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  [Illustration: THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE]




                       BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR


   "The Garden's Story, or Pleasures and Trials of an Amateur
   Gardener." Illustrated by Louis Rhead.

   "The Story of My House." With a frontispiece by Sidney L.
   Smith.

   "In Gold and Silver." Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell and W.
   Hamilton Gibson.

   "The Rose." By H. B. Ellwanger. Revised edition, with an
   Introduction by George H. Ellwanger.

   "Idyllists of the Country Side." With a title-page by George
   Wharton Edwards.

   "Love's Demesne: A Garland of Contemporary Love Poems Gathered
   from Many Sources."

   "Meditations on Gout, with a Consideration of its Cure through
   the Use of Wine." With a frontispiece and title-page by George
   Wharton Edwards.

  [Illustration: "A SA TOUTE-PUISSANCE!"

  From the painting by Gabriel Metzu, 1664]




  [Illustration:

                                  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.

                                  BY
                       GEORGE H. ELLWANGER, M.A.


                               NEW YORK
                        DOUBLEDAY PAGE AND CO.
                                 1902
]




                          Copyright, 1902, by
                         DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.

  [Illustration:

    FANTAISIE CULINAIRE: LE POISSON PRÉVOYANT

    By A. Thierry]




  [Illustration:

                                TO HER,
                          TRUE COMRADE, WHOSE
                       VERSANT TOUCH AND ARTFUL
                          HAND HAVE KEENED MY
                      ZEST FOR GASTRONOMIC LORE,
                       THIS VOLUME IS DEVOTEDLY
                              INSCRIBED.
]


   "Gasteria is the Tenth Muse; she presides over the enjoyments
   of Taste."

                                                    BRILLAT-SAVARIN.

   "The History of Gastronomy is that of manners, if not of
   morals; and the learned are aware that its literature is both
   instructive and amusing; for it is replete with curious traits
   of character and comparative views of society at different
   periods, as well as with striking anecdotes of remarkable men
   and women whose destinies have been strangely influenced by
   their epicurean tastes and habits."

                                                    ABRAHAM HAYWARD.




                            _INTRODUCTORY_


_It is far from the purpose or desire of the author to add another to
the innumerable volumes having practical cookery as their theme--the
published works of the past decade alone being too numerous to digest._

_The following chapters, therefore, though touching upon the practical
part of the art, will be found more closely concerned with the history,
literature, and æsthetics of the table than with its purely utilitarian
side. Indeed, a complete manual of practical cookery is one of the
impossibilities, for no person would have the patience to compile
it; and even were such a work achievable, few readers could find
sufficient time for its perusal. A glance at the portly "Bibliographie
Gastronomique" of Georges Vicaire, in which English contributions
to the subject are so meagrely represented, will suffice to show
the difficulties such a task would impose. To classify properly the
multitudinous dishes which, virtually identical, figure under so many
different names, would of itself require years of severe application
and laborious research. It may be observed, notwithstanding, that the
world stands much less in need of additional inventions as regards the
utilisation and preparation of foods than of an expert anthologist
to garner the most worthy among recipes already existing in such
bewildering profusion._

_In the succeeding pages the writer has drawn from many sources, both
ancient and modern--wherever an anecdote which is not too familiar has
been found amusing, or an observation has been deemed pertinent or
instructive. An occasional recipe has been given, and the sweet tooth
of femininity has not been neglected. The hygiene of the table has
likewise been considered, and some pernicious customs in connection
with dining have been plainly dealt with. There are also some allusions
to wines with respect to their complementary dishes, although wine is
so important a subject as to call for a volume by itself._

_It has not been deemed advisable to pass the cookery of the entire
globe under review, even in a cursory manner. To devote separate
chapters to Scandinavian, South American, and Oriental dishes, or
even to purely Spanish, Mexican, and Russian food preparations, were
both needless and cumbersome. The best have been embodied in the
cosmopolitan kitchen; and the rest, for the most part, require the
atmosphere of their native surroundings to be appraised at their proper
value. It is with the French that the annalist of the table has chiefly
to deal._

_Necessarily, in treating of what Thomas Walker has termed "one of the
most important of our temporal concerns," many gastronomic expressions
and names of dishes, and not a few observations relating to the table,
which would lose their piquancy or precise colouring on translation,
have been retained in the language in which they originally appear.
"Les quenelles de levraut saucées d'une espagnolle au fumet," "les
amourettes de bœuf marinées frites," "l'épaule de veau en musette
champêtre," "un coq vièrge en petit deuil," for example, while
natural and comprehensible in French, would sound somewhat bizarre
as "Forcemeat balls of leverets sauced with a racy Spanish woman,"
"the love-affairs of soused beef fried," "a shoulder of veal in rural
bagpipes," and "a virgin rooster in half-mourning." And surely, in
reviewing the aide-de-camp of the cook, it becomes obligatory to employ
a French term upon occasion, and equally seemly to address him now and
then in the classic tongue of the kitchen._

_The principal meal has chiefly been considered, as through this to
the greatest extent depend the health and frame of mind that determine
the actions of man from day to day. It will, accordingly, be an entrée
compounded of numerous flavourings, or a braise with its "bouquet
garni" that has simmered gently over the smothered charcoal, rather
than a familiar pièce de résistance which the reader is invited to
partake of and discuss at his leisure._




  [Illustration: TABLE OF CONTENTS]


    CHAPTER                                         PAGE

         INTRODUCTORY                                 ix

       I COOKERY AMONG THE ANCIENTS                    3

      II WITH LUCULLUS AND APICIUS                    24

     III THE RENAISSANCE OF COOKERY                   49

      IV OLD ENGLISH DISHES                           80

       V L'ALMANACH DES GOURMANDS                    112

      VI A GERMAN SPEISEKARTE                        145

     VII THE SCHOOL OF SAVARIN                       175

    VIII FROM CARÊME TO DUMAS                        199

      IX THE COOK'S CONFRÈRE                        229

       X AMERICAN _vs._ ENGLISH COOKERY              248

      XI AT TABLE WITH THE CLERGY                    280

     XII SUNDRY GUIDES TO GOOD CHEER                 315

    XIII OF SAUCES                                   344

     XIV THE SPOILS OF THE COVER                     354

      XV TWO ESCULENTS PAR EXCELLENCE                383

     XVI SALLETS AND SALADS                          409

    XVII SWEETS TO THE SWEET                         428

         BIBLIOGRAPHY                                447

         INDEX                                       469




  [Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS]


    "A Sa Toute-Puissance!"                              _Frontispiece_
      From the painting by Gabriel Metzu, 1664

                                                                   PAGE

    Fantaisie culinaire: le poisson prévoyant                        iv
      By A. Thierry

    Le Cuisinier                                                     xi
      After the engraving by Mariette

                                                            FACING PAGE

    A Bacchante                                                       3
      From the stipple engraving in colours by Bartolozzi,
        after Cipriani

    Portrait du Gourmand                                             24
      After Carle Vernet

    Le Livre de Taillevent                                           49
      Facsimile of title-page of the edition of 1545

    The Cries of Paris: "Old clothes, old laces!"                    69
      Facsimile of an old French plate

    First of September                                               80
      From the engraving after A. Cooper, R.A.

    The English Housewife                                            94
      Facsimile of title-page of the edition of 1675

    "Un Viel Amateur"                                               112
      A. B. L. Grimod de la Reynière, né à Paris le 20 9bre, 1756.
        From an old print

    Le Premier Devoir d'un Amphitryon                               121
      Frontispiece of the fifth year of the "Almanach des Gourmands"

    Les Méditations d'un Gourmand                                   132
      Frontispiece of the fourth year of the "Almanach des Gourmands"

    The Chef                                                        145
      From a print after an old Dutch master

    The Bird of St. Michael                                         160
      From the etching by Birket-Foster, R.A.

    Promenade Nutritive                                             175
      Frontispiece of "Le Gastronome Français" (1828)

    "Pour voir de bons refrains éclore, Buvons encore!"             186
      Frontispiece of "Le Caveau Moderne" (1807)

    Alexandre Dumas                                                 199
      From the etching by Rajon

    "L'Art du Cuisinier" (Beauvilliers')                            213
      Facsimile of title-page, 1824, Vol. II

    Day's Closing Hour                                              229
      From the etching by Charles Jacque

    "First Catch Your Hare!"                                        248
      From the engraving by J. W. Snow

    "Rôti-Cochon"                                                   261
      Facsimile page from volume, 1696

    Non in Solo Pane Vivit Homo                                     280
      From the original oil-painting by Klein

    La Contenance de la Table                                       296
      Facsimile of title-page (early part of sixteenth century)

    "Enfant, tu ne dois charger
      Tant de la première viande
      Se plusieurs en as en commande
    Que d'austres ne puisses menger."

    Promenade du Gourmand                                           315
      Frontispiece of "Le Manuel du Gastronome ou Nouvel Almanach
        des Gourmands" (1830)

    La Table                                                        331
      Frontispiece of the Second Canto of "La Conversation" of the
        Abbé Délille, 1822

    A Supper in the Eighteenth Century                              344
      From the engraving after Masquelier

    The Spanish Pointer                                             354
      From the engraving by Woollett, after the painting by
        Stubbs, 1768

    Partridge Shooting. I. La Chasse aux Perdrix                    364
      From the coloured print after Howitt, 1807

    Partridge Shooting--September                                   375
      From the coloured engraving by Reeve, after the painting
        by R. B. Davis, 1836

    Truffle-hunting in the Dauphiné                                 383
      From the Salon picture after Paul Vayson

    "Nouvel Manuel Complet du Cuisinier et de la
      Cuisinière"                                                   397
      Facsimile of frontispiece, 1822

    The Wounded Snipe                                               409
      From the engraving after A. Cooper, R.A.

    "Après Bon Vin"                                                 428
      From the engraving by Eisen in the Fermiers-Généreaux edition
        of the "Contes et Nouvelles" (1762)

    Le Pâtissier Français                                           442
      Facsimile of title-page of the edition of 1655

  [Illustration: LE CUISINIER

  After the engraving by Mariette]




THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE




  [Illustration]




                      COOKERY AMONG THE ANCIENTS

   "L'art qui contient toutes les élégances, toutes les
   courtoisies, sans lesquelles toutes les autres sont inutiles
   et perdus; l'art hospitalier par excellence qui emploie avec
   un égal succès tous les produits les plus excellents de l'air,
   des eaux, de la terre."--FAYOT.


Cookery is naturally the most ancient of the arts, as of all arts it
is the most important. Whether one should live to eat, is a question
concerning which the epicure and the ascetic will hold widely varying
opinions; but that one must eat to live, will scarcely admit of
controversy. The man who is wise in his generation will be inclined
to choose a happy medium. Or perchance the French axiom that we only
eat to live when we do not understand how to live to eat, may somewhat
simplify the matter. As it is largely through food and drink that man
derives his highest mental efficiency and physical well-being, as
equally through improper diet accrue countless bodily disorders, it
would appear that the proper choice and preparation of aliments and the
selection of beverages should receive the profound consideration of
every one.

In few of the arts has progress been more apparent during modern
times. The mechanic has improved its accessories until the utmost
perfection would seem to have been attained, medicine and chemistry
have endeavoured to determine what elements of our daily dietary are
injurious to certain individuals or to all, volume after volume has
been written upon the subject, while the grand army of cooks has been
busy in inventing new combinations or in resurrecting forgotten recipes.

And yet the digestive ills of humanity have continued to multiply, even
though there are over six-score ways presented by a single author of
serving the rabbit, and a competent priest of the range can utilise the
egg in hundreds of different forms. Is it that with greater variety in
our aliments, a greater number of ailments is a necessary sequence, and
that as mankind increases in culinary knowledge digestion decreases in
power? It is an olden adage that too many cooks spoil the broth; and
it may be worthy of consideration whether a superfluity of dishes is
not responsible to a considerable degree for the furtherance of various
stomachic maladies. Or, on the other hand, is it that with the trebled
facilities of locomotion supplied by modern science, and the closer
confinement of indoor pursuits, the cause may be largely ascribed to
lack of exercise and insufficient oxygenation?

  [Illustration: A BACCHANTE

  From the stipple engraving in colours by Bartolozzi, after Cipriani]

However this may be, the art of cookery is far less generally
understood than its great hygienic importance demands, while the art of
dining is understood only by the relatively few. As M. Fayot observed
to Jules Janin, "Without doubt, Monsieur, as you have often said, it
is difficult to write well, but it is a hundred times more difficult
to know how to dine well." Or, as Dumas has expressed it, "To eat
understandingly and to drink understandingly are two arts that may
not be learned from the day to the morrow." He himself was a striking
example of the accomplished _bon vivant_, and his marked intellectual
superiority over his son may be readily attributed to his greater
knowledge of dining.

Where, indeed, more than at the well-appointed dinner-table may one
echo the sentiment of Seneca, "When shall we live if not now?" "An
empty stomach produces an empty brain," observes the author of the
"Comédie Humaine"; "our mind, independent as it may appear to be,
respects the laws of digestion, and we may say with as much justice as
did La Rochefoucauld of the heart, that good thoughts proceed from the
stomach." It is, however, a source whence our joys and sorrows both may
spring. Neglect and indifference may impair its action to destruction;
but, humoured kindly, it ever guides us in paths of peace. In a healthy
and a hungry state, it yearns for special gifts which gustatory edicts
demand, and rarely will confusion attend them when their bestowal is
flavoured with prudence. It is a faithful minister and discriminating
guardian, which rebels only when its functions are imposed upon; but
when they are, its resentment is thorough and relentless. Worthy then,
most certainly, of solicitous regard is the nourishment of an organ
which may shape our ends for weal or woe.

"Cookery," said Yuan Mei, the Savarin of China and author of
a scholarly cook-book during the eighteenth century, "is like
matrimony--two things served together should match. Clear should go
with clear, hard with hard, and soft with soft.... Into no department
of life should indifference be allowed to creep--into none less than
into the domain of cookery."

Concerning the art itself, it may be remarked that the French have
been to cookery what the Dutch and Flemish schools have been to
painting--cookery with the one and painting with the other having
attained their highest excellence. Rubens, Rembrandt, Teniers,
Jordaens, Ruysdael, Snyders, Berghem, and Cuyp may be paralleled
in another branch of art by Carême, Vatel, Beauvilliers, Robert,
Laguipière, Véry, Francatelli, and Ude. But, as in painting during its
earlier stages Flanders and the Netherlands owed much to the Roman
and Venetian schools, so in cookery the French are vastly indebted
to their predecessors and former masters the Italians, who, if less
distinguished colourists, were not to be despised as draughtsmen,
and who if by instinct not as skilled in the chiaroscuro of sauces,
were most dexterous in creating breadstuffs and pastry. Montaigne's
reference to an Italian cook of the period will be remembered in this
connection--one of the artists who had been employed by Cardinal
Caraffa who discoursed upon the subject in such rich, magnificent
words, well-couched phrases, oratoric figures, and pathetical metaphors
as learned men use and employ in speaking of the government of an
empire.

It is a long stone's throw from the first apple eaten in the Garden
of Eden--and this was a wild fruit, and not a Spitzenberg or a
Northern Spy--to a Chartreuse à la bellevue or that triumph of the
ovens of Alsace--the pâté de foie gras. The first dish of which any
record exists is the red pottage of lentils for which Esau sold his
birthright--a form of food still very common in Germany and France. The
first direct mention of breadstuffs in the Bible occurs in Genesis,
where Abraham tenders the angel a morsel of bread, and bids Sarah make
ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes
upon the hearth.

The primitive tribes and nations were content of necessity with the
spoils of the chase and the then more limited products of the vegetable
world; and long before John the Baptist's time the Hebrews lived to
no small extent upon locusts and kindred insects. In his enumeration
of the animal food which they might eat without rendering themselves
unclean, Moses specifies four insects of the locust family (Lev. x,
22). Some species of the _Locusta_ are yet esteemed a delicacy in the
East, these being cooked with oil, roasted upon wooden spits, baked in
ovens, or broiled. The Bedouins, who are ever on the march, pack them
with salt in close masses, carrying them in their leathern sacks.
By the Athenians they were usually roasted; and mention is made by
Athenæus of an _archimagirus_, or master cook, who, in his tour around
the ovens and stock-pots, enjoins one of his subalterns to take the
utmost precaution with them and see that they obtain only a light
golden hue.

Eggs, milk, rice, and honey, onions, succory, leeks, and garlic, the
leaves of the vine, radishes, and carrots, with other growths of the
garden, formed the staple articles of diet among ancient peoples.
Vegetable food was more common than animal, the latter being served
principally in the case of entertainments and special occasions of
hospitality (Gen. xviii, 7, 8). Instead of lard and butter, olive oil
was employed, and is still almost entirely employed by the Orientals.
Fish constituted an important article of diet, together with game,
lambs, and kids. Though not common, the flesh of young bullocks and
stall-fed oxen was highly prized (Prov. xv, 17; Matt. xxii, 4), the
shoulder being considered the choicest part. The master of the house
was the matador, and upon the mistress devolved the preparation of the
food. Among primitive cooks, Rebekah proved herself a performer of no
mean ability, as instanced by her dressing the flesh of a young kid
after the manner of venison, in order to obtain a father's blessing
for her favourite son. Roots, berries, fruits, and the quarry of
the bow and harpoon composed the fare of aboriginal man, and proved
all-sufficient. When the struggle for physical existence called
for strong exercise in procuring necessary food, little variety in
nutriment sufficed, at no loss of brawn and sinew.

With many savage races, bread-fruit, nuts, the plantain, the
cocoa-palm--known as the "tree of life"--with numerous other
food-yielding palms, served as a principal means of subsistence. The
first fruit-tree cultivated by man is said by all the most ancient
writers to be the fig, the vine being next in order. The almond and
pomegranate were cultivated at an early date in Canaan, and the fig,
grape, pomegranate, and melon were known to Egypt from time immemorial.
In Solon's law's, the olive, the fig, and the vine are enumerated,
as also the cabbage, crambe, or sea-kale, pulse of various kinds,
and onions. Cabbage and asparagus were known to the Greeks from the
earliest ages, and by them the chestnut, largely utilised for food,
was termed the "Oak of Jupiter." The original home of wheat and barley
is supposed to be Mesopotamia and the fertile plains of the Euphrates,
whence, after a period of cultivation, they spread eastward to China
and westward to Syria and thence to Europe. Among other food-stuffs
of the inhabitants were onions, vetches, kidney-beans, egg-plants,
pumpkins, lentils, cucumbers, chick-peas, and beans--with such fruits
as the apple, fig, apricot, pistachio, almond, walnut, and the product
of the palm and vine.

Coffee, of very remote use in Abyssinia, was unknown to the early
Greeks and Romans; they were, however, familiar with the cucumber,
cultivated in India for at least three thousand years. The cucumber
was also known to Moses and the Israelites, the patriarch referring to
fish and cucumbers, melons and leeks, as among the delicacies that were
freely eaten in Egypt (Numbers xi, 5). Various kinds of _Cichorium_,
or chicory, were familiar to antiquity, while _Lactuca_, or lettuce,
was extensively grown as a salad. The onion was a favourite with the
ancient Egyptians, garlic likewise being made much use of--a plant
denounced by their priests as unclean.[1]

Baking in ovens is of great antiquity, the ovens of old Egypt
being frequently represented in contemporary paintings. The table
appointments of Egypt are similarly portrayed in her paintings--the
guests of both sexes seated in gala attire, with jewelled fingers
holding the lily of the Nile or sacred lotus, while slaves, naked
except for necklace and girdle, served them with viands and wines.
Differing from the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans excluded women from
their feasts, agreeing with the sentiment of Fulbert Dumonteil that for
a true gourmand there exist no blue eyes, white teeth, or rosy lips
that may take the place of a black truffle. The only exception related
to the cup-bearers--fair youths and tender maids--who were enjoined to
refuse nothing to the guests, and the richly and gorgeously arrayed
_hetæræ_, the voluptuous Aspasias, Barinés, and Phrynes of the period,
who made their appearance at the conclusion of the repast.

With a corps of twelve stewards to provide for his table, eleven of
whom were constantly travelling in search of viands and wines, it is
reasonable to assume that Solomon, of whose menus so little record
exists, scarcely confined himself to coarse dishes prepared from the
flesh of "bullocks, sheep, harts, and roebucks," but that he, with his
thousand wives and concubines, observed a sufficient variety and luxury
in his kitchen to correspond with the magnificent table appointments
and sumptuous surroundings chronicled in the book of Kings. For
ruthless extravagance, Cleopatra's dish of a melted pearl, weighing
seventy-four carats and valued at six million sesterces, probably
exceeds that of any single plate of the Egyptian rulers or prodigal
Roman potentates. Horace, in the third satire of the Second Book, makes
mention of the spendthrift son of Æsopus as also dissolving a pearl in
vinegar--his mistress's earring--

    "... to say he'd quaffed
    A cool five thousand at a draught."

Boiling was another primitive mode of cooking; and the method even
yet practised by barbarians is to utilise the hide of the slaughtered
animal for a bag, placing the meat in this receptacle with water, and
dropping in stones heated to a white heat until the flesh is cooked.
Laving the meat on hot stones and covering it with ashes, or hanging
it upon a tripod of sticks over the flames, was the mode of roasting
and broiling of the aborigines, with whom utensils of pottery and metal
were unknown--a method often resorted to by woodsmen at the present
time.

The Persians were first to set an example of luxurious cookery, at
least as it was understood in ancient times--the favourable climate
and fertility of their products, as well as their natural inclination
to ease, all tending to foster a love for the pleasures of the table.
The oldest books of which we have any knowledge refer to their pomp in
banqueting, and portray the brilliant revels of the Oriental kings.

Thousands of years before Henrion de Pensey pronounced his famous
aphorism, a novel culinary preparation was regarded as of vaster
importance than a new celestial visitant. The saturnalia of Darius and
Xerxes, the powerful Persian despots, are notorious in history, as
are also the feasts of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Chaldea, and those of
Belshazzar, the final ruler of corrupt Babylon who fêted and feasted a
thousand of his lords, his wives, and his concubines. Anticipating the
munificence of the Roman emperors, Sardanapalus, last of the Assyrian
kings, offered a guerdon of a thousand pieces of gold to him who would
produce a new dish. "Eat, drink, amuse thyself: all else is vanity,"
was his maxim, and the precept he desired to have engraven on his tomb.

The book of Esther records the magnificent royal feast at Shushan
given in the third year of his reign by the Persian king Ahasuerus: a
carnival which lasted an hundred and fourscore days--where the beds
were of gold and silver upon a pavement of red and blue and white and
black marble; where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with
cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble;
and where the people were given to drink, in vessels of gold, of royal
wine in abundance, according to the state of the king. From the land
of Zoroaster, therefore, the Greeks received their first lessons in
gastronomy.

Simplicity in their habits was a characteristic of the early Greeks,
this simplicity extending in a marked degree to their cookery, when
the famous Spartan black broth, composed of pork-broth, vinegar, and
salt, became a national dish. But this epoch of abstention was of
comparatively short duration. The spiritual sense was overcome by
the carnal, and, imitating the Arians, they soon converted a natural
craving into a hypersensuous pleasure.

The dinner or supper developed into an elaborate banquet, partaken
of on reclining couches, accompanied by wines of Corinth, Samos,
Chios, and Tenedos, the fumes of incense, the strains of music, and
the singing of pages and beautiful maids. The couches on which they
partook of their repasts and offered their generous libations to the
gods were ornamented with tortoise-shell, ivory, and bronze, some
being inlaid with pearls and precious stones; the mattresses were of
purple embroidered with gold. Then Archestratus, the Syracusan, who had
travelled far and wide in quest of alimentary dainties of different
lands, was the Carême of the Attic cuisine. His much-lauded poem on
"Gastronomy" is unfortunately lost to posterity, and thus it may not
be compared with that of Berchoux, composed twenty centuries later.
This poem Athenæus has termed a treasure of light, every verse of which
was a precept, and from which numerous cooks drew the principles of an
art that rendered them illustrious. The cook in the "Thesmophorus" of
Dionysius, however, denounces Archestratus, his rules, and his maxims.
But cooks are notoriously jealous and prone to asperse their rivals,
just as a jealous woman will decry another member of her sex whom men
admire. His aspersions, therefore, are not to be weighed against the
avalanche of encomiums that Archestratus has received. It was to the
select few who appreciated the delicacies and importance of his art
that his poem was addressed. He spoke with authority, and not as the
scribes. Witness his stately opening stanza, one of the few surviving
fragments of his epic:

    "I write these precepts for immortal Greece,
    That round a table delicately spread,
    Or three, or four, may sit in choice repast,
    Or five at most. Who otherwise shall dine
    Are like a troop marauding for their prey."

Mithæcus, another famous Hellenic guide to epicurean delights, wrote a
book entitled "The Sicilian Cook," which has been mentioned by Plato;
but this was written in prose, and was the product of a former native
of Sicily, whence Greece was largely accustomed to draw her supply of
culinary masters. Among the most distinguished of Sicilian craftsmen
was Trimalchio, whose cunning is said to have been so great that when
he could not procure scarce and much coveted fish he could counterfeit
their form and flavour so deftly as to deceive even Neptune himself.

The cook of Nicomedes, King of the Babylonians, was accustomed to
serve him with anchovies, made in imitation of the real fish, at such
times as his majesty expressed a desire for anchovies on a sea voyage.
A turnip, disguised by oil, salt, poppy-seed, and other seasonings,
was the basis of the _plat_, the king, as Euphron, the comic writer,
records, smacking his lips over the dish and saying that cooks were
equally as useful as poets, and even more skilful. That, with the aid
of olives, salt pork, onion, parsley, condiments, and stuffing, with
veal as the medium, an accomplished cook can prepare a fair semblance
to an overdone quail is proverbial. But how a turnip can be made to
counterfeit anchovies is not so apparent. The celebrated repasts of
Socrates, at which the guests were seated on chairs, were an exception
to the luxury of the times; these entertainments were extremely frugal,
the cheer being of an intellectual more than a corporeal nature--a mere
collation,

    "... light and choice,
    Of Attic taste, with wine."

Epicurus, the Athenian who flourished three hundred years before the
Christian era, is wrongly supposed by many to have been one of the
_dediti ventri_--a slave to appetite and living only for epicurean
pleasure: a supposition that his name naturally implies. But it should
be recollected that in proposing pleasure or happiness as the supreme
good, he qualified this doctrine by the maxim that temperance is
necessary in order to enjoy the noble and durable pleasures which are
proper to human nature.

However varied the fare and splendid the appointments, the position of
the ancients at table--resting on their left elbows and reclining on
couches as the gnomon and clepsydra noiselessly marked the lapse of
the hours--must have been not only irksome, but one greatly furthering
stomachic maladies. Besides, it must be borne in mind that the ancients
ate with their fingers, while the use of emetics, first in vogue among
the Egyptians, and later on among the Romans in order to forefend
satiety and enable them to prolong their saturnalia, was extremely
common. The ten books of Athenæus give us a complete manual of olden
Greek cookery, and Herodotus, Plutarch, and other authors, if not as
exhaustive, are most fertile in references to the subject. Plato, who
denounced epicureanism and preferred olives to all other kinds of food,
often making his meal from them alone, nevertheless praises Attic
pastry, and extols the baker Thearion, who was noted for the perfection
of his bread.

Besides beef and mutton, kids, the domestic swine, fowls, the wild
boar, the roebuck, hares, rabbits, and numerous game and song birds,
the Greeks were especially fond of the peacock, served in all his
panoply of plumage.

As the Romans considered the mullet the king of fish, so the Greeks
regarded the sole as the _piscis nobilis_. They were served then, as
now, fried, when their size admitted, and likewise were prepared with a
savoury sauce under the name of _citharus_,--

    "The cook produced an ample dish
    Of frizzled soles, those best of fish,
    Embrowned, and wafting through the room,
    All sputtering still, a rich perfume."

Suckling pig was considered a signal delicacy, its charms no doubt
having been set forth in melodious measures in the lost poem of
Archestratus. Indeed, who knows but that the sportive grace of the
"Dissertation upon Roast Pig" may, after all, be Grecian rather than
Anglo-Saxon in essence, and be merely an inspiration caught from some
forgotten Attic author? The sea, on its part, yielded its infinite
treasures, including the oyster, the earth contributing its varied
fruits and esculents. Strong and sweet wine was a common beverage, both
mixed, unmixed, spiced, and scented.

After fish and game, pork was the most esteemed food set upon the
salvers of ancient Greece and Rome--a food in which epicures believed
themselves to have discovered fifty different flavours, or fifty
parts, each possessing an individual taste. At large entertainments,
and even where the guests were only equal in number to the Muses, it
was customary to serve pigs roasted whole, stuffed with sausages and
bursting with _boudins_, or "black pudding." The pig was salted by the
ancients in order to preserve it; but Apicius recommended, for keeping
purposes, that medium-sized pieces of pork be chosen and covered with a
paste composed of salt, vinegar, and honey, and be stored in carefully
closed vessels.

Of ancient recipes, Apicius and Athenæus present a vast array. Soyer
also, in his aspiring, cumbersome, and learned "Pantropheon," affords
convenient access to the mysteries of the Greek and Roman kitchens. But
the only way to pass intelligently upon the cookery of the ancients
would be to try it. It is true that we do not possess their marvellous
digestive powers ere their vigour became impaired by centuries of
unbridled luxury. To young and vigorous stomachs it is possible that,
if accompanied by the appropriate wines, some of their dishes, executed
by a skilful chef who would exercise extreme caution as regards the use
of cummin, rue, coriander, and boiled grapes, might prove an agreeable
surprise party at a dinner _à la Grecque_ or _à la Romaine_. So light
a touch and so discriminating a palate, however, are necessary in
employing certain herbs and spices; so much, moreover, depends upon
knowing the precise moment when an entrée or a ragout has received its
just caress from the flames, that only an artist of the foremost rank
would be able to reproduce some of these dishes with success.

Two especially prized dishes were those termed _myma_ and _mattya_--the
one composed of all kinds of finely minced viands and fowls, seasoned
with vinegar, cheese, onions, honey, raisins, and various spices; the
other a fowl boiled with a great variety of herbs. "Boil a fat hen
and some young cocks just beginning to crow, with some vinegar added
to the water, and in summer with sour grapes in place of the vinegar,
then remove the herbs from the vessel in which they are cooked and
serve portions of the fowls on the herbs, if you wish to make a dish
worthy to be eaten with your wine," enjoins Artimidor in his treatise
of cooking. Finally, Athenæus, in the "Banquet of the Learned," has the
scholarly host Laurentius give his recipe for what he terms the "Dish
of Roses," prepared, he states, in such a way that you may not only
have the ornament of a garland on your head, but also in yourself.

   "'Having pounded a quantity of the most fragrant roses in a
   mortar,' says Laurentius, 'I put in the brains of birds and
   pigs boiled and thoroughly cleansed of all the sinews, and
   also the yolks of eggs, and with them oil, and pickle-juice,
   and pepper and wine. And having pounded all these things
   carefully together, I put them into a new dish, applying a
   gentle and steady fire to them.' And while saying this he
   uncovered the dish, and diffused such a sweet perfume over the
   whole party that one of the guests present said with great
   truth:

      'The winds perfumed, the balmy gale, convey
       Through heav'n, through earth, and all the aërial way'--

   so excessive was the fragrance which was diffused from the
   roses."

Truly a noble _pot-pourri_--meet for the gods of high Olympus. The
pickle-juice, the pepper, and the wine denote the address of a master
in disguising any possible taint of the pen, while the yolks of eggs
and the oil would necessarily blend and assimilate with the attar of
the rose-leaves. Thus does a great architect plan the construction of a
cathedral, or a wizard of the brush adjust his pigments upon a canvas
that is destined to become immortal.

The early Greeks had four meals daily--the breakfast, or _acratisma_;
the dinner, _ariston_ or _deipnon_; the relish, _hesperisma_; and the
supper, _dorpe_. As luxury and cookery advanced, luncheon took the
place of the midday dinner, the latter, among the wealthier classes,
gradually being postponed to a later hour. At all great feasts and
dinners of ceremony, which it was customary to hold in the evening,
the bill of fare was presented to the guests, and huge chalices were
offered them to quaff from.

The frequent and detailed references by the old Greek dramatists,
poets and writers to eating, drinking and banqueting, and to the
various products employed as food, make it apparent to what an extent
gratification of appetite and feasting prevailed.

The reader who would penetrate further into the mysteries of Grecian
cookery may be referred with advantage to Homer's repast of Ulysses at
the home of Eumæus, Athenæus's "Marriage of Caranus," and Barthélemy's
"Feast of Dinias." But Homer's fare which he allowed his heroes was,
with few exceptions, extremely simple. Although he mentions many kinds
of wine, he praises moderation, and never represents either fish or
game as being put upon the table, but "viands of simple kind and
wholesome sort," such as were calculated to render man vigorous in body
and mind, the meat being all roasted and chiefly beef.

Athenæus, in particular, presents the Greek and Oriental kitchens in
all their aspects, and, with his marvellous erudition, proves himself
a very Burton of gastronomy--the most accomplished Master of Feasts
that antiquity has produced. To turn the pages of the "Deipnosophists,
or Banquet of the Learned" is to enter a larder of which he only holds
the key. Thus he introduces Damoxenus, the old Greek comic writer, who
picturesquely portrays a master cook of the period, superintending his
saucepans and directing the preparation of the feast:

    "I never enter in my kitchen, I!
    But sit apart, and in the cool, direct,
    Observant of what passes,--scullions toil.
    ... I guide the mighty whole,
    Explore the causes, prophesy the dish.
    'Tis thus I speak: 'Leave, leave that ponderous ham;
    Keep up the fire, and lively play the flame
    Beneath those lobster patties;' 'Patient here,
    Fix't as a statue, skim, incessant skim.'
    'Steep well this small _glociscus_ in its sauce,
    And boil that sea-dog in a cullender.'
    'This eel requires more salt and marjoram;'
    'Roast well that piece of kid on either side
    Equal;' 'That sweetbread boil not over much.'
    'Tis thus, my friend, I make the concert play.

           *       *       *       *       *

    And then no useless dish my table crowds.
    Harmonious ranged, and consonantly just,
    As in a concert instruments resound,
    My ordered dishes in their courses chime."

The ideal cook is depicted with equal picturesqueness in a lengthy
tribute by Dionysius wherein he thus sums up his qualifications,--

    "Know on thyself thy genius must depend.
    All books of cookery, all helps of art,
    All critic learning, all commenting notes,
    Are vain, if void of genius thou wouldst cook!"

Cratinus, in his play of the "Giants," extols the merits of Sicilian
cookery:

    "Consider now how sweet the earth doth smell,
    How fragrantly the smoke ascends to heaven:
    There lives, I fancy, here within this cave,
    Some perfume-seller, or Sicilian cook."

And Hegesander, in his "Brothers," presents an _archimagirus_, proud
as Lucifer, who sings his own praises in the following grandiloquent
strain:

    "When I am call'd to serve a funeral supper,
    The mourners just return'd, silent and sad,
    Clothed in funereal habits--I but raise
    The cover of my pot, and every face
    Assumes a smile, the tears are wash'd away.
    Charm'd with the grateful flavour, they believe
    They are invited to a wedding-feast.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Let me but have the necessary means,
    A kitchen amply stored, and you shall see
    That like enchantment I will spread around
    A charm as powerful as the siren's voice.

           *       *       *       *       *

            You know not yet
    The worth of him you speak to--look on those
    Whom you see seated round, not one of them
    But would his fortune risk to make me his."

Philemon, in turn, the witty Athenian bard, represents a cook as
pluming himself upon his cunning, and saying:

    "Those who are dead already, when they've smelled
    One of my dishes, come to life again."

Anthippus, too, presents a graduate of the range who was no less
proficient in the resources of his art, and who devised his dishes
according to the age of those who were to partake of them,--

    "Insensible the palate of old age,
    More difficult than the soft lips of youth
    To move, I put much mustard in their dish;
    With quickening sauces make their stupor keen,
    And lash the lazy blood that creeps within."

Nor does Athenæus fail to depict a glutton of the period, transcribed
from Pherecrates:

    "A. I scarcely in one day, unless I'm forced,
        Can eat two bushels and a half of food.

    B. A most unhappy man! how have you lost
       Your appetite, so as now to be content
       With the scant rations of one ship of war?"

Milo of Crotona, Titormus the Ætolian, and Astydamas the Milesian were
still more celebrated; and even Ulysses in his old age is represented
by Homer as eating "endless dishes" and quaffing "unceasing cups of
wine." Gargantua and Pantagruel evidently existed long before the days
of Rabelais, and time will run back to fetch the age of gluttony, as
well as that of gold.

  [Illustration]




  [Illustration]




                       WITH LUCULLUS AND APICIUS

   "Whether woodcock or partridge, what does it signify, if the
   taste is the same? But the partridge is dearer, and therefore
   thought preferable."--MARTIAL, Epigrams, xiii. 76.


Passing from Greece to Italy, we find frugality to have been a
prominent trait of the early Romans, and porridge to have been the
national dish until wheaten bread was introduced from Athens. Like
the Greeks, who received their initial lessons from the Persians, the
Romans derived their knowledge of cookery from Attica, whence they
imported their first masters. The Romans proved apt scholars, and soon
outrivalled their instructors in the pleasures of the table, where the
pomp, luxury, and licentiousness of the times were carried to their
furthest limit. It is indeed well-nigh impossible to conceive the
splendour, prodigality, and sensuality that prevailed during the
Republic and the Empire, when fabulous revenues were squandered at a
single feast, and gluttony and intemperance were the gods of the hour.

  [Illustration: PORTRAIT DU GOURMAND

  After Carle Vernet]

It was towards the decline of the Republic, during the period of Pompey
the Great, Cæsar, and Lucullus, that, dispensing with the culinary
preceptors of Greece, the Roman cuisine attained its greatest celebrity.

For it was at this period that the great ravagers of the world, who
were to carry the name and arms of Rome into distant lands, brought
their cooks with them, who vied with one another in contributing
the most appetising dishes of various countries. It was then when
Antony, intoxicated with the spoils of conquest and more than usually
pleased with the artist of his kitchen, sent for him at the dessert
and presented him with a city of thirty-five thousand inhabitants--an
example followed in a minor way by Henry VIII of England, who rewarded
his cook for having composed a pudding of especial merit by the gift of
a manor. It was then that the Sybarites bestowed public recompense and
marks of distinction upon those who gave the most magnificent banquets,
and especially upon those who invented new dishes.[2] It was then that
the practised epicure professed to distinguish by the taste from what
locality of Italy a wild boar had been procured, or whether a pike had
been caught in the lower or upper Tiber. Thus Horace, in one of the
"Satires":

    "But say by what Discernment are you taught
    To know that this voracious Pike was caught
    Where the full River's lenient Waters glide,
    Or where the Bridges break the rapid Tide:
    In the mid-Ocean, or where Tiber pays
    With broader Course his Tribute to the Seas."[3]

It was then that the rich Romans had at their villas magnificent
_piscinæ_ filled with fresh- and salt-water fishes that might be netted
at a moment's notice to set before their guests. In his ode "On the
Prevailing Luxury," the Venusian bard also alludes to these _vivaria_
and the inordinate fondness for fish of the Romans:

    "Soon regal piles each rood of land
      Will from the farmer's ploughshare take,
    Soon ponds be seen on every hand
      More spacious than the Lucrine lake."[4]

The mansions of the wealthy were likewise provided with splendid
aviaries filled with thrushes that were fed with millet and crushed
figs mixed with wheaten flour. Cygnets and snow-white geese were held
in great repute, and when fattened upon green figs their livers were
highly prized.

Hortensius the consul was among the first to maintain salt-water ponds
stocked with his favourite fish, the red mullet of the Mediterranean.
He was also the introducer of the peacock served in its feathers, a
dish extremely popular during the Republic. Horace proved a better
judge than his many moneyed hosts, and chose the chicken in preference,
asserting that it was the costliness of the bird of Juno and the glory
of his glittering train more than the quality of the flesh that were
prized. Artificial oyster-beds, according to Pliny, were first formed
at Baiæ by Sergius Orata, a contemporary of Crassus the orator, not
for the gratification of gluttony, but as a speculation from which he
derived a large income. He too was the first to adjudge the preëminence
for delicacy of flavour to the oysters of Lake Lucrinus. Preserves were
subsequently formed by others for murenæ, sea-snails, and numerous
saline delicacies.

Like the Hellenes, the Romans had three meals--the breakfast
(_jentaculum_), the luncheon (_prandium_), and the dinner (_cena_).
Originally, as has been the case with all peoples, the dinner was
held in the morning, but with the progress of luxury and owing to the
greater convenience to men of affairs, it became gradually deferred to
late afternoon or evening. Nine was the favourite number of guests at
the _cena_. It was a custom borrowed from the Greeks to appoint a king
or dictator of the feast, who prescribed its laws, which the guests
were bound, under penalties, to obey. By him the quantity of the cups
to be drunk was decided, ten bumpers being the usual allowance--nine
in honour of the Muses, and one to Apollo. Similar to the Grecian
custom, every man who had a mistress was compelled to toast her when
called upon. To this a penalty was sometimes attached, in which case
the challenger was obliged to empty a cup to each letter of the lady's
name. When the gallant had reasons for secrecy, he merely announced the
number of cups which had to be drunk.

The place of tobacco was taken by perfumes at feasts, a practice
carried by the Romans to great excess. Nard and other perfumes in use
being extremely costly, Horace insists upon Virgil contributing them
when he comes to dine in the vale of Ustica. Catullus, also, who asks
his friend Fabullus to dinner, agrees to supply the perfumes, providing
Fabullus bring with him all the other requisites. The spiciness of
the essences doubtless spurred the appetite, and tended to produce a
pleasant languor.[5]

Very numerous plants and herbs were employed as flavourings in the
kitchens of the ancients, such as dill, anise-seed, hyssop, thyme,
pennyroyal, rue, cummin, poppy-seed, shallots, and, naturally, onions,
garlic, and leeks--savoury then taking the place of parsley, which,
though known, was used more as a decoration and worn by guests as
an adornment. Cummin was largely utilised for seasoning. Sorrel was
cultivated by the Romans to increase its size, and, according to
Apicius, was eaten stewed with mustard and seasoned with oil and
vinegar. The carrot was stewed, boiled with cummin and a little oil,
and eaten as a salad, with salt, oil, and vinegar.

Brocoli was an especial favourite with Apicius, the most tender parts
being boiled, with the addition of pepper, chopped onions, cummin
and coriander seed bruised together, and a little oil and sun-made
wine. Turnips were boiled and seasoned with rue, cummin, and benzoin,
pounded in a mortar, adding afterwards honey, vinegar, gravy, boiled
grapes, and oil. Asparagus, which Lamb says inspires gentle thoughts,
was cultivated with notable care. The finest heads were dried, and
when wanted were placed in hot water and boiled. Lucullus and Apicius
ate only those that were grown in the environs of Nesis, a city of
Campania. Beets, mallows, artichokes, and cucumbers were greatly
relished and elaborately prepared, and garlic, extolled by Virgil and
decried by Horace, was generously used.

Apicius, in his treatise "De re Culinaria," gives numerous recipes
for cooking the cabbage--the silken-leaved, curled, and hard white
varieties. From these recipes we at once may judge of his resources,
and obtain an idea of a master vegetable-cook of the period:

   "1. Take only the most delicate and tender part of the
   cabbage, which boil, and then pour off the water; season it
   with cummin seed, salt, old wine, oil, pepper, alisander,
   mint, rue, coriander seed, gravy, and oil.

   "2. Prepare the cabbage in the manner just mentioned, and make
   a seasoning of coriander seed, onion, cummin seed, pepper, a
   small quantity of oil, and wine made of sun raisins.

   "3. When you have boiled the cabbages in water put them into
   a saucepan and stew them with gravy, oil, wine, cummin seed,
   pepper, leeks, and green coriander.

   "4. Add to the preceding ingredients flour of almonds, and
   raisins dried in the sun.

   "5. Prepare them again in the above manner, and cook them with
   green olives."

To what an extent strange condiments, herbs, and other seasonings were
employed, as well as to what a task the human stomach was subjected,
will be apparent from a recipe, given by the same authority, for a
thick sauce for a boiled chicken: "Put the following ingredients
into a mortar: anise-seed, dried mint, and lazer-root (similar to
asafœtida); cover them with vinegar; add dates; pour in garum, oil,
and a small quantity of mustard-seeds; reduce all to a proper thickness
with red wine warmed; and then pour this same over your chicken, which
should previously be boiled in anise-seed water."

With regard to the olden wines, let us be duly grateful for the
progress of viniculture, and thankful that we may read of them,
rather than have to partake of them, to rue the _Katzenjammer_ of the
following morning. For if one must have a headache on rare occasions
as the penalty of dining, it were assuredly less to be deplored if
obtained through a grand vintage of the Marne or the Médoc than from a
wine mixed with sea-water or spices, or old Falernian cloyed with honey
from Mount Hymettus. By all means, if we must drink an excessively
sweet wine, let it be, at most, a glass of Hermitage _paille_ or Muscat
Rivesaltes, iced to snow!

The tables, the plate, and the dinner-service corresponded with the
rarity of the viands and beverages. Cicero's table of lemon-wood cost
him two hundred thousand sesterces, or over seven thousand dollars.
Besides being made of the most precious foreign woods, veined and
spotted to imitate the tiger's and the leopard's skin, they were also
wrought of ivory, silver, bronze, and tortoise-shell.

The drinking-cups of gold and glass, the _nimbus_ and
_ampulla_--crystal chalices, ewers, and flagons in which the luxurious
were wont to mix myrrh, spikenard, and other perfumes with their
wine--were equally costly. Martial extols a jewelled cup: "See how
the gold, begemmed with Scythian emeralds, glistens! How many fingers
does it deprive of jewels!" His lovely description of an exquisitely
chased wine-cup of gold, received from Instantius Rufus, will also be
recalled. Again, he praises a gold dinner-service: "Do not dishonour
such large gold dishes with an insignificant mullet; it ought at least
to weigh two pounds." "I see," says Seneca, "the shell of the tortoise
bought for immense sums and ornamented with the most elaborate care;
I see tables and pieces of wood valued at the price of a senator's
estate, which are all the more precious the more knots the tree has
been twisted into by disease. I see murrhine-cups, for luxury would
be too cheap if men did not drink to one another out of hollow gems
the wine to be afterwards thrown up again." In vain Pompey the Great
and Licinius Crassus strove to cheek the riotous table extravagance,
which continued despite previous and subsequent sumptuary laws for its
suppression.

"To-day," says Pliny, "a cook costs as much as a triumph, a fish as
much as a cook, and no mortal costs more than the slave who knows best
how to ruin his master." Fabulous prices were paid for fish, notably
for the famed red mullet or sea-barbel. Tiberius, who was an exception,
and was not partial to this fish, on being presented with an unusually
large specimen, weighing four and a half pounds, sent it to the market
to be sold. "I will be greatly surprised," he observed, "if the mullet
is not purchased by Apicius or Octavius." It was borne off in triumph
by Octavius, who became celebrated for having paid two hundred dollars
for a fish sold by the emperor and that Apicius himself had not secured.

Seneca also states that the mullet was looked upon as tainted unless
it expired in the hands of the guests, who were provided with glass
vessels in which to put their fish, in order the better to perceive
their changes and motions in the last agony betwixt life and death.
"Look how it reddens!" cries one; "there is no vermilion like it; look
at those lateral veins, see how the grey brightens upon its head, and
now it is at its last gasp, it pales and its inanimate body fades to
a single hue." "The mullet of the ocean is certainly a meritorious
fish," observes Baron Brisse, "but how greatly superior is that of the
Mediterranean!"

This greatly valued fish was the European _Mullus barbatus_, one of the
forty or more different species of the red mullet, found chiefly in the
subtropical parts of the Indo-Pacific Ocean. By far the most abundant
in the Mediterranean, it is nevertheless not uncommon to the coasts
of England and Ireland, though nowhere does it attain so delicate a
flavour as in the Mediterranean. The name is said to have reference to
the scarlet colour of the sandal or shoe worn by the Roman consuls, and
in later times by the emperors, which was called _mullus_.

Like the ruby, the mullet increased rapidly in price when it exceeded
the usual size--the largest weighing scarcely three or four pounds.
Suetonius is authority for the statement that this fish was so esteemed
in his time that three large specimens were sold for thirty thousand
sesterces, or more than a thousand dollars, which caused Tiberius to
enact sumptuary laws and tax the provisions brought to market. The red
mullet, although much less highly thought of than in olden days, is
still in request by the modern French epicure. Francatelli cautions
that it should never be drawn; it is sufficient to remove the gills
only, as the liver and trail are considered the best part--an opinion
held by the Romans. It is possible that, owing to this circumstance, it
has been termed the "sea-woodcock."

The mullet was served by the Romans with a seasoning of pepper, rue,
onions, dates, and mustard, to which was added the flesh of the
sea-hedgehog reduced to a pulp and oil. When the priceless liver alone
was to be eaten by an emperor or a senator, it was cooked and then
seasoned with pepper, salt, or a little garum, some oil was added, and
hare's or fowl's liver, and oil poured over the whole.

The turbot was another favourite supplied by the sea, and one will
remember Martial's panegyric concerning it: "However great the dish
that holds the turbot, the turbot is still greater than the dish."
From the foam-fleeced flocks of Proteus many other fish with strange
names were transferred by the wealthy Romans to their vast aquaria--the
sargus, the harp-fish, the hyca, the synodon, the hespidus, the
chromis, the callichithys,

    "The orphus, the sea-grayling, too, who haunts
    The places where the sea-weed most abounds."

The huge tunny and sturgeon, the tiny anchovy, and, in fact, nearly
every denizen of the ocean appeared upon the Roman tables in some
form. The dolphin was a sacred fish, and was left unmolested to pilot
Triton's car. Even the polypus, sea-urchin, and cuttlefish were held
in great esteem. The scaurus or char, a species unknown to us, and the
murex, an edible purple mussel of which the finest flavoured came from
Baiæ were highly prized. Fatted eels were considered a great delicacy,
and among fresh-water species the tench, carp, and pike were the most
employed. Piscis was the Phryne of the Roman feasts, and dolphins,
whales, and mermaids appear to be the only species that were not
consumed.

According to Juvenal, who relates the story at great length, the
members of Domitian's cabinet were one day suddenly summoned to the
Alban Villa, where they were obliged to remain in waiting while the
emperor gave audience to a fisherman who had brought him an unusually
large _Rhombus_, and when they were finally admitted they found they
had nothing to debate about except whether the fish was to be minced or
cooked in a special dish, there being none of sufficient size in the
imperial kitchens. After mature deliberation, a special receptacle was
decided upon, when the audience was dismissed. The turbot was served
with a _sauce piquante_.

Nor were the affluent nobles and business men far behind the triumvirs,
consuls, and emperors in their ruinous manner of living. Autocracy set
the pace, and her wealthy vassals were not slow to follow. Trimalchio,
the moneyed landholder, was accustomed to serve a wild boar whole, with
a number of live fieldfares inside, ready to fly out as soon as they
were given their liberty by Carpus, his professional carver. These, as
they fluttered about the room, were caught by fowlers with reeds tipped
with bird-lime.

The minute account of one of Trimalchio's dinners, given by the
licentious Latin classicist Petronius Arbiter, descriptive of the
viands, beverages, service, and table customs of the day, may be
advantageously consulted by those whose powers of digestion are strong
enough to enable them to consider a representative feast during the
reign of Nero at the home of this ostentatious host. The elaborate
first course is described as terminating with the appearance of a
servant bearing a silver skeleton so artfully constructed that its
joints and backbone turned in all directions; when, having cast it
several times upon the table and causing it to assume various postures,
Trimalchio cried out, "Of such are we--let us live while we may!" The
first course finished, the second was presented in the form of a large
circular tray with the twelve signs of the zodiac surrounding it, upon
each of which the arranger had placed an appropriate dish--on Aries,
ram's-head pies; on Taurus, a piece of roasted beef; on Gemini, kidneys
and lamb's fry; on Cancer, a crown; on Leo, African figs; on Virgo, a
young sow's haslet; on Libra, a pair of scales, in one of which were
tarts, in the other cheese-cakes; on Scorpio, a little sea-fish of
the same name; on Sagittarius, a hare; on Capricorn, a lobster; on
Aquarius, a goose; on Piscis, two mullets, while in the centre spread a
green turf on which lay a honeycomb. It will be readily apparent that
the modern French chef does not stand alone in his skill of producing
a _pièce-montée_. Meanwhile, an Egyptian slave carried bread in a
silver portable oven, singing a song in praise of wine flavoured with
laserpitium. Whereupon four attendants came dancing in to the sound of
music, and, removing the upper part of the tray, there was revealed on
a second tray beneath stuffed fowls, a sow's paps, and in the middle
a hare fitted with wings to resemble Pegasus. At the several corners
stood four figures of Marsyas spouting a highly seasoned sauce on a
school of fish.

At the third course a very large hog was brought in, much larger even
than the wild boar that had been previously served. This was followed
by a young calf, boiled whole, with more wine, perfumes, fruits, and
sweetmeats--thrushes in pastry, stuffed with nuts and raisins, and
quinces stuck over with prickles to resemble sea-urchins. "Only command
him," exclaimed the host, "and my cook will make you a fish out of a
pig's chitterlings, a wood-pigeon out of the lard, a turtle-dove out of
the gammon, and a hen out of the shoulder!"

Apparently, the artist of Trimalchio was no less fertile in resources
and liberal ideas of expenditure than the chef of the Prince of
Soubise, who, on being taken to task by his employer for including
fifty hams for a single supper, replied:

"Only one will appear upon the table, monseigneur; the rest are not the
less necessary for my _espagnole_, my _blonds_, my _garnitures_, my--"

"Bertrand, you are plundering me."

"Oh, monseigneur," replied the conjurer, "you do not understand our
resources; say the word, and these fifty hams which confound you--I
will put them all into a glass bottle no bigger than your thumb!"

To be sure, the accounts given by Petronius Arbiter, Juvenal, Martial,
and other satirists must be taken with some limitation. Yet, making all
due allowance for exaggeration, it is hardly to be wondered at that
many of the olden rulers and opulent personages, armed with unbounded
power and possessed of unlimited riches, should have yielded so
abjectly to luxury and vice as to have fully warranted the stricture of
Juvenal:

    "The baffled sons must feel the same desires,
    And act the same mad follies as their sires.
    _Vice has attained its zenith._..."

These accounts, moreover, attested as they are by serious annalists,
may not be dismissed as largely imaginative or grossly exaggerated.
The strictures on the besetting vices that occur in the contemporary
works of historians, moralists, philosophers, and poets are far too
vehement and voluminous to leave any doubt of the inordinate abuse
of the table among the ancients, particularly among the Romans, when
their wealthy capital, as Propertius records, "was beset all round
in its own victories." It was the period of insatiable voracity and
the peacock's plume. Even Martial was careful to state that it was
vices, not personages, to which his scourge was applied. His caustic
and highly seasoned epigrams deal largely with the dinner-table, and
from these one may derive a most realistic idea of the bill of fare of
his contemporaries, as well as of the varied and luxurious character
of the presents made to the guests at feasts. The excesses of eating
and drinking are roundly denounced by him at every turn, while his
picture of the crapulous Santra in the Seventh Book is only equalled by
the "Portrait of a Gourmand" of Carle Vernet, or Spenser's etching of
"Gluttony" in the "Faerie Queene."

Horace in particular, a scholar, poet, and man of the world, the
friend of Mæcenas, and an onlooker and frequenter of society, may be
accepted as a competent authority on the table manners and customs of
the times. No one more than he was aware of the gross extravagance and
intemperance of the age. Nor has any writer depicted his own and the
everyday life of the Romans more vividly. To peruse him attentively
in the "Satires," "Epistles," "Epodes," and "Odes," is to take part
in the feasts, be admitted to the inner circle of the _optimates_,
knock at the door of Lydia, and join in the pageant of the Sacra Via.
The table of Mæcenas, the rich voluptuary and dilettante, who had
a palace on the Esquiline Hill, where Horace was often a guest, was
widely celebrated. As the poet was a visitor also at the palace of
Augustus, and numbered among his friends the most eminent men of Rome,
he had unusual opportunities to become acquainted both with the _vie
intime_ and _haute cuisine_ of his day. While not a gastronomer, he was
far from averse to good living, though, from his digestion not being
of the soundest, he had frequent cause to rue the sumptuous banquets,
borrowed from the Asiatic Greeks, which were in vogue at the time. And
while he was a frequent attendant at the entertainments of the wealthy,
we nevertheless find him constantly censuring their intemperance and
extravagance at table. For himself, he would have "simple dinners,
richly dressed," and "let the strong toil give relish to the feast."
Rare old Cæcuban, Falernian, and Massic, Mæcenas might pour out at home
from his well-filled amphoræ into chased crystal cups and vessels of
gold--at the Sabine farm the common Sabine wine in modest goblets would
alone be tendered him.

If we may regard the elaborate repast of Nasidienus as a typical one,
we may readily conceive the nightmares that must have ensued from such
a plenitude of viands and wines and such copious libations. The student
of Horace will remember the menu. First a Lucanian boar, surrounded by
excitants to the appetite--

    "Rapes, Lettuce, Radishes, Anchovy-Brine
    With Skerrets, and the Lees of Coan Wine."

Fish and wild fowl, lampreys and shrimps, succeeded, washed down with
brimmers of Cæcuban, Alban, Falernian, and vintages of Greece; and
finally, as the feast and the night wore on,

    "The Slaves behind in mighty Charger bore
    A Crane in Pieces torn, and powder'd o'er
    With Salt and Flour, and a white Gander's Liver,
    Stuff'd fat with Figs, bespoke the curious Giver;
    Besides the Wings of Hares, for, so it seems,
    No man of Luxury the Back esteems.
    Then saw we Black-birds with o'er roasted Breast,
    Laid on the Board, and Ring-Doves Rump-less drest!
    Delicious Fare! did not our Host explain
    Their various Qualities in endless Strain,
    Their various Natures; but we fled the Feast,
    Resolved in Vengeance nothing more to taste,
    As if Canidia, with empoison'd Breath,
    Worse than a Serpent's, blasted it with Death."[6]

That Nasidienus was proverbially penurious, was guilty of purchasing
tainted game in order to save expense, and would have been chary of
his wines had it not been for Servilius, who cried loudly for "larger
goblets," leads one to conclude that even his repast was far below
those of the pampered upper classes in its prodigality.

Apicius, who is referred to by Pliny, Seneca, Juvenal, and Martial,
is said to have squandered nearly four million dollars in riotous
living, when, looking over his accounts, he found he had only about a
tenth of that amount remaining, and, unwilling to starve on such a
pittance, he poisoned himself. Of the three persons bearing the name of
Apicius, one of whom lived in the times of Sulla, another during the
reign of Tiberius, and the third under Trajan, none is supposed to be
the author of "De re Culinaria," since published in so many different
editions, a work now ascribed to Cœlius, who, in admiration of
the renowned Marcus Gabius, termed himself Apicius. The latter, the
richest of the three who bore the name by right, vied with royalty in
his regal tastes. He is reported as having voyaged to Africa expressly
to ascertain whether the crawfish there were superior to those he was
accustomed to have at Minturnæ; but finding them inferior, he returned
immediately, without setting foot to land. "Look at Nomentanus and
Apicius," says Seneca, "who digest all the good things, as they call
them, of the sea and the land, and review upon their tables the whole
animal kingdom. Look at them as they lie on beds of roses, gloating
over their banquet and delighting their ears with music, their eyes
with exhibitions, their palates with flavours."

Where the deliciously scented cyclamen carpets the shore of the
Mediterranean in myriads at Baiæ, Apicius repaired to savour
shell-fish--"the manna of the sea"--and from the self-same sea that
laves the isle of Capri and rolls its azure wave into the famed blue
grotto, Tiberius sent turbots to him that Apicius was not rich enough
to buy himself.

Yet far exceeding Apicius, who was almost deified for discovering how
to maintain oysters fresh and alive during long journeys, was his
predecessor Lucullus, the wealthy general, a great patron of learning
and the arts, as well as the king of epicures. Juvenal has etched his
portrait in four lines:

    "Stretch'd on the unsocial couch, he rolls his eyes
    O'er many an orb of matchless form and size,
    Selects the fairest to receive his plate,
    And at one meal devours a whole estate."

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.

  [Illustration: LE LIVRE DE TAILLEVENT

  Facsimile of the title-page of the edition of 1545]




  [Illustration]




                      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."

But the Grand Monarque, after all, was a ravenous rather than a
distinguished eater. As is not unfrequently the case with such persons,
he used alcoholic beverages in comparative moderation. He was, however,
fond of hippocras, a drink composed of white or red wine, honey, and
aromatics, borrowed from the ancients; and in his advanced age, as
is well known, cordials were invented to solace his declining years.
Champagne was his favourite wine. "Sire," said the president of a
deputation bringing specimens of the various productions of Rheims to
the monarch when he visited the city in 1666, "we offer you our wine,
our pears, our gingerbread, our biscuits, and our hearts!" The king
proved loyal to the wine of the Marne until Burgundy, largely diluted,
was prescribed by his last physician, Fagon, whom Molière satirised
as Dr. Purgon in "Le Malade Imaginaire"--a physician who, during the
old age of the king, rendered his life miserable by cutting him off
one by one from his favourite dishes. That he needed to be restrained,
despite his robust constitution and open-air life, is apparent from the
statement of the Duchesse d'Orléans that she had frequently seen him
consume four plates of different soups, a whole pheasant, a partridge,
a large plate of salad, a large portion of mutton, two good slices of
ham, a plateful of sweetmeats, and fruit and preserves.

Thus, while Louis himself is not entitled to distinction as an epicure,
and his personal example failed to furnish inspiration for his cooks,
his table was always maintained on a scale befitting his station.
There were, besides, dainty entremets to be supplied to La Vallière,
Montespan, Fontanges, and Maintenon, and new surprises must perforce
be placed before his numerous guests of distinction. Among such dishes
was the famous cod, or _morue à la crême_, which immortalised the
Marquis de Béchamel. Like Lucullus and Apicius, moreover, Condé and
Fouquet, with their princely revenues and luxurious tastes, appeared to
stimulate the art and further the pleasures of the table.

Madame de Montespan, with her temper, naturally proved a good cook,
and did not disdain an occasional séance with the stew-pans. She is
credited with having invented a sauce and encouraging every art that
ministered to the service of the table, even to expending a sum of nine
thousand livres for a wine-cooler. Fouquet's table, over which Vatel
presided, and subsequently that of Condé under the same artist, to say
nothing of the splendidly equipped establishment of Fouquet's successor
Colbert, were scarcely less renowned than the kitchens of Versailles.
The grand fête in honour of the king given by Fouquet, Marquis of
Belle-Isle, at Vaux, will be remembered, as also the jealousy of his
Majesty at the lavish hospitality of his superintendent of finance.

Equally sumptuous were the entertainments of the Prince de Condé, in
whose cuisine during certain seasons there were regularly consumed as
many as a hundred and fifty pheasants a week.

Meanwhile, Molière and Boileau had sung the praises of gastronomy, but
not to that degree which was to charm France during the consulate and
the empire, when its harp had been touched by the facile fingers of
Berchoux.

Numerous cook-books had already appeared and exerted their influence
since the "Viandier" first pointed out the way. He who would give a
dinner _à la Louis XIV_ should consult "Les Délices de la Campagne,"
a volume published in 1654, of which many editions were afterwards
issued, the author being Nicolas de Bonnefons, valet de chambre of
the king. From this treatise one may form an idea of the variety and
profusion of the dishes then in vogue, and to what perfection and
luxury the science had attained.[9] In the previous year appeared the
celebrated "Pastissier François," the Amsterdam edition of which is
among the most famous of the Elzevirs--a copy originally priced at a
few sous having been sold for ten thousand francs, which would seem a
rather exorbitant price to pay for instructions in seventeenth-century
pastry-making and preparing eggs for fat and lean days.

The tragic death of Vatel by his own hand, owing to the non-arrival
of the sea-fish at Chantilly, is too well known to need narrating.
Vatel, the victim of his art, was also an author, having contributed
an illustrated treatise on carving entitled "l'Escuyer Tranchant,"
an accomplishment which he states could scarcely be acquired without
the ministration and the precepts of the master--_sans la voye et les
preceptes du maistre_. A paragraph will serve to show the nature and
scope of his contribution to culinary literature:

   "A carver should be well bred, inasmuch as he should maintain
   a first rank among the servants of his master. Pleasing,
   civil, amiable, and well disposed, he should present himself
   at table with his sword at his side, his mantle on his
   shoulder, and his napkin on his left arm, though some are in
   the habit of placing it on the guard of their sword in an
   unobjectionable manner. He should make his obeisance when
   approaching the table, proceed to carve the viands, and
   divide them understandingly according to the number of the
   guests. Ordinarily he should station himself by the side of
   his master, carving with knives suitable to the size of the
   meats. A carver should be very scrupulous in his deportment,
   his carriage should be grave and dignified, his appearance
   cheerful, his eye serene, his head erect and well combed,
   abstaining as much as possible from sneezing, yawning, or
   twisting his mouth, speaking very little and directly, without
   being too near or too far from the table."

