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Title: The Cult of the Chafing Dish
Author: Frank Schloesser
Release date: May 7, 2024 [eBook #73560]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Gay and Bird, 1904
Credits: Alan, Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CULT OF THE CHAFING DISH ***
THE CULT OF THE
CHAFING DISH
“What does cookery mean? It means the knowledge of Medea, and of
Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen
of Sheba. It means knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and
spices, and of all that is healing and sweet in groves, and savoury
in meat. It means carefulness and inventiveness, watchfulness,
willingness, and readiness of appliances. It means the economy of your
Great-grandmother, and the Science of modern chemistry, and French
art, and Arabian hospitality. It means, in fine, that you are to see
imperatively that every one has something nice to eat.”
RUSKIN
THE·CULT·
OF·THE·
CHAFING·
DISH·
BY·
FRANK·
SCHLOESSER·
LONDON
GAY·AND·BIRD
1905
_Published_ _May 1904_
_Second Edition_ _March 1905_
_To_
THE ONLY WOMAN
WHO COULD TURN
ME FROM
BACHELORDOM
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. The Chafing Dish 1
II. Preliminaries 19
III. Soups 38
IV. Fish 54
V. Flesh and Fowl 79
VI. Vegetables and Salads 108
VII. Eggs and Savouries 138
VIII. Sauces 159
IX. Sweets and Oddments 177
X. Amenities of the Table 192
Index 207
[Illustration: THE·CULT· OF·THE· CHAFING DISH ···
CHAPTER·1·
THE·CHAFING·DISH]
“There does not at this blessed moment breathe on the Earth’s surface
a human being that willna prefer eating and drinking to all ither
pleasures o’ body or soul.”--THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.
Every bachelor has a wife of some sort. Mine is a Chafing Dish; and I
desire to sing her praises.
My better half--I love to call her Chaffinda, and to dwell upon the
doubled consonant--is a nickel-plated dish on a wrought-iron stand,
with a simple spirit-lamp wherewith to keep herself warm. I bought her
at Harrod’s Stores for twelve shillings and ninepence--and she has
sisters.
It has been borne in upon me that many quite nice folk may be glad to
learn something of the possibilities of Chaffinda. Whether married or
single, there are moments in the life of nearly every man and woman
when the need of a quick, hot, and light little meal is worth much fine
gold. To such I would politely address myself.
The ordinary domestic cook is a tireless enemy of the Chafing Dish.
She calls it “fiddle-faddle.” Maybe. But inasmuch as it is clean,
economical, speedy and rather simple, it would naturally not appeal to
her peculiar sense of the culinary art.
To bachelors, male and female, in chambers, lodgings, diggings,
and the like, in fact to all who “batch”; to young couples with a
taste for theatres, concerts, and homely late suppers; to yachtsmen,
shooting-parties, and picnickers; to inventive artists who yearn for
fame in the evolution of a new entrée; to invalids, night workers,
actors and stockbrokers, the Chafing Dish is a welcome friend and
companion.
It has its limitations, of course, but they are few and immaterial,
and its obvious advantages and conveniences far outweigh its trivial
drawbacks. At the same time it must be remembered that it is a serious
cooking apparatus, and by no means a mere toy.
It is quite erroneous to imagine that the Chafing Dish is an American
invention. Nothing of the sort. The earliest trace of it is more
than a quarter of a thousand years old. “Le Cuisinier Français,” by
Sieur François Pierre de la Varenne, Escuyer de Cuisine de Monsieur
le Marquis d’Uxelles, published in Paris in 1652, contains a recipe
for _Champignons à l’Olivier_, in which the use of a _Réchaut_ is
recommended. A translation of this work, termed “The French Cook,” was
published in London in 1653, and the selfsame recipe of _Mushrooms
after the Oliver_ contains the injunction to use a Chafing Dish;
moreover, the frontispiece, a charmingly executed drawing, shows a
man-cook in his kitchen, surrounded by the implements of his art; and
on the table a Chafing Dish, much akin to our latter-day variety, is
burning merrily. This was in 1653. The _Mayflower_ sailed in 1620.
So much for the antiquity of the Chafing Dish. At the same time our
mitigated thanks are due to America for its comparatively recent
reintroduction, for until quite lately, in Great Britain, its use was
practically limited to the cooking of cheese on the table. The Chafing
Dish is much esteemed across the Atlantic, although one is forced to
admit that it is sometimes put to base uses in the concoction of unholy
stews, which have not the natural flavour of fish, flesh or fowl, or
even good red herring. Still, if the Americans are vague in their
French nomenclature, unorthodox in their sauces, eclectic in their
flavourings, and over-lavish in their condiments, yet they have at any
rate brought parlour cooking to a point where it may gracefully be
accepted as an added pleasure to life.
When two or three are gathered together, and one mentions the magic
word “Chafing Dish,” the second invariably chimes in with “Welsh
Rabbit.” This is an error of taste, but excusable in the circumstances.
Chafing Dishes were not created for the exclusive canonisation of
Welsh Rabbits, although a deft hand may occasionally play with one in
a lightsome mood. There are other and better uses. All the same, a
fragrant and delicate Rabbit is not to be despised, although it must
not be made conceited by too great an elevation into the realms of high
cookery.
My Chaffinda has at least seventeen hundred and four different charms,
therein somewhat exceeding the average number appertaining to her sex,
but it would require volumes to mention them separately, and it must
suffice to indicate roughly a few of the more prominent.
I suppose that every nation has the cooks that it deserves, and, if
this be accepted as an axiom, the general degeneration of the Plain
Cook of the middle classes amply accounts for the growing cult of the
Chafing Dish. The British school of cookery, in its mediocre form, is
monotony exemplified. Too many broths spoil the cook; and hence we
derive our dull sameness of roast and boiled.
Sweet are the juices of diversity, and whilst there is no reason for
the Chafer to elaborate a sauce of thirteen ingredients, the cunning
manipulation of three or four common articles of the domestic
store-cupboard will often give (intentionally or otherwise) surprising
results. This I shall hope to explain more fully later on.
Imagination and a due sense of proportion are as necessary in cooking
as in any other art--more so than in some, for Impressionism in the
kitchen simply means indigestion. Digestion is the business of the
human interior, indigestion that of the doctor. It is so easy to cook
indigestible things that a savoury cunningly concocted of Bismuth and
Pepsine would seem an almost necessary adjunct to the menu (or _Carte
Dinatoire_, as the French Revolutionists called it) of the budding
Chafist.
But the demon of indigestion may easily be exorcised with a little care
and thought. Three great apothegms should be borne in mind. Imprimis:
Never worry your food; let it cook out its own salvation. Item: Use as
few highly spiced condiments as possible; and, lastly, keep to natural
flavours, juices, and sauces.
Much modern depravity, for instance, I attribute to the unholy cult of
Mayonnaise (or Mahonnaise, or Bayonnaise, or Magnonaise, according
to different culinary authorities). At its best it is simply a saucy
disguise to an innocent salmon or martial lobster, reminding the
clean-palated of an old actor painted up to look young. I once knew a
man who proposed to a girl at a dance-supper simply because he could
not think of anything else to say, and suddenly discovered that they
both hated Mayonnaise. I have no reason to suppose that they are
unhappy.
At the same time I am in no wise against trying new dishes, new
combinations of subtle flavours, if they do not obliterate the true
taste of the basis. An experimental evening with Chaffinda, when
one is not sure how things are going to turn out, is, I find, most
exhilarating, and a sure cure for the blues. But I am fain to admit
that on such occasions I always provide a chunk of Benoist pressed beef
as a stand-by in case of emergency.
There is nothing final about the Chafing Dish.
Another point about having a wife in the shape of a Chafing Dish is
somewhat delicate to explain. Coarsely indicated, it amounts to this.
Continuous intercourse with such a delicious, handy and resourceful
helpmeet tends to a certain politeness in little things, a dainty
courtesy which could not be engendered by the constant companionship of
a common kitchen-range. Chafing-Dish cookery bears the same relation to
middle-class kitchen cookery that the delightful art of fencing does to
that of the broadsword. Both are useful, but there is a world of subtle
differentiation between the two. The average rough and tumble of the
domestic saucepan contrasts with the deft manipulation of the miniature
battery of tiny pans.
And politeness always pays; moreover, it is vastly becoming. I gave
a little tea-party recently to some dear children. Some of them were
twins. Edith, a female twin of nine, asked me to help her to some more
blackberry jam. “Certainly, Edith,” I said; “but why don’t you help
yourself?” The maid was even politer than she was hungry: “Because I
was afraid I should not take enough.” And thus we learn how things work
among manikinkind.
There are some who delight in the flavour of onions. I do myself--but
then I am a bachelor. Politeness and onions form one of life’s most
persistent inconsistencies. His Most Gracious Majesty King George IV.,
it is recorded, attempted to kiss a royal housemaid, who said: “Sir,
your language both shocks and appals me; besides which, your breath
smells of onions!” And again, in a Cambridge dining-room, a framed
notice on the wall stated: “Gentlemen partial to spring onions are
requested to use the table under the far window.”
Nevertheless, the benefits of onions toward the human race are
probably not less than those attendant on the discovery of steam. It
is a vegetable whose manifold properties and delights have never been
properly sung. As a gentle stimulant, a mild soporific, a democratic
leveller of exaggeration in flavour, a common bond between prince and
peasant, it is a standing protest of Nature against Art.
On my wall, as I write, hangs a delightful oil study of a clump of
onions in flower, which the deft artist aptly dubs _Le Fond de la
Cuisine_. Dr. William King said that “Onions can make even heirs or
widows weep”; and the “Philosopher’s Banquet,” written in 1633, seems
to meet the case excellently:
“If Leekes you like, but do their smelle disleeke,
Eat Onyons, and you shall not smelle the leeke;
If you of Onyons would the scente expelle,
Eat Garlicke, that shall drowne the Onyon’s Smelle.”
I would not go quite as far as the poet, but I confess to a weakness
for chives. A judicious touch to many salads and made dishes is very
desirable. Chives are to onions as the sucking-pig is to pork, a baby
scent, a fairy titillation, an echo of the great Might Be.
Charles Lamb had a friend who said that a man cannot have a pure
mind who refuses apple dumplings. In the plural, mind you, not the
singular. Appetites have vastly changed since then, probably not for
the better, but the test even to-day seems adequate and noteworthy.
I do not propose to recommend either onions or apple dumplings as
Chafing-Dish experiments, but merely adduce them as worthy examples of
the toothsomeness of simplicity.
The late lamented Joseph, of the Savoy and elsewhere, once said in his
wisdom, “Make the good things as plain as possible. God gave a special
flavour to everything. Respect it. Do not destroy it by messing.” These
are winged words, and should be inscribed (in sugar icing) above the
hearthstone of every artist in pots and pans.
The Chafing Dish is a veritable Mephistopheles in the way of
temptation. It is so alluringly easy to add just a taste of this or
that, a few drops of sauce, a sprinkling of herbs, a suggestion of
something else. But beware and perpend! Do not permit your culinary
perspective to become too Japanesque in the matter of foreground.
Remember your _chiaroscuro_, take care of the middle distance, and let
the background assert its importance in the whole composition. “I can
resist anything--except temptation” is the cry of the hopelessly weak
in culinary morality.
Lest I should be hereafter accused of contradicting my own most
cherished beliefs, let me hasten here and now to assert that
condiments, esoteric and otherwise, were undoubtedly made to be used
as well as to be sold; and I am no enemy of bolstering up the weak and
assimilative character of--say--veal, “the chameleon of the kitchen,”
with something stronger, and, generally speaking, of making discreet
use of suave subtleties to give completeness to the picture. But the
watchword must always be Discretion! To those who muddle their flavours
I would commend the words of the Archbishop in Gil Blas: “My son, I
wish you all manner of prosperity--and a little more taste!”
Sidney Smith thought Heaven must be a place where you ate _pâté
de foies gras_ to the sound of trumpets. There is a late Georgian
ingenuousness about this which is refreshing. The liver of the
murdered goose and the scarlet sound of brass! Nowadays a Queen’s Hall
gourmet would compare the celestial regions to a continuous feast of
_Cailles de Vigne braisées à la Parisienne_ to the accompaniment of
Tschaikowsky’s “Casse Noisette” suite, which is more complicated, but
perchance not less indigestible.
The typical crude British cookery, if carelessly performed, is a
constant menace to its disciples. If well cooked there is nothing more
wholesome, save perhaps the French _cuisine bourgeoise_, but--“much
virtue in your If.” As a matter of fact, in nine households out of
ten, in the middle-middle classes (and the upper too) the fare is
well-intentioned in design, but deadly in execution, with a total
absence of care and taste.
There is a curious old book, probably out of print nowadays, which
deals tenderly, if severely, with the shortcomings of British cookery.
It was published in 1853, and is called “Memoirs of a Stomach, written
by Himself.” A typical passage runs: “The English system of cookery
it would be impertinent of me to describe; but still, when I think of
that huge round of parboiled ox-flesh, with sodden dumplings floating
in a saline, greasy mixture, surrounded by carrots, looking red with
disgust, and turnips pale with dismay, I cannot help a sort of inward
shudder, and making comparisons unfavourable to English gastronomy.”
This is fair comment, and brings me back to the advantages of the
Chafing Dish. An old German fairy tale, I think one of Grimm’s, says:
“Nothing tastes so nice as what one eats oneself,” and it is certain
that if one cooks so as entirely to satisfy oneself (always supposing
oneself to be a person of average good taste), then one’s guests will
be equally satisfied--if not more so.
In dealing with Chaffinda we may, after a minimum of practice, be
almost certain of results. If one is naturally clean, neat and
dainty in one’s tastes, then one’s cooking should display the same
characteristics. One’s individuality shines forth in the Chafing Dish
and is reflected in one’s sauces. Chaffinda conveys a great moral
lesson, and, as a teacher, should not lack in honour and reverence.
The late Prince Consort, being on a visit, wrote to a friend: “Things
always taste so much better in small houses”; if one substitutes small
dishes for small houses the Prince predicted the Chafing Dish.
The kitchen is the country in which there are always discoveries to
be made, and with Chaffinda on a neat white tablecloth before one,
half a dozen little dishes with food in various stages of preparation,
a few select condiments, an assortment of wooden spoons and like
utensils--and an inventive brain--there are absolutely no limits to
one’s discoveries. One is bound by no rule, no law, no formula, save
those of ordinary common sense, and though it might be too much to
expect to rediscover the lost Javanese recipe for cooking kingfishers’
or halcyons’ nests, the old manner of treating a Hocco, or the true
inwardness of “the dish called Maupygernon”; yet there are illimitable
possibilities which act as incentives to the enterprising.
There is a Chinese proverb to the effect that most men dig their graves
with their teeth, meaning thereby that we all eat too much. This is
awfully true and sad and undeniable, and avoidable. The late Lord
Playfair asserted that the actual requirements of a healthy man for a
seven-day week were three pounds of meat, one pound of fat, two loaves
of bread, one ounce of salt, and five pints of milk. What a contrast to
the chop-eating, joint-chewing, plethoric individual who averages five
meals a day, and does justice to them all! Sir Henry Thompson says:
“The doctors all tell us we eat too fast, and too often, and too much,
and too early, and too late; but no one of them ever says that we eat
too little.”
The proper appreciation of Chaffinda may ameliorate this, for in using
her one speedily becomes convinced of the beauty of small portions, an
appetite kept well in hand, and the manifold advantages of moderation.
It is easy to feed, but nice eating is an art.
Bishop Wilberforce knew a greedy clergyman who, when asked to say grace
before dinner, was wont to look whether there were champagne glasses on
the table. If there were, he began: “Bountiful Jehovah”; but if he only
espied claret glasses he contented himself with: “We are not worthy of
the least of Thy mercies.”
Of course growing children and quite young grown-up folks require
proportionately more food than real adults, for they have not only to
maintain but to build up their bodies. But to such the Chafing Dish
will not appeal primarily, if at all, and they may even be found
impertinent enough to look upon it as a culinary joke, which it is not.
Chaffinda hates gluttons, but takes pleasure in ministering to the
modest wants of the discerning acolyte, fostering his incipient talent,
urging him to higher flights, and tempting him to delicate fantasies.
“Do have some more; it isn’t very good, but there’s lots of it.” So
said a friend of mine to his guests about his half-crown port. This
is the sentiment of the man who knows not the Chafing Dish. “Lots of
it” is the worst kind of hospitality, and suggests the quantity, not
quality, of the cheap-jack kerbstone butcher. Little and good, and
enough to go round, is the motto of the tactful house-husband. A French
cook once said that it was only unlucky to sit down thirteen at table
if the food were but sufficient for twelve.
There is such a deal of fine confused feeding about the ordinary
meals of even a simply conducted country house that imagination
boggles at the thought of the elaboration of the daily menus. With
four, or possibly five, repasts a day, few of them chaste, most of
them complicated, a careful observer will note that the cook has been
listening to the pipings of the Great God Sauce, and covers natural
flavours with misnamed concoctions which do nothing but obliterate
nature and vex the palate.
There are some few houses, great and small, town and country, where
the elemental decencies of the kitchen are manfully preserved, where
wholesome mutton does not masquerade as _Quartier d’Agneau à la
Miséricorde_, and the toothsome lobster is not Americanised out of all
knowing. To such establishments, all honour and glory.
But to those whose means or opportunities do not permit of a carefully
trained cook, a home-made artist, I would in all diffidence recommend
the cult of the Chafing Dish, whose practical use I now propose to
discuss.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CHAPTER II·
PRELIMINARIES·]
“Tout se fait en dinant dans le siècle où nous sommes,
Et c’est par les diners qu’on gouverne les hommes.”--CH. DE MONSELET.
Chaffinda’s cooking battery is small, but select. The Chafing Dish
proper comprises the stand and lamp, and the dish, called the “Blazer,”
which has an ebony handle; and there is an ingenious spirit diminisher
which enables one to reduce the flame to a minimum, just enough to keep
the flame simmering, or to put it out altogether. A second, or hot
water pan, belongs to the outfit, and an asbestos toast-making tray may
be bought for a trifle. In addition, a couple of green or brown dishes
of French fireproof china, an egg-poacher, a marmite, and perhaps a
casserole, all of which are best from Bonnet in Church Street, Soho,
will come in very usefully. To these may be added the usual complement
of plates and dishes and several wooden spoons of different sizes; a
fish-lifter is also desirable, so is a strainer, and a pair of graters
come in very handily. This practically completes the gear of the
budding Chafist, though additional items may be added from time to time
as occasion demands.
The makers of the Chafing Dish sell a useful methylated spirit can,
with a curved spout to fill up the asbestos wick. It will be found that
a good filling will burn for thirty to forty minutes, which is ample
for all ordinary purposes. Much of course depends on the quality of
the spirit used, and, further, the wick will only become thoroughly
saturated after half a dozen usings, and will subsequently require
rather less spirit. I have found that water boils in the “Blazer,” or
handled Chafing Dish, in about ten minutes, and instructions on bottled
or preserved food, soups and the like, must be slightly discounted.
Thus if one is told to boil for twenty minutes, it will be found that
fifteen minutes in the Chafing Dish will be ample in nearly all cases.
As this is mainly a true story of my own personal adventures among the
pots and pans, I can hardly do better than describe the first dish I
tried my ’prentice hand upon, with the devout wish that all neophytes
may be as successful therewith as I was.
Beef Strips.
The experiment, the preliminary exercise, if I may so term it, has no
name, although it savours somewhat of the Resurrection Pie, unbeloved
of schoolboys. Let us call it Beef Strips. Cut three thick slices from
a rather well-cooked cold sirloin of beef, cut these again into strips
a quarter of an inch wide and about three inches long. Take care that
they are very lean. Chop up half a dozen cold boiled potatoes (not of
the floury kind) into dice. Put the beef and the potatoes into the
Chafing Dish. Light the lamp and see that the heat is steady, but not
too strong. Add at once a good-sized walnut of butter, a teaspoon of
Worcester sauce, salt and pepper. For at least ten minutes turn over
the mixture continually with a wooden spoon until it is thoroughly
heated. Turn it out on to a hot dish, and garnish with half a dozen
tiny triangles of toast.
This is a simple luncheon or supper dish which takes little time,
and--to my taste at least--is appetising and satisfying. Like all
Chafing-Dish preparations, it can be cooked on the table, with no more
protection than a tray under the wrought-iron stand, and a square of
coloured tablecloth upon your white one to receive possible splashes or
drops.
Jellied Ham.
Now for exercise number two, which I have christened Jellied Ham, and
commend as a dish very unlikely to go wrong in the manipulation.
Get your flame steady and true, and put a small walnut of butter in
the dish. When it is fluid, add a good dessert-spoonful of red currant
jelly, a liqueur glass of sherry, and three drops of Tabasco sauce.
Drop into this simmering mixture a few slices of cold boiled ham
cut thin and lean, and let it slowly cook for six to eight minutes.
If you wish to be extravagant, then instead of the sherry use a
full wine-glassful of champagne. It is by no means necessary to eat
this with vegetables, but if you insist on the conjunction, I would
recommend a purée of spinach, directions for which appear hereafter.
This Jellied Ham is an agreeable concoction, which I find peculiarly
soothing as a light supper after having seen an actor-manager playing
Shakespeare. This is, however, after all only a matter of taste.
It has always seemed to me that different forms of the drama require,
nay demand, different dinners and suppers, according to the disposition
in which one approaches them. For instance, before an Adelphi
melodrama, turtle soup (mock if necessary), turbot and rump steaks are
indicated, whereas a musical comedy calls for an East Room menu, and an
Ibsen or G. B. Shaw play for an A.B.C. shop or a vegetarian restaurant
respectively. But I only hint at the broad outline of my idea, which
is capable of extension to an indefinite limit.
Vegetarian meals do not appeal to me. There is a sense of sudden and
temporary repletion followed shortly afterwards by an aching void,
which can only be assuaged by a period of comparatively gross feeding.
Besides, judging from the appearance of my vegetarian friends (in whom
maybe I am unfortunate) they often seem so much to resemble some of the
foods they eat as to render themselves liable to be dubbed cannibals.
But this is probably mere prejudice.
Minced Chicken or Game.
To resume the cult of Chaffinda. Here is another dish which I recommend
to the beginner. It is a simple mince. Take any remains of chicken or
game, pheasant for choice, and mince it (or have it minced) small, but
not too small. Never use a mincing machine. Put the mince aside, and
mix in the Chafing Dish the following sauce: a full walnut of butter,
a tablespoon of flour, and a pinch of salt and pepper; add gradually
about a tumblerful of milk. Keep continually stirring this and cook it
well for five minutes, adding three drops of Tabasco sauce and half a
tablespoon of Worcester sauce, also a squeeze of a lemon. When it is
thoroughly amalgamated throw in the mince and let it get hot without
burning. Serve it with toast or very crisp biscuits.
The only objection I know to this mince is that all cold birds,
especially cold pheasant, are so excellent that it seems almost
superfluous to hot them up. But there are occasions when the gamey
fumes from Chaffinda are very alluring, and, after all, it is poor
work eating cold cates at midnight, however tempting they might be at
breakfast.
Our forebears were unanimous in their praise of the lordly long-tail.
In a letter from Sidney Smith to “Ingoldsby” Barham, the worthy cleric
says: “Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your kind present of game. If
there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is that of
roast pheasant and bread sauce; barndoor fowls for Dissenters, but for
the Real Churchman, the Thirty-Nine times articled clerk, the pheasant!
the pheasant!”
