should be equally included--we must go to the Germans, masters of
sausage-and cake-making and everything appertaining to "Compots."
However one may regard the Pumpernickel and the Maitrank, the
specialties just enumerated must challenge our respect and admiration.
Potato-salad is particularly appropriate with beer; and it is,
therefore, natural that the home of Münchner and Nürnberger should
excel in its preparation. In making a potato-salad, the Teuton for
once forgets the caraway seed and substitutes the onion. In all the
restaurants, Wirthschafts, and beer-gardens where the hungry and the
thirsty throng, great bowls of it, dusted with the fresh greens of
finely minced herbs, always stand ready for immediate use. It is served
separately and employed with many other dishes--a chain of russet
sausages may surround it, or it may inclose a mound of cheese, ham, or
caviare. In some form it is ever present. Like Montgomery's daisy,--
"It smiles upon the lap of May,
To sultry August spreads its charm,
Lights pale October on his way,
And twines December's arm."
To attain the best results, young potatoes of a firm kind, with no
tendency to mealiness, known as "salad-potatoes," are chosen, boiled in
salt water, allowed to cool, and then sliced and seasoned while they
are fresh. Potato-salad may be combined with numerous esculents; and of
its complementary adjuncts, none blend better with it than corn-salad
and watercress.
Deprived of the cucumber, the list of salads were equally shorn of
one of its most useful and appreciated members. And whether, as
Gerarde affirms, that "of the divers sorts--some greater, some lesser,
some of the garden, some wilde, some of one fashion, and some of
another--all of the cucumbers are of temperature cold and moist of the
second degree, and yield unto the body a cold nourishment, and that
very little and the same not good"--who would consent for a moment to
have the cucumber eliminated from the list of edibles! Think of its
hidden "Vertues"! "It openeth and clenseth, openeth the stoppings of
the liver, helpeth the chest and lungs that are inflamed; and being
stamped and outwardly applied instead of a denser, it maketh the skin
smooth and faire." No wonder it was such a favourite with Tiberius,
who was never without it, and had frames made upon wheels, by means of
which the growing fruit might be moved and exposed to the full heat
of the sun; while in winter they were withdrawn and placed under the
protection of frames glazed with mirror-stone. No wonder that Isaiah,
in speaking of the desolation of Judah, declared: "The daughter of
Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of
cucumbers." The main point with the cucumber is to eliminate the
prussic acid it contains, by slicing it and soaking it in ice-water
and salt for a short time before using. Then, the Hock!--the shad, the
whitefish, the pompano, the turbot, the sole!
And when endive is nicely blanched, and the first dark-blue double
violets appear in the greenhouse--though skies lower and the storm
frown without--what in the varied round of the seasons presents itself
more delicious than a blue-violet salad, with a flask of some noble
vintage worthy to bear it company! The recipe, which cannot be too
widely known, has been presented at length in a previous volume:[60]
"There was a great bunch of double violets on the table, the
lovely dark variety (_Viola odoratissima flore pleno_) with
their short stems, freshly plucked from the garden, and the
room was scented by their delicious breath.
"A bowl of broad-leaved Batavian endive, blanched to a nicety
and alluring as a siren's smile, was placed upon the table. I
almost fancied it was smiling at the violets. A blue-violet
salad, by all means! there are violets and to spare.
"On a separate dish there was a little minced celery, parsley,
and chives. Four heaped salad-spoonfuls of olive-oil were
poured upon the herbs, with a dessertspoonful of white
wine vinegar, the necessary salt and white pepper, and a
tablespoonful of Bordeaux. The petals of two dozen violets
were detached from their stems, and two thirds of them were
incorporated with the dressing. The dressing being thoroughly
mixed with the endive, the remaining flower petals were
sprinkled over the salad and a half-dozen whole violets placed
in the centre.
"The lovely blue sapphires glowed upon the white bosom of the
endive.
"A white-labelled bottle, capsuled Yquem, and the cork branded
'Lur Saluces,' was served with the salad. You note the subtle
aroma of pineapple and fragrance of flower ottos with the
detonation of the cork--the grand vintages of Yquem have a
pronounced _Ananassa_ flavour and bouquet that steeps the
palate with its richness and scents the surrounding atmosphere.
"Now try your blue-violet salad.
"Is it fragrant? is it cool? is it delicious? is it divine?"
The deep-golden, marrowy Yquem, _crême_, of 1861 and 1864 is now alas!
unobtainable; and even were it to be procured, it must ere this have
parted with much of its marvellous bouquet and _sève_. But the violet
yet sheds its colour and distils its perfume for the gathering. Other
vintages, too, have been pressed and have mellowed along the classic
banks of the Ciron and the Rhein, that may worthily accentuate the
violet and endive as the crown of the repast.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SWEETS TO THE SWEET
_Jam jam efficaci do manus scientiæ._[61]
HORACE. Epode xvii. 1.
However scholiasts may have interpreted Horace's line,--and by no two
is it interpreted alike,--the repetition or intensification of the
first word in connection with the thought that follows must certainly
carry conviction to the gastronomer that no mere stress upon a common
adverb was intended, but rather a definite allusion to some particular
object. The more the sentence is analysed, the greater seems the
emphasis laid upon the power of sweets to attract and charm. Apart,
moreover, from the iteration of the subject extolled, one is impressed
by the force of the expression "_do manus_," which means here, not,
as one would suspect, to shake hands; but "I yield," "I surrender,"
"I throw up my hands"--the strongest form of complete capitulation.
And when it is further considered that one who was so careful in his
advice and hygienic precepts, as well as so dainty in epithet (_curiosa
felicitas_), has expressed his love for an _entremets sucré_ in such
emphatic terms, it should be conceded that woman is justified in her
predilection for the final course of the dinner, which man is apt to
decry. The question of dessert, indeed, is only another instance of
where a man thinks he knows, but a woman knows better.
[Illustration: "APRÈS BON VIN"
From the engraving by Eisen in Fermiers-Généreaux edition of the
"Contes et Nouvelles" (1762)]
_Le dessert est tout le dîner pour une jolie femme._ Let her enjoy it
and the sweet champagne or Muscat-Lunel that goes with it, even if to
her opposite "things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour." For,
after all, it is unquestionably to woman that we must look for the
improvement of cookery. The highest art will still find its expression
through the professional chef; the useful, the daily alimentation of
the household, must depend upon the ministrations of the housewife and
her capacity for extending and improving the list of dishes _à la bonne
femme_. Assuredly, appetising cookery will tend more than any other
means to maintain the masculine element in good humour, and thereby
foster a spirit of liberality and the condoning of feminine foibles.
The dessert is said to be to the dinner what the madrigal is to
literature--it is the light poetry of the kitchen, addressed largely
to the gentler sex. To the finer fancy of woman, the many forms of
dainties which figure in the last course are mainly due; and that they
are not more appreciated by man is no doubt owing to the fact that the
consumption of tobacco and the use of ardent spirits have blunted his
perceptivity in this respect. Herein he is the loser; the mission of
the dessert being that of a comforter of the stomach, which, already
appeased, nevertheless craves a little reflex flattery through the
palate. There are those of the sterner sex, notwithstanding, who still
preserve the sweet tooth of childhood, and others who enjoy pastry
equally with its most devoted feminine admirers. Charles Lamb held that
a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings. Tasso was so
fond of sweetmeats that he even ate his salad with sugar. Henry VIII
presented a manor to the inventor of a new pudding-sauce. Goethe adored
sweet champagne, and of Horace's partiality for sweets he has doubly
assured us.
For all such the cook whose pies are perfect will not have lived in
vain; the more so as the artist in pie-making is usually an adept
at frying,--and to bad frying and poor pie-making may be charged
much of the misery inflicted upon mankind where eating is regarded
solely as a necessary function. A cook, moreover, who can make fine
puff-paste is more apt to succeed in all the more substantial parts
of the art. So that to encourage the dessert and sweetmeats is to
beguile and conciliate woman, and thus indirectly promote progress
in other branches of cookery. With a little tact and perseverance it
becomes relatively easy to persuade her that her fondness for sweets is
injurious to her complexion; and this much instilled, it is the less
difficult to lead her by gradual steps to the perfection of the entrée
and dishes more favoured by man.
There are comparatively few, nevertheless, who really are averse to
the dessert if it unite all the qualities that should compose the
final course--if it be light and palatable, if it flatter the eye,
and if it convey the greatest amount of pleasure to the taste with
little sense of fulness. Good pies or puddings and various _entremets
de douceur_ are as much a feature of the well-appointed dinner as a
well-made salad; and all have their part to perform. Coming last in
the order of the repast, like the peroration of a discourse, they
should receive more than ordinary attention, both with respect to their
immediate impression and the sensation they leave. To the dessert is
often unjustly attributed a consequent that really belongs to the
reprehensible practice of serving _brut_ champagne at the end of the
dinner, whereby digestion is seriously disturbed through the acidity it
necessarily provokes. Already pernicious during the early stages, it
becomes still more baneful when appetite has palled. The lamb thus must
answer for the crime of the wolf; and woman is held responsible for
what is directly the fault of man himself.
If a sparkling wine must be served at the end of a dinner, to the
exclusion of the early portion, let it partake of the nature of the
dainties themselves, in order that it may leave the most dulcet
souvenirs.
But, apart from the dessert, sweets enter into many forms of aliments
that lend variety and distinction to the table. Who is so wedded to
acidity as not to hail with renewed pleasure the appearance of a rum
omelette, or that entremets par excellence--omelette aux confitures--if
served by a pretty woman at a dinner of two and accompanied by a Rhein
_Auslese_ of noble growth? The soufflée, too, has its charms, if woman
be present, for which one should always be grateful. What were the
turkey without cranberry sauce, in which sugar forms a component, or
a mallard without currant-jelly to match the rosy richness of his
breast? But in lieu of this universal accessory to many forms of
game, a pleasing variety may be had if a lesson be only taken from
the Germans, with whom the "Compot" is so highly esteemed in various
guises and various grades of sweetness. Of such, one of the most
delicious is composed of strawberries and sour cherries in combination,
flavoured with Kirsch. An exquisite preserve of southern Germany is
the "Hagenmark," which one sees in brimming pails in the market-places
during November: a conserve prepared by the peasant women from the hips
of the wild dog-rose, as vivid in colour as a cardinal by Vibert.
As for the strawberry, so fragrant and delicious when fresh, but so
deadly to the uric-acid diathesis, how safely it may be partaken of
when, through madame's deft manipulations, it attains the form of
shortcake or preserves! Served with sugar and cream, after baking, as
a prelude to the winter breakfast, even the flatulence of the apple is
dissipated and the fruit which tempted Eve becomes innocuous. Through
sugar and stewing, the currant loses its verjuice, the raspberry
under similar treatment is transformed, the acrid quince acquires new
virtues, the puckery crab-apple diffuses a silken softness. Cooked
with sugar and brandy, the peach may appeal to the most hardened
total abstainer, and the fruit of the Psidium, through the magic
touch of saccharine, attain a magnificent triumph as guava jelly. To
remove sugar from the kitchen were to deprive alimentation of many of
its benefits and pleasures, as well as to rob woman of much of her
allurement. She would become lean and scrawny, her rounded outlines
would gradually disappear, the contours of her tailor-made gown would
end by becoming rectilinear, and for her habiliment a strait-jacket
would usurp the place of her proud corsage and bouffant petticoat.
There would then be no more love-poetry, for there would exist no
incentive for the poet, nor could a pretty heroine figure in a novel,
or the bust of woman prove the most convincing illustration that the
line of beauty is a curve.
One should never lose sight of that excellent sentiment of Blaze
de Bury, which will apply to desserts as well, _Qui ne veut point
vieillir doit aimer les femmes, et, pour bien les aimer, il faut
les aimer toutes_. What a wave of grateful coolness the ice and its
yet more seductive sister, ice-cream, contribute when the dog-star
reigns and cicadas have begun to shrill! Who among the calumniators
of sweets could wish them banished in support of a fallacious theory
that sweetmeats render woman more capricious, and are injurious to the
roses and lilies of her skin? For the plainer form of these refreshing
entremets we are indebted to Catherine de' Medici and her cooks who
accompanied her to France from Italy, where ices were already much
esteemed. The discoverer of ice-cream is said to be a French chef in
the employ of the Duc de Chartres, who exultingly set the dish before
him on a hot day in 1774. This was subsequent to the discovery of the
pâté de Chartres, which, according to Anatole France, is of itself
sufficient to make one revere the country of its origin.
About this period the baba, beloved by the fair sex, met with great
favour in France. The baba was the invention of King Stanislas
Leszcynski of Poland, a noted epicure, to make amends for the harshness
of his name; its ingredients being German yeast, flour, butter, eggs,
cream, sugar, saffron, candied citron, Corinthian raisins, currants,
and Madeira, Malaga, or rum. It is said to be a difficult entremets to
"seize," so as to preserve its attractive reddish colour, which should
recall a late October afterglow. It at once appealed to the sweet
tooth of femininity, even though that most delectable of garden herbs,
angelica, when candied, was overlooked among the sweet ingredients.
Like the truffle as described by Savarin, the baba was supposed to
render woman more plastic and man more expansive,--_rien que le voir,
les yeux rient et les cœurs chantent_.
The date of the introduction of plum-pudding and mince-pie is difficult
to ascertain. As early as 1424 appears a mention in an English bill of
fare of "Vyaunt ardent," which suggests the former and may have been
its precursor. The original recipe of either must have been formidable
to follow when one reflects how even now they are provocative of a
nightmare, unless executed by the deftest of hands. Plum-pudding
in anything like its present form does not appear in cookery books
anterior to 1675. Previous to this, plum-porridge, which always served
as a first course at Christmas, was prepared by boiling beef or mutton
with broth thickened by brown bread. When half cooked, raisins,
currants, prunes, cloves, nutmeg, mace, ginger, and other condiments
were added, and after the mixture had been thoroughly boiled it was
served with meats--a dish fit for the digestive capacities of Jack the
Giant-killer. An essentially English product, the plum-pudding has
rarely found favour in France, although Louis XVIII was accustomed to
serve it at Christmas, and it has long had a place on the menus of many
Parisian restaurants. A very elaborate recipe for "Plumbuting" is given
by Beauvilliers; but preferable to all formulas is the comparatively
simple one of Blot, a dish which may be digested as well as enjoyed,
and which is within the range of the average cook. Of course
plum-pudding is best during the holiday season, and best of all at the
feast of Christmas day.
Mince-pie is an ancient English dish which America has refined. The
Year-Book of William Hone of the early part of the past century
contains an extended "Ode to the Mince-Pye," which met the approbation
of Scott, Lamb, and Southey. In this it is referred to as the "King of
Cates,"
"whose pastry-bounded reign
Is felt and own'd o'er pastry's wide domain:
Whom greater gluttons own their sovereign lord
Than ever bowed beneath the dubbing sword.
. . . . . . . . .
"Like Albion's rich plum-pudding, famous grown,
The mince-pye reigns in realms beyond his own,
Through foreign latitudes his power extends,
And only terminates where eating ends.
. . . . . . . . .
"Sovereign of Cates, all hail! nor then refuse
This cordial off'ring from an English muse,
Who pours the brandy in libation free,
And finds plum-pudding realiz'd in thee."
But of all forms of pie, that with the apple for its basis is doubtless
the most wholesome and by the majority is most relished. A woman who is
infallible in her apple-pies and successful with her sauces deserves
an annual trip abroad. But such, like first editions of "The Faerie
Queene," are rare. No better instructions regarding the fashioning of
apple-pies can be formulated than those of the late Henry Ward Beecher,
who so thoroughly understood women, gems, sweetmeats, and gardening.
His counsels are worthy of Elia, and the housewife should commit them
to memory:
"There is, for example, one made without undercrust, in a deep
plate, and the apples laid in full quarters; or the apples,
being stewed, are beaten to a mush and seasoned and put
between the double paste; or they are sliced thin and cooked
entirely within the covers; or they are put without seasoning
into their bed, and when baked the upper lid is raised and
the butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sugar are added, the whole
well mixed and the crust returned as if nothing had happened.
But, oh! be careful of the paste! Let it be not like putty,
nor rush to the other extreme and make it so flaky that one
holds his breath while eating, for fear of blowing it away.
Let it not be plain as bread, nor yet rich like cake. Aim
at that glorious medium in which it is tender without being
too fugaciously flaky; short without being too short; a mild,
sapid, brittle thing, that lies upon the tongue, so as to
let the apple strike through and touch the papillæ with a
more affluent flavour. But this, like all high art, must be a
thing of inspiration or instinct. A true cook will understand
us, and we care not if others do not! Do not suppose that
we limit the apple-pie to the kinds and methods enumerated.
Its capacity in variation is endless, and every diversity
discovers some new charm or flavour. It will accept almost
every flavour of every spice. And yet nothing is so fatal to
the rare and higher graces of apple-pie as inconsiderate,
vulgar spicing. It is not meant to be a mere vehicle for the
exhibition of these spices in their own natures; it is a
glorious unity in which sugar gives up its nature as sugar,
and butter ceases to be butter, and each flavoursome spice
gladly vanishes from its own full nature, that all of them,
by a common death, may rise into the new life of apple-pie.
Not that apple is longer apple. It, too, is transformed; and
the final pie, though born of apple, sugar, butter, nutmeg,
cinnamon, lemon, is like none of these, but the compound ideal
of them all, refined, purified, and by fire fixed in blissful
perfection."
"Do you eat pie?" was once asked of Emerson. "What is pie for?" was
the ready and philosophic reply. "Pie, often foolishly abused," said
Artemus Ward, "is a good creature at the right time and in angles of
thirty or forty degrees, although in semicircles and quadrants it may
sometimes prove too much for delicate stomachs."
But think of the pies of two centuries ago! To appreciate the
improvement which has taken place in the dessert and the preparation
of sweet entremets, one has only to refer to Mrs. Glasse or
contemporaneous and previous treatises on cookery. One marvels equally
at the strange recipes, the assimilative prowess of the dames of yore,
and the progress of the centuries. Canon Barham, who never fails to
introduce his bills of fare, though these may not always be strictly
reliable from the point of view of the times and the manner of the
service, presents this in "The Lay of St. Romwold" as the termination
of an olden feast:
"Then came 'sweets'--served in silver were tartlets and pies in
glass,
Jellies composed of punch, calves' feet, and isinglass,
Creams and whipt-syllabubs, some hot, some cool,
Blancmange, and quince-custards, and goosberry-fool."
This was long before the dessert proper--from the French _desservir_,
to clear the table--became an established course of the dinner; and
when the sweetened dishes of eld might scarcely figure under the pretty
Italian title of _Giardinetto_, or "little garden," sometimes applied
to the dessert, and suggestive of all that is fragrant and ambrosial.
While there is no reason for supposing that sweet champagne was not as
greatly relished by the women of Colonial times as it is to-day, it is
true, notwithstanding, that, owing to the greater need of economy, they
were obliged to be content for the most part with saccharine tipples
of a less expensive nature. Among such, besides mulled wine, was the
sack-posset, a favourite drink at weddings and social festivities,
borrowed from England, with its numerous ingredients, and favoured
alike by miss and matron. The recipe in rhyme for this concoction,
after Sir Fleetwood Fletcher, soon became as familiar as Sydney Smith's
recipe for salad in the following century:
"A recipe for all Young Ladies that are going to be Married.
To make a Sack-Posset:
From famed Barbadoes on the Western Main
Fetch sugar half a pound; fetch Sack from Spain
A pint; and from the Eastern Indian Coast
Nutmeg, the glory of our Northern toast;
O'er flaming coals together let them heat
Till the all-conquering Sack dissolves the sweet.
O'er such another fire set eggs, twice ten
New born from crowing cock and speckled hen;
Stir them with steady hand, and conscience pricking
To see the untimely fate of twenty chicken.
From shining shelf take down your brazen skillet,
A quart of milk from gentle cow will fill it;
When boiled and cooked put milk and Sack to egg,
Unite them firmly like the triple league.
Then, covered close, together let them dwell
Till Miss twice sings, 'You must not kiss and tell!'
Each lad and lass snatch up their murdering spoon,
And fall on fiercely like a starved dragoon."
Metheglin and negus were well known to our foremothers. There is no
record to show that they became partial to "sack," except as sweetened
and spiced according to the manner of posset. It is recorded, however,
that, eschewing the stronger punch composed of spirits, they were fond
of mulled wine, Malaga and Madeira, and were far from disdaining the
universal beverage, cider, even in its "hard" form, when mulled.