Assuredly, one who observed such nicety in his carving must have been
extremely painstaking in compounding his _liaisons_. Indeed, the
conscientiousness manifest throughout the pages of his manual easily
enables one to foresee how his chagrin at the absence of the roast at
two of the tables and his not having received the fish at the fête
of Condé so preyed upon his mind as to lead him, during a moment
of despair, to fall upon his own sword.[10] With his sense of the
proprieties so highly keyed, one can also fancy how he must have been
shocked on hearing of the prince's awkwardness at a tavern where Condé,
after proclaiming his ability as a cook before a number of companions,
ignominiously overturned an omelette into the fire, and was compelled
to return the spider to the more skilful hands of the hostess. A
similar gaucherie is related of Napoleon I when, one day at the
Tuileries, insisting on taking the place of the Empress Marie-Louise,
who was making an omelette herself in her own apartments, he awkwardly
flipped it on the floor, and was obliged to confess his inaptitude and
allow the empress to proceed with her cooking.

During the regency of Philippe d'Orléans, attention became directed to
the chemistry of cooking, the dinners of the regent being celebrated
for their combination of refinement and art--"for splendidly larded
viands, matelotes of the most tempting quality, and turkeys superbly
stuffed."

Louis XV, who was himself a practitioner of remarkable skill,
continued, with the aid of his cooks--Moustier and Vincent de la
Chapelle--to foster the development which his predecessors had
promoted. "Who could enumerate," says Mercier, "all the dishes of
the new cuisine? It is an absolutely new idiom. I have tasted viands
prepared in so many ways and fashioned with such art that I could not
imagine what they were." "Louis XV ate astoundingly," says Barbier;
"although his stomach was extremely elastic, he forced it to such an
extent that his indigestions were of great frequency, and called for
constant medication. Already at an early age he became a great drinker
of champagne, and set the mode for cold pâtés of larks. The table was
the only serious occupation of his life." On hunting-days it was a
frequent practice of the king to give a dinner for his courtiers at
which each was called upon to prepare a dish. De la Gorse mentions
a dinner given at St. Hubert where all the dishes were prepared by
the Prince de Beaufremont, the Marquis de Polignac, and the Ducs de
Gontaut, d'Ayen, de Coigny, and de la Vallière, the king on his part
contributing the _poulets au basilic_.

At this period there appeared, among innumerable cook-books, a work of
four volumes entitled, "Suppers of the Court," a treatise which has
been pronounced one of the best and most complete of its kind.[11]
To Louis XV belongs the invention of _tables volantes_, or, to speak
more truly, the revival of tables à la Trimalchio--like those devised
during the times of the old Romans--which descended after each course
through the floor, to appear reladen with new surprises. It was to
this monarch, who insisted that women could not rise to the sublime
heights of the cuisine, that Madame du Barry gave the successful supper
from which, it was said, originated the order of the _cordon bleu_ for
accomplished artisans of her sex. This was the menu, as elaborated
by the best cuisinière that the reigning favourite could procure:
_Coulis de faisan_, _petites croustades de foie de lottes_, _salmis de
bécassines_, _pain de volaille à la suprème_, _poularde au cresson_,
_écrevisses au vin de sauterne_, _biscuits de pêches au noyau_, _crême
de cerneaux_, and _fraises au marasquin_. Lady Morgan asserts, however,
that this title was first given to Marie, a celebrated cuisinière
of the tax-gatherer who built the palace of l'Elysée Bourbon. Still
another explanation of the term is that it originated with Madame de
Maintenon, who established a school at St. Cyr for the education of
the orphan daughters of ennobled officers. The pupils were carefully
instructed in the culinary art, and to those who excelled a blue ribbon
was presented as a badge of reward.

Again, if we accept a reference of Albert Glatigny in one of his two
airy poems on old Versailles, the term would appear to concern the
Marquise de Montespan, who, as has already been stated, was a cook of
no little merit:

    "Parfois le soir, au bras d'un militaire
      Vêtu d'azur, arrogant comme un paon,
    Un cordon-bleu passait avec mystère,
      Et l'on disait, 'Louis et Montespan!'"

    (Sometimes at eve, on arm of cavalier
      Bedight in blue, like some proud peacock's van,
    A cordon-bleu pass'd by with mystic air,
      The while one said, "Louis and Montespan!")

In order to captivate the affections of her royal master more readily,
the Duchesse de Châteauroux secured the most versatile kitchener who
was to be found; and the wily and beautiful Marquise de Pompadour,
thinking that the surest way to a man's heart is through his stomach,
created _filets de volaille à la bellevue_, _palais de bœuf à la
Pompadour_, and _tendrons d'aigneau à la soleil_. But the Louis were
proverbially fickle--there were fillettes as well as filets; and while
these culinary novelties appealed to the jaded royal palate for the
time, they failed to retain the royal affections or wrest the monarch
from his life of dissipation.

The refinements of the science were lost upon Louis XVI, whose robust
appetite needed only to be appeased by "pieces of resistance"--the
art, nevertheless, continuing to flourish under the nobility, the
wealthy financiers, and the ecclesiastics. New discoveries continued
to be made, and the relation of cookery to man's psychical nature--the
affinity of the spirit with the stomach--became more and more apparent.
Thus it was observed by the Maréchal de Mouchy, who so valiantly
defended the king when the palace was attacked by a mob, that the flesh
of the pigeon possesses especial sedative or consoling virtues. It was
accordingly his wont, whenever he had lost a relative or a friend, to
say to his cook:

"You will serve me with two roast pigeons for dinner; I have noticed
that after eating a brace of pigeons I arise from the table feeling
much more resigned."

During the Revolution, when the court had ceased to exist and private
establishments were no longer maintained, cookery necessarily
languished for a period--to blossom anew in that familiar feature of
the French capital, the restaurant. Internal dissension, in closing
the hôtels of the wealthy, was thus the means of throwing numbers of
master-cooks out of employment, who subsequently turned restaurateurs,
and not a few of whom became millionaires. With the restaurants, the
dealers in delicacies and provisions increased proportionately, and
dining and good living advanced apace.

A striking example of a gastronomer philanthropist is that of the
Vicomte de Barras, surnamed _le beau_, who flourished during the
Directory, and who was celebrated for his dinners, his prodigality,
and his gallantry. During his later years he continued to entertain
sumptuously, although obliged to confine himself to a single dish--a
large plate of rusk moistened with the juice of an underdone leg of
mutton. At his banquets a lackey was always stationed back of the
chair of each guest to see that he was never obliged to wait. Among
the countless menus of his entertainments, the following, signed by
himself and accompanied by a note in his own handwriting, will show the
excellence of his dinners and his solicitude for his guests. It will be
noted that, apart from the lavish provision made for the gentler sex in
the dessert, the menu was one of quality as opposed to mere quantity:

                            Carte Dinatoire
             Pour La Table Du Citoyen Directeur et Général
                     Barras, Le Décadi 30 Floréal.

                           Douze personnes.

    1 potage.                             2 plats de rôt.
    1 relevé.                             6 entremets.
    6 entrées.                            1 salade.
                         24 plats de dessert.

    Le potage aux petits oignons à la ci-devant minime.
    Le relevé, un troncon d'esturgeon à la broche.

                           Les Six Entrées:

    1 d'un sauté de filets de turbot à l'homme de confiance, ci-devant
      maître-d'hôtel.
    1 d'anguilles à la tartare.
    1 de concombres farcis à la moelle.
    1 vol-au-vent de blanc de volaille à la Béchamel.
    1 d'un ci-devant St. Pierre sauce aux câpres.
    1 de filets de perdrix en anneaux.

                        Les Deux Plats de Rôt:

    1 de goujons du département.
    1 d'une carpe au court-bouillon.

                          Les Six Entremets:

    1 d'œufs à la neige.
    1 betteraves blanches sautés au jambon.
    1 d'une gelée au vin de Madère.
    1 de beignets de crême à la fleur d'oranger.
    1 de lentilles à la ci-devant reine à la crême au blond de veau.
    1 de culs d'artichauts à la ravigote.

                     1 salade céleri en rémoulade.

Beneath the bill of fare were these remarks, signed "Barras":

   "There is too much fish. Leave out the gudgeons; the rest is
   all right. Do not forget to place cushions on the chairs of
   the _citoyennes_ Tallien, Talma, Beauharnais, Hainguerlot, and
   Mirande. And for five o'clock precisely. Have the ices sent
   from Veloni's; I don't want any others."

The first restaurant is generally said to have been established in
Paris about the middle of the eighteenth century (1765) by a cook
named Boulanger, in the rue des Poulies, with this device to herald
its purpose: _Venite omnes qui stomacho laboratis, et ego restaurato
vos_--"Come all ye that labour with the stomach, and I will restore
you." Grimod de la Reynière, however, mentions a certain Champ d'Oiseau
as the first of his calling, his establishment being in the rue des
Poulies and dating from 1770. The Marquis de Cussy, in turn, who is
also a good authority, has credited the signboard of the first Parisian
restaurant to a man named Lamy.

The motto and signboard were a conspicuous part of the olden tavern,
restaurant, and inn, as well as other shops devoted to retail trade,
and one views with regret, both on the Continent and in Great Britain,
the increasing disappearance of this picturesque feature. At one time
the signboard was obligatory on every landlord and vender of wines
and liquors, and scarce a century ago few public places that provided
for the entertainment of man and beast were without their illuminated
indices.

Among the most common in France was that of _La Truie qui file_, or the
Spinning Pig, in vogue among merchants of provisions. _A la Marmite
de Gargantua_ and _Aux Moutons de Panurge_ were favourite signs of
restaurants. The frequent _Lion d'Or_ of hotels and taverns often
represented a traveller asleep--_au lit on dort_. _Au Cheval blanc_, a
very popular title, was usually accompanied by the traditional phrase,
_Ici on loge à pied et à cheval_. The traveller who has visited the
smaller towns of France and who remembers his dinners will associate
many an excellent table d'hôte with the shield of the white charger.
_Au bon Coign_ was a sign in favour with wine-shops situated at a
corner of a street, while _Au Saint Jean-Baptiste_ was a common device
of linen-merchants. A wine-merchant opposite Père-Lachaise had these
words printed on his ensign, _Ici on est mieux qu'en face_. A not
unfrequent Parisian signboard was that of an ox dressed with bonnet,
veil, and shawl, to signify _bœuf à la mode_. A pastry-cook's
manifesto depicted a little girl climbing up to reach some cakes in
a pantry, with the title, _A la petite Gourmande_. A corset-maker's
sign was accompanied by a large corsage, with this explanation of its
office, _Je soutiens les faibles, je comprime les forts, je ramène
les égarés_. The emblem of a stocking-maker represented a grisette
trying on a new pair of hose and exhibiting her nether charms to an
admirer--with the motto, _A la belle occasion_. Among the wittiest of
old enseignes was that of a Paris boot-maker named Nicque, who had for
his device a splendid bouquet of flowers, with the inscription _Aux
Amateurs de la Botte à Nicque_. Representations of the sun and the moon
were among the oldest and most common signs both on the Continent and
in England, the sixteenth-century French poet Désiré Arthus writing in
his "Loyaulté Consciencieuse des Taverniers":

    "Sur les chemins des grands villes et champs,
    Ne trouverez de douze maisons l'une,
    Qui n'ait enseigne d'un soleil, d'une lune.
    Tous vendant vin, chascun à son quartier."

    (On roads that wind through town and field,
    Not one in twelve but flaunts the shield
    Of sun or moon, whose beams benign
    Proclaim an inn dispensing wine.)

Early in 1800 the rue Vivienne was celebrated for its numerous
artistic signs, some of which were suspended from the lintels, and
others painted on the door-posts and window-frames. These, with the
picturesque street-criers and the olden sun-dials, have gradually
become more and more a thing of the past in the French capital,
though they still add to the charm and quaintness of some of the old
provincial towns, where modern ways have been more slow to intrude.
How, of a gusty day or on the rising of the wind, the old signs creak
on their rusty hinges in the dark vaulted streets, telling of the
roysterings that have been held within--of the flashing of rapiers and
clash of swords, the draining of bumpers and clink of louis d'or!

  [Illustration: THE CRIES OF PARIS: "OLD CLOTHES, OLD LACES!"

  Facsimile of an old French plate]

Previous to the restaurants, the kitchens of the inns, which were
usually poor, and the tables d'hôte of some of the hotels had meagrely
provided for the wants of those who were unable to provide for
themselves in houses of their own. Towards the end of the century
the restaurant of Beauvilliers and others were flourishing, that
of Beauvilliers closing in 1793 to be reopened with less success
at the termination of the Revolution. Robert, former chef of a
_fermier-général_, the distinguished Méot and his scholars Véry, Riche,
Hardy, and Roze, were among notable masters of the time. The "Manuel
des Amphitryons" (1808) pronounced Robert the elder "the greatest cook
of the present age."

About the beginning of the century the table of the great Cambacères
was the most renowned in Paris, and M. d'Aigrefeuille was considered
the most eminent epicure. The Prince de Talleyrand was also a most
distinguished amateur, having been termed "the first fork of his
time." At the advanced age of eighty, it was his custom to spend nearly
an hour every morning with his cook, discussing the dishes which were
to compose the dinner, his only repast. It had long been one of his
tenets that a careful and healthful cuisine, presided over by the best
artist he could procure, would tend to preserve his health and forefend
serious maladies far better than a staff of physicians. For a period of
twelve years Carême was his culinary director, with carte blanche to
exercise his subtlest skill. Two things, Talleyrand used to say, are
essential in life--to give good dinners and keep well with women, a
precept he always followed. An axiom of diplomatists and statesmen goes
still farther--that poor dinners are conducive to poor diplomacy, and
bad ministerial dinners are equivalent to bad laws and bad negotiations.

The first volume of the "Almanach des Gourmands" (1804) is dedicated
to M. d'Aigrefeuille, whom the author adjudged most worthy of such
pre-eminence--"a connoisseur who is the most erudite arbiter of refined
alimentary combinations, and who understands most thoroughly the
difficult and little known art of extracting the greatest possible
part from an excellent repast." Besides referring to him as setting
daily the finest table in Paris, he is extolled as "the guest best
adapted to honour an opulent table by his delightful manners, his
profound knowledge of the world, and the constantly varied charm of his
inexhaustible appetite and conversation."

Beauvilliers, once chef of Monsieur, brother of the king, was also
the author of a cook-book which achieved marked success,[12] the
writer carrying out in cookery the precept that Délille had applied to
gardening:

    "Mais ce grand art exige un artiste qui pense,
    Prodigue de génie et non pas de dépense."

    (But this grand art demands an artist of taste--
    Prodigal of genius and devoid of all waste.)

In his fluent dedication to the Marquis de Voppalière, the writer says:

   "I have not been unmindful of economy, either in the
   manipulation or the preservation of foods.... I have sought
   to teach how, with little outlay, one may have exquisite
   viands, and at the same time derive both health and pleasure.
   Good living is at once the luxury which costs the least; and
   perhaps of all pleasures it is the most innocent.... You
   have always held, monsieur, that Wisdom itself should strew
   flowers in the midst of the thorns that are inseparable from
   existence. Often at a banquet Wisdom may renew its moral
   forces. The bonds of society become narrowed, and rivals or
   enemies are merged into friends or guests. Persons who are
   entire strangers to each other share in the intimacy of the
   family, differences of rank become obliterated, weakness is
   united to power, manners are polished, and the mind takes a
   fresh flight (_l'esprit électrisé prend un nouvel essor_).
   It is perchance in the midst of banquets in the best society
   of Paris and Versailles that you have acquired that urbanity
   which characterises you, that familiarity with the _grand
   monde_ which is enabled to pronounce on everything at a
   glance."

Every great cook should be able to say with him, "I have inaugurated
reforms, improvements, in order to advance from what is good to what is
better." Already, "l'Art du Cuisinier" draws attention to the fact that
"new dishes," to a large extent, are not new dishes--a chef supplies
some new decoration to a _plat_, adds to or leaves off some ingredient,
and christens it with a different name.

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]




  [Illustration]




                          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.

  [Illustration: FIRST OF SEPTEMBER

  From the engraving after A. Cooper, R.A.]

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.

    "Mustard is meete for brawne | beef or powdred motoun;
    verdius to boyled capoun | veel | chiken | or bakon;
    And to signet | & swan, convenyant is the chawdon,
    Roost beeff | & goos | with garlek, vinegre, or pepur, in
      conclusioun.

    "Gynger sawce to lambe, to kyd | pigge, or fawn | in fere;
    to feysand, partriche, or cony | mustard with the sugure;
    Sawce gamelyn to heyron-sewe | egret | crane | & plovere;
    also | brewe | Curlew | sugre & salt | with watere of the
      ryvere...."

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.

    "Playce with wyne; & pike withe his reffett;
    the galantyne for the lamprey | where they may be gete;
    verdius to roche | darce | breme | soles | & molett;
    Baase, flowndurs | Carpe | Cheven | Synamome ye ther-to sett...."

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."

A strange entremets was one termed _Vyolette_, accompanied by these
directions: "Take Flourys of Vyolet, boyle hem, presse hem, bray hem
smal, temper hem vppe with Almaunde mylke, or gode Cowe Mylke, a-lye
it with Amyndown or Flowre of Rys; take Sugre y-now, an putte ther-to,
or hony in defaute; coloure it with the same that the flowrys be on
y'peynted a-boue."

That excellent dish civet of hare was termed Harys in Cyueye, saffron,
ale, and vinegar being then utilised in its preparation. _Pain perdu_
figured as Payn pur-dew, and may have been as useful then as now
for a simple dessert where a saving of time and material entered
into consideration, the olden recipe being not unlike that of modern
times. Oysters are presented as Oystres in cevey, Oystres in grauey
bastard, and Oystres in bruette. There are also Fylettys en Galentyne,
Lange Wortys de chare, Blamanger of Fysshe, Ruschewys of Marw,
Pety permantes, Chawettys a-forsed, Flathonys, and similar curious
compounds. Meat- and fish-pies were known by the French appellation
"crustade," the favourite English pork-pie being apparently unfamiliar
to very olden writers, or else so disguised as to be unrecognisable.

Boar-pies were known, however, in Elizabeth's era, when they were
esteemed a great dainty. A consignment of these, it is related, was
sent by Sir Robert Sydney, while governor of Flushing in The Hague, to
his wife as a bait to propitiate the ministers to grant him a leave of
absence. The pies were duly presented by Lady Sydney to Lord Essex
and my Lord Treasurer, and proved so excellent that the next time the
petition of Sir Robert was presented to her Majesty the secretary knelt
down, beseeching her to hear him in behalf of her homesick ambassador,
and to license his return for six weeks. It is probable that the
queen herself did not share in the presents, inasmuch as she remained
obdurate to the pleadings of the ministers and the ladies of the court.

Under the rule of Elizabeth, fish formed an important article of diet,
statute laws being established for their consumption, with heavy
penalties to the offender--a measure adopted for the better maintenance
of shipping interests and the lesser consumption of flesh food.
Besides the usual Lenten obligations to Neptune, Friday and Saturday
of each week were additionally set apart for fish days, an alimentary
compulsion which soon became extremely distasteful.

Numerous bills of fare of banquets are given in the "Kalendare,"
including that of the coronation of Henry IV and the banquet of his
second marriage in 1404. It would appear that the ecclesiasts were
among the most princely entertainers, as evidenced by the bills of
fare of the feast of Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln; a dinner
given by John Chandler, Bishop of Salisbury; an entertainment held in
1424 on the occasion of the funeral of Nicholas Budwith, Bishop of
Bath and Wells; and several others. In point of variety these feasts
might rank with those of ancient Rome. Venison, boar's head, veal,
oxen, and various pieces of roast figure in the courses. Among the
birds and wild fowl were capons, herons, cranes, peacocks, swans,
pheasants, and wild geese, together with innumerable smaller kinds,
such as plover, fieldfares, partridges, quail, snipe, teal, curlew,
woodcock, and larks. But the elaborate banquet where as many as a
hundred and four peacocks dressed in their plumage were included among
the "subtleties" was by no means a common occurrence, and the accounts
of these entertainments, together with the lavish festivities of
Christmas, should not be accepted as a criterion of the usual mode of
English living among the wealthy. The division line between the rich
and the poor, besides, was far more marked than at present, and it is
questionable whether even the higher classes, despite their occasional
excessive prodigality, maintained the same luxurious state of service
the year round as their modern successors.

The many carols on the boar's head and on ale which have come down to
us from old MSS. show in what request the one stood as a viand and the
other as a beverage. At certain seasons it was the habitual custom to
serve a particular dish first, as a boar's head at Christmas,--

    "Furst set forthe mustard & brawne of boore, the wild swyne,"--

a goose at Michaelmas, and a gammon of bacon at Easter. The boar's
head was set upon its neck upon the platter, with an apple or a lemon
in its mouth and sprigs of rosemary in its ears and nose, the platter
being additionally decorated with garlands. Thus garnished and heralded
by trumpets, it was borne to the king's table on a salver of gold or
silver by the server, followed by a procession of nobles, knights, and
ladies. In Scotland it was sometimes brought to table surrounded by
banners displaying the colours and achievements of the baron at whose
board it was served. From time immemorial the double loin or baron of
beef has been a royal dish, and one especially selected is always sent
from Windsor to Osborne to appear at the dinner-table, accompanied by
that other Christmas dish, the boar's head, sent of late from Germany.
The oldest carol on the boar's head is probably that of the Balliol
MS., of which there are numerous versions:

            _"Caput Apri Refero_
            _Resonens laudes domino._
    The boris hed In hondis I brynge
    with garlondis gay & byrdis syngynge:
    I pray you all helpe me to synge,
      _Qui estis in convinio_.

    "The boris hede, I understonde,
    ys cheffe seruyce in all this londe:
    wher-so-ever it may be fonde,
      _Scruitur cum sinapio_.

    "The boris hede, I dare well say,
    anon after the xijth day
    he taketh his leve and goth a-way.
      _Exiuit tunc de patria._"

An olden Christmas feast wherein the wild boar forms the pièce de
résistance is also figured in King's "Art of Cookery," the only
English work except "The Philosopher's Banquet," by "W. B.," that has
discoursed on gastronomy to any considerable extent in verse:

    "At Christmas time be careful of your fame;
    See the old tenant's table be the same.
    Then if you would send up the brawner's head,
    Sweet rosemary and bays around it spread!
    His foaming tusks let some large pippin grace,
    Or midst those thund'ring spears an orange place,
    Sauce like himself, offensive to its foes,
    The roguish mustard, dang'rous to the nose.
    Sack and the well spiced Hippocras the wine,
    Wassail the bowl with ancient ribbands fine,
    Porridge with plumbs, and turkeys with the chine."

The seventeenth century was prolific of cook-books, most of which
continued to republish the ancient recipes, with but slight
augmentations or changes. Many of the old-fashioned dishes still
appear in "The Art of Cookery Refined and Augmented," a treatise
published in 1654 by Joseph Cooper, former kitchener of Charles I.
These indigestibilities abound in "The English Housewife" of Gervaise
Markham, an early production of the century, which reached its eighth
edition in 1675, "much augmented, purged, and made most profitable and
necessary for all men, and the general good of this Nation."[16]

It may be assumed that Markham's recipes were not original with him,
but were compiled mostly from anterior works; we have no knowledge of
his having been a practical cook. For that matter, he states in his
dedication to the Countess Dowager of Exeter that he does not "assume
to himself the full invention and scope of the work, for it is true
that much of it was a manuscript which many years agone belonged to
an Honourable Countess, one of the greatest Glories of our Kingdom."
The material, therefore, is due mainly to a member of the gentler sex,
while Markham is responsible for the _liaison_. A voluminous author, he
did not hesitate to appropriate whatever material he could find on any
topic, more especially on husbandry and angling, and send it out as his
own. It is well known, for example, that his "Art of Fishing" in his
"Country Contentments" is only a prose rendition of Dennys' attractive
poem "The Secrets of Angling." He has been spoken of as the first hack
writer of England, all subjects seeming to have been alike to him. So
that "The English Housewife," which also includes much interesting
information on physics, the dairy, etc., may be regarded as virtually a
work of the Elizabethan period.

  [Illustration: THE ENGLISH HOUSEWIFE

  Facsimile of title-page]

In Markham's treatise there is a sauce for green-geese and one for
stubble-geese, a sauce for pigeons and stock-doves, a _gallantine_ for
bitterns, bustards, and herns. A _quelquechose_ was a fricassee or a
mixture of many ingredients, and meats broiled upon the coals were
termed _carbonadoes_. Verjuice was made from crab-apples, to which
damask-rose leaves were added previous to fermentation. Vinegar was
frequently made from ale placed in the sun to sour, and flavoured with
leaves of damask roses. A recipe for hippocras is naturally given,
together with directions for the manufacture of all manner of wines
and beverages. Puddings, pies, and tarts were still more familiar
then than now. Of pies there was an infinite assortment--from Olave,
marrow-bone, hare, chicken, bacon, herring, ling, and calves'-foot
to oyster, chewet, Warden, pippin, Codlin, and minc'd. Markham's
recipe for "A Herring Pye" will serve as well as any to illustrate
the character of the amalgams that passed under the names of pies,
puddings, and tarts:

   "_A Herring Pye_:--Take white pickled Herrings of one night's
   watering, and boyl them a little, then take off the skin, and
   take only the backs of them, and pick the fish clean from the
   bones; then take good store of Raisins of the sun, and stone
   them; and put them to the Fish; then take a Warden or two,
   and pare it, and slice it in small slices from the core, and
   put it likewise to the fish; then with a very sharp shredding
   Knife shred all as small and fine as may be: then put to it
   good store of Currants, Sugar, Cinnamon, slic't Dates, and so
   put it into the coffin, with good store of sweet Butter, and
   so cover it, and leave onely a round vent-hole on the top of
   the lid, and so bake it like Pies of that nature. When it is
   sufficiently bak't, draw it out, and take Claret Wine, and a
   little Verjuyce, Sugar, Cinnamon, and sweet Butter, and boyl
   them together: then put it in at the vent-hole, and shake the
   Pye a little, and put it again into the Oven for a little
   space, and so serve it up, the lid being candied over with
   Sugar, and the sides of the dish trimmed with Sugar."

But many recipes are given in the cook-books, both in the old and
the new, which the wise reader will avoid, and perchance Markham's
herring-pie was among the number. It were pleasanter, at any rate,
to take John Fletcher's prescription for some contemporaneous dishes,
where, after he would have "the pig turn merrily, merrily, ah! and let
the fat goose swim," he exclaims:

    "The stewed cock shall crow, cock-a-loodle loo,
      A loud cock-a-loodle shall he crow;
    The duck and the drake shall swim in a lake
      Of onions and claret below."

The wines and beverages of old corresponded to many of the dishes
themselves; which of these was most productive of indigestion it were
difficult to state. Hippocras, so generously indulged in, not to
mention posset, mead, metheglin, and perry, must have been a potent
factor in fomenting the uric-acid diathesis. When to these common
beverages are added the fiery, heavy, sweet, and mixed wines that were
in general use, it is scarcely surprising that the seeds of gout were
sown broadcast, and that the indiscretions of the fathers were visited
upon the children unto the existing generation. Even Milton did not
escape, while Spenser, Sir William Temple, and a host of worthies who
were supposed to be abstemious in their diet were victims to arthritic
complaints. How Shakespeare eluded the malady seems a miracle, in
view of the existing viands and beverages and the necessary lack of
exercise attendant on his literary pursuits. Alexander Neckham, in his
twelfth-century treatise, mentions claré and nectar as proper to be
found in the cellar or in the storehouse. Claré was a mixture of clear
red wine, the best of which came from Guyenne, with honey, sugar, and
spices, as distinguished from piment or nectar, a similar compound,
but with more substance, founded on the red wine of Burgundy, Dauphiné,
etc.

In ancient days the taste was for "strong, sharp, and full-flavoured"
wines. Bordeaux, or "claret," as it is now made was unknown.
Vitification and vinification were then undeveloped compared with the
present time. In place of the existing delicate growths of the Médoc
were the fiery wines of Guyenne and Gascony and the heavy products
of Provence and Languedoc. It is to be supposed, likewise, that the
Rhenish wines at that time were totally different from those of the
Rheingau and the Bavarian Palatinate now. But the kinds mostly in vogue
were sack and malmsey, muscadel and canary, and "bastard" or malaga,
port as yet not having been introduced into England.

The punch-bowl or wassail-bowl, the goddard, caudle-cup and posset-pot,
were all in use in England in olden days--punch, or "pauch," however,
being a drink of Indian origin, the word meaning five, and so named
from its five ingredients: arrack, tea, sugar, lemon-juice, and water.
Grog is an English beverage of later introduction. Admiral Vernon,
in 1745, having put an end to the use by the English navy of ale,
substituted for it rum diluted with water. The admiral was dubbed by
the sailors "Old Grog," because of an old cloak of grogram which he
always wore in foul weather, and hence it came naturally about that the
new potation of the high seas acquired its present name.

Mead, the favourite tipple of Queen Bess, was made by boiling honey
and water together, with quantities of spices, herbs, and lemons;
when it had stood for three months, the liquor was bottled and
was ready to drink six weeks afterwards. Butler, in "The Feminine
Monarchy, or History of Bees," draws a distinction between mead and
metheglin, making hydromel the generic term. In the old cookery books
and "Housewives" we find directions how to make strong Mead and small
White Mead. Artificial Frontignac wine was made by boiling water,
sugar, and raisins together, adding elder-flowers, syrup of lemons,
and ale yeast. "English Champagne" was composed of water, sugar, and
currants boiled, with the addition of balm; and, when bottled, a small
lump of double-refined sugar was used to impart effervescence. In a
somewhat similar manner numerous other forms of wine were compounded,
as Saragossa or English Sack, Quince, Mountain, Plum, Birch, and Sage.
Perhaps the most bizarre of all ancient concoctions is one termed
"Cock Ale," for which this recipe is presented in E. Smith's "Compleat
Housewife" (1736):

   "_To make Cock Ale_:--Take ten gallons of ale, and a large
   cock, the older the better, parboil the cock, flea him, and
   stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken, (you
   must craw and gut him when you flea him), put the cock into
   two quarts of sack, and put to it three pounds of raisins of
   the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all
   these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale
   has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel;
   in a week or nine days' time bottle it up, fill the bottles
   but just above the necks, and leave the same time to ripen as
   other ale."

A notable advance in the art was accomplished during the latter part
of the reign of Charles II, who was somewhat of a cook as well as an
epicure. The sirloin of beef is said to owe its name to this monarch,
who, dining upon a loin of beef with which he was particularly pleased,
inquired the name of the joint, saying its merit was so great that
it deserved to be knighted, and that thenceforth it should be called
_Sir-Loin_. The Parisian school soon became fashionable, and numerous
works on cookery made their appearance. But, like the fifteenth Louis
when intent upon his pleasures at the Parc aux Cerfs, the second
Charles, amid his dissolute court and its frail beauties whom Sir
Peter Lely has drawn for us, had other matters to engage his serious
attention than presiding at the range or posing as a patron of culinary
authors. Pies, tarts, and pasties now met with increased favour, and
"The Accomplisht Cook, or The Art and Mystery of Cookery" of Robert
May, the first edition of which appeared in 1665, became the oracle of
feasting and dining. "God and his own conscience," the author states,
would not permit him "to bury his experiences with his silver hairs in
the grave."

From Pepys' "Diary" one may obtain much information regarding the
mode of living at the time. That the English appetite had suffered no
decline is apparent from nearly any one of his entries relating to the
subject. John and Joan may have continued to live "meanely," but such
can scarcely be said of the better classes. Thus, under date of January
26, 1659, Pepys speaks of coming home from his office to my lord's
lodgings, where his wife had "got ready a very fine dinner, viz.: a
dish of marrow-bones, a leg of mutton, a loin of veal, a dish of fowl,
three pullets, and a dozen of larks all in a dish; a great tart, a
neat's-tongue, a dish of anchovies, a dish of prawns, and cheese."
On March 26, 1660, having guests to dine with him, he says: "I had a
pretty dinner for them, viz.: a brace of stewed carps, six roasted
chickens, and a jowle of salmon hot for the first course: a tansy, a
kind of sweet dish made of eggs, cream, etc., flavoured with the juice
of tansy; and two neat's-tongues and cheese, the second. We had a man
cook to dress dinner to-day. Merry all the afternoon, talking, singing,
and piping on the flageolet."

On another occasion, April 4, 1662, he states that he "was very merry
before and after dinner, and the more for that my dinner was great,
and most neatly dressed by our own only mayde. We had a fricassee of
rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish,
a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of
four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey-pie, a most rare pie, a dish of
anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble, and
to my great content." Another of his dinners consisted of "a ham of
French bacon boiled with pigeons, and a roasted swan, both excellent
dishes." Dining at Sir William Penn's on his wedding anniversary, he
mentions, besides a good chine of beef and other good cheer, eighteen
mince-pies in a dish--the number of years his host had been married.
Again, he speaks of drinking great quantities of claret, and of eating
botargo, a sausage made of eggs and the blood of a sea-mullet, with
bread and butter; as also of dining on a haunch of venison "powdered
and boiled, and a powdered leg of pork; also a fine salmon-pie."

It will be noted how meat, game, and fish-pies prevail, with tarts,
marrow-bones, and neat's-tongues as secondary dishes. The roast swan,
if a cygnet, may have been rather appetising, but one would feel more
secure to leave the lamprey-pie untasted, and allow the "botargo" to be
passed on to a neighbour. The salmon-pie, likewise, has an indigestible
sound, especially as there are no signs of any Chablis or hock to
serve as an antidote. Of course, the virtues of the carp would depend
entirely on the sauce, and carp sauces of those days must have been
anything but assuring. The "Diary" of Mr. Pepys says nothing of the
mornings after his dinners--the true test of a generous repast. It is
just as well, therefore, for the reader who has the welfare of his
stomach to consider, not to dream of having dined with Pepys or his
friends, or to attempt to vie with him in "claret" and "good cheer."

Far more simple, though by no means meagre, was the diet of the
rural population. In place of lobsters and fricassees with sack and
muscadel, bread, the roast of beef, mutton, and veal, and sound
home-brewed ale went to the making of strength and endurance. In
the country, the hay-harvest, sheep-shearing, and the wheat-harvest
were always occasions for special festivity, where master and men
jointly celebrated the fruits of their toil in the fields. Of all
such celebrations the Hock-Cart or Harvest-Home, when the last sheaf
of wheat had been garnered, was the most prolific of feasting and
merrymaking--a festival which is well described by Herrick, with its
attendant bill of fare:

    "Come, sons of summer, by whose toil,
    We are the lords of wine and oil;
    By whose tough labours and rough hands,
    We rip up first, then reap our lands.
    Crowned with the ears of corn, now come,
    And to the pipe sing harvest home.
    Come forth, my lord, and see the cart
    Dressed up with all the country art....
    Well on, brave boys, to your lord's hearth,
    Glitt'ring with fire, where, for your mirth,
    Ye shall see first the large and chief
    Foundation of your feast, fat beef;
    With upper stories, mutton, veal,
    And bacon which makes full the meal,
    With several dishes standing by,
    As here a custard, there a pie,
    And here all-tempting frumenty.
    And for to make the merry cheer,
    If smirking wine be wanting here,
    There's that which drowns all care, stout beer,
    Which freely drink to your lord's health,
    Then to the plough (the commonwealth),
    Next to your flails, your fans, your vats;
    Then to the maids with wheaten hats;
    To the rough sickle, and the crook'd scythe,
    Drink, frolic boys, till all be blythe...."

The era of Queen Anne, a noted gourmande, who achieved the feminine
distinction of acquiring the gout, was marked by the appearance of a
work on "Royal Cookery, or the Complete Court Book" (1710), by Patrick
Lamb, Esq., chef to her Majesty, who had previously served Charles II,
James II, and William and Mary. Pope's description in the "Dunciad"
would indicate that cookery was in a flourishing state under the last
of the Stuarts:

    "On some a priest succinct in amice white
    Attends; all flesh is nothing in his sight!
    Beeves, at his touch, at once to jelly turn,
    And the huge boar is shrunk into an urn;
    The board with specious miracles he loads,
    Turns hares to larks, and pigeons into toads.
    Another (for in all what one can shine?)
    Explains the _sève_ and _verdeur_ of the wine."

In 1730 appeared "The Compleat Practical Cook, or A new System of
the whole Art and Mystery of Cooking," a work with sixty curious
copperplates of courses, written by Charles Carter, cook to the Duke
of Argyll, the Earl of Pontefract, and Lord Cornwallis. In the preface
to his "City and Country Cook" the author says: "What I have published
is almost the only book, one or two excepted, which of late years has
come into the world, that has been the result of the author's own
practice and experience; for though very few eminent practical Cooks
have ever cared to publish what they knew of the art, yet they have
been prevailed on, for a small premium from a Bookseller, to lend their
names to performances in this art, unworthy their owning."

The titles of many of the early cook-books are not wanting in
quaintness or directness, as the case may be, however devoid of
practical worth their contents. Thus we find the following among a
host of other English works relating to the subject:

    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!"

  [Illustration]




  [Illustration]




                     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.

  [Illustration: "UN VIEL AMATEUR"

  A. B. L. Grimod de Reynière, né à Paris le 20 9bre, 1756

  From an old print]

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."

The tribunal, which was formed for the purpose of influencing and
ameliorating the provisions and food products of the Parisian market,
was composed of an indefinite number of jurors, though these never
exceeded twelve or were less than five. Each of the judges was a
tried epicure, eating and drinking whatever he was asked to pass
upon, without knowing the names of the contributors, in order that
everything submitted might be estimated in strict accordance with its
merits. Dr. Gastaldy, an eminent physician, was chosen president, La
Reynière preferring the secretaryship, with its more arduous duties.
The president is described as one who added to the finest palate and
the most practised tact the largest experience, and who combined all
the advantages that might result from profound theory and active
practice. It is related of him that on a certain occasion, when
reminded by a lady that he was taking a large portion of macaroni after
a very plenteous repast, he observed: "Madame, macaroni is heavy, it
is true, but it is like the Doge of Venice: when he arrives one must
make room for him--every one stands aside." The Marquis de Cussy, who
declared, "Roasting is at once nothing and the infinite," and whom
La Reynière termed the first gastronomer of the age, was a no less
distinguished member. He was also an entertaining writer on gastronomy,
and contributed some articles anonymously to the "Almanach," his
greatest literary fame resting on his "Art Culinaire."

  [Illustration: LE PREMIER DEVOIR D'UN AMPHITRYON

  Frontispiece of the fifth year of the "Almanach des Gourmands"]

The meetings of the society took place weekly at the residence of the
secretary, the sittings occupying five hours. That these séances were
of a philanthropic as well as a sybaritic nature is apparent from the
preface to the second year of the "Almanach," where the editor states
that he will regret neither the pains nor the indigestions his duties
entail, if the national glory in every branch of the alimentary art be
only impelled to renewed progress.

It was the secretary's place to take note of all controversies and
decisions, which he afterward drew up and elaborated, submitting his
reports to the president at the following meeting for verification. An
extract of these decisions, duly collated, was sent to the interested
persons. All forms of eatables and drinkables constituted part of the
jury's deliberations, and of these contributions only a single sample
was passed upon at a time. When the judgments were unfavourable to the
artist whose handiwork had been submitted, he was advised accordingly,
in order that he might correct and that at a subsequent test of the
same object he might prove that he had profited by the disinterested
verdict. If he refused to do so, the decision was printed in the
following "Almanach" as it originally stood. It was noted that many
merchants and culinary artists lived on their reputations, taking
advantage of a formerly celebrated name to deceive the public and abuse
its confidence long after they had ceased to merit it, whilst, on the
other hand, an obscure person endowed perchance with great talent and
zealous in his art was not unfrequently the inventor of productions
worthy of the greatest masters. It was the purpose of the jury and its
exponent to expose the former and rescue the latter from oblivion.

Naturally, these attacks on the manufacturers and venders often brought
their rejoinders, some of which were by no means devoid of interest,
as, for instance, a letter from a certain M. Grec, a merchant who
had sold a spoiled pate to a customer and refused to take it back in
exchange for other merchandise:

   "I am at a loss to comprehend, Monsieur, why you should have
   attached an infamous note to my name in the fifth year of your
   'Almanach.' A lawyer who is not without reputation wished me
   to attack you in return, telling me I could lead you a merry
   chase (_que je pourrais vous mener loin_). I did not care to
   follow his advice, because I reflected that your book and its
   author are far from being makers of reputations, either for
   good or for bad; perhaps the public, which appreciates you at
   your true value, has formed an opinion directly contrary to
   that you express.

   "On this hypothesis, far from having to complain of you, I owe
   you my thanks. To this end, I have even thought of offering
   substantial proof by sending you a fine _truffled turkey_
   whose aroma, penetrating your olfactories, would exercise
   its benign influence, and inspire a good word for me in the
   future. But I restrain myself, for the reasons I have just
   stated and the fact that any good you might say might have the
   effect of injuring me in the eyes of the public.

   "All things considered, I will keep my turkey to eat with my
   friends and with the person who was kind enough to lend me his
   pen; for as a stranger and a simple merchant, I do not pride
   myself on writing, but on honestly conducting my business.
   Besides, have no fears, we will drink to your health and to
   the preservation of one of the most useful men of the state."

The fine irony throughout the letter will assuredly commend itself to
the reader, as it undoubtedly nettled the editor. The reference to
the truffled turkey--and this was to have been a _dinde truffée_--was
notably the stroke of a master, artfully designed to hit the recipient
in a tender spot, an under-thrust that could not have failed to tell.
But however great the editor's disappointment,--for one remembers his
appetising essay, "Des Dindes Braisées," wherein he specifies that the
turkey should be well perfumed with truffles,--he was more than equal
to the occasion by retaliating that the lawyer could hardly proceed
as far as the pâté if it still remained in the shop of M. Grec, and
had been left to itself; for it had already begun to march of its own
accord. The writer's decision to keep the turkey is referred to as in
excellent taste withal, in comparison with the fate of the pâté.

Nor was an exposé of a guest who had served a large and inferior pâté
at a rural outing, furnished by a vulgar artist--claiming it as one of
the incomparable productions of a celebrated maker--less merited and
severe. The pâté was pompously announced as coming from the fragrant
ovens of a certain M. Le Sage.

   "At the mention of this revered name" [says the editor], "the
   attention of all the guests was directed to the piece, the
   opening of which was eagerly awaited.

   "This pâté was at first sight very inviting, but no sooner
   was the crust removed than we perceived from the enormous void
   that it could not have been made by M. Le Sage, whose pâtés
   are always well filled, and are garnished in addition with a
   blond of veal that renders them easily distinguishable.

   "The one in question, which was presented as a pâté of ham of
   Bayonne, offered merely an indigestible mixture of ordinary
   ham, dried and spoiled, interspersed with chunks of tough
   veal; the crust corresponded to the interior, and the stuffing
   to the whole.

   "We indignantly protested that such a pâté could not emanate
   from the manufactory of M. Le Sage; but the donor insisting
   stoutly that he had himself purchased it from him, he was
   believed, in spite of the fact that he was a man of the law.

   "We had our doubts, notwithstanding; for it is less rare to
   find a lying knave than a detestable pâté emanating from
   M. Le Sage, who, through the assertion made, found himself
   dishonoured in the estimation of thirty people."

The result of the author's conviction was a letter to the injured
party, the latter's prompt appearance at the office of the offender,
a written apology by the culprit, and a promise to the editor of the
"Almanach" that he would atone for his crime by producing a pâté whose
authenticity could not be questioned,--"which still remains for him to
do," adds the editor, no doubt with a sigh of disappointment. In view
of these denunciations, one may readily understand that the products
submitted to the jury must have been, almost without exception, of
a very high order of merit. With such a rigid arbiter, few would
care to incur his censure or render themselves subject to his lash.
The frequent references to the venders, therefore, served a treble
purpose--that of stimulating the art of cookery, exposing knavery, and
sumptuously regaling the table of the tribunal.

There is this besides to be said in extenuation of the frequent
references to the _pâtissiers_ and _rôtisseurs_--that, being
specialists, they were more likely to advance an art than the average
person, however familiar with the principles of cookery, who was not in
possession of the mechanical accessories of the professional, or who
was not accustomed daily to turn his hand to practical account.

To become a member of the jury, a unanimity of votes was necessary,
rank or social status being a secondary consideration to gastronomic
accomplishments and brilliancy of appetite and mind. Women were not
excluded, and, strange to relate, among these was Mlle. Mézeray, a
striking proof that time can cool the warmest love to friendship. But
flounces and laces were allowed no voice in the solemn deliberations
of the tribunal. It might be pleasant to see a pretty gourmande
under arms, and have her join in the _coup du milieu_ which was
always obligatory, but how might petticoats decide upon the fate
of a _suprême_ or a truffled pâté! "Women," says La Reynière, "who
sometimes assist at the séances, have no deliberative voice--one can
readily understand the reason." With a palate vitiated by sweets, her
discernment must prove unreliable, and there would always be the danger
of her prejudicing a susceptible member through her allurements and
coquetries.

The tribunal had its own codes and rules, which were as fixed as the
stars. Among these was that no one should speak ill of any one with
whom he had dined, for a period proportionate to the importance of the
dinner. Each guest was provided with a menu in advance, of which the
contributions from outside sources to be adjudged formed only a part.
The dinner proper was prepared by the cordon-bleu of La Reynière. In
ease of inability to attend, an excuse was obligatory not later than
twenty-four hours before the time specified, while a failure to be
present after having accepted was punishable by a fine of five hundred
francs. This rule was inflexible, as Mlle. Mézeray found to her cost
when, having disregarded it, she was banished from the séances for
three years, returning, at the expiration of her sentence, only in time
to assist at the final meeting of the jury in May, 1812.

A quarter of an hour's grace was allowed with reference to the set time
of the dinner--not a moment more: a rule the modern host would do well
to imitate. Every minute after the prescribed hour for the repast that
one is forced to wait for tardy guests becomes a penance to those who
are punctual, besides the inconvenience it causes to the entertainer
and the cook. La Reynière's fifteen minutes of grace is all-sufficient.
During his reign, indeed, there were some who closed their doors to
all comers that failed to appear at the precise hour. For the use
and greater convenience of the jury, he invented the speaking-tube
communicating from the dining-room to the kitchen; the _table volante_,
as we have seen, was already in use, and the ascending and descending
slide was known.

Let it not be inferred, however, that he considered himself a
gourmand in the strict sense of the term, despite the title of the
work with which he is most closely associated, and the fact that the
weekly sittings of the gustatory jury occupied five hours. He would
doubtless have drawn the distinction between a gourmand and a gourmet
most sharply had such a possibility entered his mind as a dinner of
innumerable courses and water, compared with an extended repast of
scientifically prepared dishes and their complementary wines. In the
former case he could scarcely have projected, much less have completed,
the "Almanach," to say nothing of having overtaken his eightieth year.
For that matter, he is careful to state, in a letter to the Marquis
de Cussy, touching upon the light in which he was placed before the
public, that with pen in hand he was always a gourmand, but when the
fork took the place of the pen it was quite another matter.

It will prove interesting to know how the word "gourmand" was defined
by one who was most capable of interpreting it, the differentiation
"gourmet" being then much less marked than at present:

   "The Gourmand is not only the being whom nature has endowed
   with an excellent stomach and a vast appetite--all robust
   and well-constituted men are in this category--but also he
   who adds to these advantages an enlightened taste, whose
   first characteristic resides in a singularly delicate palate
   cultivated by long experience. With him all the senses should
   be in constant accord with that of the taste, inasmuch as
   he should criticise his dishes even before they approach
   his lips. It is sufficient to say that his vision should be
   penetrating, his ear alert, his touch fine, and his tongue
   capable. Thus the gourmand whom the Academy paints for us
   as a gross being is, on the contrary, by profession a person
   gifted with extreme delicacy; with him health alone should be
   vigorous."

Again, he says:

   "It only requires a voracious appetite to be a glutton. It
   demands an exquisite judgment, a profound knowledge of every
   branch of the culinary art, a sensual and delicate palate, and
   a thousand other qualities very difficult to combine, in order
   to merit the title of Gourmand."

In still another reference to the epicure he would have him possess,
in addition, that jovial humour without which the best of repasts is
but a sad and solemn function--a person well equipped with anecdotes
and amusing stories with which he may fill up the spaces between the
services, so that the sober guests may forgive him his appetite.

Some may deem his definition includes more than the qualities usually
assigned to an amateur of dining, and that it touches too closely on
the realm of Gargantua. But it must not be lost sight of that his
cardinal mission was that of improving all manner of food preparations
and bringing the table to its acme of perfection. Without such
appreciative votaries, cookery must necessarily languish, and dining
prove merely an obligatory routine; it is to such as he that the art
owes its present superiority, and to whom mankind should be duly
thankful. As he has defined it, "gastronomy is an immense book ever
open to him who may read it aright, whose pages present a series of
mobile pictures, and whose horizon extends beyond one's view."

All the products of the animal and vegetable world were pronounced
upon by this supreme judge of succulencies, whose palate and appetite
never failed, and whose pen responded to the most delicate and fugitive
sensations of taste. The "Almanach" numbers eight small volumes, each
containing a characteristic dedication. Each volume also includes a
quaint and carefully engraved frontispiece executed under the direction
of the author, the subjects representing "The Library of a Gourmand of
the Nineteenth Century," "The Audiences of a Gourmand," "A Séance of
the Testing Jury," "The Meditations of a Gourmand," "The First Duty of
a Host," "The Dreams of a Gourmand," "The Levee of a Gourmand," and
"The Most Mortal Enemy of the Dinner."

The first volume is dedicated to M. Camerani, whose name is attached to
a famous soup of his own invention, and whom La Reynière terms one of
the most erudite epicures of France.

The second is inscribed to M. d'Aigrefeuille, than whom none could
better appreciate the merits of an artistic repast, and whose charms of
appetite and conversation were equally balanced.

The third is sacred to the memory of Carlin Bertinazzi, _dernier
Arlequin_ of the Comédie Italienne of Paris, an actor whose
distinguished talents served for forty years as the best of digestives
for all epicures.

The fourth is consecrated to the members of the Société des Mercredis,
who, by the finesse of their taste and the extent of their appetite,
have given such an impetus to the first of the arts, and whose
admirable tact has proved a stimulus to the greatest cooks.

The fifth has for its tribute the souvenir of Dr. Gastaldy,
Président-perpétuel of the _Jury dégustateur_, who united in the
highest degree all those qualities that combine to form the most
intrepid gastronomer, but who was finally vanquished by apoplexy while
attacking a pâté de foie gras.

The sixth immortalises Grimod de Verneuil, the worthy successor of Dr.
Gastaldy both in appetite and experience, whose head had never been
turned by the most copious libations of the finest wines of the world.

The seventh is dedicated to the memory of Albouis d'Azincourt, a
member of the _Jury dégustateur_ and a founder of the Société des
Mercredis--always equally honoured as host or guest.

The eighth and concluding volume pays a feeling panegyric to Vatel,
in whom the alimentary art recognises one of its greatest and most
unselfish masters.

Beginning with a dissertation on the various alimentary products
created for the delectation of man, each succeeding issue treats of
the subject in some of its numerous phases until the suspension of the
register in 1812. A great charm of the work consists in its magisterial
tone, as well as in its unbounded enthusiasm, humour, and originality.
The artistic presentation of a subject and the importance with which
it invests some seemingly trifling detail that in other hands might
have been unnoticed is also a characteristic feature, as, for instance,
the admirable references to _hors d'œuvres_ and "The Distractions
of the Table." Other topics, such as "Rural Hosts," "Indigestions,"
"Epicurean Visits," "Town Dinners," "Kitchen Utensils," "Of Wines," "Of
Hosts," "On the Placing of Guests at Table," etc., are handled with an
address and a comprehensiveness no less striking than the scenes which
form the frontispieces.

While no doubt the author understood the theory of the cuisine, we have
no reason to suppose that, like Dumas, he was a thoroughly practical
cook, or took pleasure in surprising his friends with some appetising
dish of his own preparation. It was his province to criticise the
productions of others, and to do this it was unnecessary to assume
the functions of a chef. The wine-taster who is most competent to
judge of the merits of a vintage does not need to be a viniculturist,
nor does the gastronomer necessarily require to be a practical cook.
In many branches of art the best teachers are frequently the poorest
practitioners. The most able critic of painting may never have held a
brush, and the maestro capable of evolving a Mario may often be lacking
in voice. Though a master of but a single instrument, the leader of
a great orchestra understands and guides all the vehicles of sound
under his command--from the plectrum of the harp and plaint of the
oboe to the diapason of viols and concord of horns--so intuitive is
his sense of harmonious accord. The virtuoso is such from his inherent
superiority--of sight, taste, touch, smell, or hearing, as the case may
be--aided by years of study and cultivation in his especial craft. The
epicure is he who, gifted with a hyper-susceptivity of taste and its
complementary sense, smell, as well as long familiarity with viands
and wines, may detect savours unappreciated by the ordinary palate,
and thus understandingly and authoritatively pronounce upon the merits
or demerits of a dish. "The 'Almanach,'" says the editor, "does not
profess to be a cook-book--its duty is to try to stimulate the appetite
of its readers; upon the artists of the kitchen devolves the duty of
satisfying it."

The home kitchen of the author, while not elaborate, was most carefully
looked after by a cordon-bleu. Its excellence is attested by Dumas, who
declares that one of the best dinners he ever had was when, in company
with Count d'Orsay, he dined impromptu with La Reynière a short time
previous to his death.

The frontispiece of the fourth year, entitled "Meditations of a
Gourmand," represents La Reynière in person seated at a writing-table
in his robe de chambre. He has evidently just suspended his labours
to reconsider the materials which are to form the subjects of his
homilies. The different objects of his contemplation are ranged
around him on various stands: a stuffed calf's head, a roasted capon,
a matelote of La Râpée, a Strassburg pâté de foie gras, a plate of
biscuits of Abbeville, etc., his attention being engrossed for the
moment by the calf's head. Various treatises on the alimentary art are
scattered about him, such as "La Pâtisserie de Santé," "Les Dons de
Comus," and "Le Confiseur Moderne." Upon the edicts he is to pronounce
hangs the fate of many a purveyor. Is his appetite keyed to the
requirements of his task? Will the samples to be tested respond to the
exactions of his critical palate? Or must his fealty be paid for by
an indigestion that may postpone his labours in behalf of the noblest
of the arts?

  [Illustration: LES MÉDITATIONS D'UN GOURMAND

  Frontispiece of the fourth year of the "Almanach des Gourmands"]

His mien is solemn and his attitude one of intense absorption, like
that of a great statesman pondering some weighty coup d'état. At the
end of the cabinet stands a tall buffet with numerous shelves laden
with savoury viands and appetising beverages: a boar's head of Troyes,
a timbale of red partridges _aux truffes_, eels of Melun, a cake of
Savoy, a _mortadelle_ of Lyons, a truffled turkey of Périgord, an
Italian cheese and sausages, a ham of Bayonne, a pâté of Périgueux,
various dainties of Provence, pastries and apple-jelly of Rouen, with
numerous varieties of wines and liqueurs. All of these articles,
gravely observes the editor in his explanation of the plate, are to be
successively passed in review by the gourmand, inasmuch as they are the
subjects of his literary work--no other objects of art decorate the
cabinet, as nothing should be allowed to distract the critic.

It would appear at first sight to the uninitiated that such a task
must prove beyond the capacities of the ordinary mortal. But this
contingency he has already explained at length in a chapter on
"Indigestion." "It is often much less to excess of eating than to
the quality of aliments that indigestion is due. One person may have
eaten ten times more than another without inconvenience, and another
find himself seriously disturbed from having partaken of a single dish
that did not agree. It is the place of the epicure to study the nature
of his stomach, in order to supply it with only such aliments as are
homogeneous. Milk foods, hot pastries, etc., which usually agree with
women, do not always agree with robust stomachs which may be able to
digest an ox, but quail before a little pot of cream. But where through
repeated experiences one has obtained a perfect knowledge of his
temperament he may trust to his appetite without fear."

Lack of sufficient variety in alimentation also counts for much in
stomachic derangements. "Hasty pudding and milk," Artemus Ward used
to say, "are a harmless diet if eaten moderately, but if you eat it
incessantly for six consecutive weeks it will produce instant death."

As the frontispiece of the fifth volume exhibits a splendidly appointed
kitchen, with its ranges and saucepans in full play, and the amphitryon
receiving the menu for the dinner from the Washington of his kitchen,
it may be assumed that the distinguished critic proved equal to the
occasion just described.

As, moreover, there is seen suspended from the chimney three hams of
Bayonne from the shops of M. Pouillan and M. de la Rouille, and on the
spits a chine of veal from Mme. Simon, sirloins from M. de Launey,
legs of mutton from M. Darras, venison from Mme. Chevet, fowls from
Mme. Biennet, etc., it may be further concluded that he had lost none
of his appetite and still remained a spur to the noble emprise of the
_Jury dégustateur_. That there are no wines visible on the pantry
shelves need not trouble the reader. No one who has scanned a volume of
the "Almanach" will doubt for a moment that the chef had an abundance
for himself, his aid, and the sauces that simmer in his pans, or that
numerous hampers of fine vintages from M. Tailleur were wanting to
wash down any repast at which the editor officiated.[21]

But these laudations, which form so notable a feature of the work
under consideration, were a part and portion of its inspiration and
existence. Without them it never would have been written, or at any
rate its career would have been greatly shortened. After all, who would
not envy the author his glorious appetite; or, with his exquisite
appreciation, who would censure his fondness for pâtés and his rigour
in maintaining their high standard?

With reference to the remarks on the testing of dishes, it may be
observed that it is comparatively easy to decide upon the respective
merits of two different alimentary preparations. It is far more
difficult to pronounce on wines of fine quality and compare those that
are closely allied. For here the sense of smell in particular is called
upon to exercise its most critical functions; and this sense, after
several essays at comparison or attempts to place the special aromas
and ethers that are evolved in the bouquet and _sève_ of a vintage,
becomes rapidly cloyed. Many other conditions also frequently arise to
interfere with absolute judgment. The temperature of the wine and mood
of the atmosphere, one's surroundings at the time, the state of one's
stomach and consequently of the palate, the nature of the viands that
accompany the wine--aye, the very glass in which its gold or rubies are
imprisoned--all exert their influence, and it is best not to assert
one's self too decisively in the case of a single testing or comparison.

Concerning a highly important topic--"The Health of Cooks"--the
"Almanach" discourses at length with its accustomed force and
originality:

   "The index of a good cook should ply without ceasing from the
   saucepans to the mouth, and it is only by thus momentarily
   tasting his ragoûts that he may determine their precise point.
   His palate, therefore, must be extremely delicate, virginal,
   as it were, so that the least thing may stimulate it and
   advise it of its faults.

   "But the constant fumes of the fires, the necessity of
   drinking frequently, and often poor wine, to moisten a parched
   throat, the vapours of the charcoal, humours and biliousness,
   all tend to impair the organs of taste. The palate becomes
   crusted, as it were; it has no longer either that tact or
   finesse, that exquisite sensibility on which depends the
   susceptibility of the taste; it finally becomes excoriated and
   as insensible as the conscience of an old judge.

   "Le seul moyen de lui rendre cette fleur qu'il a perdue,
   de lui faire reprendre sa souplesse, ses forces et sa
   délicatesse, c'est de purger le Cuisinier, telle résistance
   qu'il y oppose; car il en est qui, sourds à la voix de la
   gloire, ne voient aucune nécessité de prendre une médecine
   lorsqu'ils se portent bien."

Supplementing his essays on the health and the duties of the chef
and the requirements of the cuisinière is his treatise on the
maître-d'hôtel, wherein the qualifications of a steward are most
minutely set forth. Of all those whose labours have for their object
the satisfaction of our appetite and promotion of the culinary art, the
profession of the steward, he insists, calls for the greatest number
of virtues and the widest knowledge. A good maître-d'hôtel should be
at once an excellent cook, a fine _dégustateur_, a clever purveyor, a
skilful servitor, an exact calculator, a good conversationalist, and
an efficient and polished agent. He should be familiar not only with
the theory of the cuisine in all its ramifications, but, if necessary,
be able to turn his knowledge to practical account. For how may he
command the respect of the cook who is under his orders if he does
not thoroughly understand his art? How may he regulate the conduct of
the chef, control his ragoûts, and direct his work according to the
principles of the art and the special tastes of his employer if he is
not a very fine critic?

Equal competency is demanded with reference to his purchases, the
varying of his menus, anticipating the complaints of a jealous cook,
maintaining his authority over the other servants, and regulating
the financial part of the kitchen and household,--truly a difficult
combination to procure. As to his probity, the author reasons that
one may scarcely expect to find the phœnix, and that to the victor
naturally belong the spoils--that it is better to have a competent
officer, who can buy to advantage, than a novice who, gaining nothing
on his purchases, is imposed upon by the venders and cannot control his
household expenditures. "What difference does it make to the employer
if his steward help himself a little in serving him, provided he look
after his interests sufficiently and charge him only with the market
price of a commodity?"

Upon a good commissary in particular depends the success of a club or
a restaurant. Without a competent purchaser who combines most of the
qualities enumerated in the "Almanach," the chef must labour at a
disadvantage; and, in the case of a club, a house committee bear the
odium of a poor cuisine and the maledictions of the members.

The "Almanach" abounds in piquant aphorisms, some of which perhaps will
better serve to illustrate the spirit of the work than a more lengthy
abstract of many of the essays themselves:

   "The kitchen is a country in which there are always
   discoveries to be made.

   "It is the entrées that cooks usually invest with their
   greatest cunning, and it is principally through these that
   they expect to be judged.

   "An overturned salt-cellar is to be feared solely when it is
   overturned in a good dish.

   "The table is a magnet which not only draws to itself, but
   joins together all those who approach it.

   "It is as necessary that the master of the house should
   understand how to carve well as it is for a young girl to
   dance in order to secure a husband.

   "Digestion is the business of the stomach, and indigestion
   that of the doctors.

   "The stomach of a true gourmand, like the casemates of a
   besieged city, should be proof against bombs.

   "Thirteen at table is a number to be dreaded when there is
   only enough to go round for twelve.

   "A good pastry-maker is as rare as a grand orator.

   "It is especially at table that one should attend carefully to
   the matter in hand and consider what one is about.

   "True gourmands have always finished their dinner before the
   dessert; that which is eaten after the roast is done only out
   of pure politeness.

   "Pastry is to the cuisine what figures of rhetoric are to
   discourse. An oration without figures and a dinner without
   pastry are equally insipid.

   "There is a precise moment at which every dish should be
   savoured, previous to which or after which it causes only an
   imperfect sensation.

   "Wine is the milk of the old, the balm of adults, and the
   vehicle of the gourmand.

   "Without sauces a dinner were as bare as a house that has been
   levied on by the officers of the sheriff.

   "The etymology of the word _faisander_ sufficiently proclaims
   that the pheasant should be waited for as long as a pension
   from the government by a man of letters who has never known
   how to flatter any one.

   "It is notorious that a dinner, however generous, has never
   disturbed a person who has preceded or followed it by a walk
   of five or six leagues; and that indigestions are virtually
   unknown to great pedestrians.

   "With many people a stomach that is proof against everything
   is the principle of happiness, and with everybody this organ
   exercises a greater influence than one imagines on the acts of
   life.

   "Life is so brief that we should not glance either too far
   backwards or forwards in order to be happy. Let us therefore
   study how to fix our happiness in our glass and on our plate.

   "Un Amphitryon délicat no doit pas souffrir que la galanterie
   dégénère chez lui en scandale; et s'il invite de jeunes et
   jolies femmes ce doit toujours être avec leurs maris, et
   jamais avec leurs amants."

Unfortunately, no menus of the _Jury dégustateur_ have been preserved,
though one is presented of the celebrated restaurant, the Rocher de
Cancale--a dinner of twenty-four covers, served November 28, 1809, at
a cost of one thousand francs. Considering the elaborateness of the
bill of fare, the price was assuredly extremely moderate, including, as
it did, four soups, four relevés, twelve entrées, four large pieces,
four roasts, and eight entremets, all served in the highest style of
the art.

In many of the best Parisian restaurants to-day no figures are
attached to the _carte_, so that one may dine without disturbing his
digestion by thinking of the expense. The awakening comes later, with
the _addition_, when, if one be an epicure with a partiality for rare
vintages, he will be apt to recall Béranger's "Voyage au Pays de
Cocagne" and its dénouement:

    ".  .  .   .   .   .
    Mais qui vient détruire          (But who would dispel
    Ce rêve enchanteur?              This dream all-divine?
    Amis, j'en ai honte,             Friends, to my shame,
    C'est quelqu'un qui monte        'Tis the restaurant's claim--
    Apporter le compte               The bill of the entrées
    Du restaurateur."                And score of the wine.)

The menu of the dinner at the Rocher will prove attractive reading--in
marked contrast to the average bill of fare, which is so often made
up for the eye and is generally without originality or distinction.
What an embarrassment of riches in the entrées! how imposing the large
pieces! what a pageant of delectable entremets! How majestically the
bisque of crabs leads off the fête, and pike and turbot proudly stem
the tide! The comparative absence of vegetables need not be criticised,
as these naturally figure as garnishes of several of the dishes. The
asparagus, too, would take the place of a salad which is not included;
and with so varied a programme oysters may well have been dispensed
with for lack of sufficient space. That each individual dish was a
triumph we may rest assured, or some word of depreciation for future
guidance would certainly have appeared in the "Almanach."


