be on hand to catch the fish. The shad could not ascend the river
beyond this point, and the water was fairly alive with them. Fifty or
more would be taken in a short time. While this work was going on,
Breckinridge, who never fished, would throw himself upon the grassy
bank of the canal and listen to the playing of the violin by one or the
other of two brothers named West, who were possessed of wonderful skill
with the bow, the negro field-hands often joining in a dance. At noon
the shad would be properly planked, under the personal supervision of
Breckinridge, and put before a red-hot fire, and in a few minutes the
royal feast would begin, right where they were cooked, the landlady
supplying plates, knives, and forks. When the appetite was satisfied,
another season of lounging would follow, when one of the two brothers
would resume his playing on the violin. As the sun got low in the
heavens, Breckinridge would start back to town, after telling them all
to come around the next Sunday. The love of these country people for
Breckinridge knew no bounds; they worshipped him, and he was thoughtful
of them.
"Well, John C. Breckinridge was, as you all know, a candidate of the
Southern wing of the Democratic party for the Presidency in 1860. We
remember the result of that gigantic struggle. The section where those
pleasant Sundays were spent in another year became a battle-ground,
and the placid fishers scattered far and wide. A new generation has
sprung up and another war been fought, and the name of Breckinridge is
forgotten in that region; but the art of planking shad as taught by him
not only lives but spreads abroad each year."
Thus, at least, runs the story. But it has also been stated that the
art of planking should be credited to the Swedes, who are said to have
brought the fish-plank with them among their household effects, when,
in 1634, they settled on the banks of the Delaware, a river famous
for its wild duck and shad. The planking of fish has equally been
attributed to the American aborigines, who subsisted to a great extent
on the spoils of the woods and waters. The shad itself, at any rate, is
an indigenous product; and there are those who maintain that it is not
improved by planking, but is best when simply broiled to a turn over
the charcoal, with parsley and butter sauce and a _filet_ of lemon.
Yet a hundredfold more important than the shad and his left-bower, the
cucumber, is the vegetable that may be placed almost side by side with
bread in the value it contributes to the sustenance of mankind--the
potato, which the world owes to the western hemisphere, and whose
introduction produced so great an economical revolution among the
peoples of the earth. And were the potato itself lacking, the _Apios
tuberosa_, or ground-nut, with its violet-scented blossoms--a tuber in
use by the aborigines--would stand ready as a substitute, and yield
innumerable varieties under cultivation. Although the early history of
the potato is obscure and has been the subject of much discussion, the
great botanist De Candolle states that its true home is Chili, where it
grows wild; that before the discovery of America its cultivation was
diffused from Chili to New Grenada; that it was introduced about the
latter part of the sixteenth century into Virginia and North Carolina,
and, finally, was imported into Europe between 1580 and 1585, first by
the Spaniards and afterwards by the English at the time of Sir Walter
Raleigh's voyages to Virginia. The first potato was planted on Sir
Walter's estate in Cork, and employed for food in Ireland many years
before it became familiar to England, the esculent still remaining
the truffle of the Emerald Isle. Gerarde, long before the Lyonnaise
or pomme soufflée was dreamed of, defines two varieties--the _Sisarum
Peruvianum_, or skirret, of Peru, and the _Battata Virginiana_, or
Virginian potato. In his "Great Herbal" the qualities of the "battata"
are thus set forth: "The temperature and virtues be referred to the
common Potatoes, being likewise a food, as also a meate for pleasure,
equall in goodnesse and wholesomenesse unto the same, being either
toasted in the embers, or boyled and eaten with oyle, vinegar and
pepper, or dressed in any other way by the hand of some cunning in
cookerie." The origin of the sweet potato is more doubtful, a number of
authorities holding to its American and others to its Asiatic origin,
though Brazil is usually credited as being the land of its genesis.