Toast.
It should perhaps be mentioned that the making of toast on the Chafing
Dish is the easiest of functions. The asbestos tray, already referred
to, is placed over the flame, and on the metal side the bread in
rounds, triangles, or sippets; a few minutes serve to toast the one
side adequately, and on being turned over it can easily be browned
through. Mrs. Beeton is loquacious on the art of toast-making, and
lays down divers rules, but she knew not Chaffinda. A modern essayist
who discourses learnedly and most sensibly on toast, makes a remark
in his chapter on breakfasts, which although not entirely germane to
my subject, is so true and, to my thinking, so characteristic, that
I cannot refrain from quoting it. He is referring to marmalade. “The
attitude of women to marmalade,” he says, “has never been quite sound.
True, they make it excellently, but afterwards their association with
it is one lamentable retrogression. They spread it over pastry; they do
not particularly desire it at breakfast; and (worst) they decant it
into glass dishes and fancy jars.”
How true, how profound, how typical!
But this is wandering from the point, which is cookery, not casuistry.
Women are never out of place in connection with the good things of the
table, although they do not often aspire to the omni-usefulness of the
well-meaning, if ill-educated, lady who applied for the position of
nurse to one of the field hospitals during the Boer war, and mentioned
as her crowning qualification that, “like Cæsar’s wife, I am all things
to all men.”
Mutton Cutlets.
After this little digression it will be well to turn to more serious
things--cutlets, for instance. Obtain from the butcher a couple of
well-trimmed mutton cutlets, and from the greengrocer sufficient
green peas that, when shelled, you will have a breakfast-cupful.
Melt a walnut of butter in the Chafing Dish. Into the melted butter
drop a tablespoonful of flour and a sprinkling of chopped chives. A
teaspoonful of Worcester sauce and three drops of Tabasco, together
with salt at discretion, will suffice for flavouring, and care must be
taken that the mixture does not boil. Put in the cutlets, and when they
begin to turn brownish add the peas, and half a cupful of milk. About
fifteen minutes should cook the meat through if your spirit flame be
strong, otherwise it may take somewhat longer. A very good substitute
for Worcester sauce, in this connection, is Sauce Robert, which it is
unnecessary to manufacture, as it can be bought ready made, and well
made too, of the Escoffier brand. With certain meats it is an excellent
condiment.
By the way, in some very old cookery books Sauce Robert was termed
Roe-Boat sauce, an extraordinary orthographic muddle. An omelette was
likewise known as a “Hamlet.”
This suggests the somewhat too sophisticated schoolboy’s description of
Esau as “a hairy, humpbacked man, who wrote a book of fables and sold
the copyright for a bottle of potash.”
It may be deemed superfluous, and in that case I apologise beforehand,
to insist on the most scrupulous cleanliness in dealing with the
Chafing Dish and its adjuncts. Not only should the dish itself be
kept spotless and thoroughly scoured, but the stand, the lamp, the
implements, and the glass and china should be immaculate. Servants are
easily persuaded to look after the cleaning process, and do it with
a certain amount of care, but it can do no harm to understudy their
duties and add an extra polish all round oneself. It gives one, too, a
personal interest in the result, otherwise lacking. I recommend the use
of at least three dishcloths, which should be washed regularly and used
discreetly. The Chafist who neglects his apparatus is unworthy of the
high mission with which he is charged, and deserves the appellation of
the younger son of Archidamus III., King of Sparta. Cleanliness is next
to all manner of things in this dusty world of ours, and absolutely
nothing conduces more to the enjoyment of a mealet that one has cooked
oneself than the knowledge that everything is spick and span, and
that one has contributed oneself thereto by a little extra care and
forethought.
A word of warning here. Never use “kitchen butter,” or “kitchen
sherry,” or “kitchen eggs,” or “kitchen” anything else; use the very
best you can afford.
An armoury of brooms, brushes, scrubbers, soap and soda is in no way
necessary. A couple of polishing cloths and a little, a very little,
of one of the many patent cleaners is all that is required. A clear
conscience and plenty of elbow-grease does the rest.
The British equivalent of the continental _charcutier_ is of
inestimable service to the Chafist. At his more or less appetising
emporium, small quantities of edibles can be purchased which are
excellently well adapted for the cult of Chaffinda, especially if
one be inclined towards the recooking of cold meats, instead of the
treatment of them in a raw state. Both have their advantages--and their
drawbacks. It is a general, but totally inaccurate, belief that meat
once cooked needs only to be hotted up again. Nothing could be more
fatal to its flavour and nutriment. A certain amount of the good juices
of the meat must inevitably have been lost during the first process,
and therefore great care must be taken in the second operation to
tempt forth, and, in some cases, to restore the natural flavour. Cold
cooked meat needs long and gentle cooking, a strong clear flame,
without sudden differences in temperature, and it may be taken as a
general rule that cold meat needs practically as long to cook as raw
meat.
Browned Tongue.
For example, take half a dozen slices of cooked tongue, spread on each
of them a modicum of made mustard, and let each slice repose for about
two minutes in a little bath of salad oil (about enough to cover the
bottom of a soup plate). Put the slices one on top of another until
they make a compact little heap. Put the heap of tongue between two
plates, so as to expel the superfluous oil. Let it remain thus for half
an hour. Then put a nutmeg of butter in the blazer, dismember the heap
of tongue, and put the slices into the frizzling butter and turn them
until they are brown. A little sauce, Worcester, Robert, or Piquant,
may be added to suit individual taste. Serve very hot, with sippets of
toast.
I have ventured to christen this dish _Browned Tongue_, which is
simple and descriptive, but every Chafist is entitled to call it what
he likes. There is little, if any, copyright in Chafing-Dish titles.
Alexandre Dumas, author and cook, protests against the mishandling of
names: “Les fantaisies de saucer, de mettre sur le gril, et de faire
rôtir nos grands hommes.”
Personally I object to cooking simple fare and then dubbing it _à la
Quelque chose_. Outside the few score well-known, and, so to say,
classic titles of more or less elaborate dishes, which are practically
standardised, there seems to me to be no reason to invent riddles in
nomenclature when the “short title,” as they say in Parliamentary
Bills, is amply descriptive.
It has been my ill-fortune to be introduced, at an otherwise harmless
suburban dinner, to a catastrophe of cutlets, garnished with tinned
vegetables, and to be gravely informed, on an ill-spelt menu, that it
was “_Cutelletes d’Agneau à la Jardinnier_,” which would be ludicrous,
were it not sad. Then how often does the kind hostess, without a
punitive thought in her composition, write down _Soufflet_ when she
means _Soufflé_?
But mistakes are easily made, as witness that popular sign of a French
cabaret, particularly in the provinces, _Au Lion d’Or_. If you look
carefully at the signboard, you will find a man asleep, the punning
name of the hotel implying _Au lit on dort_.
But the whole question of Menus (Bills of Fare, if you please), and
their mistranslation, is too vast to enter upon here, alluring though
the subject may be. The language of the restaurant cook, save in
especial instances, is as bad, although in a quite different sense,
as that of the Whitechapel Hooligan. At the same time, it is absurd
to insist upon the literal translation of the untranslatable. “Out of
works” for “Hors d’œuvres”; “Soup at the good woman” for “Potage à la
bonne femme”; “Smile of a calf at the banker’s wife” for “Ris de veau à
la financière”; and, lastly, “Anchovies on the sofa” for “Anchois sur
canapé,” are all well enough in their way, but hardly an example to be
followed, although they make “very pretty patriotic eating.”
It would be ridiculous to run away with the idea that because certain
folk misuse the language, French should be henceforward taboo at
our dinner-tables. Such a notion is ignorant and impossible. But
the Gallic tongue should be used with discretion and knowledge, and
if the enterprising Chafist invent a new dish of eggs, there is no
law to forbid his naming it _Œufs à la Temple du Milieu_. It would
only show the quality of his erudition and his taste. There seems no
particular reason why we should not replace _Rôti_ by Roast, _Entrée_
by Remove, and _Entremet_ by Sweet--except that it is not done; it is
an affectation of humbug, of course, but the greatest humbug of all
humbugs is the pretending to despise humbug.
Alderman’s Walk.
_On revient toujours à son premier mouton_--that is to say, let us get
back to Chaffinda. The next dish on the experimental programme is “The
Alderman’s Walk,” a very old English delicacy, the most exquisite
portion of the most exquisite joint in Cookerydom, and so called
because, at City dinners of our grandfathers’ times, it is alleged
to have been reserved for the Aldermen. It is none other than the
first, longest and juiciest longitudinal slice, next to the bone, of a
succulent saddle of mutton, Southdown for choice, and four years old
at that, though this age is rare. Remove this slice tenderly and with
due reverence from the hot joint, lay it aside on a slice of bread,
its own length, and let it get cold, thoroughly cold. Then prepare in
the Chafing Dish a sauce composed of a walnut of butter, a teaspoon
of Worcester, three drops of Tabasco, three chopped chives, and an
eggspoon of made mustard. Stir these ingredients until the amalgamation
is smooth and complete. Then take the bread, which should have absorbed
a good deal of the juice from under the Alderman’s Walk, cut it into
strips, and lightly toast the strips. Drop the meat into the sauce, and
let it cook for eight minutes, turning it once, that is, four minutes
for each side. Slide it out on to a hot dish, put the toast round it,
eat it in a hurry, and thank your stars that you are alive to enjoy
it. This is a dish which has few equals and no superiors. It is simple,
innocent, toothsome, satisfying, and several other things.
Something like it, but lacking its artistic severity, may be found
in Alexandre Dumas’ Great Dictionary, but it is complicated with
eccentric accessories; there is a turbulent confused foreground to
it which effectually conceals the mutton, but then, of course, poor
Dumas, although he knew and appreciated, could rarely obtain the real
Southdown.
At the time that the great author was overwhelmed with commissions for
novels, after the enormous success of “The Three Musketeers” and other
masterpieces, he was commonly understood to put books in the market
which were written by Auguste Maquet, and merely signed by himself.
Dumas, as is well known, was a great amateur cook, and in fact prided
himself more on his dishes than on his novels. One day he invited
the famous Aurelien Scholl to dinner, and put before him a salmon
mayonnaise which he--Dumas Père--had made with his own hands. “Taste
that, Scholl,” he said, “and tell me how you like it.”
Scholl tasted it and made a wry face. “Really, Dumas,” he replied, “I
think it must be by Maquet.”
Having been thus trained by the recipes here given, it seems reasonable
to suppose that the Chafist is able, after a profound study thereof, to
appreciate the possibilities of the Chafing Dish, and may therefore be
permitted to dip as he listeth into the various recipes which follow,
none of which are complicated or expensive, and most of which require
little, if any, previous preparation. At the same time I would most
earnestly beg the Chafist carefully to rehearse all his impromptu
effects, and never to leave anything to chance. Always have your
condiments, your garnishings, your “fixings,” as the Americans say,
ready to hand. Let the manipulation of the Chafing Dish partake of
that Art which conceals Art--simply because everything is foreseen,
and nothing postponed till the last moment. Let your parsley be ready
chopped, your toast ready cut, your lemon duly cleaned, your spare
dishes hot and ready, and, lastly, your apparatus in thorough working
order. You may then proceed in all good faith and earnestness.
[Illustration: CHAPTER · III
SOUPS ·]
“Soup is to a dinner what a portico is to a palace, or an overture to
an opera.”
GRIMOD DE LA REYNIÈRE.
“While there’s life there’s soup,” said an irreverent parodist, but as
a matter of fact the reverse of the proverb would be more true, for, of
a verity, while there’s soup there’s life. There can be no complaint
of having dined badly, or even insufficiently, if one has begun with a
plateful of good soup; _good_, mind you, with some strength and body to
it, for the coloured hot water that masquerades too often as soup is
unworthy and despicable. But soup that has character, individuality,
and belies not its name, is to the nice eater almost a meal in itself.
There are practically no soups beyond the scope of the Chafing Dish,
albeit some of the more elaborate _bisques_, a _bouillabaisse_ (an that
be a soup), and a pink _Bortsch_, have not come within my experimental
experience. The ordinary French _consommé_, which may be likened to
our gravy soup, is practically the foundation of most clear soups. One
meets on different bills of fare with a score of variations on the
theme, such as Printanier, Brunoise, Paysanne, Julienne, Mitonnage,
Croûte au Pot, Faubonne, Macédoine, Chiffonade, Flamande, and many
more, but they are really only a matter of flavouring and vegetable
decoration upon a foundation of good stock. An old French cookbook,
dated 1822, lies before me, which contains one hundred and two recipes
for soups, but the first one mentioned, the Potage au Naturel, is the
Mother Soup of all the rest.
The veritable chef has his store of Mother Soup, and that is his
kitchen Stock Exchange whence practically all his varieties emanate.
The Chafing Dish votary cannot construct his own Mother Soup and keep
up his own stock-pot, but he can use the many excellent preserved
soups, in bottles and boxes, which nowadays are absolutely equal to
those which are self-manipulated or home-made.
I have tried many brands, and really think that there is not very
much to choose between them. For ordinary use I lean to the Maggi
preparations, the “Cross-Star Soups.” They are in tablets, each
sufficient for two persons, and the White Haricots, Onion, Tapioca,
Chervil, Sago, Semolina, Lentil, Parmentier, Sorrel, Barley, Rice and
Julienne are quite excellent.
The method of procedure is simplicity itself. The tablet is broken into
fragments in a cup or a bowl and mixed into a thin paste with a little
cold water. Then heat a pint of water in the Chafer to boiling, pour
in the mixture, and let it cook gently, not boiling, for fifteen to
twenty minutes. Each tablet has its own particular directions on the
wrapper, and I have found that they apply equally to the Chafing Dish,
except that the time required is rather shorter than that mentioned,
owing to the greater heat. The flavour of the soups can be enhanced by
a few drops of sauce, a sprinkling of Paprika pepper, half a wineglass
of sherry, or a dash of Tabasco; but this is a matter of individual
taste. The tapioca, sago, and semolina soups are particularly good,
and I do not find that they require the addition of any salt, although
this again is a purely personal affair. A beaten-up raw egg put into
the soup and well stirred up just before serving makes it richer and
suaver, but is by no means necessary.
By the way, in cooking soups, as indeed in all Chafing-Dish cookery,
I cannot too earnestly insist upon the use of wooden spoons for all
stirring manipulations. Metal spoons, even silver, are abhorrent to the
good cook. Wooden spoons are clean, cheap, and thoroughly efficient.
The fancy-dress-ball cook (“Cordong blew” he generally calls himself)
always wears one in his apron, but if he only knew it, the wooden spoon
(apart from examination awards) is his surest title to honour as a true
_maître de bouche_. The Spanish Estudiantina also wear a wooden spoon
in their black tricorne hats, but this, I understand, only means that
they are poor and hungry, and glad to dip their spoon in any one’s
mess of Puchero, in order to enjoy a square meal.
Pea Soup.
Pea soup is a great invention. Not the _Purée aux Petits Pois_ (good
as that may be) of the chefiest of chefs, but the plain, good, thick,
flavoursome pea soup which is as nourishing as it is soothing and
satisfying. I find that Chaffinda’s favourite is Brand’s Consolidated
Pea Soup, which sounds like a gold mine, but is really a sort of
_Erbswurst_, only better. It is sold in dainty little tins at an
absurdly cheap price. One little tin makes two good platesful. It is
prepared by mixing the contents to a thick paste with water. To this
paste add a pint of cold water, put it all in the Chafing Dish, and
boil it for about twelve to fifteen minutes until it gets thick. To
make it even better, add a sprinkling of dried mint and a handful of
toast dice, browned with butter, and you have a feast for hungry gods
on a cold day.
Another way: instead of using mint and toast, cut half a dozen thin
slices from a Brunswick sausage, peel off the rind and drop them in
the soup when it is half cooked. The mixture is very toothsome.
Turtle Soup.
From small things to great: from the common and strictly garden pea to
the Aldermanic and luscious turtle. Most turtle importers make their
own preserved turtle, which is sometimes good and always expensive.
For Chafing-Dish purposes I prefer the Concrete Turtle Tablets made by
Levien and Sherlock, of 68 Harbour Street, Kingston, Jamaica. They are
to be had at the Army and Navy Stores. Each little cake is enough for
two moderately greedy people, and costs one shilling.
Put in the Chafing Dish a good pint of water, which bring to the boil;
add salt and pepper (Paprika for choice) to taste. Cut the turtle
tablet into pieces, or if it is too hard, as is often the case in
winter, break it up into eight or ten lumps. Throw these into the
boiling water and keep on stirring until they dissolve and the soup
becomes clear. This takes some little time, but it is worth waiting
for. Add a squeeze of lemon juice, a wine-glass of sherry, and a
teaspoon of Worcester sauce. Give a final stir to these ingredients,
and serve it up steaming hot.
There is extraordinary reviving power about a basin of good turtle
soup, and, as I think I have shown, it is quite a mistake to deem it an
expensive luxury. Abraham Hayward, Q.C., in his inimitable book, “The
Art of Dining,” which were originally _Quarterly Review_ articles on
Police Magistrate Walker’s “Original” (1835), says that “Turtle Soup
from Painter’s in Leadenhall Street is decidedly the best thing in the
shape of soup that can be had in this or perhaps in any other country.”
And if an Alderman, a Queen’s Counsel, a Police Magistrate--and
Chaffinda--agree on this point, who shall say them nay?
The student of mid-Victorian ballads will remember, too, the touching
allusion to turtle soup in “Ferdinando and Elvira,” by one Bab, where
the hero searches for the cracker-motto poet, and at last unearths him
at a confectioner’s where he has ordered soup:
“‘Found at last!’ I madly shouted. ‘Gentle pieman, you astound me!’
Then I waved the turtle soup enthusiastically round me.”
But this was, on reflection, probably mock turtle soup, no bad thing
either, _vide_ Alice’s interview with the Gryphon. It lives, when cold,
in a basin, and is set hard and is therefore wavable.
American soups are not to be despised. On the contrary, they make most
excellent good eating--or drinking; which is it? do we eat or drink
soup? An American book of etiquette says, “Never chew your soup, always
swallow it whole.”
Anyhow I have tried, and found good, Clam Chowder, Clam Broth, Chicken
Gumbo, Okra, Terrapin, and Vegetable Soups. They are in tins, against
which I confess I am prejudiced, but as yet I am totally unpoisoned,
and I am told that there is a possibility of their being shortly put
up in bottles. Each tin has full instructions, and these are quite
applicable to the Chafing Dish, care always being taken not to boil
the soup, but to heat it gently and continuously. The Clam Chowder and
Clam Broth are both quite excellent, of a distinct individual flavour,
cheering, and, I opine, wholesome. They have a peculiar _cachet_ of
their own, and lend a certain Transatlantic originality to an otherwise
banal Chafing-Dish luncheon.
These and other American provisions I procure from Jackson’s in
Piccadilly. They are well “packed,” and adapt themselves excellently
to unexpected calls on a limited larder. Their variety is infinite,
and their flavour remains good and true. Tinned Broadway in London is
a pleasant experience. There are other American delicacies, to which
reference will be made in due course, which adapt themselves admirably
to Chafing-Dish idiosyncrasies. Columbus’ patent egg is not the only
culinary innovation from the New World, but the average British cook is
so ignorantly conservative and abhorrently Chauvinistic that she dreads
novelty as she dreads the Devil.
Poor Man’s Soup.
Poor Man’s Soup, as the French call it, is a very restorative dish
after a bad day on the Stock Exchange, although there is little of the
Poor Man about it save the name.
Put a finely-shredded onion and a walnut of butter in the Chafing Dish
and fry to a light brown colour, then add a heaped teaspoonful of flour
and stir well; pour in a pint of stock, add pepper and salt to taste.
Peel and slice a potato and scatter it in the soup; let the mixture
come to a boil, and then allow it to simmer for ten minutes. Just
before serving stir into it the yolk of an egg, well beaten up, and a
dozen sippets of dry toast. This is a soothing and easy soup, but it
requires the stockpot, unless you make use of one of the many varieties
of concentrated bouillon or beef-tea, which certainly save a lot of
trouble.
Palestine Soup.
Another simple soup, which moreover has the advantage of not requiring
stock, is Palestine or Jerusalem Artichoke soup. By the way, we misname
this vegetable strangely. It was imported into Great Britain from
Italy, and being the tuber of a variety of sunflower, is there termed
_Girasole_, because the flower turns to the sun. We, in our insular
ignorance, corrupted _Girasole_ to _Jerusalem_, and then, wishing to
refine the latter word, committed a further solecism by calling the
soup made therefrom _Palestine_ soup. Could any little exercise in
culinary etymology be more ridiculous, or more typical?
Pick out six good-sized Jerusalem artichokes, boil them in the Chafing
Dish with a pinch of salt; when quite soft, put them through a fine
sieve and place the extract on one side. Then put a pint of milk in the
dish and boil it with a teaspoonful of Paprika pepper, two cloves and a
dash of nutmeg, and a couple of sprigs of parsley. Let it boil up for
a minute and then strain it, and also put it aside. Melt a walnut of
butter in the dish and stir into it a dessert-spoonful of corn-flour,
to which add the strained milk, and, lastly, the artichoke extract,
keeping the spirit-lamp flame low, so that the mixture shall not boil.
When it has simmered for five minutes and become thoroughly amalgamated
the soup is ready to serve, and very good it is, or ought to be, if
the cooking has been artfully and carefully carried out.
Creçy (Carrot) Soup.
Carrot Soup is not only excessively nice and nourishing, but it has
also a curious historical interest. The best French carrots come from
the neighbourhood of Creçy, and Carrot Soup is therefore generally
known as Creçy Soup. Now the famous battle of that name, where Edward
the Black Prince won his three-feather badge and motto of _Ich Dien_,
was fought on Saturday, August 26, 1346, and Court gossip relates that
to this day the Prince of Wales has Creçy Soup for dinner every 26th of
August. I am unable to verify the statement, but trust that it may be
true; anyway it is a pretty fable.
To make Carrot Soup, cut up three or four fair-sized carrots into thin
round slices, put them in the Chafing Dish with a wineglass of sherry,
two cloves, a sprinkling of nutmeg, and a good bunch of parsley; pour
over it a cupful of stock and let it nearly boil, but not quite. When
the carrots are quite soft and almost pulpy, mash them well in a
soup-plate and, discarding anything hard in the mixture, replace it
in the Chafer with two more cups of stock, a teaspoon of sugar, and
just before it boils drop in a walnut of butter, and take it off the
flame. Toasted dice are the usual accompaniment, and the soup, if well
concocted, is very hard to beat for honest, toothsome fare.
The menus of three Buckingham Palace dinners tell me that his Majesty
the King partook of Bisque d’Ecrevisse on May 30, 1902, of Clear
Turtle or Cold Consommé on June 2, and of Consommé Riche on June 13.
The second of these quotations is from the interesting programme of
the fare offered to the members of the Jockey Club at the King’s Derby
Dinner, one item of which was Cassolettes à la Jockey Club, presumably
a creation of his Majesty’s chef, Monsieur Ménager.
President Loubet was less lucky when he went on his visit to Algiers in
April 1903. After a review of ten thousand native horsemen at Krieder,
he was tendered a native banquet by the chiefs, which began with
Locust Soup. But even this is not so unappetising as the recipe of a
Monsieur Dagin, an entomologist, for Cockroach Soup. It is made thus:
“Pound your cockroaches in a mortar; put them in a sieve and pour in
boiling water or beef-stock. Connoisseurs prefer this to real bisque.”