                  Menu de 24 Couverts, pour le Jeudi

                          28 Novembre, 1809.


                              4 Potages.

    Une bisque d'écrevisses.
    Un potage à la Reine au lait d'amandes, avec biscotes.
    Une Julienne aux pointes d'asperges.
    Un consommé de volaille.


                         4 Relevés de Potages.

    Un brochet à la Chambord.
    Une dinde aux truffes.
    Un turbot.
    Une culotte de bœuf au vin de Madère, garnie de légumes.


                              12 Entrées.

    Un aspic de filets mignons de perdreaux.
    Une jardinière.
    Des filets de poularde, piqués aux truffes.
    Des perdreaux rouges au fumet.
    Des filets de mauviette sautés.
    Des scaloppes de poularde, au velouté.
    Des filets de lapereaux, en turban.
    Un vol au vent à la financière.
    Des ailerons piqués, à la chicorée.
    Deux poulets de grains au beurre d'écrevisse.
    Des scaloppes de saumon, à l'espagnole.
    Des filets mignons, piqués de truffes.


                            SECOND SERVICE.


                           4 grosses Pièces.

    Une truite.
    Une pâté de foies gras.
    Des écrevisses.
    Un jambon glacé.


                            4 Plats de Rôt.

    Un faisan.
    Des éperlans.
    Des bécassines.
    Des soles.


                             8 Entremêts.

    Une jatte de blancmanger.
    Un miroton de pommes.
    Des asperges en branche.
    Des truffes à la serviette.
    Une jatte de gelée d'orange.
    Un soufflé à la vanille.
    Des cardons à la moelle.
    Des truffes à la serviette.

This menu, which was termed "illustrious and astounding" by La
Reynière, tells its own story too well, as he observes, to need
any comment. It is only to be regretted that there is no record of
the accompanying wines or of the previous training of the guests
who sat down to the feast. The item _un faisan_ will be understood
in the plural, there having been twenty-four persons present, and
among that number it is to be presumed that more than two or three
would stand ready to attack a well-hung pheasant resplendent in his
tail-feathers. Still, there are only two _poulets de grains_ specified
in the list, which would indicate that the menu was strictly one of
quality, not of quantity--a thing to coquet and flirt with, rather
than to charge upon with no thought of the penalty of the morrow. As
the mention of truffles _à la serviette_ occurs twice at the end of
the _lecture_, it may be assumed that this was considered a doubly
important entremets--the last to leave its perfume in the mouth and
accentuate the _sève_ diffused by the final glass of Château Lafite
or Clos-Vougeot. On the restaurateur and the chef the editor enjoins
continued efforts looking to the advancement of the grand art of
dining, exhorting them that to cease their exertions would mean to
recede, and that to maintain their exalted reputation they should
labour daily as if it were yet to be won.

Altogether, the "Almanach" will be found most remunerative reading
by those who peruse it with a proper sense of its important aim. We
may not hope to equal the appetite of the author, it is true, but its
attentive study will assuredly stimulate appetite and amply instruct us
in the æsthetics and delights of the table. The only dietetic heresy
that presents itself to the writer is the eulogy of the strawberry as
an article of diet, for which Linnæus the botanist and Dr. Boteler are
originally responsible, it being well known that this fruit in gout
and rheumatism--two frequent colleagues of good cheer--is often as
deadly as port. Preserved Wiesbaden or Bar-le-Duc strawberries, safely
tucked in the folds of an omelette, are less pernicious, and may be
partaken of occasionally if convoyed by the right wine. The raw fruit
should always be sparingly indulged in by the epicure; boys and women
alone may eat it with comparative impunity. To this one exception has
been chronicled--"Strawberries and cream render me sad," said Mme. du
Deffand; and, remembering Malherbe's praise of women and melons, madame
wisely left them alone.

Finally, among all those who have discoursed upon the theme, it may
be said that La Reynière comes the nearest perhaps in illustrating
Montaigne's expression, _l'art de la gueule_. And, despite the
laudations of the venders with which it is so generously interlarded,
the "Almanach" well merits a full morocco binding by Ruban, with
dentelle borders _à l'oiseau_, and a pâté stamped on its covers in gold.

  [Illustration]

  [Illustration: THE CHEF

  From a print after an old Dutch master]




  [Illustration]




                         A GERMAN SPEISEKARTE

    "Beim vollen Humpen zechen wir, wir kräftigen Germanen,
    Und trinken von dem edlen Bier wie weiland unsere Ahnen;
    Denn in dem edlen Gerstensaft, da sprudelt noch die alte Kraft."[22]


By the French the Germans are charged with having no cuisine that is
worthy of the name, and having produced no poet of gastronomy or no
work on the subject that merits serious attention. Dining at midday,
and fond of Pumpernickel, what can they be but "barbarians," and how
may they be expected to comprehend the finesse of an art which has been
created for the elect among mankind? "Surely," argues De Quincey, "of
the rabid animal who is caught dining at noonday, the _homo ferus_ who
affronts the meridian sun by his inhuman meals, we are entitled to say
that he has a maw, but nothing resembling a stomach. A nation must
be barbarous which dined in the morning." As with day's decline the
sun illumes with fairest hues the western sky, and Nature gradually
prepares for sleep by the restful hour of twilight, so it would seem
that man, in like manner, after the cark and care of the day should
refresh himself by the solace that waits upon the evening dinner and
pleasant companionship ere he too retires for the slumbers that are to
fit him for the exigencies of the morrow.

But habit is everything, and it is well not to accept these aspersions
too seriously, and to remember that no nation surpasses the Germans
in the important art of baking, including all forms of breadstuffs
and pastry. From her inviting _Bäckereis_ and _Conditoreis_ floats an
ambrosial fragrance that may not be equalled by the _pâtisseries_ of
Paris, the variety of her products being as great as their cheapness
and wholesomeness. One is born a poet, saith the adage; it is equally
true that the German is a born baker who has no superior in his sphere.
Perchance German cook-books and gastronomical literature have been
summarily passed upon, and are not uninteresting reading, after all. It
should be recollected that Frederick the Great wrote a poem in praise
of his cook, that Martin Schookius composed a book on cheese entitled
"De Aversione Casei," and that still another old German work has for
its theme the zest of a lemon-peel--a topic that assuredly calls for
consummate skill in its elaboration.

Since the latter half of the sixteenth century Germany has contributed
her full share of manuals on cookery as compared with most countries.
Already, about 1500, there appeared a work entitled "Ein nützlichs
Buchlin von der Speis des Menschen." Among the more important treatises
of the same century were "Ein neu Kochbuch" (1587), by Marx Rumpolt,
cook to the Elector of Mainz and to the Queen of Denmark, and Frau
Anna Wecker's "Neu Köstlich und nützliches Koch-Buch" (1597). It was
about this period that Montaigne, after his travels through Italy
and Germany, declared that even in the inns the Germans paid far
better attention to the furbishing of their plates and dishes than
was the case with the hostelries of France. Treatises relating to
"wohl-schmeckenden Speisen" and "vornehme Tafeln" have since continued
to multiply in the Fatherland, until Germany has become fully satisfied
with her own mode of cookery and such modifications of certain French
and Italian dishes as accord with her chosen ideas of nutrition.

Yet the German cook-book presents serious drawbacks. For, apart from
the inevitable tendency of the _Zeitwort_ to twine itself around
the end of well-nigh interminable sentences, the characters of the
language itself are so trying that a scientific treatise may be perused
only at the risk of being compelled to resort to spectacles forever
afterwards. The melodious measures of Goethe and Schiller, the cadences
of Heine and Lenau, will be found less formidable, the rhythm and
flow carrying the eye over the typographical boulders with greater
ease. A German cook-book, however, may well deter the most insatiable
student from proceeding farther than the initial chapter. Think, for
example, what the difficulties would be of absorbing a volume which
presents such a title as this: "Die Feinere Kochkunst dargestellt nach
den Erfordernissen unserer Zeit, mit Berücksichtigung der damit in
Verbindung stehenden sonstigen Zweigen der Gastronomie."

Fancy endeavouring to solve the true inwardness of an ancient Nürnberg
treatise which bears this explanation of its contents: "Vollständig
vermehrtes Trincier-Buch, von Tafeldecken Trinciren, zeitigung der
Mundkoste, Schauessen und Schaugerichten, benebens xxiv Gast oder
Tischfragen."

And when we reflect that the German author who undertakes to
elucidate a given theme probes it to the very bottom as far as human
understanding and science can fathom it, we may readily conclude that
to master the literature of German gastronomy would call for stupendous
patience on the part of an alien.

Yet Germany has contributed a volume in the French language respecting
a province of the nation under consideration, wherein the table
manners, customs, alimentation, and the public and private life of the
old Germans are most picturesquely and minutely set forth.[23] The
ancient province of Alsace, where forty-two varieties of pâtés and
countless varieties of cakes have been in use for several centuries,
has ever been noted for the excellence of its cooks and its fondness
for good cheer. In the tenth century Bishop Uthon of Strassburg
viewed with alarm the table excesses of the priests of his diocese,
which he attempted to check by establishing monastic schools. In the
fourteenth century, on the other hand, Bishop de Lyne, who was termed
_Kappen-Esser_, was charged with gross intemperance by the clergy,
who averred he thought only of the pleasures of the table--_gulæ
ebrietatique deditus_--and that he was unable to hold morning audiences
without having previously partaken of a rich soup and a fat capon.

Dating from early times, Alsace became known as the wine-cellar,
granary, and larder of the surrounding countries--a paradise and a
garden eminently favourable for good living. Charles Gérard has proved
the local Dumas, and his volume, besides its erudite presentation
of the resources and olden customs of the country, contains many
interesting gastronomical anecdotes, such as "Favourite dishes of
celebrated personages," "Influence of a Rhein carp on a financier of
the school of Fouquet," "Frying, its nature and effect on manners,"
etc. Assuredly should a nation be credited with a natural aptitude for
gastronomy which in the early part of 1700 could devise an omelette of
brook-trout (_Forellen Eyerkuchen_) and cold pâtés of trout (_Forellen
Kalte Pasteten_), to say nothing of a certain pâté of fish (_Pâté de
langues de carpes et foies de lottes_) composed of the tongues of carp,
eels' livers, and the tails of crawfish--the invention of a Strassburg
_Koch_, which he served to the Cardinal de Rohan, and which M. Gérard
defines as the supreme limit of epularly eminence.

The researches of M. Gérard place the national dish, Sauerkraut, as an
invention dating from beyond the middle ages and proclaim its origin as
distinctly Alsatian. The date of the frog's leap into the frying-pan
he places in the year 1280, and specifies Alsace as the discoverer of
his edible qualities. The potage bisque or bisque d'écrevisses has long
been known to the epicures of the province, while the merits of stuffed
crabs were pointed out in the "Oberrheinisches Koch-Buch" of Frau
Spörlin, wife of a Protestant minister of Mulhausen. Among the strange
customs described is that appertaining to the olden festival called
Hirztag, at which time women and maids alone had the right to appear in
the inns and liquid dispensaries and avail themselves of the privileges
extended to men in eating and drinking. On these occasions any of the
male sex who was brave enough to appear was seized, stripped of his hat
and coat, and obliged to pay forfeit by a round of wine--a usage thus
described by the poet Moscherosch:

    "Spitze Schue und Knöpflein dran,
    Die Frau ist Meister und nicht der Mann."

    (With jaunty button'd and pointed shoe,
    Gretschen will riot it over you.)

No work on cookery in the German language, it is true, has obtained a
great reputation outside of its own country. But although the Teuton
is a midday diner, a custom that must prove inimical to gastronomical
perfection and thereby the highest social evolution, it were extremely
unjust to charge him with a lack of understanding in eating. On the
contrary, no one, not even the Gaul, enjoys eating and drinking more
than he, or eats and drinks amid pleasanter surroundings during a large
portion of the year. The open-air restaurants and beer-gardens are a
feature, and a most delightful feature, of German life. In the shaded
bowers of the Wirthshaus, under the umbrage of horse-chestnuts and
limes, to the plash of fountains in suburban Gasthof gardens, amid the
consonance of viols and reeds in the attractive temples of Gambrinus,
do the Germans voice the refrain,

    "Isz, trink, sei fröhlich hier auf Erd',
    Und denk nicht dass es besser wird."

    (Eat, drink, be merry, seize the present hour,
    Deem not the future holds a fairer flower.)

It must not be forgotten that in the course of time the cookery of
every nation gradually becomes complementary to the national beverages.
Conversant with the popular drinks of a people, one may promptly form
an opinion of their alimentation and characteristics. The cookery of
Germany has become subservient to, and, as it were, revolves around
Münchner and Pilsener, Hochheimer and Deidesheimer. If, therefore,
one cannot appreciate its innumerable brews and the juices of the
Riesling and the Traminer, its forms of nutrition will naturally
prove distasteful, in the same manner that the virtues of French
entrées would be found wanting if deprived of the ruby pressings
of the Sauvignon and Pinot. The rosy Schweinerippchen, after its
bath in saltpetre, and also Sauerkraut would be impossible without
their syncretic accompaniment, beer or a German white wine; and it
is only since the general use of beer in the United States that the
last-named dish, from being considered a vulgar one has become so
popular, notwithstanding it is usually but a shade of its original as
one knows it in its own home. The same may be said of sausages, in
the compounding of which the Teuton is master of the world. Different
nations, like different individuals, enjoy things in their own way, and
who shall determine whether the Gaul or the Teuton makes the most of
the fleeting hour, which necessarily includes the pleasures attendant
upon the daily nourishment of man?

Who that has visited the land of the three fluvial graces--the Rhein,
the Neckar, and the Donau--does not retain pleasant memories of some
native dish partaken of amid picturesque surroundings?--a Hasenbraten,
a Pfannkuchen, a duck, a Bockwurst, Knackwurst, or a Wienerwürstle that
fairly melts in one's mouth. How lovely those trout which were served
at the Wolfsbrunnen at Heidelberg, which you savoured in the cool of
the evening after seeing them caught fresh from the spring itself!
The Spätzle and Nudeln and sour sauce, too, which rival the national
dish of Italy; the veal cutlets and sautéd potatoes, which one never
meets as perfect as in southern Germany, and that attain their supreme
excellence in a summer Gasthof garden, must likewise ever be held in
grateful remembrance. How golden the landscape looked through your
Rhein wine Römer, how drowsily the clouds floated over the Odenwald,
and how delightfully the evening breeze awoke the responsive chords
of the beeches! In whatever direction one may turn, there is always a
haven for the hungry and the thirsty. No hill is too high, no valley
too remote for its font of refreshment, where the tap is invariably
fresh and the shrine of more substantial "restoration" is seldom to be
despised. On every hand one may find the welcome of an inn, as hearty
as Shenstone's, and, where the nature of the surroundings will allow,
one may readily verify the lines of the old poet:

    "Nun kommt der grüne Berg wo selbsten auch nichts fehlt,
      Von dem was das Gemüth ermuntert und erfreuet;
    Deshalb wird er auch vielfältiglich erwählet,
      Er hat den schönsten Stof zur grösten Fröhlichkeit."

    (Well stored with all that gladd'neth man,
      The green hill rises, cool and fair;
    And many a pilgrim, spent and wan,
      Doth quaff from font of Münchner there.)

Clearly, the _Gemüthlichkeit_ of the Germans, a word for which an
equivalent scarcely exists in any other language, may be traced to the
national beverages and an alimentation with which they harmonise--with
golden opportunities to cultivate it in the Wirthshaus, Gasthof,
restaurant, and beer-garden.

In many of the larger restaurants and beer-gardens which are conducted
on a scale that is well defined by the favourite term, "kolossal,"
the great Speisekarte, ornately decorated and rubricated in the olden
style, is grandly in evidence. A typical index to good cheer may be
taken from almost any of the vast breweries of Munich, with their
long lists of Braten, Wildpret, Pfannengerichte, Eierspeisen, Salat
and Compots. On some of these appears an epitome of the corps of
assistants, including the white-aproned waitresses with their names and
characteristics, and the great array of help that is necessary to slake
the thirst and appease the hunger of a German multitude. The conclusion
of the Speisekarte of the Löwenbräukeller may be cited as an example:


                   =Gesammt-Personal der Restauration
                        Löwenbräukeller München=

                       Concert-Saal oder Garten

     1 Ursula, die Oberkellnerin, 18[24]
     2 Therese, die Schwarze, 8
     3 Grethi, die Dicke, 13
     4 Marie, die Schwarze
     5 Marie, die Tirolerin, 17
     6 Anna, die Schwiegermutter, 13
     7 Gertraud, die Schlanke, 9
     8 Leni, die Durstige, 7
     9 Marie, 6
    10 Marie, die Dicke, 6
    11 Pepi
    12 Lina
    13 Kathi, die Schwabingerin
    14 Marie, die Freundliche
    15 Therese
    16 Marie, die Schöne
    17 Veronika
    18 Anna, die Stille
    19 Babette
    20 Anna, die Brave
    21 Emilie, die Stramme
    22 Marie, die Schwäbin
    23 Röschen
    24 Hildegard           }
    25 Marie, die Blonde   } Gallerie
    26 Marie, die Schwarze }
    27 Emma  }
    28 Elise } I. Nebensaal
    29 Betty }
    30 Klara }
    31 Thekla--Spiel oder 1 Thurmzimmer
    32 Paula  }
    33 Amanda } II. Nebensaal
    34 Lucie  }
    35 Rosa   }
    36 Hulda } Löwenterrasse
    37 Emmy  }
    38 Louise }
    39 Martha } untere Terrasse
    40 Gusti  }
    41 Cäcilie    }
    42 Hanna      } obere Terrasse
    43 Adelheid   }
    44 Grethi, die Kleine
    45 Therese, die Schwarze
    46 Elise, die Große
    47 Anna, die Schlanke
    48 Cenzi, die Hübsche
    49 Toni, die Sanfte
    50 Marie, die Dicke

                            50 Kellnerinnen

       *       *       *       *       *

    1 Geschäftsführer
    1 erster Cassier
    2 zweite Cassiere
    2 Ceremoniers
    2 Billeteurs, 2 Controleurs
    1 Programm-Verkäufer
    4 Postkarten-Verkäufer
    1 Garderobier
    2 Garderobe-Cassiere
    8 Garderobe-Gehilfen
    1 Velociped-Aufbewahrer
    1 erster Metzger
    2 zweiter Metzger
    1 Lehrjunge (Piccolo)
    6 Schenkkassiere
    6 Einschenker
    1 Hausmeister
    1 Hausschreiner
    1 Monteur für electrische Beleuchtung
    1 Hausgärtner
    1 Hausknecht (Bieraufzieher)
    1 Laufbursche
    2 Besteckputzer
    1 Buchhalterin und 1 Buffetdame
    4 Buffetdamen
    1 erste und 1 zweite Küchenbeschließerin
    1 Weißzeugbeschließerin
    1 Ober-Köchin (_chef de cuisine_)
    1 erste Köchin (für Braten, Geflügel u. Wildpret)
    1 zweite Köchin (für Pfannengerichte u. Ragouts)
    1 dritte Köchin (für Gemüse und Eierspeisen)
    1 vierte Köchin (für Spieß- und Rostbraterei)
    4 Kochpraktikantinnen (Kochfräulein)
    1 erste und 1 zweite Küchenmagd
    1 Kupferputzerin
    1 Mädchen für Speiseaufzug im Bräustübel
    1 Mädchen für Speiseaufzug im großen Saal
    1 Mädchen f. Speiseaufzug f. Gallerie u. Nebensaal
    3 Biermädchen
    1 Zimmermädchen
    1 Waschmagd
    6 Hausmägde

                             135 Personen

The cookery of Germany is, on the whole, both appetising and wholesome.
In the better class of restaurants and hotels it has absorbed many
modes of preparation from France, combining these with its own. Where
cookery has stood still in the latter country, it has advanced in the
former; and one may dine as well, perhaps, in many of its smaller
towns as in most provincial hostelries beyond its borders. Its private
cookery remains more distinct and preserves its local flavour. If
the French are more successful with the chicken, the Germans may be
relied upon to do full justice to the goose and duck. Nowhere does the
fowl which saved Rome rise to the sublime heights that it does in the
district of the Vosges, not only as a roast with "Compot," but in its
more ethereal perfection--the goose-liver "Pastete," or pâté de foie
gras.

If one desires a roast goose after the German mode, let him proceed
after the following manner: Rub a young dressed goose overnight with
salt, pepper, sage, thyme, and sweet marjoram inside and out; in the
morning prepare a dressing as follows--a large handful of stoned
raisins and Zante currants, bread crumbs, a couple of sour apples
chopped fine, and one mealy potato, with butter mixed in, and all well
rolled together, but put no spices in the dressing. For the gravy,
boil the giblets in a little water and mash the liver in a spoonful of
flour, chop the gizzard, stir these in the liquid they were boiled in,
add it to the gravy in the dripping-pan, sprinkle in a little thyme,
sage, and sweet marjoram, and it is done. Serve the gravy separately.
When cooked and served, garnish with sliced lemons and parsley. A
"Compot" of some kind, like Hagenmark, cherries with Kirsch, or even
applesauce, if not too tart, should complete the dish.

The duck may be similarly treated; but a goose or duck _à l'Allemande_
would scarcely meet with favour in France, where the rules are laid
down so strictly that even a slight deviation from accepted canons
would be met by a hiss from parquet and gallery alike. Thus the
"Almanach des Gourmands," in speaking of the young wild duck, or
albran, which in October becomes a canardeau and in November a canard,
mentions, among various ways of preparing it, that of serving it with
turnips, adding that this honour belongs more strictly to _monsieur
son père_. This gastronomic slip--that of serving turnips with a
_wild_ duck--on the part of La Reynière, who is rarely caught napping
in anything relating to foods or food preparations, aroused the ire
of Savarin, who protests against it in these vigorous words: "The
adjunction of such a vegetable as this to this noble game would be
for a young wild duck an improper and even injurious proceeding, a
monstrous alliance, a dishonourable degradation." On the other hand,
Savarin himself was roundly denounced by M. de Courchamps for assigning
a truffled turkey a place among the roasts instead of among the large
pieces of the first service. This culinary heresy, he states, has
lessened the esteem in which M. Brillat-Savarin has been held in other
respects, and seriously hurt the reputation of his book. The ethics of
gastronomy, it will be seen, are as marked as those of society, and
the arrangement of a bill of fare calls for as much finesse as do the
functions of a chaperon.

While the pâté de foie gras is a dish of modern times, the ancients
nevertheless knew the secret of enlarging the liver of the goose; but
with the relapse into barbarism the secret became lost, to remain
undiscovered until the beginning of the seventeenth century. Alsace is
the chosen home of the goose, and this fowl has rendered its capital
more celebrated than the siege of 1870 or the marvellous façade and
clock of its Münster. "My idea of heaven," said the Rev. Sydney Smith,
referring to the Strassburg product, "is eating foies gras to the sound
of trumpets!" For although the pâté is produced in numerous localities
on the Continent, in no other place does it attain the superlative
bloom and delicacy that it does in the more important manufactories of
the historic city on the Ill. To think of Strassburg is to think of
Doyen and his confrères and their incomparable productions, around
which rise the Gothic glories of the mediæval fane, the quaintly gabled
houses embellished by the craft of the wood-carver, the statues of
Gutenberg and Kleber, and the town's great girdles of fortifications
and inner ramparts.

It is said the pâté de foie gras is the invention of a Norman cook
named Close, who was in the employ of the Maréchal de Contades,
military commandant of the province from 1762 to 1788. On the
retirement of the maréchal, his cook remained in Strassburg, and
began the manufacture of the dish which had rendered the table of his
employer famous. There were truffles in the Wasgenwald, with trained
dogs to hunt them; the goose everywhere stood ready for sacrifice;
while the near-by vineyards of Neuwiller, Morsbrunn, and Westhausen
contributed their wines in abundance as its fluid concomitant. But the
pâté did not reach its highest excellence until some time afterwards,
when Doyen, a pastry-cook of great genius, already celebrated for
his _chaussons_ of veal and inimitable apple-puffs, substituted the
blacker, larger, and more fragrant truffle of Périgord, adding a
_bouquet-garni_ composed of numerous spices. Upon the proper blending
of these depends to a large extent the success of the dish, just as
the special flavour of a brand of champagne results from the precise
adjustment of its liqueur.

All through Alsace, wherever ponds or streams exist, may be seen
daily vast flocks of geese during the summer and autumn, screaming,
splashing, and diving in the water. The landscape is white with them,
and the plain resounds with their clamour. Each flock, which often
numbers a thousand, has its goose-herd and goose-dog. At dawn the
herder sounds his reveille, beginning to assemble his charges from
the most remote part of the village or hamlet. These take their place
in the procession of their own accord, until the ranks are complete,
and they eagerly wend their way to the coveted goal. Here they remain
until evening, when, at a summons from the herder, the return journey
is accomplished, each individual flock leaving the phalanx on arriving
near its home. Less idyllic is the life of the town goose, when large
ponds and succulent herbage are not readily accessible, the birds
being confined in yards where, in place of a daily round of bathing
and gossiping, they are compelled to watch the flight of the storks
overhead and mark the monotonous passing of the hours as they are
tolled from the Rathhaus tower. Nearly every other house or yard of the
poorer classes has its geese, the young fowls alone being utilised for
their livers. In late October or early November the fattening begins, a
process lasting usually from two to three weeks, the prized livers--the
true "golden egg" of the bird of St. Michael--then weighing from two to
three pounds.

  [Illustration: THE BIRD OF ST. MICHAEL

  From the etching by Birket-Foster, R.A.]

The humanitarian will protest against the cruelty of gorging the fowl
to repletion, depriving it of drink, and imprisoning it in close
cages to gratify the voracity of man. Yet it must be admitted that
hitherto everything possible to the maintenance of the health and
pleasure of the subject has been lavishly supplied, and that a brief
span at most would elapse ere time must claim its victim. The fox and
the goose have always been closely associated, and what applies to
one may well apply to the other. "Certainly," reasons Bulwer, "in the
chase itself all my sympathies are on the side of the fox. But if all
individuals are to give way to the happiness of the greatest number,
we must set off against the painful fate of the fox the pleasurable
sensation in the breasts of numbers which his fate has the honourable
privilege to excite." Without the inconveniences that the Strassburg
goose is compelled to undergo in behalf of the metamorphosis of its
liver, the list of _plats de prédilection_ were shorn of one of its
greatest attractions, and a city now of world-wide fame must soon drag
out a monotonous existence and be forgotten unless by the student of
architecture--a fact duly set forth in the following stanza:

    "Strasbourg tire vanité
      De ses pâtés de foie;
    Cette superbe cité
    Ne doit sa prospérité
      Qu'aux oies!"

    (Can roasted Philomel a liver
      Fit for a pie produce?--
    Fat pies that on the Rhein's sweet river
    Fair Strassburg bakes. Pray, who's the giver?
      A goose!)[25]

One should taste a pâté in Strassburg itself on a crisp November day,
after a protracted stroll through the sleepy town. Then one may saunter
anew through its mediæval streets and labyrinthine corridors to view
the Münster whose gargoyles glower so weirdly in the moonlight, ere
pausing at the Luxhof or the Spaten, where cool fountains of Münchner
continually flow.

That the pâté de foie gras is a factor of gout and a prolific cause
of indigestion, as is commonly asserted, is true to the same extent
that holds good with many other viands when inordinately indulged in
or partaken of too frequently. It was never intended to be eaten by
the "terrine," and much also depends upon its freshness and the source
of its manufacture. A generous slice of a fresh authentic Strassburg
pâté, eaten with bread, need hold no terrors for a healthy digestion,
or prove other than a source of the most delightsome recollections.
Savouring it, one may again summon the surroundings of its native
land--the verdant meads of the Alsace plain, the herder tending his
argent flocks, the soft contours of the Vosges outlined against the
distant sky.

But the alimentary resources of Germany are nowhere revealed to greater
advantage than in the innumerable forms of the sausage, and it may well
be questioned whether the songs of the Lorelei are not, after all,
inspired by the perfection of this product, rather than called forth by
the beauties of the Lurlenberg or the merits of the vineyards of the
Rheingau.

To become a connoisseur of sausages in all their protean phases is no
simple task. Only a German may analyse intelligently all the species
and varieties, from the huge Cervelat of Braunschweig and goose-liver
Trüffelwurst of Strassburg to the Salamis of Gotha and Blutwurst of
Schwaben. And as the sausage is fashioned with a special view to its
harmonious combination with beer, it is self-evident that one must be
a beer-drinker of experience in order to pronounce upon the virtues
of a given kind. "Wurst" and "Durst," Uhland long since pointed out,
not only rhyme, but belong together in a material way. But by this he
in no wise implied that one might choose a variety at random, with no
thought of consonance as regards its liquid accompaniment, or even
that one should be unmindful of climatic conditions. Thus the variety
that blends best with the dark, potent Gerstensaft of Nürnberg as
one quaffs it in great Seidels thick with its head of creamy foam
in the Mohrenkeller, or in cool Steins in the Bratwurst-Glöcklein,
would be entirely out of place as a complement to the amber Pilsener
of Austria, the Weiss beer of Berlin, or even the many malt extracts
of Württemberg. It is likewise equally easy to understand that a
particular sausage which might appeal to one in Hanover might be
utterly incongruous to the climate of the Elbe or the Neckarthal.

The delicate Bockwurst, composed of veal and pork, should be used with
Bock beer, for which it was especially designed. The juicy Knackwurst,
with its flavour of garlic, which belongs to the family of the
Frankfurt and Wienerwurst, is eminently worthy its exalted place as a
garnish to Sauerkraut, where the Mettwurst and the Schwartenmagen would
sound a discordant note. To determine the precise kind that should be
taken with the Münchner Hof-Bräu, as it is dispensed in the Café and
Garten of the Hotel Royal at Stuttgart, where the regal beer of Munich
reaches its apotheosis, would require a more extended experience than
might be contributed by the writer. A Knackwurst, possibly, may be
suggested during the summer, and a Bratwurst in winter. And yet this
would depend largely upon the hour of the evening, as well as on the
recommendations of the Kellnerin. Not more dissimilar are the hams of
the thick-jowled swine of Westphalia and those of the long-snouted
brindled hogs of Rothenburg an der Tauber, than are the various
sausages of different districts. Indeed, with the sausage alone Germany
might form a rampart round the world, and float a navy upon her daily
tide of beer.

Of the innumerable varieties, the well-known Cervelat is the largest,
and of these the most colossal come from Braunschweig, which also
produces the finest Knack-and Zungenwürste, the finest truffled
geese-liver as well as calves'-liver sausages coming from Strassburg.
Although the Plockwurst, the diminutive Wienerbrühwürstchen, the tiny
Lübecker Saucisschen, the Schlackwurst, and very many other kinds are
not included in the subjoined list relating to this specialty, its
perusal will be found of absorbing interest by the connoisseur, and
its study remind the too unobservant traveller who has sojourned in
Germany of, alas! how many neglected opportunities. The quotations are
given in marks and kilograms, the mark equalling twenty-five cents and
the kilogram being equivalent to a little over two pounds. The record
being that of a north-German shop, southern Germany is only meagrely
represented, and the list sounds its own praises too well to call for
comment:


                         _Preis Verzeichniss._

                                _Per Kilo._
    _Braunschweiger._            _M._ _Pf._
    Cervelatwurst                 4.
    Mettwurst                     3.   60
    Trüffelleberwurst             4.
    Sardellenleberwurst           3.   60
    Feine Leberwurst              3.
    Zungenblutwurst               3.   20
    Blutwurst, geräuchert         2.   40
    Frische Sulze in Blase
    Blut- und Leberwürste, Stück       25

          _Gothaer._
    Cervelatwurst I               3.   60
      "           II
      "   homöopatische
      "   Grobschnitt
    Salamis                       4.
    Mortadella gekocht            4.

      _Göttinger._
    Mettwurst

        _Colmar._
    Gänselebertrüffelwurst              7

        _Gothaer._
    Feine Leberwurst, geräuchert  3.   60
    Knackwürste, Paar                  35
    Jagdwürste                         65
    Zungenblutwurst               3.   20
    Blutwurst                     2.   80
    Paaszsülze                    3.   60

        _Thüringer._
    Cervelatwurst
    Schwartenmagen                2.   80
    Blutwurst, frische, haussch   2.   80
    Knackwürste, Paar                  40

      _Westfälischer._
    Schinkenroulade               4.

      _Strassburger._
    Gänselebertrüffelwurst        7.
    Kalbslebertrüffelwurst        4.
    Salamis di Verona
    Mortadella di Bologna

      _Wiener._
    Selchwürstchen, Paar               25
    Saucisschen                   13

      _Frankfurter._
    Bratwürste, Paar                   45

      _Janer'sche._
    Bratwürste, Paar                   45

      _Regensburger._
    Wurst, Paar

        _Berliner._
    Erbswurst, Stück                   65

      _Schomberger._
    Delikatesswürstchen

How they shine in their silken skins, these triumphs of the
_Metzgerei_, seen through the plate-glass of a Delikatessen shop--ebon
and bronze, russet and red, blonde and grey, mottled and veined, of
all hues and all sizes: long and slender, plump and fat, curved like a
crescent, round-barrelled and egg-shaped, as if their juices and spices
were eager to be set free; some that gain in succulence by time; others
that, like the rose, have but their hour in which to be plucked.

An essentially south-German dish is the Metzelsuppe--the
"bouillabaisse" of Swabia--in which the sausage plays an important
role, but which, to be appreciated, requires an essentially German
taste as well as a digestion without limit. This consists of several
preparations of freshly killed pork, including soup, bacon, and
sausages with Sauerkraut, the sausages usually being the Leber and the
Blutwurst. It has found its Thackeray in Uhland, whose poem has become
a classic, although, with the possible exception of the bacon and
Sauerkraut, the alien will find the poem preferable to the dish.

With a choice of a different soup for every day in the year, the German
does not lack for variety in the stepping-stone of the dinner. With all
of these the stranger may not be in sympathy, and in none of them will
he find the equal, as an all-round preface to the principal repast, of
a perfect Julienne. But the potato soup, the native pot-au-feu, and
even the soup in which beer is an important ingredient, have their
merits when well prepared. Nor is the boiled beef with horseradish
sauce, which usually follows the soup, to be despised, notably in
warm weather, when rich and heavy viands cloy. One would be equally
lacking in appreciation were he to lose sight of another dish we owe
to Germany, the "marinirte," or sour-spiced herring--that offset to
_Katzenjammer_ and noon-restorer of a jaded appetite and a parched
tongue. The Schmierkäse, or whey-cheese, when cream is employed in
its composition and the green of fresh chives enters as an adjunct to
please the eye and the palate, surely requires no praises, whatever may
be said to the contrary of the variety whose very name one thinks of in
a whisper.

Such dishes as Szegediner Schwein's Goulash mit Sauerkraut, Paprica
Schnitzel mit Ungarischem Kraut, and Ungarisches Goulash mit
Spätzle--triumphs of the Hungarian and Viennese _Kochkunst_--seldom
turn out satisfactory in alien hands. The Spätzle and Nudel are two
farinaceous dishes that also call for a native cook to serve in
perfection. The Spätzle is of south-German origin, and tastes best when
it flanks a viand with a tart sauce and has a Rhein wine to keep it
company. This observation applies more strictly to its native home,
the virtues of German dishes and German cigars being most apparent
amid their natural atmosphere. Indeed, who shall say that the "Pfarrer
von Kirchfeld" or the colourful strains of "Sataniel" would seem the
same if transported oversea? Climate, the hour, the environment--all
the conditions of the _entourage_ exercise a marked influence on many
things, especially on the pleasures of taste. The Zeller that seems
so delicious with the chicken in a south-German restaurant is apt
to prove a delusion elsewhere; and even the best of Affenthaler and
Assmanshäuser, of which one may retain a pleasant remembrance, must
fade before a good Bordeaux. The beer of Germany, when properly cared
for and when allowed to rush swiftly from the wood, alone preserves
a large portion of its delicious tonical freshness wherever partaken
of. Like an omelette soufflé, beer has its moment, and once started
towards the Seidel or Stein, its flow should be as uninterrupted as the
course of a mountain brook that, with music and song and freighted with
coolness, comes dancing down from the distant hills to slake the thirst
of the vale below.

Of game, the hare and the partridge have always been held in great
esteem by the Germans; and while the native Rebhuhn may not compare
with our own prince of feathered game-birds, the ruffed grouse, the
German hare has unquestionable merits when prepared as the favourite
Hasenbraten, Hasenpfeffer, and Hasenrücken gespickt with Sahnen sauce.
Even Goethe sounds a "Hoch!" when he thinks of the game he has
secured, and smacks his lips in anticipation of its appearance on the
table.[26]

The mysteries of the sandwich in all its possibilities are unknown
to Germany. But amends are made by the attractions of the Kalter
Aufschnitt which takes its place, where slices of veal are surrounded
by slices of Cervelat, ham, and tongue, and thin cuts of Leberwurst
with pickles and hard-boiled eggs cut in rounds to form a frame,
and rye bread and mustard _à discretion_. As for the Kuchen--light,
wholesome, and inviting--its forms are legion, though these belong more
strictly to the supper-table or to that phase of feminine entertainment
termed "The Coffee." The common and often excessive use of the
caraway-seed in cakes and breadstuffs is nevertheless to be deplored,
however great its merits as a carminative.

Dumas tells the story of the excellent cake called madeleine, an
entremets which all who have been in France will remember. Is it a
flower of the Vosges, indigenous to Alsace, that has been transplanted
across the border?--it must have been the invention of the German
_Kuchenkunst_. This is the account of the madeleine as it appears in
the "Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine":

   "A tourist-friend who was at Strassburg, and who started
   out on his travels a little late, expecting to reach the
   next village before dark, was unsuccessful in finding a
   shelter until nearly midnight, when he perceived the spire
   of a distant church, and soon afterwards the welcome rays of
   a light that seemed to emerge from some subterranean abode.
   Knocking at the door, a gruff voice demanded:

   "'Who is it, and what do you want?'

   "'I am a traveller, weary and worn, and well-nigh starved. For
   heaven's sake, let me in.'

   "With this the door was unbarred by a man of savage aspect
   whose hair and beard were covered with flour, and who was
   naked to the waist.

   "'Come in, and make haste,' he said in a cavernous voice; and
   a large room was disclosed to the traveller the interior of
   which was lighted by the fires of an immense oven. The door
   was then re-barred by the forbidding-looking occupant.

   "'Pardon, Monsieur,' said the traveller, little at ease. 'I
   have just completed sixteen or eighteen leagues with scarcely
   a mouthful; cannot I buy something to appease my hunger, and
   have a couch to lie on?'

   "'I have only my own bed,' replied the man, in his gruff
   voice; 'as to something to eat, that is not wanting--it
   remains to be seen if it will please you.'

   "And opening a cupboard, he produced a basket containing a
   dozen or so of oval-shaped cakes of a fine golden hue.

   "'Try these,' he said to the traveller, 'and tell me what you
   think of them.'

   "When the basket was emptied, he asked, 'What do you think of
   my madeleines?'

   "'Something to drink first,' muttered the traveller in a
   strangled voice.

   "The cupboard was opened anew, and uncorking a bottle covered
   with dust, the baker filled two glasses, passing one to the
   stranger.

   "'Drink,' he said; 'I don't wish my cakes to choke you.'

   "The glass was emptied at a draught, when the visitor passed
   it to be refilled,--it was an excellent Bordeaux.

   "'Your health, my friend; you have given me one of the most
   delicious repasts that I have ever had. But tell me what do
   you call these lovely cakes?'

   "'What! don't you know the madeleines of Commercy?'

   "'You mean to say I am at Commercy?'

   "'Yes, and, without knowing it, you have eaten the best cakes
   in the world.'"

_Se non è vero è ben trovato_--the madeleine still remains to gladden
the traveller. They bring it now in little boxes of a dozen--flat on
the top and grooved like a shell underneath, the colour a rich golden
brown--as the train halts for a moment at the town on the Meuse where
Cardinal de Retz wrote his memoirs.

One of the earliest of German cook-books, published at Strassburg
in 1516, and now of the utmost rarity, bears for its title
"Kuchenmeisterey," or the mastery of cake-making. Perchance were one
to turn its faded Gothic leaves, some forgotten master-stroke of the
baker might reveal itself, to vie with the madeleine in popularity
and add to the already endless list of farinaceous _Leckerbissen_ and
_Frauenessen_, wherein the Germans have no superiors.

The story of the madeleine suggests that of the Vienna roll, which,
it is said, owes its origin to the investment of Vienna by the Turks.
During the protracted siege of the city, when the town had become
almost reduced to starvation and the position of the enemy was unknown,
a baker was making his last batch of bread. His little son, who had
been amusing himself with his marbles and drum, had gone to bed,
leaving a marble on the drum-head. The baker kept on with his baking
and attending to his ovens, sitting down between times to meditate
on his probable fate when the final loaf was gone, and gleaming
cangiars and ferocious janizaries had begun their work of carnage.
Suddenly his attentive ear was arrested by an unaccustomed vibratory
sound proceeding from the drum, while his eye perceived a continuous
dancing movement of the marble. Soon it became apparent to him that
the vibration was caused by forces working on the fortifications
without--the steady pounding of mattock and pickaxe--and that the
undermining of the walls had begun almost at his door. At once his
loaves were forgotten, and, hastening to spread the alarm, the enemy
was attacked unawares and successfully routed. The following day the
baker was summoned before the emperor.

"What reward do you claim for your services?--you have saved the city,"
said the emperor.

"I would serve the bread for the palace," replied the artist of the
loaves, "and I would have my rolls shaped like the Crescent we have
conquered."

A favourite convivial song of the Fatherland, with its rollicking
strain, may not be omitted from a German Speisekarte. The words are
by a former minister of education, von Muehler, of Prussia; the music
that of the dance "La Madrilena." It should be sung in chorus and led
by one who is light on his feet and a master of the side-step, with
the sonorous instrumentation of viols and horns to lend it additional
spirit and swing:


                           BEDENKLICHKEITEN

(Heinrich von Muehler, 1842. Bis 1872 Preussischer Cultusminister.)

  [Illustration:

    _Munter._      Spanischer Tanz: La Madrilena.

    1. Grad' aus dem Wirthshaus nun komm' ich her-aus;...
    Stra-sse, wie wun-der-lich siehst du mir aus!...
    Rech-ter Hand, lin-ker Hand, bei-des ver-tauscht:
    Stra-sse, ich mer-ke wohl, du bist be-rauscht!

    2. Was für ein schief Gesicht, Mond, machst denn du?
    Ein Au-ge hat er auf, eins hat er zu?...
    Du wirst be-trun-ken sein, das seh' ich hell:...
    Schä-me dich, schäme dich, al-ter Ge-sell!

    3. Und die La-ter-nen erst, was muss ich sehn!
    Die kön-nen al-le nicht gra-de mehr stehn;...
    Wa-ckeln und fa-ckeln die Kreuz und die Quer:...
    Schei-nen be-trun-ken mir al-le-sammt schwer!

    4. Al-les im Stur-me rings, Gro-sses und Klein;
    Wag' ich dar-un-ter mich, nüch-tern al-lein?...
    Das scheint be-denk-lich mir ein Wa-ge-stück!
    Da geh' ich lie-ber in's Wirthshaus zu-rück!
]

While the Germans have not yet adopted applesauce with green goose or
cranberries with turkey, no fault can be found with their admirable
choice of the "Compot" in general as an accessory and grace-note to
the roast. One may even forgive them the taste which permits them to
serve the noted hams of Westphalia uncooked, in view of the excellence
of their beer, their admirable Kuchen, and the merits of their rolls
and sweets. Besides cakes innumerable, the larder of the Hausfrau
fairly groans with "Compots," some form of which is invariably served
with roast meats, poultry, or game. And inasmuch as woman in Germany
is created for the special purpose of ministering to the comforts,
the tastes, and the selfish wishes of man, independent of her own
inclinations, it may be assumed that her natural fondness for sweets is
shared equally by the opposite sex.

One may or may not be impressed with the merits of the German
_Kochkunst_ in all its branches, which perhaps requires a native or
a seasoned taste to be estimated at its just and proper worth. But
that it comports with those whom it chiefly concerns, and that it is
appreciated by all true sons of the Fatherland, will admit of little
doubt when one considers the national _Gemüthlichkeit_, or views the
profound deliberation that the perusal of a Speisekarte always evokes
from the Gast, the Wirth, and the Herr Oberkellner.

  [Illustration]

  [Illustration: PROMENADE NUTRITIVE

Frontispiece of "Le Gastronome Français" (1828)]




  [Illustration]




                         THE SCHOOL OF SAVARIN

   "Depuis longtemps j'avais un mot à dire de Brillat-Savarin.
   Cette figure, souriante plutôt que riante, ce demi-ventre, cet
   esprit et cet estomac de bon ton, me tentait."

                                                  CHARLES MONSELET.


Most noted of literary tributes to the table is that of
Brillat-Savarin, who has discoursed on gastronomy with all the
knowledge and discursiveness, with all the verve and raciness displayed
by Ninon de l'Enclos in descanting on love in her letters to the
Marquis de Sévigné. He is at once the corypheus of good cheer and its
most refined exponent. Few subjects are as difficult to treat without
grossness as those relating to the gratification of the appetite,
the pleasures of eating and drinking, which he has handled with such
felicitous skill. Accompanying him along his alluring ambages, whose
aisles are redolent of truffles and vol-au-vents in lieu of balsams
and flowers, all other arts appear secondary to that of gastronomy; for
through it alone, it becomes obviously manifest, may its sister arts
receive their proper inspiration and man attain that hygienic beatitude
which is essential to the greatest creative genius.

Whether he was as accomplished in reality as he appears upon the
printed page, whether his practice was equal to his theory,--a question
some of his contemporaries have disputed,--is of trivial moment in view
of the abiding attractiveness of the "Physiologie du Goût." In his
essay the distinction of a gourmand and a gourmet was first distinctly
set forth, and throughout its length and breadth the topic is discussed
with the dexterity that the author would observe in the preparation
of his favourite _fondue_. Rarely has a subject found a writer whose
qualities so eminently fitted him for its elaboration. With a touch
light as gossamer, he has run the entire gamut of taste, investing his
theme with new and subtle harmonies. The pheasant and the turkey have
gained in savour since he has passed them under review, and the truffle
derived an added flavour through the sixth Meditation.

In viewing the portrait of Savarin, we see before us a man of imposing
presence, full-faced and florid, large, massive, robust, with bright
eyes, rounded chin, and sensuous mouth. The high, broad forehead and
protuberances above the eyebrows denote the reasoning and imaginative
mind, while the full nostrils and lips point to a highly developed
physical organism--to one who might be a lawyer, physician, banker,
or diplomat, but whose features in any event proclaim the genial
companion, the ready raconteur, and one upon whom the pleasures of the
senses exercise an important influence. It was this nice adjustment of
the mental and physical, this happy balance of mind and being, that
combined to produce a work which may justly be classed among the most
original of the nineteenth century.

"To fulfil the task I propose to myself," observes the author in his
preface, "it was necessary to be a physician, a physiologist, and
even more or less of a classical scholar." To these qualifications
he added those of a thorough man of the world, a natural epicure, a
keen observer, a metaphysician, and a writer unusually gifted with
style and sententiousness of expression. Impressed by his masterly
grasp of his subject, La Reynière, on reading the volume for the first
time, immediately proclaimed its supremacy, asserting that it should
open the doors of the Academy if they were to be opened by a superior
mind. Among the many recognitions of the writer's genius none is more
appreciative than that of Balzac, whose "Physiology of Marriage"
was inspired by the "Physiology of Taste." Treatises innumerable
on gastronomy have since appeared, but few are worthy of serious
consideration, the majority being more or less offensive or mere echoes
of a familiar strain.

With Savarin gastronomy became an all-absorbing enthusiasm--a prolific
vein that hitherto had been imperfectly explored. It was, above all, an
art, a potent factor in the pleasures of life, a valuable auxiliary to
health, a means of advancing the amenities of existence--a _finesse_,
in short, of which he was to be the analyst and interpreter, the La
Bruyère and the Sainte-Beuve. Like the sprightly Ninon in her letters,
who at eighty was still able to captivate and charm, Savarin might have
written of the meditations of his advanced age: "We are not indulging
in what is termed fine conversation--we are philosophising."

The reader who will look to the "Physiology" for practical directions
on cookery will be disappointed. In place of a cook-book he will find
a reflective dissertation on the æsthetics of the table, replete with
wit, humour, and anecdote; a treatise dealing more with physical
functions than the fashioning of sauces, and with the fork and
wine-glass rather than with the chef and casserole.

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, or Brillat de Savarin, was born at Belley, in
the department of the Ain, in 1755, the "Physiologie du Goût" appearing
in 1825, a year previous to his death. The volume was the outcome of
a lifetime of preparation for which his temperament and circumstances
afforded abundant opportunity. Like La Reynière, he was a lawyer by
profession, and, like him, he became an exile for a considerable
period. He had received a careful education, the early part of his life
being devoted to his legal practice, medical and chemical studies,
and epicurean pleasures. He was fond of music, the fair sex, and good
dinners, this triple penchant revealing itself frequently in his
anecdotes. When thirty-eight years of age, he was elected mayor of
Belley. Later, after sojourning in Switzerland, he visited the United
States for a period of three years to introduce to New England the
_fondue_--a dish which he proclaims of Swiss origin and from which
the "Welsh rarebit" was derived. On his return to France he became
a commissary of the government in the department of Seine-et-Oise,
afterwards being appointed a counsellor in the Court of Cassation, a
position he occupied during the remainder of his life. While engaged in
this tribunal, his volume was leisurely composed.

Lyons, celebrated for its _cervelas_, chestnuts, beer, and _vin de
Rivage_, was but a short distance from his native place, and it may be
assumed that when tired of home fare he availed himself occasionally of
its numerous markets and restaurants, and enjoyed the hospitality of
its _bons-vivants_. Game was abundant in the Ain, a region he describes
as "a charming country of high mountains, hills, rivers, limpid brooks,
and cascades." Nor were trout wanting in its crystal waters--a delicacy
that often graced his table and furnished him with one of his most
picturesque recipes. He is speaking in his oracular way to his chef,
in the admirable Meditation entitled "The Theory of Frying," a chapter
that every cook should learn by heart:

   "I say nothing about choosing oils or fats, because the
   various cook-books which I have placed in your library give
   sufficient information on that hand. Do not forget, however,
   when you have any of those trout weighing scarcely more than
   a quarter of a pound and caught in running brooks that murmur
   far from the capital--do not forget, I say, to fry them in the
   very finest olive oil you have. This simple dish, properly
   sprinkled and served up with slices of lemon, is worthy of
   being offered to a cardinal."

One can almost hear the music of the stream as it purls over its pebbly
bed and whispers to the overhanging alders, while one marks the leap
and glitter of trout and their prompt transition to the basket and the
frying-pan. And lest these lovely denizens of spring-fed waters be
overlooked in a subsequent chapter, it will be well to attach at once
the instructions as to their mode of cooking of another author, in whom
one is sure of an admirable guide, philosopher, and friend:

   "They are so perfumed, these little trout," says Baron
   Brisse, "that it is sufficient to cook them in a light
   _court-bouillon_, and as soon as they are perfectly cold to
   eat them _au naturel_; all seasonings detracting from their
   savour. _Truites au court-bouillon._ Clean the trout by the
   gills, dry them carefully, tie up the heads, then cook them in
   a _court-bouillon_ made of white wine seasoned with slices of
   onion, sprigs of parsley, thyme, bay-leaf, and salt, adding a
   little bouillon; let them simmer until completely done, dry
   them, and serve on a napkin garnished with parsley. If a sauce
   is desired, mix a part of the _court-bouillon_ with butter and
   flour, reduce one half on a lively fire, and serve. _Truites
   à la Vosgienne._ After dressing the trout, sprinkle with
   salt and let them stand an hour. Then place them on the fire
   with the necessary quantity of white wine for their cooking,
   seasoning with onions, cloves, a _bouquet-garni_, a clove of
   garlic, salt, pepper, and butter mixed with flour; cook on a
   lively fire, lay out the trout on a platter, and mask them
   with the sauce passed through a sieve."

These modes of preparation, all of which are delicious, will not
interfere with preparing them _à la matelote_ and _au gratin_, or the
more common manner of frying them in butter, with a thin slice or two
of salt pork and a dash of lemon and sprinkling of chopped parsley
added to the sauce of the cooking. The best of sauces, however, is the
sauce of catching the trout one's self--to hear with one's own ear the
cool lapse of streams "that murmur far from the capital," and view the
rubies at first hand as they flash from the _Salmo's_ roseate sides.

If, as was stated by the Marquis de Cussy, Brillat-Savarin "ate
copiously and ill, chose little, talked dully, and was preoccupied
at the end of a repast," no fault can be found by the most captious
critic with the conversationalist and host of the "Physiology." There
is not a dull line within its covers, or a page unmarked by brilliancy.
Beginning with a dissertation on the senses in general, he proceeds
with a most recondite analysis of the senses relating to taste. He
explains that the empire of taste has its blind and its deaf, that the
sensation of taste resides principally in the papillæ of the tongue,
though every tongue has not the same number of papillæ, but that in
some there are thrice as many as in others. Hence, with two persons
sitting at the same table, one may be deliciously affected by the
viands and wines, whereas the other will seem to partake of them with
restraint. Taste, he maintains, is a sense that, all things considered,
procures us the greatest number of enjoyments:

   "1st. Because the pleasure of eating is the only one that,
   taken in moderation, is never followed by fatigue;

   "2d. Because it belongs to all times, to all ages, and to all
   conditions;

   "3d. Because it occurs necessarily at least once a day, and
   may be repeated without inconvenience two or three times in
   this space of time;

   "4th. Because it may be combined with all our other pleasures
   and even console us for their absence;

   "5th. Because the impressions it receives are at the same time
   more durable and more dependent on our will;

   "6th. Because in eating we receive a certain indefinable and
   special comfort which arises from the intuitive consciousness
   that we repair our losses and prolong our existence by the
   food we eat.

   "Lastly," he asserts, "the tongue of man, by the delicacy
   of its texture and the various membranes which environ it,
   sufficiently indicates the sublimity of the operations for
   which it is destined. It contains at least three movements
   unknown to animals, which he terms spication, rotation, and
   verrition. The first is when the tongue in a conical shape
   comes from between the lips that compress it; the second, when
   the tongue moves circularly in the space comprised between
   the interior of the cheeks and the palate; the third, when
   the tongue, curving upwards or downwards, gathers anything
   remaining in the semicircular canal formed by the lips and the
   gums."

Like the seasoned and thoroughbred hunter who is sure of his sinew and
his stride, and before whom the stile, the ditch, and the five-barred
gate present no obstacles, so may Savarin be freely allowed his head
and be followed over the fragrant fields of taste, with no fear
that anything appertaining to its province will prove impossible or
difficult for him to surmount.

The influence of smell on taste is closely analysed:

   "For myself, I am not only persuaded that without the
   participation of smell there is no perfect taste, but I am
   even tempted to believe that smell and taste form only one
   sense, of which the mouth is the laboratory and the nose the
   chimney; or, to speak more exactly, that the tongue tastes
   tactile substances, and the nose gases. This theory may be
   vigorously defended.

   "All sapid bodies must be necessarily odorous, which places
   them as well in the empire of smell as in the empire of taste.

   "We eat nothing without smelling it with more or less
   consciousness; and for unknown foods the nose acts always as a
   sentinel, and cries, 'Who goes there?'

   "When smell is interrupted, taste is paralysed. This is proved
   by three experiments, which any one may make successfully:
   _First_, when the nasal mucous membrane is irritated by a
   violent cold in the head, taste is entirely obliterated.
   In anything we swallow there is no taste. The tongue,
   nevertheless, remains in its normal state. _Second_, if we
   eat whilst holding tight our nose, we are much astonished
   to experience the sensation of taste only in an obscure and
   imperfect manner. By this means the most nauseous medicines
   are swallowed almost without tasting them. _Third_, we see the
   same effect if, at the moment we have swallowed, instead of
   bringing back the tongue to its usual place, we keep it close
   to the palate. In this case the circulation of the air is
   intercepted, the organs of smell are not affected, and taste
   does not occur. These different effects depend upon the same
   cause, the lack of coöperation of the smell, which makes the
   sapid body to be appreciated only on account of its juice, and
   not for the odoriferous gas that emanates from it.

   "These principles being thus laid down, I regard it as certain
   that taste gives rise to sensations of three different
   orders, namely: _direct_ sensation, _complete_ sensation, and
   _reflex_ sensation. Direct sensation is that first perception
   which arises from the immediate operation of the organs of
   the mouth, whilst the appreciable body is yet found on the
   point of the tongue. Complete sensation is that which is
   composed of this first perception and of the impression which
   originates when the food abandons this first position, passes
   into the back part of the mouth, and impresses the whole organ
   with both taste and perfume. Reflex sensation is the judgment
   of the mind upon the impressions transmitted to it by the
   organ."

To no other writer may one turn so satisfactorily for an interpretation
of the word "gastronomy," a word which belongs by right to him.
Previous to his exegesis, gluttony and gastronomy had been more or
less confounded. It is true that the poem of Berchoux is entitled "La
Gastronomie," but the term was not defined by the poet, nor do the
piquant pages of the "Almanach" refer to the art "of having excellent
cheer" under that term. The true epicure, as distinguished from the
gross eater, had long stood in need of the definition and distinction.
"The gastronomer is nearly always a sage," it has been observed--a
statement borne out by the "Dictionnaire de la Conversation," which
characterises this science as "the art of living, of eating worthily,
properly, as a man of taste, character, and judgment." It will prove of
interest, therefore, to those who are unfamiliar with the "Physiology"
to refer to the third Meditation, and note the French savant's
elaborate analysis of the word:

   "Gastronomy is the rational knowledge of all that relates to
   man as an eater.

   "Its object is to watch over the preservation of men by means
   of the best nourishment possible.

   "It arrives thereat by laying down certain principles to
   direct those who look for, furnish, or prepare the things
   which may be converted into food.

   "Thus it is gastronomy that sets in motion farmers,
   vine-growers, fishers, hunters, and the numerous family
   of cooks, whatever may be their title, or under whatever
   qualification they may disguise their occupation of preparing
   food.

   "Gastronomy is connected--

   "With natural history, by its classification of alimentary
   substances.

   "With physics, by the investigation of their composition and
   their qualities;

   "With chemistry, by the different analyses and decompositions
   which it makes them undergo;

   "With cookery, by the art of preparing food and rendering it
   more agreeable to taste;

   "With commerce, by the search for means to buy at the cheapest
   rate possible what is consumed by it, and selling to the
   greatest advantage that which is presented for sale;

   "Lastly, with political economy, by the resources which it
   furnishes to the authorities for taxation, and by the means of
   exchange it establishes among nations.

   "Some knowledge of gastronomy is needed by all men, since it
   tends to increase the allotted sum of human happiness; and the
   more easy a man's circumstances, the more advantages does he
   gain from such knowledge."

Summing up, he pronounces its material subject to be everything that
may be eaten; its direct object, the preservation of individuals; and
its means of execution, cultivation which produces, commerce which
exchanges, industry which prepares, and experience which invents the
means of turning everything to the best account.

It will thus be perceived how little understood, even at this
advanced age, is the term in question, and how few, comparatively,
there are who comprehend the true significance of the pleasures of
the table--pleasures where grossness does not enter, but where taste,
refinement, the amenities, and hygiene assert their sway. Life is short
at its longest; but who shall harvest its sweetnesses so fully as the
accomplished gastronomer! The rustling forest glades, radiant in the
pomp of October, may be summoned by the appearance of a finely larded
grouse; the tinkle of liberated brooks be heard with the advent of the
first April trout; the flute of the whitethroat be recalled by the
floral tributes to the table; and all that is sunshine in nature be
distilled when the cork sets free a noble vintage of the Médoc or the
Marne.

If the term "gastronomy" was imperfectly understood until the
definition in the "Physiology," as much may be said of the word
_gourmandise_, which oftener served as a designation of gluttony than
as a synonym of refined epicureanism.

_Gourmandise_, Savarin defines as "an impassioned, rational, and
habitual preference for all objects which flatter the sense of taste.
It is opposed to excess in eating and drinking. Physically, it is an
indication of the wholesome state of the organs on which nutrition
depends, and, morally, it marks implicit resignation to the commands
of the Creator, who, in ordering man to eat that he may live, invites
him to do so by appetite, encourages him by flavour, and rewards him
by pleasure. It is, moreover, most favourable to beauty, imparting
more brilliancy to the eye, freshness to the skin, more support to
the muscles; and as it is certain in physiology that it is the
depression of muscles that causes wrinkles, those formidable enemies of
beauty, it is equally true that, all things being equal, those who know
how to eat are comparatively ten years younger than those ignorant of
that science." It was also left for him to discover that _gourmandise_,
when it is shared, has a marked influence on the happiness which may be
found in the conjugal state.

  [Illustration: "POUR VOIR DE BONS REFRAINS ÉCLORE, BUVONS ENCORE!"

  Frontispiece of "Le Caveau Moderne" (1807)]

Let us follow the accomplished chancellor farther in his physiological
studies, and refer to the thirteenth Meditation, which treats of
"gastronomic tests." In a previous chapter a famous bill of fare of
the renowned Rocher de Cancale has been presented, which it may be
well to compare with what approaches nearest to a menu or series of
menus in the "Physiology." It will then be for the reader to decide
whether he would rather have assisted at the feast of the Rocher
alluded to, or at that prescribed by Savarin for an income of thirty
thousand francs in the early part of the century. In both instances
the list of accompanying wines is wanting, and therefore the menus are
necessarily incomplete as a dinner chronicle of the times. Happily, the
long and heavy dinners of former days have given place to repasts of
a far more simple nature, as the heavy wines of Oporto and the South
and the highly saccharine products of the vine have been replaced by
lighter and more wholesome kinds. It is possible now to dine well
and generously and escape a headache or an indigestion the following
morning.

By "gastronomic tests," which the author claims as a personal discovery
that will honour the nineteenth century, he understands dishes of
acknowledged flavour, of an excellence so undoubted that the mere sight
of them ought to move, in a well-organised man, every faculty of taste;
so that all those whose faces under such circumstances neither flash
with desire nor beam with ecstasy may justly be noted as unworthy of
the honours of the banquet and its attending pleasures. A test destined
for a man of limited means, he explains, would have little reference to
a head clerk, and would scarcely be perceived when a select few dine
together at a capitalist's or a diplomatist's. Should such dishes as a
truffled turkey seem out of keeping for an income of fifteen thousand
francs, and the list of the "third series" appear too elaborate for an
income of double that sum, due consideration should be taken of the
value of the franc at the period to which the author refers. It is also
to be presumed that such a bill of fare was not often served by any one
person, and was therefore more highly prized and more easily digested.


                          Gastronomic Tests.


                             First Series.

   For a Presumed Income of 5000 Francs a Year (Mediocrity).

   A large fillet of veal, well larded with bacon, done in its
   own gravy.

   A country-fed turkey stuffed with Lyons chestnuts.

   Fattened pigeons larded and cooked to a turn.

   Eggs _dressed à la neige_.

   A dish of Sauerkraut bristling with sausages and crowned with
   Strassburg bacon.

   _Remarks._--"Bless me! that looks all right! Come on! let us
   do honour to it!"


                            Second Series.

   For a Presumed Income of 15,000 Francs (Comfort).

   A fillet of beef underdone in the middle, larded and done in
   its own gravy.

   A haunch of venison, accompanied by a gherkin sauce.

   A boiled turbot.

   A leg of mutton _présalé_, done _à la provençale_.

   A truffled turkey.

   Early green peas.

   _Remarks._--"Ah, my dear friend, what a delightful sight! This
   is truly a wedding-feast."


                             Third Series.

   For a Presumed Income of 30,000 Francs or more (Riches).

   A fowl of about seven pounds stuffed with truffles till it
   becomes almost round.

   An enormous Strassburg _pâté de foie gras_, in the shape of a
   bastion.

   A large Rhein _carp à la Chambord_, richly dressed and
   decorated.

   Truffled quails, with marrow, spread on buttered toast _au
   basilic_.

   A river pike larded, stuffed, and smothered in a cream of
   crayfish _secundum artem_.

   A pheasant done to perfection, with his tail-feathers stuck
   in, lying on toast _à la Sainte-Alliance_.

   A hundred early asparagus, each half an inch thick, with sauce
   _à l'osmazôme_.

   Two dozen ortolans _à la provençale_, as described in some of
   the cookery-books already mentioned.

   A pyramid of vanilla and rose meringues--a test sometimes
   useless unless in the case of ladies and abbés.

   _Remarks._--"Ah, my dear sir (or my lord), what a genius that
   cook of yours is! It is only at your table that one meets such
   dishes."

