There is not in the wide world so tempting a sweet
As that trifle where custard and macaroons meet.
Oh! the latest sweet tooth from my head must depart
Ere the taste of that trifle shall not win my heart.
Yet it is not the sugar that's thrown in between,
Nor the peel of the lemon so candied and green,
'T is not the rich cream that's whipped up by a mill,
Oh, no; it is something more exquisite still!
The great meaning of dessert is to offer "something more exquisite
still." And it is the province of the housekeeper, be she young or
old, to study how this can be done.
Nothing in European dinners can compare with the American custards,
puddings, and pies. We are accused as a nation of having eaten too
many sweets, and of having ruined our teeth thereby; but who that has
languished in England over the insipid desserts at hotels, and the
tooth-sharpeners called "sweets," meaning tarts as sour as an east
wind, has not sighed for an American pie? In Paris the cakes are
pretty to look at, but oh, how they break their promise when you eat
them! Nothing but sweetened white of egg. One thing they surpass us
in,--_omelette soufflé_; and a _gâteau St. Honoré_ is good, but with
that word of praise we dismiss the great French nation.
Just look at our grand list of fruit desserts: apple charlotte,
apricots with rice, banana charlotte, banana fritters, blackberry
short-cake, strawberry short-cake, velvet cream with strawberries,
fresh pine-apples in jelly, frozen bananas, frozen peaches in cream,
orange cocoanut salad, orange salad, peach fritters, peach meringue,
peach short-cake, plum salad, salad of mixed fruits, sliced pears with
whipped cream, stewed pears, plain, and pumpkin pie! But oh! there is
"something more exquisite still," and that is an apple pie.
"All new dishes fade, the newest oft the fleetest;
Of all the pies ever made, the apple's still the sweetest.
Cut and come again, the syrup upward springing,
While life and taste remain, to thee my heart is clinging.
Who a pie would make, first his apple slices,
Then he ought to take some cloves and the best of spices,
Grate some lemon rind, butter add discreetly,
Then some sugar mix, but mind,--the pie not made too sweetly.
If a cook of taste be competent to make it,
In the finest paste will enclose and bake it."
During years of foreign travel I have never met a dish so perfect as
the American apple pie can be, with cream.
Then look at our puddings; they are richer, sweeter, more varied than
any in the world, the English plum-pudding excepted. That is a
ponderous dainty, which few can eat. It looks well when dressed with
holly and lighted up, but it is not to be eaten every day. Baked bread
pudding, carrot pudding, exceedingly delicate, chocolate pudding, cold
cabinet-pudding, boiled rice-pudding with custard sauce, poor man's
rice-pudding, green-apple pudding, Indian pudding, minute pudding,
tapioca pudding, and all the custards boiled and baked with infinite
variety of flavour,--these are the every-day luxuries, and they are
very great ones, of the American table.
One charming thing about dessert and American dishes is that ladies
can make them. They do not flush the face or derange the white apron.
They are pleasant things to dally with,--milk and eggs, and spice and
sugar. A model kitchen is every lady's delight. In these days of
tiles, and marble pastry-boards, and modern improvements, what pretty
things kitchens are.
The model dairy, too, is a delight, with its upright milk-pans, in
which the cream is marked off by a neat little thermometer, and its
fire-brick floor. How cool and neat it is! Sometimes a stream of fresh
water flows under the floor, as the river runs under the Château of
Chenonceaux, where Diane de Poitiers dressed her golden hair.
In the model kitchen is the exquisite range, with its polished
_batterie de cuisine_. Every brilliant saucepan seems to say, "Come
and cook in me;" every porcelain-lined pan urges upon one the
necessity of stewing nectarines in white sugar; every bright can
suggests the word "conserve," which always makes the mouth water;
every clatter of the skewers says, "Dainty dishes, come and make me."
All this is quite fascinating to an amateur.
No pretty woman, if she did but know it, is ever so pretty as when she
is playing cook, and doing it well. The clean white apron, the short,
clean, cambric gown, the little cap, the white, bare arms,--the
glorified creams and jellies, pies and Charlotte Russe, cakes and
puddings, which fall from such fingers are ambrosial food.
