Part 17
"I can see a pig--a pig of one hundred and eighty pounds--classical in all the tints of its marble freshness. It sheds its internal graces in an excellent and cleanly market. With deft execution the white-aproned purveyor removes a _spare-rib_ from a side. Then in front of the site of the _spare-rib_ there remains an area of unequalled promise--a tract of the most delightsome possibilities. Let a piece be cut about fourteen inches long and eight wide, when after it has hung two or three days, I counsel thee to submerge it in sweet pickle for a week. Then boil it with a quart of the garden peas, with a shred, a hint, a sigh of onion. Allow it to cool, and when freed of every vestige of vegetable matter, place it in a garnished dish.
"No poem ever stirred the human heart, no slab of tessellated pavement ever fired the archæologist, with respectful interest akin to that evoked by this entrancing esculent. It is a fresh wave in the sea of sapors--an approximation, a convolution of two entities divinely transfused, which to conceive, it must be tasted. It elevates the sense of taste to the highest pinnacle of human aspiration. It is a _memory_ to inspire gentle thoughts and tranquillize the mind; a _presence_ that is a beatitude, and that looms in the visions of the future as a thing to live for."
Less secretive than communicative in most of his ways, the hog is nevertheless an enigma as regards his natural term of life. Not that for a moment his native modesty forbids his announcing his age, or that his lease of life equals that of Epimenides, but that, owing to circumstances over which he has no control,--the greed and voracity of man,--he is handicapped from proclaiming the full extent of his longevity. "The natural age of a hog's life is little known," observes the learned Hampshire rector-naturalist; "and the reason is plain--because it is neither profitable nor convenient to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent of its time." The man were a dolt who would take exceptions to White's natural-history observations, so lucidly and delightfully set forth in the pages of "Selborne." And yet, so great was his sympathy for all animals and dumb creatures, may not the term "turbulent" have been possibly a slip of the pen or fault of the types for "buoyant" or "complacent," with no malice prepense, as in the case of Spenser and the generality of the poets?
His _bonhomie_ and engaging nature are seldom considered, unless by a few humanitarians or interested trainers of animals. Yet what possibilities does he not present as a companion to man, were man not so eager for his slaughter, and were he to receive the same encouragements as the cat and the dog! A case is cited by Frank Buckland of a hog at Guildford that followed its master daily on his walks, and whose instinct, agility, and affection could be equalled only by the canine species. Hamerton also mentions a wild boar in France which became domesticated and regularly accompanied his master to the village church and would not be excluded, but came at last, by the toleration of the curé, to hear mass like a Christian, till finally he grew to an alarming size and was sold to a travelling menagerie. The hog has been known in numerous instances to set and retrieve various kinds of game with an intelligence equal to that of the most blue-blooded pointer or setter, and even to exceed the canine species in acuteness of scent and staunchness. A wager was once made in England that with a hog trained on game the owner could kill more grouse on the moors than either of his two competitors with their dogs, the result being considerably in favour of the challenging party.
"If the pig had wings and could soar above the hedges," says an appreciative writer in the old German "Kreuterbuch," "he would be regarded as the best and most magnificent of fowls!" Is he not, moreover, with his boon companion the domestic goose (likewise a _douceur_ of the table when served with applesauce), one of the most reliable of weather prophets, becoming restless and uttering loud cries at the approach of a storm?
In any event, whatever deprivation the non-development of his social qualities may have occasioned, he still shines supreme as a utilitarian, a stimulus to gastronomy, and a promoter of the polite arts. Some there are, perchance, who have cursorily regarded the obligations we owe him as a purveyor of our comforts so far as relates to the hair-brushes, tooth-brushes, and nail-brushes he has kindly provided. The saddler and trunk-maker no doubt appreciate him after a fashion, as did the conscientious bookbinder of old, with whom he figured indirectly as a confrère in _belles-lettres_. But who among the recipients of his many bounties has paused to consider the inestimable influence he has exercised upon one of the greatest of the romantic or fine arts, without which the most celebrated canvases of the world had never existed, and the art of painting, if not utterly abandoned, must languish of necessity for lack of his bristles to lay on the pigments? For, with the exception of the minute brushes made from the soft fur of the red sable for detail work, he contributes, if not the artist's genius itself, at least the chief vehicle with which it is possible to render it enduring.
