Part 8
The Good Husive's Handmaid, 1550. The Householder's Philosophie, 1588. The Good Housewife's Closet of Provision, 1589. Butte's Dyets Dry Dinner, 1599. Dawson's Good Huswife's Jewel and rare Conceits in Cookry, 1610. The Book of Carving and Serving, 1613. A Closet of Delights for Ladies, 1630. A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen, 1630. Murrell's Cookerie and Manner of making Kickshawes, etc., 1630. The Philosopher's Banquet, 1633. The Schoolmaster, or Teacher of Table Philosophy, 1652. The Ladies' Companion, 1653. The Treasury of Commodious Conceits and Hidden Secrets, 1653. The Ladies' Cabinet Opened, 1655. Nature unembowelled, or 1720 Receipts, 1655. The True Gentlewoman's Delight, 1671. The Gentlewoman's Cabinet Unlocked, 1675. The Queen-Like Closet, or Rich Cabinet, 1675. The School of Grace, or A Book of Nurture, 1680. Rose's School for the Officers of the Mouth, 1682. The Queen's Closet Opened, 1683. Hannah Wooley's Rare Receipts, 1684. The Accomplisht Ladies' Delight, 1686. The Kitchen Physician, 1688. The Cupboard Door Opened, 1689. The Queen's Cookery, 1709. Incomperable Secrets in Cookery, 1710. Cookery and Pastry Cards, 1720. The Young Lady's Companion, 1734. E. Smith's Compleat Housewife, 1736. The Family Piece, 1741. Adam's Luxury and Eve's Cookery, 1744. Sarah Jackson's Cook Director, 1755. The Cook's Cookery, and Comments on Mrs. Glasse, 1758. Mary Smith's Compleat Housekeeper, 1772. Sarah Harrison's Housekeeper's Pocket-Book, 1777. Mrs. Fisher's Prudent Housewife, 1788. Dr. Stark's Dietetical Experiments, 1788. Mrs. Carter's Frugal Housewife, 1810. Mrs. Powel's Art of Cookery, 1811. Mrs. Price's New Book of Cookery, 1813. The School of Good Living, 1814. Young's Epicure, 1815. Haslehurst's Family Friend, 1816. Chamber's Ladies' Best Companion, 1820.
Here are manuals enough, in all conscience, to have produced a progressive cuisine, were not the majority a repetition of the crudities and barbarisms of their antecedents, where one heresy was passed on to be augmented by another author, and by him transmitted to his successors. Essentially differing from France, England was unblessed with originality, and not until the influence of the splendid restaurants of the Parisian capital had extended across the Channel did the Briton awaken from his lethargy and cease to see through Mrs. Glasse and Mrs. Smith darkly. Then Ude and Kitchener, Francatelli, Walker, and Soyer appeared, to pave the way for a better condition of cookery in the kingdom.
That the works referred to, where one has the facilities of consulting them and the patience to peruse them, are not entirely lacking in wit will be obvious if only from the repetition--in her "Compleat Housewife," by Mrs. Smith, who professes "to serve the publick in what she may"--of Ray's proverb, "God sends meat and the devil sends cooks," as well as from her namesake's rendition in the "Compleat Housekeeper" of _sauce Robert_ as "Roe-Boat sauce," _omelette_ as "Hamlet," and _soupe à la reine_ as "Soup a la Rain." Neither should a really witty quatrain from "The Philosopher's Banquet," whose aroma almost suggests the spikenards, musks, and galbanums of the "Hesperides," be allowed to pass unnoticed:
"If Leekes you like, but do their smelle dis-leeke, Eat Onyons, and you shall not smelle the Leeke; If you of Onyons would the scente expelle, Eat Garlicke, that shall drowne the Onyons' smelle."
