Part 3
Gently stir and blow the fire, Lay the mutton down to roast, Dress it quickly, I desire, In the dripping put a toast, That I hunger may remove-- Mutton is the meat I love.
An anonymous author has given us the immortal lines:--
Turkey boiled Is turkey spoiled, And turkey roast Is turkey lost; But for turkey braised The Lord be praised!
That they are absolutely true every _Feinschmecker_, as the Germans say, is bound to admit. The famous Cheshire Cheese pudding has not been without its laureate, one J. H. Wadsworth, who opens his pæan thus:--
We sought “The Cheese” with thirst and hunger prest, And own we love the Pudding Day the best, But no one quarrels with the chops cooked here, Or steaks, when wash’d down with old English beer!
The leg of mutton has not lacked its devotees from Thackeray’s--
A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, I prithee get ready at three,
to Berchoux’ praise of the gigot--
J’aime mieux un tendre gigot Qui, sans pomp et sans étalage, Se montre avec un entourage De laitue ou de haricot.
Sir John Suckling contributes to the poetic garland in his lines:--
The business of the Kitchen’s great And it is fit that men should eat, Nor was it e’er denied.
And an anonymous Scotch poet indites the following ode to luncheons:--
There are the sausages, there are the eggs, And there are the chickens with close-fitted legs, And there is a bottle of brandy, And here some of the best sugar candy, Which is better than sugar for coffee. There are slices from good ham cut off; he Who cut them was but an indifferent carver, He wanted the delicate hand of a barber. And there is a dish, Buttered over! And fish. Trout and char Sleeping are, The smooth-like surface over. There’s a pie made of veal, one of widgeons, And there’s one of ham mixed with pigeons.
A well-known French critic, Achille (not Octave) Uzanne, has compiled a little collection of menus and receipts in verses, with a notable preface by Chatillon-Plessis, which includes poems on such thrilling subjects as jugged hare, lobster in the American fashion, Charlotte of apples, truffles in champagne, epigrams of lamb, mousse of strawberries, and green peas. A more recent American poetaster has published during the last few years “Poems of Good Cheer,” which are in the manner of fables, such as that of the man who “Wanted Pearls with his Oysters,” and the busy broker “Who had no time to eat,” and consequently acquired dyspepsia.
Lord Byron too may be allowed to have his say:--
... Man is a carnivorous production, And must have meals--at least one a day. He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction; Although his anatomical construction Bears vegetables in a grumbling way, Your labouring people think, beyond all question, Beef, veal, and mutton, better for digestion.
One of the most ambitious efforts in the culinary-poetic line is, undoubtedly, “La Gastronome, ou l’homme des Champs à Table; poème didactique en quatre chants, par J. Berchoux, 1804,” wherein is set forth, at some length--firstly, the history of cooking; then the order of the services; and lastly, some fugitive pieces which allude to the gay science in choice and poetic terms. The book is enriched with some exquisite copper-plate engravings by Gravelot, Cochin, and Monsiau. The lines addressed by the author to his contemporaries warning them against the “repas monstreux des Grecs et des Romains” are full of repressed dignity and good sound common sense. One puts down the book with a sense of poetical-gastronomical repletion.
The poetic afflatus has possessed most great cooks, but none with more practical application than the immortal Alexis Soyer, the hero of the Crimea and the Reform Club, who, on the death of his wife, a clever amateur artist, wrote this simple and witty epitaph, “Soyez tranquille.” Gay’s poem on a knuckle of veal is also worthy of record, and an anonymous American poet has immortalized the duck in four pregnant verses.
A very modern poet who writes over the initials of M. T. P. has four charming verses on the propriety of ladies wearing their hats whilst dining. The second and third stanzas read as follows:--
Anchovies from Norwegian shores! Sardines from sunny southern seas! There’s naught my simple soul adores One half so ardently as these. And while I munch the well-fumed sprat, Sit thou and watch and wear thy hat.
I need no entrée, want no bird, Nor care for joints, or boiled or roast, But my imagination’s stirred By titillating things on toast. Soft roes the commissariat Shall serve me opposite thy hat.
Some folks who are not yet very old may remember a quaint part-song or quartette for male voices, entitled “Life is but a Melancholy Flower,” which was sung alternately somewhat in this fashion:--
Life is butter! Melon!! Cauliflower!!! Life is but a melancholy flower!
It had much deserved success in its day.
An old recipe for the roasting of a swan is very fairly summed up in these lines:--
TO ROAST A SWAN
Take three pounds of beef, beat fine in a mortar, Put it into the swan--that is, when you’ve caught her. Some pepper, salt, mace, some nutmeg, an onion, Will heighten the flavour in Gourmand’s opinion. Then tie it up tight with a small piece of tape, That the gravy and other things may not escape. A meal paste (rather stiff) should be laid on the breast, And some “whitey brown” paper should cover the rest. Fifteen minutes at least ere the swan you take down, Pull the paste off the bird that the breast may get brown.
THE GRAVY
To the gravy of beef (good and strong) I opine You’ll be right if you add half a pint of port wine; Pour this through the swan--yes, quite through the belly, Then serve the whole up with some hot currant jelly. N.B.--The swan must not be skinned.
This poem has been attributed to Mr. George Keech, chef of the Gloucester Hotel at Weymouth--of course a famous breeding place for swans.
The following recipe for making a “soft” cheese is said to be by Dr. Jenner:--
Would you make a soft cheese? Then I’ll tell you how. Take a gallon of milk quite fresh from the cow; Ere the rennet is added, the dairyman’s daughter Must throw in a quart of the clearest spring water. When perfectly curdled, so white and so nice, You must take it all out of the dish with a slice, And put it ’thout breaking with care in the vat, With a cheese-cloth at bottom--be sure to mind that. This delicate matter take care not to squeeze, But fill as the whey passes off by degrees. Next day you may turn it, and do not be loth To wipe it quite dry with a clean linen cloth. This must be done you cannot well doubt, As long as you see the whey oozing out. The cheese is now finished, and nice it will be, If enveloped in leaves of the green ashen tree. Or what will do better, at least full as well, In nettles just plucked from the bank of the dell.
In praise of the best food in the world--plain British roast and boiled--Mr. G. R. Sims has dilated in his weekly columns; a verse from his perfectly correct and strict “_Ballade_ of New-Time Simpson’s” is well worth quoting:--
They do not call the saddle “selle” That you with currant jelly eat; Boiled fowl’s not _à la_ Béchamel. Your eyes no foreign phrases meet That English waiters can’t repeat, And so to Simpson’s I repair. The English kitchen’s bad to beat, Plain roast and boiled are British fare.
The “Envoi,” which commences most cleverly according to traditional rule, runs as follows:--
Prince’s and Carlton, you I greet, Savoy, I own your chef is rare; But you with Simpson’s shall compete. Plain roast and boiled are British fare.
To come back to recipes, here is one for the famous _Homard à l’Amèricaine_ written by the chef of the Grand International Hotel at Chicago, who is quite annoyed with M. Rostand for his obvious plagiarism in “Cyrano de Bergerac.”
COMMENT ON FAIT LE HOMARD À L’AMÉRICAINE
Prenez un homard qu’on vend Bien vivant; Avant qu’il se carapate Sans vous laisser attendrir, Sans souffrir, Détachez-lui chaque patte.
Faites alors revenir Et blondir Du beurre en la casserole; Fourrez-y votre homard Sans retard, Mais avant qu’il ne rissole
Ajoutez un court-bouillon De bouillon A vous brûler la bedaine! Faites cuire. Servez-le Et c’est le Homard à l’américaine!
Many curious old poems may be found by careful delving in the books our great-grandfathers used to read, and which we ought to read, but don’t. For instance, the Roxborough Ballads contain a delightful poem briefly entitled “The Cook-Maid’s Garland: or the out-of-the-way Devil: shewing how four highwaymen were bit by an ingenious cook-maid” (1720). There is a still older ballad in the same collection called “The Coy Cook-Maid, who was courted simultaneously by Irish, Welch, Spanish, French and Dutch, but at last was conquered by a poor English Taylor”; this is in blackletter, and is dated 1685.
A French lady with a happy knack of verse has written the following rhymed recipe for
SAUCE MAYONNAISE
Dans un grand bol en porcelaine Un jaune d’œuf étant placé, Sel et poivre, vinaigre à peine, Et le travail est commencé.
On verse l’huile goutte à goutte; La mayonnaise prend du corps, Epaississant, sans qu’on s’en doute, En flot luisant, jusqu’aux bords.
Quand vous jugez que l’abondance Peut suffire à votre repas, Au frais mettez-la par prudence.... Tout est fini; n’y touchez pas!
Under the title of “Women I have never married,” O. S. of “Punch” writes delightfully on the lady who knew too much about eating. This is one of his verses:--
She came. She passed a final word Upon the _bisque_, the _Mornay_ sole, The _poulet_ (said she thought the bird Shewed at its best _en casserole_); She found the _parfait_ “quite first-rate,” Summed up the chef as “rather handy,” Knew the Lafitte for ’88, And twice encored a fine old brandy.
The following couplets are by--I think--an American author.
Always have lobster sauce with salmon, And put mint sauce your roasted lamb on.
In dressing salad mind this law, With two hard yolks use one that’s raw.
Roast veal with rich stock gravy serve, And pickled mushrooms, too, observe.
Roast pork, sans apple sauce, past doubt, Is “Hamlet” with the Prince left out.
Your mutton chops with paper cover And make them amber-brown all over.
Broil lightly your beefsteak. To fry it Argues contempt of Christian diet.
To roast spring chickens is to spoil ’em; Just split ’em down the back and broil ’em.
It gives true epicures the vapours To see boiled mutton minus capers.
The cook deserves a hearty cuffing Who serves roast fowl with tasteless stuffing.
Nice oyster sauce gives zest to cod-- A fish, when fresh, to feast a god.
The Old Beef Steak Society, otherwise known as the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, and of which the full history has too often appeared in print, entertained the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV, on his election as a member; the following is a verse of a song written in honour of the occasion by the poet-laureate to the Society, Captain Charles Morris of “Pall Mall” fame:--
While thus we boast a general creed, In honour of our shrine, sir, You find the world long since agreed That beef was food divine, sir; And British fame still tells afar This truth, where’er she wanders, For wine, for women, and for war, Beefsteaks make Alexanders.
I venture to think that this little excerpt from Lafcadio Hearn’s “Kokoro” is worthy of record here as a piece of real poetry in prose. It is from a story called “The Nun of the Temple of Amida.” “Once daily, at a fixed hour, she would set for the absent husband, in his favourite room, little repasts faultlessly served on dainty lacquered trays--miniature meals such as are offered to the ghosts of the ancestors and to the gods. (Such a repast offered to the spirit of the absent one loved is called a _kagé-sen_, lit. ‘shadow-tray.’) These repasts were served at the east side of the room, and his kneeling-cushion placed before them. The reason they were served at the east side was because he had gone east. Before removing the food, she always lifted the cover of the little soup-bowl to see if there was vapour upon its lacquered inside surface. For it is said that if there be vapour on the inside of the lid covering food so offered, the absent beloved is well. But if there be none, he is dead, because that is a sign that his soul has returned by itself to seek nourishment. O-Toyo found the lacquer thickly beaded with vapour day by day.”
It would be unfair to omit mention of Molière, who so often and wisely devotes attention to the culinary craft, for which, indeed, he had a high appreciation. Did he not read his plays to his cook? A typical passage is that from his “Femmes Savantes,” when Chrysale expatiates to Philaminte and Bélise.
Que ma servante manque aux lois de Vaugelas, Pourvu qu’a la cuisine elle ne manque pas. J’aime bien mieux pour moi qu’en épluchant ses herbes, Elle accommode mal les noms avec les verbes, Et rédise cent fois un has et méchant mot, Que de brûler ma viande ou saler trop mon pot. Je vis de bonne soupe, et non de beau langage, Vaugelas n’apprend point à bien faire un potage; Et Malherbe et Balzac, si savans en beaux mots, En cuisine peutêtre auraient été des sots.
Very few people, I am afraid, read the entirely delightful verse of Mortimer Collins, poet, journalist, novelist, epicure (in the best sense), and country-lover--all in one. He was among the nowadays less-known masters of gastronomics, a man who, although no cook himself, knew by intuition and experience just what was right, and if it were wrong, just why it was wrong. His novels and poems, although very unequal, do not deserve to be forgotten, for they contain many fine, thoughtful, and beautiful passages. His burlesque of Aristophanes, “The British Birds,” is, in its way, a masterpiece. He wrote much and well on cookery and dining, both in prose and verse. Here follows one of his sonnets from a sequence addressed to the months--from a gastronomic point of view.
JUNE
O perfect period of the sweet birds’ tune, Of Philomel and Procne, known to fable; Of wayward morns, and never utterable Joys of the evenglome, beneath the moon! Cool be thy food, O gourmand, runs the Rune: Pigeon and quail are suited to the table; Anchovy and sardine are noticeable; Red mullet, first of fish, is prime in June. Richmond and Greenwich tempt the Londoner To dine where Thames is cool, and whitebait crisp, And soft the manners are and lax the morals. But I (when twilight’s breezes softly stir, Rob the rich roses, though the woodbine lisp) Dine on my lawn hedged in by limes and laurels.
The “Minora Carmina” of the late C. C. R., whose verse has much of the charm of J. K. S. and C. S. Calverley, contains a few verses anent the pleasure of dining out, which are headed
NUNC EST COENANDUM
Although the season sadly May open, in contrast grim With those when pleasure madly Whirled on the wings of Whim-- Though sporting members sigh for The huntsman, hound, and horn, And invalids loud cry for Health-spots from which they’re torn; Yet e’en to town detested Comes comfort in the line-- “Your presence is requested”--· You’re going out to dine.
It would be easy to extend this list indefinitely, but enough is as good as a feast.
“I could digest a salad gathered in a churchyard as well as in a garden. I wonder not at the French with their dishes of frogs, snails, and toadstools; nor at the Jews for locusts and grasshoppers; but being amongst them make them my common viands, and I find they agree with my stomach as well as theirs.”
SIR THOMAS BROWNE, “Religio Medici.”
We have it on the authority of Chaucer that salad is cooling food, for he says:--
... And after that they yede about gadering Pleasaunt Salades which they made hem eat, For to refresh their great unkindly heat.
That the eating of green meat is and always has been closely bound up with healthy human life is a fact which needs no demonstration; but the constantly recurring references to it in the literature of all ages would seem to point the moral in so far as salads must always have appealed peculiarly to those leading a more or less sedentary life.
In a serious Biblical commentary of the eighteenth century, Baron von Vaerst, a German savant, refers to Nebuchadnezzar’s diet of grass as a punishment which did not in any way consist in the eating of salad, but in the enforced absence of vinegar, oil, and salt. That salad adds a zest to life is proved by St. Anthony, who said that the pious old man, St. Hieronymus, lived to the green old age of 105, and during the last ninety years of his life existed wholly upon bread and water, but “not without a certain lusting after salad.” This is confirmed by St. Athanasius.
In Shakespeare’s “Henry VI,” Jack Cade remarks that a salad “is not amiss to cool a man’s stomach in the hot weather.” Cleopatra too refers to her “salad days, when she was green in judgment, cool in blood.” In “Le Quadragesimal Spiritual,” a work on theology published in Paris in 1521, these lines occur:--
La Salade moult proffitable Signe la parolle de Dieu Qu’il faut ouyr en chascun lieu. Pêcheurs, entendez ce notable!
All writers agree as to the cooling properties of salads, and particularly lettuce, on the blood. In his “Acetaria: a Discourse of Sallets” (1699), John Evelyn says that lettuce, “though by Metaphor call’d Mortuorum Cibi (to say nothing of Adonis and his sad Mistress) by reason of its soporiferous quality, ever was and still continues the principal Foundation of the universal Tribe of Sallets, which is to Cool and Refresh. And therefore in such high esteem with the Ancients, that divers of the Valerian family dignify’d and enobled their name with that of Lactucinii.” He goes on to say that “the more frugal Italians and French, to this Day, Accept and gather _Ogni Verdura_, any thing almost that’s Green and Tender, to the very Tops of Nettles; so as every Hedge affords a Sallet (not unagreeable) season’d with its proper Oxybaphon of Vinegar, Salt, Oyl, &c., which doubtless gives it both the Relish and Name of Salad, Ensalade, as with us of Sallet, from the Sapidity, which renders not _Plants_ and _Herbs_ alone, but _Men_ themselves, and their Conversations, pleasant and agreeable.”
In praise of Lettuce he has much to say, and waxes almost dithyrambic as to its virtues. “It is indeed of Nature more cold and moist than any of the rest; yet less astringent, and so harmless that it may safely be eaten raw in Fevers; for it allays Heat, bridles Choler, extinguishes Thirst, excites Appetite, kindly Nourishes, and above all represses Vapours, conciliates Sleep, mitigates Pain; besides the effect it has upon the Morals. Galen (whose beloved Sallet it was) from its pinguid, subdulcid and agreeable Nature, says it breeds the most laudable blood.”
And again: “We see how necessary it is that in the composure of a Sallet every plant should come in to bear its part without being overpowered by some herb of a stronger taste, but should fall into their place like the notes in music.”
Here is a salad recipe, _temp._ Richard II.
Take parsel, sawge, garlyc, chibolles, oynons, lettes, borage, mynte, poirettes, fenel, and cressis; lave and waithe hem clene, pike hem, plucke hem smalle wyth thyne honde, and myng hem wel wyth rawe oyl, lay on vynegar and salt and serve ytt forth.
This must have been a strong salad, and full-flavoured rather than delicate. “Honde” is of course “hand,” and to “myng” is to mix. The etymology of the recipe is interesting.
Old Gervase Markham, in his “English Housewife,” has this quaint account of how to make a “Strange Sallet.”
First, if you would set forth any Red flower, that you know or have seen, you shall take your pots of preserved Gilly-flowers, and suting the colours answerable to the flower, you shall proportion it forth, and lay the shape of the Flower in a Fruit dish, then with your Purslane leaves make the Green Coffin of the Flower, and with the Purslane stalks make the stalk of the Flower, and the divisions of the leaves and branches; then with the thin slices of Cucumers, make their leaves in true proportions, jagged or otherwise; and thus you may set forth some full blown, some half blown and some in the bud, which will be pretty and curious. And if you will set forth yellow flowers, take the pots of Primroses and Cowslips, if blew flowers, then the pots of Violets or Buglosse flowers, and these Sallets are both for shew and use, for they are more excellent for taste, than for to look on.
Another variety of old “Sallet” is referred to in “The Gentlewoman’s Delight” (1654), which instructs one
How to make a Sallet of all manner of Hearbs. Take your hearbs, and pick them clean, and the floures; wash them clean, and swing them in a strainer; then put them into a dish, and mingle them with Cowcumbers, and Lemons, sliced very thin; then scrape on Sugar, and put in Vinegar and Oil; then spread the floures on the top; garnish your dish with hard Eggs, and all sorts of your floures; scrape on Sugar and serve it.
An even earlier work, Cogan’s “Haven of Health” (1589), has the following reference: “Lettuse is much used in salets in the sommer tyme with vinegar, oyle, and sugar and salt, and is formed to procure appetite for meate, and to temper the heate of the stomach and liver.”
Montaigne recounts a conversation he had with an Italian chef who had served in the kitchen of Cardinal Caraffa up to the death of his gastronomic eminence. “I made him,” he says, “tell me something about his post. He gave me a lecture on the science of eating, with a gravity and magisterial countenance as if he had been determining some vexed question in theology.... The difference of salads, according to the seasons, he next discoursed upon. He explained what sorts ought to be prepared warm, and those which should always be served cold; the way of adorning and embellishing them in order to render them seductive to the eye. After this he entered on the order of table-service, a subject full of fine and important considerations.”
An excerpt from “a late exquisite comedy” called _The Lawyer’s Fortune, or Love in a Hollow Tree_, is quoted by Dr. King (1709):--
_Mrs. Favourite._ Mistress, shall I put any Mushrooms, Mangoes, or Bamboons into the Sallad?
_Lady Bonona._ Yes, I prithee, the best thou hast.
_Mrs. Favourite._ Shall I use Ketchop or Anchovies in the Gravy?
_Lady Bonona._ What you will!