The Pleasures of the Table An Account of Gastronomy from Ancient Days to Present Times. With a History of Its Literature, Schools, and Most Distinguished Artists; Together With Some Special Recipes, and Views Concerning the Aesthetics of Dinners and Dinner-giving

Part 6

Chapter 63,854 wordsPublic domain

The treatise of Beauvilliers has been pronounced by authorities one of the best on the subject. The style is direct, his menu varied and yet not over-ornate, and his formularies, founded on long experience, even yet denote a superior hand. There can be comparatively little trouble in following many of his recipes, they are so precise--save some of his sauces and certain grand dishes, these calling for preparatory _Espagnoles_, _veloutés_, _Béchamels_, and _Allemandes_, and a larder beyond the reach of the ordinary cook. There are numerous dishes, of course, that one may not procure at home, however deft the presiding genius. One cannot have a constant stock of elaborate preparatory sauces, truffles, cockscombs, Chablis, or champagne to draw from for a single dish, when desired, without very considerable outlay or waste. A grand sauce, a salmon _à la Chambord_, or an elaborate entrée requires the appurtenances of a restaurant or a club where cookery is conducted on an extensive scale by a professional, though this by no means implies that a dinner beyond criticism may not be served at one's own home.

Early in the nineteenth century Berchoux published his "Gastronomie," and Grimod de la Reynière appeared as the versatile author of the "Almanach des Gourmands." By this time cookery was fully able to take care of itself, irrespective of royalty or titled patrons, and the "Almanach" became its greatest oracle and promoter.

Before referring to the "Almanach," which claims a chapter by itself, a word should be said of Berchoux's poetical treatise, the first edition of which appeared in 1801. Recalling Gentil Bernard's "l'Art d'Aimer" in its scope and spirit, this tribute to the tenth muse has been termed one of the most ingenious productions of light French poetry. Free from the grossness that characterises so many French works on the subject, it touches lightly, comprehensively, and entertainingly upon the theme. It was soon translated into numerous languages, and many of its precepts have become proverbial. The advice throughout is excellent, but, as it was observed to the author at the time, "You are all alike, messieurs the poets, you say admirable things; but it is impossible to carry them out."

After passing in review the table of the ancients, and censuring their intemperance and gluttony, the author advises the reader who would live contentedly to choose his residence in Auvergne or La Bresse, under whose favourable skies he may procure everything that ministers to the pleasures of the table:

"Voulez-vous réussir dans l'art que je professe? Ayez un bon château dans l'Auvergne ou La Bresse, Ou près des lieux charmants d'où Lyon voit passer Deux fleuves amoureux tout prêts à s'embrasser. Vous vous procurerez, sous ce ciel favorable, Tout ce qui peut servir aux douceurs de la table."

A good cook at once becomes the great desideratum--an artist whom one may bless after having partaken of the courses he has served, an officer who will cause one's table to be envied by all who have shared its good cheer, a seneschal of grave mien and imposing presence, conscientious in his work, prolific in resources, and proud of his art,--

"... qui d'un air important, Auprès de son fourneau que la flamme illumine, Donne avec dignité des lois dans sa cuisine."

The interior of the kitchen while the dinner is being prepared is next portrayed with the skill of an Ostade. The charcoal glows, the spits turn merrily, the lustrous copper of the saucepans and kettles catches the ruddy light of the flames. The gravies simmer, and the fowls take on a golden hue. All is excitement, but an excitement tempered by perfect order and harmony. In the midst, surrounded by his subalterns, to whom he issues his commands, stands the chef--impassible, majestic, serene--like a general on the eve of a decisive battle:

"Tel on voit, au moment d'une sanglante affaire, Un prudent général mesurer la carrière. Son courage tranquille et sa noble fierté Commandent l'espérance et la sécurité. La foule l'environne et presse son armure, D'un trouble involontaire il entend le murmure; Peut-être un peu d'effroi s'est glissé dans son sein, Mais son visage est calme, et son front serein."