It has been said of garlic that every one knows its odour save he who has eaten it, and who wonders why every one flies at his approach. But the onion tribe is prophylactic and highly invigorating, and even more necessary to cookery than parsley itself. What were a salad without the onion, whey-cheese without chives, a bouillabaisse, or a brandade of cod without garlic, certain soups and ragoûts without leeks, and a bordelaise sauce without shallots! And if every one eat them, how shall they offend? "All Italy is in the fine, penetrating smell; and all Provence; and all Spain. An onion-or garlic-scented atmosphere hovers alike over the narrow _calli_ of Venice, the cool courts of Cordova, and the thronged amphitheatre of Arles. It is only the atmosphere breathed by the Latin peoples of the South, so that ever must it suggest blue skies and endless sunshine, cypress groves, and olive orchards. For the traveller it is interwoven with memories of the golden canvases of Titian, the song of Dante, the music of Mascagni."[17] In like manner, the wild leek that strews the woodland carpet with its cool, fresh greens and pale, nodding flowers is associated with one's first spring rambles, while yet the snowbanks linger amid the sheltered hollows and the summons of the first flicker resounds through the awakening groves. Decidedly, life were devoid of a great portion of its fragrance if deprived of the resources of the _Allium_. It is the salt of flavourings, and its rich pungency belongs to it alone.
Most famous among culinary treatises of the eighteenth century is that of Mrs. Glasse, first printed in 1747, and republished as late as 1803.[18] For a long period this was the _vade mecum_ of the kitchen, and was fondled as fervently by housewives as was ever Addison by the literarian, or Herbert by the pietist. From the original thin folio it gradually broadened through numerous editions into a thick octavo. The authorship of the work is in doubt, it having been variously attributed to Dr. Hill and Dr. Hunter, London physicians, and Mrs. Hannah Glasse of Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, habit-maker to the royal family. Careful perusal, nevertheless, would indicate a feminine instead of a masculine hand. The first edition of 1747 is said to be almost as rare as the first folio of Shakespeare, being quoted, "in the original sheep binding with rough leaves in a red morocco case," as high as £31 10_s._ in a recent catalogue of a London bookseller.
It is stated in the preface that the work has not been written in the "high-polite style," and that the ends the manual was intended for were to "improve the servants and save the ladies a great deal of trouble." The book owes its reputation, no doubt, more to the remark erroneously credited to the author--"First catch your hare"--than to any other cause. Certainly its recipes have little to recommend it. Mace, cloves, nutmeg, and similar spices--ingredients that require the nicest discrimination in their employment--are still prescribed in cyclopean quantities, and under her régime cookery continued to remain much in the condition described by Goldsmith:
"For palates grown callous almost to disease, Who peppers the highest is surest to please."
Many of the old dishes, with others slightly modified, find place in her pages, together with new dishes of singular titles: as, for instance, "Bombarded Veal," "How to fricassee Skirrets," "to prepare an Oxford John," "to make a Cheese-Curd Florendine," "to stew Beef Gobbets," "to make a Pellaw the Indian way," "to make a Frangas Incopades," "to French a Hind-Saddle of Mutton," "to make a Hedge-Hog," and "an Hottentot Pie," "to make an excellent Sack-Posset," etc. But the recipes will speak best for themselves, like the following for making "A Good Brown Gravy":
"Take a half a pint of small beer, or ale that is not bitter, and half a pint of water, an onion cut small, a little bit of lemon-peel cut small, three cloves, a blade of mace, some whole pepper, a spoonful of walnut pickle, a spoonful of catchup, and an anchovy; first put a piece of butter into a saucepan, as big as a hen's egg, when it is melted shake in a little flour, and let it be a little brown; then by degrees stir in the above ingredients, and let it boil a quarter of an hour, then strain it, and it is fit for fish or roots."
The directions for "A Liver-Pudding boiled" call for additional skill and thorough familiarity with the art of the _charcutier_:
"Get the liver of the sheep, when you kill one, and cut it as thin as you can, and chop it; mix it with as much suet shred fine, half as many crumbs of bread or biscuit grated, season it with some sweet herbs shred fine, a little nutmeg grated, a little beaten pepper, and an anchovy shred fine; mix all together with a little salt, or the anchovy liquor, with a piece of butter, fill the crust and close it; boil three hours."
In Mrs. Smith's "Compleat Housewife" (1736) we find these instructions, entitled "To Collar A Pig":
"Cut off the head of your pig; then cut the body asunder; bone it, and cut two collars off each side...."
In Mrs. Glasse's injunctions for roasting a pig, the author is yet more colourful:
"Stick your pig just above the breast-bone, and run your knife to the heart...."
It will be immediately evident that injustice has been done to this noble and worthy companion of man--that of confounding him with the hare, whose only practical use is in a _civet_ or a pie, and in furnishing amusement in coursing. For neither in "The Art of Cookery" nor in her "Compleat Confectioner" does Mrs. Glasse utter the axiom, "First catch your hare," but, as we have seen, "First stick your pig"! It was Beauvilliers who said, in presenting his recipe for hare-pie: "_Ayez un lièvre._"
Among the dishes presented in "The Art of Cookery" which will be appreciated by the feminine reader is one termed "A Bride's Pie," which no doubt was considered fully worthy the appellation of an old culinary writer--"a darling dainty":
"Boil two calves' feet, pick the meat from the bones, and chop it very fine, shred small one pound of beef suet, and a pound of apples, wash and pick one pound of currants very small, dry them before the fire, stone and chop a quarter of a pound of jar raisins, a quarter of an ounce of cinnamon, the same of mace and nutmeg, two ounces of candied citron, two ounces of candied lemon cut thin, a glass of brandy and one of Champagne, put them in a china dish with a rich puff paste over it, roll another lid and cut it in leaves, flowers, figures, and put a glass ring in it."
It may have been some of Mrs. Glasse's compounds that prompted Johnson's remark, "Women can spin very well, but they cannot make a good book of cookery." Many other works during the eighteenth century succeeded "The Art of Cookery," though none achieved its marked popularity. Sufficient has been said of ancient English manuals, however, to present some idea of their quality and enable the reader to judge of the culinary science as it was understood by former generations. Far more slow to develop than in France, English cookery has still much to attain among both the middle and well-to-do classes, and even in the case of most of the restaurants and hotels; the era has not yet dawned in Great Britain when, on arising from the dinner-table, one may truly exclaim:
"Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day!"
L'ALMANACH DES GOURMANDS[19]
"Tout s'arrange en dinant dans le siècle où nous sommes, Et c'est par des dîners qu'on gouverne les hommes." CASSIMIR DELAVIGNE: Les Comédiens.
Reasoning from the standpoint that the stomach is the great motor of vital energy, it may justly be adduced that everything which contributes to a perfect balance of its mechanism is of inestimable importance. As, moreover, the true function of improved cookery is to second hygiene and to replace medicaments by ingenious combinations of natural products, it will be readily apparent that a good cook and a good writer on cookery--a cook who can compose and a writer who can suggest and stimulate--at once become of even greater value than a college of physicians.
These desirable qualifications belong preëminently to the French, as brewing belongs to the Germans, weaving to the Orientals, sculpture to the Italians, and mechanical invention to the Americans. The same facilities present themselves in many countries--it has remained for France to perfect them and create a literature on the subject distinctively its own. The Frenchman may keep on his hat during the entr'actes of a play and be forever wrangling with his mode of government, but he has taught the world how to dine. "Let me have books!" cries Horace; "Let us have cooks!" exclaims the Gaul. And with the cooks come the cook-books--the meditations, codes, almanacs, physiologies, manuals, and guides.
In considering those works that have treated most pleasingly of the art with which mankind is so directly concerned thrice a day, that of Brillat-Savarin stands foremost. He is the Addison of the dinner-table, as instructive as he is diverting, and his brilliant disquisition will remain a classic so long as dinners endure. But Grimod de la Reynière, whose contributions Savarin passed by in silence, had preceded him and had first enlightened the past century in regard to what Molière has termed _la science des bons morçeaux_. Let justice be rendered where justice is due--the "Physiology of Taste" is indebted in no little degree to the "Almanac of the Epicures." Had La Reynière possessed as much refinement as Savarin, had he observed greater concentration, and had he refrained from the frequent puffery of mercantile establishments, the "Almanach" might not be numbered to-day among unjustly forgotten books. But he is not alone in his references to the tradesmen: even Savarin is guilty of shop-puffery to a limited extent--a trait almost universal among French writers on gastronomy, though none have vied with La Reynière in immortalising a maker of pâtés or in elevating a vender of truffles to the dignity of a minister of state.
The fact that he was afflicted with a deformity of his hands, and that his numerous volumes and contributions to the press were written with an artificial member, renders his literary labours the more surprising. A fluent writer, whose humour and verve sparkle from every page of his subject proper, it is to be regretted that he is so little known by the present generation, for the eight rare little volumes which comprise the "Almanach des Gourmands" may be classed among the most sprightly and learned dissertations relating to the pleasures of the table. Numerous almanacs have succeeded his. But these are like harmonicas compared with a Stradivarius, or the "Confessions of Rousseau" contrasted with the "Life of Cellini." A veritable storehouse of epicurean lore, his unique treatise should be republished, with its eulogiums left out, and its finer fancies and wealth of culinary teachings retained to instruct and charm anew. In a revision of the work, these allusions to the _fournisseurs_ could be omitted to advantage, and thus a most useful treatise be presented in a much more concise form.
It should be stated, in justice to the author, that his references to alimentary dealers and wine-merchants were not all of a laudatory character. His pills were not wholly sugar-coated; any delinquent who merited censure was summarily dealt with. The "Almanach" wielded a powerful influence, and could make or mar. From the very first year of its appearance it asserted its sway, a supremacy that no one ventured to contest. Its decrees were inexorable, and woe to the restaurateur who failed in a matelote, the dealer who was lacking in courtesy, the merchant who was guilty of over-charging, or the purveyor whose wares were found wanting. The editor's caustic pen was as dreaded as it was respected. A paragraph rendered a furnisher famous, a disparaging line caused a shop to be avoided. Its edicts were a _Vehmgericht_ from which there was no appeal. Thus it maintained a surveillance and an influence that were not without their excellent results--a censorship that would be invaluable in the present days of adulterations.
Written in a more serious vein is the "Manuel des Amphitryons," a large octavo dealing with the art of carving, bills of fare for each season, and table proprieties.[20]
This volume is valuable chiefly for the great variety of its menus--the joint production of the author and the presiding genius of the Rocher de Cancale when Parisian cookery had attained its greatest distinction. The menus, each of which is commented upon at length, are remarkable for their elaborateness and diversity, and illustrate the great inventive resources of the period. Any one of those that are designed for sixty covers would seem sufficient, with judicious selection and by the substitution of a few dishes, according to the season, to serve throughout the year. The last division of the volume, relating to table usages, is covered in the "Almanach," as is also some of the matter of the first division.
It is in the "Manuel" that we find the gifted author in his most serious mood and most impressed with his responsibilities. To guide the capricious stomachs of a great capital in the right way, to instruct unerringly in the _grand art du savoir vivre_, to give a new impetus to a refinement that the Jacobins and the Directory had well nigh relegated to oblivion, was a task that might not be entered upon lightly or undertaken without a grave sense of its importance.
The bills of fare are veritable morsels to turn over on the tongue. For if, as La Fontaine avers, _le changement de mets réjouit l'homme_--how important that man's daily change be an appetising one! And yet one may well rejoice that he lives in an age when a good dinner may be composed of a simple soup, a perfectly cooked fish, an entrée, a bird, and a salad, with a good wine served at its proper temperature. Cookery has changed with time, and the "manual" of a host of to-day differs as much as does his costume from that of a century ago. This is not saying that on a stimulating winter's day it were not worth a walk of many a league to dine where the menu had been superintended by the author of the "Manuel" and executed by the Rocher--if that were possible at present.
Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent Grimod de la Reynière was born in Paris, November 20, 1758. His early life was an adventurous one, and after first identifying himself with belles-lettres he studied and practised law, besides engaging in various artistic, literary, and mercantile pursuits. In his thirty-ninth year he became enamoured of an actress--Mlle. Mézeray--to which circumstance the world is largely indebted for the "Almanach" and the "Manuel des Amphitryons." On declaring his passion with all the fervour of a highly impressionable nature, only to meet with a repulse, he determined to look to gastronomy for consolation, a resolve he at once expressed in poetic form under the title "My Abnegation," the poem being addressed to "A Celebrated Actress" and published in a dramatic journal of which he was the editor. A stanza may be cited:
"De vrais amis, un doux asile, Des dîners fins et délicats: Voilà pour mon âme tranquille, Qui vaut mieux que des _hélas_!"
(True friends a few, a nice abode, And dinners fine and recherchés-- Far better such for peace of mind Than Love's refrain, "Ah, lack-a-day!")
This sentiment would show him to have been a true philosopher, accepting the situation placidly, and recognising that in love there is always one who kisses and the other who extends the cheek. "Fine and delicate dinners!"--therein, of a truth, may be found a marvellous panacea for lacerated affections and the buffets of the world. To be sure, he had already belonged for many years to a society known as the Société des Mercredis, composed of seventeen members, who were in the habit of dining weekly at the Rocher de Cancale, then the most celebrated restaurant of Paris. But it was not until Cupid frowned, in the person of Mlle. Mézeray, that he turned seriously to gastronomy and made it a profession. The fact that he had already been married for ten years in no wise detracts from the value of his recipe--a medication for melancholy that has been overlooked in the "Anatomy." The key-note of his verses on the occasion was emphasised by a postscript extolling the pleasures of the table, a paragraph that appeared subsequently in an amended form in the "Almanach." Already in this ebullition of a misogynist for the moment, we detect the redundant fancy and familiarity with his theme which marked the great gastronomer who was soon to wield his facile pen in the interests of the science of which he became the exponent-in-chief:
"The author of this abnegation, who some day intends publishing a panegyric of gastronomy, has always regarded the pleasures of good cheer as the first of the mind and the senses. It will be acknowledged that these are the first one enjoys, and those that may be most often multiplied. Who may say as much of the rest? Is there a woman, however beautiful, who is worth these admirable red partridges of Languedoc or Cévennes; these pâtés de foie of geese and ducks which will forever celebrate the cities of Toulouse, Auch, and Strassburg; these stuffed tongues of Troyes; these sausages of Arles that render the pig so estimable and so precious? Can one compare a pretty, simpering face with these splendid sheep of Ganges and the Ardennes whose flesh fairly melts in one's mouth? What comparison can be made between a piquante face and these pullets of Bresse, these capons of Mans?... Who would oppose to these delights the caprices of a woman, her poutings, her vagaries, her refusals, and even her favours?"
In quite a different strain, a few years later, we shall hear him compare a peach--ripe, rosy, juicy, and melting--to lovely femininity, and in the amended form of the note that accompanied his renunciation perceive his greater delicacy of touch, as well as mark his conversion to the doctrine of Désaugiers:
"Pour être aimé des belles, Aimons; Un beau jour changent-elles, Changeons!"
(To win the favours of the fair, Be bold; If then they lack in debonnaire, Be cold!)
a postulate that may have its drawbacks, but nevertheless offers its advantages.
It is with an author's work, however, and not with his personal traits that the public is mainly concerned, and of La Reynière's literary productions the "Almanach" constitutes his greatest claim to distinction. So closely is this associated with the famous _Jury dégustateur_, of which he was the founder, secretary, and mainspring, that one may scarcely be considered without the other--the "Almanach" was the jury, and the jury was the "Almanach."