Part 2

There is no monotony in spring sunshine; why, then, let spring's breakfast always strike the same monotonous note? Another day, another mood, and so, as logical consequence, another _menu_. From your own garden gather a bunch of late tulips, scarlet and glowing, but cool in their shelter of long tapering leaves. Fill a bowl with them: it may be a rare bronze from Japan, or a fine piece of old Delft, or anything else, provided it be somewhat sumptuous as becomes the blossoms it holds. Open with that triumph of colour which would have enchanted a Titian or a Monticelli: the roseate salmon of the Rhine, smoked to a turn, and cut in thin slices, all but transparent. It kindles desire and lends new zest to appetite.

After so ardent a preparation, what better suited for ensuing course than _oeufs brouillés aux pointes d'asperges_? the eggs golden and fleecy as the clouds in the sunset's glow; the asparagus points imparting that exquisite flavour which is so essentially their own. Cloudlike, the loveliness gradually and gracefully disappears, as in a poet's dream or a painter's impression, and spring acquires a new meaning, a new power to enchant.

Who, with a soul, could pass on to a roast or a big heating joint? More to the purpose is _ris de veau à la Toulouse_, the sweetbreads broiled with distinction, and then, in pretty fluted _caissons_, surrounded with _Béchamel_ sauce and ravishing _ragoût_ of mushrooms and cock's combs. They are light as a feather, but still a trifle flamboyant in honour of the tulips, while the name carries with it gaiety from the gay southern town of the _Jeux Floraux_.

Next, a salad is not out of place. Make it of tomatoes, scarlet and stirring, like some strange tropical blossoms decking the shrine of the sun. Just a suspicion of shallot in the bowl; the perfect dressing of vinegar and oil, pepper and salt; and the luxuriant tropics could not yield a richer and more fragrant offering. It is a salad that vies with Cleopatra in its defiance to custom. Love for it grows stronger with experience. The oftener it is enjoyed the greater the desire to enjoy it again.

Why, then, venture to destroy the impression it leaves with the cloying insipidity of some ill-timed sweet? It is almost too early for strawberries worth the eating, save in a _macédoine_, and they alone would come next in order, without introducing an element of confusion in the well-proportioned breakfast of spring. A savoury, too, would, at this special juncture, have its drawbacks. Cheese again best fulfils the conditions imposed. But now, something stronger, something more definite than Port Salut is called for; if Camembert prove the cheese of your choice, there will be no chance for criticism. One warning: see that it is ripe; for the Camembert that crumbles in its dryness is nothing short of iniquitous.

Tulips and tomatoes point to Claret as the wine to be drunk. Burgundy is for the evening, when candles are lighted, and the hours of dreaming have begun. St. Estèphe, at noon, has infinite merit, and responds to the tulip's call with greater warmth than any white wine, whether from the vineyards of France or Germany, of Hungary or Italy. Coffee, as a matter of course, is to the elegantly-designed breakfast what the Butterfly is to the Nocturne. And when all is said, few liqueurs accord with it so graciously as Cognac; that is, if the dishes to precede it have tended to that joyful flamboyancy born of the artist's exuberance in moments of creation.

Eat either breakfast, or both; and be thankful that spring comes once a year.

THE SUBTLE SANDWICH

If things yield themselves unto our mercy why should we not have the fruition of them, or apply them to our advantage? From evil, good may come; from the little, springs greatness. A reckless gamester, to defy the pangs of hunger, which might drag him from his beloved cards, brings to the gaming table slices of bread with ham between. If other men despise--or deplore, according to their passing mood--his folly, to their own pleasure and profit can they still turn his invention. The sandwich has become a universal possession for all time, though for a century the earl who created it has lain dead. His foibles should be forgotten, his one redeeming virtue remembered. For him a fair and spacious niche in the world's Valhalla.

A hero indeed is he who left the sandwich as an heirloom to humanity. It truly is the staff of life, a substantial meal for starving traveller or bread-winner; but none the less an incomparable work of art, a joy to the _gourmand_ of fancy and discretion. The very name has come to be a pregnant symbol of holiday-making for all with souls to stir at the thought of food and drink. It is an inexhaustible stimulus to the imagination; to the memory a tender guide to the past's happiest days and hours.

For, in fancy, between the slices of bread, place thick, uncompromising pieces of beef or mutton, and to the Alps you are at once transported. Again, on the short, fragrant grass you sit; from its temporary snow-grave a little above, Perren or Imboden fetches the bottle of wine, ordinary enough in reality, nectar as you drink it there; Seiler's supplies you take from the faithful knapsack, opening paper package after paper package; and your feast of big, honest, no-nonsense-about-them sandwiches you devour with the appetite of a schoolboy, and the zeal of the convert to plain living and high mountain climbing.

Or, thin the slices, make them the covering for ham and tongue, or--if you be greatly favoured--for sardines and anchovies; and then memory will spread for you the banquet in the pleasant pastures that border the Cam, the willows bowering you from the August sun with shade, your boat moored to the cool bank; and with Claret cup, poured, mayhap, into old college tankards, you quench your thirst, while lazily you listen to the distant plashing of oars and lowing of kine, and all life drifts into an idle dream.

Or, the ham of Bayonne, the _pâté de foie gras_ of Périgueux, you bury in the deep recesses of a long, narrow, crisp _petit pain_, and then, quick in a French railway carriage will you find yourself: a bottle of wine is at your side; the _Echo de Paris_ lies spread on the seat before you; out of the window long lines of poplars go marching with you toward Paris, whither you are bound "to make the feast."

Grim and gruesome, it may be, are some of the memories evoked: ill-considered excursions to the bar of the English railway station, hasty lunches in chance bun shops, foolish testings of "ham and beef" limitations. But, henceforth, take heed to chasten your experience with the sandwich, that remembrance may not play you such scurvy tricks. Treat it aright with understanding and respect, and it will keep you in glad holiday humour, in the eating thereof as in the memory.

Life, alas! is not all play in Thames sunshine and keen Alpine air, or in hopeful journeying through the pleasant land of France. But in the everyday of stern work and doleful dissipation the sandwich is an ally of infallible trustworthiness and infinite resources. In the hour of need it is never found wanting. To dine well, authorities have proclaimed in _ex cathedrâ_ utterance, you must lunch lightly; but not, therefore, does it follow that the light luncheon should be repellently prosaic. Let it be dainty--a graceful lyric--that it may fill you with hope of the coming dinner. And lyrical indeed is the savoury sandwich, well cut and garnished, served on rare faïence or old silver; a glass, or perhaps two, of Bordeaux of some famous vintage, to strengthen its subtle flavour.

An ally again at afternoon tea it proves, if at five o'clock drink tea you must; a mistake, surely, if you value your dinner. To belittle the excellence of crumpets and muffins well toasted, would be to betray a narrow mind and senseless prejudice; but these buttery, greasy delicacies in private should be eaten, where the ladies of Cranford sucked their oranges. And at the best their excellence is homely. In the sandwich well devised is something exotic and strange, some charm elusive and mysterious.

But let not the sandwich be of ham, except rarely, for the etherealized luncheon, the mystic tea. Reserve this well-meaning, but unpoetic, viand for the journey and the day of open-air sport, to which so admirably it is fitted. Nor so reserving it, will you be hampered in making what Dumas calls _tartines à l'Anglaise_. Infinity is at your disposal, if you be large and liberal enough to grasp the fact. One hundred numbered the varieties known to that genius of Glasgow, who, for his researches, has been honoured by a place in dictionary and Encyclopædia. To these you may add, if time and leisure you find for a trip to Budapest and the famous Kügler's, where, with your tea, will be served such exquisite sandwiches, so original and many in their devices that you can but come away marvelling, in all eagerness to emulate the artist who designed them.

For the luncheon sandwich, choose from the countless treasures of the sea. Rapture is in the sardine, not the oiled from France, but the smoked from Norway; tunny fish or anchovies are dreams of delight; _caviar_, an ecstacy, the more delicious if a dash of lemon juice be added. And, if you would know these in perfection, use brown bread instead of white. Salmon is not to be scorned, nor turbot to be turned from in contempt; they become triumphs if you are not too niggardly with cayenne pepper; triumphs not unknown to Cheapside. Nor are the various so-called creams--of shrimps, of lobster, of salmon--altogether to be despised, and they, too, the better prove for the judicious touch of cayenne. But confine not your experiments to the conventional or the recommended. Overhaul the counter of the fishmonger. Set your wits to work. Cultivate your artistic instincts. Invent! Create! Many are the men who have painted pictures: few those who have composed a new and perfect sandwich.

