Part 10

There still walk upon this brutal earth poor heedless women who, in the innocence of their hearts, believe that the one destiny of cheese is to lie, cut up in little pieces, in a three-cornered dish, which it shares with misplaced biscuits and well-meaning rolls of butter, and, it may be, chilling celery. But cheese, which in many ways has achieved such marvels, may be wrought into savouries beyond compare. As _soufflé_, either _au Gruyère_ or _au Parmesan_, it becomes light and dainty as the poet's lyric, and surely should be served only on porcelain of the finest. It is simple to say how the miracle is worked: a well-heated oven, a proper saucepan, butter, water, pepper, salt and sugar in becoming proportions, the yolks of eggs and grated Parmesan, the whites of the eggs added, as if an afterthought; and twenty-five minutes in the expectant oven will do the rest. But was ever lyric turned out by rule and measure? Even the inspired artist has been known to fail with his _soufflé_. Here, indeed, is a miracle, best entrusted to none but the genius.

_Canapé au Parmesan_ has pretensions which the result justifies. On the bread, fried as golden as the haloes of Fra Angelico's angels, the grated Parmesan, mingled with salt and pepper, is spread. A Dutch oven yields temporary asylum until the cheese be melted, when, quicker than thought, the _canapés_ are set upon a pretty dish and served to happy mortals. _Ramaquins_ of cheese, in cases or out, can boast of charms the most seductive. Nor in _gougère_ or _beignet_ or _bouchée_ will Parmesan betray confidence. Again, in _pailles_, or straws, on fire with cayenne, and tied with fluttering ribbons into enticing bunches, this happy child of the South reveals new powers of seduction. So long as there is cheese to command, the most fastidious need not wander far in search of savouries.

The anchovy may be made a dangerous rival to Parmesan. Whole, or in paste, it yields enchanting harmonies, burning and fervent as lover's prayer. Let your choice fall upon the boneless anchovies of France, if you would aim at the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of labour. True it is that labour in the kitchen is ever a joy; but, expended upon one creation when it might be divided among many, must not sacrifice of variety in sensation be the price paid? Fried after the fashion of whitebait, sprinkled with _paprika_, and refreshed with lemon juice, anchovies become quite irresistible as _Orlys d'anchois_. Prepared in cases, like Parmesan, they are proof against criticism as _tartelettes_. Now figuring as _petites bouchées_, now as _rissolettes_, they fail not to awaken new and delicious emotions. They simply clamour for certain exquisite combinations, to-day with hard-boiled egg passed through a sieve, to-morrow with olives from sunny Provence; thin brown bread and butter, or toast, the crisp foundation. But rarely do they go masquerading so riotously as in the garb of _croûtes d'anchois_: first, the golden _croûton_, then a slice of tomato, then a slice of cucumber, then a layer of caviar, then a layer of anchovies scarlet with _paprika_ and garnished with leaves of chervil; and behold! you have a pyramid more memorable far than any raised on Egyptian sands--a pyramid that you need not travel silly miles to see: it is yours, any day and any hour, for the ordering.

Lax laid lightly on toast is a pale rose triumph. _Olives farcies_--caper and anchovy chief ingredients of the _farce_--come like a flaming ray of southern sunlight. Haddock is smoked in the land across the border solely that it may ravish the elect in its grandest phase as _croustades de merluche fumée_. By the shores of the blue Mediterranean, sardines are packed in tins that the delicate diner of the far north may know pleasure's crown of pleasure in _canapé de sardines diablées_. Caviar craves no more elaborate seasoning than lemon juice and _paprika_ can give; herring roe sighs for devilled biscuit as friendly resting-place. Shrimp and lobster vie with one another for the honour either _bouchée_ or _canapé_ bestows. And ham and tongue pray eagerly to be grated and transformed into bewildering _croûtes_. The ever-willing mushroom refuses to be outsped in the blessed contest, but murmurs audibly, "_Au gratin_ I am adorable;" while the egg whispers, "Stuff me, and the roses and raptures are yours!"

