What is thy diet? Canst thou gulf a shoal
Of herrings? Or hast thou gorge and room
To bolt fat porpoises and dolphins whole
By dozens, e'en as oysters we consume?
PUNCH.
The world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open.
HOTSPUR.
The Egyptians, strange to say, did not deify fish, that important
article of their food. We read of the enormous yield of Lake Moeris,
which was dammed up by the great Rameses, and whose draught of fishes
brought him so enormous a revenue.
One of the most fascinating of all the Egyptian Queens, Sonivaphra,
received the revenues of one of these fisheries to keep her in
shoe-strings,--probably another name for pin money.
And yet the Egyptians, while mummying the cats and dogs and beetles,
and such small deer, made no gods of the good carp or other fish which
must have stocked the river Nile. They emblazoned the crocodile on
their monuments, but never a fish. It is a singular foreshadowing of
that great vice of the human race, ingratitude.
The Romans were fond of fish, and the records of their gastronomy
abound in fish stories. We read of Licinius Crassus, the orator, that
he lived in a house of great elegance and beauty. This house was
called the "Venus of the Palatine," and was remarkable for its size,
the taste of the furniture, and the beauty of the grounds. It was
adorned with pillars of Hymettian marbles, with expensive vases and
_triclinia_ inlaid with brass; his gardens were provided with
fish-ponds, and noble lotus-trees shaded his walks. Abenobarbus, his
colleague in the censorship, found fault with such luxury, such
"corruption of manners," and complained of his crying for the loss of
a lamprey as if it had been a favourite daughter!
This, however, was a tame lamprey, which used to come to the call of
Crassus and feed out of his hand. Crassus retorted by a public speech
against his colleague, and by his great power of ridicule turned him
into derision, jested upon his name, and to the accusation of weeping
for a lamprey, replied that it was more than Abenobarbus had done for
the loss of any of his three wives!
In the sixteenth century, that golden age of the Vatican, the splendid
court of Leo X. was the centre of artistic and literary life, and the
witty and pleasure-loving Pope made its gardens the scene of his
banquets and concerts, where he listened to the recitations of the
poets who sprung up under his protection. There beneath the shadow of
the ilex and the lauristines, in a circle so refined that ladies were
admitted, Leo himself leaned on the shoulder of the handsome Raphael,
who was allowed to caress and admire the Medicean white hand of his
noble patron. We read that this famous Pope was so fastidious as to
the fish dinners of Lent, that he invented twenty different recipes
for the chowder of that day! Walking in disguise with Raphael through
the fish-market, he espied a boy who, on his knees, was presenting a
fish to a pretty _contadina_. The scene took form and immortality in
the famous _Vierge au Poisson_, in which, conducted by the Angel
Gabriel, the youthful Saint John presents the fish to the Virgin and
child,--a beautiful picture for the church whose patron saint was a
fisherman.
Indeed, that picture of the sea of Galilee, and the sacred meaning
attached to the etymology of the word "fish," has given the finny
wanderer of the seas a peculiar and valuable personality. All this,
with the selection by our Lord of so many of his disciples from
amongst the fishermen, the many poetical associations which form
around this, the cheapest and most delicate form of food with which
the Creator has stocked this world of ours, would, if followed out,
afford a volume of suggestion, quotation, poetry, and romance with
which to embellish the art of entertaining.
Fish is now believed to produce aliment for the brain, and as such is
recommended to all authors and editors, statesmen, poets and lawyers,
clergymen and mathematicians,--all who draw on that finer fibre of the
brain which is used for the production of poetry or prose.
England is famed for its good fish, as why should it not be, with the
ocean around it? The turbot is, _par excellence_, the fish for a Lord
Mayor's dinner, and it is admirable _à la crème_ for anybody's dinner.
Excellent is the whitebait of Richmond, that mysterious little dwarf.
Eaten with slices of brown bread and butter it is a very delicious
morsel, and the whiting, which always comes to the table with his tail
in his mouth, beautifully browned outside, white as snow within, what
so excellent as a whiting, except a _sole au gratin_ with sauce
Tartare?