The pictures he has drawn of the dinner and its service, and his counsels regarding moderation and sobriety, are equally felicitous. Though he himself was no Sybarite, but, like Savarin, was only a gourmand when he had his pen in hand, he is none the less severe on the dietarians:

"En se privant de tout, ils pensent se guérir, Et se donnent la mort par la peur de mourir."

Nor has he failed to extol the virtues of exercise, that most potent abettor of health and aid to enjoyment:

"D'un noble appétit munissez-vous d'avance, Sans lui vous gémirez au sein de l'abondance; II est un moyen sûr d'acquérir ce tresor: L'exercise, messieurs, et l'exercise encore: Allez tous les matins sur les pas de Diane, Armés d'un long fusil ou d'une sarbacane, Epier le canard au bord de vos marais; Allez lancer la biche au milieu des forêts; Poursuivez le chevreuil s'élançant dans la plaine; Suivez vos chiens ardents que leur courage entraîne. Partagez sans rougir de champêtres travaux, Et ne dédaignez pas ou la bêche ou la faux."

It were in vain to look for a better dining-room motto than his precept:

"Rien ne doit déranger l'honnête homme qui dîne;"[13]

or his hygienic maxim:

"Jouissez lentement, et que rien ne vous presse."

Like good wine, his canto has not lost its fragrance through age, and those who read it will almost be inclined to doubt the truth of the concluding line:

"Un poème ne valut jamais un dîner--"

unless it be a _dîner sans façon_, which he has not failed to condemn.

Of other tributes in verse to gastronomy, Colnet's "l'Art de Dîner en Ville"[14] is the next important, but this is by no means to be compared with the canto of Berchoux. And though the language abounds in minor poems on the subject, few of these may be considered seriously, while nearly all offend by their grossness or their halting measures.

Napoleon Bonaparte was not an epicure, though he enjoined upon all the great functionaries of the empire to set a good table. He was in constant dread of growing obese as he became old, was proverbially irregular in his hours of eating, and rushed his food as he would a battalion on the battle-field. His repasts concerned him little so long as they were served the instant his appetite craved, and were accompanied by his favourite Chambertin.

Differing from Napoleon, the eighteenth Louis proved himself a _fin mangeur_ and a worthy gastronomic successor to Louis XV. It was his custom, for instance, to have his chops and cutlets broiled not only on the grill, but between two other cutlets, in order to preserve their juices. His ortolans and small birds were also cooked inside of partridges stuffed with truffles, so that he often hesitated in choosing between the delicate bird and the fragrant esculent. The ortolan was termed by him _la bouchée du gourmand_, as it was never to be eaten in two mouthfuls. He had even established a testing-jury for the fruit that was served at the royal table, M. Petit-Radel, librarian of the Institute, being the tester of peaches and nectarines.

One day a new variety of peach produced by a gardener of Montreuil having matured, the raiser was anxious to submit it to the king. To do this, however, it was necessary to pass the _Jury dégustateur_. Accordingly, he presented himself at the library of the Institute, and, holding in his hand a plate of four magnificent peaches, he inquired for the librarian. On being informed that he was busily engaged on some very important work, the gardener insisted, asking only that he be allowed to pass the plate, the fruit, and his arm through the door. Arrested by the partial opening of the door, M. Petit-Radel raised his eyes from a Gothic manuscript he was studying, to discover the peaches and to exclaim twice, with emphasis, "Come in! Come in!"

Then, explaining the object of his visit, the gardener asked for a silver knife, and, quartering a peach, offered one of the portions to the tester, with these words:

"Taste the juice."

With half-shut eyes and impassible features, M. Radel tasted the juice.

"Good, very good, my friend," was his only remark, after a minute's silence.

Whereupon the gardener tendered him the second quarter, saying in a more assured tone:

"Taste the flesh."

Again the judge proceeded with his testing, maintaining a similar silence, until, with an inclination of his head, he remarked:

"Ah! very good! very good!"

"Now savour the aroma," said the gardener.

On this being found worthy of the juices and the flesh, the gardener presented the last morsel.

