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Title: The Feasts of Autolycus
The Diary of a Greedy Woman
Author: Elizabeth Robins Pennell
Release Date: December 24, 2012 [eBook #41696]
Language: English
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THE FEASTS OF AUTOLYCUS
The Diary of a Greedy Woman
[Illustration]
Edited by
ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL
Akron, O.
The Saalfield Publishing Company
Chicago New York
1900
Copyright, 1896,
by the Merriam Company.
[Illustration]
NOTE.--_These papers were first published in the "Pall Mall Gazette,"
under the heading, "Wares of Autolycus." It is due to the courteous
permission of the editors of that Journal that they are now re-issued
in book form._
INTRODUCTION
I have always wondered that woman could be so glib in claiming
equality with man. In such trifling matters as politics and science
and industry, I doubt if there be much to choose between the two
sexes. But in the cultivation and practice of an art which concerns
life more seriously, woman has hitherto proved an inferior creature.
For centuries the kitchen has been her appointed sphere of action. And
yet, here, as in the studio and the study, she has allowed man to
carry off the laurels. Vatel, Carême, Ude, Dumas, Gouffé, Etienne,
these are some of the immortal cooks of history: the kitchen still
waits its Sappho. Mrs Glasse, at first, might be thought a notable
exception; but it is not so much the merit of her book as its extreme
rarity in the first edition which has made it famous.
Woman, moreover, has eaten with as little distinction as she has
cooked. It seems almost--much as I deplore the admission--as if she
were of coarser clay than man, lacking the more artistic instincts,
the subtler, daintier emotions.
I think, therefore, the great interest of the following papers lies in
the fact that they are written by a woman--a greedy woman. The
collection, evidently, does not pretend to be a "Cook's Manual," or a
"Housewife's Companion": already the diligent, in numbers, have
catalogued _recipes_, with more or less exactness. It is rather a
guide to the Beauty, the Poetry, that exists in the perfect dish, even
as in the masterpiece of a Titian or a Swinburne. Surely hope need not
be abandoned when there is found one woman who can eat, with
understanding, the Feasts of Autolycus.
ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE VIRTUE OF GLUTTONY, 9
A PERFECT BREAKFAST, 17
TWO BREAKFASTS, 25
THE SUBTLE SANDWICH, 33
A PERFECT DINNER, 43
AN AUTUMN DINNER, 51
A MIDSUMMER DINNER, 59
TWO SUPPERS, 67
ON SOUP, 75
THE SIMPLE SOLE, 89
BOUILLABAISSE, 97
THE MOST EXCELLENT OYSTER, 105
THE PARTRIDGE, 117
THE ARCHANGELIC BIRD, 125
SPRING CHICKEN, 135
THE MAGNIFICENT MUSHROOM, 143
THE INCOMPARABLE ONION, 155
THE TRIUMPHANT TOMATO, 171
A DISH OF SUNSHINE, 179
ON SALADS, 191
THE SALADS OF SPAIN, 205
THE STIRRING SAVOURY, 215
INDISPENSABLE CHEESE, 223
A STUDY IN GREEN AND RED, 231
A MESSAGE FROM THE SOUTH, 239
ENCHANTING COFFEE, 249
THE VIRTUE OF GLUTTONY
Gluttony is ranked with the deadly sins; it should be honoured among
the cardinal virtues. It was in the Dark Ages of asceticism that
contempt for it was fostered. Selfish anchorites, vowed to dried dates
and lentils, or browsing Nebuchadnezzar-like upon grass, thought by
their lamentable example to rob the world of its chief blessing.
Cheerfully, and without a scruple, they would have sacrificed beauty
and pleasure to their own superstition. If the vineyard yielded wine
and the orchard fruit, if cattle were sent to pasture, and the forest
abounded in game, they believed it was that men might forswear the
delights thus offered. And so food came into ill repute and foolish
fasting was glorified, until a healthy appetite passed for a snare of
the devil, and its gratification meant eternal damnation. Poor deluded
humans, ever so keen to make the least of the short span of life
allotted to them!
With time, all superstitions fail; and asceticism went the way of many
another ingenious folly. But as a tradition, as a convention, somehow,
it lingered longer among women. And the old Christian duty became a
new feminine grace. And where the fanatic had fasted that his soul
might prove comelier in the sight of God, silly matrons and maidens
starved, or pretended to starve, themselves that their bodies might
seem fairer in the eyes of man. And dire, indeed, has been their
punishment. The legend was that swooning Angelina or tear-stained
Amelia, who, in company, toyed tenderly with a chicken wing or
unsubstantial wafer, later retired to the pantry to stuff herself with
jam and pickles. And thus gradually, so it is asserted, the delicacy
of women's palate was destroyed; food to her perverted stomach was but
a mere necessity to stay the pangs of hunger, and the pleasure of
eating she looked upon as a deep mystery, into which only man could be
initiated.
In this there is much exaggeration, but still much truth. To-day
women, as a rule, think all too little of the joys of eating. They
hold lightly the treasures that should prove invaluable. They refuse
to recognise that there is no less art in eating well than in painting
well or writing well, and if their choice lay between swallowing a bun
with a cup of tea in an aërated bread shop, and missing the latest
picture show or doing without a new book, they would not hesitate; to
the stodgy bun they would condemn themselves, though that way madness
lies. Is it not true that the woman who would economise, first draws
her purse-strings tight in the market and at the restaurant? With her
milliner's bill she may find no fault, but in butcher's book, or
grocer's, every halfpenny is to be disputed.
The loss is hers, but the generous-hearted can but regret it.
Therefore let her be brought face to face with certain fundamental
facts, and the scales will fall quickly from her eyes, and she will
see the truth in all its splendour.
First, then, let her know that the love of good eating gives an object
to life. She need not stray after false gods; she will not burden
herself with silly fads, once she realizes that upon food she may
concentrate thought and energy, and her higher nature--which to her
means so much--be developed thereby. Why clamour for the suffrage, why
labour for the redemption of brutal man, why wear, with noisy
advertisement, ribbons white or blue, when three times a day there is
a work of art, easily within her reach, to be created? All his life a
Velasquez devoted to his pictures, a Shakespeare to his plays, a
Wagner to his operas: why should not the woman of genius spend hers in
designing exquisite dinners, inventing original breakfasts, and be
respected for the nobility of her self-appointed task? For in the
planning of the perfect meal there is art; and, after all, is not art
the one real, the one important thing in life?
And the object she thus accepts will be her pleasure as well. For the
_gourmande_, or glutton, duty and amusement go hand in hand. Her
dainty devices and harmonies appeal to her imagination and fancy; they
play gently with her emotions; they develop to the utmost her pretty
sensuousness. Mind and body alike are satisfied. And so long as this
pleasure endures it will never seem time to die. The ancient
philosopher thought that time had come when life afforded more evil
than good. The good of a pleasantly planned dinner outbalances the
evil of daily trials and tribulations.
Here is another more intimate, personal reason which the woman of
sense may not set aside with flippancy or indifference. By artistic
gluttony, beauty is increased, if not actually created. Listen to the
words of Brillat-Savarin, that suave and sympathetic _gourmet_: "It
has been proved by a series of rigorously exact observations that by a
succulent, delicate, and choice regimen, the external appearances of
age are kept away for a long time. It gives more brilliancy to the
eye, more freshness to the skin, more support to the muscles; and as
it is certain in physiology that wrinkles, those formidable enemies of
beauty, are caused by the depression of muscle, it is equally true
that, other things being equal, those who understand eating are
comparatively four years younger than those ignorant of that science."
Surely he should have called it art, not science. But let that pass.
Rejoice in the knowledge that gluttony is the best cosmetic.
And more than this: a woman not only grows beautiful when she eats
well, but she is bewitchingly lovely in the very act of eating. Listen
again, for certain texts cannot be heard too often: "There is no more
pretty sight than a pretty _gourmande_ under arms. Her napkin is
nicely adjusted; one of her hands rests on the table, the other
carries to her mouth little morsels artistically carved, or the wing
of a partridge, which must be picked. Her eyes sparkle, her lips are
glossy, her talk cheerful, all her movements graceful; nor is there
lacking some spice of the coquetry which accompanies all that women
do. With so many advantages she is irresistible, and Cato, the censor
himself, could not help yielding to the influence." And who shall say
that woman, declaiming on the public platform, or "spanking"
progressive principles into the child-man, makes a prettier picture?
Another plea, and one not to be scorned, is the new bond of union love
of eating weaves between man and wife. "A wedded pair with this taste
in common have once a day at least a pleasant opportunity of meeting."
Sport has been pronounced a closer tie than religion, but what of
food? What, indeed? Let men and women look to it that at table
delicious sympathy makes them one, and marriage will cease to be a
failure. If they agree upon their sauces and salads, what matter if
they disagree upon mere questions of conduct and finance? Accept the
gospel of good living and the sexual problem will be solved. She who
first dares to write the great Food Novel will be a true champion of
her sex. And yet women meet and dine together, and none has the
courage to whisper the true secret of emancipation. Mostly fools!
Alas! that it should have to be written!
And think--that is, if you know how to think--of the new joy added to
friendship, the new charm to casual acquaintanceship, when food is
given its due, and is recognised as something to be talked of. The old
platitudes will fade and die. The maiden will cease to ask "What do
you think of the Academy?" The earnest one will no longer look to
Ibsen for heavy small talk. Pretence will be wiped away,
conversational shams abolished, and the social millennium will have
come. Eat with understanding, and interest in the dishes set before
you must prove genuine and engrossing, as enthusiasm over the last new
thing in art or ethics has never been--never can be. The sensation of
the day will prove the latest arrangement in oysters, the newest
device in vegetables. The ambitious will trust to her kitchen to win
her reputation; the poet will offer lyrics and pastorals with every
course; the painter will present in every dish a lovely scheme of
colour.
Gross are they who see in eating and drinking nought but grossness.
The woman who cannot live without a mission should now find the path
clear before her. Let her learn first for herself the rapture that
lies dormant in food; let her next spread abroad the joyful tidings.
Gluttony is a vice only when it leads to stupid, inartistic excess.
A PERFECT BREAKFAST
Breakfast means many things to many men. Ask the American, and he will
give as definition: "Shad, beefsteak, hash, fried potatoes, omelet,
coffee, buckwheat cakes, waffles, corn bread, and (if he be a
Virginian) batter pudding, at 8 o'clock A.M. sharp." Ask the
Englishman, and he will affirm stoutly: "Tea, a rasher of bacon, dry
toast, and marmalade as the clock strikes nine, or the half after."
And both, differing in detail as they may and do, are alike
barbarians, understanding nothing of the first principles of
gastronomy.
Seek out rather the Frenchman and his kinsmen of the Latin race. They
know: and to their guidance the timid novice may trust herself without
a fear. The blundering Teuton, however, would lead to perdition; for
he, insensible to the charms of breakfast, does away with it
altogether, and, as if still swayed by nursery rule, eats his dinner
at noon--and may he long be left to enjoy it by himself! Therefore,
in this, as in many other matters that cater to the higher pleasures,
look to France for light and inspiration.
Upon rising--and why not let the hour vary according to mood and
inclination?--forswear all but the _petit déjeuner_: the little
breakfast of coffee and rolls and butter. But the coffee must be of
the best, no chicory as you hope for salvation; the rolls must be
crisp and light and fresh, as they always are in Paris and Vienna; the
butter must be pure and sweet. And if you possess a fragment of
self-respect, enjoy this _petit déjeuner_ alone, in the solitude of
your chamber. Upon the early family breakfast many and many a happy
marriage has been wrecked; and so be warned in time.
At noon once more is man fit to meet his fellow-man and woman.
Appetite has revived. The day is at its prime. By every law of nature
and of art, this, of all others, is the hour that calls to breakfast.
When soft rains fall, and winds blow milder, and bushes in park or
garden are sprouting and spring is at hand, grace your table with
this same sweet promise of spring. Let rosy radish give the touch of
colour to satisfy the eye, as chairs are drawn in close about the
spotless cloth: the tiny, round radish, pulled in the early hours of
the morning, still in its first virginal purity, tender, sweet, yet
peppery, with all the piquancy of the young girl not quite a child,
not yet a woman. In great bunches, it enlivens every stall at Covent
Garden, and every greengrocer's window; on the breakfast-table it is
the gayest poem that uncertain March can sing. Do not spoil it by
adding other _hors d'oeuvres_; nothing must be allowed to destroy its
fragrance and its savour. Bread and butter, however, will serve as
sympathetic background, and enhance rather than lessen its charm.
Vague poetic memories and aspirations stirred within you by the dainty
radish, you will be in fitting humour for _oeufs aux saucissons_, a
dish, surely, invented by the Angels in Paradise. There is little
earthly in its composition or flavour; irreverent it seems to describe
it in poor halting words. But if language prove weak, intention is
good, and should others learn to honour this priceless delicacy, then
will much have been accomplished. Without more ado, therefore, go to
Benoist's, and buy the little truffled French sausages which that
temple of delight provides. Fry them, and fry half the number of fresh
eggs. Next, one egg and two sausages place in one of those
irresistible little French baking-dishes, dim green or golden brown in
colour, and, smothering them in rich wine sauce, bake, and serve--one
little dish for each guest. Above all, study well your sauce; if it
fail, disaster is inevitable; if it succeed, place laurel leaves in
your hair, for you will have conquered. "A woman who has mastered
sauces sits on the apex of civilisation."
Without fear of anti-climax, pass suavely on from _oeufs aux
saucissons_ to _rognons sautés_. In thin elegant slices your kidneys
should be cut, before trusting them to the melted butter in the frying
pan; for seasoning, add salt, pepper, and parsley; for thickening,
flour; for strength, a tablespoonful or more of stock; for stimulus,
as much good claret; then eat thereof and you will never repent.
Dainty steps these to prepare the way for the breakfast's most
substantial course, which, to be in loving sympathy with all that has
gone before, may consist of _côtelettes de mouton au naturel_. See
that the cutlets be small and plump, well trimmed, and beaten gently,
once on each side, with a chopper cooled in water. Dip them into
melted butter, grill them, turning them but once that the juice may
not be lost, and thank kind fate that has let you live to enjoy so
delicious a morsel. _Pommes de terre sautées_ may be deemed chaste
enough to appear--and disappear--at the same happy moment.
With welcome promise of spring the feast may end as it began. Order a
salad to follow: cool, quieting, encouraging. When in its perfection
cabbage lettuce is to be had, none could be more submissive and
responsive to the wooing of oil and vinegar. Never forget to rub the
bowl with onion, now in its first youth, ardent but less fiery than in
the days to come, strong but less imperious. No other garniture is
needed. The tender green of the lettuce leaves will blend and
harmonise with the anemones and tulips, in old blue china or dazzling
crystal, that decorate the table's centre; and though grey may be the
skies without, something of May's softness and June's radiance will
fill the breakfast-room with the glamour of romance.
What cheese, you ask? Suisse, of course. Is not the month March? Has
not the _menu_, so lovingly devised, sent the spring rioting through
your veins? Suisse with sugar, and prolong the sweet dreaming while
you may. What if work you cannot, after thus giving the reins to fancy
and to appetite? At least you will have had your hour of happiness.
Breakfast is not for those who toil that they may dine; their sad
portion is the midday sandwich.
Wine should be light and not too many. The true epicure will want but
one, and he may do worse than let his choice fall upon Graves, though
good Graves, alas! is not to be had for the asking. Much too heavy is
Burgundy for breakfast. If your soul yearns for red wine, be
aristocratic in your preferences, and, like the Stuarts, drink
Claret--a good St. Estèphe or St. Julien.
Coffee is indispensable, and what is true of coffee after dinner is
true as well of coffee after breakfast. Have it of the best, or else
not at all. For liqueur, one of the less fervent, more maidenly
varieties, Maraschino, perhaps, or Prunelle, but make sure it is the
Prunelle, in stone jugs, that comes from Chalon-sur-Saône. Bring out
the cigarettes--not the Egyptian or Turkish, with suspicion of opium
lurking in their fragrant recesses--but the cleaner, purer Virginian.
Then smoke until, like the Gypsy in Lenau's ballad, all earthly
trouble you have smoked away, and you master the mysteries of
Nirvana.
TWO BREAKFASTS
Spring is the year's playtime. Who, while trees are growing green and
flowers are budding, can toil with an easy conscience? Later, mere
"use and wont" accustoms the most sensitive to sunshine and green
leaves and fragrant blossoms. It is easy to work in the summer. But
spring, like wine, goes to the head and gladdens the heart of man, so
that he is fit for no other duty than the enjoyment of this new
gladness. If he be human, and not a mere machine, he must and will
choose it for the season of his holiday.
This is why in the spring the midday breakfast appeals with most
charm. It may be eaten in peace, with no thought of immediate return
to inconsiderate desk or tyrannical easel. A stroll in the park, a
walk across the fields, or over the hills and far away, should be the
most laborious labour to follow. It would be a crime, indeed, to eat a
dainty breakfast, daintily designed and served, in the bustle and
nervous hurry of a working day. But when the sunny hours bring only
new pleasure and new capacity for it, what better than to break their
sweet monotony with a light, joyous feast that worthily plays the
herald to the evening's banquet?
It must be light, however: light as the sunshine that falls so softly
on spotless white linen and flawless silver; gay and gracious as the
golden daffodils in their tall glass. The table's ornaments should be
few: would not the least touch of heaviness mar the effect of spring?
Why, then, add to the daffodils? See, only, that they are fresh, just
plucked from the cool green woodland, the morning dew still wet and
shining on their golden petals, and make sure that the glass, though
simple, is as shapely as Venice or Whitefriars can fashion it.
Daffodils will smile a welcome, if radishes come to give them
greeting; radishes, round and rosy and crisp; there is a separate joy
in the low sound of teeth crunching in their crispness. Vienna rolls
(and London can now supply them) and rich yellow butter from Devon
dairies carry out the scheme of the first garden-like course.
Sweeter smiles fall from the daffodils, if now they prove motive to a
fine symphony in gold; as they will if _omelette aux rognons_ be
chosen as second course. Do not trust the omelet to heavy-handed cook,
who thinks it means a compromise between piecrust and pancake. It must
be frothy, and strong in that quality of lightness which gives the
keynote to the composition as a whole. Enclosed within its melting
gold, at its very heart, as it were, lie the kidneys elegantly minced
and seasoned with delicate care. It is a dish predestined for the
midday breakfast, too beautiful to be wasted on the early, dull,
morning hours; too immaterial for the evening's demands.
Its memory will linger pleasantly, even when _pilaff de volaille à
l'Indienne_ succeeds, offering a new and more stirring symphony in the
same radiant gold. For golden is the rice, stained with curry, as it
encircles the pretty, soft mound of chicken livers, brown and
delicious. Here the breakfast reaches its one substantial point; but
meat more heavy would seem vulgar and gross. The curry must not be
too hot, but rather gentle and genial like the lovely May sunshine.
Now, a pause and a contrast. Gold fades into green. As are the stalks
to the daffodils, so the dish of _petits pois aux laitues_ to _pilaff_
and _omelette_. The peas are so young that no device need be sought to
disguise their age; later on, like faded beauty, they may have
recourse to many a trick and a pose, but not as yet. The lettuce, as
unsophisticated, will but emphasise their exquisite youth. It is a
combination that has all the wonderful charm of infant leaves and
tentative buds on one and the same branch of the spring-fired bush.
No sweet. Would not the artifice of jellies and cream pall after such
a succession of Nature's dear tributes? Surely the _menu_ should
finish as it began, in entrancing simplicity. Port Salut is a cheese
that smells of the dairy; that, for all its monastic origin, suggests
the pink and white Hetty or Tess with sleeves well uprolled over
curved, dimpling arms. Eat it with Bath Oliver biscuits, and sigh that
the end should come so soon. Where the need to drag in the mummy at
the close of the feast? The ancients were wise; with the last course
does it not ever stare at you cruelly, with mocking reminder that
eating, like love, hath an end?
Graves is the wine to drink with daffodil-crowned feast--golden
Graves, light as the breakfast, gay as the sunshine, gladdening as the
spring itself. Coffee completes the composition nobly, if it be black
and strong. And for liqueur, Benedictine, in colour and feeling alike,
enters most fittingly into the harmony. Smoke cigarettes from
Virginia, that southern land of luxuriant spring flowers.
There is no monotony in spring sunshine; why, then, let spring's
breakfast always strike the same monotonous note? Another day, another
mood, and so, as logical consequence, another _menu_. From your own
garden gather a bunch of late tulips, scarlet and glowing, but cool in
their shelter of long tapering leaves. Fill a bowl with them: it may
be a rare bronze from Japan, or a fine piece of old Delft, or anything
else, provided it be somewhat sumptuous as becomes the blossoms it
holds. Open with that triumph of colour which would have enchanted a
Titian or a Monticelli: the roseate salmon of the Rhine, smoked to a
turn, and cut in thin slices, all but transparent. It kindles desire
and lends new zest to appetite.
After so ardent a preparation, what better suited for ensuing course
than _oeufs brouillés aux pointes d'asperges_? the eggs golden and
fleecy as the clouds in the sunset's glow; the asparagus points
imparting that exquisite flavour which is so essentially their own.
Cloudlike, the loveliness gradually and gracefully disappears, as in a
poet's dream or a painter's impression, and spring acquires a new
meaning, a new power to enchant.
Who, with a soul, could pass on to a roast or a big heating joint?
More to the purpose is _ris de veau à la Toulouse_, the sweetbreads
broiled with distinction, and then, in pretty fluted _caissons_,
surrounded with _Béchamel_ sauce and ravishing _ragoût_ of mushrooms
and cock's combs. They are light as a feather, but still a trifle
flamboyant in honour of the tulips, while the name carries with it
gaiety from the gay southern town of the _Jeux Floraux_.
Next, a salad is not out of place. Make it of tomatoes, scarlet and
stirring, like some strange tropical blossoms decking the shrine of
the sun. Just a suspicion of shallot in the bowl; the perfect dressing
of vinegar and oil, pepper and salt; and the luxuriant tropics could
not yield a richer and more fragrant offering. It is a salad that vies
with Cleopatra in its defiance to custom. Love for it grows stronger
with experience. The oftener it is enjoyed the greater the desire to
enjoy it again.
Why, then, venture to destroy the impression it leaves with the
cloying insipidity of some ill-timed sweet? It is almost too early for
strawberries worth the eating, save in a _macédoine_, and they alone
would come next in order, without introducing an element of confusion
in the well-proportioned breakfast of spring. A savoury, too, would,
at this special juncture, have its drawbacks. Cheese again best
fulfils the conditions imposed. But now, something stronger, something
more definite than Port Salut is called for; if Camembert prove the
cheese of your choice, there will be no chance for criticism. One
warning: see that it is ripe; for the Camembert that crumbles in its
dryness is nothing short of iniquitous.
Tulips and tomatoes point to Claret as the wine to be drunk. Burgundy
is for the evening, when candles are lighted, and the hours of
dreaming have begun. St. Estèphe, at noon, has infinite merit, and
responds to the tulip's call with greater warmth than any white wine,
whether from the vineyards of France or Germany, of Hungary or Italy.
Coffee, as a matter of course, is to the elegantly-designed breakfast
what the Butterfly is to the Nocturne. And when all is said, few
liqueurs accord with it so graciously as Cognac; that is, if the
dishes to precede it have tended to that joyful flamboyancy born of
the artist's exuberance in moments of creation.
Eat either breakfast, or both; and be thankful that spring comes once
a year.
THE SUBTLE SANDWICH
If things yield themselves unto our mercy why should we not have the
fruition of them, or apply them to our advantage? From evil, good may
come; from the little, springs greatness. A reckless gamester, to defy
the pangs of hunger, which might drag him from his beloved cards,
brings to the gaming table slices of bread with ham between. If other
men despise--or deplore, according to their passing mood--his folly,
to their own pleasure and profit can they still turn his invention.
The sandwich has become a universal possession for all time, though
for a century the earl who created it has lain dead. His foibles
should be forgotten, his one redeeming virtue remembered. For him a
fair and spacious niche in the world's Valhalla.
A hero indeed is he who left the sandwich as an heirloom to humanity.
It truly is the staff of life, a substantial meal for starving
traveller or bread-winner; but none the less an incomparable work of
art, a joy to the _gourmand_ of fancy and discretion. The very name
has come to be a pregnant symbol of holiday-making for all with souls
to stir at the thought of food and drink. It is an inexhaustible
stimulus to the imagination; to the memory a tender guide to the
past's happiest days and hours.
For, in fancy, between the slices of bread, place thick,
uncompromising pieces of beef or mutton, and to the Alps you are at
once transported. Again, on the short, fragrant grass you sit; from
its temporary snow-grave a little above, Perren or Imboden fetches the
bottle of wine, ordinary enough in reality, nectar as you drink it
there; Seiler's supplies you take from the faithful knapsack, opening
paper package after paper package; and your feast of big, honest,
no-nonsense-about-them sandwiches you devour with the appetite of a
schoolboy, and the zeal of the convert to plain living and high
mountain climbing.
Or, thin the slices, make them the covering for ham and tongue, or--if
you be greatly favoured--for sardines and anchovies; and then memory
will spread for you the banquet in the pleasant pastures that border
the Cam, the willows bowering you from the August sun with shade, your
boat moored to the cool bank; and with Claret cup, poured, mayhap,
into old college tankards, you quench your thirst, while lazily you
listen to the distant plashing of oars and lowing of kine, and all
life drifts into an idle dream.
Or, the ham of Bayonne, the _pâté de foie gras_ of Périgueux, you bury
in the deep recesses of a long, narrow, crisp _petit pain_, and then,
quick in a French railway carriage will you find yourself: a bottle of
wine is at your side; the _Echo de Paris_ lies spread on the seat
before you; out of the window long lines of poplars go marching with
you toward Paris, whither you are bound "to make the feast."
Grim and gruesome, it may be, are some of the memories evoked:
ill-considered excursions to the bar of the English railway station,
hasty lunches in chance bun shops, foolish testings of "ham and beef"
limitations. But, henceforth, take heed to chasten your experience
with the sandwich, that remembrance may not play you such scurvy
tricks. Treat it aright with understanding and respect, and it will
keep you in glad holiday humour, in the eating thereof as in the
memory.
Life, alas! is not all play in Thames sunshine and keen Alpine air, or
in hopeful journeying through the pleasant land of France. But in the
everyday of stern work and doleful dissipation the sandwich is an ally
of infallible trustworthiness and infinite resources. In the hour of
need it is never found wanting. To dine well, authorities have
proclaimed in _ex cathedrâ_ utterance, you must lunch lightly; but
not, therefore, does it follow that the light luncheon should be
repellently prosaic. Let it be dainty--a graceful lyric--that it may
fill you with hope of the coming dinner. And lyrical indeed is the
savoury sandwich, well cut and garnished, served on rare faïence or
old silver; a glass, or perhaps two, of Bordeaux of some famous
vintage, to strengthen its subtle flavour.
An ally again at afternoon tea it proves, if at five o'clock drink tea
you must; a mistake, surely, if you value your dinner. To belittle
the excellence of crumpets and muffins well toasted, would be to
betray a narrow mind and senseless prejudice; but these buttery,
greasy delicacies in private should be eaten, where the ladies of
Cranford sucked their oranges. And at the best their excellence is
homely. In the sandwich well devised is something exotic and strange,
some charm elusive and mysterious.
But let not the sandwich be of ham, except rarely, for the
etherealized luncheon, the mystic tea. Reserve this well-meaning, but
unpoetic, viand for the journey and the day of open-air sport, to
which so admirably it is fitted. Nor so reserving it, will you be
hampered in making what Dumas calls _tartines à l'Anglaise_. Infinity
is at your disposal, if you be large and liberal enough to grasp the
fact. One hundred numbered the varieties known to that genius of
Glasgow, who, for his researches, has been honoured by a place in
dictionary and Encyclopædia. To these you may add, if time and leisure
you find for a trip to Budapest and the famous Kügler's, where, with
your tea, will be served such exquisite sandwiches, so original and
many in their devices that you can but come away marvelling, in all
eagerness to emulate the artist who designed them.