Fresh herrings in Scotland are delicious, almost equal to the red
mullets which Cæsar once ate at Marseilles. The fresh sardines at
Nice, and all along the Mediterranean, are very delicate, as are the
thousand shell-fish. The langoose, or large lobster of France and the
Mediterranean, is a surprise to the American traveller. Not so
delicate as our American lobster, it still is admirable for a salad.
It is so large that the flesh--if a fish has flesh--can be sliced up
and served like cold roast turkey.
The salmon, king of fish, inspires in his capture, in Scotland rivers,
in Labrador, in Canada, some of the best writing of the day. William
Black, in Scotland, and Dr. Wier Mitchell, of Philadelphia, can tell
stories of salmon-fishing which are as brilliant as Victor Hugo's
description of Waterloo, or of that mysterious jelly-fish in his
novel, "The Toilers of the Sea."
The New York market boasts the red snapper, the sheepshead, the
salmon, the salmon-trout, the Spanish mackerel, most toothsome of
viands, the sea bass, cod, halibut, the shad, the greatest profusion
of excellent oysters and clams, the cheap pan-fish, and endless eels.
The French make many fine dishes of eels, as the Romans did.
To be good, fish must be fresh. It is absolutely indispensable, to
retain certain flavours, that the fish should go from one element to
another, out of the water into the fire, and onto the gridiron or into
the frying pan as soon as possible. Therefore, if the housewife has a
fish seasonable and fresh, and a gridiron, she can make a good dish
for a hungry man.
We shall begin with the cheapest of the products of the water, and
although they may squirm out of our hands, try to bring to the table
the despised eels.
An old proverb said that matrimony was a bag in which there were
ninety-nine snakes and one eel, and the young lady who put her hand
into this agreeable company had small chance at the eel. It would seem
at first blush as if no one would care particularly for the eel. In
old England, eels were exceedingly popular, and the monks dearly loved
to feed upon them. The cellarist of Barking Abbey, Essex, in the
ancient times of monastic foundations, was, amongst other eatables, to
provide stewed eels in Lent and to bake eels on Shrove Tuesday. There
were artificial receptacles made for eels. The cruel custom of salting
eels alive is mentioned by some old writers.
"When the old serpent appeared in the guise of a stewed eel it was
impossible to resist him."
Eels _en matelote_ should be cut in three-inch pieces, and
salted; fry an onion brown in a little dripping, add half a
pint of broth to the brown onion, part of a bay leaf, six
broken pepper-corns, four whole cloves, and a gill of claret.
Add the eels to this and simmer until thoroughly cooked.
Remove the eels, put them on a hot dish, add a teaspoonful of
brown flour to the sauce, strain and pour over the eels.
Spatch-cooked eels are good.
_Fricasseed eels_: Cut three pounds of eels into pieces of
three inches in length, put them into a stewpan, and cover
them with Rhine wine, or two thirds water and one third
vinegar; add fifteen oysters, two pieces of lemon, a bouquet
of herbs, one onion quartered, six cloves, three stalks of
celery, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and salt to taste. Stew the
eels one hour, remove them from the dish, strain the liquor.
Put it back into the saucepan with a gill of cream and an
ounce of butter rolled in flour, simmer gently a few minutes,
pour over the fish, and you have a dish for a king.
Stewed eels are great favourites with _gourmets_, cooked as
follows:--
Cut into three-inch pieces two pounds of medium-sized cleaned
eels. Rub the inside of each piece with salt. Let them stand
half an hour, then parboil them. Boil an onion in a quart of
milk and remove the onion. Drain the eels from the water and
add them to the milk. Season with half a teaspoonful of
chopped parsley, salt and pepper, and the smallest bit of
mace. Simmer until the flesh falls from the bones.
Fried eels should be slightly salted before cooking. Do not cover them
with batter, but dredge them with just flour enough to absorb all
moisture, then cover them with boiling lard.
As for the thousand and one recipes for cooking an oyster, no one need
tell an American hostess much on that subject. Raw, roasted, boiled,
stewed, scalloped and baked in patties, what so savoury as the oyster?