"Now," said he, "taste all!"

Then, with eyes humid with emotion and a radiant smile upon his lips, M. Radel advanced towards his visitor, and, seizing his hands with the same fervour that he would have manifested in the ease of a great artist, he exclaimed:

"Ah, my friend, the peach is perfection itself! You are to be profoundly complimented, and after to-morrow your peaches will be served at the royal table."

And, carefully removing its three companions from the plate, the gardener was ushered out and the peaches placed by the side of the Gothic manuscript.

During the last years of the reign of Louis XVIII, it was with regret that he perceived signs of the decadence of cookery. "Gastronomy is passing," were his words to Dr. Corvisart, "and with it the last remains of the old civilisation. It belongs to organised bodies, such as physicians, to direct all their energies towards preventing the disruption of society. Formerly France was filled with gastronomers because it numbered so many corporations, the members of which have been annihilated or dispersed. There are now no more farmer-generals, no more abbés, no more monks: the life of gastronomy resides in physicians like you, who are epicures by predestination. It is for you to hear with still greater firmness the weight with which you are laden by destiny. May you wipe out the fate of the Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae!"

But the cry of the decadence of cookery is an ancient one, and occurs periodically, like that of the failure of vintages. It has always existed, and always will exist. It is the old burden, with Ronsard's modification:

"Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame; Las! le temps non, mais nous nous en-allons."

(Time hast'neth on, time hast'neth on, my dear; Nay, Time doth stay, and we the journeyers here.)

Age and circumstances, surroundings and lack of hygienic observances, may dull the susceptibility of the most appreciative palate; the sense of taste also has its decrepitude. Celebrated chefs pass away, and with them passes the celebrity of famous restaurants. But other artists appear, and fresh successes are achieved--

"Thus times do shift, each thing his turn does hold; New things succeed as former things grow old."[15]

OLD ENGLISH DISHES

"In the olde time,

* * * * *

When Beefe, Bread & Beere, Was honest mens cheere, and welcome and spare not; And John and his Joane, Did live of their owne, full merily, though but all meanely." COBBES PROPHECIES, HIS SIGNES AND TOKENS, 1614.

The main attraction of the very early English cook-book, it must be confessed, is its rarity, to which may be added its quaint title-page and foreword, and sometimes its frontispiece and woodcuts. No new salads will be discovered in its repertory to tempt the epicure, or few dishes that will provoke his appetite. The text is usually difficult to interpret, and, beyond singular alimentary mixtures which attest the remarkable receptive qualities of our forefathers, it contains little to interest the average reader. In this respect it differs largely from the olden works on gardening, through whose leaves still wantons the breeze of June, and chaffinch, cushat, and throstle sing. The fact is, it requires a master to render even a modern culinary treatise entertaining; the majority of ancient cook-books are for the most part mere curiosities. There is no Andrew Marvell of eating, or Parkinson of dining. "The reflection that appreciates, applied to the science that improves," as M. de Borose has aptly defined gastronomy, is a comparatively recent product, an outcome of advancement and civilising influences, and therefore it is hardly to be looked for in primitive compilations.

A poetical cook-book might have been composed by Walton had he devoted as much attention to the saucepans as he did to the rod; for the "Compleat Angler" shows him to have been fond of a good repast as it was then understood, even to preparing the fish himself with the limited conveniences available at the Thatched House. As it is, some of his numerous recipes and his allusions to barley-wine are poetical in an eminent degree, and cause one to regret that he is not also the author of a "Compleat Housewife." No modern, it is true, would wish to experiment with his prescripts for cooking trout and chavender, unless by proxy; like most of the recipes of the olden school, they are infinitely more amusing to read than they would prove pleasing to savour.

Earliest of the English works on cookery is Alexander Neckam's "De Utensilibus, or Treatise on Utensils," written at the close of the twelfth century, two hundred years anterior to the introduction of parsley in flavouring. In this treatise, which purports to instruct young housekeepers in maintaining a well-ordered establishment, Latin and Norman French are the languages almost exclusively employed. Of other very old works may be enumerated "The Forme of Cury," with its one hundred and ninety-six recipes, compiled by the chief cooks of Richard II; the "Liber Cure Cocorum"; the "Kalendare de Potages dyuers and Leche Metys," dating about 1430; John Russell's "Boke of Nurture," composed about 1450; "The Noble Boke of Cookry," first printed in 1500; "The Boke of Keruynge," or Book of Carving, a small manual printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1508; and the "Via Recta ad Vitam Longam," or The Right Way to Long Life, of Tobias Venner, a physician of Shakespeare's time. Over any and all of these, some of which exist only in manuscript, the student may burn the midnight oil; black-letter Chaucer being easy sailing compared with the breakers of old cookery books. Much of the so-called scientific cookery of early England was French, though many of the French titles become strangely perverted and are frequently difficult to recognise; as, for instance, "let" for _lait_, "vyaunt" for _viande_, "fryit," for _froide_, "sauke" for _sauce_, etc. The first works that may be termed English date only from the latter half of the seventeenth century.

The English, four and five hundred years ago, had four meals daily,--breakfast at seven, dinner at ten, supper at four, and livery at eight. Since then, from an early hour in the morning the principal daily meal has advanced equally in France and England through every hour from ten in the forenoon until ten at night. In France in the thirteenth century nine in the morning was the dinner-hour. Henry VII dined at eleven. In Cromwell's time, one o'clock had come to be the fashionable hour, and in Addison's day two o'clock, which gradually became adjourned until four. Pope found fault with Lady Suffolk for dining so late as four, saying young people might become inured to such things, but as for himself, if she would adopt such unreasonable practices he must absent himself from Marble Hill. Four and five continued to be the popular dining-hour among the better classes until the second decade of the century, when dinner was further postponed, from which period it has steadily continued to encroach upon the evening.

The strong stomach of the early Briton, fortified by abundant out-of-door exercise, was proof against dyspepsia, and was enabled to digest the coarsest and most strongly seasoned foods. Whale, porpoise, seal, and grampus were common dishes. Besides such seasonings as ginger, cinnamon, galingale, cloves, garlic, and vinegar, copiously used in preparations where they would seem most incongruous, ale was generously employed. Almond-milk was also a common ingredient, while marrow was in great favour. Of breadstuffs the fifteenth century had an abundant variety,--pain-main, or bread of very fine flour, wheat-bread, barley-meal bread, bran-bread, pease-bread, oat-bread or oat-cakes, hard-bread, and unleavened bread. The poor often used a mixture of rye, lentils, and oatmeal, varied according to the season and district.

The author of the "Book of Nurture" describes himself as usher and marshal to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, delighting in his work and desirous of training worthy successors in the mysteries of managing a well-appointed household:

"An vsshere y Am | ye may beholde | to a prynce of highe degre, that enioyethe to informe & teche | alle tho that will thrive & thee."

This exordium is followed by minute directions for carving meats, fish, and fowls; rules for general behaviour; a disquisition on wines, meats, soups, and sauces; a recipe for hippocras; hints to the chamberlain, butler, taster, dinner arranger, etc. The work is both ambitious and elaborate, thoroughly covering the subject as it was comprehended by the writer's predecessors and his own inventive genius. A passage or two from the chapters headed "Diuerce Sawces" and "Sawce for Fische" will give one an idea of the style of his treatise:

"Also to know youre sawces for flesche conveniently, hit provokithe a fyne apetide if sawce youre meat be bie; to the lust of youre lord look that ye haue ther redy suche sawce as hym likethe | to make him glad & mery.

It will be seen from this brief extract that Russell's larder was in no wise wanting for the gustatory entertainment of his lordship, his resources being yet more apparent in the chapter relative to the proper sauces for fish:

"Yowre sawces to make y shalle geue yow lerynge: Mustard | is metest with alle maner salt herynge, Salt fysche, salt Congur, samoun, with sparlynge, Salt ele, salt makerelle, & also withe merlynge.

"Vynegur is good to salt purpose & torrentyne, Salt sturgeon, salt swyrd-fysche savery & fyne. Salt Thurlepolle, salt whale, is good with egre wyne, Withe powdur put ther-on shalle cawse oon welle to dyne.

In like manner, the first page or introduction to "The Boke of Keruynge" will present at a glance many of the forms of food that were in use at the time, especial reference being made to the terms employed by the English carver. The writer attacks his subject boldly--much as an old angling-master describes a trout rushing for the palmer-fly at night--and is apparently thoroughly acquainted with his important function:

¶ Here begynneth the boke of Keruynge and sewynge | and all the feestes in the yere, for the seruyce of a prynce or ony other estate, as ye shall fynde eche offyce, the seruyce accordynge, in this boke folowynge.

¶ Terms of a Keruer

Breke that dere lesche yt brawne rere that goose lyft that swanne sauce that capo spoyle that henne frusshe that chekyn vnbrace that malarde vnlace that cony dysmember that heron dysplaye that crane dysfygure that pecocke vnioynt that bytture vntache that curlewe alaye that fesande wynge that partryche wynge that quayle mynce that plouer thye that pegyon border that pasty thye that wodcocke thye all maner of small byrdes tymbre that fyre tyere that egge chyne that samon strynge that lampraye splatte that pyke sauce that playce sauce that tenche splay that breme syde that haddocke tuske that barbell culpon that troute fynne that cheuen traussene that ele traunche that sturgyon vndertraunche yt purpos tayme that crabbe barbe that lopster

¶ Here hendeth the goodly termes.

¶ Here begynneth Butler and Panter.

On the title-page of the volume is a picture of two ladies and two gentlemen at dinner, with an attendant bringing a dish, two servants at a side-table, and a jester. The dish was doubtless well spiced with ginger, and washed down with malmsey, clarrey, or renysshe wine, if not with ypocras or some other potent liquid accompaniment.

The expressions "vnbrace that malarde" and "dysmember that heron" assure one that a wild fowl, however coriaceous, must have quickly succumbed to the manipulation of his glittering steel. In no form of carving, whether of meats, poultry, or game, does the skill of the carver appear to greater advantage than in disjointing wild fowl. This indeed calls for a trenchant blade and a thoroughly competent practitioner. Witness the artist who follows every joint and ligament as a stream follows its varying curves, and who lays out the rosy breast just as if it had stopped beating in its flight. The ghosts of many a mallard, broad-bill, and teal must quake in horror when they remember the fate that awaited their earthly lot after their course had been checked by the fowler and they fell into hands unworthy to conduct their post-mortem. But the duck has been avenged by an anonymous bard who has execrated the ruthless matador as he deserves:

"We all look on with anxious eyes When father carves the duck, And mother almost always sighs When father carves the duck. Then all of us prepare to rise And hold our bibs before our eyes And be prepared for some surprise When father carves the duck.

"He braces up and grabs a fork Whene'er he carves a duck, And won't allow a soul to talk Until he's carved the duck. The fork is jabbed into the sides, Across the breast the knife he slides, And every careful person hides From flying chips of duck.

"The platter always seems to slip When father carves a duck, And how it makes the dishes skip, Potatoes fly amuck-- The squash and cabbage leap in space, We get some gravy on our face, And father mutters Hindu grace Whene'er he carves a duck.

"We thus have learned to walk around The dining-room, and pluck From off the window-sills and walls Our share of father's duck; While father growls and blows and jaws, And swears the knife was full of flaws, And mother jaws at him because He couldn't carve a duck."

In the "Kalendare de Potages dyuers" appears this recipe for _A goos in hogepotte_: "Take a Goos, & make hure clene, & hacke hyre to gobettys, & put yn a potte, & Water to, & sethe togederys; than take Pepir & Brennyd brede or Blode y-boylyd, & grynd y-fere Gyngere & Galyngale & Comyn, & temper vppe with Ale, and putte it ther-to; & mynce Oynonys, & frye hem in freysshe grece, & do ther-to a porcyon of Wyne."