But what would the art of eating be without the egg? In two strange and striking combinations it carries the savoury to the topmost rung in the ladder of gastronomy. Its union with inexhaustible anchovy and Bombay duck has for issue "Bombay toast," the very name whereof has brought new hope to staid dons and earnest scholars. Pledged to anchovies once more and butter and cream--Mormon-like in its choice of many mates--it offers as result "Scotch woodcock," a challenge to fill high the glass with Claret red and rare.

Endless is the stimulating list. For cannot the humble bloater be pressed into service, and the modest cod? Do not many more vegetables than spinach, that plays so strong a part in _Raviole à la Genoese_, answer promptly when called upon for aid? And what of the gherkin? What of the almond--the almond mingled with caviar and cayenne? And what of this, that, and the other, and ingenious combinations by the score? Be enterprising! Be original! And success awaits you.

INDISPENSABLE CHEESE

With bread and cheese and kisses for daily fare, life is held to be perfect by the poet. But love may grow bitter before cheese loses its savour. Therefore the wise, who value the pleasures of the table above tender dalliance, put their faith in strong Limburger or fragrant Brie, rather than in empty kisses. If only this lesson of wisdom could be mastered by all men and women, how much less cruel life might be!

Nor is cheese without its poetry to comfort the hater of pure prose. Once the "glory of fair Sicily," there must ever linger about it sweet echoes of Sicilian song sung under the wild olives and beneath the elms, where Theocritus "watched the visionary flocks." Did not "a great white cream-cheese" buy that wondrous bowl--the "miracle of varied work"--for which Thyrsis sang the pastoral song? Cheese-fed were the shepherds who piped in the shadow of the ilex tree, while the calves were dancing in the soft green grass; cheese-scented was the breath of the fair maidens and beautiful youths they loved. Is there a woman with soul so dead, who, when in a little country inn fresh cheese is laid before her, cannot fancy that she sees the goats and kids among the tamarisks of the sun-kissed Sicilian hills, and hears the perfect voices of Daphnis and Menalcas, the two herdsmen "skilled in song"?

Perhaps because cheese has been relegated to the last course at midday breakfast, or at dinner, has it lost much of its charm for the heedless. But who, indeed, playing with peach or orange at dessert, knows the fruit's true flavour as well as he who plucks it fresh from the tree while wandering through the peach orchards of Delaware or the orange groves of Florida? Take a long walk over the moors and through the heather, or cycle for hours along winding lanes, and then, at noon, eat a lunch of bread and cheese, and--even without the kisses--you will find in the frugal fare a godlike banquet. Time was when bits cut from the huge carcase of a well-battered Cheddar, washed down with foaming shandygaff, seemed more delicious far than the choicest dishes at the Lapérouse or Voisin's. Memory journeys back with joy to the fragrant, tough, little goat's cheese, with flask of Chianti, set out upon the rough wooden table in front of some wayside vine-trellised _albergo_, while traveller and cycle rested at the hour when shade is most pleasant to men. How many a tramp, through the valleys and over the passes of Switzerland, has been made the easier by the substantial slice of good Gruyère and the cup of wine well cooled in near snow-drifts! How many rides awheel through the pleasant land of France have been the swifter for the Camembert and roll devoured by the way!

Places and hours there are when cheese is best. But seldom is it wholly unwelcome. From dinner, whatever may then be its limitations, some think it must never be omitted. Remember, they say, as well a woman with but one eye as a last course without cheese. But see that you show sympathy and discretion in selecting the variety most in harmony with your _menu_, or else the epicure's labours will indeed be lost. It is not enough to visit the cheesemonger's, and to accept any and every kind offered. The matter is one requiring time and thought and long experience. You must understand the possibilities of each cheese chosen, you must bear in mind the special requirements of each meal prepared. Preposterous it would be truly to serve the mild-flavoured plebeian species from Canada or America after a carefully ordered dinner at Verrey's; wasteful, to use adorable Port Salut or aromatic Rocquefort for a pudding or a Welsh rabbit.

Study gastronomic proprieties, cultivate your imagination, and as the days follow each other fewer will be your mistakes. Heavy Stilton and nutritious Cheddar, you will know, belong by right to undisguised joint and irrepressible greens: to a "good old-fashioned English dinner" they prove becoming accompaniments. Excellent they are, after their fashion, to be honoured and respected; but something of the seriousness and the stolidity of their native land has entered into them, and to gayer, more frivolous moods they are as unsuited as a sermon to a ballroom. If, however, to the joint you cling with tenacity, and solemn Stilton be the cheese of your election, do not fail to ripen it with port of the finest vintage or good old ale gently poured into holes, here and there scooped out for the purpose, and then filled once more with the cheese itself.

Strength, fierce in perfume and flavour alike, lies in Limburger, but it is strength which demands not beef or mutton, but _wurst_ and _sauerkraut_. Take it not home with you, unless you would place a highly-scented barrier between yourself and your friends; but, in deep thankfulness of heart, eat it after you have lunched well and heartily in the Vienna Cafe, which overlooks Leicester Square, or in that other which commands Mudie's and Oxford Street. And thanks will be deepened a hundredfold if, while eating, you call for a long refreshing draught of Munich beer.

Sweet, redolent of herbs, are gracious Gorgonzola, of which such ribald tales are told by the irreverent, and royal Rocquefort, in its silver wrapping; eaten after "the perfect dinner," each has merit immeasurable--merit heightened by a glass of Beaune or Chambertin. Then, too, is the hour for Port Salut, with its soothing suggestion of monastic peace and contentment, alone a safeguard against indigestion and other unspeakable horrors; if you respect your appetite seek it nowhere save in the German _delicatessen_ shop, but there order it with an easy conscience and confidence in the white-coated, white-aproned ministering spirit at the counter. Thither also turn for good Camembert; but, as you hope for pleasure in the eating, be not too ready to accept the first box offered: test the cheese within with sensitive finger, and value it according to its softness, for an unripe Camembert, that crumbles at touch of the knife, is deadlier far than all the seven deadly sins. It should be soft and flowing almost as languid _Fromage de Brie_, indolent and melting on its couch of straw. Beyond all cheese, Gruyère calls for study and reflection, so many are the shams, by an unscrupulous market furnished, in its place. As palely yellow as a Liberty scarf, as riddled with holes as cellular cotton, it should be sweet as Port Salut, and yet with a reserve of strength that makes it the rival of Limburger.

But blessed among cheeses, a romance in itself, is the creamy, subtle little _Suisse_, delectable as Dumas calls it. Soft and sweet as the breath of spring, it belongs to the season of lilacs and love. Its name evokes a vision of Paris, radiant in the Maytime, the long avenues and boulevards all white and pink with blossoming horse-chestnuts, the air heavy laden with the fragrance of flowers; a vision of the accustomed corner in the old restaurant looking out upon the Seine, and of the paternal waiter bearing the fresh _Suisse_ on dainty green leaf. Life holds few such thrilling interludes! You may eat it with salt, and think yourself old and wise; but why not be true to the spirit of spring? Why not let yourself go a little, and, eating your _Suisse_ with sugar, be young and foolish and unreasonably happy again?

Authorities there be who rank the _Broccio_ of Corsica above the _Suisse_, and credit it with delicious freshness and Virgilian flavour. To taste it among its wild hills, then, would be well worth the long journey to the island in the Mediterranean. In the meantime, however, none need quarrel with _Suisse_. Hardly a country or district in the world really that has not its own special cheese; he who would discover them all and catalogue them must needs write a treatise on geography.

But to eat cheese in its many varieties, with butter or salt or sugar, as the case may be, and to think its mission thus fulfilled, would be to underestimate its inexhaustible resources. Innumerable are the masterpieces the culinary artist will make of it. In an omelet you would pronounce it unsurpassable, so long as kind fate did not set before you the consummate _Fondue_. As a pudding you would declare it not to be approached, if sometimes crisp cheese straws were not served with dinner's last course. On an ocean voyage, Welsh-rabbit late at night will seem to you the marvel of marvels; on a railway journey a cheese sandwich at noon you will think still more miraculous--but let the sandwich be made of brown bread, and mix butter and mustard and anchovies with the cheese. The wonders that may be worked with Parmesan alone--whether in conjunction with _macaroni_, or soup, or cauliflower, or many a dish beside--would be eloquent text for a new chapter.