Possibly; but I do not recommend it for the Chafing Dish.
On the other hand, real bird’s-nest soup is a great luxury. As
Consommé aux Nids d’Hirondelles it occasionally appears on a menu; and
the Chinese, I understand, call it Yen-War-Gung. There is a subtle
taste of the sea in the gelatinous lining of the swallow’s nest,
which is exquisite and delicate. The Japanese make a soup from black
seaweed, but I cannot speak of it from experience. There lies before
me a curious Latin menu of a feast given by, or to, certain German
professors whose culinary Latin seems to me to be a trifle canine. Two
lines of it read “Sorbitio cum globulis jecoralibus et lucanicis,” and
“Jus et Unguis bovinis factum cum panificio.” These I take to mean
liver soup with sausage, and ox-tongue soup with bread.
But esoteric food-stuffs are more interesting for their quaintness
than for any intrinsic merit, and I prefer to turn to the degustation
of a Potage Germiny, for instance. This is the invention of the great
Casimir, of the Maison d’Or, who has placed it on record that “the
happiest day of my life was the day on which I invented the Potage
Germiny. It is made of sorrel, the yolks of eggs, and cream. It was
for a dinner given by the Marquis de Saint-Georges, the author of
‘Les Mousquetaires de la Reine.’ I had racked my brains to discover
something wonderful, unique; and finally I evolved the potage. When the
Marquis had tasted it he sent for me. I never saw a man more moved.
He threw his arms around me and exclaimed in unutterable accents:
‘Casimir, this is not a soup; it is a masterpiece!’”
This is a veritable human document.
William the Conqueror had a cook called Tezelin, who one day served
him with a white soup called Dillegrout. His Majesty was so pleased
that he made Tezelin Lord of the Manor of Addington. Good cooks were
appreciated thenadays. But we have lost the recipe for Dillegrout.
Attempts have often been made to cook according to ancient recipes, but
rarely with success. The curious in these matters may be referred to
Smollett’s observations in “Peregrine Pickle” on certain experiments
to cook practically according to the recipes of Apicius. They ended
disastrously.
A last word on soup. The French _cuisine bourgeoise_ (the best in the
world) believes in good strong meat for its soups, and not, as we
erroneously suppose, makes shift--and good shift too--out of any odds
and ends; “any old thing,” as the Americans say. On the contrary, _pour
faire sourire le pot-au-feu_ (delightful expression!) you must have
good material, and plenty of it.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CHAPTER· IV·
FISH·]
“In a restaurant, when a waiter offers you turbot, ask for salmon, and
when he offers you a sole, order a mackerel; as language to man, so
fish has been given to the waiter to disguise his thoughts.”--P. Z.
DIDSBURY.
The fish of Great Britain is, beyond all manner of doubt, the very best
in the world. It is, therefore, only right and proper that its original
flavour should be preserved by simply boiling or frying it, and eating
it with what some of the old cook-books call its “Analogies,” which
presumably means its traditional accompaniments: lemon, brown bread and
butter, and so much as may be of its own liquor, or a Court Bouillon of
the simplest. There are so many ways of spoiling fish that the Chafer
can never go far wrong if he rejects all but the most primitive,
although it is not necessary to revert to the aboriginal braising upon
the hot ashes of a nearly extinct wood fire, without the intervention
of any implement of stone or earthenware whatever. This method is,
however, still in practice to-day in many parts of Portugal (and
possibly elsewhere) before the doors of the houses of the wage-earners,
and in the taverns of the commoner folks.
Without going to extremes, there is a decent self-respecting kind of
cookery, to the value and charm of which the great Carême refers in his
“Cuisinier Français” (1828), and which he calls, appropriately enough,
_le genre mâle et élégant_.
The genius of Carême, however, occasionally led him to a state of
self-appreciation which is supreme in its bathos. He says, for
instance, in a kind of retrospect of his contributions to the culinary
art: “I contemplated from behind my ovens the kitchens of India, China,
Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany and Switzerland, and I felt their
ignoble fabric of routine crumbling under my critical blows.” These
are, indeed, “prave ’orts!”
Herrings are extraordinarily healthy--and cheap. They are caught by the
million--who also eat them; and whether fresh or dried, raw or salted,
they are one of Nature’s delicacies. Fresh herrings offer the largest
amount of nutriment for one penny of any kind of animal food. A fresh
herring weighing 4½ ozs. contains 240 grains of carbon and 36 grains
of nitrogen; and a dried herring weighing 3 oz. contains 269 grains of
carbon and 41 grains of nitrogen. It is obvious by this what smoking
will do by decreasing weight and increasing nutriment.
Red herrings are by no means to be despised, though it is a mistake
to imagine that they are caught in a state of redness. In that fine
old book, “The Yarmouth Fisherman,” which is not much read nowadays,
piscator says to the tourist: “Sir, we lay ourselves out to oblige all
the gents that come from London, but we cannot make a red herring swim.”
Thereanent is a quaint signboard outside the Schifferhaus in the old
Hanseatic town of Lübeck, one of the most beautiful taverns in the
world, and the haunt of old sea-dogs since the sixteenth century.
The signboard represents a fisherman and two amateurs angling from a
boat; the former has caught a fine kipper and the latter are looking
supremely disgusted. The legend under the picture runs: “One Cannot
Please Everybody.”
Kippers and their kin have never lacked admirers, and it is on record
that the Emperor Charles V. made a pilgrimage to the tomb of the
venerable Dutchman who is supposed to have invented pickled herrings.
Fried Herrings.
To come from herrings in the abstract to herrings in the concrete,
try this in Chaffinda: Two very fresh herrings, very clean and dry.
Fry them in three tablespoons of oil or two of butter, with a squeeze
of lemon, salt, pepper, six peppercorns and a tablespoon of vinegar.
After they have cooked for eight minutes put the fish aside in a hot
dish. Then cut a good-sized Spanish onion into rings, fry these in the
oil left by the herrings till they are of a dark brown colour, taking
great care not to burn them. When ready, which should be in about six
minutes, heap them round the herrings and serve with quarters of lemon.
This is a lordly dish, and if properly concocted it leaves you in that
state that you will love all mankind--and even tolerate the Chinese.
Dean Nowell, or Noel, a clerical Izaak Walton, and Dean of St. Paul’s
(1507-1602) said that the only thing wrong with the herring was that
it preferred the sea to the river. The Dean angled much in the Ash
at Hadham; he wrote the Church Catechism, invented bottled beer (by
accident), and fished for perch and souls. Peace be to his!
There are as many ways of cooking the herring as there are days in the
year; even Bismarck invented one, but there are other fish in the sea
which demand Chaffinda’s attention, and however enticing the subject
may be, it will not do to linger over it.
The lordly salmon was not always so honoured in its exclusiveness as
it is to-day. In our grandfathers’ time it was still frequenting the
Thames, and London servants, when engaged, used to stipulate that they
were not to be fed on it more than twice a week.
Chafed Salmon.
This is as good a way as any of treating the salmon in the Chafing Dish:
Put two tablespoonsful of butter in the pan and when it is melting stir
in gradually a tablespoon of flour, and keep on stirring till it is
smooth; add a wineglass of water, the juice of a whole lemon, a small
onion cut in rings, and the yolks of two eggs, hard-boiled and mashed
up. When all these ingredients are well mixed, put in a thick slice
of previously boiled cold salmon, simmer it for eight minutes. Tinned
salmon, of the very best brands only, may also be used, and the result
is fairly satisfactory, but tinned goods are of course only a _pis
aller_ at best.
They do say that the Devil never goes to Cornwall because they put
everything into a pie down there, and he is afraid he might be put
into one too. I heard of Stargazer Pie in Cornwall, and imagined that
it referred to the Riviera fish which is not succulent--indeed, barely
edible. But I learned that Stargazer Pie is really Pilchard Pie, the
heads of the fish popping up through the crust.
Cod Pudding.
A good Cornish way of cooking cod is to make a pudding of it, which is
quite chaffable. Use a thick slice of cold cooked cod. Remove skin and
bones and flake it up smallish with a couple of forks. Put it in the
Chafing Dish with two tablespoons of butter and one of chopped onions;
hot it up, and whilst heating (lower the flame before actual boiling)
add gradually enough milk to make the fish of the consistency of mashed
potatoes; add pepper and salt, and serve it with sippets of toast. It
will like you much.
Souchet of Sprats.
Now for sprats; a good supper dish, and eke for breakfast too, because
they are so fat that no butter or oil is required, but plenty of
salt and pepper. Buy a pint of fresh sprats, soak and dry them very
carefully, handling them as little as possible. Cook them as a water
souchet or Zootje, an old Dutch method, formerly much honoured at
Greenwich fish dinners, and originally made of flounders. But flounders
are not convenient for a Chafing Dish, so you must perforce fall back
on sprats. Don’t slip!
Cut off the heads and tails of the sprats and put them into the pan
with a cupful of thin bouillon, three sprigs of parsley, half a sliced
carrot, and plenty of salt and pepper. Let this boil up for ten
minutes. Take it off; strain the liquor, return the fish to the pan
with three more sprigs of parsley and another sliced half carrot. Boil
up again for five minutes this time. A squeeze of lemon and a glass of
sherry to be added just before serving, of course with the sauce round
the fish.
It has always been said, although it is scarcely provable, that fish,
owing to the phosphorus, is good as a brainmaker. A visitor at a
Devonshire fishing village asked the parson what was the principal diet
of the villagers. “Fish mostly,” said the Vicar. “But I thought fish
was a brain food, and these are the most unintelligent folk I ever
saw,” remarked the tourist. “Well,” replied the parson, “just think
what they would look like if they didn’t eat fish!”
In America the lobster is a frequent victim of the Chafing Dish, and
there are many and diverse ways of torturing his succulent flesh
therein. I will give three recipes of a more simple nature, all of
which have been tried and proven not guilty of indigestion. I should
premise, however, that to my individual taste a lobster is only really
good in two ways. First, plain boiled and eaten cold with a vinaigrette
sauce; and, secondly, as a simple salad with lettuce and perchance a
stray tomato. However, there may be others with different tastes, and
to such I commend the following:
Buttered Lobster.
First, Buttered Lobster. Beat up two egg yolks with two tablespoons of
butter until it makes a smooth cream; add a wineglass of milk or cream,
a pinch of black pepper, and half a teaspoon of Paprika. Put it in the
Chafing Dish with the meat of a lobster cut into inch pieces, add the
coral. Let it simmer for ten minutes, keeping the flame well under
control.
Polly Lobster.
The next recipe is called Polly Lobster, and it is toothsome. Cut up
the lobster into inch lumps, put it in the dish with two or three
tablespoons of salad oil, according to its size; add three or four
whole onions, a small bunch of chives, pepper and salt, a wineglass of
sherry, and three quartered tomatoes. Let it boil up for a couple of
minutes, squeeze a lemon over it, and serve.
Flattered Lobster.
The last variation on the lobster theme is somewhat elaborate. It
is termed Flattered Lobster, the reason being, I opine, because of
the many added attractions to the crustacean’s native simplicity. It
is not quite orthodox perhaps, but extraordinarily nice. Cut up the
meat of a large lobster into cubes. Make a mixture of two tablespoons
of Worcester sauce, the same of vinegar, a wineglass of claret, a
dessertspoon of made mustard (French for choice), salt and Paprika to
taste. Put the lobster in the Chafer and pour the mixture over it,
adding a tablespoon of butter and the like of flour. Let it all heat up
gently and slowly; that is, begin with a full flame and reduce after
five minutes. Then pour in a liqueur glass of brandy, and heat it up
again with full flame for eight minutes, stirring it all the time. The
result is surprising.
A fish story which is not without charm is told of a seaside village
school of very rough fishing lads. The teacher gave them this sum to
do: “If two herrings cost three half-pence, what would thirty cost?”
After ten minutes’ hard work he noticed one of the boys had filled his
copy-book full of figures. “Well, Jim, what’s your answer?” “Please,
teacher, ’alf a crown.” “Wrong, Jim, try again. If two herrings----”
“Wait a bit, teacher,” the lad interrupted, “’errings you said. ’Ow
silly of me; I was a-reckoning of ’em like ’addocks.”
Prawns lend themselves most kindly to Chafing-Dish cookery, and can be
treated in sundry appetising ways. Fresh prawns are of course quite the
best, but the Barataria canned article is not to be despised, if they
be carefully washed before using; and there are one or two brands of
bottled prawns which cook excellently.
Digestive Prawns.
Shell two dozen prawns, put them in the Chafing Dish with half a pint
of milk, half a teaspoon of Paprika, a pinch of salt, and a sprinkling
of nutmeg. Keep stirring till near boiling-point, then lower the flame;
add a glass of sherry and two beaten eggs; simmer for eight minutes,
and then serve on toast.
Prawn Wiggle.
The next is an American recipe and rejoices in the name of Prawn
Wiggle. Melt three tablespoons of butter in the dish, and two
tablespoons of flour mixed with a teaspoon of salt and a good pinch
of pepper. Stir up and then pour in gradually half a pint of milk.
As soon as the sauce thickens add a cupful of prawns and a cupful of
cold cooked green peas. Mix up well and simmer for eight minutes. The
pink and green form a delightsome colour blend, suggesting certain
well-known racing colours, and the combined flavours are most delicate.
But why “wiggle”? Well, why not?
Prawns on the Grass.
Prawns on the Grass is recommendable, easy, and decorative for the
supper-table. Butter lightly the bottom of the Chafing Dish, half
fill it with carefully prepared cooked cold spinach; on this put a
dozen prawns, two eggs, hard-boiled and cut in quarters; arrange these
symmetrically, add pepper, salt, and a cupful of milk. Cover up and
let it simmer steadily for ten to twelve minutes. Serve in the Chafing
Dish with sippets of toast.
It is impossible to treat here of the delectable crayfish, crawfish,
and langouste; they are all cookable and easily digested. Best of all,
perhaps, are the Oder Krebse, and the Swedish Kräftor, with their
delightful and unique flavour and sweetness, but they must be eaten
near where they are born in order to be appreciated.
In the company of chaste Chaffinda it is easy to enjoy a _maigre_
day, for she deals so delicately with fish that one is almost tempted
to envy the days of “Cecil’s Fast.” It will be remembered that Lord
Burleigh introduced a Bill to enjoin the eating of fish only on certain
days, on all creeds alike, in order to restore the fish trade.
It would be highly improper to devote a chapter to fish without
referring to Vatel committing suicide on his sword (or was it a
skewer?), but the story is as stale as the fish would be when it did
arrive after all. A century ago his memory was rather painfully
honoured by roasted slices of cod on a spit, the dish being called _à
la Vatel_.
To many worthy folk, painters in particular, the magic word trout
immediately suggests Varnishing Day at the Paris Salon, and _déjeuner_
at Ledoyen’s. Trout with green sauce is the staple traditional dish
of the day. A couple of years ago I had the curiosity to inquire how
much was eaten, and the _maître d’hôtel_ gave me the following figures:
250 lbs. of trout; 15 gallons of green sauce; 120 chickens; 80 ducks;
40 saddles of lamb; 170 bundles of asparagus; and 100 baskets of
strawberries. Besides this, the usual thousand and one odds and ends
of a miscellaneous _carte du jour_. Painters have proverbially good
appetites.
Oysters.
Purposely, and of _malice prepense_, I am carefully omitting all
mention of the cooking of oysters in any shape or form. I consider
it _néfaste_--almost sacrilegious. Our natives are so exquisitely
succulent, so absolutely perfect in their delicacy, that to paint the
lily or to gild refined gold were pickaninny peccadilloes compared
to the cooking of the oyster. It is different, I believe, in the
United States of America, where there are various kinds of oysters,
some requiring, almost demanding, cooking to render them palatable.
Transatlantic cookery books are full of oyster recipes, in many of
which the true oyster flavour must be entirely obliterated by the
superadded condiments. This may be a question of gastronomic supply and
demand. But my humble Chafing Dish shall not be defiled by the torture
of the innocent bivalve. _Dixi!_
Trout in Small Broth.
To return to trout. The fresh-water fish, the darling product of
the stream, cannot be too respectfully approached, whether from an
angling or a culinary point of view. Izaac Walton, in his inimitable
charm and wisdom, has much to say thereon. Unfortunately his methods
are impracticable in a Chafing Dish. I find the best way to treat a
trout is with a Court Bouillon. This is how to make it: Mix a glass
of sherry, a tablespoon of vinegar, a glass of water, two bay leaves,
a dozen peppercorns, a bunch of parsley, a sliced onion, and a pinch
of salt. Amalgamate these materials thoroughly. Have your trout well
cleaned and dried. Pop him into the Chafing Dish and cover him with the
Court Bouillon. Let it cook slowly but steadily for twenty minutes.
Then eat it with thanks and praise.
Smothered Turbot.
Here is a good way of preparing the remains of turbot. It is called
Smothered Turbot, and is founded on an old Hastings fishwife’s recipe.
Butter the inside of the Chafing Dish; spread thereon a layer of bread
crumbs, chopped mushrooms, parsley, cut-up lemon peel, pepper and salt.
Break up the cold cooked turbot small and make a second layer thereof.
Add two tablespoons of butter, and then another layer the same as the
first. Heat up and keep at a good heat for twelve minutes. Serve it in
the Chafing Dish.
Sardines in a Hurry.
Sardines are one of the handiest of standbys for the Chafist. But get
the best brands and smallish fish; the large ones are apt to suggest
pilchards, which, although good in their way, are not sardines.
Sardines in a Hurry are done thusly: Take the sardines out of the box
carefully on to a plate, pour boiling water over them, and drain it
off at once. Take off all the skin, bone them, and cut off the tails.
Prepare thin strips of hot buttered toast, put a sardine on each strip,
pepper and salt it, pour over it a modicum of plain melted butter and a
squeeze of lemon juice. Put them into the Chafing Dish and hot up for
five minutes.
Waldorf Sardines.
Another very good if not quite as simple a way of preparing them is
Waldorf Sardines. Pour boiling water over a dozen sardines, wiping off
the skin with a clean fish-cloth and removing the tails. Put them in
the Chafing Dish with one tablespoon of olive oil and heat thoroughly
for eight minutes. Put them aside on a dish and keep them hot. Now put
another tablespoon of olive oil into the pan, and when sizzling add
a cupful of water. Stir until it gets thick, then add a teaspoon of
Worcester sauce, half a teaspoon of Paprika, and a pinch of salt. Take
the dish off the flame. Add the beaten yolk of an egg, one teaspoon of
vinegar and the same of French mustard. Stir the sauce. Heat up the
sardines again, and pour the sauce over them. As a supper dish, say
after a Royal Institution lecture, or something equally improving, this
gives one what the late George du Maurier called “a sense of genial
warmth about the midriff.”
Creamed Smelts.
A rather more subtle but curiously refined concoction is Creamed Smelts.
Clean and dry a dozen smelts in a cloth. Dip them one by one in thick
cream, or, wanting that, in milk thickened with flour; then dredge
them with flour so as to make a paste coating all over them. Put two
tablespoons of butter in the Chafing Dish, and when sizzling put in
the fish with a squeeze of lemon and a glass of sherry. They will be
ready in eight minutes. Sprinkle fried parsley over them before serving.
The delicate faint perfume of the smelt has been likened to that of
the cucumber, violets and verbena. It is quite unique among fish, and
has a charm that is all its own. This method of cooking preserves
this peculiarity. Some other methods do not. Avoid buying sand-smelts
(Atherines). They are very similar to the real thing, but lack the
characteristic perfume, and they are neither as delicate in flavour or
taste.
Kedgeree.
All Anglo-Indians, and many who have never been nearer India than
South Kensington, know the virtues of kedgeree, kadgiori, kitchri,
kegeree, kitcharee, kitchery, or even quitheri. It is spelt and made in
forty-seven different ways, every one of which is strictly authentic,
and, according to different authorities, the One and Only way. This is
Martin Harvey Kedgeree.
Boil two cupfuls of rice, and strain it well. Mix in it two chopped
cold hard-boiled eggs, any cold remains of cooked fish, flaked and
salted; add a tablespoon of butter, the same of milk, a teaspoon of
Paprika, and half a teaspoon of salt. Toss it all about in the Chafing
Dish thoroughly, and then hot it up for ten minutes. Squeeze a lemon
over it just before serving. Kedgeree is by no means solely a breakfast
dish. It comes in handily at all times, but never argue about kedgeree
with an Anglo-Indian. It is fatal to the kedgeree. It gets cold--and
then _vois que c’est triste pour vous_, as Mephistopheles sings when he
looks at Siebel’s hand.
Next to the Indian, the Chinese is one of the most inventive cooks in
the world. I had one once who had been, amongst other things, a pirate,
a prison-warder, an actor, and a judge. He had sudden inspirations,
and therein lay his weakness. He knew that English folk ate jelly with
mutton, so he tried strawberry jam with eggs and bacon, and following
the principle of apple sauce with goose, he gave me hot cherry brandy
with roast fowl. He was a bad cook, but a most fluent and ingenious
liar.
The best-flavoured eels are those that come from the Thames;, they are
much better than the Dutch. There are four kinds: the Snig, the Grig,
the Broadnosed, and the Sharp-nosed. The last are the best. Izaak
Walton says: “It is agreed that the eel is a most dainty dish”--and who
shall say him nay? The Greeks went further and called it “the Helen of
the dinner-table,” because every guest strove, like Paris, to keep it
for himself.
Souchet of Eels.
To make a water souchet of eels follow the directions for sprats, but
cut the eels into inch chunks, and boil for half as long again in each
case. Some folks think that eels are at their best in a souchet, which
has the tendency of bringing out the best flavour of the fish.
Jellied eels and stewed eels, both East End and racecourse prime
favourites, are somewhat too rich and coarse for any save the very
ravenous, but it is certain that there is a deal of rich, if perhaps
somewhat heavy, nourishment in the eel, and its meat is a great
delicacy in any form.
Nettled Eels.
Nettled Eels are much esteemed in Normandy. They may be prepared in the
same fashion as water souchet, with the addition of a handful of clean
washed young nettles, which should be cooked with the fish but taken
out before serving. They give a peculiar zest to the dish, which is
quite pleasant.
Matelote of Eels.
The classic form of the eel is as a Matelote, originally a marine
dish, and quite within Chaffinda’s compass. Have your eel cut into
inch-and-a-half lengths, about one pound in all; put a large walnut of
butter, or two tablespoons of oil in the Chafing Dish, also a dozen
small peeled onions; let them brown thoroughly and frizzle well; add
a tablespoon of flour, a teaspoon of Paprika, and half as much salt.
Heat up and stir well until it is all thoroughly amalgamated, then
put in six small mushrooms, flat or button (fresh of course), add a
good squeeze of lemon, and if the mixture is thicker than cream, pour
in a little water. Now put in a tumbler (half-pint) of good claret, a
couple of cloves, a bay leaf, and a teacup of bouillon. Let the mixture
simmer for eight minutes, after which put in the eel and a liqueur
glass of brandy, and cook for another ten minutes; then serve very hot.
An orthodox variation is to set light to the brandy before pouring it
in and if the boiling wine catches fire it gives a peculiar savour.
