Part 10

As, moreover, there is seen suspended from the chimney three hams of Bayonne from the shops of M. Pouillan and M. de la Rouille, and on the spits a chine of veal from Mme. Simon, sirloins from M. de Launey, legs of mutton from M. Darras, venison from Mme. Chevet, fowls from Mme. Biennet, etc., it may be further concluded that he had lost none of his appetite and still remained a spur to the noble emprise of the _Jury dégustateur_. That there are no wines visible on the pantry shelves need not trouble the reader. No one who has scanned a volume of the "Almanach" will doubt for a moment that the chef had an abundance for himself, his aid, and the sauces that simmer in his pans, or that numerous hampers of fine vintages from M. Tailleur were wanting to wash down any repast at which the editor officiated.[21]

But these laudations, which form so notable a feature of the work under consideration, were a part and portion of its inspiration and existence. Without them it never would have been written, or at any rate its career would have been greatly shortened. After all, who would not envy the author his glorious appetite; or, with his exquisite appreciation, who would censure his fondness for pâtés and his rigour in maintaining their high standard?

With reference to the remarks on the testing of dishes, it may be observed that it is comparatively easy to decide upon the respective merits of two different alimentary preparations. It is far more difficult to pronounce on wines of fine quality and compare those that are closely allied. For here the sense of smell in particular is called upon to exercise its most critical functions; and this sense, after several essays at comparison or attempts to place the special aromas and ethers that are evolved in the bouquet and _sève_ of a vintage, becomes rapidly cloyed. Many other conditions also frequently arise to interfere with absolute judgment. The temperature of the wine and mood of the atmosphere, one's surroundings at the time, the state of one's stomach and consequently of the palate, the nature of the viands that accompany the wine--aye, the very glass in which its gold or rubies are imprisoned--all exert their influence, and it is best not to assert one's self too decisively in the case of a single testing or comparison.

Concerning a highly important topic--"The Health of Cooks"--the "Almanach" discourses at length with its accustomed force and originality:

"The index of a good cook should ply without ceasing from the saucepans to the mouth, and it is only by thus momentarily tasting his ragoûts that he may determine their precise point. His palate, therefore, must be extremely delicate, virginal, as it were, so that the least thing may stimulate it and advise it of its faults.

"But the constant fumes of the fires, the necessity of drinking frequently, and often poor wine, to moisten a parched throat, the vapours of the charcoal, humours and biliousness, all tend to impair the organs of taste. The palate becomes crusted, as it were; it has no longer either that tact or finesse, that exquisite sensibility on which depends the susceptibility of the taste; it finally becomes excoriated and as insensible as the conscience of an old judge.

"Le seul moyen de lui rendre cette fleur qu'il a perdue, de lui faire reprendre sa souplesse, ses forces et sa délicatesse, c'est de purger le Cuisinier, telle résistance qu'il y oppose; car il en est qui, sourds à la voix de la gloire, ne voient aucune nécessité de prendre une médecine lorsqu'ils se portent bien."

Supplementing his essays on the health and the duties of the chef and the requirements of the cuisinière is his treatise on the maître-d'hôtel, wherein the qualifications of a steward are most minutely set forth. Of all those whose labours have for their object the satisfaction of our appetite and promotion of the culinary art, the profession of the steward, he insists, calls for the greatest number of virtues and the widest knowledge. A good maître-d'hôtel should be at once an excellent cook, a fine _dégustateur_, a clever purveyor, a skilful servitor, an exact calculator, a good conversationalist, and an efficient and polished agent. He should be familiar not only with the theory of the cuisine in all its ramifications, but, if necessary, be able to turn his knowledge to practical account. For how may he command the respect of the cook who is under his orders if he does not thoroughly understand his art? How may he regulate the conduct of the chef, control his ragoûts, and direct his work according to the principles of the art and the special tastes of his employer if he is not a very fine critic?