During the old colony days of the eighteenth century catfish and
waffle suppers were in great repute in the taverns on the picturesque
Schuylkill near Philadelphia, these being still popular, though
planked shad is more commonly called for. The turtle was a great
favourite with our epicurean forefathers, who were accustomed
frequently to hold turtle feasts or, as they were then termed, turtle
frolics. Returning sea captains from the West Indies were expected to
bring home a turtle for this purpose, together with a keg of limes,
lime-juice being considered the best of all tart accompaniments for
the punch-bowl. Of these feasts, with their accessories, a travelling
clergyman named Burnaby gave this account in 1759:
"There are several taverns pleasantly situated upon East
River, near New York, where it is common to have these turtle
feasts. These happen once or twice a week. Thirty or forty
gentlemen and ladies meet and dine together, drink tea in
the afternoon, fish, and amuse themselves till evening, and
then return home in Italian chaises, a gentleman and lady in
each chaise. On the way there is a bridge, about three miles
distant from New York, which you always pass over as you
return, called the Kissing Bridge, where it is part of the
etiquette to salute the lady who has put herself under your
protection."
No wonder that, with such delightful privileges, the days of our
roistering greater-grandfathers were referred to as "the good old
colony times."
It has been properly held that austerity of diet, though not always
productive of austere morals, invariably leads to an acerbity of
temperament inimical to social and artistic development, that poor
food is a begetter of dyspepsia, and that in dyspepsia lurks crime.
A well-nourished nation becomes a progressive nation, and poor
nourishment results in intemperance and maleficence. The mobile human
face, first to show the effects of the emotions and the passions by
its lines, is no less indicative of meagre or improper alimentation.
"Both in mind and body, where nourishment ceases vitality fails," and
hence a perfect cuisine must prove the best of doctors if supplemented
by the adage, "Know thyself, obtain a sufficiency of sleep, and
exercise abundantly in the outer air." As to the ideal cuisine, this
may be briefly defined as that which supplies an abundant variety of
the best procurable material prepared in the most wholesome manner,
in distinction to innumerable mixed and highly spiced viands, which
assuredly have their place, but which require to be employed with
precaution. The merit of the best American cookery consists in its
comparative simplicity.
Writing in 1852, Count d'Orsay complained that even then the culinary
art had greatly deteriorated in Paris, and had been transferred to
England. At the time referred to, the Frères Provençeaux, Philippe,
and the Café de Paris were the most famous restaurants at the French
capital, Véry, Véfour, and the Café Anglais having declined in favour.
His remarks concerning England applied of course to the nobility, who
could outbid the titled classes of France, as to-day America in its
turn is enabled to command the greatest culinary skill. A similar
complaint was made by Nestor Roqueplan in 1866 in "Le Double Almanach
Gourmand":
"The French cuisine has lost much of its originality and
special characteristics. We no longer find places devoted
to the Flemish kitchen, others to the Normandy, Lyonnaise,
Toulousian, Bordelaise, and Provençale kitchens. But France
nevertheless is still the country where eating is found at its
best."
That French cookery, or, to speak more correctly, Parisian cookery,
has deteriorated of recent years there would seem to be abundant
evidence. Or is it that such retrogression is owing to the advances in
other countries, and that the Parisian cuisine suffers more from such
comparison than from any real falling off in merit? Certain it is that
the alien who is capable of judging will charge it with having become
too rich and highly spiced, if not too careless. There are those who
go so far as to say that its future will lie chiefly in the speech of
the menu, that none of the strange spellings of "rosbif" will change
the nature of the viand, the same remark applying to the cut which is
called a "biftek" everywhere save in the land of its origin and in the
United States. The fact is that the French, in many arts, unjustly
claim a taste so superlative as to be unattainable by other nations,
and that French cookery has been tacitly accepted as unparalleled on
the same principle that a titled personage is supposed to possess
superior accomplishments. Yet French must necessarily remain for all
time the classic language of the bill of fare.