A well-made Matelote is a thing of joy, a combination of harmonies,
culminating in one grand Amen. Izaak Walton designates such a dish a
“Hogoo.”
Grandfather’s Bloaters.
Finally, here is a dish which is superlative in its simplicity. It is
not a Chafing-Dish recipe, but is yet not altogether out of place.
It is called Grandfather’s Bloaters. Put two fine bloaters into a
soup-plate, pour over them enough whisky just to cover them. Set light
to the whisky, and let it burn itself out. The bloaters will then be
done--and done exquisitely. The dish is attributed to Charles Sala, the
father of the late George Augustus Sala. It reads much more bibulous
than it really is. As a matter of fact, it is almost a temperance dish.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CHAPTER·V·
FLESH·AND·FOWL]
“Alas! how simple to these cates compared
Was that crude apple that diverted Eve?”
MILTON (“Paradise Regained”).
It has always been a puzzle to me why folks take flesh and fowl so
much more seriously than fish and vegetables. Your fair neighbour at
a dinner-party will prattle gaily through soup and fish, of polo or
pantomime, according to the season, but as soon as meat or bird makes
its appearance she, all unconsciously, dives into deeper topics, and
talks of palæontology or premature burial. Why? Of course, if this had
only happened to myself, I should know that I was a sepulchral bore,
but I find, on inquiry, that it is the experience of nine men out of
ten.
In W. H. Mallock’s “New Republic,” some quite nice people find before
them at dinner a menu of the conversation expected of them, as well as
of the food to be eaten. It was arranged something after the fashion
of the bill of fare of a great dinner where the wines are indicated
against each course. Thus instead of _Tortue Claire--Amontillado_,
something like this, _Crême d’Asperges--Our Foreign Policy_, was
printed on the card. Mr. Mallock relates that the scheme was not found
practicable, but the idea, in itself, seems alluring and full of
possibilities. Anyhow, it is obvious to the most casual diner-out that
there is a direct, if indefinable, link between cates and conversation,
and that the tide of talk ebbs and flows through the menu according to
a certain unascertained but more or less fixed law.
The great question of Sauce has broken up many Damon-Pythias
friendships, and brought havoc into sundry happy homes. No two
people think exactly alike on Sauces. There are so many schools. The
Flamboyant, the Renaissance, the Simplicists, the Natural Flavourites,
the Neo-Soho, and many others. The only way to gastronomic salvation is
to steer a careful course between extremes, and to take that which is
best and most expedient from each and every school.
A very refined and intelligent cannibal once had the politeness to ask
the future ornament of his stock-pot, “With what sauce would you like
to be eaten?” “But I don’t want to be eaten at all,” was the reply.
“That is entirely beside the question,” said the cannibal. This rather
suggests the famous Green Sauce which La Coste offered to Sir Thomas
Dundas, at the Duke of York’s table, with the whispered advice, “With
this sauce you would enjoy eating your grandfather.”
Do what we will, we cannot get away from Sauce. It is a necessary if
unobtrusive concomitant of the plainest meats. But it can be mitigated,
assuaged; and from a loathly disguise it can be transformed into a
dulcet accompaniment. “Les animaux se repaissent; l’homme mange:
l’homme d’esprit seul sait manger,” said Brillat-Savarin, who achieved
much of his literary success by gross flattery of the palates of his
friends. Charles de Monselet, the author of “La Cuisinière Poétique,”
and a very earnest advocate of simplicity, as against rioting in the
stewpans, wrote: “The man who pays no attention to the food he consumes
can only be likened to a pig in whose trough the trotters of his own
son, a pair of braces, and a box of dominoes are equally welcome.”
At the same time the affectation of simplicity is often grossly
overdone. When Lord Byron first met Tom Moore at Samuel Rogers’ rooms
in St. James’s Place, the noble lord affected a lack of appetite for
anything except potatoes and vinegar, biscuits and soda water; but he
made a very hearty meal at his club afterwards. Again, Percy Bysshe
Shelley, who was certainly not affected, but probably absent-minded,
when he felt hungry would dash into the first baker’s shop, buy a loaf,
and rush out again, breaking off pieces as he walked, and eating them
there and then, his scanty meal being eked out by common raisins, a
small stock of which he kept in his waistcoat pocket.
By way of contrast, it is related of George Frederick Handel, the
great composer, a man of voracious appetite and exaggerated capacity,
that he ordered dinner for three at a tavern, and, being hungry,
asked, “Is de tinner retty?” The waiter replied that he was waiting
for the company to come. “I am de gompany,” said Handel, “bring up de
tinner _prestissimo_.” This anecdote, probably unveracious, is often
attributed to Papa Haydn--which is ridiculous.
Joints and whole birds, save very small ones, are of course out of the
question with a Chafing Dish, but steaks, cutlets, disjointed birds,
and a thousand varieties of treating flesh and fowl, raw and cooked,
are well within its range.
Rump Steak.
Beef steak, or rump steak, is very palatable cooked in the following
manner. Give a one-pound steak a thorough beating. Mallets are made
for this express purpose, but if such an implement be not available,
I have used the head of a poker, wrapped in cloth, with great effect.
This drubbing makes the meat tender. Put the steak into the dish with
two tablespoons of butter and three slices of lemon. Cook it slowly
for twelve minutes. Then pour over it a cupful of bouillon and a
wine-glass of claret. Simmer it for ten minutes more with an added
teaspoon of Worcester sauce, salt and pepper. Before serving the steak,
which ought to be thoroughly tender, squeeze a lemon over it. Onions
are, I venture to think, a great improvement, and two of them, cut in
rings, may well be added, after the first twelve minutes’ cooking.
The Roast Beef of Old England which has done so much to maintain the
reputation of Great Britain on the Continent, is strangely mistreated
and man-handled in foreign parts. It is often served _saignant_ or
nearly raw, under the mistaken belief that we like it that way.
Moreover, in very old French cookery books, roast mutton and roast
lamb are gravely designated _Rosbif de Mouton_ and _Rosbif d’Agneau_
respectively. Was this sheer flattery, or ignorance, or both?
Devilled Beef.
Devilled Beef can be highly recommended in this fashion: Three thick
slices of cold cooked roast beef, lean. Butter them as though they
were slices of bread. Then dose them liberally with the following
mixture: One teaspoon made mustard, half a teaspoon black pepper, same
of salt, a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, and a tablespoon of vinegar.
Cook them in this in the Chafing Dish, until the meat begins to curl up
at the edges.
This, although very good, is mere journeyman work and not a “creation.”
Did not Aristotle say that a man who eats a dinner is a better judge
of it than the cook? That is judgment, however, not creation, and the
French cook-artists call their dishes “creations”--like the dressmakers.
A chop, I contend, should only be cooked on a gridiron--grilled, that
is to say, over an open fire. Any other treatment is an offence which,
in a more enlightened age, would be made indictable. St. Lawrence would
rise in his grave and object, were a chop put in a Chafing Dish--and
quite right too! St. Lawrence is of course the patron saint of the
grill, for is he not said to have been broiled alive on a gridiron?
According to the respectable authority of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, his
dying words were:
“This side enough is toasted, so turn me, tyrant, eat,
And see whether, raw or roasted, I make the better meat.”
Chipped Beef.
One of the best things produced in America, besides buyers of spurious
art works and donors of Free Libraries, is Chipped Beef. You can buy
it in tins and treat it thus. Put three tablespoons of butter in the
dish. When just melted add a tablespoon of flour; stir until smooth.
Then add the Chipped Beef, which must have been previously soaked in
cold water for ten minutes; let it simmer for eight minutes, then stir
in the beaten-up yolks of two eggs, and serve very hot. Every day
is Thanksgiving Day when one eats Chipped Beef, and it is a selfish
dish to cook, because one wants to eat it all oneself; and the worst
of eating is that it takes away one’s appetite--although there is a
proverb to the contrary.
But it is always comfortable to be content (or nearly so) on good plain
food, instead of on the misguided concoctions of addle-egged and-pated
foreigners, which leave one in the position of the unfortunate vultures
in the famous Oxford prize poem, who
“Satiated with one horrid meal,
No second rapture for another feel.”
Zrazy.
This is how to make Polish Zrazy in a Chafing Dish. Buy the whole
undercut (fillet) of a small sirloin. Cut it into inch slices. Brown
two sliced onions in the Dish in a large walnut of butter. Add the
meat, a teaspoon of Paprika, salt, and half a dozen cloves. Cover up,
and let it hot up to boiling. Do not uncover, as the great thing is to
let it steam in its own _fumet_. Shake the pan now and again, so that
it shall amalgamate well. After once boiling up, let it simmer for
fifteen minutes, add a good squeeze of lemon, a glass of claret, and
serve with the accompaniment of potato salad.
“This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest
men,” says Izaak Walton of a like concoction.
Frizzled Ham.
Do you think you would like Frizzled Ham? I do; and this is how I cook
it. Start with half a pound of rather fat ham in thin slices. Put half
a tablespoon of butter in the pan, and when very hot add the ham. As
soon as it begins to curl at the edges, dust the slices with dry flour,
which will soon turn brown. Turn the lamp down and keep simmering. Now
mix in a bowl half a tablespoon of vinegar and the same of dry mustard.
Pour it over the ham, add enough boiling water to cover the meat, put
in three drops of Tabasco, and let it all boil up for a minute.
Ham in Hades.
Another and somewhat similar way of preparing ham, which has been very
successful, particularly at supper-time, after, say, a lobster salad,
has been christened _Ham in Hades_.
Make a mixture of a teaspoon of made mustard, a tablespoon of Tarragon
vinegar, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of Paprika, a teaspoon of
Worcester sauce. Spread this mixture on both sides of half a dozen
slices of ham. Put two tablespoons of olive oil in the Chafer. When
this begins to smoke, put in the ham and brown it quickly on both sides.
Gallimaufrey.
Gallimaufrey is a very old dish, meaning really _All Sorts_.
Shakespeare calls it Gaily-Mawfrey. A very excellent Modern
Gallimaufrey is prepared thus: Three thickish slices of ham with two
walnuts of butter in the Dish. Let it cook slowly. Add six peeled and
washed Jerusalem artichokes, three sliced carrots, one sliced onion.
Let it go on simmering. Now put in a couple of dozen haricot beans,
a sprig of parsley, three cloves, a wineglass of sherry, a blade of
mace, salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of sugar. Simmer it for twenty
minutes, bringing it at last just to the boil. It is then an agreeable
stew, which is probably as totally unlike the real old-fashioned
Gallimaufrey as anything possibly could be. But that really does not
matter.
Gallimaufrey dates back to the time of Master Robert May, who published
a memorable cook-book in 1660, which is not without its humours. A real
old English banquet, it seems, would not be complete without two pies,
the one filled with live frogs, and the other with birds. These are for
the particular delectation of the ladies. “They will desire to see what
is in the pies; where lifting first the lid off one pie, out skips some
frogs, which makes the ladies to skip and shreek; next after the other
pie, whence come out the birds, who, by a natural instinct, flying at
the light, will put out the candles. So that what with frogs beneath,
and birds above, it will cause much delight and pleasure to the whole
company.”
They were right merry folk then!
Bubble and Squeak.
Not to know Bubble and Squeak is to admit one’s ignorance of one of
the good things of this earth. Chaffinda can tackle it, and in this
wise. It is an old Cornish version. There may be others, but there can
be none better. The dish needs cabbage, and it is most practical to
get a young fresh cabbage, boiled, pressed, and chopped into shreds
before you begin the actual cooking. It saves time and trouble. Put
a tablespoon of butter in the Chafing Dish, also one chopped onion,
and the cabbage. Let it frizzle and absorb the butter. Just before
boiling, add gradually a cupful of milk, pepper and salt. As soon as
it boils up, take it off and put it aside in a hot dish. Now hot up
three underdone slices of cooked cold roast beef in two tablespoons
of butter, turning them frequently, so that they shall be well cooked
on both sides; add a tablespoon of Worcester sauce and the same of
vinegar. Now make a mound of the cooked cabbage, and put the slices of
well-done meat around it, upright. You will regret that you did not
cook double the quantity.
There are so many kinds of sausages that it is difficult to pitch
upon the best for Chafing purposes. Slices of the Brunswick species
are excellent in pea-soup. The genuine liver sausage makes good
sandwiches. The more elaborate French kinds are akin to galantine. The
Italian Bologna and Mortadella have their friends. But, after all, the
well-made Cambridge sausage is hard to beat. I plump for the Cambridge
variety.
Hodge’s Sausages.
This is a Cambridge recipe for Hodge’s Sausages. Put as many as you
think you can eat in the dish with a walnut of butter for every two,
pepper and salt, and a tablespoon of Worcester sauce. Then add one
sliced apple for each sausage. Take out the cores, but do not peel
them. Stab the sausages with a fork to prevent their bursting. Cook for
twelve minutes. American apples are good for this dish, and also the
homegrown Keswick Codlin, Blenheim Orange, or Hambledon Deux Ans.
There is something peculiarly bucolic about Hodge’s Sausages which may
commend itself to the rurally minded. To me, it brings the scent of the
hay over the spirit-lamp.
Goulasch.
Another appetising stew is Goulasch. Beat well a half-pound (or larger)
steak; cut it into pieces the size of a domino. Put them in the Chafing
Dish with two cold cooked potatoes chopped into dice. Pour over the
meat and the vegetables two tablespoons of olive oil, and as soon as
it simmers add an onion in slices, half a teaspoon of Paprika, salt,
and a cupful of bouillon. Cover it up, and let it cook for ten minutes,
stirring occasionally. Just before serving drop in half a dozen stoned
olives.
So much for beef. The next meat is of course mutton, for which three
recipes should suffice. The first is Mutton Steaks, and is adapted
from a Welsh recipe. I have a very interesting Welsh cookery book,
tersely entitled: “Llyfr Cogino a Chadw ty: yn cynwys Pa fodd? A Paham?
Cogyddiaeth.” I am sorry that ignorance prevents my giving anything out
of it, but I think that I have got the title nearly right.
Mutton Steaks.
To make Mutton Steaks, cut three slices, each an inch thick, from the
middle of a cold cooked leg of mutton. Put them in the Dish with enough
water to cover them, pepper and salt, and five small onions. Cover it
up and let the meat brown thoroughly on one side, then turn it over and
add a walnut of butter and a tablespoon of flour. Do not allow it to
boil, but keep it simmering gently for at least fifteen minutes. If raw
meat be used, the result is also quite satisfactory, but it is well in
that case to replace the water by a cup of bouillon.
Turkish Mutton.
Turkish Mutton, locally termed _Etena Jarvat_: this is one of those
dishes which may fairly be included in Brillat-Savarin’s _magistères
restoratifs_. It is easy enough to chafe.
Cut half a pound of uncooked mutton (from the leg from choice, but not
absolutely necessary) into medium dice. Put the meat into the Chafing
Dish with salt, pepper and dripping, fat, oil, or butter, according
to taste, but oil is preferable. When the meat turns brown, add half
a pound of previously cooked and sliced French beans, also half a
pint of water or bouillon (latter for choice) and a bunch of simples,
either thyme or marjoram, or both. Simmer steadily for twenty minutes,
stirring occasionally. Carrots can be used instead of beans. Just
before serving turn up the flame full, and let it come just to the boil.
Mutton Venison.
Mutton Venison is a compromise, and may be recommended as such. We
live in an age of compromise, so why not bring it into our cookery?
Make an extra strong decoction of bouillon from any good meat-juice,
three tablespoons in quantity, mince into it an onion, and put in the
pan with a tablespoonful of Worcester sauce, three drops of Tabasco,
a glass of claret, a dessert-spoon of red-currant jelly (or guava or
blackberry jelly), pepper and salt. When very hot put in about a pound
of slices of cold cooked leg of mutton, lean, cut into strips. Let it
simmer for twenty minutes. It is not a bit like venison, but distinctly
good nevertheless.
Plump and Wallop.
“Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me?
Three plumps and a wallop for ae bawbee.”
This advertisement, it is alleged, was addressed to the good people
of Kirkmahoe, who were so poor that they could not afford to put any
meat into their broth. A cobbler invested all his money in buying four
sheep shanks, and when a neighbour wanted to make mutton broth, for the
payment of one halfpenny the cobbler would “plump” one of the sheep
shanks into the boiling water and give it a “wallop,” or whisk round.
He then wrapped it in a cabbage leaf and took it home. This was called
a “gustin bone,” and was supposed to give a rich “gust” to the broth.
Potatoes and Point.
A Boer recipe of much the same description was known in early Transvaal
days (long before the War) as “Potatoes and Point.” The poor “Bijwoner”
family was served all round with potatoes, and a red herring was hung
up in the middle of the room. The elders were allowed to rub their
potatoes on the herring, but the youngsters might only point theirs
towards the delicacy at the end of a fork. The mere proximity of the
highly-flavoured herring was supposed to give the potato a flavour.
Lots of quite worthy folk gorge themselves periodically and keep their
children on the border-line of starvation. A certain exaggeratedly
selfish family man of my acquaintance, who for economic reasons lived
somewhere in the wilds of West Kensington, made it his unholy practice
to dine once a month with a couple of boon companions of the same sex
at the Carlton or Prince’s, and at the conclusion of a remarkable
dinner was wont to blurt out: “By George, I wish I could afford to
bring the wife and children here!”
Scouse.
Permit me now to suggest a trial of that very old and famous dish,
Scouse. It is prepared in the following fashion: Get one pound of
lean, dairy-fed pork, cooked and cold. Cut it into half-inch squares;
sprinkle them with flour, salt, Paprika, and dip them lightly in French
mustard. Put in the Chafing Dish three chopped onions, half a teaspoon
of sugar, one wine-glass of vinegar, three cloves, a blade of mace and
a bayleaf. Cover up and let it simmer, not boil, while the quantity
of liquid is reduced by one half. Add the pork with half a pint of
bouillon, and simmer for another ten minutes.
Young pork, like young veal, is always excellent, but it can be too
young. A sucking pig with lacklustre eye and a lemon in its jaws is
pathetic and none too appetising. Veal, in England at any rate, is
often tasteless and somewhat dull. Not so very long ago, in Ireland,
they used to kill newborn calves, bake them in an oven with potatoes,
and call the dish “Staggering Bob.”
Kabobs.
Kabobs have probably come to us from India, via the Cape. This is an
old Capetown-Malay recipe which is thoroughly reliable. Half a pound
of cold veal; the same of lean ham, both cut into slices a quarter
of an inch thick; three apples, and three onions. Cut the meat and
the vegetables into rounds with a knife or cutter, about the size of
a crown piece. Skewer them up on wooden (or, if you are a de Beers
shareholder, on silver) skewers, in the following order: (1) a round
of veal; (2) a round of apple; (3) a round of ham; (4) around of
onion. Sprinkle them with pepper, salt and curry-powder. Put them in
the Chafing Dish with a teacupful of bouillon and a walnut of butter;
simmer steadily for twenty minutes, then thicken the gravy with a
little flour, and serve either with boiled rice, or toast, or both.
Brigands’ Fowls.
Cold fowls lend themselves in a hundred ways to the kind attentions of
Chaffinda. Mention of quite a few of these must urge the gastronomer
to further experiments and discoveries. _Pollio à la Contrabandista_:
this is the way brigands cook, or ought to cook, fowls. Cut a cold
cooked fowl into neat joints. Put them into the Chafing Dish with four
tablespoons of olive oil, and heat up until the meat is of a light
brown colour, turning the pieces frequently. Then keep the flame lower
and simmering all the time; add four tomatoes cut into quarters, two
chopped green chillies, one shredded Spanish onion, one tablespoon of
Worcester sauce, the same of mushroom ketchup, and four cloves. Let it
simmer, closely covered, for at least fifteen minutes. It will then
prove a most savoury mess.
Howtowdie.
From Spain to Bonnie Scotland! This is how to cook Howtowdie. Cut up
a young fowl into handy joints. Put them into the Chafing Dish with
two walnuts of butter, a cupful of bouillon, three sprigs of parsley,
three small onions, salt and pepper. Simmer continuously until the
bird is tender. When half cooked add another cupful of bouillon to make
up for evaporation. When quite cooked put the fowl on to a hot dish,
surround it with poached eggs, then thicken the gravy in the pan with
a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of Worcester sauce; give it a
smart boil up and pour it over the fowl. This Howtowdie is adapted
from an excellent recipe in “The Scottish Cookery Book containing guid
plain rules for makin’ guid plain meats suitable for sma’ purses, big
families, and Scotch stomachs.”
Roman Fowl.
The preparation of Roman Fowl is simplicity itself. Pour four
tablespoons of olive oil into the Chafing Dish with a pinch of salt,
a teaspoon of Paprika, three cloves, and herbs to taste, but do not
overdo the herbs. When the oil is sizzling put in all the limbs of a
lightly boiled chicken, cut up. Cook it slowly, turning the meat so
that all the flesh is equally cooked all over. When done it should be
a delicate brown. Add half a cupful of tomato sauce and the same of
bouillon, also three shredded onions. Simmer for eight minutes, then
serve.
Creamed Chicken.
This is an American recipe, copied verbatim from an American
Chafing-Dish cookery book. Two cups cold chicken cut into small pieces,
one cup chicken stock, one cup milk or cream, two tablespoonfuls of
butter, one heaping tablespoonful of flour, salt and pepper. Cook the
butter and the flour together in the Chafing Dish; add the stock and
milk and stir until smooth; put in the chicken, salt and pepper, and
cook three minutes longer.
Other times, other manners. Contrast with the severe simplicity of the
above the sort of thing that gratified the palates of our forebears.
In the fourteenth century, Sacchetti says, a baked goose stuffed with
garlic and quinces was esteemed an excellent dish in Italy, and when
the Gonfalonier of Florence entertained a famous doctor he gave him the
stomach of a calf, boiled partridges, and pickled sardines.
Old Samuel Pepys, too, had a nice taste in food as in music, and other
things. His idea of “a fine dinner” was to this effect: “A dish of
marrowbones, a leg of mutton, a loin of veal, a dish of fowl; three
pullets and a dozen of larks, all in a dish; a great tart, a neat’s
tongue, a dish of anchovies, a dish of prawns, and cheese.”
For those who are curious in such things it is easy to find quaint
recipes in old books. For instance, if you want to know how to bake
a hedgehog in clay--and very good it is too--you have only to read
Albert Smith’s “Christopher Tadpole” and you will know all about it.
It is truly said that comparatively few people read Disraeli’s novels
nowadays, but those who are culinarily inclined would do well to turn
to the opening chapter of “Tancred,” where there is a delightful
conversation between a grand old _maître de bouche_, “Papa Prevost,”
and his pupil, the eminent chef, Leander. The pompous spirit of the
culinary artist is delightfully caught and the gastronomic jargon
wonderfully reproduced.
But gastronomy has never lacked its historians. Great painters have
come to its aid, as witness the glowing canvases of Snyders, Teniers,
Jordaens, Ruysdael, Jan Weenix, Melchior de Hondecoeter and Jan Fyt.
Their pictures of still life, the poulterers’ shops, the heaped baskets
of good cheer, the brilliant lobster, the callow lemon, the russet
hare, and the lustrous plumage of the pheasant, have inspired the hand
of the Masters, who must have appreciated all such culinary delicacies
in order to have painted them with such loving-kindness.
Yesterday’s Pheasant.
“If partridge had the woodcock’s thighs,
’Twould be the noblest bird that flies;
If woodcock had the partridge breast,
’Twould be the best bird ever drest.”
