ON DINNERS AND DINNER-GIVING.
Dinner is unquestionably the most important and substantial meal of
the two, three, or four, in which civilized man indulges, and it is a
meal which any healthful and laborious person (whether his labour be of
mind or body) enjoys zestfully. Man is distinguished from the beasts of
the field in being a conversing and a dining animal. Jules Janin says
somewhere, with more of truth and less of exaggeration than he usually
employs, that beasts feed, but man dines; that lower animals hunger,
but man something more than hungers, for he has a discriminating
appetite.
Dinner is an important consideration to those who study health, temper,
and the best method of getting through business. Our great moralist,
Johnson, would never have accomplished a tithe of what he has done
for his generation and posterity, had he not sensibly given much
more attention to what suited his palate and his appetite than the
great mass of mankind. The Doctor laughed at those who affected not
to care for dinner, and asserted that from having long thought on the
subject, he could write a better cookery book than had ever appeared
in his day, because it would be written on philosophical principles.
The late Sydney Smith, too, one of the ablest and wittiest men of our
own generation, laid great stress on the importance of dinner to the
proper performance of our most serious duties and functions; and there
can be no doubt that the Canon of St. Paul’s had reason on his side.
Every sensible and thoughtful man is, in truth, aware how much better
he is able to speak, or to write, or take his part in conversation
and debate after a satisfactory meal, which pleased his palate, and
suited and satisfied his appetite, than after a cold, a comfortless,
or an unrelished dinner. The result can be explained on purely medical
and physiological grounds, and need not be further laboured in a work
of this kind. Suffice it to say, however, that in ancient, mediæval,
and modern times, some of the most scientific and learned men have
not disdained to write on dinners. I need but mention the treatise of
Apicius, who lived in the time of Augustus, “De Re Culinaria;”[10]
the treatise of Nonius, a learned Antwerp physician of the sixteenth
century, “De Re Cibariâ;” and the more modern treatise of Lemery,
physician of Louis XIV., and thirty-three years the physician to the
Hôtel Dieu at Paris. Lemery published his “Traité des Alimens,” in
1702. Contemporaneously with him, flourished Dr. Lister, Physician
to our own Queen Anne, who wrote a cookery book in 1705, and gave a
paraphrastic translation of the work of Apicius, under the title,
“De Obsoniis et Condimentis sive de Arte Coquinaria.” In the reign
of George IV., Dr. Kitchener and half a dozen of his brethren of the
faculty in Paris, wrote disquisitionally upon cookery; and, in our own
day, Drs. Pereira and Lankester have written valuable treatises on
food, with a view that we should employ such a diet and regimen as is
most conducive to health. The truth is that we must all dine, _tant
bien que mal_, every day in the three hundred and sixty-five;
and, as many of us give dinners every seven, fourteen, twenty-eight
or thirty days, or every quarter of a year, to our friends and
acquaintances, it behoves us to know what to order for ourselves, when
dining _en famille_, as well as for the guests who honour us with
their company.
Each country and capital has its mode and season for giving dinners,
but there can be no doubt whatever that the best dinners in the world
are given in Paris and in London. Probably if the dinners of London
were to be judged by the specimens afforded in the most refined
houses of the highest aristocracy in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, and
Belgravia, in the season between April and July, we should bear off
the bell against the world; but the general cookery of a great capital
containing nearly three millions of souls cannot be properly judged by
the superior cookery of about three hundred first-rate houses, in all
of which accomplished French or French-trained men cooks officiate.