They should be bought alive, and opened with care by an expert, for
the bits of shell are dangerous. If eaten raw, pieces of lemon should
be served with them. Plates of majolica to hold five or seven oysters
are now to be bought at all the best crockery stores.
To stew oysters well, cream and butter should be added, and the whole
mixture done in a silver dish over an alcohol lamp. Broiled oysters
should be dipped first in melted butter, then in bread crumbs, then
put in a very fine wire gridiron, and broiled over a bright bed of
coals. Scalloped oysters should be carefully dried with a clean
napkin, then laid in a deep dish on a bed of crumbs and fresh butter,
all softened by the liquor of the oyster; a layer of oysters and a
layer of crumbs should follow each other, with little walnuts of
butter put between. The mixture should be put in a very hot oven and
baked a delicate brown, but not dried.
The plain fried oyster is very popular, but it should not be cooked
in small houses just before an entertainment, as the odour is not
appetizing. To dip them in egg batter, then in bread-crumbs, and fry
them in drippings is a common and good fashion. A more elaborate
fashion is to beat up the yolks of four eggs with three tablespoonfuls
of sweet oil, and season them with a teaspoonful of salt, and a
saltspoonful of cayenne pepper. Beat up thoroughly, dip each oyster in
this mixture and then in bread crumbs, and fry in hot oil. The best
and most elegant way of cooking an oyster is, however, "_à la
poulette_."
Scald the oysters in their own liquor, drain them, and add to
the liquor, salt, half an ounce of butter, the juice of half a
lemon, a gill of cream, and a teaspoonful of dissolved flour.
Beat the yolk of one egg, and add to the sauce, stir until the
sauce thickens; place the oysters on a hot dish, pour the
sauce over them, add a little chopped parsley and serve.
A simpler and more primitive but excellent way of cooking oysters is
to clean the shells thoroughly, and place them in the coals in an open
fireplace, or to roast them in hot ashes until the shells snap open.
When the oyster departs then the clam takes his place, and is
delicious as an _avant goût_ or an appetizer at a dinner. If clams are
broiled they must be done quickly, else they become hard and
indigestible.
The soft-shell clam, scalloped, makes a good dish. Clean the shells
well, then put two clams to each shell, with half a teaspoonful of
minced celery. Cut a slice of fat bacon small, add a little to each
shell, put bread crumbs on top and a little pat of butter, bake in the
oven until brown. A clam broth is a delicious and healthful beverage
for sick or well; add cream and a spoonful of sherry to it, and it
becomes a fabulously fine thing. In this mixture the clams must be
strained out before the cream and wine are added.
But if the clam is good what shall we say of crabs. Hard-shell crabs
must be boiled about twelve minutes, drained, and set away to cool.
Eaten with sandwiches and a dressing they are considered a delicacy
for supper. They can be more cooked with chopped eggs, or treated like
a chicken pasty, and cooked in a paste shell they are very good.
Take half an ounce of butter, half an onion minced, half a pound of
minced raw veal, and a small carrot shredded, a chopped crab, a pint
of boiling cream; simmer an hour, then strain into a saucepan, and
what a sauce you have!
The soft-shell crab is an invalid. He is caught when he is helpless,
feverish, and not at all, one would say, healthy. He is killed by the
jarring of the train, by thunder, by some passing noisy cart, and some
say by a fall in stocks, or a sudden change in political circles.
Such sensitive creatures must be cooked as soon as possible. It is
only necessary to remove the feathery substance under the pointed
sides of the shells, rinse them in cold water, drain, season with salt
and pepper, dredge them in flour and fry in hot fat. Crab patties and
crabs cooked in any other way than this fail to please the epicure.
Nothing with so pronounced an individuality as a soft-shelled crab
should be disguised.
A devilled crab is considered good, but it should be cooked by a negro
expert from Maryland.
Scallops are essentially good in stews, or fried, and when, cut in
small pieces, with a pint of milk, a little butter, and a little salt,
they again return to their beautiful shells and are baked as a
scallop, they are delicious. Put in pork fat, and fried, they are also
very fine.
The lobster is now considered very healthful, and as conveying more
phosphorus into the human system than any other fish. Broiled,
devilled, stewed, cooked in a fashion called _Bourdelaise_, it is the
most delicious of dishes, and as a salad what can equal it?