In order that any test should produce its full effect, the author
advises that it be served plenteously, the rarest of dishes losing its
influence when not in abundant proportion, as the first impression
it produces on the guests is naturally checked by the fear of being
stingily served, or, in certain cases, of being obliged to refuse
out of politeness--a conclusion one may see verified frequently at a
European table-d'hôte when the parsimonious though perhaps extortionate
landlord deals out the roast or the fish through the intermedium of the
maligned garçon or Kellner. There are certain dishes, nevertheless,
whose zest consists in their very daintiness and lack of exuberance,
such as numerous entrées, in the savouring of which even the forks and
knives should be small and the proportions of the dish be restricted
rather than augmented. But the rules in the "Physiology" as to a
perfect dinner still hold good in the main, and will well bear
reiteration:

   "Let the number of guests not exceed twelve, so that the
   conversation may be constantly general.

   "Let them be so chosen that their occupations are various,
   their tastes analogous, and with such points of contact
   that one need not have recourse to that odious formality of
   introductions.

   "Let the dining-room be brilliantly lighted, the cloth as
   white as snow, and the temperature of the room from sixty to
   sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

   "Let the men be witty and not pedantic, and the women amiable
   without being too coquettish.

   "Let the dishes be exquisitely choice, but small in number,
   and the wines of the first quality, each in its degree.

   "Let the dishes be served from the more substantial to the
   lighter; and from the simpler wines to those of finer bouquet.

   "Let the eating proceed slowly, the dinner being the last
   business of the day, and let the guests look upon themselves
   as travellers who journey together towards a common object.

   "Let the coffee be hot and the liqueurs be specially chosen.

   "Let the drawing-room to which the guests retire be large
   enough to permit those who cannot do without it to have
   a game of cards, while leaving, however, ample scope for
   post-prandial conversation.

   "Let the guests be detained by social attraction, and animated
   with expectation that before the evening is over there will be
   some further enjoyment.

   "Let the tea not be too strong, the toast artistically
   buttered, and the punch made with care.

   "Let the signal for departure not be given before eleven
   o'clock.

   "Let every one be in bed at midnight.

   "If any man has ever been a guest at a repast uniting all
   these conditions, he can boast of having been present at
   his own apotheosis; and he will have enjoyed it the less
   in proportion as these conditions have been forgotten or
   neglected."

Exception perhaps may be taken to the temperature of the dining-room
as given in the above injunctions, 70° to 73° Fahrenheit being a more
comfortable atmospheric medium of dining where it is possible. The tea
and toast and the punch may also be dispensed with to advantage, and
in their stead a liqueur glass of _Curaçoa sec_ be prescribed, one
of the best, as it is one of the most agreeable, digestives after a
substantial repast.

Game has been pronounced a delight of the table by Savarin--a food
healthful, warming, savoury, and easy of digestion to young stomachs.
Of small game or birds, he accords the highest place to the fig-pecker,
saying that if this bird were as large as a pheasant it would be worth
an acre of land. Savarin was a true sportsman, who knew his game and
its proper preparation, and among the breeziest of his chapters are
those relating to field sports, wherein due regard is paid to the
luncheon. A portion of the fifteenth Meditation will be sufficient to
show the counsellor in his hunting costume at the halt of a shooting
party; he is in his happiest vein, his theme being "The Ladies." The
morning has been fine, and the birds abundant. Appetite is not wanting,
and at a prearranged hour a party of ladies arrive, laden with the
treasures of Périgord, the triumphs of Strassburg, and the bubbles
of Epernay, to assist in the repast. It is at the close of this that
the chancellor becomes most eloquent and pronounces one of his most
characteristic monologues:

   "I have been out shooting in the centre of France and the most
   remote provinces, and seen arrive at the halt charming women,
   girls redolent with freshness, some arriving in cabriolets,
   others in simple country carts. I have seen them the first in
   laughing at the inconveniences of their conveyance. I have
   seen them display upon the turf the turkey in clear jelly, the
   household pie, the salad all ready for mixing. I have seen
   them with light foot dancing round the bivouac fire lighted on
   this occasion. I have taken part in the games and merriment
   that accompany such a gipsy feast, and I feel thoroughly
   convinced that, with less luxury, there is quite as much that
   is charming, gay, and delightful.

   "Why when they take their leave should not some kisses be
   interchanged with the best sportsman, who is in his glory;
   with the worst shot because he is most unlucky: with the
   others so as not to make them jealous? All are about to
   separate, custom has authorized it; and it is permissible, and
   even commanded, to take advantage of such an opportunity.

   "Fellow-sportsmen, ye who are prudent and look after solid
   things, fire straight, and bag as much as you can before the
   ladies arrive, for experience teaches us that after their
   departure sportsmen seem very rarely in luck...."[27]

As the lordly Asian pheasant is thriving and multiplying with us, it
will be pertinent to present Savarin's famous and somewhat inaccessible
formula of preparing him _à la Sainte-Alliance_ for all such as may
wish to try so elaborate a _plat de luxe_, it being well understood
that the pheasant, above all birds, requires to be very fully matured
by hanging:

   "The bird is first to be carefully larded with the best and
   firmest lard. Then bone two woodcocks, put their flesh aside,
   and keep the livers and trails of the two birds separate.
   Take this meat and mince it, add some beef marrow, steamed,
   a little scraped bacon, pepper, salt, herbs, and enough
   good truffles to stuff the inner cavity of the pheasant. Be
   careful not to let the stuffing spread to the outside, which
   is sometimes a little difficult when the bird is rather high.
   Nevertheless, it can be done in various ways, and amongst
   others by fastening a crust of bread with a piece of thread
   on the stomach, which prevents its bursting. Cut a slice of
   bread longer and wider by two inches than the whole pheasant
   is; then take the livers and trails of the woodcocks, and
   pound them with two large truffles, one anchovy, a little
   scraped bacon, and a goodly lump of the best fresh butter.
   Spread this paste on the slice of bread, and put it under the
   pheasant stuffed as above, so that it may receive all the
   gravy dripping from it while roasting. When the pheasant is
   cooked, serve it up lying gracefully on its toast, put some
   bitter oranges round it, and await the result without any
   uneasiness. This high-flavoured dish ought to be washed down,
   in preference, with some of the best wine of Upper Burgundy.
   Treated according to the preceding prescription, the pheasant,
   already distinguished itself, is permeated from its outside
   with the savoury fat of the bacon which is browned and in
   its inside it is impregnated with the odoriferous gases from
   the woodcocks and the truffles. The toast, already so richly
   prepared, receives again the gravies of the triple combination
   which flow from the bird while roasting."

Has gastronomy progressed since the time of Brillat-Savarin? Replying
to this question, Charles Monselet, writing in 1879, states that he
"looks in vain for the tables that are praised or the hosts that are
renowned. Where are the great cooks? What names have we now to oppose
to those of Carême and Robert? Shall I speak of official cookery, of
ministerial dinners? These are not the dinners to which people go to
eat. There especially the cook is more proud of a Chinese kiosk on a
rock in coloured and spun sugar, which no person dare touch, than of
a carp _à la Chambord_ treated in a masterly way. Since the days of
Cambacérès official cookery has ceased to exist." The similarity of
dinners complained of by Walker and Thackeray during a previous era
he refers to as existing in Paris: "That which you eat yesterday in
the Faubourg Saint-Germain, you will eat to-morrow in the Faubourg
Saint-Honoré. At the end of the week you recognise that you have merely
changed your knife and fork. This poverty of imagination, this absence
of research are unworthy of a country such as ours."

Apart from his neglect to mention the labours of his distinguished
gastronomical predecessor, Savarin is also open to censure for failing
to thank the Italians for their admirable lessons in the science
of cookery, including that of frying in oil, which he particularly
specifies as so desirable with trout "caught in running brooks that
murmur far from the capital." To this day the Italian remains a great
confectioner and pastry-cook, while an Italian maestro is a delight
of the _haute cuisine_, his methods possessing much originality
and holding nothing in common with the greasy dishes and their
superabundance of garlic which one meets in the average inn and in many
of the restaurants of the land beyond the Alps.

Upon one subject, it is to be regretted, we have not been advised by
the philosophic and analytic mayor of Belley, who is silent concerning
the physiology of the cocktail, or any form of beverage composed of
spirits, taken before dinner. During La Reynière's era, on the occasion
of a grand dinner the rule was the so-called _coup d'avant_, the _coup
du milieu_, and the _coup d'après_--the three spirituous graces, as
it were, of an elaborate repast. Here was a lost opportunity for the
"Physiology," which might have formulated a hygienic chapter apart from
the Meditations on thirst and drinks. Unquestionably, there are reasons
for and against the use of a liquid stimulant before the principal
meal. The true gastronomer, and all those who are careful of their
health, without which the best dinner may not be enjoyed, will at any
rate eschew all strong alcoholic beverages until evening. The question
of a stimulant before the dinner will then be one for individual
consideration. Its daily use may scarcely be commended, particularly
if it be followed by wine: one who is in possession of good health
should not require a fictitious goad to appetite. Where a carefully
planned dinner is in question, however, the dry cocktail--one, and one
only--taken ten minutes before the moment of sitting down at table, is
undoubtedly a stimulus to appetite and provocative of good-fellowship.
It pitches the company in a pleasant key at the onset, and imparts a
zest and an _allégresse_ to the first part of the repast that were
otherwise lacking. Then, if the sparkling wine be not postponed too
long, and the dinner itself be meritorious, the host and hostess may
rest secure, without a shadow of solicitude regarding its success.
Impelled by its own geniality, the company will take abundant care of
itself, and the stream of conversation and ripple of anecdote flow
freely along, unimpeded by the boulders of formality or the aridity
engendered by a dearth of joyous fluids.

Turning the leaves of the "Physiology," the reader will be impressed
with the fecundity of an author who treats with equal fluency of
foods and drinks, appetite and digestion, sport and old age, women
and abbés, and all that appertains to the physiology of gastronomy.
His portrait of a pretty gourmande under arms is a genre painting
worthy of Gérard Douw or Van Mieris, while his Meditation on the end
of the world might have been composed by a doctor of the Sorbonne. The
chapter on digestion is full of practical advice, and from this his
disquisitions on repose, on dreams, and on the influence of diet are
a natural succession. In the chapter on dreams we are told that all
foods which are slightly exciting cause people to dream--such as brown
meat, pigeons, ducks, game, and, above all, hare--the same property
being also recognised in asparagus, celery, truffles, sweetmeats, and
particularly vanilla. Equally suggestive are the essays on corpulence,
leanness, and fasting, and the many racy anecdotes of the "Variétés,"
while his aphorisms must always occupy a place in epicurean literature.

Did Savarin feel a premonition of immediate death when he penned the
verses which he entitled "The Agony--A Physiological Romance," and
which conclude the work that has rendered his name a synonym for all
that appertains to the table and its pleasures?

    "I feel through all my senses life's sad end,
      My dim eye sees the last few grains of sand
    Falling, Louisa weeps, my tender friend,
      And places on my breast her trembling hand.
    The band of morning-callers troops apace,
    Not to return, they bid a last good-bye,
      The doctor leaves, the pastor takes his place,
                  For I must die!

    "I fain would pray, my memory is gone;
      I fain would speak, my lips can frame no sound;
    I hear, though all is still, a singing tone,
      And a dull shadow seems to hover round;
    All is now cold and dark, my panting breast
      Exhausts itself in heaving one poor sigh,
    To wander round my lips in frozen rest,
                  For I must die!"

Numerous translations of the "Physiology" have appeared in various
languages. Of these the most familiar one in English, entitled
"Gastronomy as a Fine Art," is well interpreted as far as it goes.
But many piquant passages are condensed, and portions of chapters
and at least one half of the "Variétés" are omitted altogether. The
most complete rendition is the large octavo volume, with its rather
unsatisfactory illustrations by Lalauze, termed "A Handbook of
Gastronomy," wherein the English reader may commune with the French
writer almost at first hand, and not be obliged to forgo "The Pullet
of Bresse," "The Dish of Eels," "A Day with the Bernardines," and "The
Pheasant"--_à la Sainte-Alliance_.

  [Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS

  From the etching by Rajon]




  [Illustration]




                         FROM CARÊME TO DUMAS

   "Les écrivains-cuisiniers sont aussi nécessaires que les
   autres littérateurs: il vous faut connaître la théorie du plus
   ancien des arts."--CHARLES GERARD.


Among the great professional cooks who were not alone notable
practitioners, but who have written understandingly on the art, the
names of Beauvilliers, Carême, Ude, Francatelli, Soyer, Urbain-Dubois,
and Gouffé are preëminent. We have already considered the important
rôle enacted by Beauvilliers as chef, restaurateur, and author. The
unctuous name of Carême, however, is more often uttered with reverence,
and even yet evokes visions of all that is most delectable in sauces
and _entremêts de douceur_.

Indeed, were one to wish that he might turn an Aladdin's ring and
summon some genius of the range who would be most gladly welcomed,
surely on Carême the choice would fall. As for the dinner one might
wish to command, what better than the feast at the Château de Boulogne,
so eloquently described by Lady Morgan, when he presided at the
Baron Rothschild's villa--that dinner of an estival eventide when
the landscape lay sweltering in the heat, without, but where all was
deliciously cool within the vast pavilion which stood apart from the
mansion in the midst of orange trees: "where distillations of the most
delicate viands, extracted in silver dews, with chemical precision,

    "'On tepid clouds of rising steam,'

formed the base of all; where every meat presented its own natural
aroma, and every vegetable its own shade of verdure; where the
mayonnaise was fried in ice (like Ninon's description of Sévigné's
heart); and the tempered chill of the _plombière_ anticipated the
stronger shock, and broke it, of the exquisite _avalanche_, which, with
the hue and odour of fresh gathered nectarines, satisfied every sense
and dissipated every coarser flavour."

The age of Carême was the era of quintessences--of the _cuisine
classique_, when chemistry contributed new resources, and fish, meats,
and fowls were distilled, in order to add a heightened flavour to the
sauces and viands that their etherealised essences were to accentuate.
One thinks of Lucullus and Apicius, and of the "exceeding odoriferous
and aromaticall vapour" of the ovens of the artist mentioned by
Montaigne.

That success in any walk of life is the result not only of natural
aptitude but of persevering application, Carême's history affords
abundant proof, if such were required. Left to shift for himself
when but seven years old, at fifteen he had already served his
apprenticeship as a cook, to advance with rapid strides in his chosen
profession. Constant sobriety, which called for much self-sacrifice on
his part, and an iron constitution enabled him to carry out the most
arduous labours. "My ambition was serious," he states in his memoirs,
"and at an early age I became desirous of elevating my profession to an
art."

The better to perfect himself in its various branches, he studied for
ten years under the most distinguished masters, including Robert and
Laguipière. For years, also, he was a daily student at the Imperial
Library and Cabinet of Engravings, perfecting himself in drawing and
in the literature of his profession. He likewise made an exhaustive
study of old Roman cookery, only to arrive at the conclusion that it
was intrinsically bad and abominably heavy (_foncièrement mauvaise et
atrocement lourde_)--an opinion confirmed by the Marquis de Cussy, who
declared that he would rather dine at a Parisian restaurant for twenty
francs than with Lucullus in the saloon of Apollo. It was Carême's
habit to take notes nightly of his progress and the modifications he
had made in his work during the day, thereby fixing those ideas and
combinations that otherwise would have escaped his memory.

Amid the luxurious kitchens of the Empire he reigned supreme--the
king of pastry-cooks and marvellous in his sauces, galantines, and
inventions. Crowned heads soon became his suitors, and princes implored
his services. It was Talleyrand, one of the wittiest and most epicurean
princes of the Empire, who inspired him perhaps with his greatest
enthusiasm, and of whom he says, "M. de Talleyrand understands the
genius of a cook, he respects it, he is the most competent judge of
delicate progress, and _his expenditures are wise and great at the same
time_." Of Laguipière, the chief cook of Murat, to whose talents he
ascribes the elegance and éclat of the culinary art of the nineteenth
century, he is unstinted in his praises. Of Beauvilliers he has little
to say, and although a volume appeared bearing the combined names of
Beauvilliers and Carême, one fancies that the proverbial jealousy of
cooks was not wanting in their case.

Carême has modified the adage _on se fait cuisinier, mais on est né
rôtisseur_, claiming that to become a perfect cook one must first be
a distinguished pastry-maker, and citing as instances his favourite
teacher Laguipière, with Robert, Lasne, Riquette, and numerous other
celebrities. He speaks of the "lightness," the "grace," and the
"colour" of pastry; of the "order, perspicuity, and intelligence"
required in its preparation. "It is easier," he says, "to cook pastry
than to make it.... There are ovens and ovens (_fours_). There is the
_four chaud_; there is the _four gai_; there is the _four chaleur
modérée_. The best oven is that which is often heated and which retains
its heat. If there is too much loft and too little floor, or much floor
and little loft, only meagre results may be expected." When one orders
a _vol-au-vent à la financière_ or a _pâté d'écrevisses_ (that triumph
of Orléans) at a restaurant, therefore, it will be perceived it becomes
a question of the oven as well as the capacity of the artist directing
it that counts in the success, and which the conscientious diner should
take into consideration ere finding fault with the _addition_.

Again, the analogy between cookery and painting becomes apparent. Thus
the conditions noted by Carême find a parallel in the artist endowed
with a vivid imagination, but possessed of only mediocre technique;
or a painter whose feeling may be admirable, but whose execution is
deficient. The _four gai_--how it suggests a landscape of Cuyp steeped
in the splendours of the setting sun--to say nothing of a nicely gilded
omelette or a soufflé of apricots! To _glacer à la flamme_, as Carême
expressed it, calls for a _four d'enfer_, and one has in mind a _crême
gelée d'Alaska_, with the fire managed by a Mephistopheles.

Let the cook and the painter continue to lay on the colours gaily--the
one with his _braise_ and the other with his brush. Art is art always,
and finds its sure reward in whatever sphere talent, conscientiousness,
and application are united.

In the autobiographic preface of the "Cuisinier Parisien" an instance
is cited of the care and variety which the author claims every
industrious cook should bring to bear in his work, in order to excite
the appetite of the amphitryon:

   "One day the Prince-Regent of England, whom I served, said
   to me, 'Carême, you will make me die of indigestion; I am
   fond of everything you give me, and you tempt me too much.'
   'Monseigneur,' I replied, 'my principal office is to challenge
   your appetite by the variety of my service; but it is not my
   affair to regulate it.' The prince smiled, saying that I was
   right, and I continued to supply him with the best."

"The charcoal shortens our lives," said Carême; "but what matter?--we
lose in years and gain in glory." A born epicure, he never risked
his health by over-indulgence of his epicurean taste. "I have been
prudent," he states, "not by inclination, but through a profound sense
of my duty." To his culinary accomplishments he joined those of a
master director and maître-d'hôtel. Witness his remarks concerning the
functions of a chief steward:

   "The _maître-d'hôtel cuisinier_ should possess that
   unification of qualities which is seldom bestowed, even in
   an isolated form. He will be a cook, above all--able, alert,
   productive; he will be cut out for active command and be
   animated by an invincible ardour for work; he will be a man
   of parts, an enthusiast, vigilant even to minuteness. He will
   see all, and know all. The maître-d'hôtel is never ill. He
   presides over everything, his impetus dominates all; he alone
   has the right to raise his voice, and all must obey. He must
   be sufficiently learned to write out, when occasion calls
   for it, without the aid of books, the principal part of his
   bills of fare. These are his book of resources, the journal of
   his fatigues and his victories. Alas! that which he may not
   preserve in these copies are the spontaneous fire and ready
   tact he has displayed in connection with his ranges--these are
   things of the moment that die at their birth."

Many anecdotes of the famous gastronomers and great personages of
his time have been recounted by Carême. To Cambacérès he refers at
length, disputing his claim to a distinguished place among epicures.
The cuisine of the arch-chancellor, he states decisively, never
merited its great reputation. This was through no fault of his chef,
M. Grand'Manche, an excellent practitioner, but was due solely to the
excessive parsimony of his employer, who at each service was in the
habit of noting the entrées that were untouched or scarcely touched,
and of forming his _carte_ for the morrow with their remains.

   "What a dinner, merciful heavens! I would not say that the
   dessert may not be utilised, but that it may not supply a
   dinner for a prince and an eminent gastronomer. This is a
   delicate question; the master has nothing to say, nothing to
   see; the skill and probity of the cook alone should enter
   into the facts. The dessert should only be employed with
   precaution, skill, and especially in silence.

   "The arch-chancellor received from the departments innumerable
   gifts of provisions and the finest of poultry. All such were
   forthwith engulfed in a vast larder of which he retained the
   key. He kept tally of the provisions, the dates of their
   arrival, and he alone gave orders for their utilisation.
   Frequently, when he issued his orders the provisions were
   spoiled.

   "Cambacérès was never a gourmand in the scientific acceptance
   of the word; he was naturally a great and even voracious
   eater. Can one believe that he preferred, above all dishes,
   the _pâté chaud_ with forcemeat balls?--a heavy, unsavoury,
   and vulgar dish. As a _hors-d'œuvre_ he had frequently a
   crust of pâté reheated on the grill, and had brought to table
   the _combien_ of a ham that had done duty for the week. And
   his skilful cook who never had the grand fundamental sauces!
   neither his under-cooks or aids nor his bottle of Bordeaux!
   What parsimony! what a pity! what an establishment!

   "Neither M. Cambacérès nor M. Brillat-Savarin knew how to eat.
   Both were fond of strong and vulgar things, and simply filled
   their stomachs. This is literally true. M. de Savarin was a
   large eater, and talked little and without facility, it seemed
   to me; he had a heavy air and resembled a parson. At the end
   of a repast his digestion absorbed him, and I have seen him go
   to sleep."

Charles Monselet has termed Savarin a mere seltzer drinker, while Dumas
says he was neither a gastronomer nor a gourmet, but simply a vigorous
eater. "His large size, his heavy carriage, his common appearance,
with his costume ten or twelve years behind the times, caused him to
be termed the drum-major of the Court of Cassation. All at once, and a
dozen years after his death, we have inherited one of the most charming
books of gastronomy that it is possible to imagine--the 'Physiologie du
Goût.'"

"My work is a manual to be ceaselessly consulted," Carême remarked
with reference to his "Maître-d'Hôtel Français." The truth of this
assertion becomes manifest at once on reading the exquisitely careful
directions which characterise all his treatises. The published works
of the versatile author-chef include "Le Maître-d'Hôtel Français,"
"Le Cuisinier Parisien," "Le Pâtissier Royal Parisien," "Le Pâtissier
Pittoresque," and "L'Art de la Cuisine Française au Dix-neuvième
Siècle," in several of which the copious illustrations reveal his skill
as a draughtsman. His death occurred while giving a lesson in his art.
The day of his decease one of his scholars gave him some quenelles
of sole to taste. "The quenelles are good," he remarked, "only they
were prepared too hastily; you must shake the saucepan lightly." In
so saying he indicated by a slight motion the movement he desired
to communicate. But after two or three motions his once facile hand
refused to respond to his will, and the great artist was no more.

"The asparagus plumps out at the name of Carême!" exclaimed one of his
admirers; "the hare that roams the forest utters his name to the stag
who passes by; the stag repeats it to the pheasant; the lark sings it
in his flight to the sun."

Louis Eustache Ude, once chef of Louis XVI, and founder of the modern
French school in England, exerted considerable influence upon the
better cookery of his day. His "French Cook" appeared in 1822, and
a few years afterwards he became chef of Crockford's Club, the year
during which his former employer, the Duke of York, died. The story is
told that, on hearing of the duke's illness, Ude exclaimed, "_Ah! mon
pauvre Duc_, how greatly you will miss me where you are gone!" Of the
finesse that appertains to cookery, of the difficulty to become perfect
in the art, Ude wrote as follows:

   "What science demands more study? Every man is not born with
   the qualifications necessary to constitute a good cook. Music,
   dancing, fencing, painting, and mechanics in general possess
   professors under twenty years of age, whereas in the first
   line of cooking preëminence never occurs under thirty. We
   see daily at concerts and academies young men and women who
   display the greatest abilities, but in our line nothing but
   _the most consummate_ experience can elevate a man to the
   rank of chief professor. Cookery is an art appreciated by
   only a very few individuals, and which requires, in addition
   to most diligent and studious application, no small share of
   intellect and the strictest sobriety and punctuality; there
   are cooks and cooks--the difficulty lies in finding the
   perfect one."

Ude was succeeded in England by Charles Elmé Francatelli, a
distinguished pupil of Carême, who presided as chef at Chesterfield
House and various clubs until he became _officier de bouche_ to the
queen. His "Modern Cook" is still a superior treatise, and although
little adapted to the average household, it will well repay careful
study on the part of the expert amateur. "The palate is as capable
and nearly as worthy of education as the eye and the ear," says
Francatelli--a statement which his volume abundantly bears out.

A scholar of Carême, Francatelli was quick to note that _si l'habit
fait l'homme, il fait aussi l'entrée_--that the sense of sight has its
delight as well as the taste, and one sees, accordingly, an ornate
observance of decoration in his grand army of side-dishes. These are
excellent throughout, but generally very elaborate, while his sauces
and recipes for pastry are especially good. The same may be said of his
quenelles and timbales. A competent hand will find his work a valuable
guide from which to obtain ideas; it is not a practical book for the
majority. One should always remember, among numerous other things, his
delicious sauces, numbers sixty-five and sixty-six, for venison, which
may also be used with a saddle of mutton, and his recipes for trout
_au gratin_ and soup _à la reine_. The venison sauce especially should
not be forgotten:

   "Bruise one stick of cinnamon and twelve cloves, and put them
   into a small stewpan with two ounces of sugar and the peel
   of one lemon pared off very thin and perfectly free from any
   portion of white pulp; moisten with three glasses of port
   wine, and set the whole to simmer gently on the fire for a
   quarter of an hour; then strain it through a sieve into a
   small stewpan containing a pot of red-currant jelly. Just
   before sending the sauce to table, set it on the fire to boil,
   in order to melt the currant jelly, so that it may mix with
   the essence of spice, etc."

The second sauce is made in the same manner, except that black-currant
jelly is substituted for the red. Good Bordeaux may be employed in
place of port to advantage, rendering the sauce less cloying, and half
the prescribed quantity of cloves will be found amply sufficient.

After Francatelli, Alexis Soyer did his part towards the improvement
of the higher classes of England. As an author he was ambitious, if
not distinguished, his published works numbering four, viz.: "The
Gastronomic Regenerator," "The Modern Housewife, or Ménagère," "The
Panthropheon or History of Food," and "A Shilling Cookery for the
People." From the fact that the last-named volume reached its two
hundred and forty-eighth thousand, it may be concluded it was not a
distinguished work, and was written to attract the multitude who do
not appreciate. The warm reception given to his "Ménagère," according
to a reviewer in "Fraser's Magazine," indicated, "with a statistical
accuracy very superior to the census, the lamentably small number of
educated palates and self-comprehending stomachs which this country
possesses." Like Carême, Soyer had studied the cuisine of the ancients
attentively, and in this respect his "History of Food" becomes a
valuable addition to the student's library. But his execution is said
to have been far below his conception, and his soups much inferior
to his soup-kitchens. He refrains from giving a certain recipe for
crawfish _à la Sampayo_, which appeared in one of his bills of fare,
on account of an agreement between himself and M. Sampayo, adding that
the reason of the enormous expense of the dish was that "two large
bottles of Périgord truffles, which do not cost less than four guineas,
are stewed with them in champagne." But inasmuch as the virtues of
the truffle are sadly dissipated in its preserved state, and chefs
generally use an ordinary Chablis or other wine in place of champagne,
one need not be seriously concerned with the loss of the crawfish.

As the quotation of recipes would call for considerable space, it may
be wise to dispense with any further illustrations in the instance of
the above-mentioned artists, and pass at once to the French author
of the never-failing grace whose grand "Dictionary of Cookery" is
marked by that felicity of expression and fecundity of invention so
characteristic of all his works. From the somewhat stilted style of
Soyer it becomes doubly pleasing to turn to the laughing pages of
Dumas, at once suggestive and inspiring, pointed in paragraph and
scintillant with anecdote.[28]

The author of "Monte Cristo" and "The Three Musketeers" has also
left an illustrious name as a cook, a host, and an epicure. And if,
of all celebrated artists, it might be Carême whom one would wish to
prepare the dinner, who more delightful than Dumas as a vis-à-vis at
the repast? But his expansive smile and his _bonhomie_ are reflected
in his writings, and his "intuition of all" is no less apparent when
dealing with cookery than when detailing the intrigues of cardinals and
courtiers. A Chartreuse becomes as important as the missing necklace
of a queen, and the theory of frying no less momentous than the fate
of the prisoner of the Château d'If. As Octave Lacroix has phrased it,
"Assuredly it is a great attainment to be a romancist, but it is by no
means a mediocre glory to be a cook.... Romancist or cook, Alexandre
Dumas is a chef, and the two vocations appear in him to go hand in
hand, or rather to be joined in one."

The two introductory epistles, an anecdotal review of the art, are
among the most felicitous in the language. Nor should we forget the
many references to the table in the "Impressions de Voyage" and
numerous other volumes. The Marquis de Cussy, Jules Janin, Charles
Monselet, and others have treated the same subject at more or less
length, but none of them so comprehensively. "I wish to conclude,"
Dumas often said, "my literary work of five hundred volumes by a
work on cookery." This was his great ambition, and to it he devoted
his most zealous efforts. "I see with pleasure," he remarks in one
of his volumes, "that my culinary reputation is increasing, and soon
promises to efface my literary reputation.... I therefore make the
announcement that as soon as I am freed from the claims of certain
editors I will show you a book of practical cookery by which the most
ignorant in matters gastronomical will be able to prepare, as easily as
my honourable friend Vuillemot, an _espagnole_ or a _mirepoix_."[29]

With Dumas to promise was to fulfil, and in due time his book--the last
volume from his pen--appeared, a tall folio of over a thousand pages,
with the spirited etching of the author by Rajon. While this is more
especially devoted to the French kitchen, it contains a large number of
recipes from foreign countries where the author had travelled. It thus
becomes a compendium of many different schools, offering a wide range
for selection. Written, moreover, by an amateur, it is also an easier
guide than many of the professional manuals of the _haute cuisine_. In
the "Dictionary" everything is passed under review--from snails _à la
provençale_ to the feet of elephants, from filets of kangaroo to lambs'
tails _glacées à la chicorée_, the list of fishes including an account
of the origin of the term "Poisson d'Avril" (April fool).

  [Illustration: "L'ART DU CUISINIER" (BEAUVILLIERS)

  Facsimile of title-page. 1824, Vol. II.]

Even the babiroussa, or wild Asian hog, is not forgotten, the author
pronouncing its flesh very delicate, and presenting this additional
information concerning its character:

   "'Ah! mon Dieu,' asked a lady of her husband, as they were
   looking at a babiroussa at the Jardin des Plantes, 'what kind
   of an animal is that, my dear, who instead of two horns has
   four?'

   "'Madame,' said some one who was passing by, 'that is a
   widower who has remarried.'"

There are recipes from Beauvilliers, Carême, the Marquis de Cussy, and
the cook of King Stanislas; from the manuals of the times of Louis
XIV and XV; from the cafés Anglais, Verdier, Brébant, Magny, Grignon,
Véfour, and Véry; from Elzéar-Blaze, La Reynière, the Provincial
Brothers, and Vuillemot, proprietor of the Tête Noire at St. Cloud.
One's mouth waters as he reads the vast alphabet of dishes. There are,
for example, thirty-one modes presented for preparing the carp, and
fifty-six for dressing the egg, apart from the omelet, with sixteen
recipes for artichokes and a dozen for asparagus. There is the Java
formula for cooking halcyons' nests, and that of the cook of Richelieu
for _godiveau_, a dissertation on the hocco, and a prescription for
bustards _à la daube_. No wonder that Dumas has defined the dinner as
a daily and capital action that can be worthily accomplished only by
_gens d'esprit_.

This is well illustrated by an anecdote in the dedicatory epistle to
Jules Janin, which shows the characteristic hand of Dumas to advantage:

   "The Viscount de Vieil-Castel, brother of Count Horace de
   Vieil-Castel, one of the finest epicures of France, made this
   proposition at a gathering of friends:

   "'A single person can eat a dinner costing five hundred
   francs.'

   "'Impossible!' was the simultaneous exclamation.

   "'It is well understood,' resumed the Viscount, 'that by the
   term eating is included drinking as well.'

   "'Parbleu!' replied his friends.

   "'Very well; I say that a man, and by a man I do not
   mean a carter but an epicure--a pupil of Montron or of
   Courchamps--can eat a dinner of five hundred francs.'

   "'You, for example?'

   "'I, or any one else.'

   "'Can you?'

   "'Certainly.'

   "'I hold the five hundred francs,' said one of the bystanders;
   'name your conditions.'

   "'That is a simple matter. I will dine at the Café de Paris,
   make up my bill of fare, and eat my five-hundred-franc dinner.'

   "'Without leaving anything on the dishes or plates?'

   "'No, indeed; I will leave the bones.'

   "'And when will the wager take place?'

   "'To-morrow, if you say so.'

   "'Then you will not breakfast?' asked one of the bystanders.

   "'I will breakfast as usual.'

   "'Be it so. To-morrow at seven, at the Café de Paris.'

   "The same evening the Viscount dined as usual at the
   restaurant; then, after dinner, in order not to be influenced
   by stomachic cravings, he set about preparing his carte for
   the following day.

   "The maître-d'hôtel was summoned. It was midwinter; the
   Viscount suggested numerous fruits and early vegetables. The
   hunting season was closed; he wanted some game.

   "A week's grace was asked by the maître-d'hôtel.

   "The dinner was postponed for a week.

   "On the right and left of the table the judges were to dine.

   "The Viscount had two hours in which to dine--from seven to
   nine.

   "He could talk or not, as he chose.

   "At the appointed hour the Viscount appeared, saluted the
   judges, and turned towards the table.

   "The bill of fare was to remain a mystery to his adversaries;
   they were to have the pleasure of a surprise.

   "The Viscount sat down. He was served with twelve dozen
   Ostende oysters, with a half-bottle of Johannisberger.

   "The Viscount was in excellent appetite; he asked for another
   twelve dozen oysters, and another half-bottle of the same
   growth.

   "Then came a soup of swallows' nests, which the Viscount
   poured in a bowl and drank as a bouillon.

   "'Really, gentlemen,' said he, 'I am in fine trim to-day, and
   I have a notion to gratify a whim.'

   "'Go on, _pardieu_, you are the doctor.'

   "'I adore beefsteak and potatoes.'

   "'Gentlemen, no advice, if you please,' said a voice.

   "'Pooh! waiter,' said the Viscount, 'a beefsteak and potatoes.'

   "The waiter, astonished, looked at the Viscount.

   "'Don't you understand me?' said the latter.

   "'But I thought that Monsieur le Vicomte had made up his bill
   of fare?'

   "'That is true, but this is an extra; I will pay for it
   separately.'

   "The judges looked at each other. The beefsteak and potatoes
   were brought on, and were promptly despatched.

   "'Now for the fish!'

   "The fish was brought on.

   "'Gentlemen,' said the Viscount, 'it is a trout from Lake
   Geneva. I saw it this morning while I was breakfasting; it
   was still alive; it was brought from Geneva to Paris in the
   waters of the lake. I can recommend this fish to you--it is
   delicious.'

   "Five minutes later only the bones remained.

   "'The pheasant, waiter!' said the Viscount.

   "A truffled pheasant was brought on.

   "'Another bottle of Bordeaux of the same growth.'

   "The second bottle was brought.

   "In ten minutes the pheasant was disposed of.

   "'Monsieur,' said the waiter, 'I think you have made a mistake
   in calling for the truffled pheasant before the salmis of
   ortolans.'

   "'Ah! that is so. Fortunately it is not stated in what order
   the ortolans are to be eaten; otherwise I should have lost.
   The salmis of ortolans, waiter!'

   "The salmis of ortolans was brought on.

   "There were twelve ortolans--twelve mouthfuls for the Viscount.

   "'Gentlemen,' said the Viscount, 'my bill of fare is very
   simple. Now for some asparagus, green peas, a banana, and
   strawberries. As for wine, a half-bottle of Constance and a
   half-bottle of sherry that has made the voyage to India. Then,
   of course, some coffee and liqueurs.'

   "Everything appeared in its turn--vegetables and fruit were
   conscientiously eaten, and the wines and liqueurs were drunk
   to the last drop.

   "The Viscount was an hour and fourteen minutes in dining.

   "'Gentlemen,' said he, 'has everything gone right?'

   "The judges acquiesced.

   "'Waiter, the carte!'

   "At this epoch the term _addition_ was not used.

   "The Viscount ran his eye over the total, and passed the carte
   to the judges.

   "This was the carte:

                                                _fr._ _c._

    Ostende oysters, 24 dozen                        30 "
    Soup of swallows' nests                         150 "
    Beefsteak and potatoes                            2 "
    Trout from Lake Geneva                           40 "
    Truffled pheasant                                40 "
    Salmis of ortolans                               50 "
    Asparagus                                        15 "
    Bananas                                          24 "
    Strawberries                                     20 "
    Green peas                                       12 "

                          _Wines._
    Johannisberg, one bottle                         24 "
    Bordeaux, _grand crû_, two bottles               50 "
    Constance, a half-bottle                         40 "
    Sherry, _retour de l'Inde_, a half-bottle        50 "
    Coffee, liqueurs                                  1 50
                                                    ______
          Total                                     548 50

   "The sum total was verified and the carte was taken to the
   adversary of the Viscount, who was dining in an adjoining room.

   "In five minutes he appeared, saluted the Viscount, took six
   bills of a thousand francs from his pocket, and presented them
   to him.

   "It was the amount of the wager.

   "'Oh, Monsieur,' said the Viscount, 'there was no hurry;
   besides, perhaps you would have liked your revenge.'

   "'You would have granted it to me?'

   "'Surely!'

   "'When?'

   "'Immediately.'"

But the reputation of the Viscount as a _belle fourchette_ was exceeded
by that of a Swiss guard in the employ of the Maréchal de Villars, an
account of whose prowess is related by the "Journal des Défenseurs":

   "One day the guard was sent for by the Maréchal, who had heard
   of his enormous appetite.

   "'How many sirloins of beef can you eat?' he tentatively asked.

   "'Ah! Monseigneur, for me I don't require many, five or six at
   the most.'

   "'And how many legs of mutton?'

   "'Legs of mutton? not many--seven to eight.'

   "'And of fat pullets?'

   "'Oh! as to pullets, only a few--a dozen.'

   "'And of pigeons?'

   "'As to pigeons, Monseigneur, not many--forty, perhaps fifty.'

   "'And larks?'

   "'Larks, Monseigneur?--always!'"

Another example of marvellous capacity is furnished by the French army,
a captain wagering one day that a drummer of his company could eat
a whole calf. The drummer, proud of his distinction, promised to do
honour to the captain's compliment. Accordingly, a calf was prepared
in various appetising ways, and was being promptly disposed of by
the drummer. When he had finally consumed about three quarters of the
repast, he paused for another draught of wine, and, placing his knife
and fork on his plate, said to his superior officer:

"You had better have the calf brought on, had you not? for all these
little kickshaws will end in taking up room."

The Café de Paris, first opened in 1822 on the Boulevard des Italiens
in the large suite of apartments formerly occupied by Prince Demidoff,
was the best restaurant in Europe during the forties and in Dumas'
time--a position it probably occupies to-day, since the closing of
Bignon's. Alfred de Musset was accustomed to say that "one could not
open its door for less than fifteen francs." But if its charges were
high, its cuisine and service were unsurpassed. Those who dance must
pay for the piping, and the cotillion of the casseroles is no exception
to the rule. Every one who honoured the establishment, it is said, was
considered by the personnel a grand seigneur for whom nothing could be
too good. When Balzac one day announced the arrival of a distinguished
Russian friend, he asked the proprietor to put his best foot forward.
"Assuredly, Monsieur, we will do so," was the answer, "because it is
simply what we are in the habit of doing every day." Balzac's favourite
dish was _veau à la casserole_, a specialty of the Café de Paris in the
forties.

Rossini, a contemporary and friend of Balzac and Dumas, was not alone a
famous musician,--composer of "Tell" and the "Stabat Mater,"--but was
also a distinguished _fourchette_ and a cook of ability. One of his
most celebrated compositions--that of a certain manner of preparing
macaroni which is said to have vied in seductiveness with the sweetest
strains of the "Barbier de Seville"--is unfortunately lost to the world
through a prejudice of Dumas.

One day the great romancist, who never ate macaroni in any form, asked
the noted composer for his recipe, being anxious to add it to his
culinary repertoire. "Come and eat some with me to-morrow at dinner,
and you shall have it," was the answer. But the host, perceiving that
his guest would not touch a dish on which he had bestowed so much
pains, refused to give him the formula, whereupon Dumas circulated the
report that it was his cook, not Rossini, who was master of the secret,
and forthwith presented at length a recipe given him by the famous Mme.
Ristori as "the true, the only, the unique manner of preparing macaroni
_à la néapolitaine_."

Already in 1830 the excessive charges of the fashionable restaurants
were loudly complained of. On this subject the "Nouvel Almanach des
Gourmands" of that date says:

   "The Boulevard Italien is the privileged seat of the
   cafés-restaurants: there one may dine excellently, but it must
   be confessed one is cruelly plucked. From this fact has arisen
   the proverb, 'One must be very hardy to dine at the Café
   Riche, and very rich to dine at the Café Hardi.' May it not
   be added that one needs to be an English peer to dine at the
   Café Anglais, and a millionaire Parisian to try the Café de
   Paris? One may dine well at Véry's, but one will ruin himself;
   while the fish which is excellent at the Rocher de Cancale is
   scarcely exchanged for its weight in five-franc pieces."

Often in the midst of a dinner, on tasting of some novel dish at his
favourite restaurant, the Café de Paris, Dumas would lay down his
fork--"I must get the recipe of this dish." The proprietor was then
sent for to authorise the novelist to descend to the kitchens and hold
a consultation with his chefs. He was the only one of the habitués to
whom this privilege was ever allowed; these excursions were usually
followed by an invitation to dine with Dumas a few days later, when his
newly acquired knowledge would be put into practice.

There were those, nevertheless, that previous to the advent of the
"Dictionary" were sceptical as to Dumas' culinary accomplishments.
Among such was Dr. Véron, author of the "Mémoires" and founder of
the "Revue de Paris," who, with several other notabilities, had been
invited by the novelist to partake of a carp of his own preparation.
For days and days Véron, who was extremely fond of fish, talked of
nothing else to his _cordon-bleu_.

"Where did you taste it?" said Sophie, becoming somewhat jealous of
this praise of others,--"at the Café de Paris?"

"No,--at Monsieur Dumas'."

"Well, then, I'll go to Monsieur Dumas' cook and get the recipe."

"That's of no use," objected her master. "Monsieur Dumas prepared the
dish himself."

"Well, then, I'll go to Monsieur Dumas himself and ask him to give me
the recipe."

Sophie was as good as her word, and at once betook herself to the
Chaussée d'Antin. The great novelist felt flattered, and gave her every
possible information, but somehow the dish was not like that her master
had so much enjoyed at his friend's. Then Sophie grew morose, and began
to throw out hints about the great man's borrowing other people's
feathers in his culinary pursuits, just as he did in his literary
ones. "It is with his carp as with his novels--others write them, and
he merely adds his name," she said one day. "I have seen him; he is a
_grand diable de vaniteux_."

Influenced by his cook's remarks and the failure of the dish, and
forgetting that surroundings often add much to flavour, Véron, on
his part, felt inclined to think that Dumas had a clever chef in
the background, upon whose victories he plumed himself. A few days
afterwards, meeting Véron at the Café de Paris, Dumas inquired after
the result of Sophie's efforts. The doctor was reticent at first, not
caring to acknowledge Sophie's failure. When one of the company at last
mentioned the suspicions attached to the carp, Dumas became furious.
Then, after a pause, he said, "There is but one reply to such a charge:
you will all dine with me to-morrow, and you will choose a delegate who
will come to my house at three to see me prepare the dinner."

"I was the youngest," says the author of "An Englishman in Paris,"
who relates the story, "and the choice fell upon me. That is how my
lifelong friendship with Dumas began. At three o'clock next day I was
at the Chaussée d'Antin, and was taken by the servant into the kitchen,
where the great novelist stood surrounded by his utensils, some of
silver, and all of them glistening like silver. With the exception of
a _soupe aux choux_, at which, by his own confession, he had been at
work since the morning, all the ingredients for the dinner were in
their natural state--of course, washed and peeled, but nothing more. He
was assisted by his own cook and a kitchen-maid, but he himself, with
his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a large apron round his waist,
and bare chest, conducted the operations. I do not think I have ever
seen anything more entertaining, and I came to the conclusion that when
writers insisted upon the culinary challenges of Carême, Dugléré, and
Casimir they were not indulging in mere metaphor.

"At half-past six the guests began to arrive; at a quarter to seven
Dumas retired to his dressing-room; at seven punctually the servant
announced that 'monsieur était servi.' The dinner consisted of the
aforenamed _soupe aux choux_, the carp that had led to the invitation,
a _ragoût de mouton à la Hongroise_, _rôti de faisans_, and a _salade
Japonaise_. The sweets and ices had been sent by the _pâtissier_. I
never dined like that before or after--not even a week later, when Dr.
Véron and Sophie made the _amende honorable_ in the Rue Taitbout."

As a sample of Dumas' abilities in the _petite cuisine_, his _potage
aux choux_ may be cited,--his mode of preparing Sauerkraut, like that
of all French cooks, is not to be commended:

   "Take a sound fresh cabbage, hash up all the remains of fowl
   and game that may be on hand, and have a good yesterday's
   bouillon, which pour in place of ordinary water on the beef
   intended for the day's bouillon. Then cover the bottom of the
   stewpan with a slice of fine ham, remove the leaves of the
   cabbage, and introduce the forcemeat, tying up the leaves
   afterwards so it will not be perceptible. Boil two hours,
   filling with the bouillon of the pot-au-feu as the bouillon
   of the boiling diminishes. After removing the bouillon from
   the fire, let the bouillon, cabbage, forcemeat, and ham
   simmer together for three quarters of an hour in the stewpan,
   give a last turn to the bouillon, serve your cabbage in the
   soup-tureen, allow it to cool a minute, and serve. Then you
   may have the choice of eating your cabbage in the soup, or of
   soaking some bread in the bouillon and making of your cabbage
   a relevé of the soup. Cooked in this manner, the cabbage, the
   bouillon, and the meat, each lending a part of its properties
   to the other, attain the greatest sapidity it is possible for
   them to attain."

This is the _potage aux choux_. The _soupe aux choux_ is another matter
that sounds equally appetising and has the advantage to the eye of
puffing up the cabbage to far larger dimensions.

The extended remarks on the pot-au-feu itself are well worth the
careful attention of the housewife; the author declaring that the
French cuisine owes its superiority to that of other nations to the
excellence of its bouillon. Seven hours of slow and continuous boiling,
he maintains, are necessary for it to acquire all the requisite
qualities, _i. e._, to _faire sourire_ the soup. The term, "smile," is
happily chosen. Every piece of bread in a good _croûte-au-pot_ wears a
smile, and every dancing globule that remains after the skimmer has
performed its office is a dimple on its face.

Of the basting of meats--and herein the average cook stands in need of
constant advice and still more constant watching--he has this to say
(he is speaking of a truffled turkey after the recipe of the Marquis de
Cussy, which he suggests might be called _Dinde des Artistes_): "Above
all, never moisten your roasts, of whatever nature they may be, except
with butter mixed with salt and pepper. A cook who allows a single drop
of bouillon in the dripping-pan should be instantly discharged and
banished from France."

One of the brightest chapters of the volume is an essay which appears
in the appendix--a eulogium of a certain mustard, in which Dumas
out-Reynières Reynière. But one may overlook the subtle puffery that
sheds a halo over the product of "M. Bornibus," in view of the vast
erudition the writer displays and the grace with which the topic is
invested. The essay first appeared in Monselet's entertaining "Almanach
Gourmand" of 1869, the etymology of the word having been the subject of
a wager between the writer and some of his friends. Of Dumas it may be
said, as it has been said of the truffle, he "embellishes everything
he touches"; or, to paraphrase Savarin's definition, "_Qui dit Dumas,
prononce un grand mot._"

Among the most distinguished of modern professional cooks was Jules
Gouffé, former _officier de bouche_ of the Jockey Club of Paris, whose
"Livre de Cuisine" and "Livre de Pâtisserie" are unexcelled as guides
to the greatest triumphs of the art of which they treat. The "Livre
de Cuisine," which first appeared in 1865, is not a manual that can
be utilised in the ordinary establishment, however; but a volume on a
grand scale, written by a great chef for chefs. Francatelli, though
very elaborate, is much more simple. At any rate, it is possible to
simplify his recipes, or to derive many new ideas from them, even
where his formulas may not be executed in the average household. But
to follow Gouffé calls for the very highest professional skill and the
most lavish expenditure,--the hand of a master, a larder of cockscombs,
crawfish, truffles, plover and pheasants' eggs, not to mention a cellar
of Château Margaux, champagne, and Chablis Moutonne. His recipe for
quails _à la financière_, one of his nine elaborate ways of preparing
the bird, will serve as well as any for illustration:

   "Truss eight quails as for braising, put them in a stewpan,
   cover them with thin slices of fat bacon, pour in one gill
   of Madeira and one half pint of _mirepoix_, and let simmer
   until the quails are cooked. Fill a plain border-mould one and
   a quarter inches high with chicken forcemeat, poach it _au
   bain-marie_, and turn the border out of the mould into a dish
   and fill the centre with a _financière ragoût_ made of _foies
   gras_, truffles, cockscombs, cocks'-kernels, and chicken
   forcemeat quenelles mixed in _financière_ sauce. Drain the
   quails, untie them, and place them half on the border, half
   on the _ragoût_, the leg towards the centre, put a cockscomb
   between each quail, and a large truffle in the centre; glaze
   the border, the quails, and truffle with a brush dipped in
   glaze, and serve with _financière_ sauce."

With Jules Gouffé, Urbain-Dubois, a chef of the highest order, and
author of six important works on cookery, will be known to posterity
as one of the greatest masters of the range of the second half of the
nineteenth century.

In marked contrast to those of Gouffé and Dubois are the numerous
culinary works of Ildefonse-Léon Brisse, more familiarly known as
Baron Brisse, and who was sometimes termed the Baron Falstaff. Two
of his manuals, moulded on somewhat similar lines, are excellent
mentors for the modest household--"The 366 Menus" (1868) and "La
Petite Cuisine" (1870), of which many editions have appeared. In these
a large number of good, uncommon, and simple dishes are presented,
and both works may be comprehended by all who have a fair practical
knowledge of cookery at command. According to Théodore de Banville,
Baron Brisse was "at once an accomplished cook, a fine and delicate
gourmet, and a gourmand always tormented with an insatiable hunger."
It may therefore be assumed that all his recipes have been personally
tested, and that those he particularly recommends are well worthy
of trial, bearing out the sentiment he expresses in the preface to
"La Petite Cuisine,"--"This book is a good action for which I will
be duly credited in this world or the other." Besides his numerous
volumes on cookery, he founded and contributed to several culinary
journals. He laughed and ate. He was of enormous stature, and always
was obliged to secure two places in the diligence between Paris and
his home at Fontenay-aux-Roses, where he resided previous to his death
in 1876. With Jules Gouffé he instituted a series of dinners where
the guests were expected to dine in white frocks and round white
caps, like the fat old cooks that Roland has painted--dinners presided
over by the baron, whose _bonhomie_ was proverbial, and executed
under the directions of Gouffé himself. But apart from his excellent
cookery-books, Baron Brisse should be held in abiding reverence by all
entertainers that are worthy of the name, if only for his splendid
axiom,--"The host whose guest has been obliged to ask him for anything
is a dishonoured man!"

  [Illustration]

  [Illustration: DAY'S CLOSING HOUR

From the etching by Charles Jacque]




  [Illustration]




THE COOK'S CONFRÈRE


   "Les vûës courtes, je veux dire les esprits bornez et
   resserrez dans leur petite sphère, ne peuvent comprendre cette
   universalité de talens que l'on remarque quelquefois dans un
   même sujet."--LA BRUYERE: Du Mérite Personnel.

It were ungracious to trace the development of gastronomy further, or
to peruse its literature at greater length, without rendering justice
to the chief cause of its progress, deprived of which a Carême and a
Gouffé were impossible, and cookery, from a fine art, would resolve
itself into a perfunctory obligation. The reader who has followed the
writer thus far will surely not require to be told that the great
evolutionist of the table is neither the cook nor yet the range or the
pot-au-feu so much as the quadruped that Rome once selected for its
badge and cognisance. _A tout seigneur, tout honneur!_--let us not
be unmindful of the inestimable benefits the hog has conferred upon
mankind. Where, indeed, may one find that universality of talents
referred to by La Bruyère so combined in a single individual as in the
animal which the "short-sighted and narrow-minded" has so unjustly
maligned? To what utilities does he not lend and blend himself, and
where among _Ungulata_ or ruminators terrene were his substitute--a
_pièce de résistance_ for the poor, a _jouissance_ and benison for all.

If we accept the testimony of various pagan writers, pork, of which
the ancients were so fond, originally came into use about a thousand
years after the deluge, when Ceres, having sown a field of wheat,
found it invaded one day by a pig. This so incensed the goddess that
she forthwith punished the offender with death, and afterwards, having
him cooked, discovered his superior virtues--to set the example of
utilising him as food. The usual corn-cob placed in the mouth of a
freshly killed porker, therefore, not only reflects the delicacy of
his tastes, but is also classic in a measure--a symbol of his intimate
relationship with mythology and his place amid the Graces.

By the ancient Egyptians the flesh of the swine was held to be impure.
So was that of the camel, the cony, and the hare; so also the fat of
the ox or of sheep or of goat. "Every beast of the wood or the hedge
or the burrow, over and above the beasts of the chase and the warren,
according to the ancient writers, is to be called 'rascal.'" The hog
is likewise placed under ban by the Hindus and strict Buddhists, and
is still generally regarded as unclean by the Mohammedans. But the
Mohammedans and Hindus have no cuisine worthy of the name, and what
were a cuisine without the resources supplied by his inexhaustible
larder! The religious tenet of the Israelites by which the swine is
proscribed as an article of diet is honoured more in the breach than
in the observance. The Chinese have ever been fond of his savoury
flesh, and it may be said that with nearly all nations he forms one of
the leading staples of consumption. With the onion and that priceless
herb parsley, which stimulates appetite, facilitates digestion, and
renders nearly all sauces more attractive, he forms one of the most
indispensable adjuncts of alimentation. Deprived of his lardship, the
onion tribe, and parsley, cookery would soon decline, if indeed the
skilled practitioner would not find it well-nigh impossible to exercise
his art.

Despite what slanderous tongues of the East may utter to his
discredit, therefore, the weight of evidence as to his utility remains
overwhelmingly in his favour. We do not necessarily require him in our
parlours; his true place is the kitchen and the dining-room. Think how
unendurable life would be without him! Of all beasts he is the one
whose empire is most universal, and whose worth is least attested. It
is true that a eulogistic but now unprocurable work of forty-eight
pages was written in Modena in 1761 by D. Giuseppe Ferrari, with the
title "Gli Elogi del Porco." A treatise entitled "Dissertation sur
le Cochon," by M. Buc'hoz, published in 1789, is also cited. But as
this appeared in a series of monographs relating to coffee, cacao, and
various fruits, and has been passed by without comment, it probably
treats the quadruped merely from a sordid point of view, and possesses
no interest unless to the husbandman and stock-raiser.

Few have sung his praises, and, with the exception of Southey's
colloquial poem, no genethliac has been addressed to him in English
rhyme. Monselet has apostrophised him in a poem wherein he terms him
"cher ange," and M. Pouvoisin, in "La Mort du Goret," has tenderly
referred to him as "mon frère." His _oraison funèbre_ is worthy of
Bossuet:

    "Fameux par sa naissance et par son éleveur,
      Il est mort, le goret, célèbre à tant de titres:
    C'est un deuil, mais un deuil qui n'est pas sans saveur;
      Versons des pleurs, amis, surtout versons des litres!
    Il était si mignon, si lardé, si soyeux:
      Nous l'aimions! Maintenant qu'il a subi la flamme,
    Qu'il est accommodé, qu'il est délicieux;
      Nous lui servons de tombe, et nous en mangeons l'âme.
    Dans la profonde paix des estomacs gourmands,
      Son échine avec sa fressure vont descendre;
    Il n'avait pas rêvé, dans ses gras ronflements,
      D'un semblable caveau pour contenir sa cendre.
    C'est un honneur bien dû. Quel que soit ton regret
      Des repas plantureux, du son, de l'auge pleine,
    Tu peux t'enorgueillir, ô mon frère, ô goret.
      Nous allons te changer, nous, en substance humaine!"

    (Of birth renowned, entitled well to boast,
      And reared with care, the little pig is dead:
    We sorrow, but we scent the savoury roast,
      And mix a bumper while our tears we shed.
    We loved him, silky-soft, and plump, and fine,
      And now that he has felt the crisping fire
    We wait his soul and body to enshrine,
      A morsel for an epicure's desire.
    He little thought, when grunting in his pen,
      That, seasoned thus to tickle gourmand taste,
    His chine would glide down throats of feasting men,
      And to a noble tomb within us haste.
    Regret not, little pig, thine early fate:
      Honours are thine beyond the fattening sty,--
    We eat thee, brother, and incorporate
      Thy substance, thus, in our humanity.)[30]

Another poet, in a "Hymn to the Truffle," has accorded him a
semi-complimentary stanza, referring to him as "a useful animal." A
mediocre sonnet has also been addressed to him by Ernest d'Hervilly in
a series of seven tributes to the oyster, the pig, the gudgeon, the
rabbit, the roebuck, the herring, and the lobster.

"Man's ingratitude toward him," as Grimod de la Reynière remarks in
the "Almanach," "has basely reviled the name of the animal that is the
most useful to the human race when he is no more. He is treated as the
Abbé Geoffroy treats Voltaire; his memory is defamed whilst his flesh
is being savoured, and he is repaid with ironical contempt for the
ineffable pleasures he procures for us."

His classic Porcosity! sacred to Thor, patron of St. Anthony, the
device of Richard III, the favourite animal of Morland and Jacque, how
ungenerously he has been treated!

"All his habits are gross, all his appetites are impure; his stomach
is unbounded and his gluttony unparalleled," say his calumniators.
Yet, in fact, he is no more unclean than most domestic beasts, any
lapses in this respect being due to man and to the evil communications
to which he has been subjected under domestication. The wild hog is
proverbially cleanly, and is almost exclusively a vegetarian. In his
natural state his courage is undaunted. The peccary will challenge
the jaguar, while the wild boar is not unfrequently victorious in his
combats with the tiger himself.

"In this animal," says Beauvilliers, "there is almost nothing to cast
aside." Without him there were, in truth, an aching void and an empty
cuisine,--no lard, no hams, no bacon; no sausages, no spare-rib, no
larded _filets_ and game; no truffles and scientifically blended
_pâtés_; no souse or headcheese; no "Dissertation on Roast Pig";
no chine "with rising bristles roughly spread." His ways are ways
of fatness, and all his paths are progressive. He not only seeks
to instruct, like Virgil; but seeks to please, like Theocritus.
Civilisation radiates from him as light from a prism. With his increase
culture advances, wealth accumulates, and cookery improves. And think
of the services of his ploughshare to the farmer, whose orchards in
many cases would otherwise remain untilled!

His unctuous Lardship! the very fat and marrow of the stock-exchange,
the grease of the commercial wheel. Did he not directly furnish the
inspiration to Dubufe for one of the grandest paintings the world has
produced--the "Return of the Prodigal Son" who shared his husks--to say
nothing of Hogarth and the Scottish poet Hogg, whose ode "To a Skylark"
is scarcely excelled by Shelley's, and whose "Kilmeny" is enduring
among poetic strains? And what were the spirited hunting scenes of
Weenix, Sneyders, and Oudry without the great wild boar?

In the fourth canto of "The Faerie Queene" he is pictured as the symbol
of gluttony:

    "And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony,
      Deformèd creature on a filthy swine.
    His belly was upblown with luxury,
      And eke with fatness swollen was his eyne.
    Full of diseases was his carcass blew,
      And a dry Dropsie through his flesh did flow,
    Which by misdiet daily greater grew;
    Such one was Gluttony, the second of that crew."

But is he a glutton? and has he not been outrageously reviled by
Spenser as well as by the poets in general? Is it fair to accept the
dogmas and predications concerning his status, his vulgarity, and his
voracity that have been bequeathed him from time immemorial? Is he not
a _gourmet_ rather than a _gourmand_? Does he not infinitely prefer the
smallest truffle of Périgord to the hugest pumpkin of the fat prairies
of the West? Not only inordinately fond of the truffle, without which a
pâté de foie gras were a flower without perfume, he is the great hunter
of this highly prized esculent, recognising with Autolycus that a good
nose is requisite to smell out work for the other senses. Yet even then
he is thanklessly treated by man, who, instead of remunerating him with
an occasional tuber, grudgingly tosses him a few kernels of corn. The
despised razorback of the South, in like manner, steadfastly performs
his mission of waging war upon the rattlesnake without ever having been
chosen as the emblem of a State.

To the epicure he must ever bring to mind the perfumed product of
the sunny provinces of Guienne and Dauphiné, the artists of Alsace,
and the _Wurstmachereis_ of Germany. His fondness for the truffle, as
instanced in the wild boar, far exceeds that of the hare, the squirrel,
and the deer; and although the basset-hound and sheep-dog are also of
service in locating the tuber, the pig not only points it, but deftly
uproots it for the greedy hand of man. The pig seeks it by instinct;
the dog, through long and patient training. The pig's education is
accomplished in a few lessons by obtaining his confidence and appealing
to his epicurean taste. A boiled potato accompanied with a few truffle
peelings is placed in a mound of sand, after finding which the animal
is rewarded by a few chestnuts, acorns, or kernels of maize--and the
rest is left to his infallible memory. In fact, the discovery of the
truffle is due to the animal under consideration. "His long snout,"
says La Reynière, "perceived the odour of this treasure at a depth of
several metres. Up to this time, without a doubt, it had been reserved
for the table of some evil genius jealous of the happiness of man; by
his cunning he concealed it from the researches of the scientist, and
some fairy, a friend of the human race, charged the pig, whose keen
scent the goblin had forgotten to forefend, to mine the buried marvel
and bring it to the light of day. However this may be, the first pig
that discovered the truffle had excellent taste; there is no _bel
esprit_ to-day who is not eager to imitate him."[31]

The boar's head, likewise, how suggestive of good cheer! It at once
takes one back to the great baronial dining-halls, the Knights of
the Round Table, and the feasts and wassails of eld. It suggests the
joyous festivals of harvest-home and Yule, with the chief table on the
dais and the tables for retainers and servants, when the family and
attendants assembled amid the blaze of the great hearth-fire and the
music of the harpers and minstrels.

Again, consider his lovely appetite, exquisite digestion, and
imperturbable slumbers that many a millionaire would gladly part with
half his riches to obtain. The papillæ of his tongue are never furred
by dyspepsia, flatulence, gout, or the spleen. Proverbially on the
best of terms with his stomach, he needs no podophyllin, bicarbonates,
or Hunyadi. Sudden variations of temperature affect him not, while
all latitudes are equally conducive to his longevity. Ennui is to him
unknown, and life is never a burden, unless it be the trifling burden
of the weight he carries. He sleeps and eats and digests, and in his
own way solves the problem of content that is still unsolved by man.

His blithesome Porkship! his graces steal into the heart insensibly
if one be a minute philosopher. No cock-crowing or turkey-gobbling,
no lowing of kine or bleating of flocks, no screaming of hawks or
cawing of crows may vie as an expression of the rural landscape with
his complacent grunt of satisfaction and "high-piping _Pehlevi_" of
triumph. A vibrant chord of melody when snouted and bristled disputants
crowd and jostle around the trough or squeal and scramble within the
pen, it yet requires a more potent mediumship to draw forth in its
fullest measure the piercing treble of the porcine lyre. Rather let us
hear it, _arrectis auribus_, rising sonorously along the highway or
drifting adown some reverberant lane, with the dog as the plectrum of
the ham-strings. Thomson, less gracious but more observant than Lamb,
recognised his accomplishments as a lyrist, and in a stanza in "The
Castle of Indolence," a complement to the stanza cited from "The Faerie
Queene," thus apostrophises his power of song:

    "Ev'n so through Brentford town, a town of mud,
      An herd of bristly swine is pricked along;
    The filthy beasts that never chew the cud
      Still grunt and squeak, and sing their troublous song,
      And oft they plunge themselves the mire among:
    But aye the ruthless driver goads them on,
      And aye of barking dogs the bitter throng
    Make them renew their unmelodious moan;
    Ne ever find they rest from their unresting fone."

Like Spenser, Thomson has grossly traduced him, except so far as his
musical gifts are concerned, though in this respect he might have been
more discriminating in the use of his adjectives. Why "troublous" and
"unmelodious," in place of expressing his thrilling _arpeggio_ of song?