Still, the preparation of food continues to be better understood by
the average practitioner in France than in any other country. For, as
in angling it is "not so much the fly as the hand directing it that
secures the trout," so in cookery it is less the recipe than the fine
perceptivity of the artist that achieves the perfect dish. So far as
America is concerned, it is less the want of capable chefs than the
scarcity of good female cooks that is to be deplored. A competent
cuisinière is becoming more and more uncommon, and by the average
servant cooking is too often considered a mere function to be performed
with as little trouble and as much despatch as possible. Besides the
lack of proper training, crass ignorance is too frequently a factor
which the housewife has to contend with in those who profess to have a
perfect understanding of the art of the kitchen.
A new cook had come, and there were to be smelts with a tartare sauce
to follow the soup.
"Can you make a good tartare sauce?" asked the mistress; "if not, I can
show you."
"Oh, yes; I've often made one."
In due time the fish, shorn of heads and tails and flanked by a very
yellow sauce with a strange taste, made their appearance, and were
promptly returned to the kitchen.
"Surely, you don't call this a tartare sauce, which is always cold.
Besides, where are the chopped pickle, the onion, the capers, the
parsley? And what gives it such a queer taste?"
"But this is a hot tartar sauce, mum; I asked for the 'tartar,' and the
maid gave it to me; I supposed you wanted a cream-of-tartar sauce."
The corrective for such a state of things is difficult to prescribe,
unless it be a better understanding on the part of the housewife and
the establishment of cooking-classes in all female schools. Another
remedy might be to imitate the French of two hundred years ago, and
provide an entertaining illustrated text-book for children, artfully
designed to foster a love of gastronomy. Thus, in a work of this nature
entitled "Roast Pig," the text is freely interlarded with appetising
pictures of viands and table scenes, accompanied by such maxims as
these: "A well-minced ham is fine eating, but not without something to
drink"; "pâté of venison and craquelins are not intended for naughty
children"; "damask prunes are delicious to eat for those who deserve
them"; "venison is better in a pâté than with any sauces, if it is well
seasoned and accompanied with wine."[32]
[Illustration: "RÔTI-COCHON"
Facsimile page from volume, 1696]
The excellence of the _morale_ of a work of this nature cannot fail to
impress itself on those of mature years whose incentive to learning in
youth was more often the ruler and the rod than sugar-plums and wine.
But while the advantages of such a method for moulding the youthful
taste are to be extolled, it presents the objection that much valuable
time must elapse before the results would become tangible, and hence
its benefits would accrue too late save for the younger generation and
its successors.
It were well, withal, in furtherance of the advance of the art, if a
society were formed for the suppression of the filet, the consommé
with whipped cream, and also the sweetbread in its usual form, which
are so frequently employed in "company" dinners, the bill of fare
of which is left by the housewife to the cook or the purveyor who is
engaged for the day. In such cases the guest often needs no menu to
know what is forthcoming--the lukewarm Blue Points, the flavourless
broth, the overdone halibut, the tasteless tenderloin and green peas,
and the half-mixed salad deluged with tarragon vinegar. As for the
wines, one may be reasonably sure of a woody-tasting sherry, a sour
and watery "claret," and a still more asperous _brut_ champagne that
is doled out, when appetite has waned, to chill the dessert and render
the sweets the more indigestible. Not that this menu is the general
rule by any means in the United States, but it is of far too frequent
occurrence, and should be placed under ban--a charge that concerns
the host and hostess alike. For whatever difficulty the mistress may
experience in procuring trained culinary skill, a simple bill of fare,
daintily served, is always at her command; while there can be no excuse
on the part of the master for presenting a sharp _brut_ champagne at
the end of the repast, if indeed it be presented at all; and as for
a reputable Bordeaux, if such be not in his cellar, it is or should
be obtainable at his club. Where champagne is permitted to diffuse
its sunshine, it goes without saying it should be of irreproachable
quality and dealt out with a liberal hand. To stint in Ay or Sillery
is as unpardonable as to ice one's Burgundy. The host should watch the
various brands attentively from year to year, noting their improvement
or deterioration, judging them by their quality only, and choosing them
irrespective of their vogue or the plaudits of those who may not be
capable of judging.
The introducer of the dry flint cracker in place of fresh bread to go
with the cheese, though never definitely ascertained, is said to have
been a dentist who in this wise succeeded in obtaining many wealthy
patients. A person who is guilty of offering hardtack to his friends
may be expected to pour a mayonnaise dressing over his cucumbers and
beat up his lettuce and tomatoes in a salad. To serve cheese with the
salad is a syncretism, besides being a great injustice to the roast
to which the salad rightly appertains. The absence of butter which
is often noticeable at formal repasts has no _raison d'être_. It is
wanted at most dinners, particularly for corn, baked potatoes, etc.,
and is always needed for bread; its non-employment in Europe is only
a consequent of economical custom. A vice it were seemingly useless
to protest against, so universal is the practice, is the serving of
raw fruit after a hearty dinner. As long as courses are presented
in a tempting way, so long will the unthinking majority continue to
taste them, even if it be fruit,--"gold in the morning, silver at
noon, and lead at night,"--- after the final sweets. The only one who
has exclaimed against this custom, to the writer's knowledge, is the
Ettrick Shepherd in the "Noctes": "As for frute after fude, it's a
downricht abomination, and coagulates on the stomach like sour cruds."
Nor may the wineless dinner be passed unnoticed, at which unfortunate
guests sometimes find themselves unwittingly present with no means
of escape. To those who are unaccustomed to their glass of claret or
other vinous beverage at home its exclusion may not materially signify,
though at a protracted repast there are not a few among such who find
it a great aid to digestion. In the case of those who are habituated to
it its absence becomes of serious moment, much the same as if a meal
were deprived of salt or the post-prandial cigar were proscribed. In
vain may the unfortunate guest attempt to philosophise on the virtues
of abnegation as he contemplates his glass where the gold gleams
without, instead of sparkling from within, and he mournfully recalls
the couplet of Monselet and the dinners that are past:
"Sauternes, Haut-Brions, Latour, Margaux, Lafittes,
Grands crûs de la Gironde, ah! quel bien vous me fîtes!"
(Sauternes, Latour, Margaux, Lafitte, and O'Bryan,
Grand growths of Gironde, let us make haste to try 'em!)
The least that the dinner-giver could do who may be intent on
restricting the product of the vine, out of respect for those whose
happiness it befits him to consider,--aye, for which he is directly
responsible during the entire period they remain under his roof,--would
be to apprise his guests on their invitation cards that his filet was
to be accompanied by water. Then any possible uncertainty would at once
become a certainty, and no one need be ensnared. Otherwise his dinner
must border too closely on the very questionable form of entertainment
tendered by the fox to the stork. "Let no man," says an old writer
in "Blackwood's," "who has been so unfortunate as to be accustomed
to drink water be afraid all at once to begin to drink wine. Let him
without fear or trembling boldly fill a bumper to his most gracious
majesty the king--then the Duke of Clarence and the navy--then
Wellington and the army. These three bumpers will have made him a new
man."
The fact that the host may not be a wine-drinker himself is no reason
why he should select a dinner-party as the field for enforcing his
views on hydropathy. And if from sentiment or through physical reasons
he prefer water, no one assuredly will question his right to abstain
from vinous beverages. There was an old gentleman, it is related, who
was fond of entertaining his friends, and who gave them wine of the
very best. He himself would drink with them, but only from a particular
decanter which was placed before him. An inquisitive neighbour at his
table contrived to help himself from the same bottle, and discovered
that, under a colourable imitation of sherry, his host was drinking
cold tea. He was a total abstainer from principle, but he was too
courteous a gentleman to flaunt his conviction in the face of his
guests or to reflect upon the weakness of his friends by confessing
himself superior to them.
Above all things, an invitation to dine should convey on its face
the spirit of a refined, broad-minded hospitality and an assurance
of perfect creature comforts, embodying in the fullest measure the
sentiment expressed by Châtillon-Plessis, "_Se soigner en buvant
d'excellents vins et en mangeant d'excellents mets, voilà la bonne,
la vraie médication!_" (To care for one's self by drinking excellent
wines and by eating excellent dishes,--this is the proper, the true
medication.) In all instances where the entertainer may be opposed
to serving wine, it were better to dispense with the dinner and
substitute a tea or a reading in its stead. A wineless dinner is
justifiable only where every guest is a professed teetotaler and has
become inured to Oolong and sparkling waters.
An editorial in the London "Spectator" deals summarily with such
alleged entertainers, terming them "would-be hosts."
"What!" [exclaims the writer] "shall a man be invited to a
feast? shall he don his white tie with care and take his
way through the inclement weather to his friend's home,
determined, though weary and jaded with his daily toil, to
shine at his best, and repay with the blithest company his
friend's entertainment? and shall he be offered lemonade to
drink? It is enough to curdle the milk of human kindness in
his breast forever. Or iced water? Why, it would throw a chill
upon the warmest good will, and freeze the speech even upon
the lips of a lover. The man is neither a wine-bibber nor a
sot. But he is accustomed to drink his glass of wine, even as
he is accustomed to eat his dinner, and one is as necessary to
him as the other. Well, we do not imagine that he dines with
him twice."
The Sunday two- or three-o'clock dinner is a barbarism which calls
loudly for suppression--a custom that has no justifiable motive,
inasmuch as the only pretence for its existence is of questionable
benefit to the servants, who are obliged to share equally the penalty
visited upon every one by whom it is tolerated. As well establish a
weekly custom of a Saturday banquet at midnight in order to allow
the cook a full afternoon for visiting. For what are the inevitable
results? Accustomed to the dinner in the evening and the luncheon at
noon, for which the machinery of digestion is set in perfect accord,
the stomach is called upon to fast on the day devoted to rest until
long after the period for the performance of its regular offices--to
be surfeited with excessive ingestion at a time when appetite is
ravenous and the secretory organs are unable to perform their customary
functions. Gluttony and subsequent lethargy are a necessary consequent,
followed by a disturbed state of the digestion perhaps for days
afterwards. The pathological deduction of irregular eating is a simple
one. The stomach, having supplied its secretions at the accustomed
time, waits but a brief period before it allows such secretions to be
absorbed when deprived of the aliments that aid in the production of
fresh supplies. After a few such experiences the secretions diminish in
amount and in activity, even when food is introduced in the digestive
tract, and stomachic disturbance is an inevitable sequence. It will
thus be manifest that the Sunday-afternoon dinner and late Sunday
supper become the greatest of all invitations to gastric disorders, and
that the master and mistress of the well-regulated household should
firmly resent this almost universal imposition. No one knows better
than the physician the serious ailments caused by Sunday engorgement
and irregular eating. And yet no one in this respect remains more
passive to his own welfare or that of his patients.
The seven-o'clock theatre dinner, while less obnoxious than the Sunday
evil, is nevertheless a positive discomfort and a direct incentive to
flatulence and dyspepsia. It should likewise receive the stigma of
public disapproval, and either be entirely abolished, out of comfort
both to hosts and guests, or set at a sufficiently early hour to ensure
their well-being and that of the audience it invariably disturbs. In
any event, a formal repast of this nature can scarcely be partaken of
with a sense of comfort, and it were better for all concerned if a
supper after the performance were substituted.
To be regretted also is the growing tendency of adjourning the evening
dinner-hour. Six o'clock, the hygienist will maintain, is the latest
period in the day at which those who set a proper value on their health
should begin to dine. It will be claimed, notwithstanding, by many who
may be directly concerned, that this is too early for invited guests
to assemble at table--that the toiler in the business mart may not
always call his time his own. Let the hours of the business man and
the professionalist be shortened, so that life may contain a broader
margin. There still remain but twenty-four hours in the day, and the
existing hours of business are too long and do not enable the majority
to regulate the conditions of life properly. Let us not be ever
hastening on, as though the goal were to be attained only by whip and
spur!--"the wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure,
and he that hath little business shall become wise."