The dinners given at such houses present the substantial solidity, as
well as the gracefulness, lightness, and science of French cookery,
and display a combination as rare as nutritious, as desirable as
delightful. But if we descend in England beyond the upper ten thousand,
though the fried and roast are generally excellent, the attendance
good, and the display of glass, crystal and plate much greater and
better kept, than in any other country and capital in the world, yet
the cookery is not to be compared to the finer _cuisine bourgeoise_
of Paris. The professional and learned classes at Paris, as well as
the class of superior traders, all feast at a _cuisine_, which, for
its science, its relishing and appetizing qualities, greatly surpasses
ours. In moderate houses in Paris there is far less pretension than
there is among us. For instance, an eminent lawyer, doctor, or
publisher, will give you at a small friendly dinner of four or six, a
good soup, a good fish plain or dressed, a good _roti_, and a couple of
side dishes, all of which are excellent in their way, with a _salmi_ of
game and a couple of _entremets_ quite perfect of their kind, and this
at an expense of little more than one half of what an English dinner
costs. There is on the table plenty for every guest; but the beauty of
such dinners is, that nearly every morsel is eaten up. There are a few
good dishes well cooked, and everybody relishes his portion. The wines,
liqueurs, and coffee are all good.
In some of the very first houses in the Faubourg St. Germain, at a
small party you seldom see more than two men servants, and often only
one. Among professional men living in the neighbourhood of the Palais
de Justice, the Chaussée d’Antin, the Faubourg St. Honoré, or the
Marais, the attendance is generally by a _femme de charge_, aided by
what would in this country be called a parlour maid, and who sometimes
acts as the _femme de chambre_ of the lady of the house, if there be
one.
On the other hand, among the foreign ambassadors in Paris, and more
especially at the Austrian and Russian Embassies, there are most
sumptuous dinners, distinguished by great luxury and display. The great
functionaries of the Court too, the Ministers, the Prefect of the
Seine, and other high official dignitaries, most of whom are _nouveaux
riches_, live expensively, keeping numerous servants, taking their cue
from the Court. But it would be an error to suppose from this, that
excessive expenditure is the custom of the nation. Far indeed from
it; for the great majority of Frenchmen are thrifty, and spend little
on hospitality. The class of bankers, however, _agents de Change_,
speculators on the Bourse, railroad contractors, and persons connected
with the _Crédit Foncier_ and the _Crédit Mobilier_ make much display,
and live fastly, though in bad taste; many of them, poor and utterly
unknown fourteen or fifteen years ago, now possess fine mansions,
first-rate cooks, and live _à la Lucullus_.
But these men do not move in high or select society. They live among
speculators and jobbers, and their tables are often presided over by
some incognita of the demi-monde, some _première danseuse_ of the
opera, or some _jeune première_ of the Variétés or the Vaudeville.
The gentry and higher middle classes in Paris enjoy an exquisite and
not expensive _cuisine bourgeoise_, but English or foreigners are
rarely met at their dinners. The truth is that few Englishmen speak
the French language sufficiently well or understand French domestic
life so thoroughly as to relish French society. Notwithstanding the
great intercourse that has prevailed between the two nations for nearly
half a century, they do not mix well together socially. Englishmen,
notwithstanding the extended intercourse they have had with the
Continent, still like to sit an hour or so over their wine, after the
ladies have departed, whereas in Paris ladies and gentlemen leave the
_salle à manger_, or dinner table, together, and retire to another room
to coffee and conversation. The coffee and liqueurs despatched, the
dinner circle is dissolved by host and guests either proceeding to the
theatres, or to some _cercle_ or _réunion_, where other friends are
met. The result is, that after from two and a half to three hours of
agreeable conviviality, the circle separate, mutually pleased with each
other, and greatly exhilarated by the good cheer, the good converse,
and the good coffee. The parties sit down to their repast at six or
seven, and separate at half-past eight or half-past nine, when it is
not too late to go to the Italian or French opera, or even to the
Theatre du Palais Royal, the Vaudeville, or the Variétés. There is no
torturing headache the next day from that “_casse tête_” wine called
port, and there has been no time lost in waiting, as with us, for
people arrive in France at the very moment invited--a moment which is
always considered military time, so precisely is it kept.
