it, and cut two collars off each side...."
In Mrs. Glasse's injunctions for roasting a pig, the author is yet more
colourful:
"Stick your pig just above the breast-bone, and run your knife
to the heart...."
It will be immediately evident that injustice has been done to this
noble and worthy companion of man--that of confounding him with the
hare, whose only practical use is in a _civet_ or a pie, and in
furnishing amusement in coursing. For neither in "The Art of Cookery"
nor in her "Compleat Confectioner" does Mrs. Glasse utter the axiom,
"First catch your hare," but, as we have seen, "First stick your pig"!
It was Beauvilliers who said, in presenting his recipe for hare-pie:
"_Ayez un lièvre._"
Among the dishes presented in "The Art of Cookery" which will be
appreciated by the feminine reader is one termed "A Bride's Pie," which
no doubt was considered fully worthy the appellation of an old culinary
writer--"a darling dainty":
"Boil two calves' feet, pick the meat from the bones, and
chop it very fine, shred small one pound of beef suet, and
a pound of apples, wash and pick one pound of currants very
small, dry them before the fire, stone and chop a quarter of
a pound of jar raisins, a quarter of an ounce of cinnamon,
the same of mace and nutmeg, two ounces of candied citron,
two ounces of candied lemon cut thin, a glass of brandy and
one of Champagne, put them in a china dish with a rich puff
paste over it, roll another lid and cut it in leaves, flowers,
figures, and put a glass ring in it."
It may have been some of Mrs. Glasse's compounds that prompted
Johnson's remark, "Women can spin very well, but they cannot make a
good book of cookery." Many other works during the eighteenth century
succeeded "The Art of Cookery," though none achieved its marked
popularity. Sufficient has been said of ancient English manuals,
however, to present some idea of their quality and enable the reader
to judge of the culinary science as it was understood by former
generations. Far more slow to develop than in France, English cookery
has still much to attain among both the middle and well-to-do classes,
and even in the case of most of the restaurants and hotels; the era has
not yet dawned in Great Britain when, on arising from the dinner-table,
one may truly exclaim:
"Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day!"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
L'ALMANACH DES GOURMANDS[19]
"Tout s'arrange en dinant dans le siècle où nous sommes,
Et c'est par des dîners qu'on gouverne les hommes."
CASSIMIR DELAVIGNE: Les Comédiens.
Reasoning from the standpoint that the stomach is the great motor
of vital energy, it may justly be adduced that everything which
contributes to a perfect balance of its mechanism is of inestimable
importance. As, moreover, the true function of improved cookery is to
second hygiene and to replace medicaments by ingenious combinations
of natural products, it will be readily apparent that a good cook
and a good writer on cookery--a cook who can compose and a writer who
can suggest and stimulate--at once become of even greater value than a
college of physicians.
[Illustration: "UN VIEL AMATEUR"
A. B. L. Grimod de Reynière, né à Paris le 20 9bre, 1756
From an old print]
These desirable qualifications belong preëminently to the French, as
brewing belongs to the Germans, weaving to the Orientals, sculpture
to the Italians, and mechanical invention to the Americans. The same
facilities present themselves in many countries--it has remained
for France to perfect them and create a literature on the subject
distinctively its own. The Frenchman may keep on his hat during
the entr'actes of a play and be forever wrangling with his mode of
government, but he has taught the world how to dine. "Let me have
books!" cries Horace; "Let us have cooks!" exclaims the Gaul. And
with the cooks come the cook-books--the meditations, codes, almanacs,
physiologies, manuals, and guides.