Yesterday’s Pheasant can be made into a most tempting dish by cutting
up the remains into convenient chunks, omitting the bones. Put one
tablespoon of butter in the Dish, add a tablespoon of flour, and keep
on stirring till the mixture is smooth and light brown. Add a glass of
claret, a tablespoon of Worcester sauce, pepper and salt, and bring
to a boil, stirring occasionally. Now put in the chunks of pheasant,
and simmer for eight minutes. An excellent accompaniment to this is
chestnut and celery salad.
Any game bird may be treated in like manner, save always the woodcock,
that little epitome of all that is toothsome and delicate. A curious
thing about the woodcock is its extraordinarily rapid digestion. A
single bird has been known to consume in a night more earthworms than
half filled a moderate-sized flowerpot.
Few people know the different expressions for flocks of birds. Here
are some of them: a building of rooks, a bevy of quails, a watch
of nightingales, a cast of hawks, a nide of pheasants, a muster of
peacocks, a plump of wildfowl, a flock of geese, a pack of grouse, a
chattering of choughs, a stand of plovers, and a wisp of snipe.
A woman I know had a very good cook, who was also a plain cook--or
rather, a plain-spoken cook. She had been in the place many years, and
much was forgiven her. The mistress, visiting the kitchen, inspected
a turkey, and remarked that it was a very thin bird. “Just you wait,
M’m, till I’ve stuffed it with chestnuts,” said the cook, “you won’t
know it then. It’ll be quite another thing. Just like you, M’m, when
you has your di’monds on.”
I do not advise the fabrication of elaborate entrées in the Chafing
Dish. They can be and have been done, but I mistrust them and find
ample scope for ingenuity, inventiveness, and novelty in the cates I
have already described, without venturing into the fields of fancy.
Vol-au-Vent, for instance, or Brains à la Poulette, or Spanish Cream
Pudding are all within the range of feasibility, but I leave the
recipes to those less timorous than myself. In fact, in this case, I am
at one with the waiter in the “Bab Ballads” who hurled the most awful
threat in culinary literature at his flighty sweetheart:
“Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu oses,
Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère:
Je lui dirai d’quoi on compose
Vol-au-Vent à la Financière!”
The good things of this life are mostly plain and wholesome (with
a few delightful exceptions), and we can all qualify to live in
Bengodi, Boccaccio’s country of content, where they tie up the vines
with sausages, where you may buy a fat goose for a penny, and have the
giblets thrown in into the bargain. In this place there is a mountain
of Parmesan cheese, and the people’s employment is making cheese-cakes
and macaroons. There is also a river which runs Malmsey wine of the
very best quality.
There are no cheap excursions to Bengodi. We have to tramp there on
foot--and earn our bread on the road as we travel thither.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CHAPTER · VI·
VEGETABLES · AND · SALADS·]
“Will a man give a penny to fill his belly with hay? Or can you
persuade the turtle-dove to live upon carrion like the crow?”
JOHN BUNYAN (“Pilgrim’s Progress”).
The first vegetarian was probably Nebuchadnezzar, and he has many
followers. With the utmost love and respect for all vegetables, without
exception, I refuse to accept them as the staff of life, or indeed
as anything more than a delicious aid thereto. It is possible that
the internal economy of certain very worthy folk may be more easily
conducted on a vegetarian basis, and indeed every man is at liberty to
feed as suits him best; but as a matter of preference, predilection and
experience, I decline to follow his example. If they are content to
let me go my way unmolested, I have no desire to interfere with their
tastes. But no proselytising, please!
Here in England, although we shine in our roasts, our beef, our chops,
and maybe a few other trifles, we are woefully and culpably ignorant
of vegetable cookery. The average British cook has but one idea with
vegetables. She cooks them in water, with lumps of coarse soda, which
she thinks makes them soft and keeps their colour. As a matter of
fact, this process, especially the soda, practically destroys their
health-giving properties. Vegetables want the kindliest care, the
most delicate handling, the most knowledgeable treatment. Otherwise
they become mere parodies of their better selves. What could be more
terrible, more depressing, than the usual slab of wet cabbage doled
out at the average London restaurant? It is an insult to the cabbage,
to the guest, and to the Art of Cookery. And it is so easy to cook it
decently--even in a Chafing Dish.
Again, the average British household knows and uses only a very limited
range of vegetables, ignoring, wilfully or otherwise, scores of edible
delights, easily grown and easily cooked, but with the inbred laziness
of crass conservatism, totally overlooked, because, forsooth, “the
greengrocer does not keep it!” The greengrocer, on the other hand,
scorns the inquirer after such strange green meats, because “they are
never asked for”; and so, between the two, we are relegated to the same
dull round of vegetable monotony.
Household cookery knows nothing of the Aubergine, or Egg-plant, of
which there are fourteen edible varieties, most of which can easily
be grown in this country, although the rich purple kinds are best
suited to our climate. Then there is Salsify, which is amenable to
a dozen different treatments; as the vegetable oyster it is duly
honoured in America, but we know it not. The Good King Harry is only
known in Lincolnshire. The leaves served as cabbage are excellent, and
the tender young shoots are as delicate as asparagus. The Cardoon,
Scornzonera, Celeriac, Chicory, Buck’s Horn, Chervil, Jew’s Mallow,
Lovage, Purslane, Rampion, Scurvy-Grass and Valerian, are only a
selection from a list thrice as long.
It is useless, however, to lift up one thin quavering voice of protest
in a wilderness of deaf greengrocers. I must e’en deal with the
common vegetables of commerce, others being unprocurable, and their
cultivation a counsel of perfection.
One naturally begins with potatoes, though the reason of their position
in the hierarchy of the garden is occult. Sir Walter Raleigh, good man
and true, has much to answer for. Tobacco _and_ potatoes! I believe it
to be a fact that throughout the length and breadth of Ireland there
is no memorial to Raleigh. This seems a distinct omission. But then,
neither is there a statue to Lord Verulam!
Between the primitive tuber, baked in the ashes, and _Pommes à la
Rèjane_, there lies the whole gamut of culinary ingenuity. They are the
extremes of sophistication and the opposite. But it must suffice here
to give a few only of the simplest recipes, well within Chaffinda’s
modest capability, and in their very ingenuousness fit alike for the
delectation of Prince or Pauper.
Mary’s Potatoes.
The first method is called Mary’s Potatoes for want of a better name.
Slice up half a dozen cold cooked potatoes. Put them in the Chafing
Dish with a walnut of butter and a cupful of milk; let them simmer for
five minutes, then add the juice of half a lemon, a teaspoon of chopped
parsley, pepper and salt. Simmer for five minutes more.
Potato Uglies.
Cut up half a dozen cold cooked potatoes into quarter-inch slices. Put
four slices of fat bacon into the Chafing Dish, and hot up until the
fat begins to smoke; then drop in the potatoes, add pepper and salt,
and cook for five minutes. Drain before serving.
Sala’s Potatoes.
Cut four potatoes in slices as large as a halfpenny, but twice as
thick. Put two tablespoonsful of butter in the Chafing Dish, and a
dozen delicate little onions cut into dice. Hot up the onions and
butter till the former turn a golden brown, then add the potatoes and a
teaspoon of chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon. Keep
stirring, and when the onions are deep yellow, which should be in about
eight minutes, the dish is ready.
Fried Potatoes.
Boil half a dozen potatoes in their skins. Peel them when hot, cut them
in quarters, roll them in bread-crumbs, and then fry them for seven
minutes in two tablespoons of sizzling butter. Sprinkle chopped parsley
on them before serving.
The tomato or love-apple is a perennial joy to the eye, whether cooked
or uncooked, ripe or unripe. Its form and colour are alike exquisite,
and its flavour altogether a thing apart. Our grandfathers knew
little or nothing about it, apart from sauce, and it has been left
to our generation fully to appreciate its possibilities. It is the
more strange because it has been a staple article of food in mid and
southern Europe since time immemorial. It has even been suggested
that Eve’s apple, Paris’ apple, Nausicaa’s apple, and the apples of
Hesperides were all really tomatoes! As _pommes d’amour_, _pomi di
mori_, _Liebesäpfel_, _Paradiesäpfel_, or tomatoes, they are nowadays
honoured and appreciated by all right lovers of the good things of the
earth. They are both fruit and vegetable, and it is very difficult
to spoil them in cooking. They are best of all when grilled as an
accompaniment to chops (Mr. Pickwick, it will be remembered, enjoyed
them in the form of sauce), but the following is a very simple and
honest way of preparing them.
Fried Tomatoes.
Cut three tomatoes in halves. Pepper and salt them and coat the
cut surfaces with bread-crumbs. Put two tablespoons of butter in
the Chafing Dish, and when sizzling add the tomatoes and cook them
thoroughly for eight minutes.
The Jerusalem artichoke should not be devoted solely to soup. It is
an excellent adjunct to meats, and fully repays a little careful
attention.
Fried Artichoke Chips.
Wash and peel the outer skin of a pound of artichokes, then with a very
sharp knife peel them into ribbons (as one would peel an apple); then
put them lightly in a cloth to dry. Hot up two tablespoons of olive oil
in the Chafer to smoking-point. Put in the artichokes, letting them fry
until they rustle when stirred with a fork. Pour off the oil and strain
them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Braised Artichokes.
Wash and peel a pound of artichokes and put them aside in a basin
of cold water. Melt a walnut of butter in the Chafing Dish; add the
artichokes after drying them well. Let them brown well in the butter;
add pepper and salt and stir them frequently, letting them simmer for
twelve minutes.
Spinach Purée.
Have your spinach thoroughly well washed in several waters till it is
perfectly clean. Boil a pint of water in the Chafing Dish, salt it
and put in the spinach. Boil it for ten minutes. Take out the spinach
and strain it. Pour cold water over it to take away the bitter taste;
strain again. Put a walnut of butter in the dish, add the spinach and
half a cupful of milk. Mix up well with a wooden spoon. Heat for five
minutes.
There are about twenty-five different kinds of edible mushrooms. The
popular test of peeling is unreliable, because some poisonous mushrooms
peel easily, and some harmless kinds do not. An authority on mushrooms
(Mr. E. Kay Robinson) says: “If a mushroom of any kind which has been
gathered from an open space is brittle and compact in texture, and not
brightly coloured, nor peculiar in taste or unpleasant in smell, and
neither exudes a milky juice when bruised, nor changes colour when
exposed to the air, you may eat it without fear.”
Consequently, when you go mushroom-gathering you must bear in mind
nearly as many things as when you address your ball on the tee. I
always buy my mushrooms, and go to a good shop; then, I think, you are
fairly safe.
The onion is a sure poison detector. Put an onion in a dish of
mushrooms. If it does not change colour the mushrooms are all right.
If it blushes black with shame at its contiguity, they are all wrong.
A silver spoon acts in the same way and gets black in contact with
toadstools or the like. Verily, evil communications corrupt good
manners--even in onions.
Stewed Mushrooms.
Flood the Chafing Dish with really good olive oil. Put in a teaspoonful
of Paprika and a pinch of salt. Drop in the mushrooms, after having
stalked and peeled them, black part uppermost. Cover up, and listen to
the appetising sizzling for seven minutes. They should then be done to
a turn.
Mushrooms used to be dried, powdered, and used as a flavouring in the
eighteenth century. Cook-books of that period speak of the condiment
as “Cook’s Snuff.” The great and justly esteemed Grimod de la Reynière
said that it ought always to be on the dining-table together with
pepper and salt. Here is a hint for the modern purveyors of table
delicacies.
In Sir Henry Layard’s Essay on “Renaissance Cookery,” he says:
“Amongst vegetables, the thistle (Cardo) was esteemed a delicacy, and
was generally served with fruit at the end of the dinner. The thorny
thistles with well-grown white stalks are the best.” The Cardo includes
the artichoke, but that the name was usually applied to the common
thistle is shown by the quaint remark of Romoli in his “Singolare
Dottrina,” that “it should not be eaten with milk, which it has the
property of curdling, and consequently the process would take place
in your stomach, but it should be eaten with pepper, which does not
generate wind, and clears the liver; and such is the reason why
donkeys, who eat largely of this, have better stomachs than men.”
Dr. Thudichum, an eminent authority on dietetics, does not agree with
these conclusions, which are nevertheless illuminating, and do not
detract from the merits of the nettle as a food-stuff.
Welsh Leeks.
Boil half a dozen leeks in a pint of water. Drain them well, and cut
each leek into two-inch lengths; squeeze a lemon over them, pepper and
salt them well. Set them aside. Make half a dozen croûtons of toast and
put the leeks on them. Replace them in the Chafing Dish, pouring over
each croûton a liberal dose of Sauce Robert. Heat up and serve on a
very hot plate. Sauce Robert (Escoffier brand) can be bought ready made
at the Stores.
French Beans.
Boil a pound of shredded beans till tender, and then drain them well.
Melt two tablespoons of butter in the Chafing Dish and stir into it a
small dessert-spoon of flour. Keep these simmering, and shake them
about till they are lightly browned; add salt and pepper and a cup of
milk. Just before serving, add the yolks of two eggs, slightly beaten,
and a squeeze of lemon. Stir all up thoroughly and beat up to just
below boiling-point.
Broad Beans.
Shell and wash in cold water one pint of broad beans. Put them in the
Chafing Dish and boil them with a sprinkling of salt; when nearly
soft strain them, and then replace them in the dish with a tumbler of
bouillon, a little chopped parsley, and a lump of sugar. Cook them
slowly until they are quite tender. Beat up the yolk of an egg and a
wine-glass of milk; add both to the beans with pepper and salt, and
beat up thoroughly to just below boiling-point.
Italian Broad Beans.
Shell a pint of fresh young broad beans and put them aside in a dish
of cold water. Fill the Chafing Dish with nearly two pints of water,
add a thick slice of cooked ham, a stick of celery, a bunch of parsley,
three cloves, twenty peppercorns, and a bay leaf. Boil all this for
seven minutes, then remove the ham, vegetables, and spices, and put
in the beans. When they are quite tender, take them out, strain them,
put them back in the dish; add a tablespoon of butter, and hot them up
again for three or four minutes before serving.
Brussels Sprouts.
Place a pint of small Brussels sprouts in the Chafing Dish with two
pints of boiling water, slightly salted. Boil for ten minutes; take out
the sprouts, drain them and put them aside to keep hot. Then make the
following sauce in the Chafing Dish. Two tablespoons of butter melted,
one tablespoon flour, pepper and salt, and sufficient bouillon to make
the mixture of the consistency of thick cream. Heat this to boiling,
stirring it well. Just before serving, add the juice of a whole lemon.
Pour the sauce over the hot sprouts, and serve very quickly.
Both this and the previous recipe are adapted from a most excellent
book on the cooking of vegetables: “Leaves from our Tuscan Garden,” by
Janet Ross.
Haricot Beans.
Put a pint of young green shelled haricot beans into the Chafing Dish
with two pints of boiling water. When half cooked add salt and pepper
and a tablespoon of butter. Take out the beans, drain them, and replace
them in the dish with another tablespoon of butter, a little chopped
parsley, more salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Toss them about
well in the Chafing Dish and hot up for eight minutes.
Fried Parsley.
Indispensable for flavourings. Wash the parsley thoroughly, pick off
the stalks, leaving the large heads. Dry it very carefully as, if it
is left at all damp, it will never become crisp. Put the parsley in
the Chafing Dish with a tablespoon of olive oil or butter. As soon as
the oil or butter ceases bubbling, take out the parsley and let it dry
on a piece of paper. The parsley should remain quite green; if it is
brownish it is a sign that it has been fried too long.
Green Peas.
A pint of shelled peas, a tablespoon of butter, pepper and salt, and a
good squeeze of lemon; put all these in the Chafing Dish. Add a cupful
of milk and hot up for ten minutes, then strain and serve. Avoid mint,
green or otherwise.
Chestnuts.
Shell a score of chestnuts, cover them in the Chafing Dish with boiling
water, and in four minutes take them out and remove the skins. Return
them to the boiling water, add a cup of milk, pepper and salt, and
simmer until quite tender but not soft.
“Behold, the earth hath roots;
The bounteous housewife Nature, on each bush
Lays her full mess before you.”--_Timon of Athens._
It has been made plain, I trust, that it is not necessary to rely
solely on the damp-sodden vegetables of the pre-historic cuisine. It
is just as easy to cook them nicely as otherwise, and a deal more
satisfactory. The bounteous housewife Nature overwhelms us with her
treasures of root and sap, and it seems almost an outrage to neglect
the opportunities so lavishly offered to us.
I have just described a score or so of the plainer methods of cooking
vegetables, simply as an indication of their possibilities, but the
enterprising Chafer will find as he progresses in the art (and Chafing
grows upon one like any other hobby) that there are dozens of others
which lend themselves readily to his, or her, deft manipulation.
The grandfather of Charles Darwin was a poet of parts, and in his
“Phytologica” he says:
“Oft in each month, poetic Tighe! be thine
To dish green broccoli with savoury chine;
Oft down thy tuneful throat be thine to cram
The snow-white cauliflower with fowl and ham!”
This is wise advice, because the green broccoli is far better than the
white.
There are many American vegetables which may be cooked without a twang.
They are all in tins or bottles, bearing plain directions. Among
others I can speak from personal experience of Sugar Corn, Green Corn,
Oyster Corn, Boston Beans, Lima Beans, and Succotash. This last is a
meal in itself, and of most excellent flavour and convenience. Green
corn, too, reminds those who know the South African mealie in all its
toothsomeness, of many a hearty supper of Kaffir mealies roasted in
the embers of a camp fire, or even in that most primitive of ovens, an
ant-heap, which, believe it or not as you will, turns out better cooked
meats than some of your very patent, very modern, very “gadgetty”
kitchen ranges, although not better, I ween, than my chaste Chaffinda.
From vegetables to salads is but one step. I do not see any valid
reason for apologising for the inclusion of salads in a Chafing-Dish
book. They are not cooked in a Chafing Dish, it is true, but it is part
of my religion that no meal is complete without a salad, green for
choice, but anyhow a salad. I do not insist on salad for breakfast,
although on a blazing hot July day, after a swim or a tramp, or both, I
can imagine worse things than an omelette, some kidneys and bacon, and
a slice of real ham, and a green salad to top up with. But no dinner
is really a dinner without a salad, and by that I do not mean three
scraggy lettuce leaves, soused in vinegar, which as _Salade de saison_
is the usual accompaniment to that disastrous hen, _Poulet au cresson_,
which is a centipede as to legs and has no breast or liver wing.
As this screed is, after all, a plain record of personal likes and
dislikes, I see no reason for concealing the fact that I have no use
whatever, no manner of use in the wide wide world, for mayonnaise with
salad. The Americans swear by it; I swear at it. My salad mixture,
which goes with everything--absolutely everything--is simplicity
itself. _Eccolo!_
Salad Mixture.
Into a large bowl put half a teaspoon of salt, same of Paprika, a dash
of black pepper, freshly ground by a hand-mill, and a teaspoon of made
English mustard. Mix them up well. Now add very gradually the very
best quality of olive oil, almost drop by drop, to the quantity of
three tablespoons, mixing all the time until the ingredients assume the
consistency of cream; now thin this with one tablespoon of good wine
vinegar, and amalgamate thoroughly. That is all I use.
Now and again, by way of extra titillation of the jaded palate, you
may add half a tablespoon of Tarragon vinegar, herbs to taste, Spring
onions, chives, French mustard, olives (French only), hard-boiled eggs,
dandelion leaves, nasturtium leaves, and celery salt.
But there are half a dozen rules which I would seriously enjoin the
salad mixer to bear in mind.
Only use a wooden spoon and fork for mixing.
Never cut a lettuce; always break it with the fingers.
Dry the lettuce thoroughly in a serviette or in a salad-basket before
breaking.
Make the salad ten minutes before eating it. Neither more nor less.
Do not bother about garnishing the top of a salad; see the ingredients
are well mixed. The decoration will look after itself and be much more
artistic if left natural than if fussed into geometrical designs.
Make your mixture proportionate to your salad. This is a matter of
intuition and experience combined. The test of right mixing is that no
fluid should remain at the bottom of the bowl when finally mixed.
The “fatiguing” or turning over and over, that is, the actual mixing
of the salad, should be very thoroughly done for just as long as is
bearable to the verge of impatience. Rub a crust of bread with garlic
or onion, put it in the bottom of the bowl and take it out just before
serving. This is a _chapon_.
The true salad artist will never add any second dose of any ingredient
during the process of mixing the sauce. I was once present at a salad
duel between an eminent Belgian violoncellist and a British banker. The
former was an artist, the latter a well-meaning amateur. They used the
same cruet-stand, and during the mixing process the banker politely
pushed the oil and vinegar across to the Belgian, who bowed and said:
“Thanks. I never add!” The banker appreciated the rebuke and retired
from the contest. Both salads were excellent.
The old salad-proverb about the oil-spendthrift, the vinegar-miser,
and all the rest of it, is too old to quote, but it expresses a truism
aptly enough. Three to one is, according to my view, a fair proportion
of oil to vinegar, but this, as indeed most things in this so-called
twentieth century of ours, is only a matter of individual taste, and I
have no desire to suggest that my opinion should be given the force of
law. I have known a salad enthusiast who coated each leaf of lettuce
with oil on a camel’s-hair brush, but this I think is an exaggeration
of artistry. On the other hand, the wild stirring of dollops of the
four condiments in the salad spoon, which is then emptied vaguely into
the salad, is childish and inefficient. The Italians have a proverb
that runs:
“_L’insalata non è buon’ ne bella
Ove non è la pimpinella._”
The pimpernel is our burnet.
It is quite unnecessary to give full recipes for all the following
salads. I have already indicated the mixture, and the choice of
ingredients need only be hinted at.
Lettuce should be young, fresh, and crisp. There are many varieties,
the most delicate of which perhaps is the Romaine.
Endive is good when quite young. It should be very light in colour. Do
not mix it with lettuce. A few dandelion leaves are quite permissible.
Chicory makes an excellent salad, and radishes mix well with it.
Celery and Parmesan cheese go well together. The celery must be cut
into half-inch pieces.
Cauliflower, cooked and cold, mixed with celery, or a very few slices
of cold cooked carrot, is cool and pleasant.
Tomatoes and lettuce go well together, and onions are a good addition.
Potato salad requires firm round little potatoes cooked, cold, and cut
into slices. The best kind is known as Hamburg Potatoes, and they may
be had at the German Delikatessen shops. Avoid anchovies and olives
with potato salad, but encourage chives and a sprinkling of cheese.
Celeriac.
This is a variety of celery, sometimes known as Dutch celery, a tuber
which has a quite peculiar and characteristic flavour. It needs no
addition whatever, and is an excellent accompaniment to all meats. Cut
it in slices, after boiling it for twelve minutes, and mix carefully
with plenty of liquid.
Mashed Potato Salad.
Beat up ordinary mashed potatoes with a little lukewarm weak stock or
warm water instead of milk, and no butter. Then dress them with a
little chopped chive, oil and vinegar, pepper and salt. This can be
endlessly varied with chopped hard-boiled eggs, beetroot, cucumbers,
anchovies, &c. This salad comes from that most excellent compendium of
quaint conceits, “More Potpourri from a Surrey Garden,” by Mrs. C. W.
Earle.