It is a pity we do not adopt something of this system among all classes
in England. People might under this condition of things, give two
dinners for every one they now give, and both host and guest would be
all the better in person and pocket for a more elegant and temperate
style of living.
To return, however, to English dinners. Though in no capital in the
world is hospitality more generally exercised than in London from
January to December, yet among the higher classes the grand time for
giving dinners is at the height of the season--that is to say, when
both houses of Parliament are sitting. The season may generally be
described as extending from the middle of April to the middle of July,
a period of three months. Occasionally it begins a little earlier and
ends a little later, but on an average of years it would be found that
London is filled with the most distinguished visitors during these
months.
During the season of which I speak, the prices of all table luxuries
are enhanced, spring chickens as they are called costing generally
about 12_s._ or 13_s._ the couple. Fashion, however, will exert its
sway, and, totally irrespective of cost, _diners d’apparat_, or grand
entertainments, are always given during this season. Covers are laid
for twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty, as the case may
be, though occasionally the number of guests is considerably larger.
At regular dress dinners of this kind there is great magnificence,
great luxury, all the _primeurs_, as the French call them, all the
early fruits and vegetables, no matter what the cost, are provided and
produced. Green peas are imported from Portugal, and asparagus from
the same place, and from Hyeres, Nice, &c. Most of the nobility and
gentry are enabled to supply themselves from their country seats with
hot-house grapes and pines; but, to such as are not, Covent Garden, and
the best fruiterers of London are always open, and in no country in the
world do you find, if prepared to incur the expenditure, finer fruits
(especially hot-house fruits) than in England, though finer vegetables
are to be found in the Brussels and occasionally in the Parisian
markets.
At the grand dinners of which I speak the custom has been, and still
in a great degree is, to divide the dinner into several courses, but
this is a practice super-inducing trouble, profusion, and expense.
These may be incurred where there are large establishments and colossal
fortunes (as there are in England in a greater degree than in any
country in the world), and where the object is to astonish and render
rivalry hopeless, rather than to please or satisfy your guest; but as
in the great majority of cases the fortunes and the desires of men are
moderate, it seems to me it would be in better sense, and, indeed,
in better taste too, to allow of but two courses as in France. In
some of the best houses in the Faubourg St. Germain, fish and _hors
d’œuvre_, such as patties, &c., form part of the first course, and
not a distinct course as here.
In all grand dinners for twelve persons in England, two soups, two
fishes, and four _entrées_ for the first course are considered
indispensable; and two roasts, two removes, and half a dozen
_entremets_ for the second course. For a dinner of twenty, the
_entrées_ and the _entremets_ would necessarily have to be doubled,
being each increased to eight. Of course the bill of fare for these
dinners varies with the season. In April a turtle and a spring soup may
be given with turbot and crimped salmon, roast fore-quarter of lamb,
fillet of beef, &c.; whereas in January or February there may be an
ox-tail, a mock turtle, a gravy or a giblet or a grey pea soup, with
a variety of game, such as partridges, black cock, wild duck, snipe,
and woodcock, not procurable in April or May. Persons giving dinners
should, of course, consider the season.
Men of rank and fortune who keep a regular house steward or _maître
d’hôtel_ have this trouble taken off their hands, for a confidential
servant, or a French _chef de cuisine_ arranges with the master of
the establishment or the lady of the house what is to be the _menu_
or bill of fare; but persons of two or three thousand a year, or of
one thousand a year (and such persons now give occasional dinners,
vying with those of ten and twenty times their fortune) cannot afford
to keep French men cooks, or to maintain extensive establishments. It
is therefore necessary, unless these gentlemen be supplied by Gunter,
Bridgeman, or some other tradesmen, at so much per head, that he should
know how to order a dinner.