There is a great passion, in the properly regulated woman's heart, for
the cleanly part of the household work. The love of a dairy is, with
many a duchess, part of the business of her rank. In our country,
where ladies are compelled to put a hand, once perhaps too often,
owing to the insufficiency of servants, to the cooking, it is less a
pastime, but a knowledge of it is indispensable. To cook a heavy
dinner in hot weather, to wash the dishes afterward, this is sober
prose, and by a very dull author; but to make the dessert, this is
poetry. In the early morning the hostess should go into her neat dairy
to skim the cream; it will be much thicker if she does. She will
prepare all things for the desserts of the day. She will make her
well-flavoured custard and set it in the ice-chest. She will place her
compote of pears securely on a high shelf, away from that ubiquitous
cat who has, in most families, so remarkable and so irrepressible an
appetite.
Then she should make a visit to the kitchen before dinner, to see to
it that the roast birds are garnished with water-cress, that the
vegetables are properly prepared, that the dishes are without a smear
on their lower surface. All this attention makes good servants and
very good dinners.
In the matter of flavouring, the coloured race has us at a great
disadvantage. Any old coloured cook can distance her white "Missus"
there. This highly gifted race seem to have a sixth sense on the
subject of flavours. The rich tropical nature breaks out in
reminiscences of orange-blossoms, pineapple, guava, cocoanut, and
mandarin orange. Never can the descendants of the poor, half-starved,
frozen exiles of Plymouth Rock hope to achieve such custards and
puddings as these Ethiops pour out. It is as if some luxurious and
beneficent gift had left us when we were made poets, orators,
philosophers, preachers, and authors, when we were given what we
proudly term a higher intelligence. Who would not exchange all the
cold, mathematical, intellectual supremacy of which we boast for that
luscious gift of making pies and puddings _à ravir_?
The making of pastry is so delicate and so varied a task that we can
only say, approach it with cold hands, cold ice-water, roll it on a
marble slab, then bake it in a very hot oven.
Learn to stew well. Stew your fruit in a porcelain stewpan before
putting it in your tarts. It is one of the most wholesome forms of
cookery; a French novelist calls the stewpan the "favourite arm, the
talisman of the cook." A celebrated physician said that the action of
the stewpan was like that of the stomach, and it is a great gain if we
can help that along. Stewing gooseberries, cherries, and even apples
with sugar and lemon-peel before putting them in the tart, ensures a
good pie.
Whipped white of egg is an elegant addition to most dessert dishes,
and every lady should provide herself with wire whisks.
Whipped to a strong froth with sugar, and lemon or vanilla flavouring,
this garnish makes an ordinary into a superior pudding. New-laid eggs
are exceedingly difficult to beat up well. Take those which have been
laid several days. Have a deep bowl with a circular bottom, and in
beating the eggs keep the whisk as much as possible in an upright
position, moving it very rapidly; a little boiling water, a
tablespoonful to two eggs, and a teaspoonful of sifted sugar put to
them before beating is commenced, facilitates the operation.
For _omelette soufflé_ the white of eggs, beaten, should be firm
enough to cut.
An orange-custard pudding is so very good that we must give a
time-honoured recipe:--
Boil a pint of new milk, pour it upon three eggs lightly
beaten, mix in the grated peel of an orange, and two ounces of
loaf sugar; beat all together for ten minutes, then pour the
custard into a pie dish, set it into another containing a
little water, and put it in a moderate oven. When the custard
is set, which generally takes about half an hour, take it out
and let it get cold. Then sprinkle over rather thickly some
very fine sugar, and brown with a salamander. This should be
eaten cold.
Of rice and tapioca puddings the variety is endless, and they are most
healthful. A wife who will give her dyspeptic husband a good pudding
every day may perhaps save his life, his fortunes, and if he is an
author, his literary reputation.
An antiquary of the last century wrote, "Cookery was ever reckoned a
branch of the art medical; the verb _curare_ signifies equally to
dress vegetables and to cure a distemper, and everybody has heard of
Dr. Diet, and kitchen physic."
Indeed that most sacred part of a woman's duty, learning to cook for
the sick, can be studied through desserts. A lady, very ill in Paris
through a long winter, declared that she would have been cured had she
once tasted cream-toast, or tapioca pudding; both were luxuries which
she never encountered.