Equal competency is demanded with reference to his purchases, the varying of his menus, anticipating the complaints of a jealous cook, maintaining his authority over the other servants, and regulating the financial part of the kitchen and household,--truly a difficult combination to procure. As to his probity, the author reasons that one may scarcely expect to find the phœnix, and that to the victor naturally belong the spoils--that it is better to have a competent officer, who can buy to advantage, than a novice who, gaining nothing on his purchases, is imposed upon by the venders and cannot control his household expenditures. "What difference does it make to the employer if his steward help himself a little in serving him, provided he look after his interests sufficiently and charge him only with the market price of a commodity?"

Upon a good commissary in particular depends the success of a club or a restaurant. Without a competent purchaser who combines most of the qualities enumerated in the "Almanach," the chef must labour at a disadvantage; and, in the case of a club, a house committee bear the odium of a poor cuisine and the maledictions of the members.

The "Almanach" abounds in piquant aphorisms, some of which perhaps will better serve to illustrate the spirit of the work than a more lengthy abstract of many of the essays themselves:

"The kitchen is a country in which there are always discoveries to be made.

"It is the entrées that cooks usually invest with their greatest cunning, and it is principally through these that they expect to be judged.

"An overturned salt-cellar is to be feared solely when it is overturned in a good dish.

"The table is a magnet which not only draws to itself, but joins together all those who approach it.

"It is as necessary that the master of the house should understand how to carve well as it is for a young girl to dance in order to secure a husband.

"Digestion is the business of the stomach, and indigestion that of the doctors.

"The stomach of a true gourmand, like the casemates of a besieged city, should be proof against bombs.

"Thirteen at table is a number to be dreaded when there is only enough to go round for twelve.

"A good pastry-maker is as rare as a grand orator.

"It is especially at table that one should attend carefully to the matter in hand and consider what one is about.

"True gourmands have always finished their dinner before the dessert; that which is eaten after the roast is done only out of pure politeness.

"Pastry is to the cuisine what figures of rhetoric are to discourse. An oration without figures and a dinner without pastry are equally insipid.

"There is a precise moment at which every dish should be savoured, previous to which or after which it causes only an imperfect sensation.

"Wine is the milk of the old, the balm of adults, and the vehicle of the gourmand.

"Without sauces a dinner were as bare as a house that has been levied on by the officers of the sheriff.

"The etymology of the word _faisander_ sufficiently proclaims that the pheasant should be waited for as long as a pension from the government by a man of letters who has never known how to flatter any one.

"It is notorious that a dinner, however generous, has never disturbed a person who has preceded or followed it by a walk of five or six leagues; and that indigestions are virtually unknown to great pedestrians.

"With many people a stomach that is proof against everything is the principle of happiness, and with everybody this organ exercises a greater influence than one imagines on the acts of life.

"Life is so brief that we should not glance either too far backwards or forwards in order to be happy. Let us therefore study how to fix our happiness in our glass and on our plate.

"Un Amphitryon délicat no doit pas souffrir que la galanterie dégénère chez lui en scandale; et s'il invite de jeunes et jolies femmes ce doit toujours être avec leurs maris, et jamais avec leurs amants."

Unfortunately, no menus of the _Jury dégustateur_ have been preserved, though one is presented of the celebrated restaurant, the Rocher de Cancale--a dinner of twenty-four covers, served November 28, 1809, at a cost of one thousand francs. Considering the elaborateness of the bill of fare, the price was assuredly extremely moderate, including, as it did, four soups, four relevés, twelve entrées, four large pieces, four roasts, and eight entremets, all served in the highest style of the art.

In many of the best Parisian restaurants to-day no figures are attached to the _carte_, so that one may dine without disturbing his digestion by thinking of the expense. The awakening comes later, with the _addition_, when, if one be an epicure with a partiality for rare vintages, he will be apt to recall Béranger's "Voyage au Pays de Cocagne" and its dénouement:

". . . . . . Mais qui vient détruire (But who would dispel Ce rêve enchanteur? This dream all-divine? Amis, j'en ai honte, Friends, to my shame, C'est quelqu'un qui monte 'Tis the restaurant's claim-- Apporter le compte The bill of the entrées Du restaurateur." And score of the wine.)