In considering those works that have treated most pleasingly of the
art with which mankind is so directly concerned thrice a day, that of
Brillat-Savarin stands foremost. He is the Addison of the dinner-table,
as instructive as he is diverting, and his brilliant disquisition
will remain a classic so long as dinners endure. But Grimod de la
Reynière, whose contributions Savarin passed by in silence, had
preceded him and had first enlightened the past century in regard to
what Molière has termed _la science des bons morçeaux_. Let justice be
rendered where justice is due--the "Physiology of Taste" is indebted
in no little degree to the "Almanac of the Epicures." Had La Reynière
possessed as much refinement as Savarin, had he observed greater
concentration, and had he refrained from the frequent puffery of
mercantile establishments, the "Almanach" might not be numbered to-day
among unjustly forgotten books. But he is not alone in his references
to the tradesmen: even Savarin is guilty of shop-puffery to a limited
extent--a trait almost universal among French writers on gastronomy,
though none have vied with La Reynière in immortalising a maker of
pâtés or in elevating a vender of truffles to the dignity of a minister
of state.
The fact that he was afflicted with a deformity of his hands, and
that his numerous volumes and contributions to the press were written
with an artificial member, renders his literary labours the more
surprising. A fluent writer, whose humour and verve sparkle from every
page of his subject proper, it is to be regretted that he is so little
known by the present generation, for the eight rare little volumes
which comprise the "Almanach des Gourmands" may be classed among the
most sprightly and learned dissertations relating to the pleasures
of the table. Numerous almanacs have succeeded his. But these are
like harmonicas compared with a Stradivarius, or the "Confessions of
Rousseau" contrasted with the "Life of Cellini." A veritable storehouse
of epicurean lore, his unique treatise should be republished, with
its eulogiums left out, and its finer fancies and wealth of culinary
teachings retained to instruct and charm anew. In a revision of the
work, these allusions to the _fournisseurs_ could be omitted to
advantage, and thus a most useful treatise be presented in a much more
concise form.
It should be stated, in justice to the author, that his references
to alimentary dealers and wine-merchants were not all of a laudatory
character. His pills were not wholly sugar-coated; any delinquent who
merited censure was summarily dealt with. The "Almanach" wielded a
powerful influence, and could make or mar. From the very first year of
its appearance it asserted its sway, a supremacy that no one ventured
to contest. Its decrees were inexorable, and woe to the restaurateur
who failed in a matelote, the dealer who was lacking in courtesy, the
merchant who was guilty of over-charging, or the purveyor whose wares
were found wanting. The editor's caustic pen was as dreaded as it was
respected. A paragraph rendered a furnisher famous, a disparaging line
caused a shop to be avoided. Its edicts were a _Vehmgericht_ from which
there was no appeal. Thus it maintained a surveillance and an influence
that were not without their excellent results--a censorship that would
be invaluable in the present days of adulterations.
Written in a more serious vein is the "Manuel des Amphitryons," a large
octavo dealing with the art of carving, bills of fare for each season,
and table proprieties.[20]
This volume is valuable chiefly for the great variety of its menus--the
joint production of the author and the presiding genius of the
Rocher de Cancale when Parisian cookery had attained its greatest
distinction. The menus, each of which is commented upon at length,
are remarkable for their elaborateness and diversity, and illustrate
the great inventive resources of the period. Any one of those that
are designed for sixty covers would seem sufficient, with judicious
selection and by the substitution of a few dishes, according to the
season, to serve throughout the year. The last division of the volume,
relating to table usages, is covered in the "Almanach," as is also some
of the matter of the first division.
It is in the "Manuel" that we find the gifted author in his most
serious mood and most impressed with his responsibilities. To guide
the capricious stomachs of a great capital in the right way, to
instruct unerringly in the _grand art du savoir vivre_, to give a new
impetus to a refinement that the Jacobins and the Directory had well
nigh relegated to oblivion, was a task that might not be entered upon
lightly or undertaken without a grave sense of its importance.
The bills of fare are veritable morsels to turn over on the tongue. For
if, as La Fontaine avers, _le changement de mets réjouit l'homme_--how
important that man's daily change be an appetising one! And yet one
may well rejoice that he lives in an age when a good dinner may be
composed of a simple soup, a perfectly cooked fish, an entrée, a bird,
and a salad, with a good wine served at its proper temperature. Cookery
has changed with time, and the "manual" of a host of to-day differs as
much as does his costume from that of a century ago. This is not saying
that on a stimulating winter's day it were not worth a walk of many
a league to dine where the menu had been superintended by the author
of the "Manuel" and executed by the Rocher--if that were possible at
present.
Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent Grimod de la Reynière was born in Paris,
November 20, 1758. His early life was an adventurous one, and
after first identifying himself with belles-lettres he studied and
practised law, besides engaging in various artistic, literary, and
mercantile pursuits. In his thirty-ninth year he became enamoured of
an actress--Mlle. Mézeray--to which circumstance the world is largely
indebted for the "Almanach" and the "Manuel des Amphitryons." On
declaring his passion with all the fervour of a highly impressionable
nature, only to meet with a repulse, he determined to look to
gastronomy for consolation, a resolve he at once expressed in poetic
form under the title "My Abnegation," the poem being addressed to "A
Celebrated Actress" and published in a dramatic journal of which he was
the editor. A stanza may be cited:
"De vrais amis, un doux asile,
Des dîners fins et délicats:
Voilà pour mon âme tranquille,
Qui vaut mieux que des _hélas_!"
(True friends a few, a nice abode,
And dinners fine and recherchés--
Far better such for peace of mind
Than Love's refrain, "Ah, lack-a-day!")
This sentiment would show him to have been a true philosopher,
accepting the situation placidly, and recognising that in love there
is always one who kisses and the other who extends the cheek. "Fine
and delicate dinners!"--therein, of a truth, may be found a marvellous
panacea for lacerated affections and the buffets of the world. To be
sure, he had already belonged for many years to a society known as
the Société des Mercredis, composed of seventeen members, who were in
the habit of dining weekly at the Rocher de Cancale, then the most
celebrated restaurant of Paris. But it was not until Cupid frowned, in
the person of Mlle. Mézeray, that he turned seriously to gastronomy and
made it a profession. The fact that he had already been married for ten
years in no wise detracts from the value of his recipe--a medication
for melancholy that has been overlooked in the "Anatomy." The key-note
of his verses on the occasion was emphasised by a postscript extolling
the pleasures of the table, a paragraph that appeared subsequently
in an amended form in the "Almanach." Already in this ebullition
of a misogynist for the moment, we detect the redundant fancy and
familiarity with his theme which marked the great gastronomer who was
soon to wield his facile pen in the interests of the science of which
he became the exponent-in-chief:
"The author of this abnegation, who some day intends
publishing a panegyric of gastronomy, has always regarded
the pleasures of good cheer as the first of the mind and the
senses. It will be acknowledged that these are the first one
enjoys, and those that may be most often multiplied. Who may
say as much of the rest? Is there a woman, however beautiful,
who is worth these admirable red partridges of Languedoc
or Cévennes; these pâtés de foie of geese and ducks which
will forever celebrate the cities of Toulouse, Auch, and
Strassburg; these stuffed tongues of Troyes; these sausages
of Arles that render the pig so estimable and so precious?
Can one compare a pretty, simpering face with these splendid
sheep of Ganges and the Ardennes whose flesh fairly melts in
one's mouth? What comparison can be made between a piquante
face and these pullets of Bresse, these capons of Mans?... Who
would oppose to these delights the caprices of a woman, her
poutings, her vagaries, her refusals, and even her favours?"
In quite a different strain, a few years later, we shall hear him
compare a peach--ripe, rosy, juicy, and melting--to lovely femininity,
and in the amended form of the note that accompanied his renunciation
perceive his greater delicacy of touch, as well as mark his conversion
to the doctrine of Désaugiers:
"Pour être aimé des belles,
Aimons;
Un beau jour changent-elles,
Changeons!"
(To win the favours of the fair,
Be bold;
If then they lack in debonnaire,
Be cold!)
a postulate that may have its drawbacks, but nevertheless offers its
advantages.
It is with an author's work, however, and not with his personal
traits that the public is mainly concerned, and of La Reynière's
literary productions the "Almanach" constitutes his greatest claim
to distinction. So closely is this associated with the famous _Jury
dégustateur_, of which he was the founder, secretary, and mainspring,
that one may scarcely be considered without the other--the "Almanach"
was the jury, and the jury was the "Almanach."
