"Let observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind from China to Peru."
The amount of game and fish which our great country and extent of
sea-coast give us, the variety of climate from Florida to Maine, from
San Francisco to Boston, which the remarkable net-work of our railway
communication allows us to enjoy,--all this makes the American market
in any great city almost fabulously profuse. Then our steamships bring
us fresh artichokes from Algiers in mid-winter, and figs from the
Mediterranean, while the remarkable climate of California gives us
four crops of delicate fruits a year.
There are those, however, who find the fruits of California less
finely flavoured than those of the Eastern States. The peaches of the
past are almost a lost flavour, even at the North. The peach of Europe
is a different and far inferior fruit. It lacks that essential flavour
which to the American palate tells of the best of fruits.
It may be well, for the purposes of gastronomical history, to narrate
the variety of the larder in the height of the season, of a certain
sea-side club-house, a few years ago:
"The season lasted one hundred and eighty days, during which time from
eighty thousand to ninety thousand game-birds, and eighteen thousand
pounds of fish were consumed, exclusive of domestic poultry, steaks
and chops. On busy days twenty-four kinds of fish, all fit for
epicures, embracing turbot, Spanish mackerel, sea trout; the various
kinds of bass, including that gamest of fish the black bass, bonito
from the Gulf of Mexico, the purple mullet, the weakfish, chicken
halibut, sole, plaice, the frog, the soft crab from the Chesapeake,
were served. Here, packed tier upon tier in glistening ice, were some
thirty kinds of birds in the very ecstasy of prime condition, and all
ready prepared for the cook. Let us enumerate 'this royal fellowship
of game.' There were owls from the North (we might call them by some
more enticing name), chicken grouse from Illinois, chicken partridge,
Lake Erie black and summer ducks and teal, woodcock, upland plover (by
many esteemed as the choicest of morsels), dough-birds, brant, New
Jersey millet, godwit, jack curlew, jacksnipe, sandsnipe, rocksnipe,
humming-birds daintily served in nut-shells, golden plover,
beetle-headed plover, redbreast plover, chicken plover, seckle-bill
curlew, summer and winter yellow-legs, reed-birds and rail from
Delaware (the latter most highly esteemed in Europe, where it is known
as the ortolan), ring-neck snipe, brown backs, grass-bird, and peeps."
Is not this a list to make "the rash gazer wipe his eye"?
And to show our riches and their poverty in the matter of game, let us
give the game statistics of France for one September. There are thirty
thousand communes in France, and in each commune there were killed on
the average on September 1, ten hares,--total, three hundred thousand;
seventeen partridges,--total, five hundred and ten thousand; fourteen
quail,--total, four hundred and twenty thousand; one rail in each
commune,--thirty thousand total as to rails. That was all France could
do for the furnishing of the larder; of course she imports game from
Savoy, Germany, Norway, and England. And oh, how she can cook them!
Woodcock, it is said, should be cooked the day it is shot, or
certainly when fresh. Birds that feed on or near the water should be
eaten fresh; so should snipe and some kinds of duck. The canvasback
alone bears keeping, the others get fishy.
Snipe should be picked by hand, on no account drawn; that is a
practice worthy of an Esquimaux. Nor should any condiment be cooked
with woodcock, save butter or pork. A piece of toast under him, to
catch his fragrant gravy, and the delicious trail should alone be
eaten with the snipe; but a bottle of Chambertin may be drunk to wash
him down.
The plover should be roasted quickly before a hot fire; nor should
even a pork jacket be applied if one wishes the delicious juices of
the bird alone. This bird should be served with water-cresses.
Red wine should be drunk with game,--Chambertin, Clos de Vougeot, or a
sound Lafitte or La Tour claret. Champagne is not the wine to serve
with game; that belongs to the filet. With beef _braisé_ a glass of
good golden sherry is allowable, but not champagne. The deep purple,
full-bodied, velvety wines of the Côte d'Or,--the generous vintages of
Burgundy,--are in order. Indeed these wines always have been in high
renown. They are passed as presents from one royal personage to
another, like a _cordon d'honneur_. Burgundy was the wine of nobles
and churchmen, who always have had enviable palates.
Chambertin is a lighter kind of Volnay and the _vin velouté par
excellence_ of the Côte d'Or. It was a great favourite with Napoleon
I. To considerable body it unites a fine flavour and a _suave bouquet_
of great _finesse_, and does not become thin with age like other
Burgundies. As for the Clos de Vougeot, its characteristics are a rich
ruby colour, velvety softness, a delicate bouquet, which has a slight
suggestion of the raspberry. It is a strong wine, less refined in
flavour than the Chambertin, and with a suggestion of bitterness. It
was so much admired by a certain military commander that while
marching his regiment to the Rhine he commanded his men to halt before
the vineyard and salute it. They presented arms in its honour.
Château Lafitte, renowned for its magnificent colour, exquisite
softness, delicate flavour, and fragrant bouquet, recalling almonds
and violets, is one of the wines of the Gironde, and is supposed of
late to have deteriorated in quality; but it is quite good enough to
command a high price and the attention of _connoisseurs_.
Château La Tour, a grand Médoc claret, derives its name from an
existing ancient, massive, round tower, which the English assailed and
defended by turns during the wars in Guienne. It has a pronounced
flavour, and a powerful bouquet, common to all wines of the Gironde.
It reminds one of the odour of almonds, and of Noyau cordials.
These vineyards were in great repute five centuries ago; and it would
be delightful to pursue the history of the various _crûs_, did time
permit. The Cos d'Estoumet of the famous St. Estephe _crûs_ is still
made by the peasants treading out the grapes, _foule à pied_, to the
accompaniment of pipes and fiddles as in the days of Louis XIV.
We will mention the two _premiers grands crûs_ of the Gironde, the
growth of the ancient vineyards of Leoville and the St. Julian wines,
distinguished by their odour of violets.