A baked whitefish with Bordeaux sauce is very fine.
Clean and stuff the fish with bread-crumbs, onions, butter,
and sweet marjoram. Put it in a baking pan, add a liberal
quantity of butter previously rolled in flour, put in the pan
a pint of claret, and bake for an hour. Remove the fish and
strain the gravy, put in a teaspoonful of brown flour and a
pinch of cayenne pepper.
Halibut with an egg sauce and a border of parsley is a dish for a
banquet, only the cook must know how to make egg sauce. Supposing we
tell her?
Put two ounces of butter in a stew-pan; when it melts, add one
ounce of flour. Stir for one minute or more, but do not brown.
Then add by degrees two gills of boiling water, stirring until
smooth, and boiling about two minutes. If not perfectly
smooth, pass it through a sieve; then add another ounce of
butter cut in pieces. When the butter is melted, add three
hard-boiled eggs, chopped not too fine, season with pepper and
salt, and serve immediately.
This sauce is admirable for cod, and for all boiled fish.
But the "perfectest thing on earth" is a broiled fish, a shad for
instance; and one of the best preventives against burning is to rub
olive oil on the fish before putting it on the gridiron. Charcoal
affords the best fire, and it must be free from all smoke and flame.
A little sweet butter, half a teaspoonful of chopped parsley and the
juice of a lemon should be melted together, and stand ready to be
poured over the broiled fish.
Mr. Lowell, in one of his delightful, witty papers in the Atlantic
Monthly years ago, regretted that he could not find a gridiron near
the St. Lawrence, although its patron saint suffered martyrdom on that
excellent kitchen utensil. It is a lamentable fact that wood fires and
gridirons are giving out. They contain within themselves the merits of
all the kitchen ranges, all the lost juices of that early American
cookery, which one who has tasted it can never forget. Where are the
broils of our childhood?
Codfish is a family stand-by, but a tasteless fish unless covered with
oysters or something very good; but salt-codfish balls are a great
luxury.
Brook trout, boiled, baked, and broiled, are all inferior to the fry.
The frying-pan has to answer for a multitude of sins, but nothing so
base can be found as to deprive it of its great glory in sending us a
fried brook-trout. "Clean and rinse a quarter-of-a-pound trout in cold
water," says one recipe.
Why not a pound-and-a-quarter trout? The recipe begins later on: after
some pork has been fried in the pan, throw in your carefully cleaned
fish, no matter what their weight may be, turn them three times most
carefully. Send to table without adding or detracting from their
flavour.
This is for the sportsman who cooks his trout himself by a wood fire
in the woods; and no other man ever arrives at just that perfect way
of cooking a trout. When the trout has come down from cooling springs
to the hot city, it requires a seasoning of salt, pepper, and
lemon-juice.
Frogs--frogs as cooked in France, _grenouilles à la poulette_--are a
most luxurious delicacy. They are very expensive and are to be bought
at the _marché St. Honoré_. As only the hind legs are eaten, and the
price is fifteen francs a dozen, they are not often seen. We might
have them in this country for the catching. Of their tenderness,
succulence, and delicacy of flavour there can be no question. They are
clean feeders, and undoubtedly wholesome.
Sala, writing in "Breakfasts in Bed" does not praise _bouillabaisse_.
He declares that the cooks plunge a rolling-pin in tallow and then
with it stir that _pot pourri_ of red mullet, tomatoes, red pepper,
red Burgundy, oil, and garlic to which Thackeray has written so
delightful a lyric. "Against fish soups, turtle, terrapin, oyster, and
bisque," he says, "I can offer no objection." The Italians again have
their good _zuppa marinara_, which is not all like the _bouillabaisse_,
and the Russians make a very appetizing fish pottage which is called
_batwina_, the stock of which is composed of _kraus_, or half-brewed
barley beer, and oil. Into this is put the fish known as the sterlet
of the Volga, or the sassina of the Gulf of Finland, together with bay
leaves, pepper, and lumps of ice. _Batwina_ is better than
_bouillabaisse_.