In the case of men of moderate fortune, it is very likely a first-rate
man cook, French or English, will be introduced for the occasion,
and come the day before the dinner to make preliminary arrangements,
and to give directions to, and to aid the ordinary woman cook of the
household. Unless some such arrangement as this be adopted, a dinner
cannot be very satisfactory, and probably it would be better for
persons who have to give set dinners on certain occasions twice or
thrice a year, and who cannot fully rely on their own English female
cook, and the professed man cook brought in to assist and superintend,
to contract with some renowned undertaker or _entrepreneur_ of dinners,
such as Gunter, Staples, Bathe and Breach, &c., to supply the party of
twelve or twenty, as the case may be, at so much a head, exclusive of
wine.
In arrangements such as this much trouble is saved to the man of small
fortune, and there is no waste, for the provider of the dinner removes
the _débris_ on the very night of the feast, or early the following
morning. Why, however, it will be asked, should persons of a couple or
three thousand a year give so pretentious and costly a dinner? Because
every one in England tries to ape the class two or three degrees above
him in point of rank and fortune, in style of living, and manner of
receiving his friends. Thus it is that a plain gentleman of moderate
fortune, or a professional man making a couple of thousands a year,
having dined with a peer of £50,000 a year in Grosvenor Square or
Belgravia, seeks when he himself next gives a dinner, to imitate the
style of the Marquis, Earl, or Lord Lieutenant of a county with whom
he has come into social contact. The attempt is a great mistake, and
generally a failure; for unless there be a unity and completeness,
an _ensemble_ in such a feast, it is a misadventure. In a party of
twenty at one of these great houses there are from a dozen to fifteen
servants, exclusive of the butler and under-butler, waiting at table,
and where is the man of three thousand or six thousand a year who
could afford such a retinue of liveried lackeys! The keep, liveries,
beer-money, and wages of a dozen livery servants of this kind, would
amount to from £1600 to £2000 a year alone. Is it not therefore folly
for gentlemen of small means, or for struggling professional men, to
seek to vie with, by aping, these magnates. Let the great brewers, the
great bankers, the great merchants, and the great railway contractors
and millionaires, vie with them if it please them, but let men of mind
and brain not attempt it. Even in the case of millionaires, the essay
at rivalry is rarely successful. There is ostentation without ease,
elegance, good breeding, or good taste, and the parvenu too often
appears in all his disagreeable hideousness and self-sufficiency. It
were far better if men of moderate fortune would attempt less. The
success of a dinner does not depend in the least on two soups, two
fishes, two removes, and eight _entrées_, but on having sufficient on
table the best of its kind, and thoroughly well dressed. Better far
have one first-rate soup and one good fish, such as turbot or salmon,
than a multiplicity of dishes, unless you have good cooks and a retinue
of servants, and all the accessories of a first-rate establishment. It
is within the power of every gentleman of fair means to give a good
soup, a good fish, a couple of removes, and four _entrées_ at the
first course, and a couple of small roasts, a couple of removes, and a
few _entremets_ at the second course, and what can any reasonable man
want in addition? If the dinner be composed exclusively of English, let
the remove be a haunch or saddle of mutton, a roast turkey and ham,
a braized leg of mutton, a fillet or a sirloin of beef, and surely
there is enough to create “a soul under the ribs of death,” with the
_entrées_ of lamb, mutton, and veal cutlets, with fillets of pheasants,
_vol au vents blanquette_, of sweetbreads and such like. In April, May,
June, and July, _fricassées_ of chickens, leverets, pigeons, fillets
of rabbits, with quails, ducklings, turkey poults, and guinea fowls
may be served for _entrées_ and second courses; while in August there
is venison, grouse, and wheatears. In September, October, November,
and December, there are partridges, grouse, blackcock, golden plover,
snipe, woodcock, wild duck, hare, and pheasants; while in the two last
months of November and December, ox-tail, mulligatawney, mock turtle,
and giblet soups may do frequent duty, with turbot, crimped cod,
haddock, and brill for fish. For _entrées_ in the winter months there
may be pork cutlets, _quenelles_, mutton cutlets, rabbit curries, &c.
