vestry to the Imperial Parliament, can meet on any public occasion
without dining together--that the Whigs dine with Lord John Russell,
the Conservatives with Lord Derby, and the Radicals with any leader
of theirs, if any such there be, with a good house and cellar and a
good cook--it must be considered that the art of dining (“l’art de
la gueule,” as Montaigne says) is one of the most important bases of
representative government, and it should not be without its professors,
historians, and exponents. The subject is nevertheless of a neutral
character, and I have endeavoured to show the respective merits of
French and English cookery. Substantial solidity and simplicity are
the distinctive marks of the one; variety, delicacy, and harmonious
combination is the character of the other. Both are excellent in their
way, but a fusion of the two kitchens, rejecting what is coarse and
barbarous in the English, and too gross, Gascon, and Provençal in the
French, would be the perfection of good living. Though personally no
admirer of French manners or French morals--though I put no faith
in French equality, abhor French centralization, loathe from the
very bottom of my heart French tyranny, and think French military
glory--which is but a velvety euphemism for French brigandage and
French invasion--should be put down by the comity of nations, and the
strong will and strong arm of all mankind--yet I am of opinion that
there is much in the French kitchen which might be advantageously
transplanted and successfully imitated in this country. But as nations
cling with constancy to their old culinary customs, and as systems of
cookery often survive systems of polity, I am not very hopeful as to
any immediate change. A new cookery book, however, pointing out the
respective merits of the French and English culinary art, is a work
greatly and urgently wanted. The Peel Tariff, or free trade, will never
have a fair trial till such a publication sees the light.
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