One by one he has felt the pictures of Raphael, Titian, Correggio, and Guido pulsate beneath the artist's brush; while later, in another land, he was instrumental in fixing the harmonics of Velasquez's and Murillo's marvellous colouring. He has witnessed the growing fame of Turner and surveyed the miles of glowing flesh that Rubens has painted. With Watteau and Boucher, he has gazed on many a fair shepherdess and pastoral scene, and, with Jacque and Mauve, helped the shepherd drive his fleecy flock. He has basked in the sunny atmosphere of Cuyp, Wynants, and Van der Neer, and watched the radiant face of woman assume a heightened charm through the genius of Lely and Reynolds. He has viewed the frail beauties of the harem with Gérôme, and marked the roseate twilight deepen over Venice with Ziem. A silent spectator of the great pageant of Art, he has beheld Le Brun and Vernet depict the carnage of the battle-field, and Poussin, Claude, and Constable open enchanting vistas of landscape. Contemplating the progress of modern art, he sees Diaz and Daubigny, Bouguereau and Meissonier, Vibert and Verestchagin, Corot and Inness, and how many others! seated upon the throne of undying fame and wielding the sceptre which he himself has supplied.
His illustrious Bristleousness! Were it not for man's ingratitude and his overpowering worth upon the shambles, he would long since have been canonised and figure as the joint symbol of the useful and the romantic arts.
Consider him likewise in his ferine state as most closely related to nature, moving majestically through the fastnesses of his native stronghold, toothed and tushed for war, indigenous and mighty as the oaks which yield him their mast or the trees of the jungles through which he treads. "The jungle path is his as much as the tiger's," writes the Indian sportsman and naturalist, Shakespeare; "the native shikarries affirm that the wild boar will quench his thirst at the river between two tigers, and I believe this to be strictly the truth. The tiger and the boar have been heard fighting in the jungle at night, and both have been found dead alongside of one another in the morning." It was a wild boar that slew Adonis; and by none, not even by Baryé, has the animal been more vividly depicted than by Shakespeare in the warning of Venus:
"'Thou hadst boon gone,' quoth she, 'sweet boy, ere this But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar. O be advised! thou know'st not what it is With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore, Whose tushes, never sheathed, he whetteth still, Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.
"'On his bow-back he hath a battle set Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes; His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret, His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes; Being moved he strikes whate'er is in his way, And whom he strikes his cruel tushes slay.
"'His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd, Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter; His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd; Being ireful, on the lion he will venture: The thorny brambles and embracing bushes, As fearful of him, part; through whom he rushes.'"
As for his domesticated brother, to come back to our _cochons_, let him be aspersed as he may--we have seen the manifold benefits he has procured for us and the plane he rightly occupies in the evolution of mankind. Without him the kitchen were well-nigh impracticable, and, deprived of his services, gastronomy were an obsolete word.
AMERICAN _VS._ ENGLISH COOKERY
"The finest landscape in the world is improved by a good inn in the foreground."
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
Strictly speaking, there exists as yet no general high-class English or American cuisine, beyond the natural alimentary resources of these countries, supplemented by the efforts of foreign cooks. There are certain native dishes of merit in England, to be sure, and there is a so-termed Southern and Eastern kitchen in the United States where not a few dishes are admirably prepared. But the art of baking bread and of pastry-making, as well as that of frying, is, alas! lacking to a great extent in both countries, while the entrée is still largely an uncertain quantity with the housewife. There is a lack, likewise, both in England and in America, of a proper understanding of sauces, and this is the more to be regretted on the score of their appetising qualities, the variety they impart to the flavour of viands, and, where the properties of the numerous seasonings and condiments are thoroughly understood, the beneficent effect they lend to digestion.
It were misleading, however, to decry the old-fashioned American home kitchen. Smile as ye may, ye devotees of the Gallic art, the New World has its dishes that are not to be despised. What fonts of delectation well not forth from the apple-, the mince-, and the pumpkin-pie! And what caressing sapors linger not in the buckwheat cake and nectar of the maple grove, the corn and the sweet-potato "pone," the corned beef and cabbage, and even the corn-on-the-cob itself, if of the "Country Gentleman" or "Stowell's Evergreen" variety! The planked shad, the clam chowder, the terrapin à la Maryland, the plebeian pork and beans, and the more recent pâté of oyster-crabs and lobster à la Newburgh surely need no one to sound their praises. The _Fuligula vallisneria_ of the Chesapeake occupies so exalted a plane that it is sufficient to lift one's hat at the mere thought of him; and then reflect how admirably the ruffed grouse, the prairie-chicken, or a celery-fed redhead may supply his place when occasion requires. And has not America contributed the potato, the tomato, and tobacco, and taught the world how to cross a continent in a dining-car! That the English are jealous of American products cannot be doubted when one remembers the remark of Sydney Smith, who was asked by one of his friends why he did not visit America. "I fully intended going," was his reply, "but my parishioners held a meeting and came to a resolution that they could not trust me with the canvasback ducks; and I felt they were right, so I gave up the project."