But it is for qualities more sterling than those of a vocal nature
that the confrère of the cook deserves recognition. He has his
trifling faults, to be sure--who is without them? He is obstinate
in being driven to market, perhaps, knowing the fate which awaits
him, and possibly his assurance may be somewhat obnoxious at public
gatherings. It is admitted also that his _savoir faire_ at table,
while distinguished for _aplomb_, is not entirely without alloy. But
although the ill-mannered among his tribe occasionally thrust their
feet not under but upon the mahogany, and are sometimes guilty of
elbowing one another at mealtime, yet it must be conceded that they are
never late at their engagements to dine; neither do they ever commit
that unpardonable breach of etiquette--eating with a knife. It is a
_belle fourchette_ rather than a fine blade they ply.

The late Horace Greeley, to repeat a well-known story, tells of a
farmer who drove a herd of Yorkshires to market,--

   "When meads with slime were sprent, and ways with mire,"--

the march proving so fatiguing to his charges that they shrank in flesh
and had to be disposed of at a sacrifice on finally arriving at their
destination. When asked on his return how much he had realised from
the transaction, he replied he had made nothing out of his charges
themselves--"_he had had the pleasure of their company, though_."
This point, through a singular oversight,--the idea is the same and
equally charming everywhere,--Leigh Hunt has not touched upon in his
essay "On the Graces and Anxieties of Pig-Driving." It may be of
interest to those whose manuscripts have been rejected to know that
Hunt's exquisite conceit was refused by the magazine to which it was
addressed, but fortunately it was not on this account consigned to the
waste-basket, but lives and is embalmed with Lamb's dissertation.

"I could never understand to this day," writes Hunt in his
autobiography, "what it is that made the editor of a magazine reject
an article which I wrote, with the mock-heroic title of 'The Graces
and Anxieties of Pig-Driving.' I used to think he found something
vulgar in the title. He declared it was not he who rejected it, but the
proprietor of the magazine. The proprietor, on the other hand, declared
that it was not he who rejected it, but the editor. I published it in a
magazine of my own, 'The Companion,' and found it hailed as one of my
best pieces of writing."

This reference of Hunt's recalls a piquant _épigramme_ of lamb that
is not down in the cook-books. It was when the writer was taking his
departure from an old Paris bookstall, a number of years ago, that, as
he turned to leave, the proprietor remarked:

"Monsieur perhaps might like to glance at an English work, '_sur
l'Agneau_,' which came in with some other volumes recently."

The volume in question referred, indeed, to "lamb," and proved to be
the excessively rare first edition of "The Essays of Elia" (London,
1823). It was slightly foxed, but otherwise in excellent condition,
and contained some marginal annotations in manuscript. On carefully
examining the handwriting, we became convinced it was that of Charles
Lamb--there could be no possible doubt of it. The only writing on the
fly-leaf was, "To W. W., from C. L."--the "W. W." presumably being
William Wordsworth. In the volume, since attired by the binder as it
deserves, are several slight alterations in "The South Sea House," and
some addenda to "Valentine's Day."

But by far the most important annotation occurs in "A Dissertation
on Roast Pig." It is apparent at a glance that this was a serious
afterthought ere the volume left the author's hands and the types
confronted him with any lapses he had made--an apology, in fact, on
the part of the author for whatever reference might be considered
disparaging or in any wise inconsiderate as regards the worth of the
elder animal. For, in consistency, a jewel that sparkles throughout the
pages of "Elia," the parents might not be reviled without reflecting
upon the children. Moreover, however "mild and dulcet" a nursling
pigling, roasted _secundum artem_, may be to those of educated tastes,
it is a dish that cloys from its very mellifluence if repeated too
often, whereas in pork matured it is invariably a case of cut and come
again.

From the volume and chapter in question we transcribe the annotation,
_verbatim et literatim_, where it follows, as a postscript, the
concluding line, "he is a weakling--a flower":

   "Methinks my mind (animadverted by the infant pearl) hath been
   too evasive. There is he who, having shed the downy robes
   of childhood, is clad in the _toga virilis_ of a glorious
   chief. Hast thou ever on occasion savoured his matured nether
   extremities, if haply thou wert blessed with an appetite and
   appreciation commensurate with their unctuous worth? Regard
   those feet--those parsley-garnished feet! See the pearly
   whiteness of the ankles, the coral pink of the petitoes!
   Meseems a man might arise in the small hours of a winter
   morning to savour such a dish. It should summon the shade of
   Lucullus. It should not only reconcile man to his lot, but it
   should render him thankful for it. Imagine the passion of a
   stricken youth (stricken by the pedal glories and faultless
   poise of a Taglioni), and then note by comparison the exalted
   rapture which should be engendered by _such_ feet as these!

   "In wandering through Covent Garden market, and passing from
   floral dreams to the vegetables, I often pause before the
   peas. Do I yearn for them in their adolescence? do I associate
   them with the duckling and the lamb? Nay; I await a time when
   they shall have folded and creased within themselves their
   _perfected_ saccharine excellence, to be released in the
   kitchen of the winter.

   "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.

  [Illustration]




  [Illustration]




                    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.

  [Illustration: "FIRST CATCH YOUR HARE!"

  From the engraving by J. W. Snow.]

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:

   "There are several taverns pleasantly situated upon East
   River, near New York, where it is common to have these turtle
   feasts. These happen once or twice a week. Thirty or forty
   gentlemen and ladies meet and dine together, drink tea in
   the afternoon, fish, and amuse themselves till evening, and
   then return home in Italian chaises, a gentleman and lady in
   each chaise. On the way there is a bridge, about three miles
   distant from New York, which you always pass over as you
   return, called the Kissing Bridge, where it is part of the
   etiquette to salute the lady who has put herself under your
   protection."

No wonder that, with such delightful privileges, the days of our
roistering greater-grandfathers were referred to as "the good old
colony times."

It has been properly held that austerity of diet, though not always
productive of austere morals, invariably leads to an acerbity of
temperament inimical to social and artistic development, that poor
food is a begetter of dyspepsia, and that in dyspepsia lurks crime.
A well-nourished nation becomes a progressive nation, and poor
nourishment results in intemperance and maleficence. The mobile human
face, first to show the effects of the emotions and the passions by
its lines, is no less indicative of meagre or improper alimentation.
"Both in mind and body, where nourishment ceases vitality fails," and
hence a perfect cuisine must prove the best of doctors if supplemented
by the adage, "Know thyself, obtain a sufficiency of sleep, and
exercise abundantly in the outer air." As to the ideal cuisine, this
may be briefly defined as that which supplies an abundant variety of
the best procurable material prepared in the most wholesome manner,
in distinction to innumerable mixed and highly spiced viands, which
assuredly have their place, but which require to be employed with
precaution. The merit of the best American cookery consists in its
comparative simplicity.

Writing in 1852, Count d'Orsay complained that even then the culinary
art had greatly deteriorated in Paris, and had been transferred to
England. At the time referred to, the Frères Provençeaux, Philippe,
and the Café de Paris were the most famous restaurants at the French
capital, Véry, Véfour, and the Café Anglais having declined in favour.
His remarks concerning England applied of course to the nobility, who
could outbid the titled classes of France, as to-day America in its
turn is enabled to command the greatest culinary skill. A similar
complaint was made by Nestor Roqueplan in 1866 in "Le Double Almanach
Gourmand":

   "The French cuisine has lost much of its originality and
   special characteristics. We no longer find places devoted
   to the Flemish kitchen, others to the Normandy, Lyonnaise,
   Toulousian, Bordelaise, and Provençale kitchens. But France
   nevertheless is still the country where eating is found at its
   best."

That French cookery, or, to speak more correctly, Parisian cookery,
has deteriorated of recent years there would seem to be abundant
evidence. Or is it that such retrogression is owing to the advances in
other countries, and that the Parisian cuisine suffers more from such
comparison than from any real falling off in merit? Certain it is that
the alien who is capable of judging will charge it with having become
too rich and highly spiced, if not too careless. There are those who
go so far as to say that its future will lie chiefly in the speech of
the menu, that none of the strange spellings of "rosbif" will change
the nature of the viand, the same remark applying to the cut which is
called a "biftek" everywhere save in the land of its origin and in the
United States. The fact is that the French, in many arts, unjustly
claim a taste so superlative as to be unattainable by other nations,
and that French cookery has been tacitly accepted as unparalleled on
the same principle that a titled personage is supposed to possess
superior accomplishments. Yet French must necessarily remain for all
time the classic language of the bill of fare.

Still, the preparation of food continues to be better understood by
the average practitioner in France than in any other country. For, as
in angling it is "not so much the fly as the hand directing it that
secures the trout," so in cookery it is less the recipe than the fine
perceptivity of the artist that achieves the perfect dish. So far as
America is concerned, it is less the want of capable chefs than the
scarcity of good female cooks that is to be deplored. A competent
cuisinière is becoming more and more uncommon, and by the average
servant cooking is too often considered a mere function to be performed
with as little trouble and as much despatch as possible. Besides the
lack of proper training, crass ignorance is too frequently a factor
which the housewife has to contend with in those who profess to have a
perfect understanding of the art of the kitchen.

A new cook had come, and there were to be smelts with a tartare sauce
to follow the soup.

"Can you make a good tartare sauce?" asked the mistress; "if not, I can
show you."

"Oh, yes; I've often made one."

In due time the fish, shorn of heads and tails and flanked by a very
yellow sauce with a strange taste, made their appearance, and were
promptly returned to the kitchen.

"Surely, you don't call this a tartare sauce, which is always cold.
Besides, where are the chopped pickle, the onion, the capers, the
parsley? And what gives it such a queer taste?"

"But this is a hot tartar sauce, mum; I asked for the 'tartar,' and the
maid gave it to me; I supposed you wanted a cream-of-tartar sauce."

The corrective for such a state of things is difficult to prescribe,
unless it be a better understanding on the part of the housewife and
the establishment of cooking-classes in all female schools. Another
remedy might be to imitate the French of two hundred years ago, and
provide an entertaining illustrated text-book for children, artfully
designed to foster a love of gastronomy. Thus, in a work of this nature
entitled "Roast Pig," the text is freely interlarded with appetising
pictures of viands and table scenes, accompanied by such maxims as
these: "A well-minced ham is fine eating, but not without something to
drink"; "pâté of venison and craquelins are not intended for naughty
children"; "damask prunes are delicious to eat for those who deserve
them"; "venison is better in a pâté than with any sauces, if it is well
seasoned and accompanied with wine."[32]

  [Illustration: "RÔTI-COCHON"

  Facsimile page from volume, 1696]

The excellence of the _morale_ of a work of this nature cannot fail to
impress itself on those of mature years whose incentive to learning in
youth was more often the ruler and the rod than sugar-plums and wine.
But while the advantages of such a method for moulding the youthful
taste are to be extolled, it presents the objection that much valuable
time must elapse before the results would become tangible, and hence
its benefits would accrue too late save for the younger generation and
its successors.

It were well, withal, in furtherance of the advance of the art, if a
society were formed for the suppression of the filet, the consommé
with whipped cream, and also the sweetbread in its usual form, which
are so frequently employed in "company" dinners, the bill of fare
of which is left by the housewife to the cook or the purveyor who is
engaged for the day. In such cases the guest often needs no menu to
know what is forthcoming--the lukewarm Blue Points, the flavourless
broth, the overdone halibut, the tasteless tenderloin and green peas,
and the half-mixed salad deluged with tarragon vinegar. As for the
wines, one may be reasonably sure of a woody-tasting sherry, a sour
and watery "claret," and a still more asperous _brut_ champagne that
is doled out, when appetite has waned, to chill the dessert and render
the sweets the more indigestible. Not that this menu is the general
rule by any means in the United States, but it is of far too frequent
occurrence, and should be placed under ban--a charge that concerns
the host and hostess alike. For whatever difficulty the mistress may
experience in procuring trained culinary skill, a simple bill of fare,
daintily served, is always at her command; while there can be no excuse
on the part of the master for presenting a sharp _brut_ champagne at
the end of the repast, if indeed it be presented at all; and as for
a reputable Bordeaux, if such be not in his cellar, it is or should
be obtainable at his club. Where champagne is permitted to diffuse
its sunshine, it goes without saying it should be of irreproachable
quality and dealt out with a liberal hand. To stint in Ay or Sillery
is as unpardonable as to ice one's Burgundy. The host should watch the
various brands attentively from year to year, noting their improvement
or deterioration, judging them by their quality only, and choosing them
irrespective of their vogue or the plaudits of those who may not be
capable of judging.

The introducer of the dry flint cracker in place of fresh bread to go
with the cheese, though never definitely ascertained, is said to have
been a dentist who in this wise succeeded in obtaining many wealthy
patients. A person who is guilty of offering hardtack to his friends
may be expected to pour a mayonnaise dressing over his cucumbers and
beat up his lettuce and tomatoes in a salad. To serve cheese with the
salad is a syncretism, besides being a great injustice to the roast
to which the salad rightly appertains. The absence of butter which
is often noticeable at formal repasts has no _raison d'être_. It is
wanted at most dinners, particularly for corn, baked potatoes, etc.,
and is always needed for bread; its non-employment in Europe is only
a consequent of economical custom. A vice it were seemingly useless
to protest against, so universal is the practice, is the serving of
raw fruit after a hearty dinner. As long as courses are presented
in a tempting way, so long will the unthinking majority continue to
taste them, even if it be fruit,--"gold in the morning, silver at
noon, and lead at night,"--- after the final sweets. The only one who
has exclaimed against this custom, to the writer's knowledge, is the
Ettrick Shepherd in the "Noctes": "As for frute after fude, it's a
downricht abomination, and coagulates on the stomach like sour cruds."

Nor may the wineless dinner be passed unnoticed, at which unfortunate
guests sometimes find themselves unwittingly present with no means
of escape. To those who are unaccustomed to their glass of claret or
other vinous beverage at home its exclusion may not materially signify,
though at a protracted repast there are not a few among such who find
it a great aid to digestion. In the case of those who are habituated to
it its absence becomes of serious moment, much the same as if a meal
were deprived of salt or the post-prandial cigar were proscribed. In
vain may the unfortunate guest attempt to philosophise on the virtues
of abnegation as he contemplates his glass where the gold gleams
without, instead of sparkling from within, and he mournfully recalls
the couplet of Monselet and the dinners that are past:

    "Sauternes, Haut-Brions, Latour, Margaux, Lafittes,
    Grands crûs de la Gironde, ah! quel bien vous me fîtes!"

    (Sauternes, Latour, Margaux, Lafitte, and O'Bryan,
    Grand growths of Gironde, let us make haste to try 'em!)

The least that the dinner-giver could do who may be intent on
restricting the product of the vine, out of respect for those whose
happiness it befits him to consider,--aye, for which he is directly
responsible during the entire period they remain under his roof,--would
be to apprise his guests on their invitation cards that his filet was
to be accompanied by water. Then any possible uncertainty would at once
become a certainty, and no one need be ensnared. Otherwise his dinner
must border too closely on the very questionable form of entertainment
tendered by the fox to the stork. "Let no man," says an old writer
in "Blackwood's," "who has been so unfortunate as to be accustomed
to drink water be afraid all at once to begin to drink wine. Let him
without fear or trembling boldly fill a bumper to his most gracious
majesty the king--then the Duke of Clarence and the navy--then
Wellington and the army. These three bumpers will have made him a new
man."

The fact that the host may not be a wine-drinker himself is no reason
why he should select a dinner-party as the field for enforcing his
views on hydropathy. And if from sentiment or through physical reasons
he prefer water, no one assuredly will question his right to abstain
from vinous beverages. There was an old gentleman, it is related, who
was fond of entertaining his friends, and who gave them wine of the
very best. He himself would drink with them, but only from a particular
decanter which was placed before him. An inquisitive neighbour at his
table contrived to help himself from the same bottle, and discovered
that, under a colourable imitation of sherry, his host was drinking
cold tea. He was a total abstainer from principle, but he was too
courteous a gentleman to flaunt his conviction in the face of his
guests or to reflect upon the weakness of his friends by confessing
himself superior to them.

Above all things, an invitation to dine should convey on its face
the spirit of a refined, broad-minded hospitality and an assurance
of perfect creature comforts, embodying in the fullest measure the
sentiment expressed by Châtillon-Plessis, "_Se soigner en buvant
d'excellents vins et en mangeant d'excellents mets, voilà la bonne,
la vraie médication!_" (To care for one's self by drinking excellent
wines and by eating excellent dishes,--this is the proper, the true
medication.) In all instances where the entertainer may be opposed
to serving wine, it were better to dispense with the dinner and
substitute a tea or a reading in its stead. A wineless dinner is
justifiable only where every guest is a professed teetotaler and has
become inured to Oolong and sparkling waters.

An editorial in the London "Spectator" deals summarily with such
alleged entertainers, terming them "would-be hosts."

   "What!" [exclaims the writer] "shall a man be invited to a
   feast? shall he don his white tie with care and take his
   way through the inclement weather to his friend's home,
   determined, though weary and jaded with his daily toil, to
   shine at his best, and repay with the blithest company his
   friend's entertainment? and shall he be offered lemonade to
   drink? It is enough to curdle the milk of human kindness in
   his breast forever. Or iced water? Why, it would throw a chill
   upon the warmest good will, and freeze the speech even upon
   the lips of a lover. The man is neither a wine-bibber nor a
   sot. But he is accustomed to drink his glass of wine, even as
   he is accustomed to eat his dinner, and one is as necessary to
   him as the other. Well, we do not imagine that he dines with
   him twice."

The Sunday two- or three-o'clock dinner is a barbarism which calls
loudly for suppression--a custom that has no justifiable motive,
inasmuch as the only pretence for its existence is of questionable
benefit to the servants, who are obliged to share equally the penalty
visited upon every one by whom it is tolerated. As well establish a
weekly custom of a Saturday banquet at midnight in order to allow
the cook a full afternoon for visiting. For what are the inevitable
results? Accustomed to the dinner in the evening and the luncheon at
noon, for which the machinery of digestion is set in perfect accord,
the stomach is called upon to fast on the day devoted to rest until
long after the period for the performance of its regular offices--to
be surfeited with excessive ingestion at a time when appetite is
ravenous and the secretory organs are unable to perform their customary
functions. Gluttony and subsequent lethargy are a necessary consequent,
followed by a disturbed state of the digestion perhaps for days
afterwards. The pathological deduction of irregular eating is a simple
one. The stomach, having supplied its secretions at the accustomed
time, waits but a brief period before it allows such secretions to be
absorbed when deprived of the aliments that aid in the production of
fresh supplies. After a few such experiences the secretions diminish in
amount and in activity, even when food is introduced in the digestive
tract, and stomachic disturbance is an inevitable sequence. It will
thus be manifest that the Sunday-afternoon dinner and late Sunday
supper become the greatest of all invitations to gastric disorders, and
that the master and mistress of the well-regulated household should
firmly resent this almost universal imposition. No one knows better
than the physician the serious ailments caused by Sunday engorgement
and irregular eating. And yet no one in this respect remains more
passive to his own welfare or that of his patients.

The seven-o'clock theatre dinner, while less obnoxious than the Sunday
evil, is nevertheless a positive discomfort and a direct incentive to
flatulence and dyspepsia. It should likewise receive the stigma of
public disapproval, and either be entirely abolished, out of comfort
both to hosts and guests, or set at a sufficiently early hour to ensure
their well-being and that of the audience it invariably disturbs. In
any event, a formal repast of this nature can scarcely be partaken of
with a sense of comfort, and it were better for all concerned if a
supper after the performance were substituted.

To be regretted also is the growing tendency of adjourning the evening
dinner-hour. Six o'clock, the hygienist will maintain, is the latest
period in the day at which those who set a proper value on their health
should begin to dine. It will be claimed, notwithstanding, by many who
may be directly concerned, that this is too early for invited guests
to assemble at table--that the toiler in the business mart may not
always call his time his own. Let the hours of the business man and
the professionalist be shortened, so that life may contain a broader
margin. There still remain but twenty-four hours in the day, and the
existing hours of business are too long and do not enable the majority
to regulate the conditions of life properly. Let us not be ever
hastening on, as though the goal were to be attained only by whip and
spur!--"the wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure,
and he that hath little business shall become wise."

The ideal hour for dining would be half-past six, with fifteen minutes'
grace at the utmost, when one need neither sit down in a half-famished
condition nor be sent to bed with an overcharged stomach. Seven o'clock
certainly is as late as one may dine with comfort. A deferred dinner
means either a too substantial luncheon or a distressing feeling
of "goneness," which frequently makes itself unpleasantly audible
long before the announcement that dinner is served; while lateness
in dining implies additionally an insufficient interim between the
dessert and the night's repose. No period of the day begins to be as
tedious as that which is often mistakenly extended for the benefit and
encouragement of the unpunctual. Would that the laggard who thus mars
the comfort of others might feel the true force of Boileau's stricture:
"I have always been punctual at the hour of dinner, for I knew that all
those whom I kept waiting at that provoking interval would employ those
unpleasant moments to sum up all my faults." To wait for tardy guests,
it cannot be emphasised too strongly, is to try unwarrantably the
temper of the remainder of the company and jeopardise the excellence
of the repast. All such stumbling-blocks to the perfect advance of
gastronomy, however, will doubtless be removed in time, and the
pleasures of the table eventually be realised to their fullest extent
in America.

Again, turning from the state of cookery in this country to that
in England, it must be admitted that advancement has been far less
manifest. "In general," a French writer remarks, "the English are
little inclined to epicurism; it is apparent that their palate is not
apt to appreciate the finish, the delicacy of a dish artistically
prepared." It cannot be said that this stricture is entirely just,
despite existent conditions. Neither may it be charged that the
general state of English cookery is entirely the result of supineness
on the part of a considerable portion of those whose interests are
most affected; for the travelled Briton is the first to complain
of the sameness and lack of progress which characterise his native
kitchen. With abundant material and the best of meats and fish, there
is little variety and a conspicuous want of daintiness in the English
bill of fare; while even in the capital the English restaurants,
with few exceptions, are scarcely to be commended. One must perforce
suppose that these conditions are more the outcome of the national
conservatism--the tendency to "let well enough alone"--than that they
are not realised by a certain portion of the community. The Englishman
is the last one, however, to stint at his table, whereon the ample
roast invariably figures, and whatever may chance to be served appears
in generous profusion.

Nor can one imagine a more delightsome host than the cultured Briton,
who was first to proclaim the virtues of old-vintage champagnes, and
who is still willing to undergo the martyrdom of gout for the sake of
an after-glass of port which may not be equalled elsewhere. And if the
English table be designated as "heavy" compared with that of the United
States, it must be considered that climate has much to do with the form
of a nation's alimentation. The national roast beef and ale are a fuel
for the body in a land where fogs and mists prevail, and where the
heating of dwellings and buildings is often inadequate. The chop-house
is essentially English, and so far as its bill of fare extends its
merits are unquestionable. The Englishman will also say, and his claim
cannot be disputed, Is there a better substantial soup than turtle,
or even ox-tail and mulligatawny? is any _friture_ equal in delicacy
to that of whitebait? and is not the English beefsteak incomparably
superior to the larded filet of the French?

But turtle and turbot and beef and ale need not necessarily preclude
the lighter forms of nutrition which the British lack, or that minute
attention to detail without which the cuisine must languish. It is true
that the kitchens of the very wealthy are presided over by skilled
foreign chefs, as is the case in most other countries, and that my
lord and my lady do not lack for the most exquisite refinements that
the disciples of Carême can contribute. A rich ancestral English
country-seat, shaded by its immemorial elms and limes, with its
splendid conservatories and gardens, its game-preserves and trout and
salmon waters, is perhaps the best expression of refined and luxurious
hospitality to be found; and here, assuredly, the table does not yield
in bounty and munificence to any in the world. Outside of comparatively
few dishes, however, there is but little to commend in general English
cookery; and it would seem that what else is specially characteristic
and also good consists largely in the cold pieces, such as game-,
pigeon-, and rabbit-pie, spiced beef, the lordly venison pasty, and
similar comestibles. That there is no such thing as fine modern English
cookery the Englishman will be first to acknowledge. Broadly speaking,
all which is good is old, and all which is modern is French.[33] The
cooking of vegetables is notoriously poor, and variety in preparation
is as limited on the ordinary table as the variety of the vegetables
themselves during a major portion of the year. The seedsman and the
market-gardener cannot be held accountable, for the seedsman produces
excellent varieties in profusion, many of which are grown in this
country, and market-gardeners abound who must raise them. And no
gardener may excel, if equal, the Englishman, whether his operations
extend to the kitchen-or the flower-garden. But where are his
vegetables to be met with in perfection of variety and perfection of
cooking?--a question that becomes almost as great a problem as was the
universal absence of male birds among the chaffinches or the mysterious
disappearance of the ring-ouzels to Gilbert White.

During the limited season, let us admit, there are some vegetables
which may not be surpassed, like green peas and beans, cauliflower,
asparagus, and many varieties of lettuce, especially Cos, which cannot
be grown to equal advantage under our hot summer sun. It is unfortunate
that potatoes are cooked only in about one way, for few potatoes can
compare in flavour with those raised in England. All such vegetables as
demand continuous midsummer heat for their perfect maturity, together
with late-ripening varieties of fruits, are necessarily raised at a
disadvantage in most portions of Great Britain. Yet it would seem that
the frowns of Vertumnus were far less responsible for this dearth of
variety than the apparent apathy of the nation itself or those who are
principally responsible for its alimentation--the cook, the epicure,
the restaurant, and the housewife.

Thus, in so simple a matter as the pumpkin-pie, which one occasionally
meets in the southern and southwestern shires, it is hardly surprising
that it is held in slight estimation when one reflects that the
material is cut up in pieces, and then, with half apple and half
pumpkin, a pie is made similar to the ordinary English apple-pie, and
this in a climate where a pumpkin of good quality may not be grown out
of doors. Contrary to general opinion, pumpkin-pie is not an American
but an old English dish improved upon by the New England housewife.
Three hundred years ago, when known as the "pompion," they were made
into pies by cutting a hole in the side, extracting the seeds and
filaments, stuffing the cavity with apples, and baking the whole.

The nectarine, peach, and apricot, as raised under glass in England
or grown as espaliers in favoured localities, are always superior,
while the glass-grown "pine" nowhere else reaches such perfection.
Superlative, too, is the glass-grown muskmelon--netted, ribbed,
and laced; spherical, oval, and globe-shaped; green-fleshed and
scarlet-fleshed; and melting, juicy, and delicious. But some will ask,
what can be more delectable than the scented orange-scarlet flesh of
our own "Surprise," or the Hymettus sweetness that is hived beneath
the wattled ribs of the little "Green Nutmeg"? The watermelon, with
its great, luscious, rosy core, like corn and the sweet potato and its
varieties, is not to be grown in England.

Of hardy fruits America is the chosen home, unless it be of the grape
for wine-making, wherein France reigns supreme. And of all districts
where soil and climate unite to second the skill of the horticulturist,
there is perhaps none in which nearly all the finer species and
varieties of fruit attain such superiority, combined with keeping
qualities, as in the smiling garden of the Empire State--the Genesee
Valley of New York. Excellent fruits are raised in France and southern
Germany, but only to a limited extent compared with our own country. To
the French we are indebted for many of the finest varieties of pears,
though these are rarely seen in France itself. Fruit in Europe is
always dear and often difficult to obtain. Yet in the noted Parisian
restaurants it is a rare occurrence when one cannot obtain a couple of
peaches for twenty-five francs, or revel in a melon for thirty, much
the same as pineapples may be obtained in London at a guinea apiece.

It will readily be conceded that the fish and meats of the French and
Germans are usually much inferior to those of the English--the veal of
Germany and the Pré-Salé mutton of France excepted. But, unlike the
continentals, the English fail to make the most of their opportunities
and better materials. A contemporaneous English writer thus alludes to
the state of cookery and this lack of progress in his own country:

   "The adage 'God sends meat and the devil sends cooks' must
   surely be of native parentage, for of no country is it so true
   as of our own. Perhaps had it not been for the influx among us
   of French and Italian experts we should not have progressed
   much beyond the pancake and oatmeal period. But foreign chefs
   limit their efforts to those who can afford to pay them for
   their services. The middle classes do not fall within the pale
   of their beneficence. The poor know them not. So it happens
   that even as I write the greater part of the community not
   only cannot afford professional assistance in the preparation
   of their meals, which goes without saying, but from ignorance
   expend on their larder twice as much as a Parisian or an
   Italian in the same rank of life, with a very indifferent
   result. There are handbooks of instructions, it is true, both
   for the middle and for the lower classes. These books are at
   everybody's command. But they are either left unread, or, if
   read, they are not understood."[34]

Let it not be supposed by the stranger to the table of London that one
may not dine there to advantage, or that the criticisms as to strictly
English dinners apply to all hostelries and to many first-class
restaurants of the capital where the French _haute cuisine_ prevails.
London has likewise numerous Italian restaurants whose table d'hôte is
not to be despised--if one knows where to find them. But even in those
restaurants whose specialty is French cookery the menu is singularly
incommensurate in variety to the varied native products, both in
vegetable and animal foods. Even the delicious sole and turbot, however
well prepared, become a weariness through constant iteration, while
_petite marmite_ and _croûte-au-pot_ are so frequent as to cause one to
yearn for Julienne with inexpressible longing. No doubt, with a trained
and old-time diner who knows his London thoroughly, one might happen on
not a few gastronomic oases whose good English cheer would cause even
the fog of the metropolis to melt into golden sunshine.

Many old dishes still exist in the English provinces on which much
store is set in their respective localities, as, for instance, a
certain pudding, rarely found outside of Derbyshire, called Bakewell
pudding, after the little town on the Wye, which is also celebrated for
its trout. Although the ancient recipe for this, handed down from one
generation to another, is said to be possessed only by the landlady of
the Chesterfield Arms in Bakewell, it is asserted that a successful
imitation may be made as follows: Line a pie-tin with puff-paste and
fill the centre with these ingredients--first layer, lemon cheese;
second, raspberry jam; third, lemon cheese. Then strew on the top
blanched sweet almonds and strips of candied peel of lemons, oranges,
and citrons. Bake for about twenty minutes in a brisk oven, and dust
very lightly with fine sugar.

Of the innumerable forms of preparing the cutlet, the following recipe
can at least lay claim to originality, and is thoroughly English:
The cutlets should be cut from the neck of mutton, then egged and
breadcrumbed, finely minced tongue or ham having been mixed with the
crumbs. Fry a delicate brown. For the centre of the dish use the
whites of three eggs steamed in a cup. Place in a saucepan gherkins,
mushrooms, ham, and tongue cut into small bars, adding to this a sauce
of good brown gravy, with a dessertspoonful each of red-currant jelly,
Harvey's sauce, mushroom ketchup, and tomato sauce. For the quality of
this recipe the writer cannot vouch further than to observe that, like
its predecessor, it emanates from the daintiest of feminine fingers
of Wargrave, where the excellence of the contributor's kitchen is
equalled only by the beauty of her flower-garden.

The universal employment of bottled sauces, such as Worcester, Halford,
Harvey's, etc., and pungent condiments, like gherkins, mustard,
chow-chow, and ketchup, would seem to be more or less necessary in
England, owing to the monotony of her roast beef and mutton and the
extensive use of cold meats, poultry, and game. Harvey's sauce,
mentioned among the ingredients of the above-mentioned recipe, owes
its origin to this circumstance: During the middle and later years of
Mr. Meynell's mastership of the hounds in the celebrated Quorn country
there often appeared in the field Captain Charles Combers, who was
born at Brentwood in 1752, and who was more familiarly known as "The
Flying Cucumber" from the manner in which he put his horses along.
On one occasion, when on his way to Leicestershire, he stopped, as
was his wont, at Bedford to dine at the George, then kept by a man
named Harvey, where he ordered a steak; and when it was served Combers
requested Harvey to let his servant bring from his buggy a quart bottle
which contained an admirable sauce. Having poured some of it into his
plate and mixed it with the gravy of the steak, he asked Harvey to
taste it, and the host pronounced it to be a most excellent relish.
"Well, Mr. Harvey," said Combers, "I shall leave the bottle with you
to use till my return, only be careful to reserve enough for me." On
the next day Harvey had to provide a wedding dinner and introduced
the sauce, which afforded such general satisfaction that several
smaller parties were made up, and the contents of the bottle were soon
exhausted.

In due time Captain Combers returned, and, having been told that no
more sauce remained, said: "Never mind; I can make some more from my
mother's recipe; and, by-the-bye, I will give you a copy of it." He
was as good as his word. Harvey made it in large quantities, sent it
to the different shops in London, advertised it as "Harvey's Sauce,"
and by its extensive sale realised a large income. He subsequently sold
the recipe for an annuity of £400 or £500, which he received for the
remainder of his life.

Among old English dishes, "Bubble and Squeak" is the fanciful name
applied to fried beef or mutton and cabbage,--

    "When 'midst the frying-pan, in accents savage,
    The beef so surly quarrels with the cabbage,"--

for the preparation of which widely varied recipes are given in the
vade-mecums of English cookery. Kitchener even set the lines to
music, and furnished a sauce for the dish. Such a dish illustrates
the excellent digestion of the English. To the French it would be
impossible, and a German would think twice before attempting it. But
this were harmless compared with an English green sauce for green
geese or ducklings, the prescription for which reads: "Mix a quarter
of a pint of sorrel-juice, a glass of white wine, and some scalded
gooseberries. Add sugar and a bit of butter, and boil them up."

To cavil is easy, however, and in matters relating to cookery it were
well to bear in mind the philosophic lines of King, a contemporary of
the late lamented Mrs. Glasse:

    "Good nature will some failings overlook,
    Forgive mischance, not errors of the Cook;
    As, if no salt is thrown about the dish,
    Or nice crisp'd parsley scatter'd on the fish;
    Shall we in passion from our dinner fly,
    And hopes of pardon to the Cook deny,
    For things which Mrs. Glasse herself might oversee,
    And all mankind commit as well as she?"

And if English cookery and English restaurants leave much to be
desired, one should not forget that the art is still far from having
attained perfection in the United States, where the stranger in like
manner might find ample cause for complaint, particularly in the poor
and slipshod cookery of the hostelries of its country towns. Certainly
all who have visited in England will recall the generous hospitality of
its people, the almost homelike comfort and cleanliness of its inns,
and a service that may not be equalled by that of any other nation.
When to these are added the glories of the English countryside--the
idyllic setting amid which many a repast has been savoured--one may
well overlook any trifling lapses of the cook, in view of enchantments
that must ever be retained in tender recollection.




  [Illustration]




                       AT TABLE WITH THE CLERGY

    "Bishop and Abbot and Prior were there;
    Many a Monk and many a Friar."

                          INGOLDSBY LEGENDS: The Jackdaw of Rheims.

Whether cookery is indebted to the Roman Catholic Church to the full
extent that is commonly supposed is questionable. It is certain,
however, that the olden monks and friars performed considerable service
in preserving ancient recipes and inventing new formulas, many of which
have been improved upon as the science has advanced.

Previous to the Renaissance the higher cultivation of cookery was
confined largely to the monasteries, which prided themselves upon their
excellent cheer and the hospitality they extended to distinguished
visitors. Indeed, numbers of food preparations may be traced to the
monastic orders, especially forms of cooking fish, eggs, and various
soups. The introduction of soup, which is mentioned for the first
time in history at the beginning of the fifteenth century, is closely
connected with the clergy. Then it was that, during the fêtes attendant
on the marriage of Catherine de Valois to Henry V of England, the
Archbishop of Sens, at the head of a procession of his priests, bore
the soup and the wine to the royal chamber, accompanied by the blessing
of the Papal See.

  [Illustration: NON IN SOLO PANE VIVIT HOMO

  From the original oil-painting by Klein]

Around the art of larding is likewise shed the halo of sanctity, its
discovery having occurred during the Council of Bâle in 1440, when
Amadeus of Savoy, elected pope under the name of Félix V, was tendered
a larded capon by his cook. Julienne, or a soup somewhat similar, it is
more than probable, is an old monastic dish having special reference
to days when meat was proscribed, the same observation applying to
numerous fish and vegetable soups and ragoûts.

There is much reason to suppose that not a few treatises on cookery
and on wines have appeared whose authors were dignitaries of the
church, or at least connected with clericalism, but whose rôle forbade
them attaching their names to works of this nature. Thus, during
the year 1671 there was published at Molsheim, in southern Germany,
an excellent cook-book which treated of the various branches of the
science, by Bernardin Buchinger, Abbot of Lützel, having for its title
"Koch-Buch so für Geistliche als auch Weltliche Grosse und Geringe
Haushaltungen," etc.,--"Cook-Book for large and small Religious as well
as Laical Establishments,"--a culinary grammar of much merit which has
since passed into several editions. In this work the hierophant's
name was omitted, the authorship being announced as "Durch Einen
Geistlichen Küchen-Meister desz Gotteshauses Lützel beschrieben und
practicirt,"--"described and practised by a religious Master-Cook of
the Monastery of Lützel." An important volume of three hundred pages
by Vittorio Lancellotti, published in Rome, appeared in 1627, in which
is presented month by month a description of a large number of feasts
given by various prelates in honour of eminent personages at the
commencement of the seventeenth century. The volume was dedicated to
Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandino, and is addressed chiefly to the clergy,
whose good taste in the matter of good cheer and luxury in entertaining
are minutely set forth.[35]

To the ancient ecclesiasts the vineyards producing the finest wines
of the world owe their existence and their fame--the Johannisberg,
Steinberg, Hochheim, Dom Dechanei, Rauenthal-Pfaffenberg, and
numerous other growths of the Rheingau; the Forster Kirchenstück and
Jesuitengarten of the Rheinpfalz; the Stein and Leisten wines of
Franconia, the Liebfrauenmilch Enclos Klostergarten of Rhenish Hessia,
and the Kloster Neuberg of Austria. No less celebrated in other lands
are the rich endowments of the monastery--the Romanée, Chambertin, and
Clos-Vougeot of the Côte d'Or; the Hermitage and Château-neuf-du-Pape
of the Rhône; Saint-Emilion and Sainte-Croix-du-Mont of the Gironde,
as well as many of the priceless growths of the Haut-Médoc. Like the
odour of old arras, around the roseate and golden clusters of the vine
clings the incense of prelacy and circles the aureole of the church.

One were more than ungrateful, too, to forget the invaluable services
rendered by Dom Pérignon in contributing to the vinous delights of the
table. Fancy, if one can, a world without champagne--not as a daily
beverage, but as a talisman to loosen the tongues of the timid and a
wand to evoke the joyous sally and brilliant repartee! With what other
potable may one so appropriately pledge not only _le beau sexe des deux
hemisphères, mais les deux hemisphères du beau sexe_?

Almost equally to be commended are the Carthusian friars of Dauphiné,
who evolved the greens and golds of _Chartreuse_; the cenobites of La
Grâce-Dieu, who produced _Trappistine_; the Trappists of l'Allier, in
whose cloister originated the elixir of long life, _de Sept-Fonds_;
and the holy fathers of Rouen, who invented the delicious balm of
_Bon-Secours_.

The religious orders were early famed for their distillations.
In the account of his travels in Italy the observant Seigneur de
Montaigne mentions the Jesuits of Vicenza, who had a liqueur-shop in
their monastery, as well as the monks of Verona, who were excellent
distillers of _eau de naffe_, a liqueur made with the flower of citron.
The famous _Bénédictine_, however, a rival of _Chartreuse_, though
at present made by the monks of Fécamp in Normandy, and therefore
possessing the stamp of monachism, was not of spiritual inspiration.
Like the _eau de vie des Carmes_, _Liqueur des Evèques_, _Eau
Archiépiscopale_, _Liqueur des Chartreux_, _Plaisir des Dames_, and
_Huile des Jeunes Mariés_, it was worldly in its inception. Its history
is interesting. In 1803 M. Le Grand, an enterprising wine-merchant of
Fécamp, set about its manufacture, advertising it to the amount of
eight hundred thousand francs,--his entire fortune,--the claim being
made that the secret of its fabrication was consigned by a Benedictine
brother to a manuscript in 1510 and opportunely discovered by the
vender. The venture proved successful, as indeed the virtues of the
liqueur merited, its annual sale now exceeding a million bottles. At
first the clergy protested loudly against the bald appropriation of
the name of an abbey, and Cardinal Bonnechose[36] petitioned Napoleon
III to put an end to the scandal, the restored order eventually taking
up the manufacture of the cordial and signing it with the name of the
inventor, whose final _Benedicite_ was recently pronounced. The present
Archbishop of Rouen came to bless the most recent constructions of the
abbey, among which is a superb _Salle des Abbés_, and, at the banquet
following the ceremonial, during the dessert he compared the inventor
of the liqueur to several of the heroes of Christianity. Benedictine
(_ad majorem Dei gloriam_) is the only important liqueur thus far which
has escaped analysis, although imitations of this and all others that
have proved successful are freely placed upon the market.

Curaçoa, it is said, was discovered by a French _chanoine_, and the
aroma of the wild cherry imprisoned in Maraschino by an Italian
_frate_. A German _Pfarrer_, it is averred, first dissolved gold in the
_eau de vie de Dantzig_, and through a Spanish _sacerdote_ is said to
have come _Santa Cruz_, the rum of the Holy Cross. In the quest for the
elixir of life the monastery became the great alembic of liqueurs, the
study of essences, spirits, and distillations varying with the labour
of illuminating missals and the routine of religious devotions. During
the thirteenth century Arnaud de Villeneuve formulated the question of
the elixir of life in these terms, which became a dogma for all his
monastic successors: "This is the secret, viz., to find substances so
homogeneous to our nature that they can increase it without inflaming
it, continue it without diminishing it, ... as our life continually
loses somewhat, until at last all is lost." The outcome of the
patient labours of these religious alchemists was numerous elixirs
and liqueurs, of which the secret composition was transmitted from
generation to generation in convents and monasteries. These liqueurs
were in their origin simply a pharmaceutic product; it is only
within a comparatively short time that they have been converted into
after-dinner _douceurs_.

Every useful art, however, must find perfection of expression sooner or
later, notably an art which is a necessity and which likewise appeals
to the lawful gratification of the senses. And if cookery was fostered
by the cloisters of Europe, and reached its zenith during the early
part of the past century in Paris, it is equally true that at no time
in the history of the world has it attained such general excellence as
at present.

But let the religious orders and the priesthood be credited with their
full share in its advancement. They are no exception to the generality
of mankind in being blessed with appetites, but they are sufficiently
intelligent to recognise that in a well-appointed cuisine there exist
both a prophylactic to ennui and the best of pharmacopœias. Let
the spit turn merrily, therefore, and the carp fatten in their ponds;
let the flower of the vine and the pressings of the grape distil for
them their fragrance; let them repeat their paternosters and chant in
concert their penitential psalms:

    "1. One herring and one herring make two herrings,
        Two herrings and one herring make three herrings.

    "2. Three herrings and one herring make four herrings,
        Four herrings and one herring make five herrings.

    "3. Five herrings and one herring make six herrings."

        .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

And so on up to a hundred herrings.

    "From salted, red, or smoked herrings, _libera nos_, _Domine_;
    From cold water as a beverage, _libera nos_, _Domine_.
                                _A- a- a- amen!_"

It is most unfortunate that La Reynière omitted to bequeath to
posterity a certain monastic recipe of marvellous merit used in
connection with wild fowl and all manner of game-birds, which is
thus described in the brilliant opening essay of the first year of
the "Almanach," the author's reference being to the wild duck, which
he advises to be cooked _à la broche_, as it thus preserves all its
_fumet_ without losing any of its other qualities:

   "After it has been roasted and carved" [he proceeds to say]
   "a sort of poignant _salmis_ may be prepared on the table,
   the recipe for which we have been in possession of for a
   long time, and which was given to us by the _procureur_ of a
   Bernardin abbey--the sole riches that the Revolution could not
   confiscate from him; this formula, however, we must reserve
   for our most intimate friends. The recipe is not to be found
   in any nutritive dispensary, and it becomes all the more
   precious inasmuch as, not being applicable to the duck alone,
   it may be utilized with all kinds of dark-fleshed feathered
   game, and especially with partridges and woodcock--which
   renders it inappreciable."

Far less can be said of the Protestant clergy on the score of cookery
or with respect to the improvement of the vine and the invention of
beverages. Nearly all clerical roads lead through Rome, it would
seem, in so far as relates to gastronomy. Moreover, in Protestant
countries--at least among the lesser lights of the church--it is rather
the rector who is fêted than who does the fêting, and who, even were
he inclined to asceticism, would scarcely be allowed to practise it by
his parishioners. In one of his essays, "The Country Sunday," Richard
Jefferies tells how the chapel pastor is entertained at table in
Wiltshire:

   "There is no man so feasted as the chapel pastor. He dines
   every Sunday, and at least once a week besides, at the house
   of one of his stoutest upholders.... After dinner the cognac
   bottle is produced, and the pastor fills his tumbler half
   full of spirit, and but lightly dashes it with water. It is
   cognac, and not brandy, for your chapel minister thinks it an
   affront if anything more common than the best French liquor
   is put before him: he likes it strong, and with it his long
   clay pipe. Very frequently another minister, sometimes two or
   three, come in at the same time, and take the same dinner,
   and afterwards form a genial circle with cognac and tobacco,
   when the room speedily becomes full of smoke and the bottle
   of brandy soon disappears. In these family parties there is
   not the least approach to over-conviviality; it is merely the
   custom, no one thinks anything of a glass and a pipe; it is
   perfectly innocent; it is not a local thing, but common and
   understood. The consumption of brandy and tobacco and the good
   things of dinner, tea, and supper (for the party generally sit
   out the three meals) must in a month cost the host a good deal
   of money, but all things are cheerfully borne for the good of
   the church. Never were men feasted with such honest good-will
   as these pastors; and if a budding Paul or Silas happens to
   come along who has scarce yet passed his ordination, the
   youthful divine may stay a week if he likes, and lick the
   platter clean."

One also remembers the curates' dinner as described in "The Professor"
by that keen observer, Charlotte Brontë:

   "The curates had good appetites, and though the beef was
   tough, they ate a great deal of it. They swallowed, too,
   a tolerable allowance of the 'flat beer,' while a dish of
   Yorkshire pudding and two tureens of vegetables disappeared
   like leaves before locusts. The cheese, too, received
   distinguished marks of their attention; and a 'spice-cake,'
   which followed by way of dessert, vanished like a vision and
   was no more found."

Anthony Hayward, in "The Art of Dining," tells the story of the
phenomenal appetite of a chaplain during the Old Bailey sittings, when
it was the custom to serve two dinners (exact duplicates) a day, the
first at three o'clock, the second at five:

   "The first course was rather miscellaneous, varying with the
   season, though marrow-puddings always formed a part of it; the
   second never varied and consisted exclusively of beefsteaks.
   As the judges relieved each other, it was impracticable for
   them to partake of both; but a little chaplain whose duty it
   was to preside at the lower end of the table was never absent
   from his post. This invaluable public servant persevered
   from a sheer sense of duty till he had acquired the habit of
   eating two dinners a day, and practised it for nearly ten
   years without any perceptible injury to his health. We had
   the pleasure of witnessing his performance at one of the five
   o'clock dinners, and can assert with confidence that the
   vigour of his attack on the beefsteaks was wholly unimpaired
   by the effective execution a friend assured us he had done on
   them two hours before."

The last communication from the Rev. Sydney Smith to Canon Barham,
better known as Thomas Ingoldsby, related to gastronomy, with the
ethics of which he was so conversant, the canon having just sent him a
pannier of pheasants.

"Many thanks, my dear sir, for your kind present of game," wrote the
appreciative recipient. "If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in
this world, it is that of roast pheasant and bread-sauce; barn-door
fowls for dissenters, but for the real churchman, the thirty-nine times
articled clerk, the pheasant! the pheasant!"

Why the witty rector of Combe-Florey declared that when he found
himself seated next to a bishop at a dinner-party he became so nervous
that he could do nothing but crumble his bread, and when his place
adjoined that of an archbishop he crumbled it with both hands, seems
inexplicable, unless it had been his mischance to encounter among his
superiors in office more accomplished epularians than himself. Besides
his celebrated poetical recipes for a salad, which are presented in a
following chapter, his less familiar "Receipt to Roast Mutton" may not
be omitted from references to ecclesiastic good cheer:

      "Gently stir and blow the fire,
    Lay the mutton down to roast,
      Dress it quickly, I desire,
    In the dripping put a toast,
      That I hunger may remove--
      Mutton is the meat I love.

      "On the dresser see it lie;
    Oh! the charming white and red;
      Finer meat ne'er met the eye,
    On the sweetest grass it fed:
      Let the jack go swiftly round,
      Let me have it nicely brown'd.

      "On the table spread the cloth,
    Let the knives be sharp and clean,
      Pickles get and salad both,
    Let them each be fresh and green.
      With small beer, good ale, and wine,
      O ye gods! how I shall dine!"

Canon Barham, no less than Sydney Smith, wielded a valiant spoon, and
to the unpunctual at dinner he has delivered one of his most forcible
sermons in "The Lay of St. Cuthbert":

    "When asked out to dine by a Person of Quality,
    Mind and observe the most strict punctuality!
      For should you come late, and make dinner wait,
    And the victuals get cold, you'll incur, sure as fate,
    The Master's displeasure, the Mistress's hate.
    And though both may, perhaps, be too well-bred to swear,--
    They'll heartily wish you--I need not say _Where_."

Grace before meat is usually well expressed by the reverend clergy,
and perhaps the brief introductory thanksgiving of the late Canon
Shuttleworth is as happy as any: "For good life and good health; for
good company and good cheer, may the Giver of all good things make us
thankful." So far as orthodox graces are concerned, it were difficult
to improve upon the two fervent thanksgivings of Psalms XXXIV
and CXLV:

   "The lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they who seek the
   Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good.

   "The eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord: and thou givest them
   their meat in due season.

   "Thou openest thine hand: and fillest all things living with
   plenteousness."

So many Protestant denominations exist in America that the manner
of entertaining the ministry varies considerably. In no religious
sect does _fine champagne_ or any other form of cognac figure, as a
general rule, though the use of vinous beverages is less denounced
at present than formerly. The most genial hosts and guests among
Protestant divines are unquestionably the Episcopalians. But if
claret and alcoholic beverages are the exception on the tables of
many denominations, the pastor does not lack for substantial aliments
when entertained by his parishioners, who here, as in England, fairly
dispute for his possession.

That the duck at least, among the toothsome contributions to the
table, is appreciated by the Protestant clergy no less than the laity
is apparent from the apostrophe to the canvasback of the Rev. Joseph
Barber, who has addressed the king of the _Anseres_ in these colourful
stanzas:

    "A duck has been immortalized by Bryant,
      A wild one, too;
    Sweetly he hymned the creature, lithe and buoyant,
      Cleaving the blue.
    But whoso says the duck through ether flying,
      Seen by the bard,
    Equals the canvasback before me lying,
      Tells a _canard_.

    "Done to a turn, the flesh a dark carnation,
      The gravy red;
    Four slices from the breast--on such a ration
      Gods might have fed.
    Bryant, go to: to say that thy rare ghost-duck,
      Traced 'gainst the sky,
    Could e'er at all compare with this rare roast duck,
      Is all my eye."[37]

As regards wine the case is vastly different in Europe, among both the
clergy and those who welcome them. When Urban X resolved to remove
the Papal See from Avignon to Rome grave discord resulted among his
cardinals, several of whom refused to accompany him. Petrarch, in
reply to a letter received from the Pope soon afterwards, wherein his
Holiness expressed his astonishment at their action, explained the
reason thus briefly: "Most holy Father," he wrote, "the princes of the
church esteem the wine of Provence, and know that the wines of France
are more rare than holy water at Rome."

The anecdote of the curé of a village in the Bordelais would indicate,
furthermore, that the cloth prefer their wine in a non-diluted state.
On the occasion of a wedding dinner at which the officiating pastor was
present, he would exclaim after every course, as he raised his glass:
"My children, with this you must drink some wine." The turn of dessert
arriving, he repeated his injunction for the tenth time, again setting
the example himself.

"Pardon, Monsieur le Curé," one of the guests interrupted, "but with
what do you not drink wine?"

"With water, my son!"

During the episcopate of Bishop Timon of Buffalo, a Roman Catholic
prelate of great ability but of small stature, complaint was
entered against a certain German priest of the diocese for his
over-conviviality and partiality for the foaming glass of Gambrinus,
the offender being a man of Falstaffian proportions. The priest was
accordingly summoned, and, after being severely reprimanded, was asked
by the bishop if he could bring forward any extenuating circumstances
with regard to his conduct.

"Your Reverence is a small man, and my detractors are men of small
calibre, who require but little beer," was the reply. "I am a large
man, as you are aware, with a large appetite, and what might suffice
for others were scant pittance for me: the vessel should be filled
according to its capacity."

That so distinguished a church dignitary as a bishop should dine well
goes without saying. How else might he be so urbane, so stately, and
so contented! And without wine how might he dispense such sunshine
or pronounce his blessings so sonorously! For a bishop, dean, or
archdeacon to be tendered scanty fare or be toasted with ice-water
were as incongruous as to deprive the beverage termed "bishop" of
its main ingredient. When Bishop Magee of Peterborough, afterwards
Archbishop of York, was "entertained" by another church dignitary he
was told on his arrival that he would find wine in his room. The dinner
which he afterwards sat down to was a wineless one. A few weeks later
the positions of host and guest were reversed, whereupon the bishop,
shaking hands heartily with his visitor, informed him that he would
find water in his room and wine upon the table.

"Scarcely any bishop," says Sydney Smith, "is sufficiently a man of the
world to deal with fanatics. The way is not to reason with them, but to
ask them to dinner. They are armed against logic and remonstrance, but
they are puzzled in a labyrinth of wines, disarmed by facilities and
concessions, introduced to a new world, and come away thinking more of
hot and cold and dry and sweet than of Newman, Keble, and Pusey."

A number of years ago, when long tables were in vogue at the great
hostelries at Saratoga, Bishop Onderdonk of New York was among the
guests. The bishop, in accordance with his station, was seated at the
head of the table, where the attentive head waiter had just placed his
bottle of hotel "Pontet-Canet." Among the other clerical guests was a
Connecticut divine and teetotaler who had come to test the restorative
virtues of Congress water, so delicious when drunk at the fountainhead
in the morning.

"Ah!" said the cynical dominie to a ministerial vis-à-vis, as he
frowned over his Oolong and the portly prelate beamed over his
Bordeaux, "he wants to prove his apostolic descent by showing that if
he drink of any deadly thing it shall not hurt him."

Later, when his Right Reverence was informed of the remark, he
observed, quoting Ecclesiasticus as his would-be detractor had quoted
St. Mark, "'Wine measurably drunk and in season bringeth gladness of
the heart and cheerfulness of the mind,' and as a churchman it were
heretical for me to take exception to so orthodox a precept."

The minister whose knowledge of gastronomy is far exceeded by his
zeal in "reforming," notably in an attempted extermination of all
joyous fluids, is far more prevalent in the United States than abroad.
While no one will object to his denunciation of "King Rum" or the
"Wine-cup,"--though rum is but little used as a beverage, and wine
is supposed to be consumed in glasses at the dinner-table,--one must
nevertheless deplore the inconsistency which would annihilate all
alcoholic fluids and permit the grossest heterodoxness of diet to pass
unscathed. Not undeserved, perchance, are the lines addressed to this
class of the clergy by a Western versifier:

    "He preached 'gainst whisky, rum, and gin,
      All use of liquor he'd decry;
    He said that drinking was a sin--
      But eat the toughest kind of pie.

    "He said there was no greater vice
      Than that which made of man a sot--
    But took not water without ice,
      And gorged himself on biscuit hot.

    "He flouted the advice of Paul
      To drink wine for the stomach's sake--
    But give him dumpling in a ball,
      And any quantity he'd take.

    "Tobacco in each form he spurned,
      Its soothing virtues he denied;
    For him no soft Havana burned--
      But he would eat a beefsteak fried.

    "Jaundiced he lived, and died of spleen,
      And some kept green his memory then--
    Called him 'reformer,' who had been
      The most intemperate of men."

On more catholic lines is the gastronomic experience of a distinguished
Baptist doctor of divinity of western New York, who, though always
temperate, still believes in the sentiment of the grace that was
once uttered by an English Episcopal clergyman: "God hath given us all
things richly to enjoy; let us enjoy them." The learned divine in his
younger days was one of a party of four who were concluding a long
sojourn abroad, and ere leaving Paris he was desirous of testing the
much-vaunted cuisine of the "Trois Frères Provençeaux." His suggestion
that the appetising odours which greeted the passer-by from without be
verified from within having met with immediate approval, the _officier
de bouche_ of the famous restaurant was interviewed and a dinner
arranged for the following evening.

  [Illustration: LA CONTENANCE DE LA TABLE

  Facsimile of title-page, early part of sixteenth century

    "Enfant tu ne dois charger
      Tant de la première viande
      Se plusieurs en as en commande
    Que d'austres ne puisses menger."
]

"What will be the price of a nice dinner," inquired the ecclesiast,--"a
dinner that will leave us no cause for regret? We do not care for the
menu in advance, as we prefer a surprise; but we wish a perfect dinner,
neither too little nor too much."

The reply was promptly forthcoming, and here we transcribe a leaf from
the ecclesiast's note-book:

   "'Pour vingt francs un dîner ordinaire.

   "'Pour quarante francs un très joli dîner!

   "'Pour cent francs un grand dîner!!'--the voice of the
   restaurateur rising with the advancing prices."

These interesting notes then follow:

   "Tuesday, June 3, 1860. Present:----,----,----,----. Dinner at
   7 P.M. Dress suits. _Voiture de remise._ _Portier_
   with red waistcoat. Cabinet in entresol hung with pink silk
   tapestry. Three _garçons_, fine china, silver and table
   appointments. A bouquet of roses. Perfect service.

   "Menu. Nine courses:--_Melon musqué d'Algiers._ _Potage à la
   bisque_ (red soup with little red shrimps in centre of each
   dish). _Vol-au-vent de saumon_.... _Salade_. Checkerboard
   ice-cream (sixteen different colours and flavours). Great
   strawberries. Coffee (_demi-tasse_), cognac, cigars. Four
   wines: Sauterne, claret, and two champagnes."

Unfortunately, the menu itself has been lost, and the memory of our
clerical informant has retained only a portion of the carte, which we
have transcribed from the memoranda he has contributed. Was there a
_chapon à la Toulouse_ or _noix de veau à la Soubise_ for the _relevé_;
did lamb's _ears à la Tortuë_ or _carbonnades de mouton à la Macédoine_
form the entrée; did a _caneton de Rouen_, a _poularde truffée_, or a
_coq-vièrge_ do the honours of the roast; could _des truffes au vin de
Champagne_ or a _gelée au marasquin_ have figured as the entremets;
and, finally, what might have been the _grosse pièce_? Alas! these
questions, like many questions of theology, must remain unanswered. It
will be observed, notwithstanding, how the wall furnishings, the roses,
the red of the _bisque_, the ripe hues of the melon and the salmon,
the erubescence of the strawberries, and the very waistcoat of the
_avertisseur_ were happily combined; and also that as far back as 1860
the muskmelon had already been employed as an admirable prologue of the
dinner during warm weather. As for the checkerboard _crême glacée_,
with four flavours and four colours for each person, it is an addition
to the dessert that is almost worthy of a sermon.

The following supplementary notes conclude the interesting account of
the dinner:

   "The solid part of the menu I have no record or memory of.
   All I know is that we ate pretty much everything that was
   in sight, and then had just enough and no more. The dinner
   concluded with four toasts and four speeches, the only one I
   recall being on the theme, 'The Four Homes'--not one of the
   four speakers having at the time set up a home of his own.

   "A thing of beauty is a joy forever. We went upon the Latin
   maxim, _In medio tutissimus ibis_, and so we took the _très
   joli dîner_, which, with _vins compris_, cost us forty francs
   or eight dollars apiece. But the recollection of it has been
   worth at least two dollars a year since then: and as it is
   forty years ago last summer, and two times forty is eighty, I
   now count that I then paid only ten per cent. of its value."

It is needless to add that the sermons and addresses of the ecclesiast
in question, which join to their fervour and scholarship an originality
all their own (were they not inspired by the dinner at the "Trois
Frères"?), are always listened to with marked attention by his large
and appreciative audiences. It also goes without saying that he
has distinguished himself in literature, and that his presence is
invariably in demand either at a dinner or a debate of theologians.

Of dishes invented by the Roman Catholic priesthood, the _omelette à
la purée de pintade_, devised by the Capuchin Chabot, is well known,
although "The Curé's Omelette" for which Savarin stands sponsor is
far more in evidence and is difficult to improve upon either for fat
or meagre days. Should the recipe be already familiar, it will well
bear repetition--one cannot dine too often with a broad-minded divine;
if unknown, the reader should become acquainted with it--it is one
of the most sprightly of the _Variétés_. The tunny prescribed is
not obligatory, and for this and the carp-roes the resources of the
American sea-coast will furnish abundant equivalents:

   "Every one knows that for twenty years Madame R.[38] has
   occupied the throne of beauty unchallenged. It is also well
   known that she is extremely charitable, taking interest in
   most of those schemes whose object is to console and assist
   the wretched.

   "Wishing to consult M. le Curé on something connected with
   that subject, she called upon him at five o'clock one
   afternoon, and was astonished to find him already at table.
   She thought everybody in Paris dined at six, not knowing that
   the ecclesiastics generally begin early because they take a
   light collation in the evening.

   "Madame R. was about to retire, but the curé begged her to
   stay, either because the matter they were to talk about need
   not prevent him dining, or because a pretty woman is never a
   mar-feast for any man; or perhaps because he bethought himself
   that somebody to talk to was all that was wanted to convert
   his dining-room into a gastronomic Elysium.

   "The table was laid with a neat white cloth, some old wine
   sparkled in a crystal decanter, the white porcelain was of
   the choicest quality, the plates had heaters of boiling water
   under them, and a servant, demure but neat, was in attendance.

   "The repast was a happy mean between the frugal and the
   luxurious. Some crab soup had just been removed, and there was
   now on the table a salmon-trout, an omelette, and a salad.

   "'My dinner shows you what perhaps you did not know,' said
   the pastor, with a smile, 'that according to the laws of the
   church meat is forbidden to-day.' The visitor bowed her
   assent, but at the same time, as a private note informs me,
   slightly blushed, which, however, by no means prevented the
   curé from eating.

   "Operations were already begun upon the trout, its upper side
   being fully disposed of; the sauce gave proof of a skilful
   hand, and the pastor's features betokened inward satisfaction.
   That dish removed, he attacked the omelette, which was round,
   full-bellied, and cooked to a nicety. At the first stroke of
   the spoon, there ran out a thick juice, tempting both to sight
   and smell; the dish seemed full of it, and my dear cousin
   confessed that her mouth watered.

   "Some signs of natural sympathy did not escape the curé,
   accustomed to watch the passions of men; and, as if in answer
   to a question which Madame R. took great care not to put,
   'this is a tunny omelette,' said he. 'My cook has a wonderful
   knack at them. Nobody ever tastes them without complimenting
   me.' 'I am not at all astonished,' replied the lady visitor;
   'for on our worldly tables there is never seen an omelette
   half so tempting.'

   "This was followed by the salad--a finishing item which I
   recommend to the use of all who have faith in my teaching, for
   salad refreshes without fatiguing, and strengthens without
   irritating. I usually say it renews one's youth.

   "The dinner did not interrupt their conversation. Besides the
   matter in hand, they spoke of the events of the time, the
   hopes of the church, and other topics. The dessert passed,
   consisting of some Septmoncel cheese, three apples, and some
   preserved fruit; and then the servant placed on a small table
   a cup of hot mocha, clear as amber, and filling the room with
   its aroma. Having sipped his coffee, the curé said grace.
   'I never drink spirits,' he said as they rose; 'it is a
   superfluity I offer to my guests, but personally reserve as a
   resource for old age should it please God that I live so long.'

   "In the meantime six o'clock had arrived, and Madame R.,
   hurrying home, found herself late for dinner, and several
   friends waiting for her whom she had invited for that day.
   I was one of the party, and thus came to hear of the curé's
   omelette; for our hostess did nothing but speak of it during
   dinner, and everybody was certain it must have been excellent.

   "Thus it is that as a propagator of truths I feel it my
   duty to make known the preparation; and I give it the more
   willingly to all lovers of the art that I have not been able
   to find it in any cookery book.

   "Hash up together the roes of two carp, carefully bleached,
   a piece of fresh tunny, and a little minced shallot; when
   well mixed throw the whole into a saucepan with a lump of the
   best butter, and whip it up till the butter is melted. This
   constitutes the specialty of the omelette.

   "Then in an oval dish mix separately a lump of butter with
   parsley and chives, and squeezing over it the juice of a
   lemon, place it over hot embers in readiness. Next complete
   the omelette by beating up twelve eggs, pouring in the roes
   and tunny, and stirring till all is well mixed; then, when
   properly finished, and of the right form and consistence,
   spread it out skilfully on the oval dish which you have ready
   to receive it, and serve up to be eaten at once.

   "This dish should be reserved for breakfasts of refinement,
   for connoisseurs in gastronomic art--those who understand
   eating, and where all eat with judgment; but especially let
   it be washed down with some good old wine, and you will see
   wonders."