Old-fashioned salads, according to a seventeenth-century cook-book,
were more diversified than ours. Among the ingredients of “Grand
Sallets of divers compounds” were broom buds, pickled mushrooms,
pickled oysters, blew figs, Virginia potato, caperons, crucifix pease,
sage, mint, balm, burnet, violet leaves, red coleworts, raisins of the
sun, charvel and ellicksander buds. Some of these we know under other
names, but “blew figs” and “ellicksander buds” are untraceable. The
list has a Rabelaisian smack, and gives one some idea of the crude
admixture of flavourings which was acceptable to our forebears.
In a very charming old book, “Travels in England in 1702,” by C. P.
Moritz, a Prussian clergyman, the following passage seems quotable:
“An English dinner generally consists of a piece of half-boiled, or
half-roasted, meat; and a few cabbage leaves boiled in plain water; on
which they pour a sauce made of flour and butter. This, I assure you,
is the usual method of dressing vegetables in England. The slices of
bread and butter which they give you with your tea are as thin as poppy
leaves. But there is another kind of bread and butter usually eaten
with tea, which is toasted by the fire, and is incomparably good. You
take one slice after the other, and hold it to the fire on a fork till
the butter is melted, so that it penetrates a number of slices at once;
this is called toast.”
Another part of the same book describes the kitchen in a country inn,
and gives a picture which seems to describe some old Dutch interior. “I
now, for the first time, found myself in one of these kitchens which
I had so often read of in Fielding’s fine novels; and which certainly
give one, on the whole, a very accurate idea of English manners. The
chimney, in this kitchen, where they were roasting and boiling, seemed
to be taken off from the rest of the room, and enclosed by a wooden
partition, the rest of the apartment was made use of as a sitting and
eating room. All round on the sides were shelves with pewter dishes
and plates, and the ceiling was well stored with provisions of various
kinds, such as sugar-loaves, black puddings, hams, sausages, flitches
of bacon, &c.”
A modern Dr. Syntax in search of the picturesque would vainly nowadays
look for anything approaching this homely simplicity in any English
hostelry. The modern tendency seems all directed towards spurious
finery, meretricious decoration, and uncomfortable New Art. The old
inns are neglected, and the new hotels merely vulgarly gorgeous. The
food is ambitious and basely imitative of bad French models. The
advent of the ubiquitous motor car on old country roads, away from
the railways, may in time improve matters, and revive, to a certain
extent, the extinct glories of the old coaching inns; but as yet there
is little, if any, improvement to be marked. In the meanwhile, I would
suggest that every travelling motor car be provided with a Chafing
Dish, and thus mitigate or improve the dull pretentious meals which the
country hotel proprietor thinks proper to provide. The Chafing Dish
and the motor car seem made for one another. Will somebody try the
combination?
There are just a few more salads which I should like to recommend,
premising, however, that they are not altogether orthodox. By this I
mean that they are not wholly composed of greenstuffs, but require the
addition of extraneous appetisers.
Walnuts and Green Peas.
Boil and blanch a dozen walnuts; break them in halves, mix them with
a pint of green peas, cooked and cold, and toss them about in a small
quantity of dressing.
Sprouts and Chestnuts.
Boil and skin a dozen chestnuts. Break them up and mix with a pint of
cold cooked Brussels sprouts. Toss them in a small amount of mixture.
Jardinière.
Almost any cold cooked vegetables. For choice, use equal portions of
sliced potatoes, green peas, carrots, beans, celery, tomatoes, and
onions. Add plenty of dressing.
Cucumbers and Anchovies.
Wash, scrape and dry the anchovies. Chop them up. Have the cucumber
thinly sliced and thoroughly drained; plenty of salt, and little
mixture. Sprinkle the anchovies over the sliced cucumber.
Cauliflower and Bacon.
Dry the cauliflower and break up into small pieces, using all the
flower and very little stalk or green. Cut a couple of slices of bacon
into dice, sprinkle it about in the cauliflower, and use plenty of
dressing.
Bread Salad.
Cut three slices of stale bread (crumb only) into half-inch squares;
same amount of sliced cold cooked potatoes; three tomatoes in
quarters, one onion; toss all well together with a good deal of
dressing. This sounds very simple, but as Sam Weller’s pieman said,
“It’s the seasoning as does it.”
Lest I be thought quite unspeakably impossible in these last recipes,
let me assure the worthy sceptics that they are in no wise guess-work,
but one and all duly approved, and that I have merely taken the
trouble to collate them and set them down here. They are excellent and
original. I think that many folks will be grateful for them.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CHAPTER · VII · EGGS · AND · SAVOURIES]
“The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg.”
POPE.
In the name of the profit: Eggs! Although farming in England may spell
ruin, poultry almost always pays, and if intelligently and economically
managed, one rarely hears of the failure of a poultry-farm. We import
a vast number of millions of eggs annually (many of which come to a
deservedly unrighteous end in villainous omelettes), but it would be
easy, with capital, initiative, and incubators, to produce them one and
all in Great Britain and make the egg trade a national industry.
A couple of generations ago, when any one walked gingerly in the
street, he or she was said to be going at an “egg-trot,” because it
reminded one of a good housewife riding to market at a jog-trot pace
with eggs in her panniers. Let us therefore approach the subject of
eggs at an “egg-trot.”
A good egg is never bad. That is not such an inept truism as it looks.
A good egg is unspoilable, even by the worst cook. There are over
four hundred and fifty ways of cooking eggs, each of which has some
peculiar excellence denied to the others. You cannot even make an
omelette without breaking eggs, and most people find breakfast almost
impossible without the regulation hen-fruit. To teach one’s grandmother
how to suck eggs is a futile labour partaking of juvenile presumption,
but it is at least easier than persuading the average cook that the
fried egg of commerce is only one out of scores of simple breakfast
egg-dishes. “There is reason in roasting eggs.” Even the most trivial
culinary conjuring trick has some good motive for being performed in
one way rather than in another. When wood fires were usual it was more
common to roast eggs than to boil them, and great care was required to
prevent their being “ill-roasted, all on one side,” as Touchstone says
in the play. Which is an additional reason for keeping strictly to the
formula. Eggs are ticklish things to monkey with, and it is much easier
to break them than to make them.
Learned disquisitions have before now been written on “How to boil an
egg.” It is not in my province to touch on that subject. The votary of
the Chafing Dish may be presumed to have enough common sense to come in
out of the rain, and to be able to boil an egg. It is not much to ask.
Pope, by the way, thought it vulgar to boil an egg, but then we are all
vulgar nowadays--and glory in it. Neither do I propose to expatiate
upon egg-flip, egg-nog, and kindred “dulceties.” I will give a few
plain straightforward recipes for eggs in the Chafing Dish, and leave
egg-eccentricities to my betters. I have only to premise that there is
but one kind of egg. The Best. Real new-laid eggs are reliable friends.
All others are base impostors!
Poached Eggs.
The Chafing Dish should be more than half full of boiling water. Break
each egg separately into a saucer and slip it steadily and dexterously
into the Chafing Dish. Light the lamp, cover up the water and eggs, and
put the dish over the lower hot-water pan, which should have in it a
pint of hot water. Let it heat until the whites of the eggs are set;
then remove the eggs from the pan with the special flat implement _ad
hoc_. Put the eggs on rounds of toast. Sprinkle them with pepper, salt
and parsley, and put a tiny piece of butter on top of each egg.
Scrambled Eggs.
Beat up three eggs, whites and yolks, in a bowl, and add a pinch of
salt. Put a good tablespoon of butter in the Chafing Dish, over a pan
of hot water. When the butter sizzles, pour in the eggs, and stir with
a wooden spoon very briskly for a minute and a half to two minutes,
keeping the eggs from adhering to the sides and bottom of the Dish.
Have rounds of toast ready, and pour the eggs on to them. Dust them
with Paprika and parsley.
It is easy and pleasant to vary plain scrambled eggs with a dozen odds
and ends. Asparagus tips, for instance, bacon dice, tiny slicelets of
ham, green peas, thin rounds of Brunswick sausage, broad beans, chicken
livers, button mushrooms, tomatoes, or chopped nasturtium leaves.
All these should be added, cooked of course, towards the end of the
stirring operation, and just before serving. Many other ingredients
might be suggested, but the ingenious innovator will be able to think
these out for himself, and he can always christen his invention
scrambled eggs _à la quelque chose_ to please his own fancy and flatter
his friends.
Omelettes.
An omelette should not be too lightly undertaken. There are few things
more tricky, more unreliable, more human, in a sense, than an omelette.
You may make it a dozen times with perfect success. It will be light,
frothy, ethereal, almost gossamer-like in its impalpable fairyhood.
The thirteenth time you proceed on precisely the same lines, use the
same material, and in every way follow the same formula, and the result
is chaos. If there be a sex in cookery, omelettes must be essentially
feminine.
This is how to make an omelette. Beat three eggs lightly with two
tablespoons of milk, a little salt and pepper. Put one tablespoon of
butter in the Chafing Dish over the hot-water pan, and when sizzling
hot, pour in the eggs. You must hold the dish in the left hand, and
rapidly scrape away with a knife the cooked egg where it seems to
adhere, letting the liquid portion follow the knife. It should be
cooked in less than fifty seconds if the water beneath it is boiling.
Then gently, but firmly, slip the knife under the left-hand edge of the
omelette and fold it over rapidly and neatly to the side of the dish
opposite the handle. Have a very hot plate ready; reverse it on to the
dish, turn the latter over the former quickly, and the omelette will
(or should) rest on the plate.
Of course all this sounds very easy, but it needs knack and
practice--lots of both. When entirely successful, however, it is most
gratifying and self-flattering. You feel a real cook at last, and look
upon Ude, Carême, Francatelli, and the other great names of history as
brothers. All Chafers go through that pleasant period when all goes
right and nothing goes wrong. Sometimes it lasts quite a while; but at
last, sooner or later, there comes a moment when we know we feel that
we know how little we know. As at golf, when we never play so well as
during our first month, even so is it with Chaffinda.
The testing of eggs should not rightly be one of the Chafer’s duties.
He should be able to rely on his purveyor. The best eggs I ever had in
London were provided by an old landlady who told me that she got them
twice a week from the country. When I asked her what county they came
from, she said, “They come all the way from Clapham Junction, sir!”
Anyhow, they were remarkably good, and I have been served with less
reliable ones in country farmhouses. This was possibly for the same
reason that one can rarely get fish at the seaside until the London
train comes in.
Eggs en Cocotte.
You must provide some of those dear little fireproof china cups
especially made for the purpose. Butter these little cups. Put two
teaspoonsful of cream into each. Then break very carefully an egg into
each. Dust with pepper, salt, and parsley. Stand these cups in the
Chafing Dish with enough boiling water to come half-way up the cups.
Have the lower pan full of hot water underneath. Boil up gently till
the eggs are just set. Serve in the cups very hot, taking care in
hauling them out of the Chafing Dish as they are very easily dropped.
Lady Effingham’s Eggs.
Put two slices of Gruyère cheese (not very thin) in the Chafing Dish
with a tablespoon of butter. Break two eggs in a saucer and slide them
on to the cheese; sprinkle with salt and Paprika and let it simmer
(over the hot-water pan) till the eggs are set. Serve with fingers of
toast.
Newmarket Eggs.
Put a tablespoon of butter in the Chafing Dish. When it sizzles add an
onion cut into slices; let it get well browned. Then throw in three
fair-sized potatoes in slices. Pour over these the well-beaten yolks of
two eggs, adding salt and pepper. Heat up to boiling-point. Serve with
toast.
Kempton Eggs.
Cut into slices three hard-boiled eggs and one onion; put the latter
only in the Chafing Dish with a tablespoon of butter. Stir it, and
fry the onion to a light brown, then sprinkle in half a tablespoon of
flour, and add two tablespoons of milk, pepper and salt. Boil up and
then add the eggs; serve at once with grated Parmesan cheese.
Anchovy Eggs.
Place a tablespoon of butter in the Chafing Dish, add half a teaspoon
of dry mustard, two tablespoons of tomato sauce, one of Worcester
sauce, and one of mushroom ketchup. Let it simmer, and then drop in
four hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters, salted and peppered. Prepare
four rounds of toast, spread them with good anchovy paste, or, better
still, with Patum Peperium, and put the eggs on the toast, pouring over
them the mixture.
This a remarkably good dish after a dance in the country and a ten-mile
drive home. If the proper preparations are made, it can be turned
out in five minutes in the billiard-room, and it picks one up in a
thoroughly businesslike and efficient manner. Those cold winter drives
after a busy night’s dancing, especially if the supper was good and
frequent, demand a powerful restorative.
Now come we to the great question of Welsh Rabbit. I venture to doubt
whether Rarebit is defensible, and I have read shoals of arguments for
and against. Anyhow, my kind is a Rabbit, and it tastes as nice--or
nicer.
A small boy walking across a common with his mother espied a bunny.
“Look, mother, there goes a rabbit!” “Nonsense, my boy, it must have
been imagination.” “Mother, is imagination white behind?”
There is no imagination about a Welsh Rabbit. It is sternly real. But
not, I think, quite as indigestible as generally supposed, especially
if it be liberally dosed with Paprika, which I find to be marvellously
digestive. A well-made Rabbit should be suave in flavour, not harsh,
stringy, or pungent. There should be a silky sensation of sensuous
softness, and, above all things, it should not tickle the palate. I
fear that I am led to dogmatise on the rabbit, and to ferret out my own
didactic ideas on the subject, but if my rabbit be carefully concocted
and intelligently degustated, I am convinced that I shall be forgiven.
Welsh Rabbit.
Use about half a pound of hard, dry, sound, mild cheese, without flaw
or speck. Cut it up into tiny dice, in fact the smaller the better;
some indeed insist on grating the cheese, but I have found this to be
an unnecessary labour. Put a tablespoon of butter into the dish and
knead it well with a wooden spoon until it begins to sizzle. Add half
a teaspoon of Paprika, rather less of salt, and a tablespoon of beer
(anything except bitter). Mix all thoroughly. Turn in the cheese and
stir it about until it gets as consistent as thick cream, adding two
to three more tablespoons of beer gradually, and taking great care
that it does not become lumpy or stringy. Now put in a teaspoonful
of made mustard. Keep on stirring until bubbles appear. It is then
ready. You should beforehand get some toasts ready and as soon as the
bubbling is well developed plunge in the toasts and cover them with
the cheese. Serve on very hot plates. Milk can be used instead of
beer, and condiments may be added in the shape of Worcester sauce or
Tabasco, but I do not recommend them. Everything depends on regular and
practically continuous stirring, always in one direction of course.
If you want to turn the Welsh Rabbit into a Buck Rabbit, drop a poached
egg upon each piece of toast on top of the cheese. Here you have the
whole art of Rabbiting, and it is a very good thing to eat--sometimes.
The right and only place for Savouries at a dinner-party is fixed
and determined by immutable custom, but at a Chafing-Dish meal,
be it luncheon or supper, more latitude is allowed, and a savoury
may pop up here and there at the most unexpected--and thereby most
delightful--moment. I see nothing heterodox in having a savoury instead
of _hors d’œuvres_, or introducing it after the fish or instead of
sweets. Few people, and those only of the baser sort, despise a simple
savoury. It is such a succulent trifle, a mere mouthful of suggestion,
an airy nothing that agrees with everything. There are of course
savouries and savouries. I can only give a very few recipes, but have
tried to make them as diverse and appetising as possible.
Ham Toast.
A quarter of a pound of lean ham, chopped fine. Do not mince it.
Mincing machines, however patent and “adjustable,” have a way of
reducing everything to an unholy pulp. Put the ham in the Chafing Dish
with a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, half a teaspoon of good curry
powder (I like Ventacachellum’s), a small tablespoon of butter, three
drops of Tabasco, and two tablespoons of milk. Mix all well, heat up
for five minutes and then spread on hot fingers of toast.
Cheese Matador.
Put a walnut of butter into the Chafing Dish, also a Spanish onion
sliced. Simmer for three minutes. Then cut a quarter of a pound of hard
dry cheese into dice, and drop into the mixture; add half a cup of milk
and stir well till it is all thoroughly amalgamated and the cheese
melted; add salt and Paprika and one beaten-up egg. Hot up for another
three minutes and serve with toast.
Savoury Biscuits.
Mix up the yolks of two eggs and two tablespoons of grated Parmesan
cheese. You can buy this ready grated, but it is not as good as if you
grate it yourself. Add half a teaspoon of mustard and some salt. Spread
the mixture on thinly buttered water biscuit (or thin Captains), put
the biscuits in the Chafing Dish, over boiling water, and let them get
slowly hot.
Braised Olives.
Stone neatly a dozen Spanish olives. Put them in the Chafing Dish with
enough strong bouillon to cover them. Add a wine-glass of claret and
the rind of half a lemon. Boil up quickly, strain, and serve the olives
on toast or heated biscuit.
Bombay Toast.
A tablespoon of butter in the Chafing Dish; as it melts stir in two
eggs, yolks and whites, half a teaspoon of Paprika, the same of anchovy
sauce, and half a dozen capers, chopped up. When very hot spread this
upon rounds of buttered toast.
Devilled Chestnuts.
Boil half a pound of chestnuts and remove the shells and skins. Break
them in handy little lumps. When cold and hard return them to the
Chafing Dish and fry them in a tablespoon of butter, half a teaspoon of
Paprika, and plenty of salt, until they are well cooked through. Drain
and dry them on blotting-paper, and put a drop of Tabasco on each lump.
Salted Almonds.
Melt one and a half tablespoons of butter. Drop into it a quarter of
a pound of blanched almonds, and hot up till the almonds are well
burned, brown but not black. Drain them on blotting-paper and sprinkle
them with plenty of salt and a little Paprika.
The Devil.
One can devil bones, biscuits, meat and fish in a Chafing Dish very
nearly as well as on the grill. Care must be taken always to score the
flesh across with deep incisions, so that the devil mixture penetrates
well into the meat. This is the best devil mixture for Chafing-Dish
purposes that I know. There may be better, but I have not come across
them. Mix well upon a plate a teaspoon of mustard, the same of
Worcester sauce and anchovy sauce, two teaspoons of olive oil and half
a teaspoon of Paprika. Let the meat soak up this mixture, and then
hot it up in a tablespoon of butter till it almost boils. A chicken
drumstick makes the best devil in the world, but biscuits dipped in the
mixture are not to be despised, and even slices of cold cooked meat,
beef or mutton, are very toothsome if treated in the same manner. Any
cold bird makes an excellent devil.
Macaroni.
Although it may not come quite strictly under the head of Eggs and
Savouries, this seems about the right place to expatiate upon Macaroni,
the national food of Italy and the delight of every cultivated nation.
Real macaroni is made of hard wheat of a semi-translucent kind, which
is richer in gluten and other nitrogenous matter than soft wheat.
Macaroni is nothing but flour and water mixed in a cylinder, which
concocts it into stiff paste. Then it is rolled under a huge granite
wheel which flattens it into a smooth mass. It is cut into squares, and
flattened by the wheel again and again until it is thoroughly kneaded.
The dough then goes into an upright metal cylinder closed at the lower
end with a thick disc of copper. This is pierced with openings through
which a plunge-piston squeezes the dough into threads. The threads are
cut off at regular intervals, and hung upon wooden drying-rods. Real
macaroni is tender, yellowish, rough in texture, and elastic. It breaks
with a clean, porcelainlike fracture. When it boils it swells to
twice its size, and does not become sticky, but keeps its tubular form
without collapse. It will keep any length of time in a dry cool place.
There are many agreeable variations on the macaroni theme, some of
which suggest music rather than cooking. Everybody knows Vermicelli,
but among the lesser known but equally admirable kinds are Tagliatelli,
Lasagnete, Fuselli, Bicorni, Candele, Cannelloni, Pennoni, Capelli di
Angelo, and many more. Each has its own little special peculiarity. All
are alike excellent.
Tagliatelli.
Perhaps the handiest for Chafing-Dish purposes is Tagliatelli. Boil two
pints of water in the Dish, put in half a pound of Tagliatelli, boil
eight minutes, then strain. Return to the Dish, add a tablespoon of
grated Parmesan cheese, and the same of butter. Toss round and round
until well mixed, and serve very hot. Tomatoes mix well with macaroni,
and so do mushrooms; but the real macaroni-lover will prefer it by
itself, accompanied always, of course, by plenty of cheese. Mustard
mixes well with it, but be very chary of the salt, for it is already
salted during the process of preparation. To make macaroni _au gratin_,
which seems (unaccountably enough) to be the only way in which it is
served in nine British households out of ten, the top of the cooked
macaroni must be well covered with grated Parmesan cheese, and then
carefully browned with a salamander.
Ravioli.
Another most useful Italian preparation is Ravioli, which is compounded
of a variety of good things. As Leporello says in Don Giovanni:
“Madamina, il catalogo è questo!” Eggs, Macaroni, Paste, Pork, Chicken,
Vegetables, and Cheese. It is a sort of White Knight portmanteau food,
and if quite fresh (it is best in summer) is rightly termed “A dinner
in one course”--if you cook it badly you may omit one letter in the
last word.
This is how to prepare Ravioli with the help of Chaffinda. To two
pints of boiling water in the Chafing Dish put a quarter of a pound of
Ravioli; boil for ten minutes, then strain. Return to the dish; add
half a teaspoon of butter, the same of grated Parmesan cheese, and hot
it up for three minutes. Additional zest may be given, though it is by
no means necessary, by cooking with the Ravioli a few fresh mushrooms,
tomatoes, or even anchovies or olives. The best Ravioli I have found in
London come from the Vegetable Meal Company of Soho.
With Macaroni or Ravioli I always suggest the drinking of Chianti,
or Lacrima Christi. The former can often be obtained of quite good
quality, not too rough or fiery. As to the latter, it is rare to find
it drinkable. As a rule it is impossible. But the combination of food
and wine is a good memory-reviver of a week at Genoa.
[Illustration: CHAPTER · VIII · · SAUCES ·]
“Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palates urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken, to shun sickness, when we purge;
Even so, being full of your ne’er cloying sweetness
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding.”
SHAKESPEARE (Sonnet cxviii.).
Madame de Staël said that she did not believe in ghosts--but that she
was afraid of them. After the same fashion, I do not altogether believe
in sauces, or perhaps I ought to say in any save the very simplest; but
I fully recognise their great value in the assimilation of food.
Many dishes, without their special sauces, would be like a well-known
song sung without an accompaniment. However beautifully delivered,
no one, be he never so musical, could honestly say that he enjoyed
Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” unaccompanied. The accompaniment is so much
a part of the artistic whole that to separate them would be sheer
vandalism. Something of the same intimate oneness exists in cookery.
Who would care to eat lamb divorced from mint sauce, or boiled mutton
without the necessary caper sauce, or goose minus apple sauce?
At the same time it is a culinary axiom that the less sauce used the
better. A dish--any dish--“covered in sauce” is an abomination. We have
the august authority of Pliny for moderation and simplicity. “Their
best and most wholesome feeding is upon one dish, and no more, and the
same plaine and simple: for surely this huddling of many meats one upon
another of divers tastes is pestiferous. But sundrie sauces are more
dangerous than that.” This is Holland’s translation.
Another point worthy of consideration is that sauce is to a great
extent a geographical expression. What may be most excellent in Madrid
is wholly out of place in Inverness; and what is nice at Nice is nasty
at Norwich.