No better cookery, independent of any special school, is to be met with than that of the superior restaurants and hotels of the American metropolis and numerous clubs within and without its confines. The cookery of the capital of the United States, as it exists in many of the better restaurants and in private houses where Southern dishes are especially well prepared, is deservedly celebrated. The New Orleans kitchen has also its ardent admirers; but outside of New York the restaurants of San Francisco are perhaps the most famous and cosmopolitan. Receptive and creative, America has learned from all, and added to acquired knowledge the results of her own inventive genius. The era of fried steak, saleratus biscuits, and "apple floating-island" has happily long since passed, and already in many instances an American dinner has come to be recognised as among the very best it is possible to obtain. A well-prepared Châteaubriand is no longer confined to the Café Riche, or a bisque d'écrevisses to Voisin or to Lapérouse. In none of the useful arts has progress been more marked in this country during the past decade. Even in remote New England villages a leg or a saddle of mutton is rarely sent to table with all its juices and excellences dissipated, as one commonly finds it on the _tables volantes_ of the prominent English restaurants. And for the omnipresent "greens" of Great Britain in winter--the Brussels sprout, distended to thrice its size and deprived of all its pristine delicacy by crossing it with the cabbage--there are with us countless vegetables to choose from.
Luxuriant diversity, in fact, is a marked characteristic of American cookery, whatever faults may be found with its methods as frequently practised. Yet, the too lavish multiplicity of dishes, usually at the expense of quality, which has characterised the breakfast and dinner of the average hostelry conducted on a fixed charge is disappearing, and hotels on the European plan are becoming more in request yearly. The cooking-school, likewise, is rapidly contributing its share towards the evolution of eating, wherein wholesomeness and variety are properly regarded as a means of health, enjoyment, and longevity.
The luxuries of a few years ago have become necessities now; and one notes on every hand the better physical development produced by improved alimentation and an increased understanding of the laws of hygiene. No nation possesses so wide a field for administering to its most minute wants at all seasons and under all conditions. The woods, the waters, and the plains vie with one another in their contributions to the table. If we have not the truffle, we have the mushroom. If we are without the turbot and sole, we have the whitefish, the shad, the flounder, the bluefish, the weakfish, the striped-bass, the frost-fish and pompano--the choice from ice-cold to tropical waters, the range from the Atlantic to the Pacific--with oysters unequalled in delicacy and cheapness; while we not only grow vegetables in profusion, but in infinite variety and of superlative excellence. When one thinks of the oysters, with their rank, tinny, fishy flavour and their high admission fee, that do duty in England and on the Continent alike, one may trebly appreciate the delicate Blue Point, the Narragansett, Glen Cove, Millpond, Lynn Haven, Cherrystone, Rockaway, Shrewsbury, and the many other tributes of the "deep sea" wherein the very essence of the ocean seems concentrated. Of wholesome fruits the supply and kinds are boundless, while animal food in nearly all its forms is nowhere found in greater perfection. Nor is furred and feathered game lacking to minister to the wants of the invalid and shed its graces on the board of the epicure. The poor may have their ice as well as the rich; and with her vast granaries America can provision the globe with the staff of life. Her territory is unlimited and its fertility unsurpassed. He who wills may possess his plot of garden ground, and, like Marvell, reckon the lapse of time by the ripening of his fruits and the blossoming of his flowers. In time, perchance, an American judge may rise to emphasise the sentiment of Henrion de Pensey, the French magistrate, who thus expressed himself to three of the most distinguished scientists of their day: "I consider the discovery of a dish which sustains our appetite and prolongs our pleasures as a far more interesting event than the discovery of a star, for we have always stars enough; and I shall not regard the sciences as sufficiently honoured or adequately represented amongst us until I see a cook in the first class of the Institute."
Such a benefactor was the Vice-President of the United States, General John C. Breckinridge, the story of his discovery having been thus related at a recent dinner at Chamberlin's, in Washington, by one of a coterie of men who were in their political and social prime in the early sixties. The month was March, and at nearly every table planked shad was being served. "I wonder," said the raconteur, as he held up his glass of Forster-Jesuiten-Garten to the light and savoured its adorable bouquet, "if any of these people who are smacking their lips over that delicious dish know that they are indebted for it to General John C. Breckinridge. It was from him that the people of this part of the country gained their knowledge of how to plank shad, and from here it has spread out to every place where shad can be obtained.
"It was Breckinridge's custom, beginning with the first warm Sunday in April and continuing till the middle of June, to drive slowly along the picturesque road that skirts the north bank of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal until he reached the Guard Locks, fifteen miles up, at the Great Falls of the Potomac. In the buff-bodied carryall would be stowed away a two-gallon demijohn of Kentucky's best, lemons, sugar, mint, a large cheese, and pounds of soda-crackers. Besides the negro driver he would at times have a friend along, most frequently that only social intimate of President Buchanan, 'Gentleman Bob' Magraw.