Among the dignitaries of the Roman Church, Richelieu was preëminent as
an entertainer, his table being renowned for its excellence, and no
one being more exacting with his cooks. _A chartreuse à la Cardinal_
or a _boudin_ of fowls _à la Richelieu_ at once recalls his Eminence,
and the brilliant reign during which he himself virtually wielded the
sceptre. "I do not think very highly of that man," said the Comte de M.
in speaking of a candidate who had just secured an important position:
"he has never eaten _boudin à la Richelieu_, and is unacquainted with
cutlets _à la Soubise_."

During the war of Hanover, when the surrounding country had been
devastated by the French army, Maréchal Richelieu, grandnephew of
the cardinal, wished to give a suitable dinner to a large number of
distinguished captives before setting them free. He was informed by his
cooks that the larder was empty.

"But it was only yesterday that I saw two horns passing by the window."

"That is true, Monseigneur, there is a beef and some few roots; but
what would you do with them?"

"What would I do with them? _Pardieu_, I would have the best supper in
the world!"

"But, Monseigneur, it is impossible."

"Nothing is impossible. Rudière, write out the menu that I will
dictate. Do you know how to write out a menu properly?"

"I acknowledge, Monseigneur, that--"

"Give me your pen."

And with this the maréchal, taking the place of his secretary,
improvised a classic supper worthy of Vatel. At the end of the bill of
fare was added:

"If through any mischance this repast is not an excellent one, I will
deduct one hundred pistoles from the wages of Maret and Rouquelère.
Begin, and doubt no more. RICHELIEU."

There was a certain Bishop of Burgundy who took his share of
responsibility in consuming, with a humour all his own, viands which
had not been come by legally. Desiring to eat venison when not quite
in season, he sent half the body of the deer that tempted him as a
present to the prefect, who lived in the same town, accompanying
the gift with the following note: "_Partageons la responsabilité:
chargez-vous du temporel; je me charge du spirituel._" (Let us share
the responsibility; charge yourself with the temporal part; I will
attend to the spiritual.)

Equally felicitous is an incident recounted of Archbishop de Sanzai of
Bordeaux, who was especially fond of the fowl which Savarin pronounced
one of the finest gifts of the New World to the Old. Having won a
truffled turkey on a wager from a grand vicar of his diocese, the
archbishop, after waiting a week, became impatient at the delay of
the loser in providing the bird. Accordingly, he took him to task and
reminded him that delays are dangerous, to which the vicar replied that
the truffles were not good that year. "Bah, bah!" was the rejoinder,
"we will chance the truffles; depend upon it, it is only a false report
that has been circulated by the turkeys."

"There needs to be two to eat a truffled turkey," the Abbé Morellet was
accustomed to say; "I never do otherwise. I have one to-day; we will be
two--the turkey and myself."

It may be of interest to note that the importation of the turkey to
Europe has been attributed by various scholiasts to the Jesuits,
in proof of which they assert that in many French provinces it was
formerly termed a _jésuite_, and that in some of the more remote
departments it was the custom to refer to it in the following manner:
"Come to dine with me; we will have a fat jésuite." "Monsieur, will you
pass me some of the jésuite?" It is also said to have been referred to
as a _jésuite en capilotade_ and a _jésuite au feu d'enfer_. Savarin
gives the period of its importation by the order in question as the
latter part of the seventeenth century; while the Marquis de Cussy
states it was imported a century earlier from Paraguay by the Jesuits,
and was served for the first time in public at the marriage of Charles
IX of France, when, according to Montluc, the young king disposed of
the left wing.

The true date of the turkey's flight into history is the early part
of the sixteenth century, when the learned confessor and historian to
Cortez, Fra Agapida, returned to Spain from his first visit to Mexico,
and wrote a brief narrative of the wonders of the New World. In this
account he called attention to the abundance of fine fish-food, and the
excellence of the venison and a variety of "wild cattle." "There is
also a bird," adds the discerning presbyter, "much greater in bigness
than a peacock, that is found within the forests and _vegas_ (meadows)
all over this country. It surpasses as food any wild bird we have found
up to this time. The natives do shoot these birds with arrows and catch
them in various kinds of springes and snares. They are sometimes very
large, being as much as thirty pounds in weight. They can fly, but
prefer to run, which they can do with exceeding swiftness."

No less is the introduction of the potato from South America due to the
monks, who first brought it to Europe in the proud galleons of Spain.

In Canon Barham's "A Lay of St. Nicholas," where the temptations of
the flesh proved stronger than the spiritual powers of the head of the
abbey, turkey and chine figure as the pieces of "resistance," with old
sherris sack, hippocras, and malmsey to flank them,--

    "The Abbot hath donn'd his mitre and ring,
      His rich dalmatic and maniple fine;
    And the choristers sing as the lay-brothers bring
      To the board a magnificent turkey and chine."

The capon, however, appears to have been the greatest favourite with
the clergy; its frequent companion, the carp, doubtless owing its
popularity to the fact that it is so easily raised, rather than that
it is more esteemed than numerous other species of fish. Even more
than the capon, the carp suggests the cenobites, bringing up a whole
train of monastic orders--with the cloister and the abbey as its most
congenial home. It is inalienably associated with the cassock and
chasuble, the rosary and censer, the peal of the organ and the glory of
old stained glass. It is essentially the sacred fish--the true "sole"
of piety. It whispers of sanctity and breathes of _Benedicites_. In
fancy one sees the abbot, rotund and rubicund, presiding at table,
with one eye upon the fish and the other lifted aloft, uttering his
_Bonum est confiteri_ ere the loud "Amen" resounds through the vaulted
chamber, and carp and capon are bathed in the red juices of the
monastery vineyard. Or it may be a pike, a mullet, or a dish of eels
that, cunningly prepared by the master-cook of the brotherhood, steeps
the refectory with the perfume of shallots and fine herbs, and justly
merits a _Benedic, anima mea_ from the partakers of the repast.

From an anecdote related by the Franciscan Jean Paulli de Thann, it
would appear that the olden monks had learned from the Scriptures a
particular method of carving fowls when they partook of them in secular
company. A gentleman had invited his confessor, who was a monk, to dine
in company with his wife, his two sons, and two daughters. There was a
fine capon for the roast, which the host requested the guest to carve.
The latter excused himself, but the host insisted.

"Inasmuch as you demand it," replied the monk, "I will carve the fowl
according to biblical principles."

"Yes," exclaimed the hostess, "act according to the Scriptures."

The theologian therefore began the carving. The baron was tendered
the head of the fowl, the baroness the neck, the two daughters a
wing apiece, and the two sons a first joint, the monk retaining the
remainder.

"According to what interpretation do you make such a division?"
inquired the host of his confessor, as he regarded the monk's heaping
plate and the scant portions doled out to the family.

"From an interpretation of my own," replied the monk. "As the master
of your house, the head belongs to you by right; the baroness, being
most near to you, should receive the neck, which is nearest the head;
in the wings the young girls will recognize a symbol of their mobile
thoughts, that fly from one desire to another; as to the young barons,
the drumsticks they have received will remind them that they are
responsible for supporting your house, as the legs of the capon support
the bird itself."

In England, during Elizabeth's reign, fish was largely consumed on the
festival of St. Ulric, a pious custom referred to by Barnaby Googe:

    "Wheresoever Huldryche hath his place, the people there brings in
    Both carpes and pykes, and mullets fat, his favour here to win.
    Amid the church there sitteth one, and to the aultar nie,
    That selleth fishe, and so good cheep, that every man may buie;
    Nor anything he loseth here, bestowing thus his paine,
    For when it hath been offred once, 't is brought him all againe,
    That twise or thrise he selles the same, vngodlinesse such gaine
    Doth still bring in, and plenteously the kitchen doth maintaine.
    Whence comes this same religion newe? What kind of God is this
    Same Huldryche here, that so desires and so delightes in fishe?"

With fish much is possible in the way of a generous dietary during
the Lenten penance and on meagre days. To the devout Thomas à Kempis
nothing was more delicious to the taste than a salmon, always excepting
the Psalms of David. The possibilities of a fish diet, however,
have nowhere been more appreciably set forth than by Father Prout
on the occasion of the classic "Watergrasshill Carousal," when Sir
Walter Scott was among the guests. And though the turkey which was in
readiness was forgone on account of the day being Friday and therefore
a fast-day, the repast, nevertheless, did not languish. The trout,
it will be remembered, the witty priest had caught himself from the
neighbouring stream, as well as a large eel from the lake at Blarney.
To these were added from the excellent market at Cork a turbot, two
lobsters, a salmon, and a hake, with a hundred of Cork-harbour oysters.
Besides these figured also a keg of cod-sounds, a great favourite of
the bishop of the diocese, which invariably appeared at the table of
Father Prout when his lordship was expected. With eggs, potatoes, sauce
piquante, lobster-sauce, whiskey and claret in addition, the sacerdotal
banquet proved a signal success, fully bearing out the sentiment
expressed by the shepherd in the "Noctes" at the end of a Scottish
repast,--"We 've just had a perfec' dinner, Mr. Tickler--neither ae
dish ower mony, nor ae dish ower few."

Fish naturally demands a white wine; but a carp may be prepared--and
doubtless is prepared--so sauced and spiced and aromatised by practised
cloistral hands that a red wine, the favoured colour of the cowl,
may accord with it perfectly. This is not saying that an abbot who
may be as renowned for his gastronomic abilities as for his oratory
necessarily confines himself or his followers to red wine with fish.
Much will depend, of course, upon the mode of preparation,--it is to
be supposed that the cellarer has both red and white wine at command
to draw from as occasion demands; to be confined to a single variety
must be as onerous to the cloth as to the layman. When the celebrated
vineyard of Clos-Vougeot was the property of the Bernardin monks,
before it was confiscated and declared national property, Dom Gobelot
was the father-cellarer. It was he who, after being forced to retire to
private life at Dijon, with a hundred dozen bottles of a famous year
of his vineyard as a souvenir, proudly replied to the young Bonaparte,
conqueror in Italy and returning from Marengo, when he requested some
old Vougeot for his table: "If he wishes some forty-year-old Vougeot,
let him come and drink it here; it is not for sale." And does not
history record that Pope Gregory XVI, in the year 1371, made the Abbot
of Clos-Vougeot a cardinal to express his gratitude for a present of a
basket of his best old wine which the abbot had sent him?

The famous wine of "Est, Est, Est" owes its celebrity to a German
bishop named Fuger, who, while on a journey to Italy, sent his
secretary in advance in order to provide the best accommodations. He
was especially charged to test the wine in all the inns en route, and
wherever he found it best to write the word "Est" on the wall of the
_albergo_. Arriving at Montefiascone, a small town on the highroad from
Florence to Rome, the secretary found the wine so superior that he
was at a loss to describe it until he bethought him of the inscription
that a sultan of Lahore had engraved on the door of his seraglio,--"If
there is a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here!"
Accordingly, he wrote the word "Est" thrice in large characters on
the wall of the principal inn--a fatal word for the bishop, who
tarried so long and drank so freely that he died ere reaching his
destination--Rome. His tomb exists at Montefiascone. On either side
of his mitre and his arms his secretary had carved a reversed glass,
with this epitaph on the stone: _Est, Est, Est, et propter nimium est
Johannes de Fuger dominus meus mortuus est_. The explanation of the
epitaph and emblems is given by the Roman prelate, Valery. It is still
further averred that the death of Cardinal Mauri, a distinguished
Italian prelate, whose remains were interred near those of the German
bishop in the Church of St. Flavien, was also hastened by his fondness
for the Montefiascone wine. The story of the bibulous bishop was told
in 1825 in German, in a poem of fourteen stanzas, by Wilhelm Müller,
father of Professor Max Müller.[39] It has also been excellently
rendered in English verse by an American poetess whose name the
efforts of the writer have been unable to trace:

    "Men have ridden for love,
      And men have ridden for gold,
    And men have ridden for honour
      In the chivalrous days of old.
    Little of love recked he,
      Nor honour, nor golden store,
    But the Abbot would ride for dinner,
      And he rode for good wine more.
          'I will travel the world,
          Travel the world in quest--
          Taste red, white, and yellow,'
          Cried this jolly old fellow,
          'Till I find the wine that is best.'
                          _Vanitas vanitorum!_

    "'My servant leal,' said he,
      'Now ride thou on before,
    And drink where'er the branches
      Hang withering at the door.
    Then, if the wine be worthy,
      That I should stop at all,
    Write "est"--but if it is not,
      Write "non" upon the wall.'

    "Promptly rode the man,
      In hamlet, city, and town,
    _Albergo_ and _osteria_,
      He gulped the good wine down.
    Where'er the wine was worthy
      There they slept or dined,--
    Before, the trusty varlet,
      The lazier monk behind.

    "Among the hills and valleys,
      Festooned with wreathing vine,
    Where purple grapes and opal
      Drop red and golden wine,
    There is a wine delicious
      In a hamlet little known,
    With a taste like the mountain flower
      That blooms in spring alone.
          Here pause, O wandering Abbot!
          Thy ponderous frame can rest,
          Lo! the prudent, observant,
          Intelligent servant
          Has written here 'Est, Est, Est.'

    "The Abbot he drank at dinner,
      The Abbot he drank at night,
    And he called for more _fiasci_
      When dawned the morning light.
    He murmured, 'I go no farther,
      _Per Bacco!_ I cease my quest;
    Wine of Hymettus sweetness,
      Nectar of gods,--_est, est_!

    "But even an Abbot has limits,
      Though his were exceeding wide;
    He passed them and, as you can fancy,
      Dropped from the table and died:
    Drowned as it were in the nectar,
      Dead of the wine that is best,
    In his hand the empty wine-cup,
      His last words '_Est, est, est_!'
                          _Vanitas vanitorum!_

    "This very same wine we are drinking
      To-night in classic Rome,
    Sipping it after dinner
      In our quiet foreign home.
    I have told as I heard the story,
      And now the white wine that is best,
    Let us all fill a bowl of--
    Here's peace to the soul of
      The monk of the _Est, Est, Est_!"

To judge of the quality of Montefiascone, one must drink it at its
home; like other white wines of the former Papal States, it will not
bear the shock of distant carriage. As for the German ecclesiast,
one should not take him too seriously, but consider him rather from
the picturesque point of view, as Rowlandson and Combe have done
with the reverend Syntax. "Other times, other manners,"--to-day his
reverence would have made the journey by rail and not by post, and
thus, doubtless, would have missed the _fiasci_ of Montefiascone. One
must also bear in mind that the wine in question, being of the muscat
type, is extremely heady and exciting to the nerves, its deleterious
effects being masked by its unctuousness and engaging aroma; so that
an unsuspecting beer-drinking bishop, accustomed to copious libations
of a milder fluid, might readily and unwittingly find himself under
the table, and, even though a hierarch, prove an easy subject for a
_De Profundis_. Many years have elapsed since the prelate's demise;
and it is to be supposed that, meanwhile, the nectar of _Est_ has been
rendered less potent and even more delectable in heavenly vineyards.

  [Illustration: PROMENADE DU GOURMAND

  Frontispiece of "Le Manuel du Gastronome ou Nouvel Almanach des
  Gourmands" (1830)]




  [Illustration]




                      SUNDRY GUIDES TO GOOD CHEER

   "Sir, _Respect Your Dinner_; idolize it, enjoy it properly.
   You will be many hours in the week, many weeks in the
   year, and many years in your life the happier if you
   do."--THACKERAY.


A review of the dinner-table were incomplete without a reference to
several writers, other than those already cited, who have wielded a
more or less pronounced influence on gastronomy. Of such, two English
authors deserve especial mention, each of whom has sought to prove
that the art of the gastronomer is the art of being happy; and that,
if blessed with a good appetite and sound digestion, one may round off
many a corner of life's miseries.

To Dr. William Kitchener the merit of reforming English cookery
as it existed during the early part of the past century is due to
no inconsiderable degree. The overladen table, with its pompous
decorations, heavy viands, and superabundance of wines, was first
severely censured in "The Cook's Oracle," and later in Thomas Walker's
periodical, "The Original," since reprinted in book form. The first
edition of the "Oracle" appeared in 1817; and, like Mrs. Glasse's
"Art of Cookery," was subsequently much amended and enlarged.[40] An
eccentric and would-be dietetic reformer, the author was ridiculed at
first, as is often the case with those who advance new ideas or attempt
to disturb existing conditions. "Christopher North," whose own Pegasus
was often inclined to strange curvets, reviled him as he also did
Tennyson; and Hood addressed him in three mock-heroic odes. But beneath
his mannerisms and diatribes there remained much practical sense, an
extended culinary knowledge, and no little shrewd observation.

It was the author's endeavour to "improve plain cookery and to render
food acceptable to the palate without being expensive to the purse"--a
precept altogether admirable. The preface to the third edition
emphasises, very truly, that among the manifold causes which concur to
impair health and produce disease, the most general is the improper
quality of food, this most frequently arising from the injudicious
manner in which it is prepared. Yet it remains to be added that since
the days of the "Oracle" man has greatly improved in this respect,
even in England; that despite the multiplicity of diseases, hygiene is
becoming far better understood by the masses; and that for the various
ills arising through the stomach, chemistry and the doctors have
devised numerous simple correctives which have proved of inestimable
value.

The key-note of the "Oracle" is contained in the sentence, "Unless
the stomach be in good humour, every part of the machinery of life
must vibrate with languor,"--a sentiment with which all those who have
touched twoscore will profoundly agree. It is for elderly stomachs
whose bloom may have been somewhat brushed off that the doctor's
counsels will be found preëminently deserving of attention. To the
epicure he likewise proved an excellent mentor; to the dyspeptic, a
friend in need.

That he was strongly influenced by the writings of Grimod de la
Reynière is readily perceptible, though he states in the introduction
that his work is a bona-fide register of practical facts, and that he
has not printed a recipe which has not been proved in his own kitchen.
Before undertaking his task, he had consulted all the treatises
obtainable on the subject, amounting to no less than two hundred and
fifty volumes. These, he asserts, vary very little from one another,
and any one who has occasion to refer to two or three of them will find
the recipes almost always the same--equally unintelligible to those who
are ignorant, and useless to those who are acquainted with the business
of the kitchen. The numerous "Good Housewife's Closets," "Ladies'
Companions," and "Gentlewomen's Cabinets," in fact, are virtually
identical, save for their titles and forewords.

With the recipes of the "Oracle" the reader need not be as much
concerned as with its spirit and its epicurean principles, which
reveal a strongly marked individuality, and a comprehension far in
advance of the time in Great Britain. Oracular and discursive, the
author ambles pleasantly along the road of Conviviality, scattering his
maxims and dispensing his formulas, while dipping into volume after
volume to emphasise his text. The "Oracle" may be briefly described as
a quaint medley of cookery, hygienic precepts, science, gastronomy,
and domestic economy, written by a _bon vivant_. A long chapter is
devoted to the subject of invitations to dinner, wherein punctuality
is strictly insisted upon--dining, according to the writer, being the
only act of the day which cannot be put off with impunity for even five
minutes. He would have the cook the warden in chief, as defined by
Mercier, a physician who cures two mortal maladies, Hunger and Thirst;
or a _Hominum servatorem_--a preserver of mankind, as designated by
Plautus. A good dinner, he maintains, is one of the greatest enjoyments
of human life; but it should never be at the mercy of belated
guests,--"what will be agreeable to the stomach and restorative to the
system at five o'clock will be uneatable and indigestible at a quarter
past." When he himself gave a dinner-party, the guests were invited
for five o'clock, and at five minutes after the hour specified, the
street door was locked, and the key, by his order, was set aside. But
it is perhaps in the chapter on advice to cooks, and in his directions
as to the minutiæ of boiling, baking, roasting, and frying, that he is
most suggestive. A characteristic farewell to the reader concludes the
volume, which even to-day may be consulted with profit--an observation
that will also apply to many portions of its companion treatise, "The
Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life."

Less pretentious, and dealing more with the æsthetic side of good
living, are the essays of the "Original," by Thomas Walker, barrister
at law and magistrate, which treat of the pleasures of the table
under the titles, "The Art of Attaining High Health" and "The Art
of Dining."[41] These critical dissertations originally appeared in
1835 in a weekly periodical of which he was the editor, the series
terminating with his death the subsequent year. And if the influence of
the "Almanach" is readily discernible in the case of Dr. Kitchener, so
in like manner one detects a flavour of the "Physiology" in the genial
pages of Walker. Kitchener undoubtedly proves himself the more valiant
trencherman, while Walker remains the more refined and philosophic host.

His golden rule was, "Content the stomach and the stomach will content
you." A little irregularity in agreeable company he deems better than
the best observance in solitude. When dining alone is necessary,
however, he adds that the mind should be disposed to cheerfulness by a
previous interval of relaxation from whatever has seriously occupied
the attention, and by directing it to some agreeable object. And so
contentment ought to be an accompaniment to every meal. Punctuality
becomes the more essential, and the diner and the dinner should be
ready at the same time. Concerning dining in comfort, he holds that
a chief maxim is to have what you want when you want it, and not be
obliged to wait for little additions to be supplied, when what they
belong to is half or entirely finished.

The plates should be brought in before the dish, and the dish and
its adjuncts appear simultaneously; in other words, the necessary
condiments should always be at hand, and the wines should stand ready
to be poured out at the moment required,--the lesson of patience,
however desirable, is not a virtue that should be inculcated at the
dinner-table; and prompt service must ever form a great desideratum
of the perfect meal. In dining, more than anything else, perhaps,
whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well, though this
were far from meaning that lavish expenditure need enter into the
hospitable relations of host and guests. Forethought and careful
personal attention, it may be reiterated, play a most important part
at the board of Good Cheer; and simple dishes unexceptionally prepared
and served, with the beverages that naturally accompany them at the
proper temperature, will garnish any table with a cloth of gold. "A
good soup, a small turbot, a neck of venison, ducklings with green
peas, or chicken with asparagus, and an apricot tart," the Earl of
Dudley was accustomed to say, "is a dinner for an emperor." There are
those possibly who might prefer the much more simple menu of a French
gourmet,--"A bottle of Chambertin, a _ragoût à la Sardanapale_, and
a pretty lady _causeur_, are the three best companions at table in
France."

But it will be rendering greater justice to the author to permit him to
speak for himself on some of the niceties connected with the art he has
expounded so wisely and so well:

   "Anybody can dine, but few know how to dine so as to ensure
   the greatest quantity of health and enjoyment" [he agrees with
   Dumas and Fayot]. "Indeed, many people contrive to destroy
   their health; and as to enjoyment, I shudder when I think
   how often I have been doomed to only a solemn mockery of it;
   how often I have sat in durance stately, to go through the
   ceremony of dinner, the essence of which is to be without
   ceremony, and how often in this land of liberty I have felt
   myself a slave.

   "There is in the art of dining a matter of special
   importance--I mean attendance, the real end of which is to
   do that for you which you cannot so well do for yourself.
   Unfortunately, this end is generally lost sight of, and the
   effect of attendance is to prevent you from doing that which
   you could do much better for yourself. The cause of this
   perversion is to be found in the practice and example of
   the rich and ostentatious, who constantly keep up a sort of
   war-establishment, or establishment adapted to extraordinary
   instead of ordinary occasions, and the consequence is that,
   like all potentates who follow the same policy, they never
   really taste the sweets of peace; they are in a constant state
   of invasion by their own troops. It is a rule at dinners not
   to allow you to do anything for yourself, and I have never
   been able to understand how even salt, except it be from some
   superstition, has so long maintained its place. I am rather a
   bold man at table and set form very much at defiance, so that
   if a salad happens to be within my reach, I make no scruple
   to take it to me; but the moment I am espied, it is nipped up
   from the most convenient into the most inconvenient position.
   See a small party with a dish of fish at each end of the
   table, and four silver covers standing unmeaningly at the
   sides, whilst everything pertaining to the fish comes, even
   with the best attendance, provokingly lagging, one thing after
   another, so that contentment is out of the question; and all
   this is done under pretence that it is the most convenient
   plan. This is an utter fallacy. The only convenient plan is
   to have everything actually upon the table that is wanted at
   the same time, and nothing else; as, for example, for a party
   of eight, turbot and salmon, with doubles of each of the
   adjuncts, lobster-sauce, cucumber, young potatoes, cayenne,
   and Chili vinegar, and let the guests assist one another,
   which with such an arrangement they could do with perfect
   ease. This is undisturbed and visible comfort.

   "A system of simple attendance would induce a system of simple
   dinners, which are the only dinners to be desired.... With
   respect to wine, it is often offered when not wanted; and when
   wanted, is perhaps not to be had till long waited for. It
   is dreary to observe two guests, glass in hand, waiting the
   butler's leisure to take wine together, and then perchance
   being helped in despair to what they did not ask for; and
   it is still more dreary to be one of the two yourself. How
   different when you can put your hand on a decanter the moment
   you want it!"

   "Perhaps the most distressing incident in a grand dinner"
   [the author continues] "is to be asked to take champagne, and
   after much delay to see the butler extract the bottle from a
   cooler, and hold it nearly parallel to the horizon in order
   to calculate how much he is to put into the first glass to
   leave any for the second. To relieve him and yourself from
   the chilling difficulty, the only alternative is to change
   your mind and prefer sherry, which, under the circumstances,
   has rather an awkward effect. These and an infinity of minor
   evils are constantly experienced amidst the greatest displays.
   Some good bread and cheese and a jug of ale comfortably set
   before me, and heartily given, are heaven and earth in
   comparison.... The legitimate objects of dinner are to refresh
   the body, to please the palate, and to raise the social humour
   to the highest point; but these objects, so far from being
   studied, in general are not even thought of, and display and
   an adherence to fashion are their meagre substitutes."

To be niggardly with one's champagne we have already alluded to as
despicable. Yet the amount of this wine that may be dispensed at dinner
should depend on the cellar of the entertainer; and where Yquem or a
grand Deidesheimer, Lafite, or La Tâche of well-succeeded years is also
to figure, it is wise for the host to let the fact be known, and for
him to curtail the flow of sparkling wine, in order that proper justice
may be rendered to its companions. On this subject the "Original" again
proves itself a valuable signboard, and its doctrine as to the conduct
of the dinner forms a tenet worthy of all praise,--"If the master of
a feast wishes his party to succeed, he must know how to command and
not let his guests run riot, each according to his own wild fancy." We
cannot agree with the "Original" and some others that it is correct to
serve a sparkling wine, to the exclusion of all others, throughout an
extended repast. The palate and the eye weary of a single beverage,
however brilliant the vintage, and yearn for a contrast in flavour and
colour.

Simplicity is constantly urged throughout "The Art of Dining," and
again and again does the author insist upon the necessity of having
whatever dish that may be served preceded by all its minor adjuncts,
and accompanied by all the proper vegetables quite hot, so that it may
be enjoyed entirely and at once. The liquid accessories he would have
placed upon the table in such a manner as to be as much as possible
within the reach of each person; and as Mathew Bramble, in "Humphrey
Clinker," talks, in his delights of rural life, of eating trout
struggling from the stream, so he would have his dishes served glowing
or steaming from the kitchen, a quality which lends a relish otherwise
impossible.

   "There are two kinds of dinners" [he goes on to say]--"one
   simple, consisting of a few dishes, the other embracing a
   variety. Both kinds are good in their way, and both deserve
   attention; but for constancy I greatly prefer the simple
   style.... In the first place, it is necessary not to be afraid
   of not having enough, and so to go into the other extreme
   and have a great deal too much, as is almost invariably the
   practice. It is also necessary not to be afraid of the table
   looking bare, and so to crowd it with dishes not wanted,
   whereby they become cold and sodden. 'Enough is as good as a
   feast' is a sound maxim, as well in providing as in eating.
   The having too much, and setting dishes on the table merely
   for appearance, are practices arising out of prejudices which,
   if once broken through, would be looked upon, and deservedly,
   as the height of vulgarity. The excessive system is a great
   preventive of hospitality, by adding to the expense and
   trouble of entertaining, whilst it has no one advantage. It
   is only pursued by the majority of people for fear of being
   unlike the rest of the world."

Every gastronomer will endorse the sentiment that in proportion to
the smallness of a dinner ought to be its excellence, both as to the
quality of materials and the cooking. Nor is there less truth in
the complaint that it is an existing evil that everybody is prone to
strive after the same dull style--the rule generally followed being
to consider what the guests are accustomed to; whereas it should be
reversed, and what they are not accustomed to should rather be set
before them. This stricture he applies to the serving of wines as well
as of viands--"we go on in the beaten track without profiting by the
varieties which are to be found on every side." To order dinner well he
defines as a matter of invention and combination, involving novelty,
simplicity, and taste; whereas in the generality of dinners there is no
character but that of dull routine, according to the season. Too little
attention, he complains, is paid to the mode of dining according to the
time of the year, summer dinners being for the most part as heavy and
as hot as those in winter, with the consequence of being frequently
very oppressive, both in themselves and from their effect on the room.
In hot weather the chief thing to be aimed at is to produce a light
and cool feeling, both by the management of the room and the nature
of the repast; in winter, warmth and substantial diet afford the most
satisfaction.

It may be held with reason that some of the inconveniences pointed
out with reference to service could be obviated by the service _à la
Russe_--discarding its medley of dishes on the table, and utilising its
features of carving and serving. But Walker's great aim was that of a
simple style of dinner-giving to a select few whose number he would
limit to eight. Under these circumstances it is easy to understand how
it were more appetising to dispense with any dishes in waiting which
serve to cloy rather than to stimulate appetite, and more advantageous
to have the carving performed by the master himself. At a men's dinner,
more especially, where a saddle of mutton, a haunch of venison, or
other roast forms the _pièce de résistance_, and where, therefore, "cut
and come again" is the motto of the hour, the less formal style is
certainly preferable, and productive of the best results to the guests.

It is only on one occasion that we find him wavering in the dogmas
he advances so emphatically and withal so aptly, this incertitude
occurring in connection with a dinner he had ordered at Blackwall,
the menu of which may be appropriately transcribed as a practical
illustration of his ideas on gastronomy:

   "The party will consist of seven men beside myself, and every
   guest is asked for some reason--upon which good fellowship
   mainly depends; for people brought together unconnectedly
   had, in my opinion, better be kept separate. Eight I hold to
   be the golden number, never to be exceeded without weakening
   the efficacy of concentration. The dinner is to consist of
   turtle, followed by no other fish but whitebait, which is
   to be followed by no other meat but grouse, which are to
   be succeeded simply by apple-fritters and jelly; pastry on
   such occasions being quite out of place. With the turtle of
   course there will be punch, with the whitebait champagne,
   and with the grouse claret: the two former I have ordered to
   be particularly well iced, and they will all be placed in
   succession on the table, so that we can help ourselves as
   we please. I will permit no other wines, unless, perchance,
   a bottle or two of port, if particularly wanted, as I hold
   variety of wines a great mistake. With respect to the
   adjuncts, I shall take care that there is cayenne, with lemons
   cut in halves, not in quarters, within reach of every one
   for the turtle, and that brown bread and butter in abundance
   is set upon the table for the whitebait. The dinner will be
   followed by ices and a good dessert, after which coffee and
   one glass of liqueur each, and no more."

Surely, an excellent repast, if the cooking was all that could
have been desired, as the author happily informs the reader was
the case. But in his comments on the dinner occurs this qualifying
sentence,--"There was an opinion broached that some flounders,
water-zoutcheed, between the turtle and whitebait would have been
an improvement"; and, for once, the "Original" proves vacillating,
and adds--"Perhaps they would." Yet, if we are to believe no less
an authority than Thackeray, the dish under consideration is one
for which room may always be appropriately found--a dish that, when
well prepared, possesses ambrosial qualities. He is discoursing of
a flounder-souchy in the sketch entitled, "Greenwich Whitebait";
and one's mouth fairly waters as he reads it: "It has an almost
angelic delicacy of flavour; it is as fresh as the recollections of
childhood--it wants a Correggio's pencil to describe it with sufficient
tenderness."

The recipe for a water-souchy is thus given by Kitchener, to be made
with flounders, whiting, gudgeons, or eels:

   "After cutting the fish in handsome pieces, place them in a
   stewpan with as much water as will cover them, with some
   parsley or parsley roots sliced, an onion minced fine, and a
   little pepper and salt, to which sometimes scraped horseradish
   and a bay-leaf are added. Skim carefully when boiling, and
   when the fish is sufficiently done send it up in a deep dish
   lined with bread sippets, and some slices of bread and butter
   on a plate. Some cooks thicken the liquor the fish has been
   stewing in with flour and butter, and flavour it with white
   wine, lemon juice, essence of anchovy, and catsup, and boil
   down two or three flounders to make a fish broth to boil the
   other fish in, observing that the broth cannot be good unless
   the fish are boiled too much."

This does not sound as palatable as a sole _au gratin_ or _en matelote
Normande_, or even whitebait--that "little means of obtaining a great
deal of pleasure"; but one can scarcely forget Thackeray's sentence,
even if his appreciation may have been heightened by the surroundings
of the Ship Tavern and congenial companionship.

Nearly ten years after Walker's day we find Thackeray also condemning
many similar evils:

   "I would have" [he urges, and the advice is still
   pertinent]--"a great deal more hospitality and less show.
   Everybody has the same dinner in London, and the same soup,
   and the same saddle of mutton, boiled fowls and tongue,
   entrées, champagne, and so forth. Who does not know those
   made dishes with the universal sauce to each: fricandeau,
   sweetbreads, damp dumpy cutlets, etc., seasoned with the
   compound of grease, onions, bad port wine, cayenne pepper, and
   curry-powder, the poor wiry Moselle and sparkling Burgundy in
   the ice-coolers, and the old story of white and brown soup,
   turbot, little smelts, boiled turkey, and saddle of mutton?...
   What I would recommend with all my power is that dinners
   should be more simple, more frequent, and should contain fewer
   persons. Ten is the utmost number that a man of moderate means
   should ever invite to his table; although in a great house
   managed by a great establishment the case may be different.
   A man and a woman may look as if they were glad to see ten
   people; but in a great dinner they abdicate their position as
   host and hostess,--are mere creatures in the hands of the sham
   butlers, sham footmen, and tall confectioners' emissaries who
   crowd the room,--and are guests at their own table, where they
   are helped last, and of which they occupy the top and bottom."

Thackeray has written frequently on the pleasures of the table, and his
name may well figure in the annals of gastronomy as one of its shining
lights, if only for his delicious essays "Memorials of Gormandising"
and "On Some Dinners at Paris," to which in their entirety the reader
is referred.

Still later, Charles Dickens keenly satirises the existing pomp and
the lack of simplicity of the English table, notably among the higher
classes, where he finds so much Powder in waiting that it flavours the
repast, pulverous particles getting into the dishes, and Society's
meats having a seasoning of first-rate footmen--society having
everything it could want, and could not want, for dinner.

Perhaps in no connection with the art of which the "Original" treats is
the advice more practical than in the remarks on variety, with which
the reference to Walker may be terminated:

   "Although I like, as a rule, to abstain from much variety at
   the same meal, I think it both wholesome and agreeable to
   vary the food on different days, both as to the materials and
   mode of dressing them. The palate is better pleased and the
   digestion more active, and the food, I believe, assimilates
   in a greater degree with the system. The productions of the
   different seasons and of different climates point out to us
   unerringly that it is proper to vary our food; and one good
   general rule I take to be, to select those things which are
   most in season, and to abandon them as soon as they begin to
   deteriorate in quality. Most people mistake the doctrine of
   variety in their mode of living; they have great variety at
   the same meals, and great sameness at different meals. These
   agreeable varieties are never met with, or even thought of,
   in the formal routine of society, though they contribute
   much, when appropriately devised, to the enjoyment of a
   party. With respect to variety of vegetables, I think the
   same rule applies as to other dishes. I would not have many
   sorts on the same occasion, but would study appropriateness
   and particular excellence. One of the greatest luxuries, to
   my mind, in dining is to be able to command plenty of good
   vegetables, well served up. Excellent potatoes, smoking hot,
   and accompanied by melted butter of the first quality, would
   alone stamp merit on any dinner; but they are as rare on state
   occasions, so served, as if they were of the cost of pearls."

It may be subjoined to the many pertinent observations respecting
the duties of the entertainer, that so far as it is within his power
he should consider his guests individually, weighing their personal
likes and dislikes to such extent as may comport with the general
welfare. The first thing he should recognise as his imperative duty
is to please. Yet while a surprise in the components of the dinner
is to be desired, the choice of dishes should nevertheless be made
with reference to the taste of the majority, in distinction to
one's own preference or the predilections of the few. With the stiff
and formal dinner, or with large dinner-parties, fine discrimination
is less practicable, these functions being necessarily a burden to
all concerned. _Les dîners fins se font en petits comités_; and,
equally, in informal gatherings. The deft hand and nice judgment
may be thoroughly manifested only among intimate friends, where the
personality of the master may guide and direct, free from the trammels
of conventionality. Then that false etiquette which prescribes that the
entertainer should never rise from the table may be waived; and where
he may enhance the pleasure of his friends by an impromptu visit to the
wine-cellar in pursuit of some special vintage that the moment calls
for, or carry out a happy thought that the occasion may create, it is
his bounden duty to perform for himself what others may not perform as
well, or perform not at all. With the absence of formality, the wit may
rise to the full height of his genius, the humorist may shine, and the
accomplished and graceful liar draw a treble measure of delight from
the font of a genial and exuberant fancy.

  [Illustration: LA TABLE

  Frontispiece of the Second Canto of "La Conversation" of the Abbé
  Délille, 1822]

"The Art of Dining" also forms the title of a work by the scholarly
essayist Abraham Hayward, a rearrangement of two articles he had
contributed to the "Quarterly Review" in 1835 and 1836.[42] By few
writers has the subject been treated so invitingly. There is no taint
of grossness throughout his review; and if it be true that next to
partaking of a good dinner is to read about one, we must thank him
for the enjoyment he has contributed. A distinguished scholar and
epicure, he had travelled widely, and was equally at home in the French
and English capitals. All the celebrated restaurants, chefs, and
maîtres-d'hôtel of Paris were familiar to him, while few have shown
themselves as conversant with the literature of his theme. He had,
moreover, an entrée into the most distinguished circles; and, last but
not least, possessed a marvellous memory to recall the people he had
met, and the dinners and festivities at which he had assisted--with the
bon-mots, repartees, and anecdotes that the popping of corks without
number had set free. As a raconteur, with an unlimited repertory of
incidents concerning the notables who were prominent in society,
politics, and gastronomy, he is said to have been unsurpassed.

His subject, he states, has been discussed with the object of
facilitating convivial enjoyment and promoting sociability; and
in these matters he will be found both a brilliant _causeur_ and
connoisseur. Passing by his anecdotal review of Parisian cookery, his
reference to the simple expedients by which the success of a dinner
may be insured will serve to show his resources, and his grasp of the
practical side of the topic:

   "We have seen Painter's turtle prepare the way for a success
   which was crowned by a lark pudding. We have seen a kidney
   dumpling perform wonders; and a noble-looking shield of
   Canterbury brawn from Groves's diffuse a sensation of
   unmitigated delight. One of Morell's Montanches hams, or a
   woodcock pie from Bavier's of Boulogne, would be a sure card;
   but a home-made partridge pie would be more likely to come
   upon your company by surprise, provided a beefsteak be put
   over as well as under the birds, and the birds be placed with
   their breasts downwards in the dish. Game or wild fowl is
   never better than broiled; and a boiled shoulder of mutton,
   or boiled duck or pheasant, might alone found a reputation.
   A still more original notion was struck out by a party of
   eminent connoisseurs who entertained the Right Hon. Sir Henry
   Ellis at Fricœur's, just before he started on his Persian
   embassy. They actually ordered a roasted turbot, and were
   boasting loudly of the success of the invention when a friend
   of ours had the curiosity to ask M. Fricœur in what manner
   he set about the dressing of the fish. 'Why, sare, you no
   tell; we no roast him at all; we put him in oven and bake
   him.'"

Some there are who would seriously object to boiled mutton as opposed
to roast, and who assuredly would cry out in horror at a duck or
game-bird boiled. Yet boiled mutton with capers is orthodox--like
corned beef and cabbage, or the _Rindfleisch_ with horseradish sauce,
which blends so well with the Münchner where one meets it in the middle
of the day in Germany. A broiled teal, wood-duck, or butterball, by all
means; but a roast canvasback, redhead, or mallard in preference always.

   "Marrowbones are always popular" [the author continues].
   "So is a well-made devil or a broil. When a picture of the
   Dutch school, representing a tradesman in a passion with his
   wife for bringing up an underdone leg of mutton, was shown
   to the late Lord Hertford, his lordship's first remark was,
   'What a fool that fellow is not to see that he may have a
   capital broil!' A genuine _hure de sanglier_, or wild boar's
   head, would elevate the plainest dinner into dignity. The
   comparative merits of pies and puddings present a problem
   which it is no easy matter to decide. On the whole, we give
   the preference to puddings, as affording more scope to the
   inventive genius of the cook. A plum-pudding, for instance,
   our national dish, is hardly ever boiled enough. A green
   apricot tart is commonly considered the best tart that is
   made: but a green apricot pudding is a much better thing. A
   cherry dumpling is better than a cherry tart. A beefsteak
   pudding, again, is better than the corresponding pie; but
   oysters and mushrooms are essential to its success. A
   mutton-chop pudding with oysters, but without mushrooms, is
   excellent."

Never having tried the last-mentioned "remove," the writer is willing
to trust to its excellence, and to the general good taste of Hayward.
But one has his doubts sometimes, the proof of the pudding being in the
eating; and possibly a mutton-chop and oyster compound may be spoiling
two things intrinsically good in themselves, and the dish deserve to
be placed in the same category with a boiled pheasant or a wild fowl.
Moreover, what may taste or appear excellent in one place does not
always appear the same in another, this holding true with many things
besides dishes, which may be affected by the climate, the surroundings,
or one's mood at the time.

The topic of fish is particularly well treated by Hayward. On the
subject of game, he has this to say concerning a native marsh-bird of
the sandpiper tribe, highly prized for its eggs and flesh, which has
become even yet more rare with the draining of the English meres and
fens:

   "Ruffs and reeves are little known to the public at large,
   though honourable mention is made of them by Bewick. The
   season for them is August and September. They are found in
   fenny countries (those from Whittlesea Meer in Lincolnshire
   are best), and must be taken alive and fattened on boiled
   wheat or bread and milk mixed with hemp-seed, for about a
   fortnight, taking good care never to put two males to feed
   together, or they will fight _à l'outrance_. Prince Talleyrand
   was extremely fond of ruffs and reeves, his regular allowance
   during the season being two a day: they are dressed like
   woodcocks. These birds are worth nothing in their wild state;
   and the art of fattening them is traditionally said to have
   been discovered by the monks in Yorkshire, where they are
   still in high favour with the clerical profession, as a
   current anecdote will show. At a grand dinner at Bishopthorpe
   (in Archbishop Markham's time) a dish of ruffs and reeves
   chanced to be placed immediately in front of a young divine
   who had come up to be examined for priest's orders, and was
   considerately (or, as it turned out, inconsiderately) asked
   to dinner by his grace. Out of sheer modesty, the clerical
   tyro confined himself exclusively to the dish before him, and
   persevered in his indiscriminating attentions to it till one
   of the resident dignitaries (all of whom were waiting only the
   proper moment to participate) observed him, and called the
   attention of the company by a loud exclamation of alarm. But
   the warning came too late: the ruffs and reeves had vanished
   to a bird, and with them, we are concerned to add, all the
   candidate's hopes of Yorkshire preferment are said to have
   vanished too.

   "A similar anecdote is current touching wheatears, which, in
   our opinion, are a greater delicacy. A Scotch officer was
   dining with the late Lord George Lennox, then commandant at
   Portsmouth, and was placed near a dish of wheatears, which was
   rapidly disappearing under his repeated attacks. Lady Louisa
   Lennox tried to divert his attention to another dish. 'Na, na,
   my leddy,' was the reply, 'these wee birdies will do verra
   weel.'"

In vivid contrast to the works of Walker and Hayward is a volume
entitled "Apician Morsels" (London, 1829), wherein the author, who
veils his identity under a facetious pseudonym, has unblushingly
garbled whole chapters from the old historians, the "Almanach," and
various writers, interspersed with coarse stories of gluttony. It is to
be deplored that La Reynière cannot arise from his final resting-place
to administer the castigation the author deserves. From him it is
refreshing to turn to the "Dipsychus" of Arthur Hugh Clough and read
his animated poem, "Le Dîner," with its resonant refrain which,
strangely, has been omitted from the later editions:

    "Come along, 'tis the time, ten or more minutes past,
    And he who came first had to wait for the last.
    The oysters ere this had been in and been out;
    While I have been sitting and thinking about
        How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
        How pleasant it is to have money!

    "A clear soup with eggs; _voilà tout_; of the fish
    The _filets de sole_ are a moderate dish
    _A la Orly_, but you're for red mullet, you say.
    By the gods of good fare, who can question to-day
        How pleasant it is, etc.

    "After oysters, Sauterne; then sherry; champagne;
    Ere one bottle goes, comes another again;
    Fly up, thou bold cork, to the ceiling above,
    And tell to our ears in the sounds that we love
        How pleasant it is, etc.

    "I've the simplest of tastes; absurd it may be,
    But I almost could dine on a _poulet au riz_,
    Fish and soup and omelette, and that--but the deuce--
    There were to be woodcocks, and not _charlotte russe_!
        So pleasant it is, etc.

    "Your Chablis is acid, away with the Hock,
    Give me the pure juice of the purple Médoc;
    St. Péray is exquisite; but, if you please,
    Some Burgundy first, before tasting the cheese.
        So pleasant it is, etc.

    "As for that, pass the bottle, and hang the expense--
    I've seen it observed by a writer of sense
    That the labouring classes could scarce live a day
    If people like us didn't eat, drink, and pay.
        So useful it is, etc.

    "One ought to be grateful, I quite apprehend,
    Having dinner and supper and plenty to spend.
    And so, suppose now, while the things go away,
    By way of a grace we all stand up and say,
        How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
        How pleasant it is to have money!"

To English guides, so far as the metropolis is concerned, should be
added Lieutenant-Colonel Newnham-Davis' recent volume--a veritable
Murray to the table of London.[43] In this gossipy and sprightly
manual one may dine by proxy in nearly all the leading restaurants
as well as in many of the more Bohemian resorts. The appointments
and surroundings of each are picturesquely set forth, with the exact
menu and price of each dinner, together with an occasional recipe
of some distinguished foreign master of the range, or a dish for
which a restaurant is especially renowned. And while one may marvel
at the writer's facile receptivity for an almost unvaried round of
vintage champagnes, and sympathise with him in the frequent iteration
of certain dishes, one must recognise, nevertheless, that if the
dinners he discussed as an official representative of the "Pall Mall
Gazette" could be duplicated by the average diner, London were not to
be despised as a stamping-ground for the accomplished gastronomer.
The author does not hesitate to criticise, though his exceptions are
usually in the nature of a sauce piquante, rather than a drastic
condiment; and it is evident in the majority of the feasts he passes
under review--now with a boon companion, and now with a pretty and
well-gowned _causeuse_--that the special resources of the chef and
maître-d'hôtel, who are duly introduced to the reader, have been
brought into Aladdin-like play for his special delectation. The
Benedict will doubtless envy him his _petits-dîners_ with so varied
a menu of charming women to stimulate his appetite and share his
champagne and _entremets de douceur_; the bachelor will recognise how a
prolonged series of such dinners with supplementary flowers, a _loge_
at the theatre, and a concluding supper swell the _addition_, and
render rising with the lark or any attention to business the following
morning utterly beyond the compass of mortal power. To assist in
a repast with Colonel Davis, however, is to be assured of dining
excellently in London, with pleasant company and a double assurance of
the truth of the aphorism, that one can never grow old at table.

Reference has already been made to numerous French minor writers
on gastronomy; among whom should not be omitted the name of the
eminent Dr. Réveillé-Parise, author of several works on hygiene,
whose dissertation on the oyster, presented with all the charm that a
brilliant style and profound erudition may impart, is unrivalled in the
language.[44]

Much has naturally been said, both by English and by French writers,
concerning the restaurant. The celebrated Dr. Véron, who was nearly
always accustomed to dine at a restaurant in preference to dining at
his own home, gave these as his reasons:

   "In your own home the soup is on the table at a certain hour,
   the roast is taken off the jack, the dessert is spread out
   on the sideboard. Your servants, in order to get more time
   over their meals, hurry you up; they do not serve you, they
   gorge you. At the restaurant, on the contrary, they are
   never in a hurry, they let you wait, and, besides, I always
   tell the waiters not to mind me; that I like being kept a
   long while--that is one of the reasons why I come here.
   Another thing, at the restaurant the door is opened at every
   moment and something happens. A friend, a chum, or a mere
   acquaintance comes in; one chats and laughs; all this aids
   digestion. A man ought not to make digestion a business apart.
   He ought to dine and digest at the same time, and nothing
   aids this dual function like good conversation. Perhaps the
   servant of Madame de Maintenon, when the latter was still
   Madame Scarron, was a greater philosopher than we suspect
   when he whispered to his mistress, 'Madame, the roast has run
   short; give them another story.'"

It was after a dinner in a Fifth Avenue restaurant, at which terrapin
and '89 Pol Roger, canvasback, and '78 Haut-Bailly figured, that while
smoking his Vuelta-Abajo--impressed with the excellence of the repast,
and smitten at the thought of his absent ones--the host observed to his
companions, "Heavens! how I wish I could afford to treat my family to a
dinner like this!" The stomach also has its conscience. But Thackeray
has covered precisely such a case in the essay, "On some Dinners at
Paris." "What is the use," he asks, "of having your children, who
live on roast mutton in the nursery, to sit down and take the best
three-fourths of a _perdreau truffé_ with you? What is the use of
helping your wife, who doesn't know the difference between sherry and
Madeira, to a glass of priceless Romanée or sweetly odoriferous Château
Lafite of '42?"

Besides his sonnets "Le Toast" and "Barrière du Maine," Charles
Monselet has written most entertainingly of the restaurant under the
title, "Les Cabinets Particuliers," a sketch which figured in "Le
Double Almanach Gourmand" of 1866, of which he was the editor for
several years. In this publication appeared Albert Glatigny's "Rue des
Poitevins," one of several poems with the restaurant as their theme,
the stanzas being not unworthy of the melodious lyre of "Les Vignes
Folles" and "Les Flèches d'Or":

    "C'est le vieux restaurant où vont les écoliers
    Qui n'ont point submergés les cols brisés encore.
    Dans l'atmosphère chaude et franche on voit éclore,
    Entre deux brocs de vin des refrains cavaliers.

    "Les peintres, les rimeurs,--leurs soucis oubliés,--
    Y vont rire le soir d'un bon rire sonore,
    Et pour mon compte, moi dans mon for, je m'honore
    D'avoir allègrement grimpé ses escaliers.

    "Des escaliers du temps de la serrurerie,
    Larges, la rampe en fer, ouvragés, bien dallés,
    Donnant sur un cour propre à la rêverie.

    "Maison Laveur! hier, c'était là qu'attablés
    Devant la soupe aux choux, nous guettions, mon Lemoyne,
    La petite servante aux rougeurs de pivoine."

The student of Glatigny, who must always admire the rhythm and melody
of his Muse, will also remember his quaint sonnet published in "Gilles
et Pasquins," entitled "Monselet devoured by the Lobsters." The
works of Henri Murger are replete with epulary sketches of the old
Latin Quarter of Paris, a district from which Victor Hugo has also
drawn. Théodore de Banville has likewise depicted many a picturesque
restaurant scene in his airy "Odes Funambulesques." The lyrists, too,
have not been unmindful of the poetry of the kitchen.

Many visitors to Paris will remember dining at Bignon's, and doubtless
will equally recall the figures of the _addition_. Of this restaurant,
whose carte was devoid of prices, it was said that a man who dined at
the corner table for a period of years became a cosmopolite--in every
capital of Europe he would be recognised and fêted; for that matter, he
did not need to rise from his chair, as all Europe would pass in review
before him.

A provincial dining there in April, on perceiving melons on the card,
ordered one. "What!" he exclaimed, after examining his bill, "thirty
francs for a melon! You are joking!"

"Monsieur," replied Bignon, "if you can find me three or four at the
same price, I will buy them immediately."

"Fifteen francs for a peach?" inquired Prince Narischkin; "they must be
very scarce."

"It isn't the peaches that are scarce, _mon prince_; it is the
Narischkins."

"Monsieur Bignon, a red herring at two and a half francs! It seems to
me that is excessive."

"But these prices are marked in your interest," rejoined the
restaurateur. "It is the barrier I have established between my clients
and the vulgar. Why do you come here? To be among yourselves, to avoid
embarrassing or compromising surroundings. If I changed my prices, the
house would be invaded, and you would all leave."

Another patron who complained of a sauce was asked, "Did you dine here
last evening?"

"No," he replied.

"That is the trouble, then; you spoiled your taste in the other
restaurant."

Still another guest objected to the charges on his bill, comparing it
with an identical breakfast of a few days previous which amounted
to eighteen and a half francs, whereas the breakfast in question was
charged twenty-one francs, eighty centimes.

"I will investigate the mistake," said Bignon, who, with the two bills,
proceeded to the desk, returning shortly afterwards.

"It is very true, Monsieur, that a mistake was made in your favour last
Monday; but I make no claim for restitution!"

Do the anecdotes and cook-books and treatises on eating and drinking
savour of gluttony to some who eat only to live, and who are lacking
in the finesse of Good Cheer? Let all such consult a volume written by
one of the gentler sex, and hearken to her admirable definition of the
Tenth Muse:

   "Gluttony is ranked with the deadly sins; it should be
   honoured among the cardinal virtues. To-day women, as a rule,
   think all too little of the joys of eating; they hold lightly
   the treasures that should prove invaluable. They refrain
   to recognise that there is no less art in eating well than
   in painting well or writing well. For the _gourmande_, or
   glutton, duty and amusement go hand in hand. Mind and body
   alike are satisfied. The good of a pleasantly planned dinner
   outbalances the evil of daily trials and tribulations. By
   artistic gluttony, beauty is increased, if not actually
   created. Rejoice in the knowledge that gluttony is the best
   cosmetic. Gross are they who see in eating and drinking nought
   but grossness. Gluttony is a vice only when it leads to
   stupid, inartistic excess."[45]




  [Illustration]




                               OF SAUCES

   "Je la redoute, cette sauce. Avec elle on mangerait toujours.
   La lecture seule de sa recette donne faim."

                                   BARON BRISSE: La Petite Cuisine.


The supreme triumph of the French cuisine consists in its sauces; for
nothing can so vary the routine of daily cookery as the different
combinations of herbs and seasonings that may be utilised by a
competent artist as an adjunct and a finish to a dish. King's "Art of
Cookery" has admirably versified the mission of the sauce:

    "The spirit of each dish and zest of all
    Is what ingenious cooks the Relish call;
    For though the market sends in loads of food,
    They all are tasteless till that makes them good."

  [Illustration: A SUPPER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

  From the engraving after Masquelier]

As without flattery there were no society, so without sauces there
were no gastronomy. Properly prepared, with a thorough understanding
of the hygienic nature of flavourings and their harmony with reference
to the special viands they are to enhance, a finely composed sauce is
a digestive as well as a stimulus to the organs of taste. No better
illustration of the qualities of a perfect sauce occurs in the annals
of the art than that of Baron Brisse, which refers to sauce béarnaise,
and La Reynière's comment on anchovy sauce,--"_Lorsque cette sauce est
bien traitée, elle ferait manger un éléphant_. This is La Reynière's
recipe, including its proper belongings, as given in the sixth year of
the "Almanach":

   "The anchovy figures as a stimulant and aperient in a great
   number of sauces, whose presence imparts to them their
   principal virtues. Such are the sauces _à l'Allemande_, _à
   l'anchois_, _aux câpres_, etc.; we shall confine ourselves
   to the recipe of that which bears its name. Anchovy sauce is
   prepared by first carefully washing the anchovies in vinegar;
   the bones are then removed, the fish finely minced and placed
   in a stewpan with a clear _coulis_[46] of veal and ham,
   pepper, salt, nutmeg, and fine spices; after heating reduce to
   the proper consistence and give it the finishing touch. This
   sauce serves for the roast. The anchovy plays the principal
   rôle in the sauce served with roast sirloin of beef and hare
   _à la broche_. It is made with their juices and a little
   bouillon, anchovies coarsely chopped, capers, fine herbs,
   tarragon, pepper, salt, and vinegar. With this sauce well
   prepared, one might eat an elephant.

   "Anchovy sauce is also employed in several sorts of gravies,
   and one may say that it is not misplaced in any piquante
   sauce: for it is in itself an excellent _épigramme_.
   It follows from these remarks that the anchovy is an
   indispensable adjunct to good cheer. Its body figures
   admirably for the déjeuner and with the hors-d'œuvres, and
   its spirit makes itself distinctly felt in all sauces that it
   permeates. It imparts to them a savour which stimulates the
   appetite and agreeably captivates the palate."

In the middle ages the office of the _saucier_, or master sauce-maker,
was invested with great importance. A chief functionary in all grand
houses, under him were clerks, varlets, and youths termed _galopins de
saucerie_, who stood ever ready to do his bidding. Old woodcuts depict
him presiding over his receptacles--as imposing in his dignity as the
master-carver himself. Even then the adage held good that the sauce was
often worth more than the fish.

Indeed, the sauce is the sonnet of the table, as varied in its forms
as the structure of the sonnet itself. The Gaul is its master, and to
him belongs the majority of its most pleasing tenses. In the words of
the distinguished Marquis de Cussy, who maintained that a good cook
can remove your gout as you would remove your gloves,--"_Point de
sauce, point de salut, point de cuisine_; where would we be if the
grand sauces, the lesser ones, and the special ones that have rendered
the French school illustrious had not been discovered by men of the
greatest genius? The life labours of one alone would not have sufficed.
What a brilliant ladder to scale, that which, leaving the last
round--the sauce pauvre homme--is lost in the clouds with the velouté,
the grande and petite espagnole, and the réductions!"[47]

Sauce Soubise, sauce d'Orléans, sauce d'Uxelles, and sauce à la Régence
are all credited to great minds of the eighteenth century, so prolific
of new culinary discoveries. Through their piquant instrumentality
we may in imagination summon the splendours of the Regency and the
reign of Louis, surnamed "le Bien-Aimé," with the brilliant toilets of
its gay and pretty women--the high-heeled pointed shoe, the powdered
hair, the rouge and beauty-spot, the painted fan and walking-stick of
_fille_, duchesse, and marquise that still look at us from the canvases
of Boucher and Watteau. We may see, too, the V-shaped satin corsage,
the expansive pannier, the diaphanous _robe déshabillée_,--flounced,
frilled, flowered, and furbelowed,--the embroidered petticoat and surge
of lace and ribband, as fair dame and plumed gallant repair to the
suppers of the Palais-Royal and the Parc aux Cerfs, or sit down amid
umbrageous glades to the revels of a _fête champêtre_.

Almost as many varieties of sauces exist as of soups. But these may
vary little or largely from their usually accepted names. The cook
will tell you, if you are unacquainted with the fact yourself, that
by adding to simple melted butter a liberal amount of finely chopped
parsley (some ruin the relish with grated nutmeg, a spice which should
be used with great discretion), salt and pepper, and a dash of lemon,
you have what is termed a maître-d'hôtel sauce. Add to this finely
minced garden-cress, chervil, and a little tarragon and burnet, and
you produce a different sauce under the same name. Thus plain onion
sauce and sauce Soubise, in each of which the onion forms the dominant
chord, may differ equally, and sauce piquante and sauce Robert vary
only in their titles and the additional mustard called for by the
latter. Sauce poivrade, in like manner, is a sauce piquante with an
increased supply of pepper and without the pickled cucumber.

Among the most valuable of all sauces, though employed only cold and
served with cold viands, is that which at once suggests what Jules
Janin in an inadvertent moment termed the "cardinal of the seas," and
that at a luncheon or a late supper possesses a merit distinctively
its own. This Carême has dealt with at length in his treatise on cold
sauces. The origin of the word "mayonnaise," a blending supposed to
be the invention of the Maréchal de Richelieu, has always remained in
doubt. Its etymology has been attributed to Mahon, a town of southern
France. Yet this supposed derivation is extremely dubious; and as
it was also known as "bayonnaise," it might be ascribed equally to
Bayonne, famous for its hams, its cheese, and its chocolate, and for
having invented the bayonet.[48]

It has been variously termed mahonaise, bayonnaise, mahonnoise,
magnonaise, and mayonnaise. But Carême, after minutely describing its
preparation, from the first drop of oil to its final silky, white, and
unctuous cream, denies its accepted derivation, and pronounces it
_magnonaise_, from the verb _manier_--to stir; as it may be prepared
only through the continual stirring it undergoes, which results in
a marrowy, velvety, and very appetising sauce, unique of its kind,
and bearing no resemblance to others that are obtained only through
reductions of the range. Despite this ingenious explanation, the word
is still written "mayonnaise"; and while lights shine brilliantly, and
champagne sparkles, and the great crawfish, sublimated into salad,
receives the encomiums of appreciative guests, the famous chef of the
Empire is forgotten, and the chapter of the "Cuisinier Parisien" exists
only as a tale that is told.

It may be observed that a good sauce should be perfect in flavour,
colour, smell, and consistency. It should be savoury, flowing, and
well defined. On the proper _liaison_, a correct apportionment of the
flavourings, a knowledge of the range, and a discriminating palate,
supplemented by long experience, depends its triumph. Of course the
_bain-marie_ will be readily accessible when the sauce is obliged to
wait, the butter will be unexceptionable, and the shallot especially
will never be lacking when its virtues are in request. As has been
previously stated in the case of numerous other culinary preparations,
success depends more upon the practitioner than the formula. It is as
difficult, therefore, to describe the subtle chiaroscuro of a perfect
sauce as to define the hues that mantle the petals of the rose "Beauté
Inconstante," or the combined odours hived by a windless night of June.

Comparatively few sauces may suffice for the modest household to
supplement the espagnole, or brown sauce, and the velouté, or white
sauce, the foundations from which most others are compounded. These two
rudimentary sauces, to be well made, should not be greasy, but contain
just enough fat, according to the authorities, to present the velvety
appearance of a full-blown damask rose. Carême devotes twenty-five
pages to these "mother sauces" and their two slight modifications,
béchamel and allemande; while Francatelli points out that although
great care and watchful attention are requisite in every branch of
cookery, the exercise of these qualities is most essential in the
preparation of the grand stock sauces. In the home kitchen these are
naturally prepared in an infinitely more simple manner than according
to the elaborate recipes of the great professors of the table.

The mistress of the household who would render herself trebly
appreciated, and who by ministering to man's palate may the more
readily guide, direct, and control his character, should train herself
unerringly in the art of compounding appetising and wholesome sauces.
To be sure, some of these manipulated by competent masculine hands--but
how often slurred by some fatigued or indifferent _sous-chef_!--may be
obtained at one's club or the better-class restaurants. But here in
many instances the wine-cellar is apt to be uncertain; while frequent
dining out is not to be compared with the sense of comfort of dining
at home when the kitchen, even though unpretentious, is carefully
administered, the menu varied, the wines perfect of their kind, and
where Her Gracious Serenity's address may have conjured some dainty
entrée whose sauce, sapid and velvety, leaves nothing to be desired.
One might tire of this, perchance, with no change for a sixmonth, as
one might weary of constant sunshine or a too lavish profusion of
tender epithets. Yet it is a desirable condition, nevertheless, to fall
back upon; and in the end far the safest for digestion.

And this despite Balzac, who well understood the cuisine no less than
the "Comédie Humaine,"--that "marriage must necessarily combat a
monster who devours everything--daily routine"; or his other definition
in the "Physiology of Marriage," a physiological study that was
inspired by Savarin's "Physiology of Taste,"--"_Pressurez le mariage,
il n'en sortira jamais rien que du plaisir pour les garçons et de
l'ennui pour les maris._"

The wise woman will have many side-lights in her composition; and in
the kitchen her sauces will have many shadings.

Let us toast her in a glass of sparkling St. Péray, and acknowledge
that without her there were no home cuisine and consequently no home
life. So closely does the art advocated by the late lamented Mrs.
Glasse touch upon the fundamental happiness of mankind; and sauces
which render it an art supreme still further accentuate the amenities.
It has been said that it is not obligatory for lovely arms and
shoulders to be acquainted with rhetoric. However this may obtain--and
there are admirers both of shapely shoulders and of the graces of
languages, there can be no doubt that charming women who possess a
taste for gastronomy which they can put to practical use upon occasion,
are an infinitely greater desideratum than whose energies may be
centred strictly upon flounces or the study of metaphysics.

With the following sauces, besides the simpler forms of espagnole
and velouté, much may be accomplished at home: cream béchamel, sauce
piquante, sauce bordelaise, maître-d'hôtel and béarnaise, hollandaise,
sauce an vin blanc, sauce au beurre noir (plain, or with shallots and
parsley added), tomato sauce and its special form _à la Richelieu_,
and, finally, Francatelli's sauce Number 65 for mutton and dark-fleshed
game.[49] If, apart from those enumerated, madame be an artist in the
fashioning of sauce tartare, the mayonnaise and its shadings, and a
plain French salad dressing, all will be lovely sailing. What's sauce
for the goose, however, is not necessarily sauce for the gander, and
_vice versa_. Women will prefer the cream béchamel, mayonnaise, and
Francatelli, and the sterner sex will like them all.