The tribunal, which was formed for the purpose of influencing and
ameliorating the provisions and food products of the Parisian market,
was composed of an indefinite number of jurors, though these never
exceeded twelve or were less than five. Each of the judges was a
tried epicure, eating and drinking whatever he was asked to pass
upon, without knowing the names of the contributors, in order that
everything submitted might be estimated in strict accordance with its
merits. Dr. Gastaldy, an eminent physician, was chosen president, La
Reynière preferring the secretaryship, with its more arduous duties.
The president is described as one who added to the finest palate and
the most practised tact the largest experience, and who combined all
the advantages that might result from profound theory and active
practice. It is related of him that on a certain occasion, when
reminded by a lady that he was taking a large portion of macaroni after
a very plenteous repast, he observed: "Madame, macaroni is heavy, it
is true, but it is like the Doge of Venice: when he arrives one must
make room for him--every one stands aside." The Marquis de Cussy, who
declared, "Roasting is at once nothing and the infinite," and whom
La Reynière termed the first gastronomer of the age, was a no less
distinguished member. He was also an entertaining writer on gastronomy,
and contributed some articles anonymously to the "Almanach," his
greatest literary fame resting on his "Art Culinaire."
[Illustration: LE PREMIER DEVOIR D'UN AMPHITRYON
Frontispiece of the fifth year of the "Almanach des Gourmands"]
The meetings of the society took place weekly at the residence of the
secretary, the sittings occupying five hours. That these séances were
of a philanthropic as well as a sybaritic nature is apparent from the
preface to the second year of the "Almanach," where the editor states
that he will regret neither the pains nor the indigestions his duties
entail, if the national glory in every branch of the alimentary art be
only impelled to renewed progress.
It was the secretary's place to take note of all controversies and
decisions, which he afterward drew up and elaborated, submitting his
reports to the president at the following meeting for verification. An
extract of these decisions, duly collated, was sent to the interested
persons. All forms of eatables and drinkables constituted part of the
jury's deliberations, and of these contributions only a single sample
was passed upon at a time. When the judgments were unfavourable to the
artist whose handiwork had been submitted, he was advised accordingly,
in order that he might correct and that at a subsequent test of the
same object he might prove that he had profited by the disinterested
verdict. If he refused to do so, the decision was printed in the
following "Almanach" as it originally stood. It was noted that many
merchants and culinary artists lived on their reputations, taking
advantage of a formerly celebrated name to deceive the public and abuse
its confidence long after they had ceased to merit it, whilst, on the
other hand, an obscure person endowed perchance with great talent and
zealous in his art was not unfrequently the inventor of productions
worthy of the greatest masters. It was the purpose of the jury and its
exponent to expose the former and rescue the latter from oblivion.
Naturally, these attacks on the manufacturers and venders often brought
their rejoinders, some of which were by no means devoid of interest,
as, for instance, a letter from a certain M. Grec, a merchant who
had sold a spoiled pate to a customer and refused to take it back in
exchange for other merchandise:
"I am at a loss to comprehend, Monsieur, why you should have
attached an infamous note to my name in the fifth year of your
'Almanach.' A lawyer who is not without reputation wished me
to attack you in return, telling me I could lead you a merry
chase (_que je pourrais vous mener loin_). I did not care to
follow his advice, because I reflected that your book and its
author are far from being makers of reputations, either for
good or for bad; perhaps the public, which appreciates you at
your true value, has formed an opinion directly contrary to
that you express.
"On this hypothesis, far from having to complain of you, I owe
you my thanks. To this end, I have even thought of offering
substantial proof by sending you a fine _truffled turkey_
whose aroma, penetrating your olfactories, would exercise
its benign influence, and inspire a good word for me in the
future. But I restrain myself, for the reasons I have just
stated and the fact that any good you might say might have the
effect of injuring me in the eyes of the public.
"All things considered, I will keep my turkey to eat with my
friends and with the person who was kind enough to lend me his
pen; for as a stranger and a simple merchant, I do not pride
myself on writing, but on honestly conducting my business.