I am now speaking, of course, of dinners of some pretension; but there
are every day given in England those quiet little family dinners of six
or eight persons, which are the perfection of social life.
It is said that the number present at these dinners should not be less
than the graces, nor more than the muses. There is a good deal of truth
in this. Conversation cannot be general or quite unrestrained, where
the company exceeds eight or ten. In a party of sixteen or twenty you
are forced to converse with your neighbours on either side, or with the
gentleman opposite to you. The master of a feast should take care in
selecting his guests, whether in a large or in a small party, but more
particularly in a small party--that they should be people of analogous
tastes. In most cases it would not very well answer to place a Puritan
side by side with a High Churchman--or a peace-at-any-price man next
an engineer officer, earnest in the pursuit of his profession. An
Allopathist should not be united _en petit comité_ with a Homœopathist;
nor a whig of the old school with a violent radical. The great object
is to pair amiable, pleasant and agreeable men, who have travelled much
and lived in the world, and pleasant and agreeable women. A good talker
at a dinner-table is a great acquisition, but good listeners are not
less essential.
But your good talker should be an urbane and polite man, not bumptious
and underbred. Barristers and travelled physicians are generally
excellent company, though the former not seldom monopolise too much of
the conversation, and give it occasionally a shoppy air. If the object
of dining be to secure the greatest quantity of health and enjoyment,
such results are more likely to be attained at small than at those set
and formal dinners, where people are kept--to use the language of the
late Mr. Walker, in “stately durance.” The essence of a good dinner, as
the author of the “Original” sensibly remarks, is “that it should be
without ceremony, and that you should have what you want when you want
it.” This you cannot have at a ceremonial and formal London dinner,
where you are encumbered with help, and are not allowed to do anything
for yourself. At small every-day dinners, you may have every thing upon
the table that is wanted at the time; thus for salmon you would have
lobster, or parsley and butter, or cockle sauce, as you might prefer,
with cayenne, chili vinegar, sliced cucumber, &c. The comfort of this
is great, as the guests pass the sauces at once and instantaneously to
each other. At great dinners this is never done. Everything is handed
round by a file of liveried servants, who are continually changing the
courses and taking up and laying down dishes, to the discomfort of the
guests. Yet it is this dull, comfortless, stately and ostentatious
formality that every one is striving at.
“State,” as Mr. Walker observes, “without the machinery of state, is of
all states the worst;” and it is detestable to see men with a couple of
thousands a year, and a couple of men servants, and an English female
cook, imitating the style of living of men of thirty thousand a year,
with a dozen male servants. I would not have it inferred, that a large
income and a first-rate man cook are indispensable to the giving of
good dinners. There are now several Schools of Cookery in London, from
some of which one can obtain regularly educated female cooks, and it is
quite possible, with small establishments and small fortunes, to give
comfortable and even elegant dinners, in which the English style shall
be diversified by the French. But in these small establishments too
much should not be attempted. Everything savouring of too much state
and over-display should be discarded. The dishes should be choice, but
limited in number, and the wines more remarkable for their excellence
than their variety. It is the exquisite quality of a dinner or a wine
that pleases us, not the number of dishes, nor the number of vintages.
The late Earl of Dudley was wont to say, “that a good soup, a small
turbot, a neck of venison, and ducklings with green peas, or chicken
with asparagus, or an apricot tart, was a dinner for an emperor!” and
to my thinking it was far too good for most emperors past and present.
I have already observed, that in my mind the really fine _cuisine
bourgeoise_ of good houses in France is perfection, and I do not
despair of seeing such cookery infinitely more generally used in
England than it ever has been; but the more expensive French cookery
is never likely to become generally prevalent amongst us. Carème tells
us that at grand balls and dinners he used to roast turkeys only for
his soups and consommés, and he talks as volubly of two, four, and
half-a-dozen fowls, as though they were had for eighteen pence a piece,
instead of costing at the cheapest rate and time 5_s._ 6_d._ or 6_s._
a couple. A system of cookery so expensive as this can never become
general in any country. Carème tells how he formed his consommés, and
though doubtless they were better flavoured and presented a more golden
appearance than the generality of consommés, yet, to use the language
of Burke,
“They were soon exhaled, and vanished hence--
A short, sweet odour at a vast expense.”
There are, however, many things in the French kitchen which are daily
coming into more general use. First, there is the _pot au feu_ for
the family broth; there are the various _purées_ for fowl, rabbit,
and vegetable soups of all kinds, from Jerusalem artichokes, carrots,
and turnips, to onions and _cerfeuil_. Thirdly, there are the various
sauces of _blanc_, _espagnole_, _roux blanc_, _velouté_, _sauce à la
creme_, and _poivrade_, which are now of much more common usage than
they were thirty, twenty, or even ten years ago. We are every day
also getting more and more into the habit of filleting our soles, or
dressing them _au gratin_ or _à la Normande_; and in the serving of
_entrées_ and _entremets_ we have made visible improvement. Still there
are few English cooks in England who can turn out an _omelette aux
fines herbes_, or an _omelette soufflée_ as well as an ordinary French
cook. Yet, what an excellent thing this for breakfast or lunch when one
is tired of a boiled egg, of a slice of cold ham, beef, or tongue, or
of a mutton chop, beefsteak, or cold game pie.
A morning’s meal is no unimportant thing to a man who has to
appear in half a dozen causes in a crowded court, who has to visit
five-and-twenty patients, or to get through half a dozen Blue-books
before he goes down to a Parliamentary Committee at the House of Lords
or Commons. Our mental energies, in a great degree, depend on our
physical condition and well-being; and the physical condition of that
man, be he peer, senator, advocate, or doctor, who, for half a dozen
days, has had an indifferent breakfast or dinner, cannot be good.
In asking people to dinner, you should put to yourself the question,
“Why do I ask them?” and unless the answer be satisfactory, they are
not likely to contribute much to the agreeability and sociality of
the entertainment. They may be ornamental; it may be necessary, in
a give-and-take sense, to have them in return for a dinner already
long received and digested; but, unless they are sensible, social,
unaffected, and clever men, they are not likely to contribute much to
the hilarity of the entertainment. You may ask a man because he is a
_bon vivant_, because he is a _raconteur_, because he talks brilliantly
and eloquently, because he is a wit, because he is a distinguished
traveller, poet, historian, or orator, or because he is a good-natured
popular man, a “_bon enfant_,” or, what used to be called, a “jolly
good fellow.” But do not ask any, however much above the average,
who is a prig, who is pretentious, who is disputatious, or who is
underbred. Never introduce to your table men who have not the feelings,
habits, manners, and education of gentlemen--I had almost said, the
birth of a gentleman; but it must be remembered that nature now and
again produces some magnificent specimens of what somebody has called
“God Almighty’s gentlemen.” But these are the exceptions, not the rule;
for it will generally be found that men of gentle birth are also men of
gentle breeding. The only two positively offensive and ill-bred men I
ever encountered in society were men of some ability who had probably
never entered the house of a gentleman to dinner, till they were four
or five-and-twenty. In these instances, the want of early training and
culture in manners and _les convenances_ had never been supplied. The
presence of men of this stamp is destructive to good fellowship. They
are social pests, and should be avoided _comme la gale_.
Though the French learned a great deal of their cookery, and still more
of their confectionery, from the Italians, yet there is little now in
Italian cookery worthy of imitation or adoption among us. Macaroni
and semolina soups are better made in Paris than in Italy, though
the ribbon macaroni is better prepared at Naples and in Sicily than
anywhere else in the world. Veal cutlets, also, are very well prepared
in the great cities of Italy, and more especially at Naples and Turin.