For the luncheon sandwich, choose from the countless treasures of
the sea. Rapture is in the sardine, not the oiled from France, but
the smoked from Norway; tunny fish or anchovies are dreams of delight;
_caviar_, an ecstacy, the more delicious if a dash of lemon juice
be added. And, if you would know these in perfection, use brown
bread instead of white. Salmon is not to be scorned, nor turbot to
be turned from in contempt; they become triumphs if you are not too
niggardly with cayenne pepper; triumphs not unknown to Cheapside.
Nor are the various so-called creams--of shrimps, of lobster, of
salmon--altogether to be despised, and they, too, the better prove for
the judicious touch of cayenne. But confine not your experiments to
the conventional or the recommended. Overhaul the counter of the
fishmonger. Set your wits to work. Cultivate your artistic instincts.
Invent! Create! Many are the men who have painted pictures: few those
who have composed a new and perfect sandwich.
Upon the egg, likewise, you may rely for inspiration--the humble hen's
egg, or the lordly plover's. Hard-boiled, in thin slices (oh! the
memories of Kügler's, and the Russian railway station, and the _hor
d'oeuvres_, Tartar-guarded sideboard, now awakened!) or well grated;
by itself, or in endless combinations, the egg will ever repay your
confidence.
Upon sausage, also, you may count with loving faith. _Butterbrod mit
Wurst_--_Wurst_ and philosophy, these are the German masterpieces. And
here, you may visit the _delicatessen_ shop to good purpose.
Goose-liver, Brunswick, garlic, Bologna, truffled--all fulfil their
highest destiny, when in thinnest of thin slices, you lay them between
slices no less thin of buttered bread--brown or white, as artistic
appropriateness suggests--a faint suspicion of mustard to lend them
piquancy.
Beef and mutton, when not cut in Alpine chunks, are comforting, and
with mustard duly applied, grateful as well. Fowl and game, galantine
and tongue, veal and brawn--no meat there is, whether fresh or boned
or potted, that does not adapt itself gracefully to certain occasions,
to certain needs. And here, again, be not slow to arrange new
harmonies, to suggest new schemes. It should be your endeavor always
to give style and individuality to your sandwiches.
Cheese in shavings, or grated, has great merit. Greater still has the
cool cucumber, fragrant from its garden ground, the unrivalled tomato,
the crisp, sharp mustard and cress. Scarce a green thing growing that
will not lend itself to the true artist in sandwich-making. Lettuce,
celery, watercress, radishes--not one may you not test to your own
higher happiness. And your art may be measured by your success in
proving the onion to be the poetic soul of the sandwich, as of the
salad bowl. For afternoon tea the dainty green sandwich is the
daintiest of them all.
If to sweets your taste incline, then easily may you be gratified,
though it be a taste smacking of the nursery and the schoolroom. Jams
and marmalades you may press into service; chocolate or candied fruit.
And sponge cake may take the place of bread, and, with strawberries
between, you have the American strawberry short-cake.
But, whatever your sandwich, above all things see that its proportions
be delicate and symmetrical; that it please the eye before ever the
first fragment has passed into the mouth.
A PERFECT DINNER
Fashion and art have little in common. Save for chance, they would
remain always as the poles apart. The laws of the one are transitory,
of the other eternal; and as irreconcilable are they in the
observance. Make then your choice between them, since no man may serve
two masters.
Know that if ever the noble art of cookery be wrecked, it will be upon
the quicksands of Fashion. In many ways is it threatened by the
passing mode, but, above all others, one danger looms up before it,
grim, relentless, tragic: the more awful because, to the thoughtless,
at first it seems sweet as siren's singing. It is an evil born of the
love of display and of the keen competition between Fashion's
votaries. For they who would pose as delicate diners, think to eclipse
their rivals by number of courses and bewildering variety. How to
prolong the _menu_, rather than how to perfect it, is their constant
study. In excess they would emulate the banquets of the ancients,
though they are too refined by far to revive the old vomitories--the
indispensable antidote. Dish follows dish, conceit is piled upon
conceit; and with what result? Before dinner is half over, palates are
jaded, "fine shades" can no more be appreciated, every new course
awakens fear of the morrow's indigestion. Or else, pleasure is
tempered by caution, a melancholy compromise; nothing is really eaten,
the daintiest devices are but trifled with, and dinner is degraded
into a torture fit for Tantalus. Surely, never was there a more cruel,
fickle mistress than Fashion! Sad, immeasurably sad, the fate of her
worshippers.
Art despises show, it disdains rivalry, and it knows not excess. A
Velasquez or a Whistler never overloads his canvas for the sake of
gorgeous detail. To the artist in words, superfluous ornament is the
unpardonable sin. And so with the lovers of Gasterea, the tenth and
fairest of the Muses. Better by far Omar Khayyam's jug of wine and
loaf of bread, if both be good, than all the ill-regulated banquets of
a Lucullus. Who would hesitate between the feasts of Heliogabalus and
the frugal fowl and the young kid, the raisins, figs, and nuts of
Horace?
It matters not how many courses between oysters and coffee Fashion may
decree, if, turning your back upon her and her silly pretensions, you
devise a few that it will be a privilege for your guests to eat, a joy
for them to remember. Bear in mind the master's model luncheon and its
success. No _menu_ could have been simpler; none more delicious. The
table was laid for three, a goodly number, for all the slurs cast upon
it. At each plate were "two dozen oysters with a bright golden lemon;
at each end of the table stood a bottle of Sauterne, carefully wiped
all except the cork, which showed unmistakably that it was long since
the wine had been bottled." After the oysters roasted kidneys were
served; next, truffled _foie-gras_; then the famous _fondue_, the
beautiful arrangement of eggs beaten up with cheese, prepared over a
chafing-dish at table, stimulating appetite by all the delights of
anticipation. Fruit followed, and coffee; and last, two liqueurs, "one
a spirit, to clear, and the other an oil, to soothe." Be not content
to read, but go and do likewise!
Imagine a dinner planned on the same pattern, and the conventional
banquet of the day soon will seem to you the monstrosity it is.
Observe two all-important rules and you may not wander far wrong. One
is to limit the number of courses; the other to serve first the
substantial dishes, then those that are lighter, first the simpler
wines, afterwards those of finer flavours.
The _hors d'oeuvre_, however, is an exception. If too substantial it
would defeat its end. It must whet the appetite, not blunt it. In its
flavour must its strength lie; at once keen and subtle, it should
stimulate, but never satisfy. An anchovy salad touches perfection; the
anchovies--the boneless species from France--the olives skilfully
stoned, the capers in carefully studied proportions, the yellow of the
egg well grated, the parsley, chopped fine, must be arranged by an
artist with a fine feeling for decorative effect, and the dressing of
oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt, poured gently over the design so as
not to destroy the poetry of line and colour. A crisp Vienna roll,
with sweet fresh butter, makes an excellent accompaniment, but one to
be enjoyed in moderation.
_Crème Soubise_ is the soup to follow. Thick, creamy, onion-scented,
the first spoonful enchants, and a glamour is at once cast over dinner
and diners. Sufficing in itself, it needs neither Parmesan nor toast
to enhance its merits. Like a beautiful woman, unadorned it is adorned
the most.
Admirably, it prepares the way for oysters, deftly scalloped, with
shallots and fragrant _bouquet garni_ to lend them savour, and bread
crumbs to form a rich golden-brown outer covering. If not unmindful of
the eye's pleasure, you will make as many shells as there are guests
serve the purpose of a single dish.
Without loitering or dallying with useless _entrées_, come at once to
the one substantial course of the pleasant feast--and see that it be
not too substantial. Avoid the heavy, clumsy, unimaginative joint.
Decide rather for idyllic, _Tournedos aux Champignons_; the fillet
tender and _saignant_, as the French say, the mushrooms, not of the
little button variety, suggesting tins or bottles, but large and
black and fresh from the market. Rapture is their inevitable sauce:
rapture too deep for words. To share the same plate _pommes soufflées_
may be found worthy.
None but the irreverent would seek to blur their impressions by eating
other meats after so delectable a dish. Order, rather, a vegetable
salad, fresh and soothing: potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, celery, a
suspicion of garlic, and a sprinkling of parsley. Eat slowly; foolish
is the impatient man who gallops through his pleasures in hot haste.
And now, be bold, defy convention, and do away with sweets. After so
tender a poem, who could rejoice in the prose of pudding? But "a last
course at dinner, wanting cheese, is like a pretty woman with only one
eye." Therefore, unless you be blind to beauty, let cheese be served.
Port Salut will do as well as another; neither too strong nor too
mild, it has qualities not to be prized lightly.
Fruit is the sweet _envoy_ to the Ballade of Dinner. And of all
winter's fruits, the fragrant, spicy little Tangerine orange is most
delicious and suggestive. Its perfume alone, to those who have dined
discreetly, is a magic pass to the happy land of dreams. Conversation
rallies, wit flashes, confidences are begotten over walnuts and
almonds, and so, unless in surly, taciturn mood--as who could be after
so exquisite a dinner?--let these have a place upon your _menu_.
See that your wines are as perfect of their kind as your courses. Too
many would be a dire mistake. A good Sauterne, a light Burgundy will
answer well if "of the first quality." Cheap, or of a poor vintage,
they will ruin the choicest dish.
Upon coffee, too, much depends. It must be strong, it must be rich, it
must be hot. But strength and richness may not be had unless it be
fresh roasted and ground. Worse a hundredfold you may do than to mix
Mocha with Mysore; theirs is one of the few happy unions. If romance
have charm for you, then finish with a little glass of green
Chartreuse--the yellow is for the feeble and the namby-pamby;
powerful, indeed, is the spell it works, powerful and ecstatic.
And having thus well and wisely dined, the cares of life will slip
from you; its vexations and annoyances will dwindle into nothingness.
Serene, at peace with yourself and all mankind, you may then claim as
your right the true joys of living.
AN AUTUMN DINNER
Why sigh if summer be done, and already grey skies, like a pall, hang
over fog-choked London town? The sun may shine, wild winds may blow,
but every evening brings with it the happy dinner hour. With the
autumn days foolish men play at being pessimists, and talk in
platitudes of the cruel fall of the leaf and death of love. And what
matter? May they not still eat and drink? May they not still know that
most supreme of all joys, the perfect dish perfectly served? Small
indeed is the evil of a broken heart compared to a coarsened palate or
disordered digestion.
"Therefore have we cause to be merry!--and to cast away all care."
Autumn has less to distract from the pleasure that never fails. The
glare of foolish sunlight no longer lures to outdoor debauches, the
soft breath of the south wind no longer breathes hope of happiness in
Arcadian simplicity. We can sit in peace by our fireside, and dream
dreams of a long succession of triumphant _menus_. The touch of frost
in the air is as a spur to the artist's invention; it quickens
ambition, and stirs to loftier aspiration. The summer languor is
dissipated, and with the re-birth of activity is re-awakened desire
for the delicious, the _piquante_, the fantastic.
Let an autumn dinner then be created! dainty, as all art must be, with
that elegance and distinction and individuality without which the
masterpiece is not. Strike the personal note; forswear commonplace.
The glorious, unexpected overture shall be _soupe aux moules_. For
this great advantage it can boast: it holds the attention not only in
the short--all too short--moment of eating, but from early in the
morning of the eventful day; nor does it allow itself to be forgotten
as the eager hours race on. At eleven--and the heart leaps for delight
as the clock strikes--the _pot-au-feu_ is placed upon the fire; at
four, tomatoes and onions--the onions white as the driven
snow--communing in all good fellowship in a worthy saucepan follow;
and at five, after an hour's boiling, they are strained through a
sieve, peppered, salted, and seasoned. And now is the time for the
mussels, swimming in a sauce made of a bottle of white wine, a
_bouquet-garni_, carrot, excellent vinegar, and a glass of ordinary
red wine, to be offered up in their turn, and some thirty minutes will
suffice for the ceremony. At this critical point, bouillon, tomatoes,
and mussels meet in a proper pot well rubbed with garlic, and an
ardent quarter of an hour will consummate the union. As you eat,
something of the ardour becomes yours, and in an ecstasy the dinner
begins.
Sad indeed would it prove were imagination exhausted with so promising
a prelude. Each succeeding course must lead to new ecstasy, else will
the dinner turn out the worst of failures. In _turbot au gratin_, the
ecstatic possibilities are by no means limited. In a chaste silver
dish, make a pretty wall of potatoes, which have been beaten to flour,
enlivened with pepper and salt, enriched with butter and cream--cream
thick and fresh and altogether adorable--seasoned with Parmesan
cheese, and left on the stove for ten minutes, neither more nor less;
let the wall enclose layers of turbot, already cooked and in pieces,
of melted butter and of cream, with a fair covering of bread-crumbs;
and rely upon a quick oven to complete the masterpiece.
After so pretty a conceit, where would be the poetry in heavy joints
or solid meats? _Ris de veau aux truffes_ surely would be more in
sympathy; the sweetbreads baked and browned very tenderly, the sauce
fashioned of truffles duly sliced, marsala, lemon juice, salt and
_paprika_, with a fair foundation of benevolent bouillon. And with so
exquisite a dish no disturbing vegetable should be served.
And after? If you still hanker for the roast beef and horseradish of
Old England, then go and gorge yourself at the first convenient
restaurant. Would you interrupt a symphony that the orchestra might
play "God save the Queen"? Would you set the chorus in "Atalanta in
Calydon" to singing odes by Mr Alfred Austen? There is a place for
all things, and the place for roast beef is not on the ecstatic
_menu_. Grouse, rather, would meet the diner's mood--grouse with
memories of the broad moor and purple heather. Roast them at a clear
fire, basting them with maternal care. Remember that they, as well as
pheasants and partridges, should "have gravy in the dish and
bread-sauce in a cup." Their true affinity is less the vegetable,
however artistically prepared, than the salad, serenely simple, that
discord may not be risked. Not this the time for the bewildering
_macédoine_, or the brilliant tomato. Choose, instead, lettuce; crisp
cool _Romaine_ by choice. Sober restraint should dignify the dressing;
a suspicion of chives may be allowed; a sprinkling of well-chopped
tarragon leaves is indispensable. Words are weak to express, but the
true poet strong to feel the loveliness now fast reaching its climax.
It is autumn, the mood is fantastic: a sweet, if it tend not to the
vulgarity of heavy puddings and stodgy pies, will introduce an
amusing, a sprightly element. _Omelette soufflée_ claims the
privilege. But it must be light as air, all but ethereal in substance,
a mere nothing to melt in the mouth like a beautiful dream. And yet in
melting it must yield a flavour as soft as the fragrance of flowers,
and as evanescent. The sensation must be but a passing one that
piques the curiosity and soothes the excited palate. A dash of
orange-flower water, redolent of the graceful days that are no more,
another of wine from Andalusian vineyards, and the sensation may be
secured.
By the law of contrasts the vague must give way to the decided. The
stirring, glorious climax after the brief, gentle interlude, will be
had in _canapé des olives farcies_, the olives stuffed with anchovies
and capers, deluged with cayenne, prone on their beds of toast and
girded about with astonished watercress.
Fruit will seem a graceful afterthought; pears all golden, save where
the sun, a passionate lover, with his kisses set them to blushing a
rosy red; grapes, purple and white and voluptuous; figs, overflowing
with the exotic sweetness of their far southern home; peaches, tender
and juicy and desirable. To eat is to eschew all prose, to spread the
wings of the soul in glad poetic flight. What matter, indeed, if the
curtains shut out stormy night or monstrous fog?
Rejoice that no blue ribbon dangles unnecessarily and ignominiously
at your buttonhole. Wine, rich wine to sing in the glass with "odorous
music," the autumn dinner demands. Burgundy, rich red Burgundy, it
should be; Beaune or Pomard as you will, to fire the blood and set the
fancy free. And let none other but yourself warm it; study its
temperature as the lover might study the frowns and smiles of his
beloved. And the "Spirit of Wine" will sing in your hearts that you
too may triumph
In the savour and scent of his music,
His magnetic and mastering song.
And the Burgundy will make superfluous Port and Tokay, and all the
dessert wines, sweet or dry, which unsympathetic diners range before
them upon the coming of the fruit.
Drink nothing else until wineglass be pushed aside for cup of coffee,
black and sweet of savour, a blend of Mocha and Mysore. Rich, thick,
luxurious, Turkish coffee would be a most fitting epilogue. But then,
see that you refuse the more frivolous, feminine liqueurs. Cognac, old
and strong-hearted, alone would meet the hour's emotions--Cognac, the
gift of the gods, the immortal liquid. Lean back and smoke in
silence, unless speech, exchanged with the one kind spirit, may be
golden and perfect as the dinner.
A MIDSUMMER DINNER
At midsummer, the _gourmand_ subsists chiefly on hope of the good time
coming. The 12th ushers in season of glorious plenty. But, for the
moment, there is a lull in the market's activity. Green things there
are in abundance; but upon green things alone it is not good for man
to live. Consult the oracle; turn to the immortal, infallible
"Almanack," and confirmation of this sad truth will stare you in the
face plainly, relentlessly. Sucking-pig is sole consolation offered by
benevolent De la Reynière to well-nigh inconsolable man. But what a
poem in the sucking-pig that gambols gaily over his pages: a delicious
roasted creature, its little belly stuffed full of liver and truffles
and mushrooms, capers, anchovies, aromatic pepper, and salt, all
wrought together into one elegant _farce_; while in dish apart, as
indispensable acolyte, an orange sauce waits to complete the
masterpiece! _En daube_, this amiable little beast is not to be
despised, nor _en ragoût_ need it be dismissed with disdain, though,
let man of letters beware! The Society of Authors, with his welfare at
heart, should warn him while still there is time. What zest might be
given to the savourless _Author_, their organ, were its columns well
filled with stately and brilliant discourses upon food and good
eating. How the writer of delicate perceptions should eat: is that
not, as subject, prettier and more profitable far than how much money
he can make by publishing here and lecturing there?
The poor _gourmand_, in sorry plight during midsummer's famine, may
seek blessed light also from Filippini, Delmonico's cook. Out of the
fulness of his heart he speaketh, leaving not one of August's
thirty-one shortening days without elaborate _menu_. But London must
fast while New York feasts. At Delmonico's, happy diners may smile
gracious welcome to Lima beans and sweet corn, to succotash and
egg-plant, to chicken _à l'okra_ and clam chowder, but what hope for
the patrons of Verrey's and Nichol's? What hope, unless, forthwith,
they emigrate to that promised land beyond the broad Atlantic? For
the rest, Filippini reveals not the originality, the invention that
one would have hoped from him, even at the season when men are struck
dead by the sun in the streets of his dear town of adoption. Roast
turkey, with cranberry sauce, is suggestive of November's drear days;
Brussels sprouts sum up greengrocers' resources in midwinter. But why
falter? Hope need never be abandoned by the wise, whose faith is
strong in himself.
The season presents difficulties, but the beautiful dinner may still
be designed. To meet August's flaming mood, it should be rich, and
frankly voluptuous. Let flowers that bespeak autumn's approach and the
fulness of harvest give the dinner its keynote. In Delft bowl, of
appropriate coarseness, heap the late summer's first dahlias, all
scarlet and gold as London's sunset at the fall of the year. To the
earth's ripeness and fertility their bold, unabashed hues bear loud
and triumphant witness.
Let the soup be at once tribute and farewell to spring that has gone.
Regret will be luxuriously expressed in _purée de petits pois_;
spinach added to the fresh peas to lend flavour and colour, a dash of
sugar for sweetness' sake, a pinch of _paprika_ to counteract it, a
suspicion of onion to strengthen it. Arrowroot, in discreet measure,
will answer for thickening, and impart more becoming consistency even
than flour. Pleasure in the eating will be tempered by sorrow in the
prospect of parting, and therefore intensified a hundredfold. Where
the joy in possession but for the ever-present fear of loss?
With the second course, banish regret. Forget yesterday; be
indifferent to to-morrow; revel riotously in to-day. _Hure de saumon à
la Cambacérès_ will point out the way to supreme surrender. Close to
the head, the delicate silver-rose of the fish must be cut in lavish
proportions; braised gently, its removal to the dish that is waiting
is signal to surround it with truffles and mushrooms and stoned
olives--garland beyond compare; a sauce of drawn butter, seasoned with
_paprika_ and lemon juice and parsley, is essential accompaniment. And
now the present truly has conquered!
The third course must not betray the second's promise. Gay and
fantastic, it must be well able to stand the dread test of
comparison. _Rognons d'agneau à l'éþicurienne_ enters nobly into the
breach; the lamb's dainty kidneys are split and grilled with decorum,
their fragrant centres are adorned with sympathetic _sauce Tartare_,
golden potatoes _à la Parisienne_ insist upon serving as garniture,
and Mr Senn demands, as finishing touch, the stimulating seduction of
_sauce Poivrade_. Who now will say that August is barren of delicious
devices?
To follow: _poulet sauté à l'Hongroise_, the clash of the Czardas
captured and imprisoned in a stew-pan. With the Racoczy's wild drumming
stirring memory into frenzy, stew the fowl, already cut into six
willing pieces, with butter, a well-minced onion, pepper--_paprika_
by choice--and salt; ten minutes will suffice--how, indeed, endure
the strain a second longer? Then to the notes of the cymbal, moisten
with _Béchamel_ sauce and fair quantity of cream, and rejoice in
the fine Romany rapture for just twenty minutes more. Decorate with
_croûtons_, and send fancy, without fetters, wandering across the
plains and over the mountains of song-bound Magyarland. To play the
gypsy, free as the deer in the forest, as the bird in the air, is not
this as it should be in the month, more than all others, pledged
to _pleinairisme_? Insipid, as life without love, is the dinner without
imagination.
Vegetables have no special place in the scheme of August's dinner. But
a salad will not come amiss. Remember, the feast is ordered in sheer
voluptuousness of spirit. The fifth course calls for the scarlet
splendour of tomatoes; and the presiding dahlias, in bowl of Delft,
clamour for the gold of _mayonnaise_ sauce to carry out the exulting
trumpeting harmony. A hint, here, to the earnest, ambitious
_gourmand_; if cream be worked, deftly and slowly, into the thickening
sauce, sublime will be the results.
A sweet, at this juncture, would err if over-chaste in conception.
Picture to yourself the absurd figure cut by tapioca pudding or apple
dumpling on conscientiously voluptuous _menu_? A _macédoine méringuée_
would have more legitimate claim to close the banquet with
distinction. August supplies fruit without stint: plums and greengages
and apricots and nectarines and peaches and pears and grapes and
bananas; all join together to sweet purpose, with ecstatic intent; a
large wineglass of Claret, a generous sprinkling of Cognac will guard
against puerility. The protecting _méringue_ should be crisp and pale
golden brown; and later it will need the reinforcement of thick
luscious cream.
A sweet fails to delight, unless a savoury comes speedily after.
_Caviar de Russie en crêpes_ is worthy successor of _macédoine
méringue_. Mingle cream with the _caviar_, and none who eats will have
cause to complain. It reconciles to the barbarous, even where Tolstoi
and Marie Bashkirtseff may have failed.
To dally with fruit is graceful excuse to linger longer over wine.
Plums and greengages, their bloom still fresh, their plump roundness
never yet submitted to trial by fire, figs--pale northern ghosts,
alas!--peaches, grapes, make exquisite interlude--between dinner and
coffee. Refrain not: abstinence, of all follies created by man, is the
most wicked, the most unpardonable.
Drink Chambertin, that the song in your heart may be fervent and firm.
Drink, that your courage may be strong for the feasting. Shake off
the shackles of timidity. Be fearless and brave, turning a deaf ear to
the temptations of the temperate. To be moderate at midsummer is to
disregard the imperative commands of immoderate nature.
Coffee, made as the Turks make it, will bring languorous, irresistible
message from the sensuous East. _Fine Champagne_ will add the energy
of the fiery West. Adorable combination! Oh, East is East, and West is
West; but the twain the day of the August dinner shall meet.
TWO SUPPERS
Tradition is a kindly tyrant. Why then strive to shake off its
shackles? To bow the neck gladly beneath the yoke is at times to win
rich reward, first in charm of association, and then in pleasantness
of actual fact.
Is there not a tradition in England that supper is more appropriate to
the quiet of Sunday evenings than dinner? No use to ask whence it
arose or whither it leads. There it is, though many would evade it as
senseless makeshift. To forswear dinner for all time and eternity
would be worse than folly; it is life's most solemn, most joyous
ceremony. But once and again, for dear sake of contrast, to find a
seducing substitute is wisdom in a world where all pleasures fail, and
man is constant to one thing never. And now that summer has come and
holds the green earth in its ardent embrace, now that days are long,
and sweetest hours are those when the sun sinks low, there is new
delight in the evening meal that leaves one free to dream in the
twilight, that does not summon one indoors just as all outdoors is
loveliest. Supper on every day in the week would be a mistake; but on
one in seven it may well be commended, especially when the month is
June. In the afternoon, tea is served in the garden, or whatever
London can offer in the garden's stead. There are a few strawberries
in a pretty old porcelain dish to lend an air of dainty substance, and
there is rich cream in which they may hide their pretty blushes; and
there is gay talk and happy silence. Indolent hours follow. Is it not
Sunday, and are not all weekly cares pigeon-holed out of sight?
Nor do the advantages of the occasional supper end here. It is
excellent excuse for the ice-cold banquet which in the warm
summer-time has its own immeasurable virtues. A supper should be cold;
else it deteriorates into mere sham dinner. Never do cold dishes seem
more delicious than when cruel thermometer is at fever heat. You see?
There is logic in the Sunday evening supper, at this season of all
seasons for love, and eating, and drinking.
But supper does not mean, necessarily, veal and ham pie, above which
British imagination dares not soar. It is not limited to the
half-demolished joint--sad wreck of midday's meal. It may be as fair
and harmonious as dinner itself, as noble a tribute to the artist, as
superb a creation. Only the thoughtless and prosaic will dismiss it
carelessly in the ordering, believing that any odds and ends will
answer. Whatever is left over is to many the one possible conception
of the late evening meal. But the _gourmand_, exulting in his
gluttony, makes of it a work of art, good in the eating, good in the
remembrance thereof.
Summer allows wide scope for his fertile fancy. He may begin with
salmon, refreshing to the eye in its arrangement of pale silver and
rose, cold as the glaciers of Greenland after its long hours of repose
on voluptuous bed of ice. A _mayonnaise_ sauce, creamy and rich,
turning the silver to gold, like a fairy godmother of legend, is the
cherished accompaniment. The feeling of wonder, aroused in the hours
of watching under the trees, being still upper-most, it will seem as
if the soft hues of the afterglow had been embodied in this exquisite
prologue, with its rose and citron, its gold and soft grey tints.
Tender spring chickens may then give greeting to the summer-time. They
also will have spent hours in close communion with solid blocks of
ice, and will be as cool as the breezes that blow over the high snow
fields of Switzerland. For, be it noted in passing, without a
refrigerator the perfect supper is sheer impossibility. Success
depends largely upon temperature. Lukewarm supper would be as
detestable as a lukewarm dinner. With the innocent chickens, chilling
and chaste, a green salad will be as appropriate as edelweiss on
Alpine slopes. It should be made of the hearts of the youngest of
young cabbage lettuces, touched with onions, and fatigued with the one
most admirable salad dressing that man ever devised. Linger as long as
may be, for this surely is one of the beautiful moments that repay the
artist for his toiling and his intervals of despair.
Asparagus will prove most seemly successor. Let it also be cold beyond
suspicion. A sauce of vinegar and oil, pepper and salt, force it to
yield its most subtle sweetness. It will prove another course to call
for lingering. Unless happiness be realised, of what use is it to be
happy? He who is not conscious of pleasure when he eats is not worthy
to sit at table with the elect. Like the animals, he is content to
feed, and the art of the cook is, alas! lost upon him.
A savoury at this banquet would be superfluous. The presence of cheese
would be but deference to convention, and faithfulness to tradition
does not demand as its price sacrifice of all freedom in detail. The
asparagus would be dishonoured were it to give place to aught more
substantial than strawberries. Sometimes in the day's _menu_, as in a
decorative scheme, loveliness is enhanced by repetition. As a second
curve emphasises the grace of the first, so strawberries at supper
carry out with great elegance the strawberry scheme of afternoon tea.
Pretty hillocks of sugar, and deep pools of cream, make a rich setting
for this jewel among fruits.
The wine, clearly, should be white, and it, too, should be
iced--remember the month is June. Few Rhine wines could consistently
refuse to be pressed into service. But French vineyards have greater
charm than German, though the Lorelei may sing in near waters, and to
Graves, or Barsac, preference will be wisely proffered.