Insufficient account, I venture to think, is taken of the influence of
climate upon national food, and it is often difficult if not impossible
to acclimatise foreign fare to British stomachs, not because of
anything inherent in the food, but simply as a matter of latitude. It
is an historical commonplace that in the bleak cold north of Europe
boar’s flesh was found more to man’s taste than that of the bull or
bear, because it is fatter, richer, and produces much more heat. For
this very reason in the South and East of Europe the flesh of swine is
an abomination. In the Scandinavian Edda we are told that a boar was
killed every night for the food of the warriors who feasted in high
Valhalla. The bones were all preserved, together with the hide and
head, and in the morning they were put together and re-endowed with
life. The name of this huge pig was Sœhrimner, the cauldron in which it
was boiled was called Eldhrimner, and the cook Andhrimner.
Both bear-ham and boar-ham are delicacies to this day in the North of
Europe.
Much depends, too, upon the cooking; bad cooking is waste, both of
money and comfort. Those whom God has joined in matrimony, ill-cooked
joints and worse-cooked potatoes have often put asunder. In sauces,
above all things, careful cooking, implicit keeping to the exact
formulæ of recipes, and a restraint of all imagination, are immensely
necessary. Not even the greatest artist can afford to juggle with
sauces. They are fixed, immutable, and unalterable. A very favourite
expression in French culinary manuals is the injunction to the cook:
_Travaillez bien votre sauce_. The amateur sauce-maker would do well
to bear this in mind. The sauce must be well worked, amalgamated,
combined; otherwise it is a mere mess, lacking cohesion and perfection.
It is alleged of the incomparable Soyer that he said that sauces are to
cookery what grammar is to language. Whether he really said so or not
matters little. Some of the Soyer sauces are classics to this day, and
not to be lightly imitated--especially on the Chafing Dish.
Let it be borne in mind that each and every sauce should have a
character of its own. Many otherwise quite virtuous cooks live and
die in the belief that they cannot make a sauce sufficiently savoury
without putting into it everything that happens to be available,
thinking, ignorantly enough, that every addition is bound to be an
improvement.
There are only two real foundation sauces--_mères sauces_, or _grandes
sauces_, as the French call them--the white and the brown sauce. All
other sauces are more or less based on these two.
The great Carême resigned the position of Master of the Mouth to George
IV. after only a few weeks’ service, and at an honorarium of £1000
a year, because he could not bear the English climate. His culinary
swan-song took the form of a wondrous sauce, now alas! lost, which he
called _la dernière pensée de Carême_.
A quite excellent and easily prepared sauce, which the very poorest
households can make, and which will give zest to the simplest meal, is
that described in the Delamere Cookery Book. This is the recipe for
Pleasant Companionship sauce. A kind word will stir up the dormant
appetite, while a harsh one will extinguish it, and, what is worse,
will check the digestion of nutriment already taken. Such sauce may be
regarded as Moral Sauce.
Reasoning from these winged words, we may infer that the remark so
often heard from the mouths of little girl-children in the street:
“Now, I won’t ’ave none o’ your sauce!” must really mean that there is
a lack of Moral Sauce in the family circle.
In the recipes for the following sauces, I have purposely kept
the ingredients as simple as possible; they are all reliable and
appetising. As to which sauce appertains especially to which fish or
meat, I do not propose to enter. That is a matter of taste, experience,
and individuality, and I need hardly add that a white sauce does not go
well with brown meat, nor brown sauce with white meat. Such admonitions
are surely unnecessary to the advanced Chafist.
Butter Sauce.
Two tablespoons of butter, the same of flour; melt and mix together
in the Dish, bring to boiling-point and allow to boil up for half a
minute, then pour in a cupful of boiling water, to reduce the same to
the consistency of cream; boil up again, stirring all the time, add a
squeeze of lemon before serving.
White Sauce.
Mix well in the Chafing Dish two tablespoons of flour, one of butter,
a small grating of nutmeg, a little pepper and salt; add a tumbler of
milk; hot it up, stirring the while, and strain before using.
Brown Sauce.
Two tablespoons of butter. Heat and stir until it is brown and
sizzling, then add a tablespoon of Tarragon vinegar, the same of
Worcester sauce, half a tablespoon of chopped capers, a teaspoon of
anchovy sauce, and a wine-glass of bouillon. Boil up all this for three
minutes.
Piquant Sauce.
Mix up in the Dish a teaspoon of each of the following, chopped finely:
gherkins, capers, shallots (or mild onions); add half a teaspoon
of black pepper and a tablespoon of vinegar. Boil this for three
minutes, then add a wine-glass of bouillon and a tablespoon of “brown
thickening”--which is sold ready made by grocers--and a dash of anchovy
sauce. Boil up again and skim the surface before using.
Maître d’Hôtel Sauce.
Mix up well two tablespoons of butter with one of flour, a grating of
nutmeg, half a teaspoon of black pepper, the same of salt, rather more
of chopped parsley, and a good squeeze of lemon. Put all this in the
Chafing Dish with a tablespoon of milk. Stir it until it boils up, and
then serve very hot.
Ravigote or Rémoulade Sauce.
These are to all intents and purposes the same sauce, save that
Rémoulade has an added dose of oil and mustard. Mix a tablespoon of
flour with the same of butter, a grating of nutmeg, half a teaspoon
of pepper, the same of salt, the same of chopped parsley, and a good
squeeze of lemon. Put this in the Chafing Dish with a tablespoon of
bouillon, boil it up and skim it. Now mix up separately a tablespoon
each of Tarragon and Chili vinegar and Worcester sauce, with a teaspoon
of anchovy sauce. Boil up this mixture, and after two minutes’ boiling
add it to the former mixture and combine the two.
Reform Sauce.
A cupful of bouillon in the Dish, add a wine-glass of port (or claret,
but port is more orthodox), half as much Worcester sauce, a teaspoon of
anchovy sauce, and a full tablespoon of red currant jelly. Boil it all
up for three minutes, and skim before using.
Soubise Sauce.
Peel and slice four onions; put them in the Dish with a teaspoon of
butter, a little nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Cover up and stew very
slowly until the onions are almost dissolved. Then add two tablespoons
of flour, a cold cooked potato cut into dice, a cupful of bouillon, and
the same of milk. Stir and boil for three minutes. Then rub the sauce
through a sieve and hot up again before serving.
Bread Sauce.
A tablespoon of bread-crumbs in the Dish with an onion, pepper and
salt, a cup of milk, and half a tablespoon of butter. Hot up and stir
for four minutes. Take out the onion before using.
Mustard Sauce.
To the foregoing plain butter sauce add a teaspoon of made mustard,
a tablespoon of Chili vinegar, a squeeze of lemon, and a teaspoon of
anchovy sauce. Make and serve very hot.
Poor Man’s Sauce.
Chop up a fair-sized onion in the Chafing Dish with half a tablespoon
of butter. Fry to a light brown, then add a cup of bouillon, a teaspoon
of vinegar, pepper and salt, and a teaspoon of chopped parsley. Stir
vigorously and add gradually half a tablespoon of flour, and another
half-tablespoon of butter. Boil up the sauce for two minutes.
Madeleine Sauce.
Put in the Dish a teaspoon of bread-crumbs, two shredded shallots,
a walnut of butter, a teaspoon of vinegar and two tablespoons of
bouillon. Boil this for three minutes with pepper and salt. The sauce
should not be too thick.
Black Butter Sauce.
A walnut of butter in the dish; heat it till it is thoroughly brown,
then add a tablespoon of vinegar, pepper and salt, and hot it up again.
Italian Sauce.
Put in the dish the peel of a quarter of a lemon, three sprigs of
parsley, one of thyme, four button mushrooms, cut up small, a walnut of
butter, and a suspicion of garlic. Hot up, and when all is well mixed
pour in half a cup of bouillon; let it get thick, but not boil. Then
take out the garlic, and add half a walnut of butter.
Onion Sauce.
Cut up two good-sized onions into slices. Simmer them gently with a
tablespoon of butter and two slices of ham, one fat slice and one
lean slice, a teaspoon of flour, salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar, a
wine-glass of bouillon, and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Hot up for
three minutes.
Gubbins’ Sauce.
This is the best sauce I know, and I have tried many, for grills or
anything in that way. I copy it verbatim (and without permission) from
that most excellent food-book entitled “Cakes and Ale,” by Mr. Edward
Spencer. Gubbins’ Sauce is peculiarly adaptable to the Chafing Dish,
and is made in this wise: Fill the lower hot-water dish with boiling
water. Keep it so. Melt in the Chafing Dish proper a lump of butter the
size of a large walnut. Stir into it, when melted, two teaspoonsful of
made mustard, then a dessert-spoonful of vinegar, half that quantity
of Tarragon vinegar, and a tablespoonful of cream--Devonshire or
English. Season with salt, black pepper and cayenne, according to the
(presumed) tastes and requirements of the breakfasters. So far the
recipe. I should add that although the ingenious inventor puts Gubbins’
Sauce with a grill among his breakfast allurements, it is by no means
necessary to confine it to that meal. I have found it excellent at
midnight--and later--with devilled kidneys, and it is not to be
despised at any time of the day when you feel that way inclined.
“The Gastronomic Regenerator: a Simplified and entirely New System
of Cookery,” by Monsieur A. Soyer of the Reform Club, London, 1846.
Such is the mouth-filling title of one of the most interesting and
curious works of the last century. The two-page dialogue with Lord
M(arcus) H(ill), and the extraordinary recipe for “The Celestial and
Terrestrial Cream of Great Britain,” are in themselves inimitable in
their quaint pomposity. _Maga_ for August 1846 reviews the work kindly
and good-humouredly, and says that the “Gastronomic Regenerator”
reminds them of no book so much as the “Despatches of Arthur Duke
of Wellington.” It may be a matter of dispute, adds _Maga_, whether
Wellington or Soyer acquired his knowledge in the face of the hotter
fire. Although Soyer was comic in his pompous affectation it must not
be forgotten that he did splendid work in the Crimea in feeding the
sick and wounded. Also his sauces are master works. And for these two
things much may be forgiven him.
The foregoing sauces are best described as the regulars. There are
plenty of others, mostly of a rather elaborate description, which those
more experienced than myself must describe. I will content myself
with adding quite a few irregular or freak sauces, if I may use the
expression.
Fisherman’s Sauce.
This is a rather rich mixture, adapted for fresh-water fish. After a
decent day’s sport with the tricksome Mayfly, the quarter of an hour
just before dinner may profitably be employed in concocting it. Half a
pint of cream, or milk, but cream is better, two tablespoons of walnut
ketchup, home made for choice, and one tablespoon of anchovy sauce.
Boil these up for five minutes, and just before serving add a small
walnut of butter, a teaspoon of flour, a squeeze of lemon, and a pinch
of cayenne. Stir up all together, and serve very hot. It is the best
fresh-water fish-sauce going.
Bigarade Sauce.
This is essentially the wild-duck sauce, and is a welcome and agreeable
variant on the stereotyped port-wine sauce. Pare the rind of two
oranges, shred the rind thinly, and boil up for five minutes in as
little water as possible. Set the rind aside. Melt a walnut of butter
in the Dish, mix it with half a tablespoon of flour, and stir it till
it begins to burn; add a cupful of bouillon, pepper and salt, the
squeezed juice of both oranges, and a teaspoon of soft white sugar.
Now put in the shredded rinds, boil up for two minutes, and serve with
the duck. If you have not time to make this sauce, mix a glass of port
wine, a dash of cayenne, and a squeeze of lemon. Slice the breast
of the duck and pour this mixture over it. A very useful adjunct to
wild duck is a simple orange salad. Divide two or three oranges into
sections, dress them with oil, vinegar, pepper and salt, and eat it as
you would any ordinary salad.
Périgueux Sauce.
This is simply Truffle Sauce, and appeals mainly to the vulgar-minded.
It is made thus: Chop up two truffles very finely. Put them in the
Chafing Dish with a glass of sherry and a walnut of butter, and boil
for five minutes; add pepper and salt and a squeeze of lemon. I am of
opinion that truffles (which the ancients thought were the product of
thunder) should only be eaten in one way, and that is _en serviette_,
cooked in hot wood ashes and eaten with praise and thanksgiving.
The flavour of truffles I take to be one of the most perfect in the
whole category of food-stuffs. Their indiscriminate use in shreds,
choppings, patterns, and for ornament, I consider to be a capital sin.
The _charcutier_ is mostly to blame for this; any old thing dressed up
_aux truffes_ he considers a delicacy. One day a band of knowledgeable
eaters will slay all _charcutiers_.
Truffles suggest pigs; pigs suggest, to me, Berkshire; and Berkshire
a certain witty lady who, speaking of a local magnate, a self-made
man, and a very wealthy one too, but who retained his awfully uncouth
manners, described him as a wild boar whom civilisation had turned into
a pig. I fear me there are many such.
One of the English Kings died of a surfeit of lampreys, and one of the
French Ministers of a surfeit of truffles, which were also alleged to
have mainly contributed to the demise of the famous gourmand Béquet,
who was the predecessor of Jules Janin on the _Débats_, and on whom
Roger de Beauvoir wrote this epitaph:
“Cy-gît Béquet, le franc glouton
Qui but tout ce qu’il eut de rente;
Son gilet n’avait qu’un bouton,
Son nez en avait plus de trente!”
An ex-chef to whom I told this story of Béquet was profoundly moved,
and said simply: “It must have been a beautiful death!”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CHAPTER · IX · SWEETS · AND · ODDMENTS ·]
“And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.”
SHAKESPEARE (Sonnet cii.).
The warm glow of virtuous satisfaction induced by the knowledge that
one has done what was expected of one is my sole excuse for the
contents of this chapter. I have no sweet tooth, and my experience in
the cooking of sweets has been limited to the few recipes which come
later on. Even these I would rather have omitted, because it is so
easy to buy _éclairs_, _petits fours_, and other “dulceties” wherewith
to finish off a Chafing-Dish meal, but it is just on the confines of
possibility that this book may be read by a lady--or, if I am lucky, by
two or even three--and I should be indeed accounted a poor instructor
if I omitted sweets from my curriculum. “I humbly beg pardon of
heaven, and the lady,” as Mr. Pepys said when he kissed the cook.
“Give the bairns pudding in plenty, again say I”--so wrote Sir Walter
Scott, and I am heartily at one with him, but Chaffinda does not
accommodate herself to the fabrication of pudding--and, besides,
children ought to be in bed when supper-time brings the Chafing
Dish on the table. Baking is of course impossible, and boiling in
a cloth equally so. I have already said that Chaffinda--being so
nearly human--has her limitations, and these are two of them, which
I, for one, in no wise regret. Nevertheless, pudding is a great
institution--in its proper place--which is childhood.
Our national Jack Pudding was a common object of whilom country fairs,
a sort of typical buffoon who performed pudding tricks on a stage;
one of them being to swallow a number of yards of black puddings
amidst yokel plaudits. Curiously enough, and this is an etymological
puzzle well worth following up, the typical buffoon of most European
countries is christened after the commonest article of the daily
food of the people. France has her Jean Potage; Germany, Hanswurst;
Italy, Macaroni; and Holland, Pickel Herringe. This can hardly be a
coincidence.
The learned Dr. Thudichum wisely says: “The state of culture of every
nation can be estimated comparatively by its confectionery, even when
we know little of its cookery, for confectionery is the most advanced
and refined part of cookery, and thus enables an expert to draw a
conclusion backwards regarding the kind of cookery out of which it
originated.”
This is certainly true to a limited extent, but to attempt a rough and
ready analysis on these lines is like dissecting a hummingbird with a
hatchet. Generalisations are as dangerous as July oysters.
Apple Fritters.
Now for my sweets. The first one on the list is the familiar Apple
Fritter, or _Beignet de Pommes_. It is quite easily cooked, especially
if a little care be taken over the concoction of the all-important
matter of batter.
Begin by carefully peeling four apples, fairly large ones for choice,
then cut them into slices, about one-eighth of an inch thick, and take
out the cores. Now make the batter. Put four tablespoons of flour in a
basin with half a teaspoon of salt. Pour one tablespoon of oil on to
half a tumbler of tepid water. They will not mix of course. Add this
gradually to the flour, stirring it well. Next beat up two whites of
egg to a very stiff froth, and stir it lightly into the flour. The
batter is then ready for use. The eggs should not be added until you
are quite ready to make the fritters. Now with a skewer or fork take
up the apple rings, one by one, dip them in the batter, see that they
are well covered, and then drop them into the Chafing Dish in which
you have heated two tablespoons of butter to boiling-point. Fry the
apples until they are soft, and of a golden brown colour. Drain them on
kitchen paper, and sprinkle them with a little castor sugar.
Stewed Apples.
Apples, plainly stewed in slices, in milk and sugar, and then served on
a bed of rice, are very satisfactory. The experimenting Chafist will
find that sweets can very often be adapted so as to be suitable for the
Chafing Dish. But always rehearse your impromptus before trying them in
public.
Stewed Rhubarb.
Cut a pound of fresh sweet rhubarb into two-inch lengths, put it in
the Chafing Dish with a tumbler of water, the peel of one lemon, and
a tablespoon of soft white sugar. Let it boil up until the rhubarb is
quite soft, and then either serve hot, or--preferably--let it get quite
cold and serve with clotted cream.
Almost any stoneless fruit can be cooked in the same way. Gooseberries,
currants, strawberries, and raspberries all make excellent compote,
but care must be taken that the fruit does not get pulpy: it should be
quite soft, but retain its proper shape. Quite ripe fruit is not so
desirable as fruit that is just going to be ripe.
Fried Pineapple.
Cut a smallish pine into half-inch slices, paring the skin, of course,
and split in half three or four ordinary penny sponge cakes. Fry these
latter in the Chafing Dish in a tablespoon of butter till they are
light brown on both sides. Take them out and keep them hot. Fry the
pine slices in a like amount of butter and their own juice. Pour over
them a wine-glassful of brandy and serve on the browned sponge cake.
Cream may be added, but it is not at all necessary.
Coffee Chestnuts.
Shell a dozen chestnuts, and boil them for five minutes, then remove
the skins. Put them back in the Chafing Dish with enough fresh water
to cover them, and a tablespoon of soft white sugar, boil them until
they are soft. Take them out and drain them, but do not break them up.
Now put in the Chafing Dish the yolk of one egg, another tablespoon of
soft white sugar, half a teacup of strong black coffee, a liqueur of
brandy and a tablespoon of milk or cream. Keep on stirring till just
upon boiling, then pour over the chestnuts, and serve hot.
It is not requisite to add brandy or other spirits to the foregoing
dishes. It certainly tends to completeness of flavour, and, especially
with cooked fruits, seems to bring out a subtle aroma or bouquet, but
many most estimable gourmets dispense with all spirits in cookery, and
are none the less well fed. Spirits should never be given in food for
the young.
A Surrey curate opened the Sunday School one day with the well-known
hymn, “Little drops of water, little grains of sand.” In the middle of
the first verse he stopped the singing, and complained strongly of the
half-hearted manner in which it was sung. He made a fresh start. “Now
then,” he shouted, “little drops of water, and for goodness sake put
some spirit into it!” And he wore a blue ribbon in his buttonhole too!
I should have liked to give the full recipe for a seventeenth-century
“Quelque-Shose,” according to Master Robert May’s cook-book. The
ingredients read temptingly--if somewhat lavish in quantity. Forty
eggs are required, which are to be made in the form of omelets, which
are to be “rolled up like a wafer” and served with “white wine, sugar,
and juyce of lemon.” Another recipe of the same artist was for “Pie
Extraordinary, or Bride Pie, which was made of ”severall compounds,
being of severall distinct pies on one bottom.” At a rough guess this
may have been the forerunner of our latter-day Bride-cakes, with their
superimposed layers of almond paste, and consolidated indigestion.
It is always marvellous to me that there are so few sudden deaths
after a wedding, particularly if the cut cake has been handed about
promiscuously.
Bananas contain three times as much nourishment as meat or potatoes,
and as a food are declared to be superior to bread. They are as good
raw as cooked, and my only advice is to take care to buy the smaller,
more delicate kinds, and to avoid the grosser plantains, which are
musty and flavourless. The kind known as “Lady’s Fingers” are the best
of all.
Banana Cream.
Tear off a strip of skin from each of half a dozen bananas. Put them in
the Dish with a tablespoon of milk, and a sprinkle of soft sugar. Heat
them up until the skins are quite brown and the fruit soft and pulpy.
Then strip the skins, add some more sugar, and serve with sponge-cake
fingers.
Rice Milk.
Put in the Chafing Dish a teacupful of clean boiled rice, rather more
than a pint of milk, a small stick of cinnamon, and a bay leaf. Add a
heaped tablespoon of soft white sugar, and a suspicion of vanilla. Boil
up very slowly, and remove spices before serving.
Skansk Gröt.
There is a very good Swedish pudding, known as Skansk Gröt, which is
made in the following wise: Boil in the Chafing Dish half a pound of
clean rice, with the peel of a lemon, and half a stick of cinnamon, and
a cup of milk. Just before it comes to the boil add four apples, sliced
and cored but not peeled, and a handful of stoned raisins, a tablespoon
of sifted sugar, and a wine-glass of sherry. Boil all this for eight
minutes, then take out the lemon peel and the cinnamon before serving.
This Skansk Gröt can be eaten hot or cold, with or without cream or
milk. It is good anyway.
Stuffed Figs.
Stuff a quarter of a pound of good pulled figs with blanched almonds,
split in half. Put in the Chafing Dish a tablespoon of soft white
sugar, a teaspoon of lemon juice, and a wine-glass of claret. Heat
this up, but do not boil. Add the figs, cover up, and cook for eight
minutes, when they ought to be quite tender and ready to serve.
Whisky Apples.
Peel and core, but do not cut up, four largeish apples, not necessarily
cooking ones; in fact sweet eating apples are better. Put them in the
Chafing Dish with six tablespoons of soft white sugar, the rind and
juice of half a lemon, and an inch stick of cinnamon, a tiny bit of
vanilla, and half a tumbler of whisky. Let this simmer over a low flame
for a good half-hour, till the apples are soft. When quite done put
them on a hot dish and pour the sauce over them.
There is an old tradition among whist players to the effect that
there are at the present moment seven hundred and fourteen Englishmen
wandering in destitution upon the continent of Europe, because they
would not lead trumps when they held five. I do not desire to find
myself in a like case, so I have played my trumps, and must abide by
the consequences. I do not propose to invent impossible sweets which I
have not tested in the Chafing Dish, give them high-falutin’ titles,
and palm them off on unsuspecting and all-confiding Chafing students.
Let them turn inventors themselves, and my blessing go with them!
I have purposely said little or nothing on the subject of appropriate
drinks to accompany Chaffinda’s efforts, because that is, to a certain
extent, a personal matter. At the same time it may be useful to know
that it is very easy to mature cheap claret. The trick is French, and
fairly reliable. It happens sometimes that the ordinary dinner claret
of commerce leaves something to be desired in the way of flavour and
palatability. It may be sour, acrid, harsh, biting, vinegary, and half
a dozen other things, all unpleasant. Add to a glass of such ordinary
wine a teaspoonful of very hot water. The effect is usually magical.
The wine seems ten years older. It becomes softer, mellower, suaver,
and really almost drinkable. _Le petit vin bleu du pays_ becomes almost
a _cru_.