Italian ices and confectionary are worthy of all praise; but, as
the nation is not a dinner-giving nation, we have little or nothing
to adopt from them. Some of their sausages are extremely good and
appetizing.
The Spaniards are as little of a dinner-giving people as the Italians.
Though every Spaniard tells you, with asseverating protestations, “Mi
casa sta à la dispocion di usted,” yet this means nothing whatever,
for assuredly you are never destined to eat or drink within his four
walls, unless it be a cup of cold water. The only national dishes of
any note in Spain, are the _olla_ and the _puchero_, and neither would
be relished by Englishmen of well-educated palates.
Germany has little to teach us in the way of cookery. On the banks
of the Rhine they dress a carp well, with both sweet and sour sauce;
but, for my own part, I prefer a Rhenish carp served in Paris by a
French cook. German _sauer kraut_, with Hambro’ beef, may be said
to be a national dish, and right good the Hambro’ salt beef is; but
few Englishmen like either _sauer kraut_ or potato salad--a dish of
Fatherland. German batter and German horseradish sauce, made with
cream, and also the cherry-sauce, so common, is not despicable with
certain meats; but, on the whole, German cookery is not either elegant
or palatable.
It may be thought that my condemnation of German cookery is too
sweeping. It is not without full experience I speak of it, for I have
lived in every capital town of Germany. At Dresden, many years ago, I
rented a house in the Neu Markt, of the cook of Madame de Stael, and
he furnished the best-dressed dinners I saw in Germany. At Vienna,
among the Ambassadors of the five Great Powers, and among some of
the Hungarian and Bohemian nobility, first-rate dinners are given,
dressed by French cooks; but this is not the cookery of the nation
at large, nor even of the well-to-do and easy portion of it. Carème
was a considerable time at Vienna, as cook of the late Marquis of
Londonderry, and he liked Vienna very well; but he says that the beef,
mutton, and veal are very indifferent, badly bled, and disagreeable
to dress. “There are wanting at Vienna,” says Carème, “the truffles
of France, and the fish of the sea.” But, though these wants are now
speedily supplied by rail, the general cookery is not good.
The best and truest account of German cookery is given in the “Bubbles
from the Brunnens of Nassau.” “During the fashionable season,” says
the author, the dinner at Langenschwalbach is at one o’clock. Seated
at the table of the Allee Saal, I counted one hundred and eighty
people at dinner in one room. To say in a single word whether the fare
was bad or good would be quite impossible, it being so completely
different from anything ever met with in England. To my simple taste,
the cookery is most horrid; still there were now and then some dishes,
particularly sweet ones, which I thought excellent. With respect to
the made-dishes, of which there were a great variety, I beg to record a
formula which is infallible; the simple rule is this--let the stranger
taste the dish, and if it be not sour, he may be quite certain that it
is greasy: again, if it be not greasy, let him not eat thereof, for
then it is sure to be sour. With regard to the order of the dishes,
that too is unlike anything Mrs. Glasse ever thought of: after soup,
which all over the world is the alpha of the gourmand’s alphabet, the
barren meat from which the said soup has been extracted is produced;
of course it is dry, tasteless, withered-looking stuff, which a
Grosvenor Square cat would not touch with its whiskers; but this dish
is always attended by a couple of satellites--the one, a quantity
of cucumber stewed in vinegar; the other, a black greasy sauce; and
if you dare accept a piece of this flaccid beef, you are instantly
thrown between Scylla and Charybdis, for so sure as you decline the
indigestible cucumber, souse comes into your plate a deluge of the
sickening grease. After the company have eaten heavily of messes, which
it would be impossible to describe, in comes some nice salmon--then
fowls--then puddings--then meat again--then stewed fruit; and after
the English stranger has fallen back in his chair quite beaten, a leg
of mutton majestically makes its appearance! The pig who lives in his
sty would have some excuse, but it is really quite shocking to see
any other animal overpowering himself at mid-day with such a mixture
and superabundance of food. “Yet only think,” says our author, “what
a compliment all this is to the mineral waters of Langenschwalbach,
if the Naiads of the Pauline can be of real service to a stomach full
of vinegar and grease, how much more effectually ought they to tinker
up the inside of him who has sense enough to sue them _in formâ
pauperis_.”