Be fearful of striking a false note. See that the coffee, black and
strong though it be, is as cold as wine and salmon, chicken and salad.
And pour the green Chartreuse into glasses that have been first filled
with crushed ice. And as you smoke your cigarette, ask yourself if the
Sunday evening supper tradition be not one crying for preservation at
all costs.
When another week has rolled by and disappeared into the _Ewigkeit_,
vary the _menu_. An element of the _bizarre_, the strange, the
unaccustomed, often lends irresistible piquancy. Be faithful to the
refrigerator, however fickle to other loves. Open the banquet with a
stirring salad fashioned of red herring and potatoes, and, perhaps, a
few leaves of lettuce. It savours of the sensational, and stimulates
appetite.
That disappointment may not ensue, desert well-trodden paths, and,
borrowing from Germany, serve a dish of meat, amusing in its quaint
variety. Slices of lamb may provide a pretty centre, surrounding them,
scatter slices of the sausage of Brunswick and Bologna, here and there
set in relief against a piece of grey _Leberwurst_. As garniture,
encircle the dish with a garland of anchovies, curled up into
enchanting little balls, and gherkins, and hard-boiled eggs cut in
delicate rounds. Memories will crowd fast upon you as you eat;
memories of the little German towns and their forgotten hilltops,
visited in summers long since gone, of the little German inn, and the
friendly land-lord, eager to please; of the foaming mugs of beer, and
the tall, slender goblets of white wine. Before supper is done, you
will have travelled leagues upon leagues into the playtime of the
past.
Cheese now is as essential as it would have been intrusive in the
other _menu_. Gruyère should be your choice, and if you would have it
of fine flavour, seek it not at the English cheesemonger's, but at the
little German _delicatessen_ shop. Brown bread would best enter into
the spirit of the feast.
As epilogue, fruit can never be discordant, and what fruit in early
June insists upon being eaten with such sweet persistency as the
strawberry. But, on your German evening, fatigue it with Kirsch, leave
it on its icy couch until the very last minute, and memories of the
Lapérouse will mingle with those of the smoky inn of the Fatherland.
Is there any question that Hock is the wine, when sausage and red
herring and Gruyère cheese figure so prominently in the _menu's_
composition? Drink it from tall slender glass, that it may take you
fully into its confidence. Coffee need not be iced. In fact, it should
positively be hot--can you doubt it? And Cognac now will prove more
responsive to your mood than Chartreuse. There is no written law to
regulate these matters. But the true artist needs no code to guide
him. He knows instinctively what is right and what is wrong, and
doubts can never assail him.
ON SOUP
"When all around the wind doth blow," draw close the curtains, build
up a roaring fire, light lamp and candles, and begin your dinner with
a good--_good_, mind you--dish of soup. Words of wisdom are these, to
be pondered over by the woman who would make her evening dinner a
joyful anticipation, a cherished memory.
Soup, with so much else good and great, is misunderstood in an England
merrier than dainty in her feasting. Better is this matter ordered
across the Border. For the healthy-minded, Scotch mists have their
compensation in Scotch broth; odoriferous and appetising is its very
name. But in England, soup long since became synonymous with turtle,
and the guzzling alderman of legend. Richness is held its one
essential quality--richness, not strength. Too often, a thick, greasy
mess, that could appeal but to the coarsest hunger, will be set
before you, instead of the dish that can be comforting and sustaining
both, and yet meddles not with the appetite. It should be but a
prelude to the meal--the prologue, as it were, to the play--its
excellence, a welcome forecast of delights to follow, a welcome
stimulus to light talk and lighter laughter. Over _Julienne_ or
_bisque_ frowns are smoothed away, and guests who sat down to table in
monosyllabic gloom will plunge boldly into epigrammatic or anecdotic
gaiety ere ever the fish be served.
Magical, indeed, is the spell good soup can cast. Of its services as
medicine or tonic, why speak? Beef tea gives courage to battle with
pain and suffering; _consommé_ cheers the hours of convalescence. Let
all honour be done to it for its virtues in the sick-room; but with so
cheerful a subject, it is pleasanter to dwell on its more cheerful
aspects.
More legitimate is it to consider the happy part it plays in the
traveller's programme. And for this--it must be repeated, as for all
the best things in the _gourmand's_ life--one journeys to France. But
first remember--that contrast may add piquancy to the French
_menu_--the fare that awaits the weary, disconsolate traveller at
English railway station: the stodgy bun, Bath and penny varieties
both, and the triangular sandwich; the tea drawn overnight, and the
lukewarm bovril, hopelessly inadequate substitute for soup freshly
made from beef or stock. At a luncheon bar thus wickedly equipped,
eating becomes what it never should be!--a sad, terrible necessity, a
pleasureless safeguard against pangs of hunger, a mere animal
function, and therefore a degradation to the human being educated to
look upon food and drink--even so might the painter regard his
colours, the sculptor his clay and marble--as means only to a perfect
artistic end.
Or, consider also, to make the contrast stronger, the choicest banquet
American railways, for all the famed American enterprise, provide. To
journey by the "Pullman vestibuled train" from New York to Chicago is
luxury, if you will. Upon your point of view depends the exact amount
of enjoyment yielded by meals eaten while you dash through the world
at the rate of eighty miles an hour, more or less, and generally
less. There is charm in the coloured waiters, each with gay flower in
his buttonhole, and gayer smile on his jolly, black face; there is
pretence in the cheap, heavy, clumsy Limoges off which you eat, out of
which you drink, in the sham silver case in which your Champagne
bottle is brought, if for Champagne you are foolish enough to call.
But bitterness is in your wine cup, for the wine is flat; heaviness is
in your breakfast or dinner, for bread is underdone and sodden, and
butter is bad, and the endless array of little plates discourages with
its suggestion of vulgar plenty and artless selection; and all is
vanity and vexation, save the corn bread--the beautiful golden corn
bread, which deserves a chapter to itself--and the fruit: the bananas
and grapes, and peaches and oranges, luscious and ravishing as they
seldom are on any but American soil. Nor will you mend matters by
bestowing your patronage upon the railway restaurants of the big towns
where you stop: the dirty, fly-bitten lunch counters. Pretentious,
gorgeous, magnificent, they maybe; but good, no! All, even the
privilege of journeying at the rate of eighty miles an hour, would
you give for one bowl of good soup at the Amiens _buffet_.
For, when everything is said, it is the soup which makes travelling so
easy and luxurious in France. A breakfast, or a dinner, of courses,
well-cooked, and well-served into the bargain, you may eat at many a
wayside station. Wine, ordinary as its name, perhaps, but still good
and honest, is to be had for a paltry sum whenever the train may stop.
Crisp rolls, light _brioches_ tempt you to unwise excesses. Not a
province, scarce a town, but has its own special dainty; nougat at
Montélimart, sausages at Arles, _pâté de foie gras_ at Pèrigueux; and
so you might go on mapping out the country according to, not its
departments, but its dishes. These, however, the experienced traveller
would gladly sacrifice for the delicate, strong, refreshing,
inspiriting _bouillon_, served at every _buffet_. This it is which
helps one to forget fatigue and dust and cinders, and the odious
Frenchman who will have all the windows shut. _Bouillon_, and not
wine, gives one new heart to face the long night and the longer miles.
With it the day's journey is well begun and well ended. It sustains
and nourishes; and, better still, it has its own æsthetic value;
perfect in itself, it is the one perfect dish for the place and
purpose. No wonder, then, that it has kindled even Mr Henry James
into at least a show of enthusiasm; his bowls of _bouillon_ ever
remain in the reader's memory, the most prominent pleasures of his
"Little Tour in France."
Equally desirable in illness and in health, during one's journeys
abroad and one's days at home, why is it then that soup has never yet
been praised and glorified as it should? How is it that its greatness
has inspired neither ode nor epic; that it has been left to a
parody--clever, to be sure, but cleverness alone is not tribute
sufficient--in a child's book to sing its perfections. It should be
extolled, and it has been vilified; insults have been heaped upon it;
ingratitude from man has been its portion. The soup tureen is as
poetic as the loving cup; why should it suggest but the baldest prose
to its most ardent worshippers?
"Thick or clear?" whispers the restaurant waiter in your ear, as he
points to the soups on the bill of fare. "Thick or clear,"--there you
have the two all-important divisions. In that simple phrase is
expressed the whole science of soupmaking; face to face with first
principles it brings you. But whether you elect for the one or the
other, this great fundamental truth there is, ever to be borne in
mind: let fresh meat be the basis of your _consommé_ as of your
_bisque_, of your _gumbo_ as of your _pâtes d'Italie_. True, in an
emergency, Liebig, and all its many offshoots, may serve you--and
serve you well. But if you be a woman of feeling, of fancy, of
imagination, for this emergency alone will you reserve your Liebig.
Who would eat tinned pineapple when the fresh fruit is to be had?
Would you give bottled tomatoes preference when the gay _pommes
d'amour_, just picked, ornament every stall in the market? Beef
extract in skilful hands may work wonders; the soup made from it may
deceive the connoisseur of great repute. But what then? Have you no
conscience, no respect for your art, that you would thus deceive?
Tinned soups also there be in infinite variety, ox-tail, and
mock-turtle, and _Julienne_, and gravy, and chicken broth, and many
more than one likes to think of. But dire indeed must be your need
before you have recourse to them. They, too, will answer in the hour
of want. But at the best, they prove but make-shifts, but paltry
make-believes to be avoided, even as you steer clear of the soup
vegetables and herbs--bits of carrot and onion and turnip and who
knows what?--bottled ingeniously, pretty to the eye, without flavour
to the palate. One does not eat to please the sense of sight alone!
When, heroically, you have forsworn the ensnaring tin and the
insinuating bottle, the horizon widens before you. "Thick and clear":
the phrase suggests but narrow compass; broad beyond measure is the
sphere it really opens.
Of all the Doges of Bobbio, but one--if tradition be true--sickened of
his hundred soups. Three hundred and sixty-five might have been their
number with results no more disastrous. Given a cook of good instincts
and gay imagination, and from one year's end to the other never need
the same soup be served a second time.
A word, first, as to its proper place on the _menu_. The conservative
Briton might think this a subject upon which the last word long since
had been spoken. If soup at all, then must it appear between _hors
d'oeuvre_ and fish: as well for Catholic to question the doctrine of
infallibility as for self-respecting man to doubt the propriety of
this arrangement. But they don't know everything down in Great
Britain, and other men there be of other minds. Order a dinner
in the American West, and a procession of smiling, white-robed
blacks--talking, alas! no more the good old darkey, but pure
American--swoop down upon you, bringing at once, in disheartening
medley, your blue-points, your gumbo, your terrapin, your reed birds,
and your apple pie. What sacrilege! In the pleasantest little
restaurant in all Rome, close to the Piazza Colonna, within sound of
the Corso, was once to be seen any evening in the week--may be still,
for that matter--a bemedalled major finishing his dinner with his
_minestra_ instead of his _dolce_. But if a fat, little grey-haired
man once consent to wear a coat scarce longer than an Eton jacket, may
not, in reason, worse enormities be expected of him? Truth to tell,
the British convention, borrowed from France, is the best. If, in
good earnest, you would profit by your _potage_, give it place of
honour at the top of the _menu_. Leave light and frivolous sweets to
lighter, more frivolous moments, when, hunger appeased, man may unbend
to trifles.
What the great Alexandre calls the _grand consommé_ is the basis of
all soup--and sauce making. Study his very word with reverence; carry
out his every suggestion with devotion. Among the ingredients of this
consummate _bouillon_ his mighty mind runs riot. Not even the
adventures of the immortal Musketeers stimulated his fancy to wilder
flights. His directions, large and lavish as himself, would the
economical housewife read with awe and something of terror. Veal and
beef and fowl--a venerable cock will answer--and rabbit and partridges
of yester-year; these be no more than the foundation. Thrown into the
_marmite_ in fair and fitting proportions, then must they be watched,
anxiously and intelligently, as they boil; spoonfuls of the common
_bouillon_ should be poured upon them from time to time; there must be
added onions and carrots, and celery and parsley, and whatever
aromatic herbs may be handy, and oil, if you have it; and after four
hours of boiling slowly and demurely over a gentle fire, and, next,
straining through coarse linen, you may really begin to prepare your
soup.
If to these heights the ordinary man--or woman--may not soar, then
will the good, substantial, everyday _bouillon_, or _pot-au-feu_--made
of beef alone, but ever flavoured with vegetables--fulfil the same
purpose, not so deliciously, but still fairly well. In households
where soup is, as it should be, a daily necessity, stock may be made
and kept for convenience. But if you would have your _pot-au-feu_ in
perfection, let the saucepan, or _marmite_--the English word is
commonplace, the French term charms--be not of iron, but of
earthenware: rich tawny brown or golden green in colour, as you see it
in many a French market-place, if the least feeling for artistic
fitness dwells within your soul. Seven hours are needed _pour faire
sourire le pot-au-feu_--the expression is not to be translated. Where
soups are concerned the English language is poor, and cold, and
halting; the speech of France alone can honour them aright.
With good _bouillon_ there is naught the genius may not do. Into it
the French _chef_ puts a few small slices of bread, and, as you eat,
you wonder if terrapin or turtle ever tasted better. With the addition
of neatly-chopped carrots and onions, and turnips and celery, you have
_Julienne_; or, with dainty asparagus tops, sweet fresh peas, tiny
stinging radishes, delicate young onions, _printanier_, with its
suggestions of spring and blossoms in every mouthful. This last,
surely, is the lyric among soups. Decide upon cheese instead, and you
will set a Daudet singing you a poem in prose: "_Oh! la bonne odeur de
soupe au fromage!_" _Pâtes d'Italie_, _vermicelli_, _macaroni_, each
will prove a separate ecstasy, if you but remember the grated Parmesan
that must be sprinkled over it without stint--as in Italy. Days there
be when nothing seems so in keeping as rice: others, when cabbage hath
charm, that is, if first in your simmering _bouillon_ a piece of
ham--whether of York, of Strasbourg, or of Virginia--be left for three
hours or more; again, to thicken the golden liquid with tapioca may
seem of all devices the most adorable. And so may you ring the changes
day after day, week after week, month after month.
If of these lighter soups you tire, then turn with new hope and
longing to the stimulating list of _purées_ and _crèmes_. Let
tomatoes, or peas, or beans, or lentils, as you will, be the keynote,
always you may count upon a harmony inspiriting and divine; a rapture
tenfold greater if it be enjoyed in some favourite corner at
Marguery's or Voisin's, where the masterpiece awaits the chosen few.
Or if, when London fogs are heavy and life proves burdensome, comfort
is in the very name of broth, then put it to the test in its mutton,
Scotch, chicken, or dozen and more varieties, and may it give you new
courage to face the worst!
But if for pleasure solely you eat your soup, as you should, unless
illness or the blue devils have you firm in their grasp, a few
varieties there be which to all the rest are even as is the rose to
lesser flowers, as is the onion to vegetables of more prosaic virtue.
Clams are a joy if you add to them but salt and pepper--cayenne by
preference--and a dash of lemon juice: as a chowder, they are a
substantial dream to linger over; but made into soup they reach the
very topmost bent of their being: it is the end for which they were
created. Of oysters this is no less true. Veal stock or mutton broth
may pass as prosaic basis of the delicacy; but better depend upon milk
and cream, and of the latter be not sparing. Mace, in discreet
measure, left flowing in the liquid will give the finishing, the
indispensable touch. Oh, the inexhaustible resources of the sea! With
these delights rank _bisque_, that priceless _purée_, made of
crayfish--in this case a pinch of allspice instead of mace--and if in
its fullest glory you would know it, go eat it at the Lapérouse on the
Quai des Grands Augustins; eat it, as from the window of the low room
in the _entresol_, you look over toward the towers of Notre Dame.
Be a good Catholic on Fridays, that, with _potages maigres_--their
name, too, is legion--your soups may be increased and multiplied, and
thus infinity become your portion.
THE SIMPLE SOLE
Have you ever considered the sole: the simple, unassuming sole, in
Quaker-like garb, striking a quiet grey note in every fishmonger's
window, a constant rebuke to the mackerel that makes such vain parade
of its green audacity, of the lobster that flaunts its scarlet
boldness in the face of the passer-by? By its own merits the sole
appeals; upon no meretricious charm does it base its claim for notice.
Flat and elusive, it seems to seek retirement, to beg to be forgotten.
And yet, year by year, it goes on, unostentatiously and surely
increasing in price; year by year, it establishes, with firm hold, its
preeminence upon the _menu_ of every well-regulated _table d'hôte_.
But here pause a moment, and reflect. For it is this very _table
d'hôte_ which bids fair to be the sole's undoing. If it has been
maligned and misunderstood, it is because, swaddled in bread-crumbs,
fried in indifferent butter, it has come to be the symbol of hotel or
_pension_ dinner, until the frivolous and heedless begin to believe
that it cannot exist otherwise, that in its irrepressible bread-crumbs
it must swim through the silent sea.
The conscientious _gourmand_ knows better, however. He knows that
bread-crumbs and frying-pan are but mere child's play compared to its
diviner devices. It has been said that the number and various shapes
of fishes are not "more strange or more fit for contemplation than
their different natures, inclinations, and actions." But fitter
subject still for the contemplative, and still more strange, is their
marvellous, well-nigh limitless, culinary ambition. Triumph after
triumph the most modest of them all yearns to achieve, and if this
sublime yearning be ever and always suppressed and thwarted and
misdoubted, the fault lies with dull, plodding, unenterprising humans.
Not one yearns to such infinite purpose as the sole; not one is so
snubbed and enslaved. A very Nora among fish, how often must it long
to escape and to live its own life--or, to be more accurate, to die
its own death!
Not that bread-crumbs and frying-pan are not all very well in their
way. Given a discreet cook, pure virginal butter, a swift fire, and a
slice of fresh juicy lemon, something not far short of perfection may
be reached. But other ways there are, more suggestive, more inspiring,
more godlike. Turn to the French _chef_ and learn wisdom from him.
First and foremost in this glorious repertory comes _sole à la
Normande_, which, under another name, is the special distinction and
pride of the Restaurant Marguery. Take your sole--from the waters of
Dieppe would you have the best--and place it, with endearing,
lover-like caress, in a pretty earthenware dish, with butter for only
companion. At the same time, in sympathetic saucepan, lay mussels to
the number of two dozen, opened and well cleaned, as a matter of
course; and let each rejoice in the society of a stimulating mushroom;
when almost done, but not quite, make of them a garland round the
expectant sole; cover their too seductive beauty with a rich white
sauce; re-kindle their passion in the oven for a few minutes; and
serve immediately and hot. Joy is the result; pure, uncontaminated
joy. If this be too simple for your taste, then court elaboration and
more complex sensation after this fashion: from the first, unite the
sole to two of its most devoted admirers, the oyster and the
mussel--twelve, say, of each--and let thyme and fragrant herbs and
onion and white wine and truffles be close witnesses of their union.
Seize the sole when it is yet but half cooked; stretch it out gently
in another dish, to which oysters and mussels must follow in hot,
precipitate flight. And now the veiling sauce, again white, must have
calf's kidney and salt pork for foundation, and the first gravy of the
fish for fragrance and seasoning. Mushrooms and lemon in slices may be
added to the garniture. And if at the first mouthful you do not thrill
with rapture, the Thames will prove scarce deep and muddy enough to
hide your shame.
Put to severest test, the love of the sole for the oyster is never
betrayed. Would you be convinced--and it is worth the trouble--experiment
with _sole farcie aux huîtres_, a dish so perfect that surely,
like manna, it must have come straight from Heaven. In prosaic
practical language, it is thus composed: you stuff your sole with
forcemeat of oysters and truffles, you season with salt and carrot
and lemon, you steep it in white wine--not sweet, or the sole is
dishonoured--you cook it in the oven, and you serve the happy fish
on a rich _ragoût_ of the oysters and truffles. Or, another tender
conceit that you may make yours to your own great profit and
enlightenment, is _sole farcie aux crevettes_. In this case it is wise
to fillet the sole and wrap each fillet about the shrimps, which have
been well mixed and pounded with butter. A rich _Béchamel_ sauce and
garniture of lemons complete a composition so masterly that, before
it, as before a fine Velasquez, criticism is silenced.
_Sole au gratin_, though simpler, is none the less desirable. Let your
first care be the sauce, elegantly fashioned of butter and mushrooms
and shallots and parsley; pour a little--on your own judgment you have
best rely for exact quantity--into a baking-dish; lay the sole upon
this liquid couch; deluge it with the remainder of the sauce,
exhilarating white wine, and lemon juice; bury it under bread-crumbs,
and bake it until it rivals a Rembrandt in richness and splendour.
In antiquarian moments, _fricasey soals white_, and admit that your
foremothers were more accomplished artists than you. What folly to
boast of modern progress when, at table, the Englishman of to-day is
but a brute savage compared with his ancestors of a hundred years and
more ago! But take heart: be humble, read this golden book, and the
day of emancipation cannot be very far distant. Make your _fricasey_
as a step in the right direction. According to the infallible book,
"skin, wash, and gut your soals very clean, cut off their heads, dry
them in a cloth, then with your knife very carefully cut the flesh
from the bones and fins on both sides. Cut the flesh long ways, and
then across, so that each soal will be in eight pieces; take the heads
and bones, then put them into a saucepan with a pint of water, a
bundle of sweet herbs, an onion, a little whole pepper, two or three
blades of mace, a little salt, a very little piece of lemon peel, and
a little crust of bread. Cover it close, let it boil till half is
wasted, then strain it through a fine sieve, put it into a stew-pan,
put in the soals and half a pint of white wine, a little parsley
chopped fine, a few mushrooms cut small, a piece of butter as big as
an hen's egg, rolled in flour, grate a little nutmeg, set all together
on the fire, but keep shaking the pan all the while till the fish is
done enough. Then dish it up, and garnish with lemon." And now, what
think you of that?
If for variety you would present a brown _fricasey_, an arrangement in
browns as startling as a poster by Lautrec or Anquetin, add anchovy to
your seasoning, exchange white wine for red, and introduce into the
mixture truffles and morels, and mushrooms, and a spoonful of catchup.
The beauty of the colour none can deny; the subtlety of the flavour
none can resist.
Another step in the right direction, which is the old, will lead you
to sole pie, a dish of parts. Eels must be used, as is the steak in a
pigeon's pie for instance; and nutmeg and parsley and anchovies must
serve for seasoning. It is a pleasant fancy, redolent of the days gone
by.
"BOUILLABAISSE";
_A Symphony in Gold_
Hear Wagner in Baireuth (though illusions may fly like dust before a
March wind); see Velasquez in Madrid; eat _Bouillabaisse_ in
Marseilles. And eat, moreover, with no fear of disenchantment; the
saffron's gold has richer tone, the _ail's_ aroma sweeter savour,
under hot blue southern skies than in the cold sunless north.
How much Thackeray is swallowed with your _Bouillabaisse_? asks the
cynical American, vowed to all eternity to his baked shad and
soft-shelled crab; how much Thackeray? echoes the orthodox Englishman,
whose salmon, cucumberless, smacks of heresy, and whose whiting, if it
held not its tail decorously in its bread crumbed mouth, would be cast
for ever into outer darkness. Sentiment there may be: not born,
however, of Thackeray's verse, but of days spent in Provençal
sunshine, of banquets eaten at Provençal tables. Call for
_Bouillabaisse_ in the Paris restaurant, at the Lapérouse or
Marguery's (you might call for it for a year and a day in London
restaurants and always in vain); and if the dish brought back
something of the true flavour, over it is cast the glamour and romance
of its far southern home, of the land of troubadours and of Tartarin.
But order it in Marseilles, and the flavour will all be there, and the
sunshine and the gaiety, and the song as well; fact outstrips the
imagination of even the meridional; the present defies memory to outdo
its charm.
And it must be in the Marseilles that glitters under midsummer's sun
and grows radiant in its light. Those who have not seen Marseilles at
this season know it not. The peevish finder of fault raves of drainage
and dynamite, of dirt and anarchy. But turn a deaf ear and go to
Marseilles gaily and without dread. Walk out in the early morning on
the quays; the summer sky is cloudless; the sea as blue as in the
painter's bluest dream; the hills but warm purple shadows resting upon
its waters. The air is hot, perhaps, but soft and dry, and the breeze
blows fresh from over the Mediterranean. Already, on every side, signs
there are of the day's coming sacrifice. In sunlight and in shadow are
piled high the sea's sweetest, choicest fruits: mussels in their
sombre purple shells; lobsters, rich and brown; fish, scarlet and gold
and green. Lemons, freshly plucked from near gardens, are scattered
among the fragrant pile, and here and there trail long sprays of salt,
pungent seaweed. The faint smell of _ail_ comes to you gently from
unseen kitchens, the feeling of _Bouillabaisse_ is everywhere, and
tender anticipation illumines the faces of the passers-by. Great is
the pretence of activity in the harbour and in the streets; at a
glance, mere paltry traffic might seem the city's one and only end.
But Marseilles' true mission, the sole reason for its existence, is
that man may know how goodly a thing it is to eat _Bouillabaisse_ at
noon on a warm summer day.
But when the hour comes, turn from the hotel, however excellent; turn
from the Provençal version of the Parisian Duval, however cheap and
nasty; choose rather the native headquarters of the immortal dish.
Under pleasant awning sit out on the pavement, behind the friendly
trees in tubs that suggest privacy, and yet hide nothing of the view
beyond. For half the joy in the steaming, golden masterpiece is in the
background found for it; in the sunlit harbour and forest of masts; in
the classic shores where has disembarked so many a hero, from ancient
Phenician or Greek, down to valiant Tartarin, with the brave camel
that saw him shoot all his lions! A _coup de vin_, and, as you eat, as
you watch, with eyes half blinded, the glittering, glowing picture,
you begin to understand the meaning of the southern _galéjade_. Your
heart softens, the endless beggars no longer beg from you in vain,
while only the slenderness of your purse keeps you from buying out
every boy with fans or matches, every stray Moor with silly slippers
and sillier antimacassars; your imagination is kindled, so that later,
at the gay _café_, where still you sit in the open street, as you look
at the Turks and sailors, at the Arabs and Lascars, at the Eastern
women in trousers and niggers in rags, in a word, at Marseilles'
"Congress of Nations," that even Barnum in his most ambitious moments
never approached, far less surpassed, you, too, believe that had Paris
but its Canebière, it might be transformed into a little Marseilles on
the banks of the Seine. So potent is the influence of blessed
_Bouillabaisse_!
Or, some burning Sunday, you may rise with the dawn and take early
morning train for Martigues, lying, a white and shining barrier,
between the Etangs de Berre and Caronte. And there, on its bridges and
canal banks, idly watching the fishing-boats, or wandering up and down
its olive-clad hill-sides, the morning hours may be gently loafed
away, until the Angelus rings a joyful summons to M. Bernard's hotel
in the shady _Place_. Dark and cool is the spacious dining-room; eager
and attentive the bewildered Désirée. Be not a minute late, for M.
Bernard's _Bouillabaisse_ is justly famed, and not only all
Marseilles, but all the country near hastens thither to eat it on
Sundays, when it is served in its _édition de luxe_. Pretty
Arlésiennes in dainty fichus, cyclists in knickerbockers, rich
Marseillais, painters from Paris join in praise and thanksgiving. And
from one end of the world to the other, you might journey in vain in
search of an emotion so sweet as that aroused by the first fragrant
fumes of the dish set before you, the first rapturous taste of the
sauce-steeped bread, of the strange fish so strangely seasoned.
But why, in any case, remain content with salmon alone when
_Bouillabaisse_ can be made, even in dark and sunless England? Quite
the same it can never be as in the land of sunburnt mirth and jollity.
The light and the brilliancy and the gaiety of its background must be
ever missing in the home of fog and spleen. The gay little fish of the
Mediterranean never swim in the drear, unresponsive waters that break
on the white cliffs of England and the stern rocks of the Hebrides.
But other fish there be, in great plenty, that, in the absence of the
original, may answer as praiseworthy copies.