Then come all the jellies; and it is better to make your own gelatine
from the real calves'-feet than to use patent gelatine. The latter,
however, is very good, and saves time. It also makes excellent
foundation for all the so-called creams.
Some ardent housekeepers put up all their jams, preserves, and
currant jelly; some even make the cordials curaçoa, noyau, peach
brandy, ginger cordial, and cherry brandy, but this is unnecessary.
They can be bought cheaper and better than they can be made.
The history of liqueurs is a curious one. Does any one ever think, as
he tastes Chartreuse, of the gloomy monks who dig their own graves,
and never speak save to say, "Mes frères, il faut mourir," who alone
can make this sparkling and delicate liqueur which figures at every
grand feast?
I have made an expedition to their splendid mountain-bound convent. It
is one of the most glorious drives in Europe, and rises into Alpine
grandeur and solemnity. There, amid winter's cold and summer's heat,
the Chartreuse lives in severe penance, making his hospitable liqueur
which enchants the world, out of the chamomile and other herbs which
grow around his convent.
The best French liqueurs were made formerly at La Côte by the
Visetandine nuns. Kirschwasser is made from the cherries which grow in
the Alpine Tyrol, in one small province which produces nothing else.
Liqueurs were invented for Louis XIV. in his old age. A cordial was
made by mixing brandy with sugar and scents.
In making a mince pie, do not forget the excellent brandy, and the
dash of orange curaçoa, which should be put in by the lady herself.
Else why is it that otherwise the mince pie seems to lack the
inspiriting and hidden fire. We read that there is "many a slip 'twixt
the cup and the lip." Perhaps the cook could tell, but one may be very
sure she will not.
The modern, elegant devices by which strawberries, violets, and
roseleaves, orange blossoms, and indeed all berries can be candied
fresh in sugar, afford a pretty pastime for amateur cooks. But if near
a confectioner in the city these can be bought cheaper than they can
be made. It may amuse an invalid to make them, and the art is easily
learned.
The cheese _fondu_ is a great favourite at foreign desserts. It is of
Swiss origin. It is a healthful, savoury, and appetizing dish, quickly
dressed and good to put at the end of a dinner for unexpected guests.
Take as many eggs as there are guests, and then about a third
as much by weight of the best Gruyères cheese, and the half of
that of butter. Break and beat up well the eggs in a saucepan,
then add the butter and the cheese, grated or cut in small
pieces; place the saucepan on the fire, and stir with a wooden
spoon till it is of a thick and soft consistence; put in salt
according to the age of the cheese,--fresh cheese requires the
most,--and a strong dose of pepper, then bake it like macaroni
and send to table hot.
One pie we have which is national; it is that made of the pumpkin, and
it is notoriously good. Also we may claim the squash pie and the
sweet-potato pie, both of which merit the highest encomiums.
Our fruits are so plentiful and so good that few housekeepers can fail
of having a good dessert of fruits alone. But do not force the
seasons. Take them as they come. When fruits are cheapest then they
are best. Our peaches have more flavour than those of Europe, and our
grapes are unrivalled. Of plums and pears, France has better than we
can boast, but our strawberries are as good and as plentiful as in
England.
In fact, all the wild berries which are now getting to be cultivated
berries, like blackberries, blueberries, huckleberries, and
raspberries, are better than similar fruits abroad. The wild
strawberry of the Alps is, however, delicious in flavour and
sweetness.
A very grand dessert is furnished with ices of every flavour, jellies
holding fruit and flavoured with maraschino, all sorts of bonbons,
nuts in sugar, candied grapes and oranges, fresh fruits in season, and
ending with liqueurs and black coffee.
A simple pudding, or pie followed by grapes and peaches, with the cup
of black coffee afterward, is the national dessert of our United
States. In winter it may be enriched by a Newtown pippin or a King of
Tompkins County apple, some boiled chestnuts and a few other nuts,
some Florida oranges, or those delicious little mandarins, perhaps
raised by the immortal Rip Van Winkle, our own Joe Jefferson, on his
Louisiana estate. He seems to have infused them with the flavour of
his own rare and cheerful genius. He has raised a laugh before this,
as well as the best mandarin oranges. Some dyspeptics declare that to
chew seven roasted almonds after dinner does them good. And the
roasted almonds fitly close the chapter on desserts.