Upon the egg, likewise, you may rely for inspiration--the humble hen's egg, or the lordly plover's. Hard-boiled, in thin slices (oh! the memories of Kügler's, and the Russian railway station, and the _hor d'oeuvres_, Tartar-guarded sideboard, now awakened!) or well grated; by itself, or in endless combinations, the egg will ever repay your confidence.

Upon sausage, also, you may count with loving faith. _Butterbrod mit Wurst_--_Wurst_ and philosophy, these are the German masterpieces. And here, you may visit the _delicatessen_ shop to good purpose. Goose-liver, Brunswick, garlic, Bologna, truffled--all fulfil their highest destiny, when in thinnest of thin slices, you lay them between slices no less thin of buttered bread--brown or white, as artistic appropriateness suggests--a faint suspicion of mustard to lend them piquancy.

Beef and mutton, when not cut in Alpine chunks, are comforting, and with mustard duly applied, grateful as well. Fowl and game, galantine and tongue, veal and brawn--no meat there is, whether fresh or boned or potted, that does not adapt itself gracefully to certain occasions, to certain needs. And here, again, be not slow to arrange new harmonies, to suggest new schemes. It should be your endeavor always to give style and individuality to your sandwiches.

Cheese in shavings, or grated, has great merit. Greater still has the cool cucumber, fragrant from its garden ground, the unrivalled tomato, the crisp, sharp mustard and cress. Scarce a green thing growing that will not lend itself to the true artist in sandwich-making. Lettuce, celery, watercress, radishes--not one may you not test to your own higher happiness. And your art may be measured by your success in proving the onion to be the poetic soul of the sandwich, as of the salad bowl. For afternoon tea the dainty green sandwich is the daintiest of them all.

If to sweets your taste incline, then easily may you be gratified, though it be a taste smacking of the nursery and the schoolroom. Jams and marmalades you may press into service; chocolate or candied fruit. And sponge cake may take the place of bread, and, with strawberries between, you have the American strawberry short-cake.

But, whatever your sandwich, above all things see that its proportions be delicate and symmetrical; that it please the eye before ever the first fragment has passed into the mouth.

A PERFECT DINNER

Fashion and art have little in common. Save for chance, they would remain always as the poles apart. The laws of the one are transitory, of the other eternal; and as irreconcilable are they in the observance. Make then your choice between them, since no man may serve two masters.

Know that if ever the noble art of cookery be wrecked, it will be upon the quicksands of Fashion. In many ways is it threatened by the passing mode, but, above all others, one danger looms up before it, grim, relentless, tragic: the more awful because, to the thoughtless, at first it seems sweet as siren's singing. It is an evil born of the love of display and of the keen competition between Fashion's votaries. For they who would pose as delicate diners, think to eclipse their rivals by number of courses and bewildering variety. How to prolong the _menu_, rather than how to perfect it, is their constant study. In excess they would emulate the banquets of the ancients, though they are too refined by far to revive the old vomitories--the indispensable antidote. Dish follows dish, conceit is piled upon conceit; and with what result? Before dinner is half over, palates are jaded, "fine shades" can no more be appreciated, every new course awakens fear of the morrow's indigestion. Or else, pleasure is tempered by caution, a melancholy compromise; nothing is really eaten, the daintiest devices are but trifled with, and dinner is degraded into a torture fit for Tantalus. Surely, never was there a more cruel, fickle mistress than Fashion! Sad, immeasurably sad, the fate of her worshippers.

Art despises show, it disdains rivalry, and it knows not excess. A Velasquez or a Whistler never overloads his canvas for the sake of gorgeous detail. To the artist in words, superfluous ornament is the unpardonable sin. And so with the lovers of Gasterea, the tenth and fairest of the Muses. Better by far Omar Khayyam's jug of wine and loaf of bread, if both be good, than all the ill-regulated banquets of a Lucullus. Who would hesitate between the feasts of Heliogabalus and the frugal fowl and the young kid, the raisins, figs, and nuts of Horace?

It matters not how many courses between oysters and coffee Fashion may decree, if, turning your back upon her and her silly pretensions, you devise a few that it will be a privilege for your guests to eat, a joy for them to remember. Bear in mind the master's model luncheon and its success. No _menu_ could have been simpler; none more delicious. The table was laid for three, a goodly number, for all the slurs cast upon it. At each plate were "two dozen oysters with a bright golden lemon; at each end of the table stood a bottle of Sauterne, carefully wiped all except the cork, which showed unmistakably that it was long since the wine had been bottled." After the oysters roasted kidneys were served; next, truffled _foie-gras_; then the famous _fondue_, the beautiful arrangement of eggs beaten up with cheese, prepared over a chafing-dish at table, stimulating appetite by all the delights of anticipation. Fruit followed, and coffee; and last, two liqueurs, "one a spirit, to clear, and the other an oil, to soothe." Be not content to read, but go and do likewise!

Imagine a dinner planned on the same pattern, and the conventional banquet of the day soon will seem to you the monstrosity it is. Observe two all-important rules and you may not wander far wrong. One is to limit the number of courses; the other to serve first the substantial dishes, then those that are lighter, first the simpler wines, afterwards those of finer flavours.

The _hors d'oeuvre_, however, is an exception. If too substantial it would defeat its end. It must whet the appetite, not blunt it. In its flavour must its strength lie; at once keen and subtle, it should stimulate, but never satisfy. An anchovy salad touches perfection; the anchovies--the boneless species from France--the olives skilfully stoned, the capers in carefully studied proportions, the yellow of the egg well grated, the parsley, chopped fine, must be arranged by an artist with a fine feeling for decorative effect, and the dressing of oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt, poured gently over the design so as not to destroy the poetry of line and colour. A crisp Vienna roll, with sweet fresh butter, makes an excellent accompaniment, but one to be enjoyed in moderation.

_Crème Soubise_ is the soup to follow. Thick, creamy, onion-scented, the first spoonful enchants, and a glamour is at once cast over dinner and diners. Sufficing in itself, it needs neither Parmesan nor toast to enhance its merits. Like a beautiful woman, unadorned it is adorned the most.

Admirably, it prepares the way for oysters, deftly scalloped, with shallots and fragrant _bouquet garni_ to lend them savour, and bread crumbs to form a rich golden-brown outer covering. If not unmindful of the eye's pleasure, you will make as many shells as there are guests serve the purpose of a single dish.

Without loitering or dallying with useless _entrées_, come at once to the one substantial course of the pleasant feast--and see that it be not too substantial. Avoid the heavy, clumsy, unimaginative joint. Decide rather for idyllic, _Tournedos aux Champignons_; the fillet tender and _saignant_, as the French say, the mushrooms, not of the little button variety, suggesting tins or bottles, but large and black and fresh from the market. Rapture is their inevitable sauce: rapture too deep for words. To share the same plate _pommes soufflées_ may be found worthy.

None but the irreverent would seek to blur their impressions by eating other meats after so delectable a dish. Order, rather, a vegetable salad, fresh and soothing: potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, celery, a suspicion of garlic, and a sprinkling of parsley. Eat slowly; foolish is the impatient man who gallops through his pleasures in hot haste.

And now, be bold, defy convention, and do away with sweets. After so tender a poem, who could rejoice in the prose of pudding? But "a last course at dinner, wanting cheese, is like a pretty woman with only one eye." Therefore, unless you be blind to beauty, let cheese be served. Port Salut will do as well as another; neither too strong nor too mild, it has qualities not to be prized lightly.

Fruit is the sweet _envoy_ to the Ballade of Dinner. And of all winter's fruits, the fragrant, spicy little Tangerine orange is most delicious and suggestive. Its perfume alone, to those who have dined discreetly, is a magic pass to the happy land of dreams. Conversation rallies, wit flashes, confidences are begotten over walnuts and almonds, and so, unless in surly, taciturn mood--as who could be after so exquisite a dinner?--let these have a place upon your _menu_.

See that your wines are as perfect of their kind as your courses. Too many would be a dire mistake. A good Sauterne, a light Burgundy will answer well if "of the first quality." Cheap, or of a poor vintage, they will ruin the choicest dish.

Upon coffee, too, much depends. It must be strong, it must be rich, it must be hot. But strength and richness may not be had unless it be fresh roasted and ground. Worse a hundredfold you may do than to mix Mocha with Mysore; theirs is one of the few happy unions. If romance have charm for you, then finish with a little glass of green Chartreuse--the yellow is for the feeble and the namby-pamby; powerful, indeed, is the spell it works, powerful and ecstatic.

And having thus well and wisely dined, the cares of life will slip from you; its vexations and annoyances will dwindle into nothingness. Serene, at peace with yourself and all mankind, you may then claim as your right the true joys of living.

AN AUTUMN DINNER

Why sigh if summer be done, and already grey skies, like a pall, hang over fog-choked London town? The sun may shine, wild winds may blow, but every evening brings with it the happy dinner hour. With the autumn days foolish men play at being pessimists, and talk in platitudes of the cruel fall of the leaf and death of love. And what matter? May they not still eat and drink? May they not still know that most supreme of all joys, the perfect dish perfectly served? Small indeed is the evil of a broken heart compared to a coarsened palate or disordered digestion.

"Therefore have we cause to be merry!--and to cast away all care." Autumn has less to distract from the pleasure that never fails. The glare of foolish sunlight no longer lures to outdoor debauches, the soft breath of the south wind no longer breathes hope of happiness in Arcadian simplicity. We can sit in peace by our fireside, and dream dreams of a long succession of triumphant _menus_. The touch of frost in the air is as a spur to the artist's invention; it quickens ambition, and stirs to loftier aspiration. The summer languor is dissipated, and with the re-birth of activity is re-awakened desire for the delicious, the _piquante_, the fantastic.

Let an autumn dinner then be created! dainty, as all art must be, with that elegance and distinction and individuality without which the masterpiece is not. Strike the personal note; forswear commonplace.

The glorious, unexpected overture shall be _soupe aux moules_. For this great advantage it can boast: it holds the attention not only in the short--all too short--moment of eating, but from early in the morning of the eventful day; nor does it allow itself to be forgotten as the eager hours race on. At eleven--and the heart leaps for delight as the clock strikes--the _pot-au-feu_ is placed upon the fire; at four, tomatoes and onions--the onions white as the driven snow--communing in all good fellowship in a worthy saucepan follow; and at five, after an hour's boiling, they are strained through a sieve, peppered, salted, and seasoned. And now is the time for the mussels, swimming in a sauce made of a bottle of white wine, a _bouquet-garni_, carrot, excellent vinegar, and a glass of ordinary red wine, to be offered up in their turn, and some thirty minutes will suffice for the ceremony. At this critical point, bouillon, tomatoes, and mussels meet in a proper pot well rubbed with garlic, and an ardent quarter of an hour will consummate the union. As you eat, something of the ardour becomes yours, and in an ecstasy the dinner begins.

Sad indeed would it prove were imagination exhausted with so promising a prelude. Each succeeding course must lead to new ecstasy, else will the dinner turn out the worst of failures. In _turbot au gratin_, the ecstatic possibilities are by no means limited. In a chaste silver dish, make a pretty wall of potatoes, which have been beaten to flour, enlivened with pepper and salt, enriched with butter and cream--cream thick and fresh and altogether adorable--seasoned with Parmesan cheese, and left on the stove for ten minutes, neither more nor less; let the wall enclose layers of turbot, already cooked and in pieces, of melted butter and of cream, with a fair covering of bread-crumbs; and rely upon a quick oven to complete the masterpiece.

After so pretty a conceit, where would be the poetry in heavy joints or solid meats? _Ris de veau aux truffes_ surely would be more in sympathy; the sweetbreads baked and browned very tenderly, the sauce fashioned of truffles duly sliced, marsala, lemon juice, salt and _paprika_, with a fair foundation of benevolent bouillon. And with so exquisite a dish no disturbing vegetable should be served.