A STUDY IN GREEN AND RED

You may search from end to end of the vast Louvre; you may wander from room to room in England's National Gallery; you may travel to the Pitti, to the Ryks Museum, to the Prado; and no richer, more stirring arrangement of colour will you find than in that corner of your kitchen garden where June's strawberries grow ripe. From under the green of broad leaves the red fruit looks out and up to the sun in splendour unsurpassed by paint upon canvas. And the country, with lavish prodigality born of great plenty, takes pity upon the drear, drab town, and, packing this glory of colour in baskets and crates, despatches it to adorn greengrocer's window and costermonger's cart. "Strawberries all ripe, sixpence a pound," is the itinerant sign which now sends a thrill through Fleet Street and brings joy to the Strand.

To modern weakling the strawberry is strong with the strength of classical approval. The Greek loved it; the Latin vied with him in the ardour of his affection. Poets sang its wonders and immortalised its charms. Its perfume was sweet in the nostrils of Virgil; its flavour enraptured the palate of Ovid; and at banquets under the shadow of the Acropolis and on sunny Pincian Hill, the strawberry, cultivated and wild, held place of honour among the dear fruits of the earth.

Nor did it disappear before the barbarian's inroads. Europe might be laid waste; beauty and learning and art might be aliens in the land that was once their home; human enjoyment might centre upon a millennium to come rather than upon delights already warm within men's grasp. But still the strawberry survived. Life grew ugly and rue and barren. But from under broad leaves the little red fruit still looked out and up to the sun; and, by loveliness of colour and form, of flavour and scent, proved one of the chief factors in reclaiming man from barbarism, in leading him gently along the high road to civilisation and the joy of life.

Respect for its exquisite perfection was ever deep and heartfelt. Gooseberries might be turned to wine and figure as fools; raspberries and currants might be imprisoned within stodgy puddings. But the strawberry, giver of health, creator of pleasure, seldom was submitted to desecration by fire. As it ripened, thus was it eaten: cool, scarlet, and adorable. At times when, according to the shifting of the seasons, its presence no longer made glad the hearts of its lovers, desire invented a substitute. As the deserted swain takes what cold comfort he can from the portrait of his mistress, so the faithful stayed themselves with the strawberry's counterfeit. And thus was it made: "Take the paste of Massepain, and roul it in your hands in form of a Strawberry, then wet it in the juice of Barberries or red Gooseberries, turn them about in this juice pretty hard, then take them out and put them into a dish and dry them before a fire, then wet them again for three or four times together in the same juice, and they will seem like perfect Strawberries." Master Cook Giles Rose is the authority, and none knew better.

If, in moment of folly, in an effort to escape monotony, however sweet, the strawberry was robbed of its freshness, it was that it might be enclosed in a tart. Then--how account for man's inconsistency?--it was so disguised, so modified by this, that, or the other companion in misery, that it seemed less a strawberry than ever Master Rose's ingenious counterfeit. And, in witness thereof, read Robert May, the Accomplished Cook, his recipe: "Wash the strawberries and put them into the tart; season them with cinnamon, ginger, and a little red wine, then put on the sugar, bake it half an hour, ice it, scrape on sugar, and serve it." A pretty mess, in truth, and yet, for sentiment's sake, worth repetition in this degenerate latter day. Queen Anne preserved the tradition of her Stuart forefathers, and in "The Queen's Royal Cooker," a little book graced by the Royal portrait, Robert May's tart reappears, cinnamon, ginger, and all. So it was handed down from generation to generation, cropping up here and there with mild persistency, and now at last, after long career of unpopularity, receiving distinction anew.