After all, to cut turbot and whiting and soles and trout in small
pieces, to cook them all together, instead of each separately, is not
the unpardonable sin, however the British housewife may protest to the
contrary. And as to the other ingredients, is not good olive oil sold
in bottles in many a London shop? Are sweet herbs and garlic unknown
in Covent Garden? Are there no French and Italian grocers in Soho,
with whom saffron is no less a necessity than mustard or pepper? And
bread? who would dare aver that England has no bakers?
It is not a difficult dish to prepare. Its cooks may not boast of
secrets known only to themselves, like the maker of process blocks or
patent pills. Their methods they disclose without reservation, though
alas! their genius they may not so easily impart. First of all, then,
see to your sauce: oil, pure and sweet, is its foundation; upon _ail_
and herbs of the most aromatic it depends for its seasoning. In this,
place your fish selected and mixed as fancy prompts; a whiting, a
sole--filleted of course--a small proportion of turbot, and as much
salmon, if solely for the touch of colour it gives--the artist never
forgets to appeal to the eye as to the palate. Boil thoroughly,
sprinkling at the last moment sympathetic saffron on the
sweet-smelling offering. Have ready thick slices of bread daintily
arranged in a convenient dish; just before serving pour over them the
greater part of the unrivalled sauce, now gold and glorious with its
saffron tint; pour the rest, with the fish, into another dish--a bowl,
would you be quite correct--and let as few seconds as possible elapse
between dishing this perfect work of art and eating it. Upon its smell
alone man might live and thrive. Its colour is an inspiration to the
painter, the subtlety of its flavour a text to the poet. Montenard and
Dauphin may go on, year after year, painting olive-lined roads and
ports of Toulon: the true Provençal artist will be he who fills his
canvas with the radiance and richness of _Bouillabaisse_.
Would you emulate M. Bernard and make a _Bouillabaisse de luxe_ it may
prove a tax upon your purse, but not upon your powers. For when thus
lavishly inclined, you but add lobster or crab or crayfish and the
needed luxury is secured. It is a small difference in the telling, but
in the eating, how much, how unspeakable is this little more! Easily
satisfied indeed must be the prosaic mortal who, having once revelled
in _Bouillabaisse de luxe_, would ever again still his cravings with
the simpler arrangement.
THE MOST EXCELLENT OYSTER
If, in cruel December, the vegetable fails us, in another direction we
may look for and find--if we be wise and liberal--novelty without
stint. From the oyster, when it is understood aright, spring perpetual
joy and rapturous surprises. But, sad to tell, in England men have
slighted it and misdoubted its greatness. Englishmen eat it and
declare it good; but, as with salad, they know not how to prepare it.
Because it is excellent in its rawness, they can imagine no further
use for it, unless, perhaps, to furnish a rich motive for sauce, or
sometimes for soup. Even raw--again like salad--they are apt to
brutalise it. To drown it in vinegar is the height of their ambition;
an imperial pint was the quantity needed by Mr Weller's friend to
destroy the delicacy of its flavour, the salt sweetness of its aroma.
The Greeks knew better: according to Athenæus, boiled and fried they
served their oysters, finding them, however, best of all when roasted
in the coals till the shells opened. As early as the seventeenth
century, the French, preparing them _en étuvée_ and _en fricassée_,
included them in their _Délices de la campagne_. The American to-day
exhausts his genius for invention in devising rare and cunning methods
by which to extract their full strength and savour. Why should
Englishmen tarry behind the other peoples on the earth in paying the
oyster the tribute of sympathetic appreciation?
Its merit when raw, no man of sensibility and wisdom will deny.
Base-minded, indeed, must be he who thinks to enhance its value by
converting it into a defence against influenza or any other human ill.
The ancients held it indigestible unless cooked; but to talk of it as
if it were a drug for our healing, a poison for our discomforting, is
to dishonour, without rhyme or reason, the noblest of all shell-fish.
Who would not risk an indigestion, or worse, for the pleasure raw
oysters have it in their power to give? Was there one, among the
wedding guests at the "Marriage of Hebe," who feared the course of
"oysters with closed shells, which are very difficult to open but very
easy to eat"?
Easy to eat, yes; but first you must decide which, of the many
varieties of oyster the sea offers, you had best order for your own
delight. There are some men who, with Thackeray, rank the "dear little
juicy green oysters of France" above the "great white flaccid natives
in England, that look as if they had been fed on pork." To many, the
coppery taste of this English native passes for a charm--poor deluded
creatures! To others it seems the very abomination of desolation. But
the true epicure, who may not have them, as had oyster-loving Greeks
of old, from Abydus or Chalcedon, will revel most of all in the
American species: the dainty little Blue-Point, or its long, sweet,
plump brother of the north--to swallow it was like swallowing a baby,
Thackeray thought.
Once your oysters are on the half shell, let not the vinegar bottle
tempt you; as far as it is concerned, be not only temperate, but a
total abstainer. A sprinkling of salt, a touch of Cayenne, a dash of
lemon juice, and then eat, and know how good it is for man to live in
a world of oysters. For a light lunch or the perfect midnight supper,
for an inspiring _hors d'oeuvre_, without rival is this king of
shell-fish. If for the midnight meal you reserve it, you may be
kindled into ecstasy by the simple addition of a glass of fine old
Chablis or Sauterne--be not led astray by vulgar praise of stout or
porter--and brown bread and butter cut in slices of ethereal thinness.
Linger over this banquet, exquisite in its simplicity, long and
lovingly, that later you may sleep with easy conscience and mind at
rest.
With raw oysters alone it were folly to remain content. If you would
spread a more sumptuous feast, fry the largest, plumpest grown in sea
or river, and the gates of earthly paradise will be thrown wide open
in the frying. No more familiar cry is there in American restaurants
than that for "an oyster fry!" Dark little oyster cellars, reached by
precipitous steps, there are, and friendly seedy little oyster shops
in back streets, where the frying of oysters has been exalted into a
holy cult. And if you will, in paper boxes, the long, beautiful,
golden-brown masterpieces you may carry away with you, to eat with
gayer garnishing and in more sympathetic surroundings. And in winter,
scarce a beer saloon but, at luncheon time, will set upon the counter
a steaming dish of fried oysters; and with every glass of no matter
what, "crackers" at discretion and one fried oyster on long generous
fork will be handed by the white-robed guardian. But mind you take but
one: else comes the chucker-out. Thus, only the very thirsty, in the
course of a morning, may gain a free lunch. But, in England, what is
known of the fried oyster?
It requires no great elaboration, though much rare skill in the
cooking. For this purpose the largest oysters must be selected: the
fattest and most juicy. In the half-shell they may be fried, after
seventeenth-century fashion, a touch of butter and pepper on each;
verjuice or vinegar, and grated nutmeg added once they are served. Or
else, taken from the shell, they may be dipped into a marvellous
preparation of vinegar, parsley, laurel leaves, onion, chives,
cloves, basil, and in the result the mighty imagination of the great
Alexandre would rejoice. Or, again, in simpler American fashion,
enveloped in unpretentious batter of eggs and bread crumbs, fry them
until they turn to an unrivalled, indescribable golden-brown, and in
the eating thereof the gods might envy you.
If a new sensation you court, grill or broil your oyster, and you will
have cause to exult in a loud triumphant _magnificat_. No bread crumbs
are needed, neither laurel nor sweet spice. With but a bit of butter
for encouragement, it will brown gently in the grilling, and become a
delicious morsel to be eaten with reverence and remembered with
tenderness.
Or, stew them and be happy. But of rich milk, and cream, and sweet
fresh butter, as Dumas would put it, must your stew be made:
thickened, but scarce perceptibly, with flour, while bits of mace
float in golden sympathy on the liquid's surface. It is the dish for
luncheon, or for the pleasant, old-fashioned "high tea"--no such
abomination as "meat tea" known then, if you please--of Philadelphia's
pleasant, old-fashioned citizens. And a worse accompaniment you might
have than waffles, light as a feather, or beaten biscuits, the pride
of Maryland's black cooks. Men and women from the Quaker city, when in
cruel exile, will be moved to sad tears at the very mention of Jones's
"oyster stews" in Eleventh-street!
But the glory of Penn's town is the oyster croquette--from Augustine's
by preference. A symphony in golden brown and soft fawn grey, it
should be crisp without, within of such delicate consistency that it
will melt in the mouth like a dream. Pyramidal in shape, it is of
itself so decorative that only with the rarest blue and white china,
or the most fairy-like Limoges, will it seem in perfect harmony. It
would be discourteous, indeed, to serve so regal a creation on any
stray dish or plate.
Exquisite pleasure lurks in scalloped oysters, or oysters _au gratin_,
whichever you may choose to call this welcome variation of the oyster
motive. Layers of judiciously seasoned bread-crumbs alternate with
layers of the responsive shell-fish, and the carefully-studied
arrangement is then browned until it enchants by colour no less than
by fragrance. And, if you would seek further to please the eye, let
the dish to hold so fine a work of art be a shell, with a suggestion
of the sea in its graceful curves and tender tints. Or, if imagination
would be more daring, let the same shell hold _huîtres farcies_,
cunningly contrived with eels and oysters, and parsley and mushrooms,
and spices and cream, and egg and aromatic herbs. So fantastic a
contrivance as this touches upon sublimity.
In more homely and convivial mood, roast your oysters, as the Greeks
loved them. But to enjoy them to the utmost, roast them yourself in
the coals of your own fire, until the ready shells open. A dash of
salt and cayenne upon the sweet morsel within, and you may eat it at
once, even as you take it from off the coals, and drink its salt,
savoury liquor from the shell. A dish of anchovy toast will not seem
amiss. But let no other viands coarsen this ideal supper. For supper
it should be, and nothing else. The curtains must be drawn close,
while the fire flames high; one or two congenial friends--not more; a
dim religious light from well-shaded lamps and candles; a bottle of
good old Chablis, and others waiting in near wine-cellar or sideboard;
and thus may you make your own such unspeakable happiness as seldom
falls to the lot of mortals.
Or if to the past your fancy wanders, prepare your oysters,
seventeenth century-fashion, _en étuvée_, boiled in their own liquor,
flavoured with ingredients so various as oranges and chives, and
served with bread-crumbs; or else, _en fricassée_, cooked with onion
and butter, dipped in batter, and sprinkled with orange juice. Or
again, in sheer waywardness, curry or devil them, though in this
disguise no man may know the delicacy he is eating. Another day, bake
them; the next, put them in a pie or a patty; the third, let them give
substance to a _vol-au-vent_. Hesitate at no experiment; search the
cookery-books, old and new. Be sure that the oyster, in its
dictionary, knows no such word as fail. If in sheer recklessness you
were, like young Mr Grigg in the Cave of Harmony, to call for a
"mashed oyster and scalloped 'taters," no doubt the "mashed" would be
forthcoming.
As basis of soup or sauce, the oyster is without rival. Who would not
abstain on Fridays all the year round, if every Friday brought with it
oyster soup to mortify the flesh! But alas! four months there be
without an R, when oysters by the wise must not be eaten. And is not
turbot, or boiled capon, or a tender loin-steak but the excuse for
oyster sauce? in which, if you have perfection for your end, let there
be no stint of oysters. Then, too, in the stuffing of a fowl, oysters
prove themselves the worthy rival of mushrooms or of chestnuts.
It is a grave mistake, however, to rank the oyster as the only
shell-fish of importance. The French know better. So did the Greeks,
if Athenæus can be trusted. Mussels, oysters, scallops, and cockles
led the list, according to Diocles, the Carystian. Thus are they
enumerated by still another authority:--
A little polypus, or a small cuttle-fish,
A crab, a crawfish, oysters, cockles,
Limpets and solens, mussels and pinnas;
Periwinkles, too, from Mitylene.
The mussel is still the delight of the French _table d'hôte_
breakfast. Charming to look at is the deep dish where, floating in
parsley-strewn sauce, the beautiful purple shells open gently to show
the golden-grey treasures within. Well may the commercial in the
provinces heap high his plate with the food he loves, while about him
hungry men stare, wondering how much will be left for their portion.
But who in England eats mussels? Only a little lower the Greeks ranked
periwinkles, which now, associated as they are with 'Arriet and her
pin, the fastidious affect to despise. It has been written of late, by
a novelist seeking to be witty, that there is no poetry in
periwinkles; but Æschylus could stoop to mention them in his great
tragedies. The "degradation of the lower classes" the same weak wit
attributes to overindulgence in winkles. With as much reason might the
art and philosophy of Greece be traced to "periwinkles from Mitylene."
Cooked in the good sauce of France, the humble winkle might take rank
with the Whitstable native at three-and-six the dozen, and thus would
the lowly be exalted. The snail, likewise, we might cultivate to our
own immeasurable advantage.
THE PARTRIDGE
With September, the _gourmand's_ fancy gaily turns to thoughts of
partridges. For his pleasure sportsmen, afar in autumn's cool country,
work diligently from morn to eve; or, it may be, he himself plays the
sportsman by day that he may prove the worthier _gourmand_ by night.
And the bird is deserving of his affections. It has been honoured
alike in history and romance.
Among moderns, a Daudet is found to study and consider its emotions
under fire; among ancients, few neglected it, from Aristophanes to
Aristotle, who declared it "a very ill-disposed and cunning animal;
much devoted, moreover, to amatory enjoyment." With such a character,
its two hearts count for little; far gone, indeed, must be the
sentimentalist of our moral age who would stay its slayer's hand. What
if it be true, as Chamæleon of Pontus said of old, that from listening
to its singing in desert places man arrived at the art of music?
Alive it may have an æsthetic value; but if it be without morals
should it not perish? In eating it, therefore, does not man perform a
solemn duty? Nay, should not the New Woman exult in flaunting its
sober feathers in her masculine hat?
So might reason the apostle of social purity. But the _gourmand_
questions nothing save the daintiness of the bird's flesh, the merit
of its flavour. And the practical answer to this questioning silences
all doubts. Clearly the partridge was created that he might eat it and
find it good.
It is because of the rare excellence of the pretty bird, in autumn
making a feathered frieze in every poulterer's window, that too much
consideration cannot be given to its treatment in the kitchen. Its
virtues can be easily marred by the indifferent, or unsympathetic
_chef_. Left hanging too short a time, left cooking too long, and it
will sink into commonplace, so that all might wonder wherefore its
praises have been ever loudly sung. Hang it in a cool place, and leave
it there until the last moment possible--you understand? Now that
winds are cold, and a feeling of frost is in the air, to banish it a
fortnight would not be unwise.
To roast a partridge may seem a sadly simple device when so many more
ingenious schemes are at your disposal. But for all that, none can be
recommended with enthusiasm more keenly felt. For in the roasting none
of its sweet savour is lost, none of its natural tenderness sacrificed
on the one hand, exaggerated on the other. The process requires less
intelligence than an artistic touch. Truss your birds in seemly
fashion, when, as if in birdlike emulation of Hedda Gabler, they cry
for vine leaves on their breast. Over the vine leaves tie less
romantic, but more succulent, bacon, cut in slices of the thinnest.
Then, in front of a quick, clear fire baste prodigally with butter. A
little flour, judiciously sprinkled, will add richness to the
nut-brown colour the susceptible birds develop in the roasting. Now
they are ready to serve, remember that "partridges should have gravy
in the dish, and bread-sauce in a cup"--it is Mrs Glasse who has said
it. It would be no crime to add watercress, or parsley, as garniture,
or toast as a soft bed for the happy victims. And to eat with them,
prepare a crisp lettuce salad, to which the merest suspicion of
tarragon leaves, well chopped, has been added. And the gods themselves
might envy you your joy and gladness in the eating.
A word as to the carving, or "dissection of the partridge," as it was
called in days when England understood and gloried in the arts of the
kitchen. Thus was the _Grand Escuyer Tranchant_--the Great Master
carver, that is--instructed: "A partridge is for the most part carved
and served whole, like a pigeon; but yet he may be served in pieces;
but when you will carve him to serve whole, you must only cut the
joints and lay them abroad; but if you serve him by pieces, you must
begin to serve with a wing." Why not carve and serve according to
tradition, and so lend new dignity to your feasting?
If of roast partridge you weary, and from France would take a hint,
seek novelty and happiness in _Perdrix aux choux_. For this, birds of
an older generation will answer as well as their more tender young,
since for two hours, in a wrapping of bacon and buttered paper, they
must simmer gently on their couch of cabbage. To evolve the required
flavour, into the same pot must go a saveloy, and perhaps salt pork in
slices, a bunch of fragrant herbs, onions and carrots and cloves and
salt and butter _à discrétion_. The birds must be drained before they
pass from the pot to the dish; around them the cabbage, likewise
drained, must be set as a garland, and the saveloy, in pretty pieces,
may be placed here and there. Behold another of the many good gifts
France has presented to us.
_Perdrix à l'Espagnole_ may again vary anew the delicious monotony. In
this variety the partridges are boiled, covered with a rich gravy, and
plentifully adorned with green peppers. It was in a moment of divine
inspiration the Spaniard invented so piquant an arrangement. But the
resources of boiled partridges, apt to be forgotten or overlooked, are
well-nigh limitless, and as charming as they are many. Very important
is it that the birds be well boiled, quickly, in much water. The rest
depends upon the sauce. This may be of cream and butter alone; or else
of celery and cream, seasoned with mace and pepper. Or else of
mushrooms and cream, or of the livers and parsley and butter; or of
white wine; or of any and every good thing that goes to the making of
superlative sauce. What a chance, too, to exercise your imagination,
to reveal your ingenuity! Five long months are before you; see that
you make the most of them.
If your soul delight in the fantastic, let few days pass before you
have tested the quaint joys of _Partridge Mettenes_. The recipe shall
be printed word for word as written by the Master Cook, Giles: "Take
Partridges and roast them, then take Cream"--these with capitals,
observe--"and Grapes, with Bread, scorched against the Fire, and beat
all this together; but first steep your Bread in Broth or Claret-Wine;
then strain all this through a strainer with Spice, Cinnamon, and a
little Mustard; set all a-boyling with a pretty deal of Sugar, but
take heed that it doth not burn too, and when you would serve away
your Partridge, put them into a Dish, and your Sauce under them, and
garnish your Dish with Sweetmeats and Sugarplums."
Here is another device, fantastic chiefly in name: "Partridges _à
l'eau béniste_ or Holy Water." It has the virtue of simplicity. "Take
partridges and rost them, and when they are rosted, cut them into
little pieces, and put them into a Dish with a little fair Water and
Salt, and make them boyl a little, and so serve them away." Or else, O
pleasant alternative! "you may make a Sauce with Rose-water and Wine,
the Juice of Apples and Oranges, but there must be three times as much
Rose-water as Wine."
Reading this, who will dare deny that Master Cook Giles is an
authority to be respected, of whose recipes the poor prosaic modern
kitchen may not receive too many? Space, therefore, must be yielded to
at least one more: "Partridges à la Tonnelette." "Take a partridge and
rost it, then put it into a Pot; this done, take white Bread and
scortch or toste it very brown, but not burn it, and put it a-steeping
in good Claret-wine, and when it is well steep'd strain it through a
strainer with some good Broth, and a few Onions fryed in Lard, with a
little Cinnamon, Cloves, and Nutmegs, and other small Spices, and a
little Sugar, and put into it a handful of Currants, and make that
which you have strained out boyl all together, and when it is time to
serve your Partridges, put your Sauces into a Dish, and lay your
Partridges upon it, and so serve it."
Such pretty fancies, it were a shame to follow with bald prose. Yet,
bear in mind that partridges may be braised with mushrooms or
truffles; that they may be broiled or baked; that they disgrace
neither pie nor pudding; and that they offer welcome basis for a
_salmi_ and _purée_. Lay this to heart.
THE ARCHANGELIC BIRD
Michaelmas is a season of sad associations. The quarter's rent is due,
alas! The quarter's gas, alas! and, alas a hundred times! the
half-yearly rates. Bank accounts dwindle; spirits sink; life seems but
a blank and dreary desert.
Into the gloom, settling down thicker and more throttling than
November's fog, there flutters and waddles a big white bird, a saviour
of men. It is the noble goose, the goose, ridiculed and misunderstood,
that comes chivalrously and fearlessly to the rescue; the goose that
once saved Rome's Capitol, the goose still honoured as most alert of
sentinels within Barcelona's cathedral precincts, the goose that,
followed by a goose-girl, is the beloved of artists. Because of its
nobility of character, its devotion, wherein it rivals benevolent
mastiff and kindly terrier, its courage, its strength, St Michael,
glorious and effulgent archangel, took it for his own bird of birds,
to be so intimately connected with him that now to show respect to
the Saint is to eat the goose. The Feast of Michaelmas, to the
right-minded and the orthodox, means roast goose and apple sauce.
Soulless authorities, burrowing in mouldy records, can find no better
reason for this close relationship than that, at September's close,
great is the number of geese cackling in homely barnyard, great their
perfection. Numerous generations since England's fourth Edward sat
upon the throne (and who can say how many before his time?), have held
the cooking of the goose for dinner as no less sacred a ceremony on
the Angel's feast day than the morning's service in church. And this,
would the pugnacious Michael have permitted for such gross material
considerations? Never; let it be said once and for all: never. He knew
the goose for the bird that lays the golden egg; he knew full well its
dignity and might that make it still a terror to be met on lonely
common by them who use its name as symbol of silliness; he knew that
strong as well as faint hearted hesitate to say "Bo" discourteously to
any goose, whether it be a wanderer in French pastures or one of the
dust-raising flock, in the twilight, cackling homeward over
Transylvanian highways. In a word, Michael knew his bird; and our duty
it is to believe in it a dish for Michaelmas with the blind,
unquestioning allegiance of perfect faith. Coarse its flesh may be in
comparison with the dainty duck and tender chicken; commonplace in
comparison with the glorious grouse and proud partridge. The modest,
respectable _bourgeois_ it may seem among poultry. And yet, if the
Archangel has chosen it for his own, who shall say him nay? Study
rather to disguise its native coarseness, to enliven its excellent
dulness.
To roast it is the simplest form the Michaelmas celebration allows.
See first that your fire be very good; take care to singe the
sacrificial goose with a piece of white paper, and baste it with a
piece of butter; drudge it (the word is Mrs Glasse's) with a little
flour, and when the smoke begins to draw to the fire, and it looks
plump, baste it again and drudge it with a little flour, and take it
up. In sober mood, stuff it with sage and onion; in more flamboyant
moments, let your choice rest upon chestnuts. Tradition insists upon
a little good gravy in a basin by itself, and some apple-sauce in
another; but sauce of gooseberries, not to be had fresh, however, for
Michaelmas, is the _gourmet's_ choice.
A hint as to carving. How many a beautiful bird, or majestic joint,
has been shamelessly insulted by ill-trained carver! Of old the master
of the household accepted the "dissection of a goose" after the High
Dutch fashion and the Italian both, his own predilections leaning
rather toward the High Dutch, "for they cut the breast into more
pieces, and so by consequence fill more Plates"--good thrifty burghers
that they were. Learn then, and master "the order how they carve and
how they send it away; as (1), on the first Plate a thigh; (2),
another thigh; (3), a side of the rump, with a piece of the breast;
(4), the other side of the rump, with another piece of the breast;
(5), a wing; (6), the other wing; (7), the rest of the stomach, upon
which, if there be little of the brawn left, you may joyn the two
small forked bones; to the eighth, the merry-thought, with the rest of
the rump, and any else, at your discretion. If you will, you may join
some of the breast with the best piece which you always present to the
most considerable person at the table first, and take notice too, by
the bye, the brawn of the breast ought to be for the most part served
out first." Give heed unto these directions, and far wrong you may not
go.
Days are when simple expression of faith is all too inadequate. The
devout yearns for something more ornate, something more elaborate. Let
the outcome of this yearning be _oie à la chipolata_, and Michael in
Paradise will smell the sweet savour and smile. It is difficult, but
delicious. Cover the bottom of your stew-pan with lard; place upon it
two or three slices of beef and ham, a bouquet of parsley and chives,
three carrots and two or three onions, a touch of garlic, a few
cloves, thyme, laurel leaves, basil, and salt, and thus you will have
prepared a sweet, soft bed for your goose. Immediately disturb the
bird's slumbers by pouring over it a glass of good Madeira, a bottle
of white wine, a glass of cognac, and two or three spoonfuls of strong
bouillon made of fowls. Now put your pan on the fire, stew your goose
for an hour, lift it out, arrange it on a fair dish, and envelop it in
the very richest _chipolata_ it is in your power to make. And what is
a _chipolata_? An Italian creation half sauce, half _ragoût_;
fashioned of carrots and turnips, and chestnuts and onions, and
sausage and mushrooms, and artichokes and celery, and strong veal
gravy.
Archangelic smiles must broaden into silent laughter at the mere
mention of "a Potage of Green Geese." It is a conceit redolent of the
olden time, when gaiety was still ranked among the cardinal virtues,
and men ate their fill with no fear of a dyspeptic to-morrow. Since it
is an ancient masterpiece, in the ancient words must it be explained,
or else it will be dishonoured in the telling. "Take your Green-geese
and boyl them the usual way, and when they are boyled take them up and
fry them whole in a frying-pan to colour them, either with the fat of
bacon or hog's-lard, called nowadays _manège de pork_; then take
ginger, long pepper, and cloves; beat all this together, and season
them with this spice; a little parsley and sage, and put them into a
little of the same broth that they were boyled in, and sprinkle a
little grated cheese over them, and let them have a little stew, and
then dish them up with sipets under them." A brave disguise, truly,
for humblest goose.
In a pie likewise--unless the fashioning thereof be entrusted to the
indiscreet cook--it presents a brave appearance. Walls of crust line a
spacious dish; a pickled dried tongue is boiled; a fowl and a goose
are boned; seasoning is wrought of mace, beaten pepper, and salt; and
then, Oh the marvel of it! fowl is lain in the goose, tongue in the
fowl, goose in the dish. A half a pound of butter separates bird from
pastry cover. And, hot or cold, pleasure may be had in the eating. Not
the highest pleasure, perhaps, but still pleasure not to be scorned.
If you would boil a goose, see, as you respect your stomach, that it
be first salted for a week. With onion sauce it may be becomingly
adorned, or again, with simple cabbage, boiled, chopped small, and
stewed in butter. Or, plunge gaily into the _rococo_ style, and
decorate it _à l' Arlésienne_; stuffed with onions and chestnuts,
boiled in company with carrots and celery and onions and parsley and
cloves, floated in tomato sauce, it is as chock full of playful
surprises as the _Cartuja_ of Granada. Another device to be
recommended is the grilling of the legs and the serving them with
_laitues farcies_--and Michael will laugh outright; or _à la
Provençale_, and words fail; or _aux tomates_, the love-apples that
not the hardest heart can resist. Of the great and good Carême these
are the suggestions; treasure them up, therefore, where memory may not
rust or aspiration decay, for the dinner may come when you will be
glad to have them at hand.
Of the giblets and liver of the goose is there not a long, exultant
chapter yet to be written? In far Strasburg geese, in perpetual
darkness and torture, fatten with strange morbid fat, that the
sensitive, who shrink from a bull fight and cry out against the
cruelty of the cockpit, may revel in _pâté de foie gras_. So long as
the world lives, may there still be this delectable _pâté_ to delight.
But why not be honest: admit that between the torture of the bull that
we may see, and the torture of the goose that we may eat, difference
there is none? Give sensitiveness full play, and sordid vegetarianism
is the logical result.
SPRING CHICKEN
Gluttony, it has been written--and with wisdom--deserves nothing but
praise and encouragement. For two reasons. "Physically, it is the
result and proof of the digestive organs being perfect. Morally, it
shows implicit resignation to the commands of nature, who, in ordering
man to eat that he may live, gives him appetite to invite, flavour to
encourage, and pleasure to reward." But there is a third reason, too
often overlooked even by the professional glutton: love of good eating
is an incentive to thought, a stimulus to the imagination. The man of
the most active mind and liveliest fancy is he who eats well and
conscientiously considers each dish as it is set before him.
The test seldom fails. Run through the list of poets and painters of
your acquaintance; do not they who eat best write the finest verse and
paint the strongest pictures? Those who pretend indifference and live
on unspeakable messes are betrayed in the foolish affectation and
tedious eccentricity of their work; those who feel indifference are
already beyond hope and had better far be selling tape across counters
or adding up figures in loathsome ledgers. Memory, borrowing from her
store-house of treasures, lingers with tender appreciation and regret
upon one unrivalled breakfast, exquisitely cooked, exquisitely served,
and exquisitely eaten, when lilacs were sweet and horse-chestnuts
blossoming in the boulevards and avenues of Paris. And he upon whose
table the banquet was spread is an artist who towers head and
shoulders above the pigmies of his generation. It were rash, indeed,
to maintain that because he eats daintily therefore he paints like the
master he is; but who, on the other hand, would dare aver that because
he paints supremely well therefore is he the prince of _gourmets_?