The quantity of fat and lard used in German cookery, more especially in
cooking vegetables, renders it unpalatable to English tastes.
We may borrow from the Dutch kitchen something in fish soups. The
Dutch eel soup is rich, full of flavour, and very nourishing; and the
soup of herring roes, called Erasmus’s soup, prepared with twelve soft
roes of herrings generally, and a quart of young peas, is by no means
despicable.
I have also, after tossing on the German Ocean, enjoyed in Holland
a Flushing soup made of flakes of cod and salmon. Our own modes of
dressing cod, whether fresh or salted, is good, but something may be
adopted from the Dutch in sauces for fish, and in the various ways of
dressing herrings.
I have, in another part of this work, expressed an opinion as to the
Russian mode of laying out a table. I will here merely say that almost
everything good in the Russian cookery has been adopted from the
English, French, and Dutch kitchens.
There is a fish soup in Russia, the chief ingredient in which is the
sterlet, but as the fish is not obtainable here, it is useless to speak
of it. Few of our peasantry would eat the Russian national soup--the
_tschy_; and the _barch_, the Polish soup, which is fermented, is
little likely to please an English or a French palate.
While Carème admits that the Russians have a few national dishes,
he properly says these do not constitute a system of cookery. Their
butcher’s meat, he adds, is very indifferent, their pullets are poor
and small. The mutton consumed in St. Petersburgh comes from the
interior, and is often, like the salmon, frozen.
From the Turkish and Indian cookery we may adopt much more than from
the Russian. The _pilau_ and _kalobs_ of Turkey are very relishing, and
so are the fish and vegetable curries of India--the pish poshes, pepper
pots, and cutcharees and country captains. The Indian mulligatawney
soup is excellent in the damp and cold weather, from the beginning of
November to the end of February.
For ordinary dinners, English gentlemen should prefer simplicity and
excellence to variety. Simplicity and convenience have triumphed in
dress, and will sooner or later in dinners.
The circular form seems the most desirable in a dinner-table; and
with respect to setting it out, I would say with the late Mr. Walker,
nothing should be placed on it but what is wanted. The great object
of meeting round table is to have free and unrestrained communication
and hilarity, and these are impeded by plateaus, dormants, and
centre-pieces.
I have not said a word of bachelors’ dinners, though of all dinners
in the world they are the pleasantest, from the _laisser aller_ and
_laissez faire_ style which prevails at them. At bachelors’ parties
the age, disposition, and amusing qualities of the guests are more
considered than at regular set dinners. Bachelors look for the _idem
velle_ and the _idem nolle_ when they play the Amphytrion, and in
consequence they succeed. Another reason of the success of bachelors’
entertainments arises from the fact that the dishes are few and simple;
and as the dinner is generally given in a small house or chambers, the
kitchen is not too far removed from the eating parlour. Everything
comes up “screeching hot,” as they say in Ireland, and not lukewarm
or soddened, as too often happens at great dinners. Centrepieces,
epergnes, and dormants do not generally figure at bachelors’ dinners,
and there is an absence of form and ceremony which gives zest. Ladies
in general love ceremony and ornaments, and the accessories of
epergnes, flowers, and perfumes.
I have not said anything of American dinners. The best of these in
private houses are copied from the English and French model, although
there is much that is distinctive in the manner of serving and
consuming dinners at the great hotels in New York. American turtle soup
is excellent; and so is their sturgeon soup. Though I do not agree in
Mr. Money’s estimate of the Russian dinners, I quite concur in his
valuable suggestion, that dinner chairs at our tables should be made
lighter and more flexible in the back and sitting part.
[Illustration]