It may not prove entirely without profit if to these be added sauce
_à la Schönberg_, which harmonises not only with halibut, flounder,
sea-bass, and sole, but with chicken-breasts and white-fleshed
game-birds as well, when one desires a change from the usual modes of
preparation:

   "_Sauce à la Schönberg._ Make a roux of a tablespoon of butter
   and flour, brown slightly, add two shallots finely minced, and
   a pint of chicken broth, three tablespoons of tomato sauce,
   a small bay-leaf, two cloves, some finely minced parsley, a
   teaspoon of cognac, and a little white wine. Season with salt
   and pepper, and strain. Then add a half can of mushrooms,
   slice and brown them in a little butter with a few dice of
   sweetbreads previously cooked, and, just before removing from
   the range, the yolk of an egg and a half cup of cream."

The professional chef may possibly criticise it,--mesdames the
"'Compleat' Housewives" will discover in it a fragrant note of
satisfaction.

Will new sauces continue to be invented? Assuredly; of culinary as
well as other novelties there will always be an abundant supply,
however bizarre or lacking in excellence compared with the old. But
in new dishes it will be new combinations for the most part, varying
but little from the classics and those already known, rather than any
distinctly novel forms of superior merit, such as have been recently
evolved in floriculture, for instance. For the art of cookery is of
ancient time, while the evolution of the flower, especially the floral
queen, the rose, is comparatively new; and where the one has still
untold possibilities, the other has well-nigh attained its full tide
of savour and perfection, at least in theory and understanding, if not
nearly so often in practice as were to be desired.

An extended disquisition, redolent of truffles and odorous of the
herb-garden, might be devoted to the subject of sauces, of which
Charles Ranhofer in his recent manual, "The Epicurean," presents two
hundred and forty-six. But this were invading the practical domain of
the cookery books, and wandering too far from the lines of the subject
under consideration--the history and province of Gastronomy.




  [Illustration]




                        THE SPOILS OF THE COVER

   "It is difficult to imagine a happier conjunction than the
   blending of the symbols when the arms of a sportsman are
   quartered with those of a cook. The tints of the autumnal
   woods reflected in the plumage of mature and lusty game are
   types of rich experiences and genial sentiments which flit
   about the sportsman's board and linger at his hearth with
   as gracious a fitness as that which diffuses a faint blush
   through the russet of a well-cooked mallard's breast, and with
   a zest equal to the relish which lurks within a woodcock's
   thigh."--JOHN ALDERGROVE.


How that beechwood on a distant hillside, its tall trees despoiled
of their foliage, and its skirts lighted with the clinging gold of
the saplings, stands out against a hoar November sky and the tablets
of memory, as one recollects an accommodating covey of grouse, a
successful "right and left," and the hoarse clamour of the crows whose
conclave was disturbed by the salvo of the barrels!

Of the wealth of aliments bestowed upon man by a bountiful
Providence for his sustenance and delectation, none lends a greater
grace or ministers more to the variety of the table than game. The
offspring of wild nature, nursed upon its fruits, its mast, and
its vegetation, and exhaling the very essence of its most secluded
recesses, it sheds an added lustre even upon the most elaborate repast.
Its comparative rarity, together with that quality which may be best
defined as distinction, invests it with a heightened charm; while to
the sportsman it is indelibly associated with scenes the recollection
of which causes the pulse to throb with a renewed joy in the sense of
living. Its pursuit naturally leads to an abiding love for nature; so
that the bird in the thicket, the wild fowl in the marsh, and the hare
in the covert become to the votary of sport more than mere adjuncts of
gustatory delight. Who shall ever forget the first game-bird he has
killed, or the first "pound trout" he has captured with the fly?--the
souvenir comes like a burst of autumnal radiance, or the redolence
of vernal flowers. To what enchantments is not game the open-sesame;
and what halcyon visions does it not enshrine! It is the emblem of
plenteousness, the symbol of maturity. The gilded woods and ripened
fruits, the teeming fields and garnered sheaves, the purple haze and
mellow afterglow, the harvest moon and the elixir of the frost--all the
largesse of the year is typified in the least of the wild life that is
included in the term "game."

  [Illustration: THE SPANISH POINTER

  From the engraving by Woollett, after the painting by Stubbs, 1768]

These woodcock, for instance, do they not at once bring to mind the
beauties of their native haunts?--the devious alder tangle and jungle
of wild grape where the dragon-fly flits above the murmurous stream,
and the cardinal-flower reflects itself within the glassy pool. This
ruffed grouse, in turn, how he recalls the pageant of the upland! Once
more you scent the breath of the wildwood and drink the exhilarating
draught of October. Again are you thrilled by the roar of strong
pinions as the quarry rises in his strength, to fall beneath the leaden
charge and fold his wings in everlasting sleep. Or, with the advent
upon the board of that much-in-little, the snipe, the lonely marsh with
its whispering flags and shifting cloud-shadow extends in imagination
before you--where the killdeer calls, and the bittern booms, and the
bird of mottled breast twists away with raucous cry to be lost in the
grey horizon's marge.

Thus game to the sportsman embodies an æsthetic attribute unknown to
the majority, the very associations of sport in themselves conferring
the keenest appreciation of the true instincts of gastronomy. The range
and the breech-loader are closely allied, and the field and the table
become merged in ties of mutual affinity. Nor may we overlook the great
worth of game in the sick-room, and as a ministering agent for the
invalid and convalescent. It possesses, in addition, a virtue equalled
by scarcely any other form of food, in calling forth the bouquet and
flavour of wine--whether it be a white wine with the denizens of
fresh and salt water that figure as game-fish, or a grand growth of
Bordeaux or Burgundy that is appropriately served with the furred and
feathered tenants of Sylva's court. Then if one has killed it himself,
or a friend whose skill has checked its flight has been the means of
contributing its graces, its quintessence becomes all the more adorable.

Combining so many advantages, it is to be deplored that the
preservation of game in this country is not more carefully guarded, and
that the scarcity of many species is becoming more and more apparent.
The practice of spring shooting of snipe, duck, and shore-birds, when
on their migrations to their northern nesting-grounds, cannot be too
severely censured; while the laxity in enforcing the laws and the
dissimilarity of close seasons in different counties operates still
further to cause the depletion of wild life. The pot-hunter and the
spaniel, the trap and the gin, are gradually exterminating the ruffed
grouse; the olden flocks of plover and wild pigeon have well-nigh
vanished; while snipe, woodcock, quail, and duck are now as rare in
many localities where they formerly abounded as the trout which once
swarmed in the streams. Deer and its congeners, it is true, have
received better protection of recent years, the increasing numbers
of deer at least attesting the wisdom of stringent laws stringently
enforced. It will therefore be readily evident that preservation
and protection become a question of paramount importance which may
no longer be loosely considered, or soon the last grouse will have
sounded his reveille, and the whistle of the woodcock will remain
only as a memory. The remedy is easily prescribed, and may be briefly
summarised--legitimate shooting and fishing, rigid enforcement of the
laws with heavy penalties for the offender, a single close season for
the smaller species that are found in proximity, abolishment of spring
shooting, and a rigorous surveillance of the covers. By this means the
table may possess one of its greatest luxuries in abundance, and sport
resume its former sphere as the greatest of recuperative and edifying
recreations.

In its relation to the table, the term "game" is held to include wild
fowl as well as most furred and feathered spoils of the chase. Or,
defined more accurately in its connection with gastronomy, it embraces
everything belonging to the province of sport that is edible. Correctly
speaking, no species of wild fowl, or species like the plover, rail,
pigeon, etc., may be accounted game, the quality of which consists in
the subtle presence of scent, instinctively recognised and followed by
thoroughbred dogs,--a trait expressed by Hollar's lines,

    "The Feasant Cocke the woods doth most frequent,
    Where Spaniells spring and pearche him by the sent."

Yet species foreign to the blue blood of flax and feather may,
nevertheless, afford sport, and prove acquisitions for the table. The
little spotted sandpiper, accordingly, whose musical _peet, weet,
weet_ rings along the brooksides and moist meadow-lands, and even the
squirrel if killed in cold weather, are entitled to rank as table-game,
providing they be properly prepared.

It should not be supposed, however, that all individuals of a given
species taste alike, flavour being the result of two important
conditions. Neither should it be presumed that a game-bird, usually
referred to as masculine, is preferable for the larder in that gender;
the truth being that for culinary purposes the hen is generally
preferable to the cock. Every sportsman will recall the difference
in the taste of certain game-birds, more especially snipe and
woodcock--depending upon the nature of their feeding-grounds, and
upon the season. Like celery, moreover, most game requires a touch
of the cold to develop its qualities. The snipe that bores in sweet,
moist pastures, and the woodcock shot on high grounds during late
autumn, would hardly be recognised as the same birds bagged under
widely dissimilar conditions. The bobolink of our summer fields is
scarcely prized until as a migrant he has fattened on the rice-fields
of the South, to acquire an added bloom under the name of reed-bird
or rice-bunting. Similarly, the sheep of Pré-Salé, the succulent
salt-marsh mutton of the Brittany coasts, renowned for its delicious
flavour, owe this quality largely to the herb absinthe which grows amid
the herbage on which they browse. The mutton of sheep fed on pastures
where thyme abounds also acquires a particularly fine savour. In like
manner, when the ruffed grouse through stress of weather has been
compelled to feed on birch-buds, or when he has dined on the berries
and foliage of the wintergreen, his aroma is strikingly accentuated,
becoming a veritable "steam of rich-distilled perfumes."

The wild duck is an apposite example of the effect of food upon
flavour; and even a pheasant _à la Sainte Alliance_ must pale before a
celery-fed canvasback or redhead bathed in its own carmine juices. The
redhead, who dives down for the roots of the _Vallisneria_ which the
lazier canvasback purloins, is identical in quality with the latter
when shot on the same feeding-grounds; the only difference between
the two when cooked consisting in the larger size of the canvasback.
Equally, the blackbird and starling, when killed on the shocked
corn-fields where the hazy sunlight broods, or in autumn woods where
they are garrulously discussing the date of their approaching flight
and marvelling at the exquisite gradations of the maples' changing
hues, become possessed of a tenderness and succulence unknown to the
glare and greenness of summer.

Another much esteemed native table-bird is the sora, crake, or Carolina
rail, who should not be confounded with the British and European
corn-crake or land-rail whom Michael Drayton refers to as "seldom
coming but on rich man's spits," and Gilbert White represents as crying
_crex! crex!_ from the low, wet bean-fields of Christian Malford and
the meadows near Paradise Gardens at Oxford. The sora throngs the
marshes of the Atlantic coast in early autumn, congregating in the
greatest quantities south of the Rappahannock, where he is slaughtered
by wholesale with comparatively little diminution of his ranks. He
is a small dark-fleshed bird of great delicacy when broiled, and by
many is prized more highly than the toothsome reed-bird or the golden
plover. Though resembling the corn-crake in many ways, his nearest
relative abroad is the spotted crake. The great-breasted or king-rail
of the fresh-water marshes is likewise much esteemed. In flavour the
sora is not unlike the wild duck; or, if the comparison may be made,
a cross between the qualities of a teal and a snipe--deriving his
special richness from the seeds of _Zizania aquatica_, or tall, wild
reed of the tidewater shores. The juicy little bobolink whose rippling
_scherzo_, flung over the fallows and buttercups of June, is basely
forgotten by the epicure in the fall, may be crunched in a mouthful;
the sora is thrice his size, and, though seldom as fat, is richer in
the quality of his ruddy flesh.

It were a parlous task to attempt to describe from memory the
respective merits of the reed-bird, the famed European ortolan, and the
English wheatear, fieldfare, and mistletoe-thrush. One stands helpless
under such a contretemps, and must necessarily await the advent and the
edict of another La Reynière. The fig-pecker of southern Europe is more
easily passed upon, and readily ranks first among small table-birds.

The tall yellowshank or stone-snipe, with his slim gilded stilts
and snow-white breast, familiar to the gunner as a migrant and a
frequent companion of the upland-plover, would be esteemed by the
sportsman-epicure if only for the recollection of his splendid spread
of wing, his graceful circlings, his loud whistling notes, and his
lovely silvery plumage.

Although considered less desirable than the snipe and woodcock, the
upland- or grass-plover--in reality a sandpiper--should by no means be
overlooked. One intuitively thanks him for the scenes he graciously
leads to--the placid September day steeped in sunshine, the tender
green of sprouting wheat-fields, the pageant of asters, and the billowy
roll of mushroom-studded pastures. One hears anew his weird, plaintive
cry in the arc overhead--like the bleat of distant folds--audible long
ere the grey forms are discernible, as the sportsman imitates their
notes, and the wavering flock, with a flutter of white wings, drops
down to the sward below. Besides the salad which should accompany all
species of game, the upland-plover, therefore, should be garnished with
his accessory, the field-mushroom, whose snowy pileus and pink gills
his dainty tread is constantly brushing, but never ruffling, amid the
old pastures, stump-lots, and sheep-walks he frequents.

But the graceful Bartramian sandpiper has other aliases than those
of upland-, field-, and grass-plover. Besides his common appellation
of "tattler," he is known in Louisiana as the "pepperpot," and more
generally as the "papabotte"--a local name, from the Creole French,
significant of all that is most prized in edible game. "Arriving from
the vast prairies of Mexico and Texas, where they spend the winter,"
says Audubon, "the dry upland plains of Louisiana called Opellousas and
Attacapas are amply peopled with this species in early spring as well
as in autumn. About New Orleans they appear in great bands in spring,
and are met with on the open plains and large grassy savannahs."

Upon the restaurant cards of New Orleans and other Southern cities
he figures much as the truffle does in France--his particular food
imparting to his flesh a peculiar flavour and certain peculiar virtues.
The favourite mode of preparing him by the New Orleans clubs is to
roast him and serve him slightly underdone with the trail finely
minced on toast. His appearance is nearly simultaneous with that of
a blister-beetle known as the "Spanish fly"--one of the extremely
numerous members of the genus _Coleoptera_ and family _Cantharididæ_,
of which a large portion are common to the haunts of the bird. This
destructive insect comes in myriads to prey upon growing vegetation,
but the papabotte consumes vast numbers until his disappearance
during latter September, as the upland-plover does of grasshoppers
and crickets in the North--waxing so fat upon his favourite diet that
when he falls before the gunner he often bursts open like an overripe
fruit. He is known chiefly as the plover in Texas, where, in addition
to a diet of grasshoppers, etc., he subsists largely on the striped
blister-beetle (_Lytta vitatta_), and doubtless also on the black
blister-beetle (_Lytta atrata_), which is likewise quite common to
Texas during certain years. It is probable that both these species of
cantharides form a large portion of his diet in Louisiana as well. A
wary bird when approached on foot, and not lying to the dog, he is
frequently hunted on horseback, or by employing a horse and wagon,
when he is easily brought to bag. The flesh of the cantharide-fed bird
is always extremely heating in its effects; and, indeed, owing to the
absorption of cantharidin, the active principle of the insect, it not
unfrequently acts as a violent irritant and poison. Yet the papabotte
is eagerly sought for, and by the epicure his flesh is more highly
esteemed than that of the woodcock, snipe, or sora.[50]

Notable among indigenous game-birds are the ruffed grouse, the quail,
the pinnated grouse, and the woodcock, together with numerous other
varieties of the family _Tetraonidæ_, variously classed by the
ornithologists, that are less familiar or less widely distributed, and
are locally known under various names. With these may be included not
a few species that do not figure properly as game, such as the wild
turkey, canvasback duck, etc.

All things considered, the ruffed grouse--the "partridge" of the North
and "pheasant" of the South--is entitled to rank first among feathered
game. Nothing swifter or more valiant in plumage tests the sportsman's
nerve and skill. So far as sport is concerned, he may be placed, from
his alertness, swiftness, and the trying nature of his usual habitat,
on a par with the trout of the clear Hampshire chalk-streams, whose
fastidiousness in rising to the artificial fly so taxes the angler's
resources on the placid reaches of the Itchen, the Anton, and the
Test. He is preëminently the bird of the woodlands, supreme in his
sturdiness and his strength. His roll-call awakens the wind-flower, and
his thunderous _whir!_ fans the September air into freshness. He blends
with the buffs of the beech and russets of the oak, and is eloquent
with the lustihood of the ripened year. And how artfully he assimilates
with the shadows and thrusts a tree-trunk between himself and the
gunner!

See him as he springs from the tangle of the saplings, a shaft of
mottled splendour where the sunlight strikes his sides; and the hoarse
boom of the double-barrel fails to check his tumultuous flight. Behold
him in the spring while he struts upon his chosen log with extended
tufts and expanded feathers, beating the air with his wings, and
sounding his reverberating peal of defiance and of love. Consider
him amid the rigours of the frost, loyal to his native haunts, true to
the instincts of his race, when most of his companions have deserted
him for more congenial climes. Observe him once more when the deadly
volley has stopped his career, and he falls upon the russet carpet, in
glossy black ruff, and plumage in blended hues of olive, brown, black,
and grey--the noblest game-bird that treads the forest aisles!

  [Illustration: PARTRIDGE SHOOTING, I. LA CHASSE AUX PERDRIX

  From the coloured print after Howitt, 1807]

And if no other member of his family requires more address in bringing
to bag, none may surpass, if equal, him in his wild woodland flavour.
His back is the very incarnation of poignancy, while no bird that
flies can vie with the whiteness and plumpness of his breast. This is
saying nothing against the prairie-chicken in his younger stage, or
the eastern quail, or even the two long-billed beauties beloved by the
sportsman and the epicure. But the assertion may be safely ventured
that he will lend himself to more varieties of wine in evolving their
_sève_ than any other representative of the haunts of Pan. _Bonasa
umbellus!_ may birch-bud and beech-nut, wintergreen and partridge-vine,
never fail thee in snow and storm!

With the speckled trout, the rainbow-trout, the sunapee-trout or
saibling, the black-bass and muscalonge should also be included among
distinctly native game-fish. The brown trout of Europe has recently
been introduced into many American waters, as the Mongolian pheasant
has been introduced in the fields. But the American speckled trout,
who is in reality a char and smaller than the European trout, is
higher flavoured, and, like the saibling and the rainbow-trout of
the Rockies, is a far more beautiful fish. The brown trout thrives
under warmer conditions than the speckled trout, and consequently is
an acquisition. But as he attains a much larger size, it is unwise
to place him in waters tenanted by the native species, as the larger
fish has already proved very destructive to the smaller fry of the
_Salvelinus fontinalis_.

It is superfluous to state that fish cannot be too fresh, in which
respect it is the reverse of game. The quail, and especially the ruffed
grouse, should be hung long enough to develop their flavour. Eaten too
soon, they do not represent game, as their quality is not attained;
hung too long, on the other hand, they are not fit for the table. To
cook quite fresh game is to deride its mission on earth. A happy medium
should be observed in the ease of maturing most species. The duck,
woodcock, and snipe should only be mellowed or kept under favourable
conditions for a short period. They are like a peach, which is best
when recently plucked, as opposed to a pear, which requires to be
slowly ripened after gathering. It is possible to eat a "high" grouse
or pheasant, if not too gamy; but a duck past the meridian of maturity
is well-nigh impossible, as is also a shore-bird or either of the
long-bills.

There is no occasion to bury the wild boar, as is sometimes done in
Europe for the purpose of mellowing him; inasmuch as he does not exist
in America, and the razorback hog of the South, however well he may
have feasted on beech-mast, cannot take his place. But in place of
the wild boar we have the lordly moose, elk, and caribou, and the
picturesque Rocky Mountain sheep and goat, which, if not all desirable
for the larder, nevertheless afford magnificent sport; while by many a
young caribou or elk, as also a mountain sheep, is considered among the
graces of edible furred game.

The relative time of keeping all game to savour it under the best
conditions will depend upon the weather. It is always better when hung
in the fur or feathers, and where it may have a circulation of air,
than when confined in a close receptacle. When frozen it loses in
flavour and succulence. Dark-fleshed birds, with few exceptions, are
best rather underdone--rosy, but not raw. White-fleshed birds should be
done sufficiently, but not cooked to the extent of drying their juices.
The cooking of mutton will serve as a type for the one, and veal
for the other. Most game-birds are best plainly roasted or broiled,
although for variety they may be served in various appetising ways. In
roasting the smaller species, the vine-leaf and a strip of larding-pork
should not be overlooked; and where these or well-buttered paper are
not employed, as in the case of over-fat birds, the basting-spoon
should be kept in constant agitation. Larding lightly often improves a
white-fleshed bird where he has not been enveloped in pork.

Especially, let game be zealously watched in the cooking; let its
appropriate wine be carefully considered; and let no delay occur in its
flight through the butler's pantry to the dining-room. Its garnishing
also should be studied, that it may flatter the eye as well as the
palate; and, for the most part, with feathered game watercress or
filets of lemon should lend their colour and their zest.

Game-birds should always be hung by the head, not for the purpose
of sending the juices to the legs, as is fantastically supposed by
some, but to allow the lower viscera and their contents an approach
to the natural exit. Were they hung by the feet, the visceral
machinery--softening more and more, as it always does--would of course
press upwards to their bodies and probably taint them. A game-bird
should never be drawn until that office is performed by the cook. Hares
are usually hung by their hind legs, it is true; but hares, if hung for
any time, are invariably "paunched," so that no lower viscera remain in
them.

Fish, it has been pointed out, should never be covered up, or it will
suffer fatally from the condensation of the steam. It may be noted
that for an all-round sauce for broiled fish, none wears better than a
maître-d'hôtel and, occasionally, its modification, a sauce _au beurre
noir_.

A well-made bread-sauce, an accessory which we owe to England, always
accords with quail and grouse, and is not amiss with prairie-chicken,
even if they are already well moistened with the sauce of cooking them
with pork and basting with bouillon. Francatelli's delicious sauce,
Number 65, the recipe for which has been presented in a previous
chapter, will need no recommendation as an adjunct for venison and
mutton where it has once been enjoyed. Apple-sauce is indispensable
with the domestic duck, and boiled onions should not be omitted by way
of a vegetable accompaniment. _Canard saignant_ is reprehensible, and
equally so is the overdone bird. A wildling should be fresh and sweet,
and "passed through the kitchen" not "once," but thrice; the domestic
fowl will, of course, be allowed more time on the range to plume
himself for the table. The celery-fed bird (_O avis jucundissima!_)
calls for no other sauce than his own, but with some species a stuffing
of olives and an olive sauce are excellent additions. Then, if your
bins of _têtes de cuvée_ of the Vosne be not lacking, you may hear your
whistler simply praying to be engulfed in Richebourg or Romanée.

The wild turkey, the "spruce-partridge," and the "cottontail" will
prove more desirable subjects for the seasonings and provocative sauces
of the French cookery books than their more princely companions. The
wild turkey, notably, despite his splendid wattles and emerald plumage,
it must be conceded cannot compare with the tamer fowl in edible
qualities; and it were well, where a stately gobbler has been sent as
the result of the prowess of a friend, to dispense at once with his
drumsticks, which, owing to his roving habits and wide ranging, have
become tougher than the ham-strings of a patriarchal sage-cock.

He should be treated as a somewhat plain-looking woman, who has passed
the hey-day of her charms, pranks and accoutres herself for a ball, and
the aid of art be summoned to amplify his good points and gloze over
any of his deficiencies. His resonant voice of course will be stilled
by the cooking, but his voluptuous breast will remain. Thus by neatly
cutting across the lower part of the back and thighs, removing his
shapely legs, and then inverting him, he will have been formed into a
boat-like receptacle for an artistic chestnut stuffing. One may then
proceed to lard him; and, while roasting, baste him thoroughly, send
him to the table with some oak-leaves _en couronne_, a currant-jelly
sauce in a _saucière_, and, with the assistance of a perfumed and
generous red wine, make the most of his seductive contours. All this
may be contrary to the tenets of Savarin, who pronounces the wild
turkey superior to the tame. But it must be remembered that he is
speaking of a wild turkey that he had the good fortune to kill by
his own hand while in Connecticut--a fact which, with the appetite
engendered by his shooting-outings, will readily account for the
preference he expresses for the wild form of this noble member of the
_Phasianidæ_. At a certain season, however, when he has fattened on
pecan-nuts, the flesh of the wild turkey is of excellent flavour; and
to this circumstance Audubon's eulogy is probably due: "The ruffed
grouse, in my humble opinion, far surpasses as an article of food every
other land bird which we have in the United States, except the wild
turkey when in good condition."

Furred game is more amenable to variety in preparation than feathered;
and while _marinéd_ venison and a civet of hare may be delicious, the
fewer culinary frills on a grouse, woodcock, or snipe the better. A
salmis, nevertheless, has its virtues; and as for the lord of the
woodlands, when tired of him _au naturel_, if that be possible, he
may be invested with a new glory as partridge _aux choux_, if one but
follow the counsels of Baron Brisse, whose prescript is well worth
transcribing and comes within the compass of all:

   "_Perdrix aux choux._ All housewives do not succeed with
   _perdrix aux choux_. This is the way to set about it in order
   to be complimented. Pluck, draw, singe, truss, and tie up
   the partridges. Blanch some cabbages, cut in quarters from
   which the cores have been removed; put them to soak in fresh
   water, dry them and press out all the water. Blanch also
   a small piece of lean pork from the breast. Make a light
   _roux_ in a large stewpan, put the cabbages in with the small
   pieces of pork, some uncooked sausages, some carrots, an
   onion _piquéd_ with two cloves, a _bouquet-garni_, salt and
   pepper. Plunge the partridges in the centre of the cabbages,
   cover with broth and cook gently in a closed stewpan. When
   done, remove the birds, the pork and sausages, dry off the
   juice of the cooking, then drain the cabbages--that is, turn
   them in a stewpan, on a quick fire, until they are free from
   liquid. Untruss and dress the partridges on a platter, on a
   bed of cabbages, with the backs underneath, cut the pork and
   sausages in pieces, slice the carrots, and garnish with all.
   Partridge _aux choux_ is accompanied with a sauce made from
   a _roux_ moistened with broth and added to the juice of the
   cooking."[51]

The touch of the baron in everything relating to the all-important
office of eating is invariably delicate and sure. Nevertheless, if one
may venture to suggest an improvement, not in the mode of cooking,
wherein he is impeccable, but in the shading of the _plat_, it would
be to remove the birds after they have simmered sufficiently in the
cabbage, glaze them with melted butter, and place them for an instant
in the oven, with a very lively fire, in order to brighten their
otherwise somewhat blanched complexion. Sauerkraut, instead of cabbage,
is frequently employed by the French, but with far less happy results.
With care in its employment, the Brussels sprout, after it has felt the
finger of the frost, might be used as a medium with no regrets unless
on the score of a slight indigestion. Were one an ostrich, nothing
could serve as a more delicious or colourful vehicle than the German
_roth-Kohl_. Of sausages, the highly spiced little _Wienerwurst_ is
best adapted to the dish.

A game-pie composed of numerous spoils of field and cover--seasoned and
stuffed with herbs, shallots, bay-leaf, mushrooms, truffles, chestnuts,
sweetbreads, and various vegetables, and cooked in broth and red wine,
with a fingerful of brandy and another or two of Madeira--is a triumph
of the chef when well executed. But to indulge in this requires a
vigorous digestion and toes impervious to arthriticism.

In its relation to wine, the maturity of game should be taken into
consideration; as, for example, with dark-fleshed birds that are
comparatively fresh, a fine Bordeaux; with those that are more matured,
and particularly duck, the warmer and more generous red vintages of
the Côte d'Or and the Côte du Rhône. For a well-hung prairie-chicken,
a red wine will naturally be selected; for a "partridge" that inclines
to freshness, either champagne or Bordeaux, Burgundy or a Deidesheimer
_Auslese_ may serve for a bath with equally good results. But game is
too often undeservedly treated and served at the end of a dinner of
numerous courses, when, whatever its merit or that of its accompanying
wine, the palate and appetite are in scant mood to appreciate it.

With the advent of the autumnal equinox the calendar of seasonable
sport begins. There is then an exhilaration in the air that
irresistibly invites to out-of-door exercise and an exploration of the
covers. Game is then matured, fleet of foot and strong of wing; and at
no other period do upland and vale present such varied attractions.
September is the true adagio of sport, October and November the
allegro, and December the diminuendo. For pure sylvan beauty, no
month may compare with October, when the torch of autumn kindles
the woodlands into living flame, although the dreamy Indian summer
possesses a charm that is matched only by May when she rolls away the
resurrection-stone. Then when the purple landscape lies hushed in
slumber, one may recall anew the forgotten ode of an unknown bard, in
whose haunting cadences are subtly expressed all the rest and peace
and rhythm, all the tone, the tenderness, and benediction, of the
latter-year:

                                  I.

    Nothing stirs the stillness save a leaf that slowly rustles down,
    Dim, through sunny mists the trees uplift their branches bare and
      brown;
    Winds are hushed, and skies are soft and grey, and grassy slopes
      are sere,--
    Calm and sweet and still, ah! sure is this the twilight of the year.

                                  II.

    There is this in these November days, the message that is sent--
    Peace undying, rest, and sweet and measureless content;
    Life's wild fever over, sleep's soft mood enchanting, such as fills
    Golden dreams of gods immortal, sits enthroned upon these hills.

                                 III.

    Offered in day's golden chalice, sweet and dreamy peace is mine;
    All's forgotten, lying here and watching tides of glorious light
      divine
    Slowly sweep along the hills, and vaguely thrilling to their sway--
    All that love hath lost or wrong hath won, O calm and royal day!

Days there are in late November and December, too, when the beauties
of leafless vegetation are scarcely surpassed by the pomp of October
or the glamour of the Red Man's summer; when tender tones of russet
and grey bask over bare fields and fallows, and wanton amid mysterious
woods; and strange, ripe hues, rich as those of old tapestries,
smoulder and gleam the livelong day from the southern horizon's verge.
There is a charm as well in the clear crispness of a winter's day,
when the woods are cushioned with snow on which the sylvan denizens
have left their imprint, and when one may penetrate into the swamp's
most secluded labyrinths, where the hare and fox have gone before. But
October and November for the delights of the chase and glories of the
countryside! The gay medley of summer has passed, and in its place are
the aster and goldenrod hosts, the bright berries of bittersweet
and black alder, the fragrant life-everlasting and lingering yarrow.
Ceased is the drone of insect choirs, and birds are silent save for the
chattering of congregating flocks and call-notes of passing migrants.
But through the rustle of Autumn amid her falling leaves the quail
cries aloud from the coppice, "I am here!" the squirrel barks, and far
within the woodland's depths the drum of the grouse proclaims the reign
of sport.

  [Illustration: "PARTRIDGE SHOOTING--SEPTEMBER"

  From the coloured engraving by Reeve, after the painting by R. B.
  Davis, 1836]

What more appropriate at this most alluring moment, when everything
incites to an outing, than a hunting-party in the woods?--especially
as one remembers that both the fall woodcock and time are on the wing.
To a shooting-jaunt, therefore, with a well-prepared luncheon in the
hampers, the reader is invited; it being understood that this is to
include, as nearly as possible, an equal number of both sexes. We will
suppose a day in mid-October, after the frost has vivified the air,
when the tints of vegetation vie with those of the noblest pressings
of the vine, and the matured plumage of a game-bird in the cover far
exceeds the liveliest gilding the chef may bestow upon him on the table.

Here, still more than at the dinner-table, success will depend largely
upon careful forethought; for even should the birds be unusually wary,
and there be not enough game in the pockets to weigh very heavy, the
excursion will prove none the less enjoyable, provided the party and
the lunch be well composed. And whether the goal be within driving
distance, or accessible only by train, the details will have been
planned by one who is thoroughly conversant with the region to be
visited, and the refection have been looked after by hands that never
fail. Let the luncheon never be neglected. If the sportsman's efforts
turn to good account, appetite is a certain sequence; if not, an
appetising spread will help to bridge over any chagrin at lapses of
marksmanship, or the drawing of sparsely populated covers. Thus, under
the most divergent circumstances, a choicely filled hamper answers an
admirable purpose. Granted that one may shoot better during the first
hour after a meagre repast, yet should an outing possess other features
than mere weight and numbers. For hath not wise Montaigne declared, "He
who hath no jouissance but in enjoying; who shoots not but to hit the
marke; who loves not hunting but for the prey; it belongs not to him to
intermeddle with our schoole."

The start will necessarily follow a reasonably early breakfast; and
ere arriving at the final destination of the morning, various covers
may be explored by the devotees of the gun. And while the music of the
barrels rings through the painted woods, and the russet bird of October
tops the ranks of the aspens, there will be sufficient novelty in the
situation and in the attractions of their own company, no doubt, to
prevent any ennui on the part of those in waiting.

Meantime, while the bag of woodcock mounts, or an old cock grouse is
neatly stopped in his rush through the thicket, the manifold beauties
which the autumnal season weaves will naturally arrest one's attention;
for he is callous indeed to all sense of beauty who even in the midst
of exciting sport can fail to note the harmonies of the October
countryside. To the true nature-lover, the shooting will be more of
an excuse than the principal reason for the excursion, of which the
surroundings and the joys of social companionship should constitute
the greater entertainment. And thus ere leaving the scene of the last
hour's sport, one involuntarily pauses at the skirts of the wood for a
final survey,--to mark the gorgeous ambers of the beech, the garnets of
the shad-blow and splendours of the dogwood and liquidambar; to view
the fires of the swamp-maple, the ochres of the sassafras and clarets
of the oak; while, fringing the edges of the thicket, the bronzed
fronds of the ostrich-fern and gilded pennants of the aspens flutter
their farewell to the passing year. On every side the insignia of
autumn blaze. Thorns hang heavy with their burden of ruddy fruit, the
black-alder berries gleam crimson in the swamp, hickory and elm shower
down their ore. And but for the patter of dropping nuts, the robin's
angelus, and the lisping of migrants pluming for their southward
flight, one might suppose the arrased woodland halls had never
hearkened to the hermit's song or echoed to the veery's strain. In
the air overhead the midges are holding their final dance; while from
the lengthening shadows and plaintive autumn breeze comes a whispered
admonition to seize the fleeting moment and make the most of the golden
hour.

Nevertheless, however alive to the enchantments of nature, the tonical
quality of the air will have asserted its sway, and the gunner's
appetite have mounted apace with the bag. So, in that contented frame
of mind and body which out-of-door exercise imparts, one arrives at
the scene of the luncheon, which has been happily chosen in a glade
through which the slanting sunbeam strays. And here the arrivals will
note with delight the presence not only of certain vitreous receptacles
with gilded capsules that are cooling in the stream, but also that of
St. Ange, who so distinguished himself on a previous occasion with his
wonderful salmis of quail. With the first glass of the foaming essence
of the Marne, which blends admirably with the lobster-cutlets and
tartare sauce, even the most enthusiastic of sportsmen will experience
no regret at the change from the covers of the upland to those of the
table. The more so as, passing to a vintage of the Haut-Médoc with
its accompaniment of eggs _farcis_, chicken-breasts with a chestnut
stuffing, lettuce sandwiches with _pâté de foie gras_, and the final
tartlets of puff-paste, the brightness of bright eyes increases, the
merry tale goes round, and St. Ange arises to this gastronomic homily:

   "The collation to which we have done such merited justice
   demonstrates that not only in the society of the fair sex
   may man enjoy a delightful hunting-jaunt, but that the care
   they are capable of bestowing upon the spread renders their
   companionship even yet more desirable. The best of all sauces
   is hunger engendered by exercise in the open air, and,
   equally, the best of digestives is pleasant company. But you
   have asked me to present my views of a _fête champêtre_.
   In the present instance, as I consider the excellence of
   the repast, and survey the ideal scene that surrounds us,
   where even the trees disburse a golden tribute, I have but
   to draw from the hour itself to find all the elements that
   are necessary for an ideal rural outing--congenial company,
   a faultless day, an unexceptionable lunch, and picturesque
   environment. As for the luncheon, its perfection consists
   in its piquancy and lightness. All heavy dishes should be
   scrupulously avoided. Taken at an unaccustomed time during the
   middle of the day, they are not only more or less indigestible
   and conducive to plethora, but they are inimical to the
   dinner which necessarily succeeds at a later hour, and which,
   however well prepared, must prove a failure without appetite.
   In planning the luncheon one should always see to it that
   some tart relishes, as well as sweets, accompany the more
   substantial portions; for the taste out-of-doors invariably
   craves one or the other, if not both. It is equally important
   that the wines be served at the right temperature,--

    "'The Roederer chilly to a charm,
    As Juno's breath the claret warm,'--

   and that some one person be held strictly accountable for
   their condition. Where exercise is to be freely partaken of,
   beer or ale and some effervescent water should always form
   a part of the provision-box. At all seasons during which an
   outing may be taken with comfort, ice should be liberally
   provided. Its absence may spoil the day. If not wanted, its
   burden is light; and if required, nothing can take its place.
   Where women lend their attractions to the party, champagne
   of a fine vintage, neither too sweet nor too dry, should be
   allowed to flow freely. The advantage of this form of wine
   consists not only in the exhilarating sparkle and play of
   its mantling life, where the beads that airily rise are ever
   in pursuit of those that have merrily passed; but in the
   magnetism it possesses above all other wines--of tempting the
   fair sex to drink an extra glass. The location for the midday
   symposium, if well chosen, will add greatly to the enjoyment
   of the occasion. This should be free from draughts, by the
   side of a stream if possible, and offer an attractive view.
   These conditions fulfilled, nothing but pleasant remembrances
   can remain until the next _villeggiatura_.

   "You have requested of me a new dish. And if you forget La
   Bruyère's sentence that 'all has been said, and we arrive too
   late by more than seven thousand years since man has lived and
   thought,' I may observe that cookery is older than literature,
   and that new dishes are as difficult to devise as new thoughts
   are to be born; it is only by new combinations in both that
   one may hope to achieve applause. Yet there is everything in
   a delicate touch in cooking, which is always more inherent
   than acquired, a connaissance of herbs and flavourings, and
   a natural love for the good things of the table, inspired
   by robust health and inheritance. With precisely the same
   components, no two artisans will produce the same results.
   There is an art even in the boiling of a potato, as there is
   in the blending of a salad, the gilding of a roast fowl, and a
   game-bird cooked _à point_.

   "Baron Brisse, you will recollect, has contributed an
   invaluable recipe for a _gigot rechauffé_, whereby a leg
   of mutton may be made to do duty for two consecutive days.
   Here is the mode to prepare a _gigot à la Richelieu_ which
   is not chronicled in the cook-books,--the allusion to the
   distinguished Cardinal referring both to its cardinal virtues
   and the colour of the sauce. It is unnecessary to state that
   this dish belongs to the dinner and not to the luncheon:

   "_Gigot de mouton à la Richelieu._ In the leg of mutton
   you have chosen, which should be that of a Pré-Salé or a
   South Down wether two years old and properly hung--the
   four-year-olds are too fat and are apt to taste tallowy--you
   will make a dozen incisions, placing in each its tithe or
   twelfth part of a clove of garlic. The _gigot_ will then be
   rubbed over with flour, salt, and a little cayenne. Then
   roast, basting thoroughly, and serve somewhat underdone,
   with a tomato sauce composed as follows: Take half a can
   of tomatoes, add half a clove of garlic, a small piece of
   bay-leaf, two cloves, a sprig of parsley, a stick of celery,
   two small carrots, and a small piece of raw ham. Cook half
   an hour, pass through a sieve; take a tablespoonful each of
   flour and butter and make a _roux_ in a separate stewpan; then
   add the tomato sauce, together with a little broth, salt and
   pepper, cooking until the proper consistency of the sauce is
   attained. On the sauce, to a great extent, depends the success
   of the dish, which, when well executed, is altogether too good
   to last for two consecutive days. I concede the merits of my
   deceased friend, the worthy baron; but try a _gigot de mouton
   à la Richelieu_! With this dish alone, including its vegetable
   accessories, and a salad, a bit of Rocquefort and a sound
   bottle of old Bordeaux, one may say with Joseph Délorme,--

    "'_Jouissons, jouissons de la douce journée,
    Et ne la troublons pas, cette heure fortunée._'

    (To the fullest enjoy the sweets of the day,
    And stay the bright hour ere it passeth away.)

   "I have now only to propose the health of the ladies who have
   so enhanced the pleasures of the occasion; and, finally, to
   remind the sportsmen who, with all their distractions, have
   admirably distinguished themselves prior to the luncheon,
   that sending game, which one may have secured at the expense
   of many a league of toil through field and covert-side, to
   certain friends is sometimes a waste of good-will:

   "'It will soon be time for you to pull the trigger again,'
   observed one of two enthusiasts of the gun to a companion,
   as they were discussing the vinous virtues of the 1895
   Clos-Lamarche, whilst the dun September evening rapidly shut
   out the twilight and proclaimed the advent of autumn once
   more.

   "'Yes,' was the rejoinder; 'I intend to try the woodcock
   to-morrow. But I shall not repeat the experience I had last
   year on the same date, when, sending my bag of the long-bills
   to a convalescing patient who was a connoisseur in art
   but not in _feræ naturæ_, I received a most appreciative
   acknowledgment by return mail, thanking me for the "delicious
   quail" I had sent him.'"

But the cigars are finished, the golden afternoon is waning, and the
chill of the autumnal evening will descend swiftly upon the scene.
There remains time, ere the return, only for a brief drawing of a
neighbouring cover of alders, where a flight of fall woodcock may
be probing amid their secluded glooms. The birds prove plentiful,
the pointers are staunch, and notwithstanding the somewhat prolonged
repast, the aim of the sportsmen is true. A bevy of quail, which at
the final moment rise wildly from the edge of the covert and twist
down the hillside, must be left for another occasion, with but three
of their number to swell the score. How darkly blue the contours of
the distant hills, seen athwart a patch of flaming sumach and bramble!
With what brilliancy the beams of the sinking sun irradiate the gold
of the beeches and the spun silver of the gossamer! And how the bright
eyes of those in waiting sparkle at the sight of the woodcocks, as the
hampers are hastily repacked, and the orange crescent of the hunter's
moon speeds the party onward through the paling twilight and a wan mist
that is stealthily creeping over the landscape,--the grey ghost of the
departed October day!

  [Illustration: TRUFFLE-HUNTING IN THE DAUPHINÉ

  From the Salon picture after Paul Vayson]




  [Illustration]




                     TWO ESCULENTS PAR EXCELLENCE

   "Avec les truffes, et avec quelques-uns de ces excellents
   champignons si admirablement analysés par M. Roques, vous
   refaites la cuisine; vous en avez une du moins qui ne vieillit
   jamais, même pour vous."--MARQUIS DE CUSSY: L'Art
   Culinaire.


The truffle! what a fragrance its very name exhales. A flower like the
rose, but more enduring, say its admirers. This strange food product
has been studied by botanists, sung by poets, extolled by epicures,
and accorded certain rare attributes by physicians. Unseen, it is
sought for by entire communities; and discovered, it is treasured
as a priceless gem of the table. Savarin defined it as the diamond
of the kitchen. By La Reynière it was previously referred to as a
sample of Paradise, and later eulogised as possessing a torrent of
delights; while by Dumas it was pronounced the _sacrum sacrorum_ of
the gastronomer. It may, in truth, be regarded as the superlative
of esculents, its powerful and delectable aroma dominating that of
all other aliments with which it may come in contact. To the cuisine
of winter it is what the violet is to the chaplet of spring. The old
Greeks and Romans were extremely partial to it, although the varieties
known to them and mentioned by Pliny differed from the famous Tuber
melanosporum of southern France--the blackest and, as regarded by many,
the most perfumed and delicious of its curious and widely distributed
family. About 1825, under Minister Villèle, it came into greatest
vogue in Paris, when the subject was taken up by the press, and so
much was written in praise of the tuber that the demand soon increased
threefold, and its price became correspondingly augmented.

Like the mushroom, the truffle is impatient of keeping when gathered.
Preserved truffles, as a rule, are but a semblance of the fresh product
when eaten at its precise maturity; and those who know this thallogen
only in the former state have little idea of its marvellous flavour
when fresh and in full possession of its virtues, whether it be served
by itself or utilised as a vehicle for heightening the flavours of
other dishes. Its use demands the knowledge of an artist; for it is
only with certain forms of aliments that it should be employed. The
onion and the mushroom detract from its savour, and it is chiefly in
conjunction with fatty substances that its most expressive results are
attained. By French epicures it is tacitly understood that there can
be no grand dinner without truffles. "Who would dare to say," exclaims
Savarin, "that he has attended a repast where a _pièce truffée_
did not figure! However good an entrée may be, it should always be
accompanied by truffles to set it off advantageously." Its harmonious
association with grain-fed fowls is proverbial,--so much so, it has
been remarked, that at a well-composed dinner every phrase which may
have begun should be suspended upon the arrival of a truffled turkey.
Berchoux thus alludes to its use with fowls,--

    "L'abondance est unie à la délicatesse,
    La truffe a parfumé la poularde de Bresse."

    (The truffle yields its most adored caress
    When tuck'd within a tender fowl of Bresse.)

At a dinner where the renowned naturalist Buffon was present, a
truffled Périgueux turkey was brought in with great éclat. Inspired
by the penetrating aroma, an elderly lady who was among the guests
inquired of Buffon where the tuber grew. "At your feet, Madame," was
the ready reply. The lady not understanding, it was thus explained
to her: "_C'est aux pieds des charmes_" (at the feet of yoke-elm
trees). The compliment passed as a happy one. Towards the end of the
dinner some one asked the same question of Buffon, who, forgetful of
his elderly vis-à-vis, innocently replied, "They grow _aux pieds des
vieux charmes_" (old yoke-elm trees). The lady overheard him, and it
is unnecessary to state was no longer impressed with his genius as a
naturalist, or with the fact that a soup had been named in his honour
by the great Carême.

Though common to many countries, and comprising numerous species,
the truffle attains its greatest excellence in France, unless the
white truffle of Italy, which is considered equally good by many,
be excepted. Its chosen haunts are clayey soils mixed with sand and
limestone, moist, shaded, and temperate localities, southerly and
easterly expositions, protected slopes, and especially the umbrage of
oaks, as also of aspens, black poplars, nut-trees, yoke-elms, willows,
and white birches. Limestone or carbonate of lime is accounted as
necessary to its formation, while the presence of iron imparts to it
an added firmness and aroma. Despite persistent efforts, all attempts
to cultivate it have proved fruitless. It is only of recent years that
it has become known in part how it is propagated or how it grows.
Among trees, the oak is its most favoured companion, its artificial
production having been accomplished wholly through the cultivation of
oaks and certain other trees in soils and expositions corresponding to
its natural habitat.

By general consent Périgord is credited with producing the best
truffles, the next in commercial repute being those obtained from
Provence and Dauphiné; the finest of the former come from the canton
of Sarlat, the best of Dauphiné from the cantons of Tain and Valence.
Among authorities, Beauvilliers preferred the black product of Provence
(T. melanosporum), of which there are two varieties, the so-termed
violet and the grey; and Savarin the white species (T. magnatum),
obtained preferably from Piedmont, where it occurs beneath poplars and
oaks during summer. The whitish-brown truffle of Italy, in its early
stage, similar to the whitebait described by Thackeray, possesses an
"ambrosial flavour," and is difficult to surpass, combining as it
does all the most ethereal qualities of the Allium tribe with the
dulcet pungency of Gorgonzola when in its freshest flower. A species
exists which emits a powerful scent of musk, while numerous others
occur with odours so rank as to be utterly unfit for edible purposes.
Northern Spain produces excellent truffles, but these are comparatively
short-lived. T. æstivum, called "summer truffle," indigenous to many
countries, is extremely plentiful in southern France. It is common
to England, where it grows most frequently under beech-trees. This
exhales a strong and penetrating smell which has been compared to that
of sheep-folds. The effluvium of garlic is always very marked in the
white truffle of Italy, and by some it is said to recall the odour of
garlic mixed with onion, high game, and matured cheese. After standing
for a time, when its garlic flavour has become somewhat modified, it
is also suggestive of the flavour of vegetable-oysters. Indeed, the
truffle is as strange in its odours as it is in its manner of growth,
and in certain respects it brings to mind some characteristics of that
strangest of flowers, the orchid.

From November to March is the season when the prized dark tuber is
most abundant, and during which its highest qualities are evolved. The
black pearl of Provence and Périgord begins to take on its rich ebon
hue in October, lasting until April: æstivum and its varieties being
gathered during May and June in Provence, and from October to January
in Burgundy and Champagne. The species of greatest repute in southern
France is found at variable depths, mostly beneath certain oaks known
as _chênes truffiers_, or truffle-oaks. With it often occurs another
species, T. brumale, which is likewise held in much esteem and figures
as a large commercial factor. Among the inhabitants the truffle harvest
forms an extensive industry; pigs, dogs, and professional hunters being
utilised for the quest, and the crop always commanding high prices,
which are fixed by the Paris market. When the supply happens to be
short, many inferior species are substituted or are mixed with the
genuine.

Of recent years artificial _truffières_ have been largely planted in
the favoured districts of southern France. To M. Rousseau, a proprietor
of Vaucluse, has been erroneously ascribed the discovery of this means
of production. Already during the middle of the eighteenth century
M. de Montclar, procureur-général at Aix, discovered truffles as the
result of sowing acorns on his lands; but, the truffles disappearing
subsequently, no further attention was paid to the matter, and the
relation between cause and effect passed unnoticed or was forgotten.
Since then Poitou, Périgord, and Provence have each claimed to be the
discoverer of artificial truffle culture. It is within a comparatively
short period only that the merit of originating the system, now a
source of great revenue, was adjudged, after painstaking investigation,
to Joseph Talon, a small landholder of Vaucluse, who about eighty
years ago sowed some acorns in an unremunerative piece of ground. Ten
years afterwards, while passing through the plantation with the pig
he employed in hunting, he was not a little surprised to find truffles
beneath the oaks; when, recollecting that he had obtained the acorns
from a truffle-oak, he repeated the sowing on another plot, which in
course of time proved equally successful. The theory was established
beyond a doubt, and the result finally became generally known, despite
his efforts to keep it secret.

Many unsuccessful attempts at artificial truffle-raising have been
made. In 1830 Alexander Bernholz, a German, published a long treatise
on the subject, his theory being that by planting truffles in soil
composed of certain ingredients, and in localities and expositions
corresponding to their natural habitat, they could be successfully
grown. Count Noé, in the south of France, is said to have succeeded
in raising truffles in his woods by irrigating the ground, after
a certain degree of preparation, with water in which the skins of
truffles had been rubbed. But this statement, as well as other reputed
successful attempts at reproduction, would not seem to have been borne
out in France, where the planting of young truffle-oaks, the acorns
of truffle-oaks, or certain other truffle-producing trees alone has
accomplished the desired result.

In artificial plantations the truffles form in from six to ten years,
usually disappearing when the trees are twenty-five or thirty years
old. Then, after a variable period of non-production, the tuber often
forms again. As the truffle-tree develops, the vegetable growth which
surrounds it begins to decline, a certain index that truffles are
commencing to form--the ground round a truffle-producing tree being
always sterile. When the truffles cease the herbage again appears.

Though many unsatisfactory reasons have been ascribed for the
phenomenon, it has been traced by M. Grimblot to the simple fact
that the filaments of the mycelium invade and destroy the roots of
herbaceous vegetation. Similarly, vegetation asserts itself when the
cause is removed. With young trees the truffles are usually found
close to the trunk, whereas with old trees they generally appear near
the periphery of the circle formed by the outer roots, as well as at
a distance further removed, but usually within the shade of the tree.
To what extent the humus of the soil formed by the droppings of the
leaves is responsible is not stated. In many respects the subject
remains, as it has always remained, a complex phenomenon that baffles
the naturalist, who is usually content to refer to the truffle as
an "underground fungus," or "an order of sporidiiferous fungi of
subterranean habit." Perhaps the definition of Dr. C. de Ferry de la
Bellone, which may be summarised as follows, is as accurate as any: "A
subterraneous mushroom with a mycelium or filamentous body, from which
it is developed, like the mushroom, and which requires the roots of
certain trees for its formation."[52] The theory that the truffle owes
its genesis to the roots of trees, or is in some mysterious manner
connected with them, might be accepted as satisfactory were it not that
species are also found in open places where the argument could not
apply.

While the roots of most kinds of oaks, both deciduous and evergreen,
appear to be favourable for its generation, it has been found that
in a given region the best species to propagate are those which have
already produced the tuber in the locality in question, certain
varieties seeming to be more liable to reproduce it than others.
Climate, altitude, and exposition are also to be considered as regards
the choice of the kinds selected for plantations. The arboriculturist
and mycologist will be interested in the various truffle-producing
oaks that may be utilised, according to the site, soil, and climatic
conditions. These embrace the following species and varieties: Quercus
pedunculata, Q. ped. pubescens, Q. semi-ped., Q. sessiliflora nigra,
Q. nigra sessil. glabra, Q. nigra sessil. pub., Q. sessil. pub., Q.
sessil. laciniata, Q. sessil. magna pubes, Q. ilex, Q. coccifera. All
kinds of nut-trees are likewise favourable to its production, and
may be planted almost indiscriminately. The range of T. melanosporum
is broadly defined as between latitude 49° north and 40° south; the
question of quality depending, like that of many other esculents,
largely on climate and habitat. As in the same vineyard certain
portions yield a superior wine, so on particular slopes of localities
that favour the truffle a product of finer quality is obtained.

Besides the usual means of locating the truffle, its presence is
revealed by several species of coleopterous and dipterous insects
which, during late autumn and winter, on temperate days swarm in the
truffle-woods, attracted by the scent. These insects seek the tuber in
which to deposit their eggs, and are observed entering and leaving the
ground--a circumstance which gave rise to the opinion that the truffle
was only a gall. This form of truffle-hunting is practised chiefly by
poachers, and is known as _la chasse à la mouche_.

The statement that the canned truffle is but a shade of its original
will bear modifying in certain instances where only the best
species have been utilised, after scrupulous selection, before they
are wormy or overripe, and where they have been preserved by the
"Appert process," _au naturel_, without oil, brandy, or vinegar, in
hermetically sealed cans, and used before they have been thus preserved
for a long period. Under these conditions the species melanosporum and
magnatum retain no little of their pristine virtues, and may still
glorify a sauce or dignify a Châteaubriand. To the skill of the cook
the result will be principally due. Inasmuch as the truffles have
already been subjected to several hours' ebullition, they should only
be finely sliced and gently heated in order that their flavour may
not be dissipated by the cooking. The dish they are to grace should
be prepared first, and so soon as the truffles are ready it should
be immediately served under cover. Perhaps as good a medium for
utilising the preserved product is a steak with a bordelaise sauce in
which garlic or shallots should figure very lightly. The comparative
excellence of the preserved truffle will depend, of course, upon
freshness and the probity and care of the merchant.

One may obtain all sorts of truffles with attractive labels, as one may
obtain attractively labelled Château wines that may "leave everything
to be desired."

At a dinner where a _bon vivant_ was expected, the truffle figured in a
novel manner.

"A friend who is very fond of good things is to be my guest over
Sunday," said the host to the cook, who was an excellent practitioner
in certain lines; "and I want you to use truffles plentifully some way."

"How shall I cook them, Mr. S? Mrs. S. isn't here."

"Oh, I don't know; anyway, I'm in a great hurry, and I'll leave it to
you."

The soup was admirable, the lobster _à la Newburgh_ perfect, and the
entrée and pommes soufflées left nothing to be wished for. To the
surprise of all, a large, heaping dish of truffles, charred, highly
spiced, and finely minced and served as a vegetable, appeared with the
roast.

The host remained imperturbable, a vestige of a frown clouded the
usually placid face of madame, the butler poured the Chambertin, and
the truffles were passed by.

"You are the most expensive guest I have had in a long time," remarked
the host, with a smile, the following day. "I must think what we can
have this evening for dinner; or, better, consult with madame. There
is plenty of champagne in which to cook truffles, if the cook and the
truffles were in evidence. I told her I wanted plenty of truffles for
you, and the remaining eleven cans of the dozen in the larder were
tendered you last night."

The truffle has formed the theme of numerous books and treatises. To
the French gastronomer who may obtain the fresh product during a large
portion of the year, the work of M. M. Moynier will unquestionably
prove of the greatest value--a major portion being devoted to a
scientific analysis of the various dishes, with their recipes, in
which the esculent may properly figure. It is justly claimed by the
author that wine is an indispensable accompaniment of this "astonishing
production" or any dish in which it may enter; but that sweet
champagne to which women are so partial masks rather than quickens
its flavour.[53] The mycologist who simply wishes to know the species
and habits of hypogæus fungi will no doubt prefer the monograph of
Vittatini, Milan, 1831; that of M. Tulasne, Paris, 1852; and the
instructive work of Dr. de Ferry already cited. Few more interesting
fields for research offer themselves than that presented by the black
pearl which is concealed beneath the soil--living its strange life
beyond the ken of human eye, and revealing itself only through the
agency of the animals employed by man to discover it, and of the insect
tribes that hover above it in their dance of rivalry and love.

Savarin, above all writers, has considered the truffle philosophically
in his comparatively brief reference; and although he failed to answer
the question, "What is the truffle, how is it produced, and how does
it grow?" he has still appraised its virtues in his own inimitable way.
That it is digestible has been amply proven before, and this point
did not require his researches to substantiate. The only charges that
history records against it are gluttony in eating it, and the fact that
Lartius Licinius, a person of prætorian rank, while minister of justice
at Carthage in Spain, upon biting a truffle found a denarius inside,
which cost him the loss of a tooth--a proof to Pliny that it was
nothing but an agglomeration of elementary earth. Of certain attributes
it is supposed to possess, the sixth Meditation of the "Physiology,"
to which the reader is referred, will speak clearly for itself; and
it will be sufficient to transcribe the conclusion of the learned
chancellor's deductions:

   "_La truffe n'est point un aphrodisiaque positif; mais elle
   peut en certaines occasions rendre les femmes plus tendres et
   les hommes plus aimables._"

Referring to Savarin's conclusion, Dr. de Ferry makes this statement,
based on professional experience:

   "_Sur l'individu sain et bien portant, la truffe excite des
   fonctions spéciales.... La truffe peut ajouter seulement
   aux qualités de ceux qui possèdent; elle n'est plus d'aucun
   secours à ceux qui, n'ayant pas géré leur capital en bons
   pères de famille, ont consommé leur ruine._"

Little attention has been paid to the question whether edible truffles
equal to the best European species exist within the broad area of the
United States, whence so many useful and delicious food products and
flavourings have sprung. M. Moynier states that he has tasted most
excellent truffles from Brazil; and that a grey species of merit, round
in form, is found on the right bank of the Mississippi--a somewhat
vague statement, in view of the length of that river. The only species
that Saccardo's "Sylloge" credits to this country is T. macrosporum,
said to have been found in Pennsylvania. Some years ago Mr. W. R.
Gerard reported having discovered T. dryophilum on Staten Island.
Rhizopogon rubescens, a puff-ball, grows underground in the Southern
States, and is sometimes mistaken for the truffle; also certain species
of Scleroderma, or puff-balls which are partially underground. There
are besides some of the false truffles of the genus Elaphomyus in the
Eastern States. It will thus be seen that the subterranean fungi belong
to three distinct orders. Dr. H. W. Harkness, in 1899, issued in the
California Academy of Science Proceedings an illustrated article on the
Hypogæus Fungi of California, wherein he describes thirteen species, of
which seven are new and all of which he pronounces edible, though few,
if any, of them are found in abundance or are worth considering from a
practical standpoint.

  [Illustration: "NOUVEL MANUEL COMPLET DU CUISINIER ET DE LA
                  CUISINIÈRE"

  Facsimile of frontispiece, 1822]

From this it may be inferred that if these fungi could be diligently
sought for in other States by those who have carefully studied the
haunts and habitat of the tuber abroad, many desirable species might
be found to belong to our country. Dr. Harkness does not mention T.
melanosporum among Californian species. At present we do not know
whether this or T. magnatum, or some form possessing equally adorable
qualities, occurs in our country at all; but they and others, it is
possible, may yet be unearthed to disclose to the epicure a true
"sample of Paradise." To do this, trained truffle-pigs and-dogs must
be brought into requisition; and should the search then be unrewarded,
the truffle-oak must needs be imported and planted under conditions
corresponding to those of its native habitat. Let America add the
truffle to her already rich alimentary resources, by all means, even
if she must remain content with the wines of France as supplied from
oversea.

       *       *       *       *       *

If the truffle may be described as an occult vegetable substance with
no stem, cap, or visible mycelium, in great repute with epicures, and
most generally found firmly embedded beneath the surface of _pâté de
foie gras_,--the mushroom, common to nearly all latitudes, grows in
visible profusion, and may be readily obtained for the seeking. Some
knowledge of genera and species, nevertheless, becomes necessary if one
would avail himself of this nutritious esculent. One must know what to
avoid as well as what to choose; for often highly dangerous sorts are
very nearly allied to the harmless.

Of recent years the study of fungi has received considerable attention,
and the mushroom has become much better known with us than formerly.
Compared with European countries, however, the average person still
knows little concerning its edible varieties. Few are unacquainted with
the most prevalent form, Agaricus campestris, whose shining white
pileus dots the meadows, pastures, and roadsides. But whether familiar
or unknown out of doors, no introduction to it will be required at
table. Its very mention makes one's mouth water, and evokes a longing
for the cool shadows of fall and the restful minor of the crickets'
choir.

To appreciate it thoroughly, one should gather it himself, or, rather,
in congenial companionship. And as its form is typical of femininity in
its rounded contours, its white satiny gown and rose-silk petticoat, to
say nothing of its dainty veil and frill, it is eminently proper that
madame or mademoiselle, as the case may be, should join in the quest.
On a bland September day, therefore, let the lanes and pastures remote
from the highway be explored in company when the first ripening sprays
of the sugar-maple are commencing to brighten and the clusters of the
everlasting are beginning to unfold. Then will the delights of the
chase prove doubly enjoyable; and with the common agaric as the object
of pursuit there will equally be little danger from mistaken varieties.
At most, the harmless horse-mushroom may obtrude, to be plucked and
cast aside.

But the mushroom is far from being confined to the pastures and fields,
or its duration limited to a few weeks of autumn; and despite the
excellent general dietetic advice of the fourth satire of the second
book, Horace's dictum should not be taken too seriously,--

    "Best flavoured mushrooms meadow-land supplies,
    In other kinds a dangerous poison lies."

By many A. Rodmani, the small compact species common to cities and
found growing along the sidewalks and curb, is preferred to campestris.
Less rich, it still possesses a full, nutty fragrance and flavour, and
is more digestible. Even more distinguished is another agaric, Lepiota
procura, or the tall parasol-mushroom--one of the most delicious of all
edible fungi. Many valuable species throng the woods and shady places
during a large portion of the genial season, to push through the mould
or clothe the stumps and decaying logs--in most instances ungathered or
unseen. And though Claudius, Tiberius, Pope Clement VII, Charles V of
France, Czar Alexis of Russia, and many other celebrated personages met
their death from eating deleterious mushrooms, and every year scores of
families are poisoned through them, the esculent continues to occupy
a highly exalted place among aliments. Ignorance and carelessness are
almost entirely responsible for disastrous results, owing to its use
as food, although ill effects naturally occur through over-indulgence
in eating perfectly harmless varieties, or where these may have passed
the edible stage. Extremely rich in nitrogenous elements as well as in
sapid properties, mushrooms should be sparingly partaken of. Sliced and
placed on hot toast which has been moistened with broth and the juices
of the cooking, one may often obtain all the flavour of the mushroom by
its employment in moderate quantities, and thus over-ingestion will be
avoided.

The study of fungi has always proved a fascinating one for the
botanist. With the aid of nearly any of numerous monographs in which
the various genera are described, as also faithfully reproduced in
colours, the student and nature-lover may easily familiarize himself
with at least the more important species. In his search for practical
information he will be led through many a smiling scene removed from
the haunts of man; while his chief precaution in his pursuit out of
doors need only be to avoid the Taurus and the deadly Amanita. The
trained mycologist, however, will readily distinguish between the
beautiful toxic Fly-Amanita and the inviting edible orange variety,
which, having graced the table of a Roman emperor, received the
name "Cæsar's mushroom," whence its botanical appellation. This is
the "Oronge" of the French and "Kaiserling" of the Germans, more
prized, perhaps, than the Morel, the white Helvella, or the handsome
Chanterelle. Its odour is said to resemble a combination of vanilla and
truffles. The variety rubescens is also regarded as one of the best
of edible mushrooms. Of all fungi the Amanitas are most to be feared;
and while numerous other kinds possess unwholesome and forbidden
properties, the dangerously poisonous belong principally to this single
genus. To them Gerard's definitions, "excressences," "Toadstooles,"
"very venomous and full of poison," may well apply.

By the seventeenth-century poet William Browne, bard of "Britannia's
Pastorals" and "The Shepherd's Pipe," the mushroom is thus alluded to:

    "Down in a valley by a forest's side,
      Near where the crystal Thames rolls on her waves,
    I saw a mushroom stand in haughty pride
      As if the lilies grew to be his slaves."

Then, after praising the daisy, violet, and other flowers whose beauty
was overpowered by the fungus, he thus concludes a much-admired sonnet:

    "These, with a many more, methought complained
      That Nature should those needless things produce,
    Which not alone the sun from others gained,
      But turn it wholly to their proper use.
    I could not choose but grieve that Nature made
    So glorious flowers to live in such a shade."

