Part 4
The Monte Cristo of Naples, he pierced a mountain to place two of his country villas in closer communication and to conduct the sea-water to one of them, where he had constructed a huge aquarium for sea-fish. His carvers were paid at the rate of four thousand a year. The various dining-rooms at his Neapolitan palace were designed according to the costliness of the repasts which were given in them, the saloon of Apollo being the most sumptuous. Cicero and Pompey, resolving one day to surprise him, presented themselves unceremoniously, and, upon being pressed to remain to dinner, assented on condition that he would go to no extra trouble. Summoning his major-domo, he dismissed him with the simple command:
"Place two more covers in the saloon of Apollo"--the cost of the dinner in this apartment being fixed at a thousand dollars per plate.
No review of the Roman table, however brief, would be complete without retelling the story of Lucullus as his own host. On this occasion, when, through some misunderstanding, he was without guests for dinner, his cook appeared as usual to receive his orders.
"I am alone," said Lucullus; whereupon his servitor, thinking that a five-hundred-dollar dinner would suffice, acted accordingly. At the conclusion of his repast, his face flushed with the juices of Falernian, Lucullus sent for his minister of the interior and took him severely to task. There were no fig-peckers, and the prized spawn of the sea-lamprey was missing. The cook was profuse in his apologies.
"But, seigneur, you were alone--"
"It is precisely when I happen to be alone that you require to pay especial attention to the dinner; at such times you must remember that Lucullus dines with Lucullus."
The great dining-room of Claudius, termed "Mercury," was constructed on an equally magnificent scale. But this was eclipsed by Nero's marvellous _Domus aurea_, which, through a circular movement of its sides and ceiling, counterfeited the changes of the skies and represented the different seasons of the year, while at intervals during the repast flowers and essences were showered down upon the guests.
The gluttonous feasts of Verres, Claudius, Nero, Vitellius, Domitian, and the rest of the Roman potentates are familiar to the student of ancient history. Claudius, who had usually six hundred guests at his feasts, died of an indigestion of mushrooms, facilitated, it is said, by a poisoned feather applied to his throat. Tiberius is also said to have met his death through an asphyxia of poisonous mushrooms, seconded by suffocation on the part of his favourite Macro, who in turn was put to death by Caligula. Caligula was noted for the fabulous sums spent upon his suppers, while Cæsar is credited with a four months' supper bill of more than five millions sterling. The present of this monarch, during one of his table debauches, of a sum equivalent to eighty thousand dollars to his charioteer Eutychus is the largest table present recorded of the Romans. Seneca states that one of his suppers cost nearly half a million, and he also it was who gave his charger Incitatus barley mixed with wine in a vase of gold. Vitellius spent not less than fifteen thousand dollars for each of his repasts, the composition of his favourite dishes requiring that vessels should constantly ply between the Gulf of Venice and the Straits of Cadiz. The flocks of flamingos placidly feeding in the Pontine marshes dreaded his fowlers--he had dishes made of their tongues. Later on, their haunts were invaded by Heliogabalus, who preferred their brains.[7] The life and reign of Vitellius were a continuous orgy, and his name was bequeathed to a multitude of dishes. According to Suetonius, Tiberius, who was inordinately fond of fig-peckers and mushrooms, presented Sabinus the author with eight thousand dollars for having composed a dialogue in which the fig-pecker, mushroom, oyster, and thrush were the _dramatis personæ_. As the author and the poet are proverbially scantily remunerated, it is easy to imagine the wealth that a competent chef could command in the days when the haughty mistress of the world, sated with conquest and exultant with victory, lapsed into luxury and sensuality, while a constant stream of riches flowed into her treasury from tributary rulers and oppressed and spoliated nations.