One tart in a season, as tribute to the past, will suffice. It were a shame to defile the delicate fruit in more unstinted quantities. Reserve it rather for dessert, that in fragile porcelain dish or frail glass bowl it may lose nothing of the fragrance and crispness and glow of colour that distinguished it as it lay upon the brown earth under cool green shelter. To let it retain unto the very last its little green stem is to lend to dinner or breakfast table the same stirring, splendid harmony that lit up, as with a flame, the kitchen garden's memorable corner. But if with cream the fruit is to be eaten, then comfort and elegance insist upon green stem's removal before ever the bowl be filled or the dish receive its dainty burden.

At early "little breakfast" of coffee and rolls, or tea and toast, as you will, what more delicious, what fresher beginning to the day's heat and struggles, then the plate of strawberries newly picked from their bed? Banish cream and sugar from this initiative meal. At the dawn of daily duty and pleasure, food should be light and airy and unsubstantial. Then the stem, clinging fast to the fruit's luscious flesh, is surely in place. Half the delight is in plucking the berry from the plate as if from the bush.

After midday breakfast, after evening dinner, however, it is another matter. Cream now is in order; cream, thick and sweet and pure, covering the departing strawberry with a white pall, as loving and tender as the snow that protects desolate pastures and defenceless slopes from winter's icy, inexorable fingers. Sprinkle sugar with the cream, as flowers might be strewn before the altars of Dionysius and Demeter.

Cream may, for time being, seem wholly without rivals as the strawberry's mate, the two joined together by a bond that no man would dare put asunder. But the strawberry has been proven fickle in its loves--a very Cressida among fruits. For to Kirsch it offers ecstatic welcome, while Champagne meets with no less riotous greeting. To Cognac it will dispense its favours with easy graciousness, and from the hot embrace of Maraschino it makes no endeavour to escape. Now, it may seem as simple and guileless as Chloe, and again as wily and well-versed as Egypt's far-famed Queen. But with the results of its several unions who will dare find fault? In each it reveals new, unsuspecting qualities, subtle and ravishing. On pretty, white-draped tea-table, rose-embowered, carnation-scented, the strawberry figures to fairest advantage when Champagne holds it in thrall; in this hour and bower cream would savour of undue heaviness, would reveal itself all too substantial and palpable a lover. Again, when elaborate dinner draws to an end, and dessert follows upon long procession of soup and fish and _entrées_ and roasts and vegetables and salads and poultry and sweets and savouries, and who knows what--then the strawberry becomes most irresistible upon yielding itself, a willing victim, to the bold demands of Kirsch. A _macédoine_ of Kirsch-drowned strawberries, iced to a point, is a dish for which gods might languish without shame.

She who loves justice never fears to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To cook the strawberry is to rob it of its sweetest bloom and freshness. But there have been others to think otherwise, as it must in fairness be added. To the American, strawberry short-cake represents one of the summits of earthly bliss. In ices, many will see the little fruit buried without a pang of regret; and the device has its merits. As syrup, distended with soda-water and ice-cream, the conservative Londoner may now drink it at Fuller's. In the flat, open, national tart, the Frenchman places it, and congratulates himself upon the work of art which is the outcome. Or, accepting Gouffé as master, he will soar, one day, to the extraordinary heights of _coupe en nougat garnie de fraises_, and find a flamboyant colour-print to serve as guide; the next he will descend to the mere homeliness of _beignets de fraises_; and, as he waxes more adventurous, he will produce _bouchées de dame_, or _pain à la duchesse_, _madeleines en surprise_ or _profiteroles_, each and all with the strawberry for motive. The spirit of enterprise is to be commended, and not one of Gouffé's list but will repay the student in wealth of experience gained. The lover, however, finds it not always easy to remember the student within him, and if joy in the eating be his chief ambition, he will be constant to the fresh fruit ever.

A MESSAGE FROM THE SOUTH

What know we of the orange in our barbarous North? To us it is an alien, a makeshift, that answers well when, our own harvests over, winter, sterile and gloomy, settles upon the land. But in the joyous South all the year round it ripens, its golden liquid a solace when heat and dust parch the throat, as when winds from the frozen North blow with unwonted cold. The tree that bears it is as eager to produce as the mothers of Israel, and, in its haste and impatience, often it whitens its branches with blossoms while still they glow with fruit, even as Beckford long since saw them in the groves of Naples.