Besides, have no fears, we will drink to your health and to
the preservation of one of the most useful men of the state."
The fine irony throughout the letter will assuredly commend itself to
the reader, as it undoubtedly nettled the editor. The reference to
the truffled turkey--and this was to have been a _dinde truffée_--was
notably the stroke of a master, artfully designed to hit the recipient
in a tender spot, an under-thrust that could not have failed to tell.
But however great the editor's disappointment,--for one remembers his
appetising essay, "Des Dindes Braisées," wherein he specifies that the
turkey should be well perfumed with truffles,--he was more than equal
to the occasion by retaliating that the lawyer could hardly proceed
as far as the pâté if it still remained in the shop of M. Grec, and
had been left to itself; for it had already begun to march of its own
accord. The writer's decision to keep the turkey is referred to as in
excellent taste withal, in comparison with the fate of the pâté.
Nor was an exposé of a guest who had served a large and inferior pâté
at a rural outing, furnished by a vulgar artist--claiming it as one of
the incomparable productions of a celebrated maker--less merited and
severe. The pâté was pompously announced as coming from the fragrant
ovens of a certain M. Le Sage.
"At the mention of this revered name" [says the editor], "the
attention of all the guests was directed to the piece, the
opening of which was eagerly awaited.
"This pâté was at first sight very inviting, but no sooner
was the crust removed than we perceived from the enormous void
that it could not have been made by M. Le Sage, whose pâtés
are always well filled, and are garnished in addition with a
blond of veal that renders them easily distinguishable.
"The one in question, which was presented as a pâté of ham of
Bayonne, offered merely an indigestible mixture of ordinary
ham, dried and spoiled, interspersed with chunks of tough
veal; the crust corresponded to the interior, and the stuffing
to the whole.
"We indignantly protested that such a pâté could not emanate
from the manufactory of M. Le Sage; but the donor insisting
stoutly that he had himself purchased it from him, he was
believed, in spite of the fact that he was a man of the law.
"We had our doubts, notwithstanding; for it is less rare to
find a lying knave than a detestable pâté emanating from
M. Le Sage, who, through the assertion made, found himself
dishonoured in the estimation of thirty people."
The result of the author's conviction was a letter to the injured
party, the latter's prompt appearance at the office of the offender,
a written apology by the culprit, and a promise to the editor of the
"Almanach" that he would atone for his crime by producing a pâté whose
authenticity could not be questioned,--"which still remains for him to
do," adds the editor, no doubt with a sigh of disappointment. In view
of these denunciations, one may readily understand that the products
submitted to the jury must have been, almost without exception, of
a very high order of merit. With such a rigid arbiter, few would
care to incur his censure or render themselves subject to his lash.
The frequent references to the venders, therefore, served a treble
purpose--that of stimulating the art of cookery, exposing knavery, and
sumptuously regaling the table of the tribunal.
There is this besides to be said in extenuation of the frequent
references to the _pâtissiers_ and _rôtisseurs_--that, being
specialists, they were more likely to advance an art than the average
person, however familiar with the principles of cookery, who was not in
possession of the mechanical accessories of the professional, or who
was not accustomed daily to turn his hand to practical account.
To become a member of the jury, a unanimity of votes was necessary,
rank or social status being a secondary consideration to gastronomic
accomplishments and brilliancy of appetite and mind. Women were not
excluded, and, strange to relate, among these was Mlle. Mézeray, a
striking proof that time can cool the warmest love to friendship. But
flounces and laces were allowed no voice in the solemn deliberations
of the tribunal. It might be pleasant to see a pretty gourmande
under arms, and have her join in the _coup du milieu_ which was
always obligatory, but how might petticoats decide upon the fate
of a _suprême_ or a truffled pâté! "Women," says La Reynière, "who
sometimes assist at the séances, have no deliberative voice--one can
readily understand the reason." With a palate vitiated by sweets, her
discernment must prove unreliable, and there would always be the danger
of her prejudicing a susceptible member through her allurements and
coquetries.