The truffle and the snail were well known to the ancients. The speckled trout, of which there appears to be no mention by the recorders, seems to have been a neglected dainty. How Lucullus would have rejoiced at the sight of the pompano--that ruby of the salt-sea wave--and Apicius have been transported at the apparition of a puff-paste pâté of oyster-crabs! The brilliant iridescent hues of the rainbow-trout would have held a Roman epicure spellbound, while a dish of terrapin or a celery-fed Chesapeake canvasback might have decided the destinies of an empire. What a burst of applause a platter of roast ruffed-grouse would have commanded from a senate! Were the soft-shell crab a denizen of Baiæ, or the whitefish, as he attains supreme perfection in Lake Ontario, a habitant of an Italian tarn, one can fancy how a feast of Heliogabalus would have been prolonged. That there are still as good fish in the sea as ever were caught seems an anomaly, in view of the voracity of the old Latins for this form of food.
History has recorded less of the excesses of the table during the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, and even during the dissolute monarchies of Commodus and Caracalla. It would be wrong, however, to assume that these excesses were renounced, even where the rulers did not themselves set the example, or that they did not continue in a flagrant form. The unbridled lust and gluttony of Commodus were scarcely equalled save by Heliogabalus. Septimius Severus, unable to endure the tortures he experienced in all his members, especially in his feet, in place of the poison that was refused him eagerly devoured a quantity of rich viands and died of indigestion. Gout and kindred maladies were notoriously common with both men and women, and upon this subject Seneca has descanted at length: "Is it necessary to enumerate the multitude of maladies that are the punishment of our luxury? The multiplicity of viands has produced a multiplicity of maladies. The greatest of physicians, the founder of medicine, has said that women do not become bald or subject to gout. Now they are both bald and gouty. Woman has not changed since in her nature, but in her mode of life, and, imitating man in his excesses, she shares his infirmities. Where is the lake, the sea, the forest, the spot of land that is not ransacked to gratify our palates? Our infirmities are the price of the pleasures to which we have abandoned ourselves beyond all measure and restraint. Are you astounded at the innumerable diseases?--count the number of our cooks!"
The favourite garum of the old Romans of itself were enough to have invited all the diseases that indigestion is heir to. This was a liquid, and was thus prepared: The insides of large fish and a variety of smaller fish were placed in a vessel and well salted, and then exposed to the sun till they became putrid. In a short time a liquor was produced, which, being strained off, was the garum or liquamen.
With the advent of Heliogabalus upon the throne, gluttony and extravagance reigned supreme. By this youthful monarch, during his brief reign of four years, the tyranny of Nero, and Caligula, the lust of Claudius and Commodus, the prodigality of Vitellius, the saturnalia and riotous living of Verres and Domitian were trebly exceeded. Entering Rome from Syria in a chariot drawn by naked women, surrounded with eunuchs, courtesans, and buffoons, wearing the tiara of the priests of the sun-god, dressed as a female in stuffs of silk and gold, and accompanied by a historiographer whose sole function it was to describe his orgies, he at once eclipsed all his predecessors. The Sardanapalus of Rome, his daily feasts are said to have consisted of over twoscore courses, and to have cost not less than ten thousand dollars each.
As related by Lampridius, his table-couches were stuffed with hares' down or partridges' feathers, his beds adorned with coverlets of gold, and in his kitchens none but richly chased utensils of silver were employed. The invention of a new sauce was royally rewarded by him, but if it was not relished the inventor was confined, to partake of nothing else until he had produced another more agreeable to the imperial palate. The liver of the priceless mullet seeming too paltry to Heliogabalus, he was served with large dishes completely filled with the gills. He brought the soft roe of the rare sea-eel into disrepute by maintaining a fleet of fishing craft for their capture, and ordering that the peasants of the Mediterranean should be gorged with them. Resides countless dishes, each of which was worth the price of a king's ransom, he was the inventor of coloured decorations at table. "In the summer," says Lampridius, "Heliogabalus gave feasts at which the service was composed of different colours, constantly varied throughout the season." The brains of partridges and ostriches were among his favourite dainties. Frequently the brains of six hundred ostriches were served at a single repast, as well as the heads of innumerable parrots, pheasants, and peacocks. He had cockscombs served in pâtés, and was therefore the inventor of _vol au vent à la financière_. The tongues of nightingales and thrushes he had likewise served in pâtés, and hearing that a strange bird, the phœnix, existed in Lydia, he offered two hundred pieces of gold to him who would procure it. In the course of his reign of four years he had depleted the treasury of an empire largely through gluttony, and died, anticipating the assassination of his soldiers, by his own hand.