"When Breckinridge reached the falls he would walk into the little house which served the double duty of keeper's home and public inn, shake hands with everybody, have a word of pleasant banter with the landlady, hand her a five-dollar gold piece by way of compensation for the diversion of business from her protected to his free-trade entertainment, and then map out the day's enjoyment.
"The farmers and farm-hands for miles around could be relied upon to be on hand to catch the fish. The shad could not ascend the river beyond this point, and the water was fairly alive with them. Fifty or more would be taken in a short time. While this work was going on, Breckinridge, who never fished, would throw himself upon the grassy bank of the canal and listen to the playing of the violin by one or the other of two brothers named West, who were possessed of wonderful skill with the bow, the negro field-hands often joining in a dance. At noon the shad would be properly planked, under the personal supervision of Breckinridge, and put before a red-hot fire, and in a few minutes the royal feast would begin, right where they were cooked, the landlady supplying plates, knives, and forks. When the appetite was satisfied, another season of lounging would follow, when one of the two brothers would resume his playing on the violin. As the sun got low in the heavens, Breckinridge would start back to town, after telling them all to come around the next Sunday. The love of these country people for Breckinridge knew no bounds; they worshipped him, and he was thoughtful of them.
"Well, John C. Breckinridge was, as you all know, a candidate of the Southern wing of the Democratic party for the Presidency in 1860. We remember the result of that gigantic struggle. The section where those pleasant Sundays were spent in another year became a battle-ground, and the placid fishers scattered far and wide. A new generation has sprung up and another war been fought, and the name of Breckinridge is forgotten in that region; but the art of planking shad as taught by him not only lives but spreads abroad each year."
Thus, at least, runs the story. But it has also been stated that the art of planking should be credited to the Swedes, who are said to have brought the fish-plank with them among their household effects, when, in 1634, they settled on the banks of the Delaware, a river famous for its wild duck and shad. The planking of fish has equally been attributed to the American aborigines, who subsisted to a great extent on the spoils of the woods and waters. The shad itself, at any rate, is an indigenous product; and there are those who maintain that it is not improved by planking, but is best when simply broiled to a turn over the charcoal, with parsley and butter sauce and a _filet_ of lemon.
Yet a hundredfold more important than the shad and his left-bower, the cucumber, is the vegetable that may be placed almost side by side with bread in the value it contributes to the sustenance of mankind--the potato, which the world owes to the western hemisphere, and whose introduction produced so great an economical revolution among the peoples of the earth. And were the potato itself lacking, the _Apios tuberosa_, or ground-nut, with its violet-scented blossoms--a tuber in use by the aborigines--would stand ready as a substitute, and yield innumerable varieties under cultivation. Although the early history of the potato is obscure and has been the subject of much discussion, the great botanist De Candolle states that its true home is Chili, where it grows wild; that before the discovery of America its cultivation was diffused from Chili to New Grenada; that it was introduced about the latter part of the sixteenth century into Virginia and North Carolina, and, finally, was imported into Europe between 1580 and 1585, first by the Spaniards and afterwards by the English at the time of Sir Walter Raleigh's voyages to Virginia. The first potato was planted on Sir Walter's estate in Cork, and employed for food in Ireland many years before it became familiar to England, the esculent still remaining the truffle of the Emerald Isle. Gerarde, long before the Lyonnaise or pomme soufflée was dreamed of, defines two varieties--the _Sisarum Peruvianum_, or skirret, of Peru, and the _Battata Virginiana_, or Virginian potato. In his "Great Herbal" the qualities of the "battata" are thus set forth: "The temperature and virtues be referred to the common Potatoes, being likewise a food, as also a meate for pleasure, equall in goodnesse and wholesomenesse unto the same, being either toasted in the embers, or boyled and eaten with oyle, vinegar and pepper, or dressed in any other way by the hand of some cunning in cookerie." The origin of the sweet potato is more doubtful, a number of authorities holding to its American and others to its Asiatic origin, though Brazil is usually credited as being the land of its genesis.
During the old colony days of the eighteenth century catfish and waffle suppers were in great repute in the taverns on the picturesque Schuylkill near Philadelphia, these being still popular, though planked shad is more commonly called for. The turtle was a great favourite with our epicurean forefathers, who were accustomed frequently to hold turtle feasts or, as they were then termed, turtle frolics. Returning sea captains from the West Indies were expected to bring home a turtle for this purpose, together with a keg of limes, lime-juice being considered the best of all tart accompaniments for the punch-bowl. Of these feasts, with their accessories, a travelling clergyman named Burnaby gave this account in 1759: