Part 29
An excellent addition to nearly any form of salad is chopped onion, parsley, and celery. Some onion, however small a quantity, is invariably required, unless chives be used instead, or the bowl be rubbed with garlic, or bread rubbed with garlic be stirred in, for those who may prefer. Of the several modes of mixing salads, each of which is extolled by different authorities, some may be better than others, but all are good, as a philosopher has observed with respect to the merits of whiskey. And of these different methods, again a distinction needs to be made according to the material. Once more it may be said, _plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose_, and that alone through practice and intelligent study of the perspective of blending may the art of salad-making be mastered.
As simple and as good a so-termed French dressing as any for general use is to add to the minced onion the requisite quantity of salt, letting this stand for five or ten minutes; then, after adding to this the proper quantity of oil, vinegar, and pepper, stir thoroughly and pour over the salad. If English mustard is required, this should be previously incorporated with the oil. The result still depends upon the fine adjustment of the ingredients, the mixing, and the quality and character of the material.
Another method is to mix the salt and mustard, where mustard may be employed, with the oil, incorporating them by degrees, then adding the vinegar; pepper the salad material separately, and lastly pour on and mix in the dressing thoroughly. Separate peppering of the leaves, however, possesses no advantage; on the contrary, it is more trying to the eyes, and the pepper is much less evenly distributed.
A third method consists in placing the necessary salt and pepper in the salad-spoon, then pouring the vinegar into the spoon and stirring with the fork until the salt and pepper become well amalgamated with the vinegar. This is subsequently to be well mixed with the salad material, on which chopped onion and herbs have been placed, vigorously agitated, and afterwards, when the oil has been added, mixed a second time. By the jewelled white fingers of a pretty and well-gowned hostess who has a knack at salad-making this formula may be executed at table with highly artistic results.
There is finally the plan adopted by Chaptal, which consists in saturating and mixing the salad material with oil, seasoned with pepper and salt, before employing the vinegar. By this treatment the salad can never become too acid, for should the vinegar happen to be excessive, it slips over the oil to the bottom of the bowl. This means, while advantageous for tender cos or lettuce, is not so desirable for any material that may have a tendency to toughness, as the vinegar may not as readily penetrate and soften the leaves. Good oil, vinegar, and pepper and careful incorporating of the ingredients, with a judicious use of herbs, and the tact born of experience, count for everything in the preparation of salads.
Mayonnaise dressing of course belongs to certain greenmeat salads, as well as the so-called French dressing--the most easily prepared and wholesome of all. The mayonnaise is especially favoured by femininity, and the French dressing by the sterner sex; though for meat salads, as a general rule, the mayonnaise, mayonnaise _à la ravigotte_, or sauce _provençale_ is prescriptive.
Growing salad is an art of the kitchen-garden, in which soil, selection of varieties, watering, shading, blanching, and protection have their part. But with a little space and care, salads may be had by almost every one during the greater portion of the year. For late autumn and winter use, the different varieties of endive, corn-salad, and chicory are easily raised: corn-salad requiring no other trouble than two or three sowings in August, a little attention in watering and shading, and the gathering of the hardy green tufts beneath the snow. Late endive calls for a dry, well-protected root-house, while chicory needs to be taken up by the roots and forced in boxes in the cellar, due attention being paid to excluding the light. Of this excellent winter salad, the comparatively new variety "Witloof," largely grown in Belgium for the Paris market, is an improvement on the old "Barbe de Capucin." Of late years the useful and easily grown, broad-leaved Batavian endive has deteriorated, having become coarser-grained and often recalling the cabbage in flavour. Cos is the most difficult of all salads to grow under our tropical summer sun, and unless well grown--brittle, blanched, and free from bitterness--it is next to worthless. Many good varieties of lettuce have a tendency to run out, and these should be carefully watched by the gardener.
On the restaurant cards salads usually appear with their French appellations, which are sometimes confusing. In France, for instance, chicory is generally termed endive, and endive is termed chicory. Lettuce is naturally laitue, cos being known as romaine, broad-leaved Batavian endive as escarolle--the curled-leaved varieties of endive being familiar as chicorée frisée. Corn-salad is the mâche or doucette, chicory is the "Barbe de Capucin," though the variety "Witloof" passes current as endive. There is nothing mysterious, therefore, as some suppose, in French salads and French names of salads beyond the fact that in restaurants of the higher class special attention is paid to procure the best possible material from skilled market-gardeners, and the dressing is supposed to be performed by a competent practitioner who has the best of condiments at command.
"The field is never wholly void of cypress and tulip," saith a ghazel of Hafiz; "one goeth, but another yet appeareth in its place." It is much the same with the successive profusion of sallets. By way of variety, a salad of raw celery-root with a mayonnaise dressing, somewhat thinned, in which a generous amount of mustard has been blended, affords a pleasing distinction from celery in the usual form and the green material which constantly offers itself; as does also an occasional salad of the scarcer celery-turnip, beloved by Europeans. Sliced radishes, and young green onions from the garden, as an accompaniment to the first trout or shad, need no apology. The appetising but indigestible and flatulent German black radish is not to be recommended, although one may retain the most grateful recollections of the potato, cucumber, and herring salads of the Fatherland.
Spain has always borne a reputation for its salads in inverse ratio to that of its cookery; and if one is fond of pepper and peppers, green or red, as well as garlic, the Spanish salad, whether of tomato, cucumber, beans, potato, or lettuce, is to be commended. The Italian may be relied upon never to neglect garlic wherever any excuse for utilising it is presented; but the Spaniard, in addition, deems it a heresy if the live pepper does not sting, stimulate, and permeate.
For the highest expression of the potato-salad--and the cucumber-salad should be equally included--we must go to the Germans, masters of sausage-and cake-making and everything appertaining to "Compots." However one may regard the Pumpernickel and the Maitrank, the specialties just enumerated must challenge our respect and admiration. Potato-salad is particularly appropriate with beer; and it is, therefore, natural that the home of Münchner and Nürnberger should excel in its preparation. In making a potato-salad, the Teuton for once forgets the caraway seed and substitutes the onion. In all the restaurants, Wirthschafts, and beer-gardens where the hungry and the thirsty throng, great bowls of it, dusted with the fresh greens of finely minced herbs, always stand ready for immediate use. It is served separately and employed with many other dishes--a chain of russet sausages may surround it, or it may inclose a mound of cheese, ham, or caviare. In some form it is ever present. Like Montgomery's daisy,--
"It smiles upon the lap of May, To sultry August spreads its charm, Lights pale October on his way, And twines December's arm."
To attain the best results, young potatoes of a firm kind, with no tendency to mealiness, known as "salad-potatoes," are chosen, boiled in salt water, allowed to cool, and then sliced and seasoned while they are fresh. Potato-salad may be combined with numerous esculents; and of its complementary adjuncts, none blend better with it than corn-salad and watercress.
Deprived of the cucumber, the list of salads were equally shorn of one of its most useful and appreciated members. And whether, as Gerarde affirms, that "of the divers sorts--some greater, some lesser, some of the garden, some wilde, some of one fashion, and some of another--all of the cucumbers are of temperature cold and moist of the second degree, and yield unto the body a cold nourishment, and that very little and the same not good"--who would consent for a moment to have the cucumber eliminated from the list of edibles! Think of its hidden "Vertues"! "It openeth and clenseth, openeth the stoppings of the liver, helpeth the chest and lungs that are inflamed; and being stamped and outwardly applied instead of a denser, it maketh the skin smooth and faire." No wonder it was such a favourite with Tiberius, who was never without it, and had frames made upon wheels, by means of which the growing fruit might be moved and exposed to the full heat of the sun; while in winter they were withdrawn and placed under the protection of frames glazed with mirror-stone. No wonder that Isaiah, in speaking of the desolation of Judah, declared: "The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers." The main point with the cucumber is to eliminate the prussic acid it contains, by slicing it and soaking it in ice-water and salt for a short time before using. Then, the Hock!--the shad, the whitefish, the pompano, the turbot, the sole!
And when endive is nicely blanched, and the first dark-blue double violets appear in the greenhouse--though skies lower and the storm frown without--what in the varied round of the seasons presents itself more delicious than a blue-violet salad, with a flask of some noble vintage worthy to bear it company! The recipe, which cannot be too widely known, has been presented at length in a previous volume:[60]
"There was a great bunch of double violets on the table, the lovely dark variety (_Viola odoratissima flore pleno_) with their short stems, freshly plucked from the garden, and the room was scented by their delicious breath.
"A bowl of broad-leaved Batavian endive, blanched to a nicety and alluring as a siren's smile, was placed upon the table. I almost fancied it was smiling at the violets. A blue-violet salad, by all means! there are violets and to spare.
"On a separate dish there was a little minced celery, parsley, and chives. Four heaped salad-spoonfuls of olive-oil were poured upon the herbs, with a dessertspoonful of white wine vinegar, the necessary salt and white pepper, and a tablespoonful of Bordeaux. The petals of two dozen violets were detached from their stems, and two thirds of them were incorporated with the dressing. The dressing being thoroughly mixed with the endive, the remaining flower petals were sprinkled over the salad and a half-dozen whole violets placed in the centre.
"The lovely blue sapphires glowed upon the white bosom of the endive.
"A white-labelled bottle, capsuled Yquem, and the cork branded 'Lur Saluces,' was served with the salad. You note the subtle aroma of pineapple and fragrance of flower ottos with the detonation of the cork--the grand vintages of Yquem have a pronounced _Ananassa_ flavour and bouquet that steeps the palate with its richness and scents the surrounding atmosphere.
"Now try your blue-violet salad.
"Is it fragrant? is it cool? is it delicious? is it divine?"
The deep-golden, marrowy Yquem, _crême_, of 1861 and 1864 is now alas! unobtainable; and even were it to be procured, it must ere this have parted with much of its marvellous bouquet and _sève_. But the violet yet sheds its colour and distils its perfume for the gathering. Other vintages, too, have been pressed and have mellowed along the classic banks of the Ciron and the Rhein, that may worthily accentuate the violet and endive as the crown of the repast.
SWEETS TO THE SWEET
_Jam jam efficaci do manus scientiæ._[61]
HORACE. Epode xvii. 1.
However scholiasts may have interpreted Horace's line,--and by no two is it interpreted alike,--the repetition or intensification of the first word in connection with the thought that follows must certainly carry conviction to the gastronomer that no mere stress upon a common adverb was intended, but rather a definite allusion to some particular object. The more the sentence is analysed, the greater seems the emphasis laid upon the power of sweets to attract and charm. Apart, moreover, from the iteration of the subject extolled, one is impressed by the force of the expression "_do manus_," which means here, not, as one would suspect, to shake hands; but "I yield," "I surrender," "I throw up my hands"--the strongest form of complete capitulation. And when it is further considered that one who was so careful in his advice and hygienic precepts, as well as so dainty in epithet (_curiosa felicitas_), has expressed his love for an _entremets sucré_ in such emphatic terms, it should be conceded that woman is justified in her predilection for the final course of the dinner, which man is apt to decry. The question of dessert, indeed, is only another instance of where a man thinks he knows, but a woman knows better.
_Le dessert est tout le dîner pour une jolie femme._ Let her enjoy it and the sweet champagne or Muscat-Lunel that goes with it, even if to her opposite "things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour." For, after all, it is unquestionably to woman that we must look for the improvement of cookery. The highest art will still find its expression through the professional chef; the useful, the daily alimentation of the household, must depend upon the ministrations of the housewife and her capacity for extending and improving the list of dishes _à la bonne femme_. Assuredly, appetising cookery will tend more than any other means to maintain the masculine element in good humour, and thereby foster a spirit of liberality and the condoning of feminine foibles.
The dessert is said to be to the dinner what the madrigal is to literature--it is the light poetry of the kitchen, addressed largely to the gentler sex. To the finer fancy of woman, the many forms of dainties which figure in the last course are mainly due; and that they are not more appreciated by man is no doubt owing to the fact that the consumption of tobacco and the use of ardent spirits have blunted his perceptivity in this respect. Herein he is the loser; the mission of the dessert being that of a comforter of the stomach, which, already appeased, nevertheless craves a little reflex flattery through the palate. There are those of the sterner sex, notwithstanding, who still preserve the sweet tooth of childhood, and others who enjoy pastry equally with its most devoted feminine admirers. Charles Lamb held that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings. Tasso was so fond of sweetmeats that he even ate his salad with sugar. Henry VIII presented a manor to the inventor of a new pudding-sauce. Goethe adored sweet champagne, and of Horace's partiality for sweets he has doubly assured us.
For all such the cook whose pies are perfect will not have lived in vain; the more so as the artist in pie-making is usually an adept at frying,--and to bad frying and poor pie-making may be charged much of the misery inflicted upon mankind where eating is regarded solely as a necessary function. A cook, moreover, who can make fine puff-paste is more apt to succeed in all the more substantial parts of the art. So that to encourage the dessert and sweetmeats is to beguile and conciliate woman, and thus indirectly promote progress in other branches of cookery. With a little tact and perseverance it becomes relatively easy to persuade her that her fondness for sweets is injurious to her complexion; and this much instilled, it is the less difficult to lead her by gradual steps to the perfection of the entrée and dishes more favoured by man.
There are comparatively few, nevertheless, who really are averse to the dessert if it unite all the qualities that should compose the final course--if it be light and palatable, if it flatter the eye, and if it convey the greatest amount of pleasure to the taste with little sense of fulness. Good pies or puddings and various _entremets de douceur_ are as much a feature of the well-appointed dinner as a well-made salad; and all have their part to perform. Coming last in the order of the repast, like the peroration of a discourse, they should receive more than ordinary attention, both with respect to their immediate impression and the sensation they leave. To the dessert is often unjustly attributed a consequent that really belongs to the reprehensible practice of serving _brut_ champagne at the end of the dinner, whereby digestion is seriously disturbed through the acidity it necessarily provokes. Already pernicious during the early stages, it becomes still more baneful when appetite has palled. The lamb thus must answer for the crime of the wolf; and woman is held responsible for what is directly the fault of man himself.
If a sparkling wine must be served at the end of a dinner, to the exclusion of the early portion, let it partake of the nature of the dainties themselves, in order that it may leave the most dulcet souvenirs.
But, apart from the dessert, sweets enter into many forms of aliments that lend variety and distinction to the table. Who is so wedded to acidity as not to hail with renewed pleasure the appearance of a rum omelette, or that entremets par excellence--omelette aux confitures--if served by a pretty woman at a dinner of two and accompanied by a Rhein _Auslese_ of noble growth? The soufflée, too, has its charms, if woman be present, for which one should always be grateful. What were the turkey without cranberry sauce, in which sugar forms a component, or a mallard without currant-jelly to match the rosy richness of his breast? But in lieu of this universal accessory to many forms of game, a pleasing variety may be had if a lesson be only taken from the Germans, with whom the "Compot" is so highly esteemed in various guises and various grades of sweetness. Of such, one of the most delicious is composed of strawberries and sour cherries in combination, flavoured with Kirsch. An exquisite preserve of southern Germany is the "Hagenmark," which one sees in brimming pails in the market-places during November: a conserve prepared by the peasant women from the hips of the wild dog-rose, as vivid in colour as a cardinal by Vibert.
As for the strawberry, so fragrant and delicious when fresh, but so deadly to the uric-acid diathesis, how safely it may be partaken of when, through madame's deft manipulations, it attains the form of shortcake or preserves! Served with sugar and cream, after baking, as a prelude to the winter breakfast, even the flatulence of the apple is dissipated and the fruit which tempted Eve becomes innocuous. Through sugar and stewing, the currant loses its verjuice, the raspberry under similar treatment is transformed, the acrid quince acquires new virtues, the puckery crab-apple diffuses a silken softness. Cooked with sugar and brandy, the peach may appeal to the most hardened total abstainer, and the fruit of the Psidium, through the magic touch of saccharine, attain a magnificent triumph as guava jelly. To remove sugar from the kitchen were to deprive alimentation of many of its benefits and pleasures, as well as to rob woman of much of her allurement. She would become lean and scrawny, her rounded outlines would gradually disappear, the contours of her tailor-made gown would end by becoming rectilinear, and for her habiliment a strait-jacket would usurp the place of her proud corsage and bouffant petticoat. There would then be no more love-poetry, for there would exist no incentive for the poet, nor could a pretty heroine figure in a novel, or the bust of woman prove the most convincing illustration that the line of beauty is a curve.
One should never lose sight of that excellent sentiment of Blaze de Bury, which will apply to desserts as well, _Qui ne veut point vieillir doit aimer les femmes, et, pour bien les aimer, il faut les aimer toutes_. What a wave of grateful coolness the ice and its yet more seductive sister, ice-cream, contribute when the dog-star reigns and cicadas have begun to shrill! Who among the calumniators of sweets could wish them banished in support of a fallacious theory that sweetmeats render woman more capricious, and are injurious to the roses and lilies of her skin? For the plainer form of these refreshing entremets we are indebted to Catherine de' Medici and her cooks who accompanied her to France from Italy, where ices were already much esteemed. The discoverer of ice-cream is said to be a French chef in the employ of the Duc de Chartres, who exultingly set the dish before him on a hot day in 1774. This was subsequent to the discovery of the pâté de Chartres, which, according to Anatole France, is of itself sufficient to make one revere the country of its origin.
About this period the baba, beloved by the fair sex, met with great favour in France. The baba was the invention of King Stanislas Leszcynski of Poland, a noted epicure, to make amends for the harshness of his name; its ingredients being German yeast, flour, butter, eggs, cream, sugar, saffron, candied citron, Corinthian raisins, currants, and Madeira, Malaga, or rum. It is said to be a difficult entremets to "seize," so as to preserve its attractive reddish colour, which should recall a late October afterglow. It at once appealed to the sweet tooth of femininity, even though that most delectable of garden herbs, angelica, when candied, was overlooked among the sweet ingredients. Like the truffle as described by Savarin, the baba was supposed to render woman more plastic and man more expansive,--_rien que le voir, les yeux rient et les cœurs chantent_.