Some people drink coffee after dinner, and eke after lunch, if they
have time--and lunch. Others use it as a barometer. You can do both,
if you know how. It is very simple. The coffee must be very hot. Drop
a lump of sugar into the cup, and before stirring it observe how the
bubbles rise. If they rush towards the middle of the cup and meet, then
it is going to be fine weather. If they remain close to the edge of the
cup it will rain or snow. If they separate but wander about vaguely,
then the weather will be changeable. This barometer is not infallible,
but it has been known to be accurate. Try it. Café frequenters on the
boulevards spend hours in checking the prognostications of their coffee
by the weather reports in the papers.
I should like to give a few final hints on Chafing-Dish party-giving,
the result of my own experience, which has been both bitter and sweet.
Imprimis: “Don’t ask too many people,” as H. J. Byron said on his
deathbed, when his coachman told him that one of his horses was ailing
and he thought he had better give him a ball. “You should always be
two,” quoth the Abbé Morellet, “to eat a truffled turkey. It is my
invariable practice. I am going to dine off one to-day. We shall be
two--the turkey and myself.”
A fellow feeding makes us wondrous kind, and I do not for a moment
suggest that Chafing-Dish meals should always be soli, far from
it; a duet is delightful, a trio tactful, and a quartet quieting. I
cannot advise going beyond that number. Chaffinda is always present,
of course, but she does not count as company, she is merely the
hand-maiden, the _geisha_, the tutelary genius hovering over the meal.
I have already enjoined the absolute necessity of rehearsal; leave
nothing to chance. If you want to make your little effect, see that
it is properly stage-managed: your properties ready, your limes in
working order, and your band parts ready and complete. “In the green
salad days of my youth, when I rarely spoke aught but the truth,” I
tried more than once to dazzle my guests with unrehearsed effects, but
in every case the result was dire failure. All that sort of thing is
magnificent, but it is not cookery.
Again, do not attempt too elaborate a bill of fare. Be pre-Raphaelite
in your attention to detail rather than Academic in your mass of lavish
decoration. Of two evils choose the prettier, and prefer a discreet
little meal of soup, meat, vegetable and savoury, to an elaborate
programme which defeats its own ends, and clogs the appetite.
It is such much better form to be simple, poor and proud--besides,
it costs less. About forty years ago the late Lord Sidney Godolphin
Osborn wrote a letter on the growing love of luxury to the _Times_, in
the course of which he said: “The wealthy per force of their positions
must have large expensive establishments; they are doomed to live
in show houses; they are the proper consumers of the produce of the
decorative arts; but they yet have to eat, and here comes the question.
How can they eat in character? How can they dine up to their pictures,
sculpture, plate, and music?”
The answer is easy enough. They can never dine up to their pictures,
because they are usually dyspeptic.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CHAPTER · X · AMENITIES OF THE · TABLE]
“I had some hopes of the cook at first, but when I talked to her
tightly and closely, I could make nothing of her: she was all
wiggle-waggle, and I could never persuade her to be categorical.”
DR. JOHNSON (“D’Arblay’s Memoirs”).
Some of us have been to school. It was usually a long time ago. Still,
here and there a man with a memory may recollect that when Achilles, in
the “Iliad,” has granted the request of the unhappy Priam in reference
to the dead body of his son, his next remark to the old man is an
eminently practical and sensible one: “Let us now go to dinner!” It has
struck me that this classical allusion may have been one of the reasons
for the erection of the Achilles statue at Hyde Park Corner; just to
remind late dawdlers in the Park that dinner-time and dressing-tide
wait for no man or woman.
I have already had the presumption to suggest that we eat too often
and too much and too late and too elaborately; this has emboldened me
to further frankness. A French friend who “knew himself” in dining
matters said to me once: “En Angleterre on se nourrit bien, mais on
ne dine pas.” He was both right and wrong. Right as regards the very
pseudo-French cookery of the affluent middle-class, wrong as regards
the best restaurants and hotels.
Buckle, in his “History of Civilisation,” following Cabanis, considers
food as one of the four physical agents most powerfully influencing the
human race. Men’s manners and morality, their customs and condition,
depend mainly on what they eat. The boldness of the Norseman and the
timidity of the Bengalee are justly due to their respective preference
for meat or vegetables, for carbonaceous or nitrogenous diet. Slavery
in India is the direct result of rice, in Egypt of dates, of maize in
Mexico and Peru.
We must, therefore, adapt ourselves to circumstances in so far as the
circumstances adapt themselves to us. It is no longer fashionable to
get drunk, and in a generation or two it will be the worst kind of form
to eat more than three courses at dinner.
“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are,” said
Brillat-Savarin, Judge of the French Court of Cassation in 1826, and
_not_ a professed cook, as so many folk seem to imagine. He goes on
to say: “The gourmets by predestination can be easily told. They have
broad faces, bright eyes, small foreheads, short noses, full lips, and
rounded chins. The females are plump and pretty rather than handsome,
with a tendency to _embonpoint_.”
This is not complimentary, and does not seem to be borne out by
experience. Women gourmets are fewer than men, but they make up in
knowledge what they lack in number. Both Goethe and Byron have left it
on record that they objected to seeing women eat, but nowadays, with
better table manners, it is not a disagreeable sight, except perhaps at
a Swiss _table d’hôte_.
An English dinner-party, in the present year of grace, is not at
all ugly. It may be--and sometimes is--almost a thing of beauty.
The modern dinner-table approaches as nearly to the old Greek type
as is compatible with the widely divergent character of the two
civilisations. It certainly follows the classic pattern in two valuable
particulars--beauty and repose. True, we do not wreathe our heads
in roses, nor carry doves nestling in the folds of our robes, nor
pour libations of wine over one another (such a messy habit!), but
we have done away, for good and all, let us hope, with the dreadful
mid-Victorian table decorations. Instead of hideous dish-covers,
branching candelabra, hideous _épergnes_, and appalling “set pieces,”
we have Hawthorn bowls of roses, delicate Venetian glass, beaten copper
finger-bowls, perfectly plain silver, and the simplest of white china.
Everything perfect of its kind, and its kind the non-ostentatious.
We have also become franker in the honest avowal of our appetites.
Even in our grandmothers’ time it was considered somewhat immodest to
take a second helping without being pressed. Pressure was expected
as a politeness from the host. An old manual of table etiquette says:
“Offer every dish at least thrice to each guest. Timid appetites must
be tempted, for they exist still, especially among literary folk!”
Altogether we are much politer, outwardly at any rate, than we used
to be. Even a Royal Duke has manners. So he had formerly--but they
were mostly bad. It is told of one of the Royal Family, of a couple of
generations ago, that he was dining at Belvoir, and his host, noticing
His Royal Highness studying the menu at dinner, asked him if he would
like anything that did not appear on the bill of fare. “Yes; roast pig
and apple dumpling,” was the gracious reply.
The daring simplicity of the royal appetite is splendid, but the pity
is that it was not more pleasantly put.
Another reform in our dining arrangements is the greater love which
folks now bear to fresh air. Formerly dining-rooms were heated up as
though the guests were early cucumbers, and wanted forcing. This, I am
sure, contributed greatly to the dulness of the average dinner-party.
As the result of careful observation, I have found, by experimenting
with a thermometer, that at a temperature of 62° Fahrenheit
conversation flows easily and every one’s wits are at their best and
sharpest. At 75° or higher the most elastic spirits become subdued. If
any one says to me: “So-and-so was not himself last night at dinner,” I
am always tempted to ask: “What was the temperature?”
Why will people, when they dine out in public places, insist on having
music? It seems to me a confusion of the arts, and with little ear for
music I cannot bring myself to take my soup in polka time, or masticate
my whitebait to the _Intermezzo_ from “Cavalleria Rusticana.” It is
quite a modern fad, for in 1874 G. A. Sala discusses music at dinner in
a magazine, and only refers to it in royal palaces. With all deference
to those who know better, it seems to me to be rather rude to good
music, and to a good dinner.
All the foregoing is in direct relation to the art of the Chafing Dish,
because the refinement of modern cookery is nowhere more evident than
in dealing with Chaffinda. I have been to a dinner-party where two
Chafing Dishes were brought on to the table after the sweets, one being
placed before the host and the other before the hostess. Deft servants
handed the necessary ingredients, and in five minutes, the guests (we
were eight, I think) were enjoying a little egg savoury, piping hot,
and cooked before their eyes. This sort of thing may become quite
common. Who knows?
The table for an ordinary Chafing-Dish meal, whether luncheon, dinner
or supper, such as might be cooked after a diligent study of the
foregoing chapters, should be arranged as simply as possible. One end
bears the Chafing Dish on its own little tray and cloth. The remaining
three-quarters of the table may be laid for a smallish party, and, by
all the canons of good taste, avoid decorating it with tulle or nun’s
veiling, or chiffon, or whatever the silly, flimsy, puffy stuff is
called. You might as well put ostrich feathers and bombazine in the
middle of the table. Good simple glass and china, the older the better,
as a rule, because the forms are more beautiful; and I see no need for
uniformity in either service, so long as each individual piece is
beautiful in itself. Pewter plates retain the heat splendidly, and some
of the old ones are excellent in design. Wooden platters are affected
by some people for meats, and I confess that the red juice of the meat
on the well-scrubbed surface is very pleasing. Keep the centre ornament
very low, so that one can see and talk across it. A big dish of almost
any old blue and white ware, with a very few flowers, but each bloom
perfect in itself, is my own ideal. Nothing is more trying than to talk
to your opposite neighbour across a small table, through a mass of
tightly packed towering flowers, or a jungle of dense fern. It is not
beautiful, but just annoying.
Chafing-Dish cookery, I am delighted to be able to add, seems to
engender the love of beautiful things. It is so easy to pick up and
use, in parlour cookery, all sorts of quaint and delightful pieces of
china of curious and old-fashioned design. They may not all be genuine;
in fact, most of them are pretty certain not to be. But if the shape
is good, the colouring pleasing, and the form well adapted for holding
sauce, sweetmeats, condiments, or anything else, then, so far as
Chaffinda is concerned, their genuineness and intrinsic value is a
secondary matter.
One is occasionally tempted by the offer of a real old silver Chafing
Dish with or without an ivory handle. Cooking in such an implement
would be an ultra refinement of the art. But the temptation must be
resisted, such things are not for daily use, although at one time and
in some houses a silver dish no doubt was always put before the master,
wherein to make his Welsh Rabbit.
There is a sort of huge silver Chafing Dish in the Cluny Museum, which
rather suggests a cauldron, so vast are its dimensions. It is evidently
fairly old and has seen much use, though it is not quite evident what
could have been cooked in it, unless it were the original _marmite_ of
Monsieur Deharme, which never left off cooking.
Grimod de la Reynière places on record, as an example to all good
cooks, this extraordinary _marmite_--or stockpot--of Monsieur
Deharme, a restaurateur in the Rue des Grands-Augustins. He calls
it “the everlasting _marmite_,” as, at the date of writing (1803),
it had not been off the fire for eighty-five years! During that time
it had cooked at least three hundred thousand capons, for Monsieur
Deharme’s specialty was the purveying of well-cooked hot capons at
any hour of the day and night. His establishment was always open,
and the procession of succulent birds to the _marmite_ was unending;
in fact, the Deharme fowl was regenerated perpetually in one long
procession of--apparently--the same bird, born anew for each successive
customer. The author adds that this _marmite_ was celebrated throughout
Europe--and no wonder.
In preparing some of the recipes in preceding chapters, Chafers may
find some difficulty, if it be summer-time, in keeping one portion of
the dish hot whilst the other portion is cooking. When I have no fire
in the room, I use a copper tray with two spirit lamps underneath. This
is a splendid invention and no Chafer should be without one. Then there
is another useful thing to remember. The lower hot-water dish, if
filled with water and put over the lamp, only half turned up, will keep
food warm in the Chafing Dish for ever so long. This is often useful
to know, as it is so pleasant to find something unexpectedly prepared
and ready when one had feared that all the cooking had to be done by
oneself. After a late night’s work such a surprise is very comforting.
In preparing a Chafing-Dish meal it is important to remember the
sequence of cooking, so that the waits between the courses shall not be
too long. I use two Chafing Dishes, so that there need be no delay; one
can be cleaned whilst the other is in use. If you are making soup, have
the fish ready so that it only wants hotting up. If your second course
takes a little time, fill up the interval with something cold, or a
salad. Work out your plan carefully beforehand so that there can be no
possibility of accident, and if the occasion be special, and you wish
to shine to your very best advantage, I earnestly recommend you to have
a full-dress rehearsal the day before, and time yourself accurately
for each dish; then there can be little chance of failure.
The setting forth of menus seems to me to be an entirely futile method
of filling up a cook-book. No one ever follows them, because things
never happen just so as to make all the materials simultaneously
available. It is much better to dip here and there in a book--to choose
a soup, a meat, and a salad; or a fish, a bird, and a savoury; or a
soup, a fish, and a sweet (an it be Friday)--to suit your convenience,
pocket, and taste of the moment.
Further, as I have already explained, I do not pretend to have done
more than touch on the fringe of the possibilities of the Chafing Dish.
I have only described what I have done, and hinted at what others may
do. But what I particularly want to draw attention to is the scope for
original research in the cult of Chaffinda. A long winter’s evening
is much more profitably spent experimenting with the Chafing Dish
than--well, playing Patience, for instance.
I do not desire to make every unmarried man and woman a cook. Far from
it. But it would do us no harm to think a little more of the quality
of the food we eat, and less of the quantity. Few of us, however, are
so stomach-ridden as Mynheer Welters, Burgomaster of Dilburg, in a
delightful novel published thirty years ago, called “The Burgomaster’s
Family,” by Christine Muller, and translated from the Dutch by Sir
John Shaw-Lefevre. Burgomaster Welters worshipped his stomach. What a
good dinner was to him no words can express. It was the realisation
of all his dreams and wishes. The content of soul and the feeling of
philanthropy which his eyes expressed after such a dinner must have
been seen to be described. He was accused of marrying Widow de Graaff
because she knew the recipe of a certain pie which she would not
divulge at a less price than marriage. If any one spoke of glorious
summer, he only thought of early vegetables; France reminded him of
Veuve Cliquot, and Germany of Bavarian beer.
An American Chafing-Dish book in my possession contains the following
quaint apothegm: “The Chafing Dish not only makes possible the
sincerest expression of the most perfect hospitality, but it seems the
true symbol of good fellowship.” The sentiment herein expressed is
unimpeachable, and I should like to be able to use such pretty talk
myself. It is exactly what I wanted to explain, but being clumsy in the
expression of intimate feeling, I cannot get beyond something to this
effect: “The Chafing Dish is a handy thing to have about the house, and
turns up usefully at the most unexpected moments. It is a ripping good
idea!”
[Illustration]
INDEX
PAGE
Almonds, Salted, 153
Alderman’s Walk, 34
Anchovy and Cucumber Salad, 136
Anchovy Eggs, 147
Antiquity of the Chafing Dish, 3
Apple Fritters, 179
Apples, Stewed, 181
Whiskey, 187
Artichokes, Braized, 115
Artichoke Chips, Fried, 115
Bacon and Cauliflower Salad, 136
Banana Cream, 185
Beans, Broad, 120
Italian, 120
French, 119
Haricot, 122
Beef, Chipped, 86
Devilled, 84
Steak, 83
Strips, 21
Bigarade Sauce, 173
Bills of Fare, 33
Bird’s-Nest Soup, 51
Biscuits, Devilled, 154
Savoury, 152
Black Butter Sauce, 169
Bloaters, Grandfather’s, 77
Bombay Toast, 153
Braized Artichokes, 115
Olives, 152
Bread Salad, 136
Sauce, 168
Brigands’ Fowls, 99
Broad Beans, 120
Italian, 120
Brown Sauce, 165
Browned Tongue, 31
Brussels Sprouts, 121
Bubble and Squeak, 90
Butter, Black, Sauce, 169
Sauce, 164
Buttered Lobster, 63
Carrot Soup, 49
Cauliflower and Bacon Salad, 136
Celeriac Salad, 131
Celery Salad, 130
Chafed Salmon, 59
Chafing Dish, Antiquity of, 3
Outfit, 19
Chapon, The, 128
Cheese, Matador, 151
Chestnuts, 123
Coffee, 182
Devilled, 153
Chicken, Brigands’, 99
Creamed, 102
Howtowdie, 100
Minced, 24
Roman, 101
Chicory Salad, 130
Chipped Beef, 86
Cleanliness, 29
Cockroach Soup, 51
Cocotte, Eggs en, 145
Cod Pudding, 60
Coffee Barometer, 188
Chestnuts, 182
Cold Meats, 30
Court Bouillon, 69
Cream Banana, 185
Creamed Chicken, 102
Smelts, 72
Creçy Soup, 49
Cross Star Soups, 40
Cucumber and Anchovy Salad, 136
Cutlets, Mutton, 27
Dandelion Leaves, 130
Decoration of Dinner Table, 198
Devilled Bee, 84
Biscuits, 154
Chestnuts, 153
Devil, The, 154
Digestive Prawns, 65
Dining-room Temperature, 196
Dinner, Music at, 197
Table Decoration, 198
Eggs, 139
Anchovy, 147
en Cocotte, 145
Kempton, 146
Lady Effingham’s, 145
Newmarket, 146
Poached, 141
Scrambled, 141
Eels, Matelote, 76
Nettled, 76
Souchet, 75
Endive Salad, 130
Etena Jarvat, 94
Fatiguing, A, Salad, 128
Figs, Stuffed, 186
Fisherman’s Sauce, 173
Flattered Lobster, 64
Fowl, Brigands’, 99
Roman, 101
French Beans, 119
Names, 34
Menus, 34
Fried Artichoke Chips, 115
Herrings, 57
Parsley, 122
Pineapple, 182
Potatoes, 113
Tomatoes, 114
Fritters, Apple, 179
Frizzled Ham, 88
Gallimaufrey, 89
Game, Minced, 24
Germiny Soup, 52
Gröt, Skansk, 186
Grandfather’s Bloaters, 77
Green Peas, 123
Goulasch, 93
Gubbins’ Sauce, 170
Ham, Frizzled, 88
in Hades, 88
Jellied, 22
Toast, 151
Haricot Beans, 122
Herrings, Fried, 57
Hodge’s Sausages, 92
Howtowdie, 100
Hurried Sardines, 71
Italian Broad Beans, 120
Sauce, 170
Jardinière Salad, 136
Jellied Ham, 22
Kabobs, 99
Kedgeree, 73
Martin Harvey’s, 74
Kempton Eggs, 146
Lady Effingham’s Eggs, 145
Leeks, Welsh, 119
Lettuce Salad, 130
Lobster, Buttered, 63
Flattered, 64
Polly, 63
Locust Soup, 51
Macaroni, 155
Madeleine Sauce, 169
Maître d’Hôtel Sauce, 166
Martin Harvey’s Kedgeree, 74
Mary’s Potatoes, 112
Mashed Potato Salad, 131
Matador Cheese, 151
Matelote of Eels, 76
Mayonnaise, 7
Mealies, 125
Meat, Cold, 30
Menus, 33
Milk, Rice, 185
Minced Chicken, 24
Game, 24
Mushrooms, 116
Stewed, 117
Music at Dinner, 197
Mustard Sauce, 168
Mutton Cutlets, 27
Saddle of, 34
Steaks, 94
Mutton, Turkish, 94
Venison, 95
Nettled Eels, 76
Newmarket Eggs, 146
Oddments, 177
Olives, Braized, 152
Omelettes, 142
Onions, 9
Sauce, 170
Outfit of Chafing Dish, 19
Oysters, 68
Palestine Soup, 47
Parsley, Fried, 122
Peas, 123
Pea Soup, 42
Perigueux Sauce, 174
Pheasant, Yesterday’s, 104
Pineapple, Fried, 182
Piquant Sauce, 166
Plump and Wallop, 96
Poached Eggs, 141
Polly, Lobster, 63
Poor Man’s Sauce, 169
Soup, 46
Potatoes and Point, 97
Fried, 113
Mary’s, 112
Mashed Salad, 131
Salad, 130
Sala’s, 112
Uglies, 112
Prawns, Digestive, 65
On the Grass, 67
Wiggle, 66
Preserved Soups, 40
Pudding, 178
Cod, 60
Purée of Spinach, 116
Rabbit, Welsh, 149
Ravigote Sauce, 166
Ravioli, 157
Reform Sauce, 167
Rehearsals, Necessary, 202
Remoulade Sauce, 166
Rhubarb, Stewed, 181
Rice Milk, 185
Robert Sauce, 28
Romaine Salad, 130
Roman Fowl, 101
Rules for Salad, 128
Rump Steak, 83
Saddle of Mutton, 34
Salads, 128
Anchovy and Cucumber, 136
Bacon and Cauliflower, 136
Bread, 136
Cauliflower, 130
and Bacon, 136
Celeriac, 131
Celery, 130
Chestnuts and Sprouts, 135
Chicory, 130
Cucumber and Anchovy, 136
Dandelion, 130
Endive, 130
Green Peas and Walnuts, 135
Jardinière, 136
Lettuce, 130
Mixture, 127
Potato, 130
Mashed, 131
Romaine, 130
Rules, 128
Sprouts and Chestnuts, 135
Tomato, 130
Walnuts and Green Peas, 135
Sala’s Potatoes, 112
Salmon, Chafed, 59
Salted Almonds, 153
Sardines in a Hurry, 71
Waldorf, 71
Sauces, 159
Bigarade, 173
Black Butter, 169
Bread, 168
Brown, 165
Butter, 164
Fisherman’s, 173
Gubbins’, 170
Italian, 170
Madeleine, 169
Maître d’Hôtel, 166
Mustard, 168
Onion, 170
Perigueux, 174
Piquant, 166
Poor Man’s, 169
Ravigote, 166
Reform, 167
Robert, 28
Remoulade, 166
Soubise, 167
White, 165
Sausages, Hodge’s, 92
Savoury Biscuits, 152
Scrambled Eggs, 141
Scouse, 98
Skansk Gröt, 186
Smelts, Creamed, 72
Smothered Turbot, 70
Soubise Sauce, 167
Souchet of Eels, 75
Sprats, 61
Soups, 38
Bird’s-nest, 51
Carrot, 49
Cockroach, 51
Creçy, 49
Cross Star, 40
Germiny, 52
Locust, 51
Palestine, 47
Pea, 42
Poor Man’s, 46
Preserved, 40
Turtle, 43
Spinach Purée, 116
Sprats, Souchet, 61
Sprouts and Chestnut Salad, 135
Stargazer Pie, 60
Steak, Beef, 83
Mutton, 94
Rump, 83
Stewed Apples, 181
Mushrooms, 116
Rhubarb, 181
Strips of Beef, 21
Stuffed Figs, 186
Sweets, 175
Tagliatelli, 156
Temperature of Dining-room, 196
Thistles, 118
Toast, 26
Bombay, 153
Ham, 151
Tomatoes, 114
Tomatoes, Fried, 114
Tongue, Browned, 31
Trout in Small Broth, 69
Turbot, Smothered, 70
Turkish Mutton, 94
Turtle Soup, 43
Uglies, Potatoes, 112
Vegetables, 108
Vegetarianism, 108
Venison Mutton, 95
Waldorf Sardines, 71
Walk, Alderman’s, 34
Walnut and Green Pea Salad, 135
Welsh Leeks, 119
Rabbit, 149
Whiskey Apples, 187
White Sauce, 165
Wiggle Prawns, 66
Yesterday’s Pheasant, 104
Zrazy, 87
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
London & Edinburgh
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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