The menu of the dinner at the Rocher will prove attractive reading--in marked contrast to the average bill of fare, which is so often made up for the eye and is generally without originality or distinction. What an embarrassment of riches in the entrées! how imposing the large pieces! what a pageant of delectable entremets! How majestically the bisque of crabs leads off the fête, and pike and turbot proudly stem the tide! The comparative absence of vegetables need not be criticised, as these naturally figure as garnishes of several of the dishes. The asparagus, too, would take the place of a salad which is not included; and with so varied a programme oysters may well have been dispensed with for lack of sufficient space. That each individual dish was a triumph we may rest assured, or some word of depreciation for future guidance would certainly have appeared in the "Almanach."

Menu de 24 Couverts, pour le Jeudi

28 Novembre, 1809.

4 Potages.

Une bisque d'écrevisses. Un potage à la Reine au lait d'amandes, avec biscotes. Une Julienne aux pointes d'asperges. Un consommé de volaille.

4 Relevés de Potages.

Un brochet à la Chambord. Une dinde aux truffes. Un turbot. Une culotte de bœuf au vin de Madère, garnie de légumes.

12 Entrées.

Un aspic de filets mignons de perdreaux. Une jardinière. Des filets de poularde, piqués aux truffes. Des perdreaux rouges au fumet. Des filets de mauviette sautés. Des scaloppes de poularde, au velouté. Des filets de lapereaux, en turban. Un vol au vent à la financière. Des ailerons piqués, à la chicorée. Deux poulets de grains au beurre d'écrevisse. Des scaloppes de saumon, à l'espagnole. Des filets mignons, piqués de truffes.

SECOND SERVICE.

4 grosses Pièces.

Une truite. Une pâté de foies gras. Des écrevisses. Un jambon glacé.

4 Plats de Rôt.

Un faisan. Des éperlans. Des bécassines. Des soles.

8 Entremêts.

Une jatte de blancmanger. Un miroton de pommes. Des asperges en branche. Des truffes à la serviette. Une jatte de gelée d'orange. Un soufflé à la vanille. Des cardons à la moelle. Des truffes à la serviette.

This menu, which was termed "illustrious and astounding" by La Reynière, tells its own story too well, as he observes, to need any comment. It is only to be regretted that there is no record of the accompanying wines or of the previous training of the guests who sat down to the feast. The item _un faisan_ will be understood in the plural, there having been twenty-four persons present, and among that number it is to be presumed that more than two or three would stand ready to attack a well-hung pheasant resplendent in his tail-feathers. Still, there are only two _poulets de grains_ specified in the list, which would indicate that the menu was strictly one of quality, not of quantity--a thing to coquet and flirt with, rather than to charge upon with no thought of the penalty of the morrow. As the mention of truffles _à la serviette_ occurs twice at the end of the _lecture_, it may be assumed that this was considered a doubly important entremets--the last to leave its perfume in the mouth and accentuate the _sève_ diffused by the final glass of Château Lafite or Clos-Vougeot. On the restaurateur and the chef the editor enjoins continued efforts looking to the advancement of the grand art of dining, exhorting them that to cease their exertions would mean to recede, and that to maintain their exalted reputation they should labour daily as if it were yet to be won.

Altogether, the "Almanach" will be found most remunerative reading by those who peruse it with a proper sense of its important aim. We may not hope to equal the appetite of the author, it is true, but its attentive study will assuredly stimulate appetite and amply instruct us in the æsthetics and delights of the table. The only dietetic heresy that presents itself to the writer is the eulogy of the strawberry as an article of diet, for which Linnæus the botanist and Dr. Boteler are originally responsible, it being well known that this fruit in gout and rheumatism--two frequent colleagues of good cheer--is often as deadly as port. Preserved Wiesbaden or Bar-le-Duc strawberries, safely tucked in the folds of an omelette, are less pernicious, and may be partaken of occasionally if convoyed by the right wine. The raw fruit should always be sparingly indulged in by the epicure; boys and women alone may eat it with comparative impunity. To this one exception has been chronicled--"Strawberries and cream render me sad," said Mme. du Deffand; and, remembering Malherbe's praise of women and melons, madame wisely left them alone.

Finally, among all those who have discoursed upon the theme, it may be said that La Reynière comes the nearest perhaps in illustrating Montaigne's expression, _l'art de la gueule_. And, despite the laudations of the venders with which it is so generously interlarded, the "Almanach" well merits a full morocco binding by Ruban, with dentelle borders _à l'oiseau_, and a pâté stamped on its covers in gold.

A GERMAN SPEISEKARTE

"Beim vollen Humpen zechen wir, wir kräftigen Germanen, Und trinken von dem edlen Bier wie weiland unsere Ahnen; Denn in dem edlen Gerstensaft, da sprudelt noch die alte Kraft."[22]

By the French the Germans are charged with having no cuisine that is worthy of the name, and having produced no poet of gastronomy or no work on the subject that merits serious attention. Dining at midday, and fond of Pumpernickel, what can they be but "barbarians," and how may they be expected to comprehend the finesse of an art which has been created for the elect among mankind? "Surely," argues De Quincey, "of the rabid animal who is caught dining at noonday, the _homo ferus_ who affronts the meridian sun by his inhuman meals, we are entitled to say that he has a maw, but nothing resembling a stomach. A nation must be barbarous which dined in the morning." As with day's decline the sun illumes with fairest hues the western sky, and Nature gradually prepares for sleep by the restful hour of twilight, so it would seem that man, in like manner, after the cark and care of the day should refresh himself by the solace that waits upon the evening dinner and pleasant companionship ere he too retires for the slumbers that are to fit him for the exigencies of the morrow.

But habit is everything, and it is well not to accept these aspersions too seriously, and to remember that no nation surpasses the Germans in the important art of baking, including all forms of breadstuffs and pastry. From her inviting _Bäckereis_ and _Conditoreis_ floats an ambrosial fragrance that may not be equalled by the _pâtisseries_ of Paris, the variety of her products being as great as their cheapness and wholesomeness. One is born a poet, saith the adage; it is equally true that the German is a born baker who has no superior in his sphere. Perchance German cook-books and gastronomical literature have been summarily passed upon, and are not uninteresting reading, after all. It should be recollected that Frederick the Great wrote a poem in praise of his cook, that Martin Schookius composed a book on cheese entitled "De Aversione Casei," and that still another old German work has for its theme the zest of a lemon-peel--a topic that assuredly calls for consummate skill in its elaboration.

Since the latter half of the sixteenth century Germany has contributed her full share of manuals on cookery as compared with most countries. Already, about 1500, there appeared a work entitled "Ein nützlichs Buchlin von der Speis des Menschen." Among the more important treatises of the same century were "Ein neu Kochbuch" (1587), by Marx Rumpolt, cook to the Elector of Mainz and to the Queen of Denmark, and Frau Anna Wecker's "Neu Köstlich und nützliches Koch-Buch" (1597). It was about this period that Montaigne, after his travels through Italy and Germany, declared that even in the inns the Germans paid far better attention to the furbishing of their plates and dishes than was the case with the hostelries of France. Treatises relating to "wohl-schmeckenden Speisen" and "vornehme Tafeln" have since continued to multiply in the Fatherland, until Germany has become fully satisfied with her own mode of cookery and such modifications of certain French and Italian dishes as accord with her chosen ideas of nutrition.