Here cause and effect are not to be defined by cold logic, not to be
labelled by barren philosophy. One thing alone is certain; if love of
good eating will not create genius it can but develop it.
Consequently, it would be impossible to think too much of what you are
eating to-day and purpose to eat to-morrow. It is your duty above all
things to see that your food is in harmony with place and season. The
question now is, what beast or bird is fitting holocaust for the first
warm months of spring? Beef is too heating, too substantial; mutton
too monotonous, veal too prosaic. Lamb hath charm, but a charm that by
constant usage may be speedily exhausted. Does not mint sauce, pall at
times? Place, then, your trust in the poultry-yard that your pleasure
may be long in the spring.
To begin with, poultry pleases because of its idyllic and pastoral
associations. The plucked birds, from shop windows, flaunting their
nakedness in the face of the world, recall the old red-roofed
farmhouse among the elms, and the pretty farmer's daughter in neat,
fresh gingham, scattering grain in the midst of her feathered
favourites; they suggest the first cool light of dawn and the
irrepressible cock crowing the glad approach of day; in a word, they
are reminders of the country's simple joys--unendurable at the time,
dear and sacred when remembered in town.
The gentle little spring chicken is sweet and adorable above all its
kindred poultry. It is innocent and guileless as Bellini's angels,
dream-like and strange as Botticelli's. It is the very concentration
of spring; as your teeth meet in its tender, yielding flesh, you
think, whether you will or no, of violets and primroses, and hedgerows
white with may; you feel the balmy breath of the south wind; the world
is scented for you with lilac and narcissus; and, for the time being,
life is a perfect poem. But--why is there always a but?--your cook has
it in her power to ruin the rhythm, to make of melodious lyric the
most discordant prose. No less depends upon the being who cooks the
chicken than upon the hen who laid the egg. If hitherto you have
offended through heedlessness, see now that you approach the subject
with a determination to profit.
Of all ways of cooking a spring chicken, frying is first to be
commended; and of all ways of frying the American is most sympathetic.
Fried chicken! To write the word is to be carried back to the sunny
South; to see, in the mind's eye, the old, black, fat, smiling
_mammie_, in gorgeous bandana turban, and the little black
piccaninnies bringing in relays of hot muffins. Oh, the happy days of
the long ago! It is easy to give the _recipe_, but what can it avail
unless the _mammie_ goes with it? Another admirable device is in
broiling. One fashion is to divide your chicken down the back and
flatten it, seeing, as you have a heart within you, that no bones be
broken. Set it lovingly on a trivet placed for the purpose in a
baking-tin into which water, to the depth of an inch, has been poured.
Cover your tin; bake the sweet offering for ten minutes or so; take it
from the oven; touch it delicately with the purest of pure olive oil,
and for another ten minutes broil it over a good brisk fire. And if in
the result you do not taste heaven, hasten to the hermit's cell in the
desert, and, for the remainder of your days, grow thin on lentils and
dates.
Or, if you would broil your chicken after the fashion of infallible
Mrs Glasse, slit it as before, season it with pepper and salt, lay it
on a clear fire at a great distance, broil first the inside, then the
out, cover it with delicate bread-crumbs, and let it be of a fine
brown, but not burnt. And keep this note carefully in your mind: "You
may make just what sauce you fancy."
To roast a spring chicken will do no harm, but let it not be overdone.
Twenty minutes suffice for the ceremony. Bacon, in thinnest of thin
slices, gracefully rolled, is not unworthy to be served with it. In
boiling, something of its virginal flavour may be sacrificed, but
still there is compensating gain; it may be eaten with white mushroom
sauce, made of mushrooms and cream, and seasoned with nutmeg and mace.
Here is a poem, sweeter far than all songs of immortal choirs or the
weak pipings of our minor singers.
As the chicken outgrows the childish state, you may go to Monte Carlo
in search of one hint at least, for its disposal. There you will learn
to cut it into quarters, to stew it in wine and shallots, to add, at
the psychological moment, tomatoes in slices, and to serve a dish that
baffles description. Or you may journey to Spain, and find that
country's kitchen slandered when you eat _poulet au ris à l'
Espagnole_, chicken cooked in a _marmite_ with rice, artichokes, green
and red chillies, and salad oil, and served, where the artist dwells,
in the blessed _marmite_ itself--in unimaginative London, even, you
may buy one, green or brown, whichever you will, at a delightful shop
in Shaftsbury-avenue. Again, you may wander to Holland--it is a short
journey, and not disagreeable by way of Harwich--and be ready to swear
that no fashion can surpass the Dutch of boiling chickens with rice or
vermicelli, spicing them with pepper and cloves, and, at table,
substituting for sauce sugar and cinnamon. But to omit these last two
garnishments will not mean a mortal sin upon your conscience. In more
festive mood hasten at once to France, and there you will be no less
certain that the way of ways is to begin to broil your chicken,
already quartered, but, when half done, to put it in a stew-pan with
gravy, and white wine, salt and pepper, fried veal balls, onions, and
shallots, and, according to season, gooseberries or grapes. Do you not
grow hungry as you read? But wait: this is not all. As the beautiful
mixture is stewing--on a charcoal fire if possible--thicken the liquor
with yolks of eggs and the juice of lemon, and for ever after bless
Mrs Glasse for having initiated you into these noble and ennobling
mysteries.
Braise your chicken, fricassee it, make it into mince, croquettes,
krameskies; eat it cold; convert it into galantine; bury it in aspic;
do what you will with it, so long as you do it well, it can bring you
but happiness and peace.
THE MAGNIFICENT MUSHROOM
From remote ages dates the triumph of the mushroom--the majestic,
magnificent mushroom. Glorious Greeks feasted on it and were glad.
What say Poliochus and Antiphanes? What Athenæus? In verse only, could
be duly praised those fragrant mushrooms of old, which were roasted
for dinner and eaten with delicate snails caught in the dewy morning,
and olives tenderly pounded; washed down with wine, good if not over
strong or of famous vintage. O the simple, happy days of long ago!
There are times when the classic simplicity and dignity of the Greek
you may emulate, and your amusement find in mushrooms dressed with
vinegar, or honey and vinegar, or honey, or salt. But then, all other
courses must be in keeping. The snails and olives must not be omitted.
Maize there must be, well winnowed from the chaff, and rich, ripe
purple figs. And, who knows? the full flavour thereof might not be
yielded to the most earnest adventurer were couches not substituted
for stiff, ungainly chairs. By many a lesser trifle has digestion
been, if not ruined, influenced for ill.
But the classic experiment, if repeated too often, might seem very
odious. The modern _gourmand_, or artist, is a romanticist, whether he
will or no. No screaming red waistcoat marks the romantic movement in
the kitchen, and yet there it has been stronger even than in art and
literature. The picturesque must be had at any cost. Simplicity is not
spurned, far from it; but it must be seasoned with becoming sprinkling
of romance. What could be simpler than the common mushroom grilled, so
self-sufficient in its chaste severity that it allows but salt and
pepper and butter to approach it, as it lies, fragrant and delicious,
on its gridiron, calling, like another St Lawrence, to be turned when
one side is fairly done. And yet when, ready to be served, its rich
brown beauty is spread upon the paler brown of the toast, and above
rests butter's brilliant gold, have you not an arrangement as
romantic in conception as the "Ernani" of the master, or the pastoral
of Corot? Paltry meats and undesirable vegetables should not be
allowed to dispute supremacy with it. Serve it alone, as you respect
yourself. Do not make your breakfast or dinner table as preposterous a
blunder as the modern picture gallery.
Should simplicity pall upon you--and moments there are when it cannot
fail to pall--enrich your grilled mushrooms with a sauce of melted
butter and onions and parsley, and a single note of garlic, and the
result will be enchanting mushrooms _à la bourdelaise_. If _au beurre_
you would eat them, to accord with your passing mood of suave
serenity, stew them gently and considerately in daintiest stew-pan
your kitchen can provide, and let cayenne and powdered mace exult, as
the romantic elements of the stirring poem.
A still more poetic fancy may be met and sweetly satisfied by _ragoût_
of mushrooms. Listen reverently, for it is food fit to be set before
the angels. Over the mushrooms, first boiled on a quick fire, pour a
gill of pure red wine--and the best Burgundy thus used will not be
wasted; then scatter spices, mace, and nutmeg, with a discreet hand;
boil once more; pour the marvellous mixture upon five or six--or more,
if wanted--yolks of eggs, hard-boiled; garnish the dish with grilled
mushrooms, and bless the day that you were born, predestined, as you
were, from all eternity for this one interval of rapture.
Possibility of rapture there is likewise in a white _fricassée_ of
mushrooms, which, if you have your own happiness at heart, you cannot
afford to despise. Secure then, without delay--for who would play fast
and loose with happiness?--a quart of fresh mushrooms. Clean them with
hands as tender as if bathing a new-born babe. In three spoonfuls of
water, and three of milk, let them boil up three times. See that
temptation leads you not to violate the sanctity of this thrice-three.
Nutmeg, mace, butter, a pint of rich thick cream alone, at this
juncture, will appease the saucepan's longings. Shake well; and all
the time, mind you. Be careful there is no curdling, or
else--damnation. The masterpiece once triumphantly achieved and set
upon a table covered with a fair white cloth, great will be the
rejoicing in the Earthly Paradise of your dining-room.
Another sensation, another thrill awaits you in mushrooms _au gratin_.
Here, indeed, is romanticism gone mad. Grated bacon, shallots, a
_bouquet garni_, mace, pepper and salt, eggs and butter share the
baking-dish with the mushrooms; bread-crumbs complete the strange,
subtle combination, upon which you may break your fast, dine, sup and
sleep, as Valentine upon the very naked name of love. A sorry plight
were yours if love, fickle and fading, could be preferred to a dish of
mushrooms fashioned so fantastically.
"And oh! what lovely, beautiful eating there is in this world!" It is
Heine who said it--Heine who, for a good dinner, would have given
twice the three hundred years of eternal fame offered by Voltaire for
a good digestion. But lovely and beautiful are but feeble words when
it is a question of the mess of mushrooms, for which who would not
sacrifice eternal fame for ever, in all cheerfulness and glee?
The reigning sultana in the mushroom's harem is the brilliant golden
egg. Sweet symphonies in brown and gold are the dishes their union
yields. _OEufs brouillés aux champignons_--has not the very name a
pretty sound? It is a delight best suited to the midday breakfast; a
joyous course to follow the anchovy salad, the eel well smoked, or
whatever dainty _hors d'oeuvre_ may stimulate to further appetite. The
eggs, scrambled and rivalling the buttercup's rich gold, are laid
delicately on crisp toast, and present a couch, soft as down, for a
layer of mushrooms. Let Ruskin rave of Turner's sunsets, let the glory
of the Venetians be a delight among art critics; but when did Turner
or Titian or Tintoret invent a finer scheme of colour than egg and
mushroom thus combined for the greater happiness of the few? A silver
dish or one of rarest porcelain should be frame for a picture so
perfect.
Borrow a hint from the Hungarians, and vary the arrangement to your
own profit. Make a _purée_ of the mushrooms, as rich as cream permits,
and offer it as foundation for eggs poached deftly and swiftly: a
harmony in soft dove-like greys and pale yellow, the result. It is an
admirable contrivance, a credit to Szomorodni-drinking Magyars. And
there is no known reason why it should not be eaten on Thames side as
on the banks of the Danube. Szomorodni, in its native splendour, alas!
is not to be had in London town. But, without sacrilege, Chablis or
Graves, or Sauterne may take its place. To drink red wine would be to
strike a false note in the harmony.
Another day, another dish, which you cannot do better than make
_omelette aux champignons_. And if you will, you may eat it even as it
was prepared for Royal Stuarts by Master Cook Rose, who wrote almost
as prettily as he cooked. Thus:--"Stove your champignons between two
dishes, season them with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then make an
omelette with a dozen of eggs, and when he is ready cover him over
with your champignons, and fold him up, triangle-wise, and serve him
with the juice of lemons over him." A royal dish, indeed.
Creatures of infinite resources, eggs and mushrooms meet in cases to
produce a new and distinct joy. The mushrooms, stewed in milk
thickened with the yolks of raw eggs and bread-crumbs, line the little
fluted china cases; into each a fresh egg is broken; then more
mushrooms and bread-crumbs are spread gently above; a shallow pan, its
bottom just covered with hot water, receives the cases, and ten
minutes in the oven will complete a triumph which, once tasted, you
may well remember all the days of your life.
The kidney is loved by the mushroom scarce less tenderly than the egg.
_Rognons aux champignons_, fragrant rich, ravishing, may also be
claimed by the happy midday hour. And like so many a noble dish, it
lavishes upon you the pleasures of anticipation. For the kidneys, cut
in slices and laid in thickened gravy, must stew slowly, slowly--never
boiling, unless you would have them vie with leather in consistency.
At an early stage the mushrooms, also in pieces, may be added, and
pepper and salt according to inclination. And slowly, slowly let the
stewing continue. At the last supreme moment pour in a glass of
generous red wine, or if it please you more, Marsala, and serve
without delay. Chambertin, or Nuits, at peace in its cradle, is
surely the wine decreed by fate to drink with so sublime a creation.
With the tender _filet_, mushrooms prove irresistible; with the
graceful cutlet they seem so ravishing that even _sauce Soubise_, the
once inseparable, may for the moment be easily forgotten. And veal is
no less susceptible to its charms: let _noisettes de veau aux
champignons_ be the _entrée_ of to-morrow's dinner, and you will
return thanks to your deliverer from the roast!
As sauce, mushroom is the chosen one of fowl and fish alike. Join your
mushrooms to _Béchamel_, one of the great mother sauces, and you will
have the wonder that Carême, its creator, served first to the
Princesse de B. How resist so aristocratic a precedent? _Grasse_, or
_maigre_, you can make it, as the season demands. Or to a like end you
may devote that other marvel, _purée de champignons à la Laguipierre_,
whose patron was the great Louis de Rohan, and into whose mysteries
Carême was initiated by the "Grand M. Dunan." Ham, tomato, nutmeg,
pepper, lemon juice, are the chief ingredients that enter into its
composition. Who, after testing it, will dare find naught but vexation
and vanity in the reign of the Sixteenth Louis? Subtle variation may
be had by substituting as foundation, _sauce à la régence_ or _sauce à
la princesse_ for _sauce Béchamel_; while a sensation apart springs
from the lofty alliance between oysters and mushrooms.
How natural that for masterpieces in mushrooms royalty so often has
stood sponsor! Upon the Prince of Wurtemberg rests the glorious
responsibility of Seine shad _à la purée de champignons_. If history
records not his name, a prince--in spirit at least--must also have
been the first happy man to eat red mullets _aux champignons_, or eels
_aux huîtres et aux champignons_; show yourself as princely before you
are a week older. While a king was he who first smiled upon that
kingly _ragoût_ of mushrooms, mussels, and shrimps. Be you a king in
your turn--there are few pleasures equal to it.
"For white fowls of all sort," Mrs Glasse recommends her mushroom
sauce, thus giving loose reins to the artist's fancy. The fowl may be
boiled, and then rich with cream must be the sauce that redeems it
from insipidity. It may be roasted, and then let the mushrooms be
somewhat more in evidence. Or it may be broiled, and then mayhap it
would be wise to grill the mushrooms whole, instead of converting them
into sauce. Or--here is another suggestion, and be thankful for
it--mince your chicken, which toast will receive gladly as a covering
and set upon it, as already upon _oeufs brouillés_, the mushrooms
grilled in butter. Long might you live, far might you wander, before
chancing upon another delicacy so worthy. Though, truth to tell--and
where gastronomy is the subject it is always best to be
honest--_croquettes de poulet aux champignons_ seem well-nigh
worthier. If you would decide for yourself, try both, and joy go with
you in the trying.
An afterthought: dress livers with mushroom sauce, and this is the
manner in which it should be done. "Take some pickled or fresh
mushrooms, cut small--both if you have them--and let the livers be
bruised fine, with a good deal of parsley chopped small, a spoonful or
two of catchup, a glass of white wine, and as much good gravy as will
make sauce enough; thicken it with a piece of butter rolled in flour.
This does for either roast or boiled."
For the rest, how count the innumerable ways in which the mushroom
adds to the gaiety of the gourmand? What would the _vol-au-vent_ be
without it? What the "Fine Pye," made otherwise of carps and
artichokes and crayfishes' feet and lobster claws and nutmeg and
cloves alone? What, according to the "Complete Court Cook," so proper
for the second course as the patty all of mushrooms? What garniture
fairer for "ragoo" or _fricassée_, according to the same authority,
than mushroom _farcis_? But, however they may be served and eaten,
mushrooms you must make yours at any cost. To say that you do not like
them is confession of your own philistinism. Learn to like them;
_will_ to like them, or else your sojourn on this earth will be a
wretched waste. You will have lived your life in vain if, at its
close, you have missed one of its finest emotions.
THE INCOMPARABLE ONION
Too often the poet sees but the tears that live in an onion; not the
smiles. And yet the smiles are there, broad and genial, or subtle and
tender. "Rose among roots," its very name revives memories of pleasant
feasting; its fragrance is rich forecast of delights to come. Without
it, there would be no gastronomic art. Banish it from the kitchen, and
all pleasure of eating flies with it. Its presence lends colour and
enchantment to the most modest dish; its absence reduces the rarest
dainty to hopeless insipidity, and the diner to despair.
The secret of good cooking lies in the discreet and sympathetic
treatment of the onion. For what culinary masterpiece is there that
may not be improved by it? It gives vivacity to soup, life to sauce;
it is the "poetic soul" of the salad bowl; the touch of romance in the
well-cooked vegetable. To it, sturdiest joint and lightest stew, crisp
rissole and stimulating stuffing look for inspiration and charm--and
never are they disappointed! But woe betide the unwary woman who would
approach it for sacrilegious ends. If life holds nothing better than
the onion in the right hand, it offers nothing sadder and more
degrading than the onion brutalised. Wide is the gulf fixed between
the delicate sauce of a Prince de Soubise, and the coarse, unsavoury
sausage and onion mess of the Strand. Let the perfection of the first
be your ideal; the horrid coarseness of the latter shun as you would
the devil.
The fragrance of this "wine-scented" esculent not only whets the
appetite; it abounds in associations glad and picturesque. All Italy
is in the fine, penetrating smell; and all Provence; and all Spain. An
onion or garlic-scented atmosphere hovers alike over the narrow
_calli_ of Venice, the cool courts of Cordova, and the thronged
amphitheatre of Arles. It is only the atmosphere breathed by the Latin
peoples of the South, so that ever must it suggest blue skies and
endless sunshine, cypress groves and olive orchards. For the traveller
it is interwoven with memories of the golden canvases of Titian, the
song of Dante, the music of Mascagni. The violet may not work a
sweeter spell, nor the carnation yield a more intoxicating perfume.
And some men there have been in the past to rank the onion as a root
sacred to Aphrodite: food for lovers. To the poetry of it none but the
dull and brutal can long remain indifferent.
Needless, then, to dwell upon its more prosaic side: upon its power as
a tonic, its value as a medicine. Medicinal properties it has, as the
drunkard knows full well. But why consider the drunkard? Leave him to
the tender mercies of the doctor. _Gourmandise_, or the love of good
eating, here the one and only concern, is opposed to excess. "Every
man who eats to indigestion, or makes himself drunk, runs the risk of
being erased from the list of its votaries."
The onion is but the name for a large family, of which shallots,
garlic, and chives are chief and most honoured varieties. Moreover,
country and climate work upon it changes many and strange. In the
south it becomes larger and more opulent, like the women. And yet, as
it increases in size, it loses in strength--who shall say why? And
the loss truly is an improvement. Our own onion often is strong even
unto rankness. Therefore, as all good housewives understand, the
Spanish species for most purposes may be used instead, and great will
be the gain thereby. Still further south, still further east, you will
journey but to find the onion fainter in flavour, until in India it
seems but a pale parody of its English prototype. And again, at
different seasons, very different are its most salient qualities. In
great gladness of heart everyone must look forward to the dainty
little spring onion: adorable as vegetable cooked in good white sauce,
inscrutable as guardian spirit of fresh green salad, irreproachable as
pickle in vinegar and mustard.
Garlic is one of the most gracious gifts of the gods to men--a gift,
alas! too frequently abused. In the vegetable world, it has something
of the value of scarlet among colours, of the clarionet's call in
music. Brazen, and crude, and screaming, when dragged into undue
prominence, it may yet be made to harmonise divinely with fish and
fowl, with meat, and other greens. Thrown wholesale into a salad, it
is odious and insupportable; but used to rub the salad bowl, and then
cast aside, its virtue may not be exaggerated. For it, as for lovers,
the season of seasons is the happy spring time. Its true home is
Provence. What would be the land of the troubadour and the Félibre
without the _ail_ that festoons every greengrocer's shop, that adorns
every dish at every banquet of rich and poor alike? As well rid
_bouillabaisse_ of its saffron as of its _ail_; as well forget the
_pomme d'amour_ in the sauce for _macaroni_, or the rosemary and the
thyme on the spit with the little birds. The verse of Roumanille and
Mistral smells sweet of _ail_; Tartarin and Numa Roumestan are heroes
nourished upon it. It is the very essence of _farandoles_ and
_ferrades_, of bull-fights and water tournaments. A pinch of _ail_, a
_coup de vin_, and then--
Viva la joia,
Fidon la tristessa!
And all the while we, in the cold, gloomy north, eat garlic and are
hated for it by friends and foes. Only in the hot south can life
_ail_-inspired pass for a _galejado_ or jest.
To the onion, the shallot is as the sketch to the finished picture;
slighter, it may be; but often subtler and more suggestive. Unrivalled
in salads and sauces, it is without compare in the sumptuous seasoning
of the most fantastic viands. It does not assert itself with the fury
and pertinacity of garlic; it does not announce its presence with the
self-consciousness of the onion. It appeals by more refined devices,
by gentler means, and is to be prized accordingly. Small and brown, it
is pleasant to look upon as the humble wild rose by the side of the
_Gloire de Dijon_. And, though it never attain to the untempered
voluptuousness of the onion, it develops its sweetness and strength
under the hottest suns of summer: in July, August, and September, does
it mature; then do its charms ripen; then may it be enjoyed in full
perfection, and satisfy the most riotous gluttony.
Shallots for summer by preference, but chives for spring: the delicate
chives, the long, slim leaves, fair to look upon, sweet to smell,
sweeter still to eat in crisp green salad. The name is a little poem;
the thing itself falls not far short of the divine. Other varieties
there be, other offshoots of the great onion--mother of all; none,
however, of greater repute, of wider possibilities than these. To know
them well is to master the fundamental principles of the art of
cookery. But this is knowledge given unto the few; the many, no doubt,
will remain for ever in the outer darkness, where the onion is
condemned to everlasting companionship with the sausage--not
altogether their fault, perhaps. In cookery, as in all else, too often
the blind do lead the blind. But a few years since and a "delicate
diner," an authority unto himself at least, produced upon the art of
dining a book, not without reputation. But to turn to its index is to
find not one reference to the onion: all the poetry gone; little but
prose left! And this from an authority!
The onion, as a dish, is excellent; as seasoning it has still more
pleasant and commodious merits. The modern _chef_ uses it chiefly to
season; the ancient _cordon bleu_ set his wits to work to discover
spices and aromatic ingredients wherewith to season it. Thus,
according to Philemon,--
If you want an onion, just consider
What great expense it takes to make it good;
You must have cheese, and honey, and sesame,
Oil, leeks, and vinegar, and assafoetida,
To dress it up with; for by itself the onion
Is bitter and unpleasant to the taste.
A pretty mess, indeed; and who is there brave enough to-day to test
it? Honey and onion! it suggests the ingenious contrivances of the
mediæval kitchen. The most daring experiment now would be a dash of
wine, red or white, a suspicion of mustard, a touch of tomato in the
sauce for onions, stewed or boiled, baked or stuffed. To venture upon
further flights of fancy the average cook would consider indiscreet,
though to the genius all things are possible. However, its talents for
giving savour and character to other dishes is inexhaustible.
There is no desire more natural than that of knowledge; there is no
knowledge nobler than that of the "gullet-science." "The discovery of
a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the
discovery of a planet!" What would be Talleyrand's record but for that
moment of inspiration when, into the mysteries of Parmesan with soup,
he initiated his countrymen? To what purpose the Crusades, had
Crusaders not seen and loved the garlic on the plains of Askalon,
and brought it home with them, their one glorious trophy. To a pudding
Richelieu gave his name; the Prince de Soubise lent his to a sauce,
and thereby won for it immortality.
A benefactor to his race indeed he was: worthy of a shrine in the
Temple of Humanity. For, plucking the soul from the onion, he laid
bare its hidden and sweetest treasure to the elect. Scarce a sauce is
served that owes not fragrance and flavour to the wine-scented root;
to it, _Béarnaise_, _Maître d'Hôtel_, _Espagnole_, _Italienne_,
_Béchamel_, _Provençale_, and who shall say how many more? look for
the last supreme touch that redeems them from insipid commonplace. But
_Sauce Soubise_ is the very idealisation of the onion, its very
essence; at once delicate and strong; at once as simple and as perfect
as all great works of art.
The plodding painter looks upon a nocturne by Whistler, and thinks how
easy, how preposterously easy! A touch here, a stroke there, and the
thing is done. But let him try! And so with _Sauce Soubise_. Turn to
the first cookery book at hand, and read the _recipe_. "Peel four
large onions and cut them into thin slices; sprinkle a little pepper
and salt upon them, together with a small quantity of nutmeg; put them
into a saucepan with a slice of fresh butter, and steam gently"--let
them smile, the true artist would say--"till they are soft." But why
go on with elaborate directions? Why describe the exact quantity of
flour, the size of the potato, the proportions of milk and cream to be
added? Why explain in detail the process of rubbing through a sieve?
In telling or the reading these matters seem not above the
intelligence of a little child. But in the actual making, only the
artist understands the secret of perfection, and his understanding is
born within him, not borrowed from dry statistics and formal tables.
He may safely be left to vary his methods; he may add sugar, he may
omit nutmeg; he may fry the onions instead of boiling, for love of the
tinge of brown, rich and sombre, thus obtained. But, whatever he does,
always with a wooden spoon will he stir his savoury mixture; always,
as result, produce a godlike sauce which the mutton cutlets of
Paradise, vying with Heine's roast goose, will offer of their own
accord at celestial banquets. What wonder that a certain famous French
count despised the prosaic politician who had never heard of cutlets
_à la Soubise_?
However, not alone in sauce can the condescending onion come to the
aid of dull, substantial flesh and fowl. Its virtue, when joined to
sage in stuffing, who will gainsay? Even chestnuts, destined to stuff
to repletion the yawning turkey, cannot afford to ignore the
insinuating shallot or bolder garlic; while no meat comes into the
market that will not prove the better and the sweeter for at least a
suspicion of onion or of _ail_. A barbarian truly is the cook who
flings a mass of fried onions upon the tender steak, and then thinks
to offer you a rare and dainty dish. Not with such wholesale brutality
can the ideal be attained. The French chef has more tact. He will take
his _gigot_ and sympathetically prick it here and there with garlic or
with chives, even as it is roasting; and whoever has never tasted
mutton thus prepared knows not the sublimest heights of human
happiness. Or else he will make a _bouquet garni_ of his own, entirely
of these aromatic roots and leaves, and fasten it in dainty fashion to
the joint; pleasure is doubled when he forgets to remove it, and the
meat is placed upon the table, still bearing its delicious decoration.
Moods there be that call for stronger effects: moods when the blazing
poppy field of a Monet pleases more than the quiet moonlight of a
Cazin; when Tennyson is put aside for Swinburne. At such times, call
for a shoulder of mutton, well stuffed with onions, and still further
satiate your keen, vigorous appetite with a bottle of Beaune or
Pomard. But here, a warning: eat and drink with at least a pretence of
moderation. Remember that, but for an excess of shoulder of mutton and
onions, Napoleon might not have been defeated at Leipzig.