It were superfluous to follow the subject to the decadence of the Empire, when, with wars and contentions and invasions of conquering hordes, came the decline of cookery, literature, and the arts. Nor does history record a resumption of gastronomy until towards the Renaissance--when Dante and Petrarch had touched their lyres, and Donatello and Robbia wrought their _bassi-rilievi_; when the Medici and the Este became the patrons of art; when Leonardo, Raffaello, Titian, and Guido stamped their genius upon the canvas; when Michelangelo created his "David," and Cellini his "Perseus"; when Giorgio fashioned his gorgeous lustres, and Orazio his glorious _vasques_.
Or, rather, with the revival of cookery we find the revival of literature and the arts, and mark the Muses resume their sway.
THE RENAISSANCE OF COOKERY
"Le malheur de toutes les cuisines excepté de la cuisine française, c'est d'avoir l'air d'une cuisine de hasard. La cuisine française est seule raisonnée, savante, chimique."--ALEXANDRE DUMAS: Le Caucase.
It is not unnatural that cookery as an art should finally have been resumed in the land where it had once attained its greatest development. First among Italian treatises on the subject was the volume of Bartolomeo Platina, "De Honesta Voluptate et Valitudine," which was written in Latin and printed at Venice in 1474, a year or two after the introduction of printing into that city. Many editions of this appeared subsequently, as also translations in French and German. Other Italian treatises of the sixteenth century were Rosselli's "Opera Nova chiamata Epulario" (Venice, 1516); a work by Christoforo di Messisbugo, chef to the Cardinal of Ferrara (Ferrara, 1549); a manual by Bartolomeo Scappi, privy cook to Pope Pius V (Venice, 1570); and works by Vincenzo Cervio, Domenico Romoli, and Gio. Battista Rossetti--Cervio and Romoli having been respectively carver and cook to Cardinal Farnese. The two most important Italian culinary publications of the seventeenth century were those of Vittorio Lancioletti (Rome, 1627) and Antonio Frugoli (Rome, 1632). In addition to these was the old Roman treatise "De re Culinaria" of Cœlius Apicius, published in 1498, as well as many works relating to wines and the hygiene of gastronomy.
Glancing for a moment across the Mediterranean, from Italy to Spain, we find record of but one Spanish cook-book of any note during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--that of Ruberto de Nola (Toledo, 1525). While Spanish cookery is far from meriting a place among the fine arts, one must yet thank Spain for at least two things--the dulcet Spanish onion and the poignant Spanish omelette--as one should be grateful to Mexico for the tamale and to Russia for its caviare. But the Spaniard boils his partridge (perdrix à l'Espagnol), as the Hollander boils his chicken, with rice or vermicelli. The Spanish "olla podrida"--the Alhambra of the national cuisine, wherein garlic, onion, and red peppers are by no means forgotten--is well known to all travellers beyond the Pyrenees; but, on account of the many native ingredients it contains, it is difficult to be obtained in perfection outside its original country. Its best form is the _olla en grande_, which requires two pots to brew it in--the rich _olla_ that Don Quixote says is eaten only by canons and presidents of colleges. With virgin oil and a pianissimo touch, so far as the garlic is concerned, the aristocratic _guisado_ is both an excellent and accommodating dish, inasmuch as a fowl, pheasant, rabbit, or hare may serve as its base; and for those who wish to try a dish with a Spanish name, prepared somewhat on the order of the French civet of hare, the recipe may be given: "Dress and prepare a fowl, pheasant, rabbit, or hare--whichever is most easily obtainable--taking care to preserve the liver, giblets, and blood. Cut it up in pieces and dry, without washing, on a cloth. Brown a few slices of onion in a gill of boiling fat, turn them with the pieces of meat into an earthenware pan, add a seasoning of herbs, garlic, onions, a few chillies, salt and pepper, put in also a few slices of bacon, and pour over all sufficient red wine and rich stock in equal proportions to moisten. Place the pan over the fire and bring the liquor slowly to the boiling-point, skim and stir frequently, and let it simmer until the meat is quite tender. About half an hour before serving, put in the liver, giblets, and blood. When ready, turn the whole into a hot dish and serve quickly."
But Spain for its bull-fights, and France for its cuisine! With the revival of cookery in Italy, the art gradually advanced to the home of the Gaul, where, at a subsequent epoch, it was destined to attain its highest development. The early cooks of France were Italians, and the reader will recall Montaigne's picturesque passage where the author would fain possess part of the skill which some cooks have "who can so curiously season and temper strange odours with the savour and relish of their meats." In this allusion special reference was made to the artist in the service of the King of Tunis, whose viands were "so exquisitely farced and so sumptuously seasoned with sweet odoriferous drugs and aromaticall spices, that it was found on his booke of accompt the dressing of one peacocke and two fesants amounted to one hundred duckets."
While there is a flavour of pagan Rome in the price of these dishes, they were still considerably less expensive than the boars stuffed with fig-peckers of Trimalchio, or the flamingos' brains of Heliogabalus, and were doubtless as well prepared; for the author adds that after they had passed through the carver's hands their savour flooded not only the dining-chambers, but all the rooms of the palace, and even the streets round about it were filled with an "exceeding odoriferous and aromaticall vapour which continued a long time after." Such an aroma, at a later era, the passer-by might inhale daily from the ovens of the Rocher de Cancale, Véry, Voisin, Hardy, and Riche.
These, as well as other references, would indicate that during the latter part of the sixteenth century cookery had already made considerable progress. To be still more explicit, it received its impetus in France with the advent of Catherine de' Medici at the court of Francis I, the youthful bride of the Duc d'Orléans bringing her cooks with her from her native country. About this period the father of Ronsard the poet was maître d'hôtel of the king. The first physician of Francis I--Johann Gonthier of Andernach--is also credited with having given a great stimulus to cookery, chemistry, and surgery. The first French treatise on cookery, originally written in 1375, had appeared in the latter part of the fifteenth century. This was the "Viandier" of Guillaume Tirel, termed Taillevent, _premier queux_ of Charles V--the initial volume of the "Cuisinières Bourgeoises," type of all the succeeding manuals of recipes. At least sixteen editions of this work are known to have been published, the first dated one being that of 1545. In 1349 the author was _queux de bouche_ of Philippe de Valois, in 1361 _queux_ of the Duc de Normandie, and in 1373 he became _premier queux_ of the king. The frontispiece of one of the earlier editions depicts a personage conversing with a hunchback, who is carrying two ducks in his left hand and a laden hamper in his right. On the left, in a dormer-window, appears the head of a woman who is seemingly listening to the conversation.
With better wines than Italy could boast, added to a natural aptitude for cookery, France soon made material strides in the art of dining, the science continuing to improve during the reigns of Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. The Gaul's taste was delicate, and his touch was true. For the garlic of the Italians he gradually substituted the onion and shallot, or at least employed garlic more sparingly; and in place of the heavy viands formerly in use evolved the more delicate entrée, salmis, and entremets.
Louis XIII was accustomed not only to kill his game, but frequently to prepare it for the table. In larding a piece of meat he vied with the most skilful practitioners, being led to do so and to put his general knowledge of cookery to account from his fear of being poisoned. But his kitchen, nevertheless, was a parsimonious one; and though he personally superintended all his gardening operations and prided himself on raising spring vegetables earlier in the season than any market-gardener, he ignobly disposed of his produce to the wealthy Seigneur de Montauron, whose table far outrivalled that of his royal green-grocer. To Montauron, counsellor of the king and first president of the Bureau of Finance, as well as to the Duc de Montausier,[8] who was first to introduce large silver spoons and forks, cookery is indebted for maintaining its prestige during the reign of the thirteenth Louis. Whether at home or absent on official duties, it was the habit of Montauron to keep open house all the year round for princes and distinguished personages. So great a benefice was it considered to secure a position among the numerous serving-men of the household that the chief steward had always a long waiting-list to draw from to supply any vacancy, the fortunate applicant on whom his choice fell readily paying him his customary fee of ten louis d'or.
In his munificence and hospitality, Montauron anticipated Fouquet, but, like the princely Marquis de Belle-Isle, whose hospitality was so illy rewarded by Louis XIV, his name remains unhonoured by an entrée or a sauce. Richelieu, who was a distinguished gastronome, fared better, and has had his memory perpetuated by many a savoury dish.
Thus the way was paved for the notable strides under Louis XIV and Béchamel, Condé and Vatel--the Grand Monarque and his maître d'hôtel, the great Condé and the equally renowned Vatel. The suppers and entertainments of Louis XIV were in accord with the magnificence of his court; the monarch who commanded Leveau and Mansard to render Versailles a pleasure-house worthy of his fame, who stocked the parks of his vast demesnes with game, and who was a passionate lover of the chase, being naturally exacting as to the renown of his table. It was his motto--"One eats well who works well." While Lebrun and Poussin were decorating his regal château, and Le Nôtre was embellishing its parks, Béchamel superintended the royal ranges and discovered new sauces, La Quintinie presiding over his vast vegetable-gardens to provide superior varieties of fruits and esculents. So great was the reputation of La Quintinie that he was also called upon to establish the splendid vegetable-gardens of the Duc de Montausier at Rambouillet, of Fouquet at Vaux, and of Colbert at Sceaux.
Saint-Simon has left a minute account of the daily life of Louis XIV, from his ceremonious levee to his soirée late in the evening. It was his habit to rise at eight and partake of a simple breakfast of bread and wine mixed with water. He dined alone, at one, at a square table in his own chamber, where several soups, three courses, and a dessert were regularly served, under the direction of his princely attendants. At a quarter after ten, supper, his favourite meal, was served in state in the Salon du Grand Couvert, in company with the royal family and the princes of the blood.
If not the most reliable, the most graphic account of one of his suppers is that given by Dumas in the "Vicomte de Bragelonne," when the formidable Porthos was among his guests and charmed him with his marvellous appetite, at the same time contributing his recipe for serving a sheep whole, which elicited this encomium from his Majesty:
"It is impossible that a gentleman who sups so well and eats with such splendid teeth should not be the most honest man in my kingdom."
The rejoinder of Porthos to a previous sally of his host is equally worthy of recording:
"You have a lovely appetite, Monsieur du Vallon," said the king, "and you are a delightful table companion."
"Ah! faith, sire, if your Majesty ever came to Pierrefonds we would dispose of a sheep between us, for I perceive you are not lacking in appetite, either."
D'Artagnan touched the foot of Porthos under the table.
Porthos coloured.
"At the happy age of your Majesty," continued Porthos, in order to retrieve himself, "I belonged to the musketeers, and nothing could appease me. Your Majesty has a superb appetite, as I had the honour of observing, but chooses with too much delicacy to be termed a great eater."
It will be remembered that few were as competent as Dumas to treat of the subject of dining. To quote the appreciation of a French writer, "Alexandre Dumas was a fine eater as well as a fine story-teller."