Yet the German cook-book presents serious drawbacks. For, apart from the inevitable tendency of the _Zeitwort_ to twine itself around the end of well-nigh interminable sentences, the characters of the language itself are so trying that a scientific treatise may be perused only at the risk of being compelled to resort to spectacles forever afterwards. The melodious measures of Goethe and Schiller, the cadences of Heine and Lenau, will be found less formidable, the rhythm and flow carrying the eye over the typographical boulders with greater ease. A German cook-book, however, may well deter the most insatiable student from proceeding farther than the initial chapter. Think, for example, what the difficulties would be of absorbing a volume which presents such a title as this: "Die Feinere Kochkunst dargestellt nach den Erfordernissen unserer Zeit, mit Berücksichtigung der damit in Verbindung stehenden sonstigen Zweigen der Gastronomie."

Fancy endeavouring to solve the true inwardness of an ancient Nürnberg treatise which bears this explanation of its contents: "Vollständig vermehrtes Trincier-Buch, von Tafeldecken Trinciren, zeitigung der Mundkoste, Schauessen und Schaugerichten, benebens xxiv Gast oder Tischfragen."

And when we reflect that the German author who undertakes to elucidate a given theme probes it to the very bottom as far as human understanding and science can fathom it, we may readily conclude that to master the literature of German gastronomy would call for stupendous patience on the part of an alien.

Yet Germany has contributed a volume in the French language respecting a province of the nation under consideration, wherein the table manners, customs, alimentation, and the public and private life of the old Germans are most picturesquely and minutely set forth.[23] The ancient province of Alsace, where forty-two varieties of pâtés and countless varieties of cakes have been in use for several centuries, has ever been noted for the excellence of its cooks and its fondness for good cheer. In the tenth century Bishop Uthon of Strassburg viewed with alarm the table excesses of the priests of his diocese, which he attempted to check by establishing monastic schools. In the fourteenth century, on the other hand, Bishop de Lyne, who was termed _Kappen-Esser_, was charged with gross intemperance by the clergy, who averred he thought only of the pleasures of the table--_gulæ ebrietatique deditus_--and that he was unable to hold morning audiences without having previously partaken of a rich soup and a fat capon.

Dating from early times, Alsace became known as the wine-cellar, granary, and larder of the surrounding countries--a paradise and a garden eminently favourable for good living. Charles Gérard has proved the local Dumas, and his volume, besides its erudite presentation of the resources and olden customs of the country, contains many interesting gastronomical anecdotes, such as "Favourite dishes of celebrated personages," "Influence of a Rhein carp on a financier of the school of Fouquet," "Frying, its nature and effect on manners," etc. Assuredly should a nation be credited with a natural aptitude for gastronomy which in the early part of 1700 could devise an omelette of brook-trout (_Forellen Eyerkuchen_) and cold pâtés of trout (_Forellen Kalte Pasteten_), to say nothing of a certain pâté of fish (_Pâté de langues de carpes et foies de lottes_) composed of the tongues of carp, eels' livers, and the tails of crawfish--the invention of a Strassburg _Koch_, which he served to the Cardinal de Rohan, and which M. Gérard defines as the supreme limit of epularly eminence.

The researches of M. Gérard place the national dish, Sauerkraut, as an invention dating from beyond the middle ages and proclaim its origin as distinctly Alsatian. The date of the frog's leap into the frying-pan he places in the year 1280, and specifies Alsace as the discoverer of his edible qualities. The potage bisque or bisque d'écrevisses has long been known to the epicures of the province, while the merits of stuffed crabs were pointed out in the "Oberrheinisches Koch-Buch" of Frau Spörlin, wife of a Protestant minister of Mulhausen. Among the strange customs described is that appertaining to the olden festival called Hirztag, at which time women and maids alone had the right to appear in the inns and liquid dispensaries and avail themselves of the privileges extended to men in eating and drinking. On these occasions any of the male sex who was brave enough to appear was seized, stripped of his hat and coat, and obliged to pay forfeit by a round of wine--a usage thus described by the poet Moscherosch:

"Spitze Schue und Knöpflein dran, Die Frau ist Meister und nicht der Mann."

(With jaunty button'd and pointed shoe, Gretschen will riot it over you.)