But at all times, and in all places, onions clamour for moderation. A
salad of tomatoes buried under thick layers of this powerful esculent
must disgust; gently sprinkled with chopped-up chives or shallots, it
enraptures. Potatoes _à la Lyonnaise_, curried eggs, Irish stew,
_Gulyas_, _ragoût_, alike demand restraint in their preparation, a
sweet reasonableness in the hand that distributes the onion.
For the delicate diner, as for the drunkard, onion soup has charm. It
is of the nature of _sauce Soubise_, and what mightier recommendation
could be given it? Thus Dumas, the high priest of the kitchen, made
it: a dozen onions--Spanish by preference--minced with discretion,
fried in freshest of fresh butter until turned to a fair golden
yellow, he boiled in three pints or so of water, adequately seasoned
with salt and pepper; and then, at the end of twenty full minutes, he
mixed with this preparation the yolks of two or three eggs, and poured
the exquisite liquid upon bread, cut and ready. At the thought alone
the mouth waters, the eye brightens. The adventurous, now and again,
add ham or rice, vegetables or a _bouquet garni_. But this as you
will, according to the passing hour's leisure. Only of one thing make
sure--in Dumas confidence is ever to be placed without doubt or
hesitation.
Dumas' soup for dinner; but for breakfast the unrivalled omelette of
Brillat-Savarin. It is made after this fashion: the roes of two carp,
a piece of fresh tunny, and shallots, well hashed and mixed, are
thrown into a saucepan with a lump of butter beyond reproach, and
whipped up till the butter is melted, which, says the great one,
"constitutes the speciality of the omelette;" in the meantime, let
some one prepare, upon an oval dish, a mixture of butter and parsley,
lemon juice, and chives--not shallots here, let the careless note--the
plate to be left waiting over hot embers; next beat up twelve eggs,
pour in the roes and tunny, stir with the zeal and sympathy of an
artist, spread upon the plate that waits so patiently, serve at once;
and words fail to describe the ecstasy that follows. Especially, to
quote again so eminent an authority, let the omelette "be washed down
with some good old wine, and you will see wonders," undreamed of by
haschish or opium eater.
When the little delicate spring onion is smelt in the land, a shame,
indeed, it would be to waste its tender virginal freshness upon sauce
and soup. Rather refrain from touching it with sharp knife or cruel
chopper, but in its graceful maiden form boil it, smother it in rich
pure cream, and serve it on toast, to the unspeakable delectation of
the devout. Life yields few more precious moments. Until spring comes,
however, you may do worse than apply the same treatment to the older
onion. In this case, as pleasure's crown of pleasure, adorn the
surface with grated Gruyère, and, like the ancient hero, you will wish
your throat as long as a crane's neck, that so you might the longer
and more leisurely taste what you swallow.
Onions _farcis_ are beloved by the epicure. A nobler dish could scarce
be devised. You may make your forcemeats of what you will, beef or
mutton, fowl or game; you may, an' you please, add truffles,
mushrooms, olives, and capers. But know one thing; tasteless it will
prove, and lifeless, unless bacon lurk unseen somewhere within its
depths. Ham will answer in a way, but never so well as humbler bacon.
The onion that lends itself most kindly to this device is the Spanish.
One word more. As the _ite missa est_ of the discourse let this
truth--a blessing in itself--be spoken. As with meat, so with
vegetables, few are not the better for the friendly companionship of
the onion, or one of its many offshoots. Peas, beans, tomatoes,
egg-plant are not indifferent to its blandishments. If honour be paid
to the first pig that uprooted a truffle, what of the first man who
boiled an onion? And what of the still mightier genius who first used
it as seasoning for his daily fare? Every _gourmet_ should rise up and
call him blessed.
THE TRIUMPHANT TOMATO
The triumph of the tomato has given hungry men and women a new lease
of pleasure. Sad and drear were the days when the _gourmet_ thought to
feast, and the beautiful scarlet fruit had no place upon his table.
The ancient _chef_ knew it not, nor the mediæval artist who, even
without it, could create marvellous works the modern may not hope to
rival. Like so many good things, it first saw the light in that happy
Western Continent where the canvas-back duck makes its home and shad
swim in fertile rivers. What, indeed, was life, what the gift of
eating, before the Columbus of the kitchen had discovered the tomato,
the turkey, and the yellow Indian corn? Reflect upon it, and be
grateful that you, at least, were not born in the Dark Age of cookery!
Poor, stupid man! a treasure was presented to him freely and
generously, and he thrust it from him. The tomato offered itself a
willing sacrifice, and he scorned it, mistaking gold for dross. The
American--and long years in purgatory will not redeem his
fault--looked upon it with suspicion. To-day, it is true, he honours
it aright: in the summer-time he bows down before its gay freshness;
in the winter he cherishes it in tins. It has become as indispensable
to him as salt or butter. He values it at its true worth. But still,
half a century has not passed since he doubted it, heaping insults
upon its trusting sweetness. He fancied poison lurked within it. O the
cruel fancy! There it was, perfect and most desirable, and he, blind
fool, would not touch it until endless hours of stewing had lessened,
if not utterly destroyed, its fresh young charms. And the Englishman
was no wiser. Within the last decade only has he welcomed the stranger
at his gates, and at the best his welcome has been but halting and
half-hearted. The many continue obstinately to despise it; the few
have pledged their allegiance with reservations. The Latin, and even
the wild Hun, were converted without a fear of misgiving while the
Anglo-Saxon faltered and was weak. Many and beautiful are the strange
dishes the tomato adorns in Magyarland. Was there ever a _menu_ in
sunny Italy that did not include this meat or that vegetable _al
pomodoro_? The very Spaniard, whom rumour weds irrevocably to garlic,
nourishes a tender passion for the voluptuous red fruit, and wins
rapture from it. And deep and true is the Provençal's love for his
_pomme d'amour_; is not the name a measure of his affection? The Love
Apple! Were there, after all, tomatoes in Judea, and were these the
apples that comforted the love-sick Shulamite?
Now that the tomato has forced universal recognition; now that in
England it lends glory of colour to the greengrocer's display; now
that the hothouse defeats the cruel siege of the seasons, and mild
May, as well as mellow September, yields apples of love, pause a
moment, turn from the trivial cares of life, to meditate upon its
manifold virtues.
The tomato as a vegetable should be the first point of the meditation.
Let us reflect. Stewed, though not as in America of old, until all
flavour is lost, it has the merit of simplicity by no means to be
underestimated: drained of the greater part of its juice, thickened
slightly with flour, it cannot disappoint. _Au gratin_, it aspires to
more delirious joys: the pleasure yielded develops in proportion to
the pains taken to produce it. Into a baking dish olive oil is poured
in moderation; a sprinkling of salt and pepper and fragrant herbs well
powdered, together with bread-crumbs duly grated, follows; next the
tomatoes, eager and blushing, whole or in dainty halves, as the
impulse of the moment may prompt; more bread-crumbs and pepper and
salt and herbs must cover them gently, more oil be poured upon the
stirring harmony; and an hour in the oven will turn you out as pretty
a side-dish as was ever devised by ingenious Mrs Glasse, who--O the
pity of it--lived too soon for fond dalliance with love's crowning
vegetable.
_Farcies_ tomatoes may not easily be surpassed. Upon your whim or
choice it will depend whether you stuff them whole, or cut them in
half for so ineffable a purpose. And upon your whim likewise depends
the special forcemeat used. Chopped mushrooms, parsley and shallot,
seasoned with discretion, leave little to ask for. Prepare, instead,
sausage meat, garlic, parsley, tarragon, and chives, and the tomatoes
so stuffed you may without pedantry call _à la Grimod de la Reynière_.
But whatever you call them, count upon happiness in the eating.
Second point of the meditation: the tomato as an auxiliary. If you
have learned the trick of association, at once you see before you a
steaming harmony in pale yellow and scarlet, the long soft tubes of
_macaroni_ or _spaghetti_ encompassed round about by a deep stream of
tomatoes stewed and seasoned; at once you feast upon _macaroni al
pomodoro_ and Chianti, and Italy lies, like a map, before your mind's
eye, its towns and villages marked by this dish of dishes. With rice,
tomatoes are no less in pleasant, peaceful unity; in stuffed
_paprika_, or pepper, they find their true affinity. Grilled, they
make a sympathetic garniture for _filet piqué à la Richelieu_;
stuffed, they are the proper accompaniment of _tournedos à la Leslie_;
neatly halved, they serve as a foundation to soles _à la Loie Fuller_.
Chickens clamour for them as ally, and so does the saltest of salt
cod. In a word, a new combination they might with ease provide for
every day in the year. Enough will have been said if this one truth is
established: there is scarce a fish or fowl, scarce any meat or
vegetable, that is not the better and the nobler for the temporary
union with the tomato.
And now, the third point of the meditation, which, too often, escapes
the prosaic, unmeditative islander: the tomato as a dish for
breakfast. Only recently it was thus that two of rare beauty and sweet
savour fulfilled their destiny: on a plate fashioned by barbarous
potters on the banks of the Danube, where the love-apple grows in gay
profusion, stretched a thin, crisp slice of bacon decoratively
streaked with fat and grilled to a turn; it bore, as twin flowers, the
two tomatoes, also grilled, fragrant, tender, delectable. Surely here
was a poetic prelude to the day's toil. To Belgium all praise be given
for teaching that, stewed and encircling buttered or scrambled eggs,
tomatoes may again enliven the breakfast table, that bitter test of
conjugal devotion; to France, the credit of spreading them at the
bottom of plate or dish as a bed for eggs artistically poached or
fried. History records the names of generals and dates of battles,
but what chronicler has immortalised the genius who first enclosed
tomatoes in an omelet? This is a brutal, ungrateful world we live in.
And now pass on to the fourth heading, and new ecstasies: the tomato
as salad. Remember that the tomatoes must be deftly sliced in their
skins or else the juice escapes; that a touch of onion or garlic is
indispensable; that the dressing must be of oil and vinegar, pepper
and salt; unless, of course, a _mayonnaise_ be made. Another weird
salad there is with qualities to endear it to the morbid and neurotic.
Let it be explained briefly, that lurid description may not be thought
to exaggerate lurid attraction: drop your tomatoes, brilliantly red as
the abhorred Scarlet Woman, into hot water in order to free them of
their skins; place them whole, and in passionate proximity, in a dish
of silver or delicate porcelain; smother them under a thick layer of
whipped cream. For the sake of decoration and the unexpected, stick in
here and there a pistachio nut, and thank the gods for the new
sensation.
In soup, thin or clear, the tomato knows no rival; in sauce, it
stands supreme, ranking worthily with the four classical sauces of the
French _cuisine_. And here, a suggestion to be received with loud,
jubilant _Alleluias_! Follow the example of Attila's heirs, and, as
last touch, pour cream upon your tomato sauce. He who has known and
eaten and loved _paprika gefüllte_ in the wilds of Transylvania, will
bear willing witness to the admirable nature of this expedient.
The more devout, the professed worshipper, will eat his love-apple
without artificial device of cookery or dressing, with only salt for
savour. For this excess of devotion, however, unqualified commendation
would not be just. Unadorned the tomato is not adorned the most.
But cook or serve it as you will, see that it be eaten by you and
yours--that is the main thing. The tomatoes that make glad the heart
of the loiterer in Covent Garden are fresh as the sweet breath of May.
A DISH OF SUNSHINE
"The weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational
topics." How can the ingenious housewife talk of aught else in the
Winter season? Not because, as Mr Stevenson argues, "the dramatic
element in scenery is far more tractable in language, and far more
human both in import and suggestion, than the stable features of the
landscape," but because upon it she is dependent for ease and success
in making her every luncheon and dinner a culinary triumph.
Of what avail the morning's conference with the greengrocer's boy, or
even the conscientious visit to the greengrocer's shop or the ramble
through the market--unless, perhaps, and happily, her pockets be lined
with gold, when hothouse vegetables, and out-of-season delicacies,
must be paid for with the alacrity of a Croesus? Otherwise, dark,
hopeless despair seizes upon her? Must she not brood in abject
melancholy when the hideous truth is revealed to her that earth's
resources are limited to turnip-tops and Brussels sprouts, with, it
may be, a few Jerusalem artichokes thrown in? Celery, the lordly, is
frozen. Cauliflower, the fragrant, frost-bitten irretrievably, will
not yield to the most urgent inducements of hot water. Lettuce is a
thing of the past and of the future. Sad and drear indeed is the
immediate prospect. For surely turnip-tops are a delusion, and against
the monotony of sprouts the aspiring soul rebels.
It is at this crisis that hope flames right in a strangely neglected
corner. Italian sunshine and blue skies, concentrated in flour paste,
wrought into tubes and ribbons, squares and lozenges, come to gladden
the sinking heart and cheer the drooping spirits. Why despair when
_macaroni_ is always to be had, inestimable as a vegetable, unrivalled
as an _entrée_, a perfect meal, if you choose, in itself?
Upon the imagination of those to whom food is something besides a mere
satisfaction to carnal appetite, _macaroni_ works a strange, subtle
spell. The very name conjures up sweet poetic visions; it is the
magic crystal or beryl stone, in which may be seen known things, dear
to the memory: smiling valleys where the vines are festooned, not as
Virgil saw them, from elm to elm, but from mulberry to mulberry; and
where the beautiful, broad-horned, white oxen drag, in solemn dignity,
the crawling plough; olive-clad slopes and lonely stone palms; the
gleam of sunlit rivers winding with the reeds and the tall, slim
poplars; the friendly wayside _trattoria_ and the pleasant refrain of
the beaming _cameriere_, "_Subito Signora; ecco!_"--a refrain
ceaseless as the buzzing of bees among the clover. In a dish of
_macaroni_ lies all Italy for the woman with eyes to see or a heart to
feel.
Or visions more personal, more intimate, she may summon for her own
delight; the midday halt and lunch in Castiglione del Lago on its
gentle hill-top, the blue of Thrasymene's lake shining between the
olives, and all fair to behold, save the _padrone_ with his
conscienceless charges for the bowl of _macaroni_ that had been so
good in the eating. Or else, perhaps, the evening meal in the long
refectory at Monte Oliveto, with the white-robed brothers; or, again,
the unforgettable breakfast at Pompeii's _Albergo del Sole_, the good
wine ranged upon the old tree trunk that serves as central column, the
peacock, tail outspread, strutting about among the chairs and tables,
the overpowering sweetness of the flowering bean stealing, from near
fields, through open doors and windows. Or, still again, the thought
of Pompeii sends one off upon the journey from its ruined streets to
Naples--on one side the Bay, on the other the uninterrupted line of
villages, every low white house adorned with garlands of _macaroni_
drying peacefully and swiftly in the hot sun. And a few pence only
will it cost to dream such dreams of beauty and of gladness.
Many as are the devices for preparing this stuff that dreams are made
of, none can excel the simplest of all. Eat it the way the Italian
loves it, and for yourself you open up new vistas of pleasure. And
what could be easier? In water well salted--upon the salt much
depends--the _macaroni_, preferably in the large generous tubes, is
boiled for twenty minutes, or half an hour, until it is as soft as
soft may be without breaking. A capacious bowl, its sides well
buttered and sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese, must wait in
readiness. Into it put the _macaroni_, well drained of the water, into
its midst drop a large piece of sweet, fresh butter, and sprinkle,
without stint, more of the indispensable Parmesan; mix wisely and with
discrimination; and then eat to your soul's, or stomach's, content. To
further your joy, have at your side a flash of Chianti, pure and
strong, standing in no need of baptism. The gods never fared better.
But, one word of advice: if this dish you serve for luncheon, defy
convention, and make it the first and last and only course. It may
seem meagre in the telling. But to treat it with due respect and
justice much must be eaten, and this much makes more impossible even
to the hopeful.
Another word of advice: never break or cut the _macaroni_ into small
pieces; the cook who dares to disobey in this particular deserves
instant and peremptory dismissal. Where is the poetry, where the art,
if it can be eaten with as little trouble and planning as an everyday
potato, or a mess of greens? Who, that has seen, can forget the
skilful Italian winding the long steaming tubes around and around his
fork, his whole soul and intelligence concentrated upon the pretty
feat of transposing these tubes from his fork to his mouth. It is
difficult; yes, especially for the foreigner; but where is the
pleasure without pain? As well tear your Troyon or your Diaz into
shreds, and enjoy it in bits, as violate the virginal lengths of your
_macaroni_.
In more lavish mood, prepare it _al sugo_, and no cause need you fear
for regret. It is well-nigh as simple; the _macaroni_, or better still
_spaghetti_, the smaller, daintier variety, once boiled, is taken from
the water only to be plunged in rich gravy, its quantity varying
according to the quantity of _spaghetti_ used; let it boil anew, or
rather simmer, until each long tube is well saturated; then, add the
cheese and butter, and say your _Benedicite_ with a full heart.
Or, would you have it richer still, and so tempt Providence? Make
tomato the foundation of the gravy, spice it with cloves, bring out
the sweet _bouquet garni_, serve with butter and Parmesan cheese as
before, and call the result _Macaroni à la Napolitaine_. _Spaghetti_,
here again, will answer the purpose as well, nor will the pretty,
flat, wavy ribbon species come amiss. To court perfection, rely upon
mushrooms for one of the chief elements in this adorable concoction,
and the whole world over you may travel without finding a dish worthy
to compete with it. _Macaroni_ can yield nothing more exquisite,
though not yet are its resources exhausted.
_Au gratin_ it is also to be commended. The preliminary boiling may
now, as always, be taken for granted. With its chosen and well-tried
accompaniments of butter and Parmesan cheese, and steeped in a good
white sauce, it may simmer gently over the fire until the sympathetic
butter be absorbed; then in a decently prepared dish, and covered with
bread-crumbs, it should bake until it is warmed into a golden-brown
harmony that enraptures the eye. Or with stronger seasoning, with
onion and pepper and cayenne, you may create a savoury beyond compare.
Or combined with the same ingredients you may stew your _macaroni_ in
milk, and revel in _macaroni sauté_; worse a hundred times, truly,
might you fare.
But, if you would be wholly reckless, why, then try _Macaroni à la
Pontife_, and know that human ambition may scarce pretend to nobler
achievements. For a mould of goodly proportions you fill with
_macaroni_ and forcemeat of fowl and larks and bits of bacon and
mushrooms and game filleted; and this ineffable arrangement you
moisten with gravy and allow to simmer slowly, as befits its
importance, for an hour; eat it, and at last you too, with Faust, may
hail the fleeting moment, and bid it stay, because it is so fair!
In puddings and pies _macaroni_ is most excellent. But if you be not
lost beyond redemption, never sweeten either one or the other; the
suggestion of such sacrilege alone is horrid. Into little croquettes
it may by cunning hands be modelled; _en timbale_, in well-shaped
mould, it reveals new and welcome possibilities. With fish it
assimilates admirably; in soup it is above criticism. It will
strengthen the flavour of chestnuts, nor will it disdain the
stimulating influence of wine, white or red. And in the guise of
_nouilles_, or nudels, it may be stuffed with forcemeat of fowl or
beef, and so clamour for the rich tomato sauce.
ON SALADS
To speak of salads in aught but the most reverential spirit were
sacrilege. To be honoured aright, they should be eaten only in the
company of the devout or in complete solitude--and perhaps this latter
is the wiser plan. Who, but the outer barbarian, will not with a good
salad,
A book, a taper, and a cup
Of country wine, divinely sup?
Over your hot meats you cannot linger; if alone with them, and read
you must, a common newspaper, opened at the day's despatches, best
serves your purpose; else, your gravies and sauces congeal into a
horrid white mess upon your plate, and tepid is every unsavoury morsel
your fork carries to your mouth. But over any one of the "salad
clan"--lettuce or tomato, beans or potato, as fancy prompts--you can
revel at leisure in your Balzac, your Heine, your Montaigne, which,
surely, it would be desecration to spread open by the side of the
steaming roast or the prosaic bacon and eggs. There has always seemed
one thing lacking in Omar's Paradise: a salad, he should have
bargained for with his Book of Verses, his Jug of Wine, and Loaf of
Bread "underneath the Bough."
Far behind has the Continent left Great Britain in the matter of
salads. To eat them in perfection you must cross the Channel--as,
indeed, you must in the pursuit of all the daintiest dishes--and
travel still farther than France. The French will give you for
breakfast a bowl of _Soissons_, for dinner a _Romaine_, which long
survive as tender memories; even the humble dandelion they have
enlisted in the good cause. With the Italian you will fare no less
well; better it may be, for, with the poetic feeling that has
disappeared for ever from their art and architecture, they fill the
salad bowl at times with such delicate conceits as tender young violet
leaves, so that you may smell the spring in the blossoms at your
throat, while you devour it in the greens set before you. But in
Germany, though there may be less play of fancy in the choice of
materials, there is far greater poetry in the mixing of them. As an
atonement for that offence against civilisation, the midday dinner,
the Germans have invented a late supper that defies the critic: the
very meanest _Speise-Saal_ is transfigured when the gaslight falls
softly on the delicious potato or cucumber or herring salads of the
country, flanked by the tall slim glasses of amber Rhenish wine. But,
excelling Germany, even as Germany excels France, Hungary is the true
home of the salad. It would take a book to exhaust the praise it there
inspires. To die eating salad on the banks of the Danube to the wail
of the Czardas--that would be the true death! What, however, save the
ideals realised, is to be effected in a land where tomatoes are as
plentiful as are potatoes in Ireland?
The Briton, it must be admitted, has of late progressed. Gone is the
time when his favourite salad was a horror unspeakable: an onion and a
lettuce served whole, chopped up by himself, smothered in salt and
pepper, and fairly sluiced with vinegar. To understand the full
iniquity of it, you must remember what an excess of vinegar the
stalwart Briton was equal to in those days, now happily past. An
imperial pint, Mr Weller's friend, the coachman with the hoarse voice,
took with his oysters without betraying the least emotion. As
benighted, smacking no less of the Dark Ages, is the custom of serving
with cheese a lettuce (of the long crisp species known as _cos_ in the
cookery books), cut ruthlessly in halves. You are supposed to dip the
leaves into salt, and afterwards return thanks with a grateful heart.
Many there are who will still eat lettuce in this fashion with their
tea; the curious student of evolution can point to it as a survival of
the old barbarism; to the mustard and cress or cucumber sandwiches
which have replaced it, as a higher phase of development.
But, though these sorry customs still survive here and there, even as
superstitions linger among ignorant peasants, British eyes are opening
to the truth. The coming of the salad in England marks the passing of
the Englishman from barbarous depth to civilised heights. Has he not
exchanged his old-love Frith for Whistler, and has he not risen from
G. P. R. James to George Meredith? Not a whit less important in the
history of his civilisation is his emancipation from that vile,
vinegar-drenched abomination to the succulent tomato, the unrivalled
potato, well "fatigued" in the "capacious salad-bowl."
Of every woman worthy of the name, it is the duty to master the secret
of the perfect salad, and to prepare it for her own--and man's--greater
comfort and joy in this life, and--who knows?--salvation in the
next. This secret is all in the dressing. It is easy enough to buy
in the market, or order at the greengrocer's a lettuce, or a cucumber,
or a pound of tomatoes. But to make of them a masterpiece, there's
the rub. Upon the dressing and "fatiguing" success depends. The
mission of the lettuce, the resources of the bean were undreamed
of until the first woman--it must have been a woman!--divined
the virtue that lies in the harmonious combination of oil and
vinegar. Vinegar alone and undiluted is for the vulgar; mixed
with oil it as much surpasses nectar and ambrosia as these hitherto
have been reckoned superior to the liquors of mere human brewing. Of
_mayonnaise_ nothing need as yet be said; it ranks rather with sauces,
irreproachable when poured upon salmon, or chicken, or lobster--upon
the simpler and more delicate salads it seems well-nigh too strong and
coarse. The one legitimate dressing in these cases is made of vinegar
and oil, pepper and salt, and, on certain rare occasions, mustard.
As with sauces, it is simple to put down in black and white the
several ingredients of the good dressing. But what of the proportions?
What of the methods of mixing? In the large towns of the United States
where men and women delight in the pleasures of the table, are
specialists who spend their afternoons going from house to house,
preparing the salads for the day's coming great event. And perhaps, in
the end, all mankind may see advantages in this division of labour.
For only the genius born can mix a salad dressing as it should be
mixed. Quantities of pepper and salt, of oil and vinegar for him (or
her) are not measured by rule or recipe, but by inspiration. You may
generalise and insist upon one spoonful of oil for every guest and one
for the bowl--somewhat in the manner of tea-making--and then
one-third the quantity of vinegar. But out of these proportions the
Philistine will evolve for you a nauseating concoction; the initiated,
a dressing of transcendental merit.
As much depends upon the mixing as upon the proportions. The foolish
pour in first their oil, then their vinegar, and leave the rest to
chance, with results one shudders to remember. The two must be mixed
together even as they are poured over the salad, and here the task but
begins. For next, they must be mixed with the salad. To "fatigue" it
the French call this special part of the process, and indeed, to
create a work of art, you must mix and mix and mix until you are
fatigued yourself, and your tomatoes or potatoes reduced to one-half
their original bulk. Then will the dressing have soaked through and
through them, then will every mouthful be a special plea for gluttony,
an eloquent argument for the one vice that need not pall with years.
One other ingredient must not be omitted here, since it is as
essential as the oil itself. This is the onion--
Rose among roots, the maiden fair,
Wine-scented and poetic soul
of every salad. You may rub with it the bowl, you may chop it up fine
and sprinkle with it the lettuce, as you might sprinkle an omelet with
herbs. But there, in one form or another, it must be. The French have
a tendency to abuse it; they will cut it in great slices to spread
between layers of tomatoes or cucumbers. But there is a touch of
grossness in this device. It is just the _soupçon_ you crave, just the
subtle flavour it alone can impart. You do not want your salad, when
it comes on the table, to suggest nothing so much as the stewed steak
and onions shops in the Strand! The fates forbid.
"What diversities soever there be in herbs, all are shuffled up
together under the name of sallade." And Montaigne wrote in sadness,
knowing well that there could be no error more fatal. Have you ever
asked for a salad at the greengrocer's, and been offered a collection
of weeds befitting nothing so much as Betsy Prig's capacious pocket?
Have you ever, at the table of the indifferent, been served with the
same collection plentifully drenched with "salad cream"? But these are
painful memories, speedily to be put aside and banished for evermore.
Some combinations there are of herbs or greens or vegetables
unspeakably delicious, even in the thought thereof. But it is not at
haphazard, by an unsympathetic greengrocer, they can be made; not in
haste, from bottles of atrocities, they can be dressed. They are the
result of conscientious study, of consummate art.
Besides, some varieties there be of flavour too delicate to be
tampered with: for instance, the cabbage lettuce, as the vulgar call
it, which comes in about Easter time, but which, at the cost of a
little trouble, can be had all the year round. For some reason
unknown, your hard-hearted greengrocer, half the time, objects to it
seriously, declares it not to be found from end to end of Covent
Garden. But let him understand that upon his providing it depends your
custom, and he fetches it--the unprincipled one--fast enough. The
ragged outer leaves pulled away, crisp and fresh is the heart, a cool
green and white harmony not to be touched by brutal knife. The leaves
must be torn apart, gently and lovingly, as the painter plays with the
colours on his palette. Then, thrown into the bowl which already has
been well rubbed with onion, and slices of hard-boiled egg laid upon
the top for adornment and flavouring alike, at once may the dressing
of oil and vinegar and salt and pepper be poured on, and the process
of "fatiguing" begin. You need add nothing more, to know, as you eat,
that life, so long as salads are left to us, is well worth the living.
To say this is to differ in a measure from the great Alexandre, a
misfortune surely to be avoided. To this lettuce he would add herbs of
every kind; nay, even oysters, or tortoise eggs, or anchovies, or
olives--in fact, the subject is one which has sent his ever delightful
imagination to work most riotously. But, in all humility, must it
still be urged that the cabbage lettuce is best ungarnished, save, it
may be, by a touch of the unrivalled celery or slices of the adorable
tomato--never, if yours be the heart of an artist, by the smallest
fragment of the coarse, crude, stupid beetroot.
The _romaine_, or _cos_, however, is none the worse for Dumas'
suggestions; indeed, it is much the better. Its long stiff leaves, as
they are, may not be "fatigued" with anything approaching ease or
success. It is to be said--with hesitation perhaps, and yet to be
said--that they make the better salad for being cut before they are
put into the bowl. As if to atone for this unavoidable liberty, dainty
additions may not come amiss: the tender little boneless anchovies,
fish of almost any and every kind--most admirably, salmon and a bit of
red herring in conjunction--cucumbers, celery, tomatoes, radishes--all
will blend well and harmoniously. Be bold in your experiments, and
fear nothing. Many failures are a paltry price to pay for one perfect
dish.
Of other green salads the name is legion: endive, dandelion leaves,
chicory, chervil, mustard and cress, and a hundred and more besides
before the resources of France--more especially the Midi--and Italy be
exhausted. And none may be eaten becomingly without the oil and
vinegar dressing; all are the pleasanter for the _soupçon_ of onion,
and the egg, hard-boiled; a few gain by more variegated garniture.
But these minor salads--as they might be classed--pale before the
glories of the tomato: the _pomodoro_ of the Italian, the _pomme
d'amour_ of the Provençal--sweet, musical names, that linger tenderly
on the lips. And, indeed, if the tomato were veritably the "love
apple" of the Scriptures, and, in Adam's proprietorship, the olives
already yielded oil, the vines vinegar, then the tragedy in the Garden
of Eden may be explained without the aid of commentary. Many a
man--Esau notably--has sold his birthright for less than a good tomato
salad.
Dante's _Inferno_ were too good for the depraved who prepare it, as if
it were a paltry pickle, with a dosing of vinegar. It must first
receive the stimulus of the onion; then its dressing must be fortified
by the least suspicion of mustard--English, French, or German, it
matters not which--and if the pleasure that follows does not reconcile
you to Paradise lost, as well might you live on dry bread and cold
water for the rest of your natural days. The joys of the epicure,
clearly, are not for you. It seems base and sordid to offer for so
exquisite a delicacy hygienic references. But the world is still full
of misguided men who prize "dietetic principles" above the delights of
gluttony; once assured that from the eating of the tomato will come
none of the evils "to which flesh is _erroneously supposed_ to be
heir," they might be induced to put tomato salad, made in right
fashion, to the test. Then must they be confirmed faddists indeed, if
they do not learn that one eats not merely to digest.
To the mystical German, the potato first revealed virtues undreamed of
by the blind who had thought it but a cheap article of food to satisfy
hunger, even by the French who had carried it to such sublime heights
in their _purées_ and _soufflés_, their _Parisiennes_ and
_Lyonnaises_. Not until it has been allowed to cool, been cut in thin
slices, been dressed as a salad, were its subtlest charms suspected.
To the German--to that outer barbarian of the midday dinner--we owe at
least this one great debt of gratitude. Like none other, does the
potato-salad lend itself to the most fantastic play of fancy. It
stimulates imagination, it awakens ambition. A thousand and one ways
there be of preparing it, each better than the last. With celery, with
carrots, with tomatoes, with radishes, with parsley, with cucumber,
with every green thing that grows--in greatest perfection with okras,
the vegetable dear to Hungarian and American, unknown to poor
Britons--it combines graciously and deliciously, each combination a
new ecstasy. And, moreover, it is capable of endless decoration; any
woman with a grain of ingenuity can make of it a thing of beauty, to
look upon which is to sharpen the dullest appetite. So decorative are
its possibilities, that at times it is a struggle to decide between
its merits as an ornament and its qualities as a delicacy. For truth
is, it becomes all the more palatable if dressed and "fatigued" an
hour or so before it is eaten, and the oil and vinegar given time to
soak through every slice and fragment. The wise will disdain, for the
purpose, the ordinary potato, but procure instead the little, hard
"salad potato," which never crumbles; it comes usually from Hamburg,
and is to be bought for a trifle in the German _delicatessen_ shops of
London.
Poetic in the early spring is the salad of "superb asparagus"--pity it
should ever be eaten hot with drawn butter!--or of artichoke, or of
cucumber--the latter never fail to sprinkle with parsley, touch with
onion, and "fatigue" a good half hour before serving. Later, the
French bean, or the scarlet runner should be the lyrical element of
the feast. And in winter, when curtains are drawn and lamps lit, and
fires burn bright, the substantial _Soissons_, for all its memories of
French commercials, is not to be despised. But, if your soul aspires
to more ethereal flights, then create a vegetable salad--cauliflower,
and peas, and potatoes, and beans, and carrots in rhythmical
proportions and harmonious blending of hues.
THE SALADS OF SPAIN
They are still many and delicious as when Beckford ate them and was
glad, a hundred and more years ago. The treasures of the Incas have
dwindled and disappeared; the Alhambra has decayed and been restored
on its high hill-top; the masterpieces of Velasquez have been torn
from palace walls, to hang in convenient rows in public museums; the
greatness of Spain has long been waning. But the Spaniard still mixes
his salads with the art and distinction that have been his for
centuries. Herein, at least, his genius has not been dimmed, nor his
success grown less. And so long as this remains true, so long will
there be hope of a new Renaissance in the Iberian peninsula. By a
nation's salads may you judge of its degree of civilisation; thus
tested, Spain is in the van, not the rear, of all European countries.
It is no small achievement to give distinctive character to national
salads, to-day that the virtue of vinegar and oil and the
infallibility of incomparable onion are universally acknowledged and
respected. And yet Spain, in no idle spirit of self-puffery, can boast
of this achievement. She has brought to her _insalada_ a new element,
not wholly unknown elsewhere--in Hungary, for instance--but one which
only by the Spaniard has been fully appreciated, constantly
introduced, and turned to purest profit. This element--need it be
said?--is the pepper, now red, now green. The basis of the Spanish
salad may be--nay, is--the same as in other lands: tomato, cucumber,
lettuce, beans, potatoes. But to these is added pepper--not miserably
dried and powdered, but fresh and whole, or in generous slices--and
behold! a new combination is created, a new flavour evolved. And it is
a flavour so strong, yet subtle withal, so aromatic and spicy, so
_bizarre_ and picturesque--dream-inspiring as the aroma of green
Chartreuse, stimulating as Cognac of ripe years--that the wonder is
its praises hitherto have not been more loudly sung, its delights more
widely cultivated. The trumpet-note struck by the glowing scarlet is
fitting herald of the rapturous thrills that follow in the eating. Not
more voluptuous than the salad thus adorned were the beauties of the
harem, who doubtless feasted upon it under the cypresses and myrtles
of Andalusia.
The tendency of the Spaniard is ever to harmony, intricate and
infinite. Is not his dish of dishes his _olla cocida_? Is not his
favourite course of vegetables the _pisto_? And so likewise with his
salads: now he may give you tomato just touched with pepper, cucumber
just enlivened by the same stirring presence. But more often he will
present you an arrangement which, in its elaboration, may well baffle
the first investigation of the student. Peppers, as like as not of
both species, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, garlic cut fine as if for a
mince of greens--"pepper hash," the American crudely calls an
arrangement closely akin in motive--are mingled together so deftly,
are steeped in vinegar and oil so effectually, as to seem, not many in
one, but _the_ one in many, the crowning glory of the glorious
vegetable world of the South. Nothing in common has this delectable
salad with the _macédoine_, which the Spaniard also makes. Peas and
carrots, potatoes and tomatoes, beans and cauliflowers meet to new
purpose, when peppers, red and ardent, wander hither and thither in
their midst waging war upon insipidity, destroying, as if by fire, the
tame and the commonplace. Again, lettuce untainted by garlic,
resisting the slightest suspicion of complexity, may answer for the
foolish foreigner who knows no better. But in lettuce prepared for
himself the Spaniard spares not the fragrant garlic; neither does he
omit his beloved peppers, while he never rebels, rejoicing rather, if
occasional slices of cucumber and tomatoes lie hid between the cool
green leaves.
But fish furnishes him with text for still more eloquent flights,
still loftier compositions. A _mayonnaise_ he can make such as never
yet was eaten under milder suns and duller skies; and a _mayonnaise_
far from exhausts his all but unlimited resources. Sardines he will
take, or tunny, or any fish that swims, and that, already cooked, has
been either shut up long weeks in protecting tins or left but a few
hours to cool. Whatever the fish chosen, he places it neatly and
confidently at the bottom of his dish; above it he lays lettuce leaves
and garlic and long brilliant slices of scarlet pepper; round about it
he weaves a garniture of olives and hard-boiled eggs that reveal their
hearts of gold. The unrivalled, if cosmopolitan, sauce of vinegar and
oil is poured upon the whole and made doubly welcome. But details are
varied in every fish salad served in Spain; only in its perfection
does it prove unalterable.
These, and their hundred offshoots were conceived in serious moments.
But once, in sheer levity of spirit and indolence, the gay Andalusian
determined to invent a salad that, to the world beyond his snowy
Sierras, would seem wildest jest, but to himself would answer for food
and drink, and, because of its simplicity and therefore cheapness,
save him many a useless hour of gaining his dinner at the sweat of his
brow. And so, to the strumming of guitars and click of castanets, now
never heard save in books of travel through Andalusia, _gaspacho_
appeared; destined to be for ever after the target for every
travel-writer's wit, the daily fare of its inventor and his
descendants. To the Andalusian _gaspacho_ is as _macaroni_ to the
Neapolitan, _bouillabaisse_ to the Provençal, chops and steaks to the
Englishman. In hotels, grotesquely French or pretentiously English,
where butter comes out of tins, and salad is garlicless, _gaspacho_
may be but surreptitiously concocted for the secret benefit of the
household. But go to the genuine Andalusian _posada_ or house, travel
in Andalusian boat, or breakfast at Andalusian buffet, and ten to one
_gaspacho_ figures on the _menu_.
To describe it, Gautier must be borrowed from. What would you? When
the master has pronounced upon any given subject, why add an
inefficient postscript? When a readymade definition, admirably
rendered, is at your command, why be at the pains of making a new one
for yourself? Never be guilty of any work when others may do it for
you, is surely the one and only golden rule of life. Listen, then, to
the considerate Gautier: "_Gaspacho_ deserves a description to itself,
and so we shall give here the recipe which would have made the late
Brillat-Savarin's hair stand on end. You pour water into a soup
tureen, to this water you add vinegar" (why omit the oil, you
brilliant but not always reliable poet?), "shreds of garlic, onions
cut in quarters, slices of cucumber, some pieces of pepper, a pinch of
salt; then you add bits of bread, which are left to soak in this
agreeable mess, and you serve cold." It should be further explained
that, in the season, tomatoes are almost invariably introduced, that
they and all the greens are chopped up very fine, and that the whole
has the consistency of a _julienne_ supplied with an unusually lavish
quantity of vegetables. It is eaten with a spoon from a soup plate,
though on the _menu_ it appears as a course just before the sweets.
This explanation made, listen again to Gautier, who writes in
frivolous mood. "With us, dogs but tolerably well bred would refuse to
compromise their noses in such a mixture. It is the favourite dish of
the Andalusians, and the prettiest women, without fear, swallow at
evening great spoonfuls of this infernal soup. _Gaspacho_ is held to
be most refreshing, an opinion which to us seems a trifle daring, and
yet, extraordinary as it may be found at the first taste, you finish
by accustoming yourself to it, and even liking it."
He was right. _Gaspacho_ has its good points: it is pleasant to the
taste, piquant in its very absurdity; it is refreshing, better than
richly-spiced sauces when the sun shines hot at midday. Andalusians
have not been labouring under a delusion these many years. The pepper
is a stimulant; vinegar, oil, and water unite in a drink more cooling
and thirst-quenching than abominable red wine of Valdepeñas. Would you
be luxurious, would you have your _gaspacho_ differ somewhat from the
poor man's, drop in a lump of ice, and double will be your pleasure in
the eating.
Like all good things _gaspacho_ has received that sincerest form of
flattery, imitation; and, what is more gratifying, received it at
home. Lettuce, cut in tiny pieces, is set floating in a large bowl of
water, vinegar, and oil, well seasoned with salt. Refreshing this also
is claimed to be; though so strange a sight is it to the uninitiated
that a prim schoolma'am, strayed from Miss Wilkins's stories into
Andalusia, has been seen to throw up hands of wonder, and heard to
declare that that salad would find a niche in her diary, to which, as
a rule, she confided nothing less precious than her thoughts. Happy
Spain, to have so conquered! What is Granada to the possession of so
chaste a tribute?
THE STIRRING SAVOURY
First impressions have their value: they may not be dismissed in
flippancy of spirit. But for this reason must last impressions be held
things of nought, not worthy the consideration of ambitious or
intelligent man? First impressions at times are washed away by the
rich, fast stream of after-events, even as the first on a slate
disappear under the obliterating sponge; last impressions remain to
bear testimony after the more tangible facts have passed into the
_ewigkeit_. Else, where the use of the ballade's _envoy_, of the final
sweet or stirring scene as the curtain falls upon the play?
It is the same with all the arts--with love, too, for that matter,
were there but space to prove it. Love, however, dwindles in
importance when there is question of dinner or breakfast. Life
consists of eating and drinking, as greater philosophers than Sir
Andrew Aguecheek have learned to their infinite delight, have
preached to the solace of others. Therefore, so order your life that
the last impressions of your eating and drinking may be more joyful,
more beautiful than the first; then, and only then, will you have
solved that problem of problems which, since the world began, has set
many a Galahad upon long and weary quest. It behoves you to see that
the feast, which opened with ecstasy, does not close with platitude,
and thus cover you with shame and confusion. A paltry amateur, a
clumsy bungler, is he who squanders all his talent upon the soup, and
leaves the savoury to take care of itself. Be warned in time!
The patriotic claim the savoury as England's invention. Their
patriotism is pretty and pleasing; moreover, it is not without a
glimmering of truth. For to England belongs the glorious discovery
that the dinner which ends with a savoury ends with rapture that
passeth human understanding! The thing itself has its near of kin, its
ancestors, as one might say. Caviar, olives, lax, anchovies, herrings'
roe, sardines, and as many more of the large and noble family--do not
these appear as _antipasti_ in Italy? In Russia and Scandinavia do
they not, spread symmetrically on side table, serve the purpose of
America's cocktail? And among the palms, as among the pines, coldness
is held to be an essential quality in them. Hot from the ardent oven,
the Parisian welcomes their presence between the soup and the fish,
and many are the enthusiasts who declare this to be the one and only
time for their discreet appearance upon the _menu_. Reason is in the
plea: none but the narrow-minded would condemn it untested and
untried. He who prizes change, who rebels even against the monotony of
the perfect, may now and again follow this fashion so gaily applauded
by _gourmets_ of distinction. But, remembering the _much_ that depends
upon last impressions, the wise will reserve his savoury to make
therewith a fair, brave ending.
There still walk upon this brutal earth poor heedless women who, in
the innocence of their hearts, believe that the one destiny of cheese
is to lie, cut up in little pieces, in a three-cornered dish, which it
shares with misplaced biscuits and well-meaning rolls of butter, and,
it may be, chilling celery. But cheese, which in many ways has
achieved such marvels, may be wrought into savouries beyond compare.
As _soufflé_, either _au Gruyère_ or _au Parmesan_, it becomes light
and dainty as the poet's lyric, and surely should be served only on
porcelain of the finest. It is simple to say how the miracle is
worked: a well-heated oven, a proper saucepan, butter, water, pepper,
salt and sugar in becoming proportions, the yolks of eggs and grated
Parmesan, the whites of the eggs added, as if an afterthought; and
twenty-five minutes in the expectant oven will do the rest. But was
ever lyric turned out by rule and measure? Even the inspired artist
has been known to fail with his _soufflé_. Here, indeed, is a miracle,
best entrusted to none but the genius.
_Canapé au Parmesan_ has pretensions which the result justifies. On
the bread, fried as golden as the haloes of Fra Angelico's angels, the
grated Parmesan, mingled with salt and pepper, is spread. A Dutch oven
yields temporary asylum until the cheese be melted, when, quicker than
thought, the _canapés_ are set upon a pretty dish and served to happy
mortals. _Ramaquins_ of cheese, in cases or out, can boast of charms
the most seductive. Nor in _gougère_ or _beignet_ or _bouchée_ will
Parmesan betray confidence. Again, in _pailles_, or straws, on fire
with cayenne, and tied with fluttering ribbons into enticing bunches,
this happy child of the South reveals new powers of seduction. So long
as there is cheese to command, the most fastidious need not wander far
in search of savouries.
The anchovy may be made a dangerous rival to Parmesan. Whole, or in
paste, it yields enchanting harmonies, burning and fervent as lover's
prayer. Let your choice fall upon the boneless anchovies of France, if
you would aim at the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of labour.
True it is that labour in the kitchen is ever a joy; but, expended
upon one creation when it might be divided among many, must not
sacrifice of variety in sensation be the price paid? Fried after the
fashion of whitebait, sprinkled with _paprika_, and refreshed with
lemon juice, anchovies become quite irresistible as _Orlys d'anchois_.
Prepared in cases, like Parmesan, they are proof against criticism as
_tartelettes_. Now figuring as _petites bouchées_, now as
_rissolettes_, they fail not to awaken new and delicious emotions.
They simply clamour for certain exquisite combinations, to-day with
hard-boiled egg passed through a sieve, to-morrow with olives from
sunny Provence; thin brown bread and butter, or toast, the crisp
foundation. But rarely do they go masquerading so riotously as in the
garb of _croûtes d'anchois_: first, the golden _croûton_, then a slice
of tomato, then a slice of cucumber, then a layer of caviar, then a
layer of anchovies scarlet with _paprika_ and garnished with leaves of
chervil; and behold! you have a pyramid more memorable far than any
raised on Egyptian sands--a pyramid that you need not travel silly
miles to see: it is yours, any day and any hour, for the ordering.
Lax laid lightly on toast is a pale rose triumph. _Olives
farcies_--caper and anchovy chief ingredients of the _farce_--come
like a flaming ray of southern sunlight. Haddock is smoked in the land
across the border solely that it may ravish the elect in its grandest
phase as _croustades de merluche fumée_. By the shores of the blue
Mediterranean, sardines are packed in tins that the delicate diner of
the far north may know pleasure's crown of pleasure in _canapé de
sardines diablées_. Caviar craves no more elaborate seasoning than
lemon juice and _paprika_ can give; herring roe sighs for devilled
biscuit as friendly resting-place. Shrimp and lobster vie with one
another for the honour either _bouchée_ or _canapé_ bestows. And ham
and tongue pray eagerly to be grated and transformed into bewildering
_croûtes_. The ever-willing mushroom refuses to be outsped in the
blessed contest, but murmurs audibly, "_Au gratin_ I am adorable;"
while the egg whispers, "Stuff me, and the roses and raptures are
yours!"
But what would the art of eating be without the egg? In two strange
and striking combinations it carries the savoury to the topmost rung
in the ladder of gastronomy. Its union with inexhaustible anchovy and
Bombay duck has for issue "Bombay toast," the very name whereof has
brought new hope to staid dons and earnest scholars. Pledged to
anchovies once more and butter and cream--Mormon-like in its choice of
many mates--it offers as result "Scotch woodcock," a challenge to fill
high the glass with Claret red and rare.
Endless is the stimulating list. For cannot the humble bloater be
pressed into service, and the modest cod? Do not many more vegetables
than spinach, that plays so strong a part in _Raviole à la Genoese_,
answer promptly when called upon for aid? And what of the gherkin?
What of the almond--the almond mingled with caviar and cayenne? And
what of this, that, and the other, and ingenious combinations by the
score? Be enterprising! Be original! And success awaits you.
INDISPENSABLE CHEESE
With bread and cheese and kisses for daily fare, life is held to be
perfect by the poet. But love may grow bitter before cheese loses its
savour. Therefore the wise, who value the pleasures of the table above
tender dalliance, put their faith in strong Limburger or fragrant
Brie, rather than in empty kisses. If only this lesson of wisdom could
be mastered by all men and women, how much less cruel life might be!
Nor is cheese without its poetry to comfort the hater of pure prose.
Once the "glory of fair Sicily," there must ever linger about it sweet
echoes of Sicilian song sung under the wild olives and beneath the
elms, where Theocritus "watched the visionary flocks." Did not "a
great white cream-cheese" buy that wondrous bowl--the "miracle of
varied work"--for which Thyrsis sang the pastoral song? Cheese-fed
were the shepherds who piped in the shadow of the ilex tree, while the
calves were dancing in the soft green grass; cheese-scented was the
breath of the fair maidens and beautiful youths they loved. Is there a
woman with soul so dead, who, when in a little country inn fresh
cheese is laid before her, cannot fancy that she sees the goats and
kids among the tamarisks of the sun-kissed Sicilian hills, and hears
the perfect voices of Daphnis and Menalcas, the two herdsmen "skilled
in song"?
Perhaps because cheese has been relegated to the last course at midday
breakfast, or at dinner, has it lost much of its charm for the
heedless. But who, indeed, playing with peach or orange at dessert,
knows the fruit's true flavour as well as he who plucks it fresh from
the tree while wandering through the peach orchards of Delaware or the
orange groves of Florida? Take a long walk over the moors and through
the heather, or cycle for hours along winding lanes, and then, at
noon, eat a lunch of bread and cheese, and--even without the
kisses--you will find in the frugal fare a godlike banquet. Time was
when bits cut from the huge carcase of a well-battered Cheddar, washed
down with foaming shandygaff, seemed more delicious far than the
choicest dishes at the Lapérouse or Voisin's. Memory journeys back
with joy to the fragrant, tough, little goat's cheese, with flask of
Chianti, set out upon the rough wooden table in front of some wayside
vine-trellised _albergo_, while traveller and cycle rested at the hour
when shade is most pleasant to men. How many a tramp, through the
valleys and over the passes of Switzerland, has been made the easier
by the substantial slice of good Gruyère and the cup of wine well
cooled in near snow-drifts! How many rides awheel through the pleasant
land of France have been the swifter for the Camembert and roll
devoured by the way!
Places and hours there are when cheese is best. But seldom is it
wholly unwelcome. From dinner, whatever may then be its limitations,
some think it must never be omitted. Remember, they say, as well a
woman with but one eye as a last course without cheese. But see that
you show sympathy and discretion in selecting the variety most in
harmony with your _menu_, or else the epicure's labours will indeed be
lost. It is not enough to visit the cheesemonger's, and to accept any
and every kind offered. The matter is one requiring time and thought
and long experience. You must understand the possibilities of each
cheese chosen, you must bear in mind the special requirements of each
meal prepared. Preposterous it would be truly to serve the
mild-flavoured plebeian species from Canada or America after a
carefully ordered dinner at Verrey's; wasteful, to use adorable Port
Salut or aromatic Rocquefort for a pudding or a Welsh rabbit.
Study gastronomic proprieties, cultivate your imagination, and as the
days follow each other fewer will be your mistakes. Heavy Stilton and
nutritious Cheddar, you will know, belong by right to undisguised
joint and irrepressible greens: to a "good old-fashioned English
dinner" they prove becoming accompaniments. Excellent they are, after
their fashion, to be honoured and respected; but something of the
seriousness and the stolidity of their native land has entered into
them, and to gayer, more frivolous moods they are as unsuited as a
sermon to a ballroom. If, however, to the joint you cling with
tenacity, and solemn Stilton be the cheese of your election, do not
fail to ripen it with port of the finest vintage or good old ale
gently poured into holes, here and there scooped out for the purpose,
and then filled once more with the cheese itself.
Strength, fierce in perfume and flavour alike, lies in Limburger, but
it is strength which demands not beef or mutton, but _wurst_ and
_sauerkraut_. Take it not home with you, unless you would place a
highly-scented barrier between yourself and your friends; but, in deep
thankfulness of heart, eat it after you have lunched well and heartily
in the Vienna Cafe, which overlooks Leicester Square, or in that other
which commands Mudie's and Oxford Street. And thanks will be deepened
a hundredfold if, while eating, you call for a long refreshing draught
of Munich beer.
Sweet, redolent of herbs, are gracious Gorgonzola, of which such
ribald tales are told by the irreverent, and royal Rocquefort, in its
silver wrapping; eaten after "the perfect dinner," each has merit
immeasurable--merit heightened by a glass of Beaune or Chambertin.
Then, too, is the hour for Port Salut, with its soothing suggestion
of monastic peace and contentment, alone a safeguard against
indigestion and other unspeakable horrors; if you respect your
appetite seek it nowhere save in the German _delicatessen_ shop, but
there order it with an easy conscience and confidence in the
white-coated, white-aproned ministering spirit at the counter. Thither
also turn for good Camembert; but, as you hope for pleasure in the
eating, be not too ready to accept the first box offered: test the
cheese within with sensitive finger, and value it according to its
softness, for an unripe Camembert, that crumbles at touch of the
knife, is deadlier far than all the seven deadly sins. It should be
soft and flowing almost as languid _Fromage de Brie_, indolent and
melting on its couch of straw. Beyond all cheese, Gruyère calls for
study and reflection, so many are the shams, by an unscrupulous market
furnished, in its place. As palely yellow as a Liberty scarf, as
riddled with holes as cellular cotton, it should be sweet as Port
Salut, and yet with a reserve of strength that makes it the rival of
Limburger.
But blessed among cheeses, a romance in itself, is the creamy, subtle
little _Suisse_, delectable as Dumas calls it. Soft and sweet as the
breath of spring, it belongs to the season of lilacs and love. Its
name evokes a vision of Paris, radiant in the Maytime, the long
avenues and boulevards all white and pink with blossoming
horse-chestnuts, the air heavy laden with the fragrance of flowers; a
vision of the accustomed corner in the old restaurant looking out upon
the Seine, and of the paternal waiter bearing the fresh _Suisse_ on
dainty green leaf. Life holds few such thrilling interludes! You may
eat it with salt, and think yourself old and wise; but why not be true
to the spirit of spring? Why not let yourself go a little, and, eating
your _Suisse_ with sugar, be young and foolish and unreasonably happy
again?
Authorities there be who rank the _Broccio_ of Corsica above the
_Suisse_, and credit it with delicious freshness and Virgilian
flavour. To taste it among its wild hills, then, would be well worth
the long journey to the island in the Mediterranean. In the meantime,
however, none need quarrel with _Suisse_. Hardly a country or district
in the world really that has not its own special cheese; he who would
discover them all and catalogue them must needs write a treatise on
geography.
But to eat cheese in its many varieties, with butter or salt or sugar,
as the case may be, and to think its mission thus fulfilled, would be
to underestimate its inexhaustible resources. Innumerable are the
masterpieces the culinary artist will make of it. In an omelet you
would pronounce it unsurpassable, so long as kind fate did not set
before you the consummate _Fondue_. As a pudding you would declare it
not to be approached, if sometimes crisp cheese straws were not served
with dinner's last course. On an ocean voyage, Welsh-rabbit late at
night will seem to you the marvel of marvels; on a railway journey a
cheese sandwich at noon you will think still more miraculous--but let
the sandwich be made of brown bread, and mix butter and mustard and
anchovies with the cheese. The wonders that may be worked with
Parmesan alone--whether in conjunction with _macaroni_, or soup, or
cauliflower, or many a dish beside--would be eloquent text for a new
chapter.
A STUDY IN GREEN AND RED
You may search from end to end of the vast Louvre; you may wander from
room to room in England's National Gallery; you may travel to the
Pitti, to the Ryks Museum, to the Prado; and no richer, more stirring
arrangement of colour will you find than in that corner of your
kitchen garden where June's strawberries grow ripe. From under the
green of broad leaves the red fruit looks out and up to the sun in
splendour unsurpassed by paint upon canvas. And the country, with
lavish prodigality born of great plenty, takes pity upon the drear,
drab town, and, packing this glory of colour in baskets and crates,
despatches it to adorn greengrocer's window and costermonger's cart.
"Strawberries all ripe, sixpence a pound," is the itinerant sign which
now sends a thrill through Fleet Street and brings joy to the Strand.
To modern weakling the strawberry is strong with the strength of
classical approval. The Greek loved it; the Latin vied with him in the
ardour of his affection. Poets sang its wonders and immortalised its
charms. Its perfume was sweet in the nostrils of Virgil; its flavour
enraptured the palate of Ovid; and at banquets under the shadow of the
Acropolis and on sunny Pincian Hill, the strawberry, cultivated and
wild, held place of honour among the dear fruits of the earth.
Nor did it disappear before the barbarian's inroads. Europe might be
laid waste; beauty and learning and art might be aliens in the land
that was once their home; human enjoyment might centre upon a
millennium to come rather than upon delights already warm within men's
grasp. But still the strawberry survived. Life grew ugly and rue and
barren. But from under broad leaves the little red fruit still looked
out and up to the sun; and, by loveliness of colour and form, of
flavour and scent, proved one of the chief factors in reclaiming man
from barbarism, in leading him gently along the high road to
civilisation and the joy of life.
Respect for its exquisite perfection was ever deep and heartfelt.
Gooseberries might be turned to wine and figure as fools; raspberries
and currants might be imprisoned within stodgy puddings. But the
strawberry, giver of health, creator of pleasure, seldom was submitted
to desecration by fire. As it ripened, thus was it eaten: cool,
scarlet, and adorable. At times when, according to the shifting of the
seasons, its presence no longer made glad the hearts of its lovers,
desire invented a substitute. As the deserted swain takes what cold
comfort he can from the portrait of his mistress, so the faithful
stayed themselves with the strawberry's counterfeit. And thus was it
made: "Take the paste of Massepain, and roul it in your hands in form
of a Strawberry, then wet it in the juice of Barberries or red
Gooseberries, turn them about in this juice pretty hard, then take
them out and put them into a dish and dry them before a fire, then wet
them again for three or four times together in the same juice, and
they will seem like perfect Strawberries." Master Cook Giles Rose is
the authority, and none knew better.
If, in moment of folly, in an effort to escape monotony, however
sweet, the strawberry was robbed of its freshness, it was that it
might be enclosed in a tart. Then--how account for man's
inconsistency?--it was so disguised, so modified by this, that, or the
other companion in misery, that it seemed less a strawberry than ever
Master Rose's ingenious counterfeit. And, in witness thereof, read
Robert May, the Accomplished Cook, his recipe: "Wash the strawberries
and put them into the tart; season them with cinnamon, ginger, and a
little red wine, then put on the sugar, bake it half an hour, ice it,
scrape on sugar, and serve it." A pretty mess, in truth, and yet, for
sentiment's sake, worth repetition in this degenerate latter day.
Queen Anne preserved the tradition of her Stuart forefathers, and in
"The Queen's Royal Cooker," a little book graced by the Royal
portrait, Robert May's tart reappears, cinnamon, ginger, and all. So
it was handed down from generation to generation, cropping up here and
there with mild persistency, and now at last, after long career of
unpopularity, receiving distinction anew.
One tart in a season, as tribute to the past, will suffice. It were a
shame to defile the delicate fruit in more unstinted quantities.
Reserve it rather for dessert, that in fragile porcelain dish or frail
glass bowl it may lose nothing of the fragrance and crispness and glow
of colour that distinguished it as it lay upon the brown earth under
cool green shelter. To let it retain unto the very last its little
green stem is to lend to dinner or breakfast table the same stirring,
splendid harmony that lit up, as with a flame, the kitchen garden's
memorable corner. But if with cream the fruit is to be eaten, then
comfort and elegance insist upon green stem's removal before ever the
bowl be filled or the dish receive its dainty burden.
At early "little breakfast" of coffee and rolls, or tea and toast, as
you will, what more delicious, what fresher beginning to the day's
heat and struggles, then the plate of strawberries newly picked from
their bed? Banish cream and sugar from this initiative meal. At the
dawn of daily duty and pleasure, food should be light and airy and
unsubstantial. Then the stem, clinging fast to the fruit's luscious
flesh, is surely in place. Half the delight is in plucking the berry
from the plate as if from the bush.
After midday breakfast, after evening dinner, however, it is another
matter. Cream now is in order; cream, thick and sweet and pure,
covering the departing strawberry with a white pall, as loving and
tender as the snow that protects desolate pastures and defenceless
slopes from winter's icy, inexorable fingers. Sprinkle sugar with the
cream, as flowers might be strewn before the altars of Dionysius and
Demeter.
Cream may, for time being, seem wholly without rivals as the
strawberry's mate, the two joined together by a bond that no man would
dare put asunder. But the strawberry has been proven fickle in its
loves--a very Cressida among fruits. For to Kirsch it offers ecstatic
welcome, while Champagne meets with no less riotous greeting. To
Cognac it will dispense its favours with easy graciousness, and from
the hot embrace of Maraschino it makes no endeavour to escape. Now, it
may seem as simple and guileless as Chloe, and again as wily and
well-versed as Egypt's far-famed Queen. But with the results of its
several unions who will dare find fault? In each it reveals new,
unsuspecting qualities, subtle and ravishing. On pretty, white-draped
tea-table, rose-embowered, carnation-scented, the strawberry figures
to fairest advantage when Champagne holds it in thrall; in this hour
and bower cream would savour of undue heaviness, would reveal itself
all too substantial and palpable a lover. Again, when elaborate dinner
draws to an end, and dessert follows upon long procession of soup and
fish and _entrées_ and roasts and vegetables and salads and poultry
and sweets and savouries, and who knows what--then the strawberry
becomes most irresistible upon yielding itself, a willing victim, to
the bold demands of Kirsch. A _macédoine_ of Kirsch-drowned
strawberries, iced to a point, is a dish for which gods might languish
without shame.
She who loves justice never fears to tell the whole truth and nothing
but the truth. To cook the strawberry is to rob it of its sweetest
bloom and freshness. But there have been others to think otherwise, as
it must in fairness be added. To the American, strawberry short-cake
represents one of the summits of earthly bliss. In ices, many will see
the little fruit buried without a pang of regret; and the device has
its merits. As syrup, distended with soda-water and ice-cream, the
conservative Londoner may now drink it at Fuller's. In the flat, open,
national tart, the Frenchman places it, and congratulates himself upon
the work of art which is the outcome. Or, accepting Gouffé as master,
he will soar, one day, to the extraordinary heights of _coupe en
nougat garnie de fraises_, and find a flamboyant colour-print to serve
as guide; the next he will descend to the mere homeliness of _beignets
de fraises_; and, as he waxes more adventurous, he will produce
_bouchées de dame_, or _pain à la duchesse_, _madeleines en surprise_
or _profiteroles_, each and all with the strawberry for motive. The
spirit of enterprise is to be commended, and not one of Gouffé's list
but will repay the student in wealth of experience gained. The lover,
however, finds it not always easy to remember the student within him,
and if joy in the eating be his chief ambition, he will be constant to
the fresh fruit ever.
A MESSAGE FROM THE SOUTH
What know we of the orange in our barbarous North? To us it is an
alien, a makeshift, that answers well when, our own harvests over,
winter, sterile and gloomy, settles upon the land. But in the joyous
South all the year round it ripens, its golden liquid a solace when
heat and dust parch the throat, as when winds from the frozen North
blow with unwonted cold. The tree that bears it is as eager to produce
as the mothers of Israel, and, in its haste and impatience, often it
whitens its branches with blossoms while still they glow with fruit,
even as Beckford long since saw them in the groves of Naples.
Bright, rich colour the costermonger's barrow, piled high with oranges
from distant Southern shores, gives to London's dingy streets; and not
a greengrocer's window but takes on new beauty and resplendence when
decorated by the brilliant heaps. But meretricious seems the
loveliness of the orange here, when once it has been seen hanging from
heavy-laden boughs, gleaming between cool dark leaves in its own home,
whether on Guadalquivir's banks or Naples' bay, whether in western
Florida or eastern Jaffa. What has a fruit that languishes in the
garden of Lindajara and basks in Amalfi's sunshine, to do with London
costermongers and fog-drenched shops?
Wearied and jaded by the long journey, disheartened by the injustice
done to it when plucked in its young, green immaturity, it grows sour
and bitter by the way, until, when it comes to the country of its
exile, but a faint, feeble suggestion of its original flavour remains.
With us, for instance, does not the orange of Valencia mean a little,
thin-skinned, acid, miserable fruit, only endurable when smothered in
sugar or drowned in Cognac? But eaten in Valencia, what is it then and
there? Large and ample are its seductive proportions; its skin,
deeply, gloriously golden, forswears all meagreness, though never too
thick to shut out the mellowing sunshine; its juice flows in splendid
streams as if to vie with the Sierra's quenchless springs; and the
fruit is soft and sweet as the sweet, soft Southern maidens whose
white teeth meet and gleam in its pulp of pure, uncontaminated gold. A
fruit this for romance--a fruit for the Houris of Paradise; not to be
peddled about in brutal barrows among feather-bearing 'Arriets.
In the South, it were a crime not to eat this fruit, created for the
immortals, just as God made it. Sugar could be added but to its
dishonour; the pots and pans of the sacrilegious cook would be
desecration unspeakable. Feast then, upon its natural charms, and as
the hot Southern breeze brings to you the scent of strange Southern
blossoms, and the sky stretches blindingly blue above, and _One_ sits
at your side feasting in silent sympathy, fancy yourself, if you will,
the new Adam--or Eve--for whom the flaming swords have been lowered,
and the long-closed gates of the Garden of Eden thrown wide open.
But in the North, banish romance, banish imagination; bring to the
study of the orange the prose of necessity, and realism of the
earnest student. And sometimes, from prose--who knows?--poetry may
spring; from realism will be evolved wild dreaming.
If the orange be from Jaffa, or "hail" from Florida, and care bestowed
upon it during its long voyaging, then will it need no Northern
artifice to enhance the pleasure in its power to give. True that
something--much, indeed--it will have lost; but something of its
Southern, spicy, subtle sweetness still survives--of the Orient's
glamour, of the mystery of the Western wilderness of flower and fruit.
Eat it, therefore, as it is, unadorned, unspoiled. Tear away tenderly
the covering that cleaves to it so closely; tear the fruit apart with
intelligent fingers; to cut it is to sacrifice its cooling juice to
inanimate china, and to deprive yourself of the first freshness of its
charms.
When, however, as generally--to our sorrow, be it said--the orange
arrives a parody of itself, it were better to join it to one of its
several dearest affinities. In well-selected company, it may recover
the shadow, and more, of the splendour it elsewhere enjoys in solitary
state. Thus disguised, it may wander from dessert to the course of
sweets, and by so wandering save the resourceless from the monotony of
rice and rizine, batter and bread-and-butter puddings, whose fitting
realm is the nursery, and from an eternity of tarts which do not, like
a good design, gain by repetition. In cocoanut, the orange recognises
a fellow exile, and the two, coming together, yield a new flavour, a
new delight. For this purpose, the orange must be cut that the juice
may flow, and if in symmetrical rounds, the effect will be more
satisfying to the critical. Let the slices be laid at once in the bowl
destined to hold them at the moment of serving, that not a drop of
juice may escape, and arrange them so that over every layer of orange
reposes a layer of sugar. Then taking the cocoanut that has been well
drained, grate it as fine as patience will allow; under it bury the
orange until the gold is all concealed, and the dish looks white and
light and soft as the driven snow. No harm will be done, but, on the
contrary, much good, by preparing some hours before dinner. It is a
pretty conceit; half unwillingly the spoon disturbs this summery
snow-field. But well that it does, for the combination pleases the
palate no less than the eye. The orange summons forth the most
excellent qualities of the cocoanut; the cocoanut suppresses the
acidity and crudeness of the expatriated orange.
With sugar alone, the orange--of this secondary order be it
remembered--comes not amiss, when the soul yearns for placidness and
peace. If more stirring sensations be craved, baste the cut-up oranges
and sugar with Cognac, and eat to your own edification. Again prepare
some hours before serving, and be not stingy with the Cognac: keep
basting constantly; and be certain that if the result please you not,
the fault lies not with the fruit and spirits, both exultant in the
unexpected union.
The conservative, unused to such devices, envelop oranges in soulless
fritters and imprison them in stodgy puddings. Beware their example!
One followed, there is no telling the depths of plodding imbecility to
which you may be plunged. Not for the frying-pan or the pudding-bowl
was the golden fruit predestined. Better eat no sweets whatever than
thus degrade the orange and reveal our own shortcomings.
Who will deny that in the world's great drinks the orange has played
its part with much distinction? In bitters it is supreme, if gin in
due proportions be added. And where would mankind be by now, had the
orange-evolved liqueurs remained undiscovered? How many happy
after-dinner hours would never have been! How insipid the flavour of
Claret and Champagne-cup! Even temperance drinks may be endured when
orange is their basis. Go to Madrid or Granada, drink _bebida helada
de naranja_, and confess that in Spain the teetotallers, if any such
exist, have their compensation. A _purée neigeuse, une espèce de glace
liquide_, Gautier described it in a moment of expansion; and, when art
is in question, what Gautier has praised who would revile? With the
Spanish _bebida de naranja_, the American orange water ice may dispute
the palm.
In humbler incarnation it appears as marmalade, without which the
well-regulated household can do as little as without sapolio or
Reckitt's blue. Who throughout the British Isles does not know the
name of Keiller? Bread and butter might better go than this most
British of British institutions, the country's stay and support in
time of peace, its bulwark when war drives Tommy Atkins into action.
Thus has the North turned the South to its own everyday uses, and the
fruit of poets passes into the food of millions.
In fruit salad, orange should be given a leading and conspicuous rôle,
the aromatic little Tangerine competing gaily and guilelessly with the
ordinary orange of commerce. There is scarce another fruit that grows
with which it does not assimilate, with which it does not mingle, to
the infinite advantage of the ardent _gourmet_. This, none knows
better than the Spaniard, slandered sorely when reported a barbarian
at table. If some of his refinements we could but imitate, artists
truly we might be considered. He it is who first thought to pour upon
his strawberries, not thick cream, but the delicate juice of the
orange freshly cut. Here is a combination beyond compare; and is there
not many another that might be tested as profitably? Orange and
apricot, orange and plum, orange and peach. Experiment; for even
where failure follows, will not a new sensation have been secured? The
failure need never be repeated. But to each new success will be
awarded life eternal.
ENCHANTING COFFEE
A perfectly wise man is he who is fully expert and skilful in the true
use of sensualities, as in all other duties belonging to life. In the
household where wisdom rules, dinner, from savoury _hors d'oeuvre_ to
aromatic coffee, will be without reproach--or suspicion. The foolish
devote their powers to this course or that, and in one supreme but
ill-advised endeavour exhaust their every resource. Invention carries
them no further than the soul; even discreet imitation cannot pilot
them beyond the _entrée_. With each succeeding dish their folly
becomes more obvious, until it culminates in the coffee, which,
instead of the divine elixir it should be, proves but a vile,
degrading concoction of chicory. Here is the chief among gastronomic
tests; the hostess who knows not how to prepare a cup of coffee that
will bring new light to her guests' eyes, new gaiety to their talk, is
not worthy to receive them; the guest, who does not know good coffee
when it is set before him deserves to be cast into outer darkness and
fed for evermore upon brimstone and treacle. Better far throw pearls
before swine, than pour good coffee into the cups of the indifferent.
The sympathies of the gourmand are all for the mighty ones of old--for
an Epicurus in Greece, a Lucullus in Rome--to whom the gods had not
yet given the greatest of their gifts, coffee. Sad indeed the banquet,
dreamy the evening uncheered, unblessed by fragrant Mocha or mild
Mysore. Poor mortals still stood without the gates of Paradise, never
once foreseeing the exquisite joys to come, unconscious of the penalty
they paid for living so much too soon. And while they thus dwelt in
sorrowful ignorance, shepherds, leading their flocks through sweet
pasture-land, paused in their happy singing to note that the little
kids and lambs, and even staid goats and sheep, waxed friskier and
merrier, and frolicked with all the more light-hearted abandonment
after they had browsed upon a certain berry-bearing bush. Thyme and
lavender, mint and marjoram, never thus got into their little legs,
and sent them flying off on such jolly rambles and led them into such
unseemly antics. And the shepherds, no doubt, plucked the berry and
tasted it, and found it good. And one day--who knows how?--by chance,
they roasted it, and the fragrance was as incense in their nostrils.
And then, another time they pounded it, and, it may be by merest
accident, it fell into the water boiling over the fire for their
midday meal. And thus, first, coffee was made.
To Abyssinia, otherwise an unknown factor in the history of good
living, belongs the credit of producing the first coffee-drinkers. All
honour where honour is due. The debt of the modern to Greece and Rome
is smaller far than to that remote country which not one man in ten,
to whom coffee is a daily necessity, could point out upon the map.
Arabs, wandering hither and thither, came to Abyssinia as they
journeyed, and there drank the good drink and rejoiced. Among them
were pious Moslems, who at times nodded over prayers, and, yawning
pitifully as texts were murmured by lazy lips, knew that damnation
must be their doom unless sleep were banished from their heavy eyes
at prayer time. And to them as to the sheep and lambs, as to the goats
and kids, the wonder-working berry brought wakefulness and gaiety. And
into Arabia the Happy, they carried it in triumph, and coffee was
drunk not for temporal pleasure but for spiritual uses. It kept
worshippers awake and alert for the greater glory of Allah, and the
faithful accepted it with praise and thanksgiving.
But, again, like the flocks in Abyssinian pastures, it made them too
alert, it seems. After coffee, prayer grew frolicsome, and a faction
arose to call it an intoxicant, to declare the drinking of it a sin
against the Koran. Schisms followed, and heresies, and evils dire and
manifold. But coffee fought a good fight against its enemies and its
detractors; and from Arabia it passed to Constantinople, from Turkey
to England, and so on from country to country, until in the end there
was not one in Europe, or in the New World (which men had not then so
long discovered), but had welcomed the berry that clears the clouded
brain and stimulates the jaded body.
To all men its finest secrets have not been revealed. Dishonoured by
many it has been and still is. Unspeakable liquids, some thick and
muddy, others thin and pale, borrow its name with an assurance and
insolence that fool the ignorant. Chicory arrogantly and
unscrupulously pretends to compete with it, and the thoughtless are
deceived, and go their way through life obdurate and unrepentant,
deliberately blinding themselves to the truth. Others understand not
the hour and the place, and order it at strange moments and for
stranger functions. Americans there be who, from thick, heavy, odious
cups, drink it, plentifully weakened with milk, as the one proper and
fit accompaniment for dinner; a spoonful of coffee follows a spoonful
of soup; another is prelude to the joint; a second cup poisons the
sweet. On the other hand, be it admitted in fairness, no coffee is
purer and better than that of the American who has not fallen into
such mistaken courses. And he who doubts should, without delay, drop
in at Fuller's in Regent Street, or the Strand, where to taste is to
believe.
In the afternoon, plump German matrons and maids gather about the
coffee-pot, and fancy, poor souls! that they, of all womankind, are
most discriminating in their choice of time and opportunity. Gossip
flows smoothly on; household matters are placidly discussed; and the
one and only end of coffee remains for them, now and always, unknown
and unsuspected. In their blameless innocence and guileless
confidence, may they have whatever happiness belongs by right to the
race of humble and unaspiring housewives.
In England the spurious is preferred to the genuine; and rare, indeed,
is the house or restaurant, the hotel or lodgings, where good coffee
is the portion of blundering humanity. Over the barbarous depths into
which the soul-inspiriting berry has been dragged in unhappy Albion,
it is kinder to draw a veil.
But in the inscrutable East, the cradle of mysticism, where no problem
discourages earnest seekers after truth, coffee may yet be had in full
perfection. In the West, France is not without her children of light,
and in the tall glass of the _café_ or the deep bowl of the _auberge_
coffee sometimes is not unworthy of the name, though chicory, the
base, now threatens its ruin. However, Austria, nearer to the
mother-country, makes the coffee of France seem but a paltry
imitation, so delicious is the beautiful brown liquid, flowing in rich
perennial streams in every _café_, gilded or more modest. And yet
Austria, in her turn, is eclipsed, wholly and completely, by the home
of Attila and Kossuth. Drink, if only once, coffee on the banks of the
Danube, while gipsies "play divinely into your ear," and life will
never more seem quite so meaningless.
It is not easy to understand why the multitude continue content with a
bad substitute when the thing itself, in all its strength and
sweetness, may be had for the asking. A little knowledge, a trifle
more experience, and good coffee may be the solace and stimulus of the
honest Briton, as of the wily Turk, the wandering Arab, and the fierce
Magyar.
Know then, first, that your coffee berries must be pure and
unadulterated. Turn a deaf ear to the tempter who urges economy and
promises additional flavour. Against chicory, protest cannot be too
urgent or violent. It is poison, rank and deadly. The liver it
attacks, the nerves it destroys, and the digestion it disorganises
hopelessly, disastrously. To the well-trained palate it is coarse
beyond redemption. The fictitious air of strength it lends to the
after-dinner cup delights the ignorant and saddens the wise. But why
waste too recklessly good paper and type upon so degrading a topic?
Why not say once and for all that chicory is impossible and revolting,
an insult to the epicure, a cruel trial to the sybarite, a crime to
the artist? Renounce it before it is too late, and put your trust in
the undrugged berries from Arabia or Brazil, from Java or Porto Rico.
Mocha is irreproachable, though it loses nothing when blended with
Java or Mysore.
As the painter mixes his colours upon his palette until the right tint
springs into being, so, if in befitting humility and patience, you
blend coffee with coffee, know that, the day is at hand when the
perfect flavour will be born of the perfect union. From venturing to
recommend one harmony above all others, the most daring would refrain;
Mocha and Java might inspire hymns of praise in Paradise; and yet
many _gourmets_ would yearn for a keener, stronger aroma, many sigh
for a subtler. As in matters of love, for yourself must you choose and
decide.
Sacrilegious indeed it were if, after infinite trouble and tender care
in your choice, you delivered the blend of your heart to the
indifferent roasting pans, or cylinders, of any chance grocer. Roast
it yourself, so that the sweet savour thereof fills your house with
delicious memories of the Eastern bazaar and the Italian _piazza_.
Roast it in small quantities, no more at a time than may be needed for
the "little breakfast," or the after-dinner cup. And roast it fresh
for each meal. Be not led astray by the indolent and heedless who
prize the saving of labour above the pleasures of drink, and, without
a blush of shame, would send you to a shop to buy your berries
roasted. The elect listen not to the tempting of the profane. In a
saucepan, with lid, may the all-important deed be done. Or else a
vessel shaped for the solemn rite may be bought. But whichever be
used, let your undivided attention direct the process; else the
berries will be burnt. A small piece of pure, irreproachable butter in
the pan or "drum" will prove a friendly ally. While still hot, place
the brown berries--carefully separating those done to a turn from the
over-burnt, if any such there be--in the expectant mill, and grind at
once.
If much depend upon the roasting, no less is the responsibility that
rests with the grinding. The working of the mill, soft and low as
heard from afar, makes most musical accompaniment to dinner's later
courses. It is guarantee of excellence, certificate of merit. Thus
trusted to the mill, when time presses, none of the coffee's essence
can escape, none of its aroma. And there is art in the grinding:
ground exceeding small it may answer for boiling, but not for
filtering or dripping; and so be wary. If picturesqueness of
preparation have charms for you, then discard the mill and, vying with
the Turks, crush the berries in a mortar with a wooden crusher. The
difference in results, though counted vast by the pedant, in truth
exists not save in the imagination.
And now collect your thoughts in all seriousness and reverence, for
the supreme moment has come. The berries are roasted and ground: the
coffee is to be made! And how? That's the problem to the Englishwoman
to whom good coffee is a mystery as unfathomable as original sin or
papal infallibility. How? By a process so ridiculously easy as to be
laughed to scorn by the complex modern. In all art it is the
same--simplicity, the fruit of knowledge and experience, is a virtue
beyond compare. But poor blind humans, groping after would-be ideals,
seek the complicated, mistaking it to be the artistic. Arguing then,
from their own foolish standpoint, they invent strange and weird
machines in which they hope to manufacture perfection; coffee-pots,
globular in shape, which must be turned suddenly, swiftly, surely, at
the critical instant, else will love's labour all be lost;
coffee-pots, with glass tubes up which the brown liquid rushes, then
falls again, a Niagara in miniature; coffee-pots with accommodating
whistles blowing shrill warning to the slothful; coffee-pots that
explode, bomb-like, at the slightest provocation; coffee-pots that
splutter, overflow, burst, get out of order, and, in a word, do
everything that is dreadful and unseemly. Of these, one and all, fight
shy. Coffee calls not for a practical engineer to run the machine.
In three ways, so simple a child may understand, so perfect a god
might marvel, can the delectable drink, that gives wakefulness and a
clear brain, be made. In the first place, in ordinary pot, it may be
boiled, allowing a tablespoonful of the ground berries to a cup of
water, taking the pot off the fire, once the beautiful, seductive
brown froth is formed on the top, pouring in a small teaspoonful of
water that the grounds may settle; serve without delay, linger over it
lovingly, and then go forth gaily to conquer and rejoice.
In the second place--more to be commended--use a _cafétière_, or
filter of tin or earthenware, the latter by preference. Place the
coffee, ground not too fine, and in the same proportions, in the upper
compartment. Pour in slowly water that is just at the boiling point, a
little only at a time, keeping the kettle always on the fire that the
all-important boiling point may not be lost, and let the water filter
or drip slowly through the grounds spread in a neat layer. Some there
be who stand the pot or lower compartment in a pan of boiling water,
and they have reason with them. Others who, when all the water has
passed through to the pot below, set it to filtering, or dripping, a
second time, and they are not wholly wrong. But of all things, be
careful that the coffee does not cool in the process. Of life's many
abominations, lukewarm coffee is the most abominable.
The third of the three ways yields Turkish coffee. The special pots
for the purpose, with their open tops and long handles, are to be
found in one or more large Regent-street and Oxford-street shops. Get
the proper vessel, since it answers best, and is, however, a pleasure
to the eye, a stimulus to the imagination of all who at one happy
period of their lives have dwelt in Turkey or neighbouring lands. Now,
grind your coffee finer, but be faithful to the same proportions. Into
the water drop first the sugar, measuring it according to your taste
or mood, or leaving it out altogether if its sweetness offend you. Put
your pot on the fire, and when the water is boiling merrily, drop in
the coffee. To a boil, as kitchen slang has it, let it come, but gay
bubbles on its surface must be signal to lift off the pot; put it on
the fire again, almost at once, remove it bubbling a second time, put
it on again, and again remove it. This device repeated thrice will be
enough, though a fourth repetition can do no harm. A teaspoonful of
cold water will compel unruly grounds to settle. Pour the thick, rich,
brown liquid, as it breaks into beautiful yellow froth on the top,
into the daintiest cups your cupboard holds, and drink it and
happiness together.
To add cream or milk to Turkish coffee would be a crime; nor must more
sugar be dropped into its fragrant, luscious depths. Ordinary
after-dinner coffee should also be drunk without cream or milk, if
pleasure be the drinker's end. Indeed, a question it is whether it be
ever wise to dilute or thicken coffee and tea with milk, however well
boiled, with cream, however fresh. The flavour is destroyed, the aroma
weakened. But black coffee with breakfast would mean to begin the day
at too high a state of pressure, in undue exhilaration of spirits. To
speak honestly, coffee is no less a mistake in the morning hours than
Whisky-and-soda or Absinthe. But custom has sanctioned it; it has
become a bad habit from one end of the Continent to the other, in
innumerable otherwise wholly decorous British households. But slaves
of habit should wear their chains so that there is as little friction
and chafing as possible. Therefore, make your morning coffee strong
and aromatic and pure as if destined for after-dinner delights: but
pour into it much milk; half and half would prove proportions within
reason. Not out of the way is it to borrow a hint from provincial
France and serve _café-au-lait_ in great bowls, thus tacitly placing
it forever on a plane apart from _café noir_. Or else, borrow wisdom
from wily Magyar and frivolous Austrian, and exquisite, dainty,
decorative whipped cream heap up high on the surface of the morning
cup. Take train to-morrow for Budapest; haunt its _cafés_ and
kiosques, from the stately Reuter to the Danube-commanding Hungaria;
study their methods with diligence and sincerity; and then, if there
be a spark of benevolence within you, return to preach the glad
gospel of good coffee to the heathen at home. A hero you would be,
worthy countryman of Nelson and of Wellington; and thus surely should
you win for yourself fame, and a niche in Westminster Abbey.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Minor spelling inconsistencies, mainly hyphenated and accented
words, have been made consistent.
St. Estéphe changed to St. Estèphe.
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