Where noisome toadstools crowd out violets and daisies, it may be right
for poets to protest. As it is, we have little in the description to
guide us to the species, whether it was a desirable or an undesirable
kind. There is no allusion as to its toxic properties, nor yet to
its colour; and its seeming size--if the simile of the lilies be
considered--may only be a license which poets are allowed. But the bard
of Tavistock, whose "oaten melodye" still rings sweet and clear, has
written too lovingly of trees to suppose he could perceive no use or
beauty in a striking vegetable growth; and therefore the particular
form he refers to would appear to have been a noxious one.

Surely, it was not the lovely mauve-coloured Cortinarius, that seeks
the "forest's shade"; the expanded pea-green cope of the sweet and
nutty Russula; or the glowing orange hood of the dulcet Lactarius
that incurred his disapproval! Nor can one conceive it to have been
the tall-stemmed, fluted-capped Coprinus, or the stylish parasolled
Lepiota, which stands as upright as the stilted Bartramian sandpiper,
and that is held in equal esteem by the epicure. Rather let us suppose
it was the great poison Amanita, which has slain its thousands, and
whose brilliant reds and salmons and yellows, and white scales borne
aloft on their hollow pedestal, cry aloud from every gill, "Beware!"
Or if it was not this or the equally deadly A. phalloides on which his
graceful sonnet was based, it must have been the Lycoperdon which cast
its shade upon the violets--the giant puff-ball that the poet did not
recognise as a valuable food product when neatly sliced and fried, and
that it is still the rule to kick out of one's way.

In like manner, one is curious to know what was the enormous fungus
or mushroom Thoreau describes as meeting on one of his rambles, and
which, in turn, incurs his malediction,--the huge thallogen he found
and plucked high up on the open side of a dry hill, in the midst of
and rising above the thin June grass, its sharply conical parasol in
the form of a sugarloaf slightly turned up at the edges, which were
rent half an inch for every inch or two. The whole length, he states,
was sixteen inches, the cap being six inches long by seven wide, the
stem about one inch in diameter and naked, the top of the cap pure
white within and without. He marvels how its soft cone ever broke
through the earth. It represents to him a vegetable force which may
almost make man tremble for his dominion. It carries him back to the
era of the formation of the coal measures, the age of the Saurus and
the Pliosaurus, when bull-frogs were as big as bulls. What part has it
to perform in the economy of the world? It brought before him pictures
of parasols of Chinese mandarins; or it might have been used by the
great fossil bull-frog in his walks. Returning home with it, he placed
it in the cellar to note its decay. Like the mighty, it fell. By night
there remained not more than two of the six inches of the height of the
cap, and it went on rapidly melting from the edges upward, spreading as
it dissolved till it was shaped like a dish-cover and the barrel head
beneath it and its own stem looked as if a large bottle of ink had been
broken there. It defiled all it touched. Is it not a giant mildew or
mould? he inquires. The offspring of a night, it was wasted in a day.
One thinks of Coprinus comatus--a colossal specimen of the "shaggy
mane"; and doubtless this was the species encountered by the Walden
sage, rearing its silver shaft through the thin June grass in his early
morning tramp to Pinxter Spring.

Who has not seen and wondered at the Fairy-ring, dotting the lawns or
pastures, with its eccentric habit of growing in circles or arcs of
circles, and shrinking and expanding under the influence of drought and
moisture? Yet how few are acquainted with its admirable qualities! But
even here one must distinguish between the false and the true, and not
mistake it for two of its genus, the poison buff-coloured Champignon
and poison Fairy-ring, which it resembles and with which it is
sometimes found associated. In like manner, the rufous hues of several
edible Russulas must not be confounded with the engaging crimsons of
the alveolate Boletus, or the brilliant shades of the unwholesome R.
emetica, one of the most tempting of fungi to the eye. Its glowing
satiny scarlet cap, set off by its white stem and gills, forms a dash
of colouration on the woodland carpet that immediately challenges
admiration. With various others of the alluring but dangerous fungi, it
suggests some luscious tropic fruit, the flame of tulips, or the flush
of Ghent azaleas. What a revel of reds, what greens and golds, what
soft violets and greys, what rich russets and maroons are not unfolded
by these strange fungoid flowers! The beefsteak-mushroom (Fistulina
hepatica) is familiar to many as it reveals its red velvety layers
or shelves on the dead trunks of oaks and chestnuts in the midsummer
woods. But despite its appetising name, it has a somewhat acid flavour
and leathery taste, and cannot be said to possess very palatable
qualities, conditions also shared by the common Agaricus ostreatus, or
oyster-mushroom.

While the canned French button-mushroom of commerce is not to be
compared with the same species in its freshly gathered stage, it is
nevertheless useful as a garnish, and possesses a certain flavour.
Far different is the large French cèpe, one of the most delicious
of esculents, corresponding to the German "Steinpilz" and our own
edible Boletus, which is much less known than it deserves to be. Of
the French Boletus there are two principal varieties--the _cèpe franc
à la tête noir_ or _charbonnier_, common to oak woods, and the _tête
rousse_ or _brune_, common to chestnut woods. The former is much more
esteemed, and is most abundant in the southern departments. These, like
the truffle in the preserved state, should be as fresh as possible,
and those of the previous autumn gathering, put up _au naturel_ in
large cans, be selected in preference. Boletus edulis, though not
over-plentiful with us, may be found during warm, damp weather
from July to September in woods and their margins, and sometimes
in open places. Prepared _à la bordelaise_, it is a most delicious
and nutritious dish, a form of preparation that may be utilised to
advantage with many other firm-fleshed species. Dumas' favourite mode
of preparing them was after Vuillemot's recipe; and for those who are
not fond of oil, which the bordelaise and provençale manner calls for,
this will doubtless prove more acceptable:

   "Cut and chop the stems, adding minced parsley, breadcrumbs,
   shallots, fresh butter, and a clove of chopped garlic; make
   a pâté of it all, season with salt, pepper, and a little
   allspice, garnish the bottom of the cèpes, sprinkle some
   breadcrumbs on top, brown in a hot oven, and serve."

Here again, as Baron Brisse would say, "the trouble is trifling and the
succulence extreme."

The United States has a number of edible Boleti, some distinctive
and some identical with the best French species. Unfortunately, the
genus contains several deleterious sorts, and these frequently are not
readily distinguishable from description alone. Several of the Boleti
have long been considered as among the most dangerous of the toadstool
or mushroom tribe; but recent investigations tend to show that the
majority are at least harmless, while many are most desirable.

Of Morels and puff-balls none is said to be poisonous. The puff-ball,
however, is unfit for eating, if not absolutely poisonous, after the
formation and ripening of its spores; and in gathering puff-balls
great care should be taken not to mistake for them several of the
poison Amanitas in their younger stage, these being similarly enveloped
in a spherical sack or volva. Most mushrooms, apart from the Amanitas,
are now regarded as not deadly poisonous. Indeed, McIlvaine declares
that R. emetica, which he and others repeatedly partook of in liberal
quantities while in the Carolinas, proved to be perfectly harmless.
The viscid, glutinous types, all the so-called trembling toadstools,
together with such as are unpleasant to the sense of smell, will of
course be shunned, while those not well acquainted with fungi will also
view with distrust the various beautiful and gorgeous species which
haunt the shade.

No reliance may be placed in the "test" of the silver spoon. The novice
should first of all familiarise himself with the more common species
through some of the less technical treatises, or take a practical
lesson from a specialist out of doors. The manner of distinguishing
doubtful varieties adopted by mycologists may also be utilised by the
amateur: first be guided by the shape and smell, being careful to avoid
all cup-shaped kinds, or those whose juices change colour on cutting;
then taste sparingly without swallowing, when, if not acrid, burning,
or disagreeable, a little of the juice may be swallowed the following
day, increasing the amount day by day, if no feelings of nausea occur,
until the wholesomeness of the species is demonstrated. By discarding
all kinds with cups or suggestion of cups, the Amanitas will be
avoided. "Any mushroom, _omitting the Amanita_, which is pleasant to
the taste and otherwise agreeable as to odour and texture when raw, is
probably harmless," says Gibson, "and may safely be thus _ventured on_
with a view of establishing its edibility." Still, it is always well,
even by the initiated, to remember the apothegm of Gavarni, "Mushrooms
are like men--the bad most closely counterfeit the good."

Of the scores of treatises devoted to the subject may be specially
instanced W. Hamilton Gibson's artistic volume,[54] the finely
illustrated "Report of the New York State Botanist,"[55] Professor
Atkinson's illustrated "Studies of American Fungi,"[56] and, finally,
Captain McIlvaine's elaborate and exhaustive monograph.[57]

Recipes for the cookery of mushrooms are abundant in the cook-books and
treatises on fungi; and, like the cook-books themselves, these vary
from good to bad and indifferent. Some general rules regarding their
proper preparation are well and briefly laid down by the Marquis de
Cussy in his "Art Culinaire":

   "This kind has a thick and firm texture--you will see that it
   is cooked long. This other has a fine and tender flesh--you
   will cook it gently in a hermetically sealed receptacle in
   order that its light particles, full of life and dainty
   fragrance, are not dissipated. If your mushrooms contain a
   fixed and resinous matter, sprinkle them with a dry wine to
   dissolve this sapid principle. With these plants you may make
   intoxicating mixtures, unique infusions. Turn to Carême, he
   will guide you and tell you what wine belongs to such and such
   kinds--whether Pomard with its fresh taste, or Saint-Georges;
   whether the delicate and sparkling Aï, or the stomachic
   Haut-Brion. Read also the witty and elegant pages of M. Joseph
   Roques."

The group of fungi known as mushrooms and toadstools constitutes a
valuable accessory, both in themselves and in their properties of
accentuating the flavour of other foods; and to those who are capable
of distinguishing their many delicious species they may form, through a
considerable portion of the year, a marked addition to the variety and
pleasures of the table.

  [Illustration]

  [Illustration: THE WOUNDED SNIPE

  From an engraving after A. Couquet, R.A.]




  [Illustration]




                          SALLETS AND SALADS

   "First then to speak of Sallets, there be some simple, some
   compounded, some only to furnish out the table, and some both
   for use and adornation."--GERVAISE MARKHAM: The
   English Housewife.


To remember a successful salad is generally to remember a successful
dinner; at all events, the perfect dinner necessarily includes the
perfect salad. The mere process of salad-making is among the most
simple of all those that appertain to the table: a little oil, a little
vinegar, of salt and pepper each a little, the onion and the mixing,
with such other herbs and condiments as the artist may elect. And yet
an unexceptionable salad is as rare in the average household as a piece
of old Gubbio, or a fine old Ghiordes prayer-rug. Seldom, indeed, is
this refreshing dish met with as one usually finds it in France--crisp,
tender, and appetising, with none of its ingredients perceptibly
dominant in the _liaison_ which, first pleasingly addressing the taste,
is afterwards destined to soothe and tranquillise digestion. The reason
is not difficult to analyse; the happy touch which is necessary in
salads and sauces being largely a matter of individual address and
a growth of advanced gastronomy. For in the preparing of salads no
formula that is absolute may be given, success depending upon practice,
a correct taste, and minute attention to detail. Here, as in everything
else that is faultless, care and experience are factors requisite to
attainment. But though an infallible recipe may not be laid down,
certain broad lines may be specified, the observance of which, with
application, will render a good salad possible even to the neophyte.

At every season of the year some of the innumerable products of the
vegetable world present themselves to be converted with the aid of the
caster from the crude into the finished form; and more is the pity
that the artists are not as numerous as the esculents. From the first
tributes of the hot-bed--the lettuces, radishes, and garden-cress
of early spring, and the cos, lettuces, and water-cresses of summer
to the endives of autumn and corn-salad and chicory of winter, one
has an abundance of material to choose from in what may be broadly
designated the lettuce tribe, alone. When to these are added other
esculents like celery, the tomato, cucumber, potato, beets, carrots,
beans, celery-root, celery-turnip, etc., together with the manifold
herbs and bulbous plants that may be utilised in connection with them,
surely the roast should never be lacking in this its most harmonious
_appoggiatura_, or the supper-table fail in one of its greatest
attractions.

The salad imparts a zest to the dinner that were otherwise
unattainable. What were those most delectable of game-birds that reward
the sportsman's skill--the snipe and the partridge--without it? It
was rightly held by Evelyn that sallets are an essential part of the
daily food of man, and that no dinner is complete without one; although
those who are not confirmed devotees of the salad-bowl might possibly
prove sceptical as to two forms which he specifies in "Sylva,"--"I am
told that those small young _Acorns_ which we find in the Stock-doves
Craws are a delicious fare, as well as those incomparable _Salads_ of
young herbs taken out of the maws of Partridge at a certain season of
the year, which gives them a preparation far exceeding all the art of
Cookery."

Of the virtues of lettuce, at any rate, there can be no doubt,
Parkinson having declared that "Lettices all cool a hot and fainting
stomache," and Gerarde averring that "Lettuce cooleth the heate of
the stomache, called the heart-burning, and helpeth it when it is
troubled with choller." And if these assertions be not sufficient,
we have Savarin's assurance that "salad refreshes without weakening,
and comforts without irritating"; not to mention the dictum of his
illustrious predecessor La Reynière, that "the inseparable partner
of the roast may reappear at each meal without ever wearying." In
1758 a German work by J. F. Schutze was published in Leipzig with the
title, "Treatise on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Salads." It
is difficult to imagine how a German could find aught but delight in
this form of food, unless the native black radish was alluded to, or
possibly the cucumber when improperly served. Rather let us at once
accept the unqualified encomium of Jack Cade while in Iden's Kentish
garden,--"I think this word 'sallet' was born to do me good." By the
majority, the name of Sydney Smith is held to be almost synonymous with
that of salad; and even though his recipe be widely familiar, it may
not be overlooked in considering the literature of gastronomy:

   "Our forte in the culinary line" [says the witty prelate] "is
   our salads; I pique myself on our salads. Saba always dresses
   them after my recipe. I have put it into verse. Taste it,
   and if you like it I will give it you. I was not aware how
   much it had contributed to my reputation till I met Lady----
   at Bowood, who begged to be introduced to me, saying she had
   so long wished to know me. I was of course highly flattered
   till she added, 'For, Mr. Smith, I have heard so much of your
   recipe for salads, that I was most anxious to obtain it from
   you.' Such and so various are the sources of fame.

    "To make this condiment your poet begs
    The pounded yellow of two hard-boil'd eggs;
    Two boiled potatoes, pass'd through kitchen sieve,
    Smoothness and softness to the salad give.
    Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
    And, scarce suspected, animate the whole.
    Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
    Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
    But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
    To add a double quantity of salt.
    Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca crown,
    And twice with vinegar procured from town;
    And, lastly, o'er the flavour'd compound toss
    A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.
    Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!
    'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
    Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
    And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.
    Serenely full, the epicure would say,
    'Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day.'"

This is the original and more familiar "A Recipe for Salad," as given
by the author's daughter, Lady Holland, in her "Memoir"--a recipe
that was subsequently placed by the gifted divine in somewhat altered
form, slightly abridged, and the quantity of the ingredients in one or
two instances slightly changed. In the variant it will be seen that
the portions of potato and anchovy were increased and the relative
quantities of oil and vinegar were amended.[58]

It is a question whether this celebrated recipe, so enthusiastically
expressed and so tempting to the uninitiated who would naturally be led
astray by the climax of the ode, has done more harm or more good in
the important interests of salad-making--whether the evil inculcated
in the prescription as a whole has not overbalanced the good results
of extolling the virtues of salad itself. The niceties of salad-making
are so subtle--so little may make or mar--it were unwise to prescribe
either eggs or potato to the inexperienced. The anchovy sauce must,
perforce, be banished as fatal; while mashed potatoes should always
be used with discretion. In corn-salad a little potato assuredly adds
to the unctuousness; and where lettuce is inclined to be tough or
stringy, it may be advantageously employed. It is likewise eminently
useful where the vinegar may have been dealt out too liberally. But
with tender, brittle, well-blanched cos or endive, who would think of
utilising either egg or potato! And how may mustard be appropriately
blended with chicory, water-cresses, or radishes, so rich themselves in
pungency? In the employment of condiments one should ever well consider
the special greenmeat to be treated, or what Montaigne has termed
"the differences of Sallets according to their seasons." Cayenne,
tabasco, and garlic are yet more dangerous in unpractised hands, and
may readily, like the brass of an orchestra run riot, drown with their
dissonance the _arpeggio_ passages and more dulcet notes of the other
instruments.

All things considered, the counsels to the little boys and girls in
the olden French reader, "Rôti-Cochon," such as "the ham of the pig,
well minced, is good to eat, but not without drinking," and "fresh
eggs and salt herrings are good for Lent and other days either fat or
meagre, according to one's appetite and the state of the market,"
are perchance safer gastronomic guides than the recipe of the worthy
English prebendary. For in any formula bearing upon the fashioning of
salads for the benefit of the many, it is better to hold strictly to
oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and onion, and thus create no confusion in
the mind of the tyro, who should proceed by degrees until he becomes
proficient in the art,--

    "And thus, complete in figure and in kind,
    Obtains at length the salad he designed."

But Sydney Smith has contributed such a host of good things, that
any slight divergence from orthodoxy in his salad may be freely
forgiven. Infinitely more baneful than anchovy sauce is the bottled
"salad-dressing" of commerce, in whatever guise it may appear--that
milky, mysterious compound which is set upon certain restaurant and
hotel tables, and through the cajoleries of the merchant-grocer
or blandishments of the advertiser often even invades otherwise
respectable households. As for the abominations that so frequently
masquerade as "pure olive-oil," and boldly flaunt themselves as "wine
vinegar" in many hostelries, they are too dreadful to consider;
and one's only recourse is to order them off, with the catsup,
pepper-sauce, sour pickles, and other "incongruities of good cheer,"
and subsist in imagination on the salads that have been.

If oil has been termed the soul of a salad, it is no less true that
vinegar is its _vivendi causâ_. There should be no trouble in procuring
excellent virgin olive-oil, French or Italian, at a moderate price.
It should be bright and limpid, and possess a delicate, not a strong
flavour of the olive from the first gentle pressing of the slightly
underripe fruit. The juice expressed by heavy crushing of overripe
fruit is to be avoided, being dark in colour and possessed of a strong
taste. No other product, however refined or clarified, or however
vaunted in the interests of trade, can take the place of olive-oil.
For those who are indifferent to quality, cottonseed oil, as well as
the juices of countless other seeds, will continue to be supplied or
used as adulterants in connection with olive-oil. Good oil, like good
wine, is a gift from the gods. The grape and the olive are among the
priceless benefactions of the soil, and were destined, each in its way,
to promote the welfare of man.

It is even more rare to find good vinegar than good oil or wine on the
average hotel, restaurant, or household table. Pure cider or sound wine
vinegar should alone be employed, and this is best obtained by making
it one's self and not trusting to the labels and brands of commerce.
The best wine vinegar is that made from red Bordeaux or red or white
Burgundy; the best cider vinegar being the product of fine, selected
apples like the Russet or Northern Spy, with absolute cleanliness in
manufacture. The liquid should draw clear and be possessed of a fresh
vinous fragrance; and no other material should be mixed with it than
what is necessary of the same kind for replenishing the barrel. Where
vinegar is excessively sharp, it may be corrected, when using, by
the addition of a little Bordeaux wine. Lemon juice is an excellent
substitute for vinegar where this may be lacking in quality; and by
some is preferred in the dressing of delicate salads like cos and
lettuce. The use of tarragon vinegar is extremely unadvisable in
company dinners. To many it is very disagreeable; and even to those who
might not be averse to it occasionally, its frequent abuse causes them
to anathematise instead of bless the architect of the salad.

As regards pepper, the adulterated powdered article is far superior
to the genuine Piper nigrum; the white pepper being the same
condiment freed from its outer husk by maceration in water and
subsequent rubbing. The genuine black peppercorn is much too spicy and
high-flavoured to enter largely as a salad component; and where it is
laboriously ground out from a mill at table, as is often the case,--the
host preoccupied with the task where he should be considering the
sequence and temperature of his wines,--it is always coarse; while
its pronounced resemblance to allspice mars the delicacy which is the
charm of a salad. Moreover, the energy which should be expended upon
the mixing, where the nature of the salad renders it advisable to be
made just before serving, is largely spent upon the exacting process of
turning the box-wood mill.[59]

"The difference between a perfect salad and one that has failed is
immense," says the observant Baron Brisse. It must be remembered that
in salad-making many forms of the crude material may not be prepared
to advantage immediately before serving. Among such may be included
corn-salad, dandelion, curled endive, cabbage, and all species of
lettuce, endive, or chicory that may be in the least coriaceous. These
require to be prepared a considerable period before using and to be
thoroughly mixed, even to pressing them with the fork and spoon,
in order that the dressing may be partly absorbed by the leaves to
render them tender. The same rule will apply to all species in which
the bitter element is pronounced. Thorough mixing should never be
neglected. The bowl should be ample, the material dry and freshly
plucked, and the onion, chives, parsley, celery, or whatever herbs are
employed should not be chopped until just before they are required.
Above all, a salad, like white wine, should be served cold.

The too frequent latter-day custom of creating a separate course
of salad and cheese, in order to prolong the number of courses, is
incongruous. The salad belongs to the roast, and it should not be
called upon to perform the service of a separate bridge between this
and the sweets. The mission of the salad is to correct the too liberal
ingestion of rich and fatty substances, to prepare for the dessert, to
stimulate and divert the taste, and to promote stomachic harmony at a
time when the appetite has begun to flag and the palate is impatient of
a long delay between the roast and the _demi-tasse_.

It is next to impossible, as has already been remarked, to give
absolute directions for the compounding of a salad, so far as the
precise amount of each component is concerned, some exacting more oil
and salt, some more vinegar and pepper than others--the acidity of
vinegar withal being an extremely variable quantity. Some are enhanced
by mustard or red pepper, and with some the pounded yellow of the
egg and mashed potato are improvements. The place of the salad, too,
requires to be considered--whether it is to be an accompaniment of the
roast or is designed as something more substantial for the luncheon
or supper-table. In the latter case a macédoine of freshly cooked
vegetables composed of beets, potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips,
Lima beans, cauliflower, celery-turnip, etc., might be excellent,
whereas it would hardly prove appropriate with roast game at the
dinner. After all,--to revert to formulas,--the best recipe for a
salad, perhaps, is the oft-quoted Spanish proverb which calls for a
quartet to compose it--a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a
counsellor for salt, and a madman for mixing.

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.

  [Illustration]




  [Illustration]




                          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.

  [Illustration: "APRÈS BON VIN"

  From the engraving by Eisen in Fermiers-Généreaux edition of the
  "Contes et Nouvelles" (1762)]

_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_.

The date of the introduction of plum-pudding and mince-pie is difficult
to ascertain. As early as 1424 appears a mention in an English bill of
fare of "Vyaunt ardent," which suggests the former and may have been
its precursor. The original recipe of either must have been formidable
to follow when one reflects how even now they are provocative of a
nightmare, unless executed by the deftest of hands. Plum-pudding
in anything like its present form does not appear in cookery books
anterior to 1675. Previous to this, plum-porridge, which always served
as a first course at Christmas, was prepared by boiling beef or mutton
with broth thickened by brown bread. When half cooked, raisins,
currants, prunes, cloves, nutmeg, mace, ginger, and other condiments
were added, and after the mixture had been thoroughly boiled it was
served with meats--a dish fit for the digestive capacities of Jack the
Giant-killer. An essentially English product, the plum-pudding has
rarely found favour in France, although Louis XVIII was accustomed to
serve it at Christmas, and it has long had a place on the menus of many
Parisian restaurants. A very elaborate recipe for "Plumbuting" is given
by Beauvilliers; but preferable to all formulas is the comparatively
simple one of Blot, a dish which may be digested as well as enjoyed,
and which is within the range of the average cook. Of course
plum-pudding is best during the holiday season, and best of all at the
feast of Christmas day.

Mince-pie is an ancient English dish which America has refined. The
Year-Book of William Hone of the early part of the past century
contains an extended "Ode to the Mince-Pye," which met the approbation
of Scott, Lamb, and Southey. In this it is referred to as the "King of
Cates,"

                    "whose pastry-bounded reign
    Is felt and own'd o'er pastry's wide domain:
    Whom greater gluttons own their sovereign lord
    Than ever bowed beneath the dubbing sword.

    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

    "Like Albion's rich plum-pudding, famous grown,
    The mince-pye reigns in realms beyond his own,
    Through foreign latitudes his power extends,
    And only terminates where eating ends.

    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

    "Sovereign of Cates, all hail! nor then refuse
    This cordial off'ring from an English muse,
    Who pours the brandy in libation free,
    And finds plum-pudding realiz'd in thee."

But of all forms of pie, that with the apple for its basis is doubtless
the most wholesome and by the majority is most relished. A woman who is
infallible in her apple-pies and successful with her sauces deserves
an annual trip abroad. But such, like first editions of "The Faerie
Queene," are rare. No better instructions regarding the fashioning of
apple-pies can be formulated than those of the late Henry Ward Beecher,
who so thoroughly understood women, gems, sweetmeats, and gardening.
His counsels are worthy of Elia, and the housewife should commit them
to memory:

   "There is, for example, one made without undercrust, in a deep
   plate, and the apples laid in full quarters; or the apples,
   being stewed, are beaten to a mush and seasoned and put
   between the double paste; or they are sliced thin and cooked
   entirely within the covers; or they are put without seasoning
   into their bed, and when baked the upper lid is raised and
   the butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sugar are added, the whole
   well mixed and the crust returned as if nothing had happened.
   But, oh! be careful of the paste! Let it be not like putty,
   nor rush to the other extreme and make it so flaky that one
   holds his breath while eating, for fear of blowing it away.
   Let it not be plain as bread, nor yet rich like cake. Aim
   at that glorious medium in which it is tender without being
   too fugaciously flaky; short without being too short; a mild,
   sapid, brittle thing, that lies upon the tongue, so as to
   let the apple strike through and touch the papillæ with a
   more affluent flavour. But this, like all high art, must be a
   thing of inspiration or instinct. A true cook will understand
   us, and we care not if others do not! Do not suppose that
   we limit the apple-pie to the kinds and methods enumerated.
   Its capacity in variation is endless, and every diversity
   discovers some new charm or flavour. It will accept almost
   every flavour of every spice. And yet nothing is so fatal to
   the rare and higher graces of apple-pie as inconsiderate,
   vulgar spicing. It is not meant to be a mere vehicle for the
   exhibition of these spices in their own natures; it is a
   glorious unity in which sugar gives up its nature as sugar,
   and butter ceases to be butter, and each flavoursome spice
   gladly vanishes from its own full nature, that all of them,
   by a common death, may rise into the new life of apple-pie.
   Not that apple is longer apple. It, too, is transformed; and
   the final pie, though born of apple, sugar, butter, nutmeg,
   cinnamon, lemon, is like none of these, but the compound ideal
   of them all, refined, purified, and by fire fixed in blissful
   perfection."

"Do you eat pie?" was once asked of Emerson. "What is pie for?" was
the ready and philosophic reply. "Pie, often foolishly abused," said
Artemus Ward, "is a good creature at the right time and in angles of
thirty or forty degrees, although in semicircles and quadrants it may
sometimes prove too much for delicate stomachs."

But think of the pies of two centuries ago! To appreciate the
improvement which has taken place in the dessert and the preparation
of sweet entremets, one has only to refer to Mrs. Glasse or
contemporaneous and previous treatises on cookery. One marvels equally
at the strange recipes, the assimilative prowess of the dames of yore,
and the progress of the centuries. Canon Barham, who never fails to
introduce his bills of fare, though these may not always be strictly
reliable from the point of view of the times and the manner of the
service, presents this in "The Lay of St. Romwold" as the termination
of an olden feast:

    "Then came 'sweets'--served in silver were tartlets and pies in
      glass,
    Jellies composed of punch, calves' feet, and isinglass,
    Creams and whipt-syllabubs, some hot, some cool,
    Blancmange, and quince-custards, and goosberry-fool."

This was long before the dessert proper--from the French _desservir_,
to clear the table--became an established course of the dinner; and
when the sweetened dishes of eld might scarcely figure under the pretty
Italian title of _Giardinetto_, or "little garden," sometimes applied
to the dessert, and suggestive of all that is fragrant and ambrosial.

While there is no reason for supposing that sweet champagne was not as
greatly relished by the women of Colonial times as it is to-day, it is
true, notwithstanding, that, owing to the greater need of economy, they
were obliged to be content for the most part with saccharine tipples
of a less expensive nature. Among such, besides mulled wine, was the
sack-posset, a favourite drink at weddings and social festivities,
borrowed from England, with its numerous ingredients, and favoured
alike by miss and matron. The recipe in rhyme for this concoction,
after Sir Fleetwood Fletcher, soon became as familiar as Sydney Smith's
recipe for salad in the following century:


   "A recipe for all Young Ladies that are going to be Married.
   To make a Sack-Posset:

    From famed Barbadoes on the Western Main
    Fetch sugar half a pound; fetch Sack from Spain
    A pint; and from the Eastern Indian Coast
    Nutmeg, the glory of our Northern toast;
    O'er flaming coals together let them heat
    Till the all-conquering Sack dissolves the sweet.
    O'er such another fire set eggs, twice ten
    New born from crowing cock and speckled hen;
    Stir them with steady hand, and conscience pricking
    To see the untimely fate of twenty chicken.
    From shining shelf take down your brazen skillet,
    A quart of milk from gentle cow will fill it;
    When boiled and cooked put milk and Sack to egg,
    Unite them firmly like the triple league.
    Then, covered close, together let them dwell
    Till Miss twice sings, 'You must not kiss and tell!'
    Each lad and lass snatch up their murdering spoon,
    And fall on fiercely like a starved dragoon."

Metheglin and negus were well known to our foremothers. There is no
record to show that they became partial to "sack," except as sweetened
and spiced according to the manner of posset. It is recorded, however,
that, eschewing the stronger punch composed of spirits, they were fond
of mulled wine, Malaga and Madeira, and were far from disdaining the
universal beverage, cider, even in its "hard" form, when mulled.

Cheese is naturally an obligatory portion of the dessert at all company
dinners--at least at all dinners where men are present. By dint of
persuasion, it has become tolerated by women, not a few of whom regard
it with favour if Rocquefort or Gorgonzola is in question, or even
Camembert or Brie when perfectly fresh. Its place in the order of the
dinner is a matter somewhat in dispute. It figures variously after
the roast,--as its successor before the sweets, or as the immediate
precursor of the _demi-tasse_,--and it is also asked to do duty with
the salad by some who elect to serve the salad as a course apart to
succeed the roast. On the continent of Europe it is generally supposed
to precede the coffee, after the sweets, and be ready for those who may
not care for them; in England it is often served with celery before
the dessert. The custom of serving it with the salad, which is purely
American, is certainly not to be commended. The mission of cheese is
twofold--to change the taste and to act as the concluding digestive.
To subserve the latter purpose it should be old, if of a fine-grained
kind; and as a digestive few such are equal to Rocquefort. As to its
proper place at dessert, it must be recognized that it accords best
with the coffee and final glass of port or other dessert wine where
these may be employed, and leaves the taste fresher when it concludes
the repast. Let appropriate sweets be served with it for those who
desire them, but let it not destroy the salad which belongs to the
roast, or anticipate the dulcitudes of the final course.

A chapter might be devoted to this suave product of the dairy, but it
will be sufficient to present a form of serving it that will appeal to
many, inclusive of woman. Like the _fondue_, it is of Swiss origin.
In Switzerland, where cheese figures largely, there is known to the
initiated a sweet entremets termed "the hunter's sandwich," composed
of bread, fresh butter, cheese, and honey in combination, its only
drawback being the too cloying nature of the honey. In America this
objection may be happily avoided by employing the nectar of the
sugar-maple in its stead, and the dish prove all the better either for
the sportsman out of doors or served at the dinner with the dessert.
On fresh bread cut in thin slices for its base, you will place a
layer of the freshest of butter, then a layer of Brie or other fresh
cream-cheese, and, finally, a gilding of maple-syrup. For the dessert
it may be shaped in various ways, and made as dainty as feminine
fingers can devise. Its virtues need no panegyric,--it will succeed
the ices with as buoyant a grace as the daffodil follows the snowdrop
of spring. Captivated by its charms, the epicure will say, with the
van-courier of Bishop Fuger in his chase for the ideal wine, "Est, est,
est"; while madame and mademoiselle will attach a new significance to
the poet's mellifluous lines,--

    "As the last taste of sweets is sweetest last,
    Writ in remembrance more than things long past."

With the dessert the dinner ends; and with it, also, properly
terminates a review of gastronomy. It may be asked, however, after the
somewhat extended reference to cooks and cookery and the literature
and ethics of the art, which of the numerous manuals referred to, or
of the countless existing works that have not been enumerated, is
the best and most serviceable for those who would perfect themselves
in the subtleties of the range. The question is easier asked than
answered. To specify any one authority, so far as any one writer on
cookery may be considered authoritative, were scarcely satisfactory--a
comprehensive answer being dependent to no inconsiderable extent upon
the tastes, adaptabilities, and qualifications of the person concerned.
As there is no one poet, moreover, who may satisfy all or even a single
individual, so there is no one author-cook or compiler who has yet
compassed the subject. "The cuisine," says Beauvilliers, "simple in its
origin, refined from century to century, has become a difficult art, a
complicated science on which many authors have written, without having
been able to embrace it in its entirety."

The model cook-book--the manual that should appeal to all, the vade
mecum that would instruct and delight the amateur, that would tell
him just what he should know, eliminating all he should not know--is
still numbered among things unaccomplished. So long as every chef is
jealous of his every competitor, so long as the professionalist writes
solely from the standpoint of his elaborately mounted kitchen, with no
deference to the requirements of the more modest household, so long as
works on cookery continue to be a mere dry digest of the preparation
of food, it will not be achieved. They have come nearer to such a work
in France. But who may say that even Dumas' sprightly though bulky
treatise is perfect, or that any of the voluminous "'Cuisiniers' des
Cuisiniers" has indicated the perfect road to happiness? And of the
enormous number of books on the subject, how many are not so technical
as to be of little service, or so lacking in comprehensive grasp as to
fall utterly short of their aim? The perfect cook-book, as near as a
cook-book can be perfect, has yet to find its author and its publisher.

  [Illustration: LE PÂTISSIER FRANÇAIS

  Facsimile of title-page]

It may be assumed, therefore, that it will be written by an amateur--a
man devoid of prejudices so far as any rivalry in his craft is
concerned, whose sole object will be to write for his own pleasure and
the gratification it will afford his readers. For, it will be readily
perceived, a cook-book for the professional is one thing; a manual for
the amateur, another.

To a lucid, delightful style and grace of expression its author will
unite the widest familiarity with the cuisine of the past and the
present. He will have at his beck and call a culinary library like that
of Baron Pichon, an executive genius equal to Carême's, a physiological
perceptivity rivalling that of Savarin, a knowledge of the subject in
all that relates to its material sense as great as La Reynière's. A man
of unbounded capacities, whose appetite can never be appeased, he will
himself have savoured the multitudinous dishes he treats of, before
recommending them to others of less assimilative capabilities than his
own. Thoroughly conversant with hygiene and the constituent elements of
foods, he will add, as it were, to the qualifications of a gourmet and
epicurean mentor, the knowledge of a physician and chemist, or one who
can distinguish the digestive sequents of different articles of diet.

He will be a learned œnologist as well, acquainted with the wines
of all countries, their best growths and most desirable vintages; as
also the widely varying effects upon the system of different wines.
Endowed with perfect physical faculties, furthered by long intimacy
with and daily use of wine, his sense of taste and smell will have
attained the highest possible development, enabling him to trace and
compare the flavours and ethers of different growths; thus indicating
what one should avoid, as also what one should choose, according to
individual requirements. Supplementing his monograph on wines will
occur as its natural consequent a profound dissertation on gout,
dealing at length with the true causes of the malady in all its phases,
and indicating a cure within the power of the wine-drinker to compass
without abstaining from the beverage he loves. Some magical lozenge
that is guileless of colchicum, some marvellous elixir distilled in the
alembics of the past, or some special essence of the vine itself will
be prescribed, to be taken with the dinner, when the afflicted may once
more eat and drink in moderation, "without fear and without reproach."

The author will have travelled far and wide, and will intelligently
contribute the spoils of his gastronomic chase, retrenching from a dish
here and elaborating there, if need be, as he dispenses his appetising
formulas. Yet so delicate his taste, of such discriminating nicety
his judgment, that, barring individual dislikes for certain aliments,
one may trust implicitly to the form of preparation he prescribes.
From the manuscripts of the ancient monks he will have rescued many
a simple though priceless dish, and from Baudelaire, Théodore de
Banville, and Jules Janin have committed many an unpublished poem of
the table to his storehouse of delights. And while conversant with
all that is best in existing works by the great masters of the art,
as well as the lesser lights of the science, and quoting freely from
them, he will nevertheless avoid the elaborate recipes and interminable
menus that Gouffé and others pride themselves upon, which require a
maître-d'hôtel to understand, a corps of assistants to execute, and
a Crœsus to liquidate. Spiced with anecdote and seasoned with
humour and philosophy, his chapters will glide on in lucid flow, and
his recipes leave no nightmares behind. His text will be free from
grossness, and be tainted with no worn-out aphorisms; so clear that
all may understand, and, understanding, turn its counsels to practical
account.

He will be familiar, as a sportsman, with game; and will have
contemplated the masterpieces of Weenix, Sneyders, and Hondius to
impart additional colour in his references to the wild furred and
feathered tribes. And to the further embellishment of his text, he will
also have studied the other great pictures of still-life of the old
Dutch and Flemish schools,--the fowls of Hondecoeter; the fruits of
Utrecht and De Heem; the fishes of Seghers; the flower-laden tables of
Van Huysum and Jan Fyt; the kitchen-pieces beloved by Metzu and Zorg;
the eating-bouts of Brockenburg; the gay _Kermesse_ and merrymakings
of Brouwer, Teniers, and Ostade. Nor will his knowledge of the
products of the vegetable world, apart from those employed for food
alone,--the spices and condiments that make or mar a dish, that aid
or harm digestion,--be less carefully set forth upon his golden page.
The volumes will be small, so they may be unburdensome to peruse, as
inviting in their letterpress as the daintiest of Elzevirs. In fine,
a combination of the qualities of the scholar, the master-cook, the
painter, the gastronomer, the sportsman, and the pantologist, assisted
by the skill of the bookmaker and etcher, will be required to compose
the cook-book par excellence.

In the interval, while it yet slumbers upon the shelves of dreamland,
one must remain satisfied as nearly as may be with the manuals that are
already accessible; and, like the wind in the trees, draw a note here
and a chord there from the existing strings of the harp of Good Cheer.

  [Illustration]




                             BIBLIOGRAPHY


A few among English, American, and French works, both ancient and
modern, that relate to gastronomy and cookery are presented herewith.
As may be perceived at a glance, the list is not intended to be
comprehensive, so multitudinous are the monographs relating to the
subject, but a mere index or signboard pointing to the nature of
the vast and varied literature, both good, bad, and indifferent,
that the topic has inspired. Works relating strictly to wines and
alcoholic beverages have not been included, as these, though intimately
connected with the table, belong more properly to a volume on the
cellar itself. It will be observed that works by women predominate in
the English language, whereas, in French, masculinity for the greater
part has superintended the larder and the saucepans and elaborated the
literature of the art. The scholar who is especially interested in the
bibliography of gastronomy may be referred to the valuable work of M.
Georges Vicaire as the most comprehensive on the theme, particularly so
far as foreign contributions to epulary literature are concerned.


Evelyn (John). ACETARIA: A DISCOURSE OF SALLETS, 1706. (8vo.)

THE AMERICAN SALAD-BOOK. By Maximilian De Loup. Second Edition. New
York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1900. (8vo.) pp. 144.

Warner (Rev. Richard). ANTIQUITATES CULINARIÆ; OR, CURIOUS TRACTS
RELATING TO THE CULINARY AFFAIRS OF THE OLD ENGLISH. London: Printed
for R. Blamire, 1791. (4to) pp. 137.

APICIAN MORSELS; OR, TALES OF THE TABLE, KITCHEN, AND LARDER. By Dick
Humelbergius Secundus. New York: J. & J. Harper, 1829. (8vo) pp. 212.
(A volume largely pirated from Grimod de la Reynière.)

King (Wm.). THE ART OF COOKERY. A Poem in Imitation of Horace's Art of
Poetry. By the Author of a Tale of a Tub. _Coqus omnia miscet_--Juven.
London: Printed, and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London and
Westminster, 1708. (Small folio) pp. 22.

King (Wm.). THE ART OF COOKERY. With some Letters to Dr. Lister and
Others, etc., to which is added Horace's Art of Poetry, in Latin.
Printed for Bernard Lintott, 1740. (8vo) pp. 160.

Hayward (Anthony). THE ART OF DINING; OR, GASTRONOMY AND GASTRONOMERS.
London: John Murray, 1852. (4½ x 7 in.) pp. 137.

BANQUETT OF DAINTIES: FOR ALL SUCHE GESTS THAT LOUE MODERATT DYATE. By
Theo. Hackett. London, 1566. (8vo) pp. 42.

Murrey (Thomas J.). THE BOOK OF ENTRÉES. New York: White, Stokes &
Allen, 1886. (4¼ x 6 in.)

Farmer (Fannie Merritt). THE BOSTON COOKING-SCHOOL COOK BOOK. By Fannie
Merritt Farmer, Principal of the Boston Cooking School. Boston: Little,
Brown & Co., 1896. (8vo) pp. xxx, 567.

BREAKFAST, DINNER, AND TEA: VIEWED CLASSICALLY, POETICALLY AND
PRACTICALLY. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1869. (6 x 7½ in.) pp. 351.

BREAKFASTS, LUNCHEONS AND DINNERS AT HOME. How to Order, Cook, and
Serve Them. By Short. Sixth Edition. London: Kerby & Endean, 1886.
(8vo) pp. 204.

CASSELL'S DICTIONARY OF COOKERY. With Numerous Engravings and Coloured
Plates, Containing About 9000 Recipes. London, Paris, and New York:
Cassell, Petter & Galpin. n. d. (Large 8vo) pp. xcvi, 1178.

Ronald (Mary). THE CENTURY COOK-BOOK. New York: The Century Co., 1895.
(8vo) pp. 587.

THE CHAFING-DISH SUPPER. By Christine Terhune Herrick. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899. (12mo) pp. 112.

A CLOSET FOR LADIES AND GENTLEMEN; OR, THE ART OF PRESERVING,
CONSERVING AND CANDYING. With the Manner how to make Diverse Kindes of
Syrupes, and All Kinde of Banquetting Stuffes, etc. London: Printed for
Arthur Johnson, 1618. (16mo) pp. 190.

THE CLOSET OF THE EMINENTLY LEARNED SIR KENELME DIGBY, KT., OPENED.
Whereby is Discovered several ways for Making of Metheglin, Syder,
Cherry-Wine, etc., Together with Excellent Directions for Cookery, as
also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, etc. London, 1677. (12mo.)

Carter (Charles). THE COMPLEAT CITY AND COUNTRY COOK; OR, ACCOMPLISH'D
HOUSEWIFE. Containing Several Hundred of the Most Approv'd Receipts
in Cookery, Confectionary, etc. Illustrated with Forty-nine large
Copper-plates. London, 1732. (8vo) pp. 280.

Peckham (Ann). THE COMPLETE ENGLISH COOK; OR, PRUDENT HOUSEWIFE. Being
a Collection of the Most General, yet Least Expensive Receipts in Every
Branch of Cookery and Good Housewifery, etc. By Ann Peckham, of Leeds.
The Third Edition. Leeds, 1770. (12mo) pp. 242.

THE COMPLETE FAMILY PIECE. A very Choice Collection of Receipts in
Cookery. Seventh Edition. London, 1744. (8vo.)

Smith (E.). THE COMPLETE HOUSEWIFE; OR, ACCOMPLISHED GENTLEWOMAN'S
COMPANION. Being a Collection of upwards of Seven Hundred of the Most
Approved Receipts in Cookery, Pastry, Confectionary, etc., etc. The
Seventeenth Edition, with Additions. London: Printed for J. Buckland,
etc., 1766. (8vo.) pp. 364.

THE COMPLETE SERVANT-MAID. London, 1682. (12mo.)

THE COOK-BOOK. By "Oscar" of the Waldorf (Oscar Tschirky, Maître
d'Hôtel, the Waldorf). Chicago and New York: The Werner Co., 1896.
(Large 4to) pp. 907.

Reeve (Mrs. Henry). COOKERY AND HOUSEKEEPING. A Manual of Domestic
Economy for Large and Small Families. Fourth Edition. London and New
York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1888. (8vo) pp. 540.

Kitchener (Dr. Wm.). THE COOK'S ORACLE. Fourth Edition. London, 1822.
(4½ x 7½ in.) pp. xviii, 545.

Athenæus. THE DEIPNOSOPHISTS; OR, BANQUET OF THE LEARNED OF ATHENÆUS.
Literally Translated by C. D. Yonge, B.A. 3 vols. London: Henry C.
Bohn, 1854. (5 x 7½ in.)

Child (Theodore). DELICATE FEASTING. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890.
(5½ x 6½ in.) pp. 214.

Newnham-Davis (Lieut.-Col.). DINNERS AND DINERS: WHERE AND HOW TO DINE
IN LONDON. A New Enlarged and Revised Edition. London: Grant Richards,
1901. (5 x 7 in.) pp. 376.

Harland (Marion). THE DINNER YEAR-BOOK. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1878. (8vo) pp. 713.

DOMESTIC COOKERY (A NEW SYSTEM OF), FORMED UPON PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMY.
By a Lady. A New Edition, Corrected. London: John Murray, 1814. (4 x 7
in.) pp. xxx, 352.

EARLY ENGLISH MEALS AND MANNERS. London: The Early English Text
Society, 1868. (5½ x 8½ in.)

Hoy (Albert Harris, M.D.). EATING AND DRINKING: THE ALKALINITY OF THE
BLOOD. The Test of Food and Drink in Health and Disease. Chicago: A. C.
McClurg & Co., 1896. (5½ x 8 in.) pp. 304.

EGG COOKERY: ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY WAYS OF COOKING AND SERVING EGGS. By
Alfred Suzanne, Twenty-eight Years Chef to the Earl of Wilton, now Chef
to the Duke of Bedford. Second Edition. London: Newton & Eskell, 1887.
(12mo) pp. 97.

THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF PRACTICAL COOKERY. A Complete Dictionary of all
pertaining to the Art of Cookery and Table Service, Illustrated with
Coloured Plates and Engravings by Harold Furness, George Cruikshank, W.
Munn Andrew, and others. Edited by Thomas Francis Garrett, etc., etc.,
etc. London: L. Upcott Gill. Philadelphia: Hudson Importing Co. 8 vols.
(Large 4to) pp. 1898.

Markham (G.). THE ENGLISH HOUSEWIFE. Containing the Inward and Outward
Vertues which ought to be in a Compleat Woman, etc., etc. Eighth
Edition. London: George Sawbridge, 1675. (6 x 7¾ in.) pp. 188.

AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. Notes and Recollections. Two vols. in one. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. (Town and Country Library). (12mo) pp. 478.

THE EPICUREAN. A Complete Treatise of Analytical and Practical Studies
on the Culinary Art. By Charles Ranhofer, Chef of Delmonico's.
Illustrated with 800 Plates. New York: Charles Ranhofer, 1894. (Large
4to) pp. 1183.

Raffald (Elizabeth). THE EXPERIENCED ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPER. For the Use
and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers, and Cooks, etc. Wrote purely from
Practice, etc. The Third Edition. London: R. Baldwin, 1773. (8vo) pp.
366.

THE EXPERT WAITRESS. A Manual for the Pantry, Kitchen, and Dining-room.
By Anne Frances Springsteed. New York and London: Harper & Bros., 1902.
(12mo) pp. 131.

Pennell (Elizabeth Robins). THE FEASTS OF AUTOLYCUS: THE DIARY OF A
GREEDY WOMAN. London: John Lane. New York: The Merriam Co., 1896. (5 x
7 in.) pp. 264.

FIFTY DINNERS. By A. Kenney Herbert ("Wyvern"). London and New York:
Edward Arnold, 1895. (12mo) pp. 188.

FOOD AND FEEDING. By Sir Henry Thompson, Bart. Tenth Edition. London
and New York: Frederick Warne & Co., 1899. (8vo) pp. 312.

FOOD MATERIALS AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS. By Ellen H. Richards. New
Edition. Boston: Home Science Publishing Co., 1898. (Small 4to) pp. 183.

GASTRONOMY AS A FINE ART. A Translation of the Physiologie du Goût of
Brillat-Savarin. By R. E. Anderson, M.A. London: Chatto & Windus, 1877.
(5¼ x 7¼ in.) pp. xxxvii, 280.

Dawson (Thos.). THE GOOD HUSWIUVE'S JEWELL. In two Parts. London,
1596-7. (16mo.)

Brugière (Sarah Van Buren). GOOD LIVING. A Practical Cookery-book for
Town and County. Second Edition. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1890.
(8vo) pp. 606.

A HANDBOOK OF GASTRONOMY. New and Complete Translation of
Brillat-Savarin's Physiologie du Goût. With 52 Original Etchings by A.
Lalauze; Preface by Charles Monselet. London: John C. Nimmo. New York:
J. W. Bouton, 1884. (Tall 8vo) pp. 516.

Blot (Pierre). HANDBOOK OF PRACTICAL COOKERY. For Ladies and
Professional Cooks. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888. (5 x 7½ in.) pp.
478.

HEALTH'S IMPROVEMENT; OR, RULES COMPRISING AND DISCOVERING THE NATURE,
METHOD AND MANNER OF PREPARING ALL SORTS OF FOOD USED IN THIS NATION.
Written by that ever Famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick;
Corrected and Enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in Physick, and
Fellow of the Colledge of Physitions in London, 1655. (Small 4to.)

Larwood (Jacob) and Hotten (John Camden). THE HISTORY OF SIGNBOARDS.
Third Edition. London: John Camden Hotten, 1866. (5½ x 6½ in.) pp. 536.

Harrison (Mrs. Sarah). THE HOUSEKEEPER'S POCKET BOOK, AND COMPLEAT
FAMILY COOK. Containing above Seven Hundred Curious and Uncommon
Receipts, etc., etc. London: Printed for R. Ware, 1751. (12mo) pp. 268.

ICE-CREAM AND CAKES. A New Collection of Standard Fresh and Original
Receipts for Household and Commercial Use, by an American. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1883. (8vo) pp. 384.

I GO A-MARKETING. By Henrietta Sowle ("Henriette"). Boston: Little,
Brown & Co., 1900. (8vo) pp. 237.

LEAVES FROM OUR TUSCAN KITCHEN; OR, HOW TO COOK VEGETABLES. By Janet
Ross. London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1899. (12mo) pp. 150.

MRS. LINCOLN'S BOSTON COOK-BOOK. What To Do and What Not To Do in
Cooking. Revised Edition. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1901. (8vo) pp.
578.

Farley (John). THE LONDON ART OF COOKERY AND HOUSEKEEPER'S COMPLETE
ASSISTANT. On a New Plan made Plain and Easy to every Housekeeper,
Cook, and Servant in the Kingdom, etc., etc. London: Printed for J.
Scatcherd and J. Whitaker, 1790. (8vo) pp. 459.

THE MAJESTIC FAMILY COOK-BOOK. By Adolph Gallier. Containing 1300
Selected Recipes Simplified for the Use of Housekeepers. New York: G.
P. Putnam's Sons, 1897. (8vo) pp. 419.

MRS. A. B. MARSHALL'S LARGE COOKERY BOOK OF EXTRA RECIPES. With 284
Illustrations. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton Kent & Co., 1894.
Sixth thousand. (Tall 8vo) pp. 656.

Ellwanger (George H.). MEDITATIONS ON GOUT: With a Consideration of Its
Cure Through the Use of Wine. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1898. (5 x 6¾
in.) pp. xvi, 208.

MEMOIRS OF A STOMACH. Written by Himself, That All Who Eat May Read.
With Notes Critical and Explanatory. By a Minister of the Interior.
London: W. E. Painter, 1853. (5¼ x 6¾ in.) pp. 135.

Francatelli (Charles Elmé). THE MODERN COOK. A Practical Guide to the
Culinary Art in All its Branches. Twenty-sixth Edition. Philadelphia:
David McKay. (Tall 8vo) pp. 592.

La Chapelle (Vincent). THE MODERN COOK. By Mr. Vincent La Chapelle,
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MODERN METHOD OF REGULATING AND FORMING A TABLE EXPLAINED AND
DISPLAYED. Containing a great Variety of Dinners laid out in the most
elegant taste, finely represented on 152 large copperplates with
descriptions, also 12 elegant dinners for different seasons of the
year, list of such particulars as are in season for the use of Ladies
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MOTHER HUBBARD'S CUPBOARD. Receipts Collected by the Young Ladies'
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A NOBLE BOKE OF COOKRY (1467). Edited by Mrs. Alexander Napier. London:
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MISS PARLOA'S KITCHEN COMPANION. A Guide for All who would be Good
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Marnette (M.). THE PERFECT COOK. Being the most exact Directions for
the making of all kind of Pastes, etc., as also the Perfect English
Cook, or right method of the whole Art of Cookery, with the true
ordering of French, Spanish, and Italian Kickshaws, with A-la-mode
Varieties for Persons of Honour. London: Printed for Obadiah Blagrave,
1686. (12mo.)

PHILOSOPHER'S BANQUET (THE). Newly furnished and decked forth with much
variety of many several Dishes, etc. By W. B. London, 1633. (12mo.)

Hill (Janet McKenzie). PRACTICAL COOKING AND SERVING. A Compleat Manual
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THE QUEEN'S CLOSET OPENED. Incomparable Secrets in Physick, Chyrurgery,
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MRS. RORER'S PHILADELPHIA COOK-BOOK. A Manual of Home Economics.
Philadelphia: Arnold & Co. (8vo) pp. 581.

ROUND THE TABLE: NOTES ON COOKERY AND PLAIN RECIPES. With a Selection
of Bills of Fare for Every Month. By "The G. C." London: Horace Cox,
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Gouffé (Jules). THE ROYAL COOKERY BOOK (LE LIVRE DE CUISINE).
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Lamb (Patrick). ROYAL COOKERY; OR, THE COMPLEAT COURT-COOK. Containing
the choicest Receipts in all the several Branches of Cookery, viz.,
for making of Soops, Bisques, Olios, Terrines, Surtouts, Ragoos,
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MRS. SEELY'S COOK-BOOK. A Manual of French and American Cookery, etc.,
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SPON'S HOUSEHOLD MANUAL. A Treasury of Domestic Receipts and Guide for
Home Management. London: E. & F. N. Spon. New York: Spon & Chamberlain,
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THE TABLE. How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It. By
Alessandro Filippini. Revised Edition. New York: The Merriam Co., 1895.
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THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX MENUS AND RECIPES OF THE BARON BRISSE. In
French and English. Translated by Mrs. Matthew Clark. Sixth Edition.
London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1888. (8vo) pp. xvi,
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Peck (Harry Thurston). TRIMALCHIO'S DINNER. Translated from the
Original Latin of Petronius Arbiter. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1898.
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TWO FIFTEENTH CENTURY COOKERY BOOKS. Harleian MS. 279 and Harleian MS.
4016. London: The Early English Text Society, 1848. (5½ x 8½ in.) pp.
xix, 151.

THE WHITE HOUSE COOK-BOOK. A Comprehensive Cyclopedia of Information
for the Home, Containing Cooking, Toilet and Household Recipes, Menus,
Dinner-giving, Table Etiquette, etc. By Hugo Ziemann and Mrs. F. L.
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508.

       *       *       *       *       *

ALMANACH DE LA SALLE À MANGER RÉDIGÉ PAR DES GOURMETS LITTÉRAIRES ET
DES MAÎTRES DE BOUCHE. Paris: Bureau du Journal la Salle à Manger,
1865. (16mo) pp. 176.

ALMANACH DE LA TABLE, 1846. Avec la carte gastronomique de Paris.
Paris, 1845. (32mo) pp. 128.

ALMANACH DES CHASSEURS ET DES GOURMANDS. Paris: Au Dépot de Librairie,
Rue des Moulins. s. d. (12mo) pp. 144.

La Reynière (Grimod de). ALMANACH DES GOURMANDS; OU, CALENDRIER
NUTRITIF SERVANT DE GUIDE DANS LES MOYENS DE FAIRE EXCELLENTE CHÈRE.
Suivi de l'itinéraire d'un Gourmand dans divers quartiers de Paris, et
de quelques variétés morales, nutritives, anecdotes gourmandes, etc.
Par un vieil amateur. Paris: Chez Maradan, 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806,
1807, 1808; chez Joseph Chaumerot, 1810, 1812. (18mo) pp. 247, 282,
342, 336, 362, 331, 340, 360.

Raisson (Horace). ALMANACH PERPÉTUEL DES GOURMANDS. Contenant le Code
Gourmand. Sixième édition, et des explications et méditations de
gastronomie transcendante. Paris, au Palais Royal, 1829. (18mo.)

ALMANACH PERPÉTUEL DES PAUVRES DIABLES POUR SERVIR DE CORRECTIF À
L'ALMANACH DES GOURMANDS. A Paris, chez Madame Caillot, 1803. (18mo)
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Gérard (Charles). L'ANCIENNE ALSACE À TABLE. ETUDE HISTORIQUE ET
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ANTIGASTRONOMIE (L'); OU, L'HOMME DE VILLE SORTANT DE TABLE. Poème
en IV chants. Manuscrit trouvé dans un pâté et augmenté de remarques
importantes, avec figure. A Paris, chez Hubert et C^{ie}, 1806. (12mo)
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Fulbert-Dumonteil. L'ART DE BIEN MANGER. Fins et joyeux croquis
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Colnet. L'ART DE DÎNER EN VILLE À L'USAGE DES GENS DE LETTRES. Poème en
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Carême (A.). L'ART DE LA CUISINE FRANÇAISE AU DIX-NEUVIÈME SIÈCLE,
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Beauvilliers (A.). L'ART DU CUISINIER. Par A. Beauvilliers, Ancien
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Vincard (Pierre). LE BANQUET DES SEPT GOURMANDS, ROMAN GASTRONOMIQUE.
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Vicaire (Georges). BIBLIOGRAPHIE GASTRONOMIQUE. La cuisine--La
Table--L'Office--Les Aliments--Les Vins--Les Cuisiniers et
les Cuisinières--Les Gourmands et les Gastronomes. L'Economie
domestique--Facéties--Dissertations singulières. Pièces de Théâtre,
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Dubarry (Armand). LE BOIRE ET LE MANGER. Histoire Anecdotique des
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CHANSONNIER (LE NOUVEAU) DE LA TABLE ET DU LIT. Paris: Davi et Locard,
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Jobey (Charles). LA CHASSE ET LA TABLE. Nouveau traité en vers et en
prose donnant la manière de chasser, de tuer, et d'apprêter le gibier.
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CLASSIQUES (LES) DE LA TABLE, À L'USAGE DES PRACTITIENS ET DES GENS DU
MONDE. Beau volume de 550 pages, avec les portraits gravés au burin
par nos premiers artistes, de M. le Prince de Talleyrand, M. Grimod de
la Reynière, Berchoux, Marquis de Cussy, Colnet, feu le Docteur Marcel
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Asseline (Alfred). LE CŒUR ET L'ESTOMAC. Paris: Michel Lévy
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CONTENANCE (LA) DE LA TABLE. Nouvellement imprimée à Paris. (Poème.)
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Dubois (Urbain). LA CUISINE CLASSIQUE. Etudes pratiques, raisonnées et
démonstratives de l'école française par Urbain Dubois et Emile Bernard,
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Dubois (Urbain). LA CUISINE D'AUJOURDHUI, ÉCOLE DES JEUNES CUISINIERS.
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CUISINE (LA) DE NOS PÈRES. L'Art d'accomoder le Gibier suivant les
Principes de Vatel et des Grands Officiers de Bouche. Deux cents
recettes à la portée de Tout le Monde. Paris: Librairie Illustrée,
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CUISINE (LA) DE SANTÉ. Préservatif des Maladies. Paris: Audot;
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Dubois (Urbain). CUISINE DE TOUS LES PAYS. Paris: Dentu, 1901. (Large
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Durand (C.). CUISINE DU MIDI ET DU NORD. Paris: Garnier Frères, 1877.
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Le Cointe (Jourdan). LE CUISINIER DES CUISINIERS; OU, L'ART DE LA
CUISINE ENSEIGNÉ ÉCONOMIQUEMENT D'APRÈS LES PLUS GRANDS MAÎTRES ANCIENS
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Martin (Alexandre). LE CUISINIER DES GOURMANDS; OU, LA CUISINE MODERNE.
Enseignée d'après les plus grands maîtres par A. Martin, auteur du
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CUISINIER (LE) DE TOUT LE MONDE, OU LA CUISINE SANS CUISINIER. Paris:
Bureau de l'Encyclopédie, 1835. (18mo) pp. 240.

CUISINIÈRE (LA) BOURGEOISE. Suivie de l'office à l'usage de tous ceux
qui se mêlent de dépenses de maisons. A Paris, chez Guillyn, 1746.
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CUISINIÈRE (NOUVELLE) CANADIENNE. Montréal, 1865. (18mo.)

Ebert (Jenny-Lena). LA CUISINIÈRE SUISSE. Nouveau manuel de cuisine
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Breteuil (Jules). LE CUISINIER EUROPÉEN. Ouvrage contenant les
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La Varenne. LE CUISINIER FRANÇOIS; OU, L'ECOLE DES RAGOÛTS. Où est
enseigné la manière d'apprêter toutes sortes de viandes, de pâtisseries
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Garlin, de Tonnere. LE CUISINIER MODERNE; OÙ LES SECRETS DE L'ART
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d'un Dictionnaire Complet des Termes Techniques. Paris: Garnier Frères,
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Carême (A.). LE CUISINIER PARISIEN; OU, L'ART DE LA CUISINE FRANÇAISE
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DESSERT (LE) DU GASTRONOME, CHANSONNIER DES AMATEURS DE LA TABLE. A
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Burnet. DICTIONNAIRE DE CUISINE ET D'ECONOMIE MÉNAGÈRE. A l'usage des
Maîtres et Maîtresses de Maison, Fermiers, Maîtres d'Hôtel, Chefs de
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Gardeton (César). LE DIRECTEUR DES ESTOMACS; OÙ, INSTRUCTION PRATIQUE
SUR LA NATURE, LES QUALITÉS ET LES PROPRIÉTÉS DE CHAQUE ESPÈCE
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L'ECOLE PARFAITE DES OFFICIERS DE BOUCHE QUI ENSEIGNE LES DEVOIRS DU
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Husson (C.). ETUDE SUR LES EPICES, AROMATES, CONDIMENTS, SAUCES ET
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FESTIN JOYEUX; OÙ, LA CUISINE EN MUSIQUE, EN VERS LIBRES. A Paris, chez
Lesclapart Père, 1738. (12mo.)

GARGANTUINA (LE NOUVEAU); OÙ, LE GASTRONOME DES GASTRONOMES. Recueil
amusant et curieux sur les plus fameux Gastronomes de France et de tous
les autres pays, etc., etc. Paris: Chassaignon, 1839. (12mo) pp. 110.

Fos (Léon de). GASTRONOMANIA. Proverbes--Aphorismes--Préceptes et
Anecdotes en Vers, précédés de Notes relatives à l'Histoire de la
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GASTRONOME (LE) FRANÇAIS; OÙ, L'ART DE BIEN VIVRE. Par les anciens
Auteurs du Journal des Gourmands, MM. G. D. L. R***, D. D***,
Gastermann, G***, Clytophon, Charles Sartrouville, C. L. C***, C***,
Marie de Saint-Ursin, B***, etc. Paris: Charles-Béchet, 1828. (8vo) pp.
503.

GASTRONOME (LE MANUEL DU); OÙ, NOUVEL ALMANACH DES GOURMANDS. Paris:
Lébige, 1830. (3½ x 6 in.) pp. 246.

GASTRONOMIANA; OU, RECUEIL CURIEUX ET AMUSANT D'ANECDOTES, BONS MOTS,
PLAISANTERIES, MAXIMES ET RÉFLEXIONS GASTRONOMIQUES. Précédé d'une
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Berchoux (J. de). LA GASTRONOMIE. Poème en Quatre Chants publiée avec
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Gardeton (César). LA GASTRONOMIE POUR RIRE; OU, ANECDOTES, RÉFLEXIONS,
MAXIMES ET FOLIES GOURMANDES SUR LA BONNE CHÈRE, LES INDIGESTIONS, LE
VIN, LES IVROGNES, LES BUVEURS D'EAU, LES GOURMANDS, LA GOURMANDISE,
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GASTRONOMIE (LA), REVUE DE L'ART CULINAIRE ANCIEN ET MODERNE. Redigé
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Nicolardot (Louis). HISTOIRE DE LA TABLE. Curiosités Gastronomiques de
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Verdot (C.). HISTORIOGRAPHIE DE LA TABLE; OU, ABRÉGÉ HISTORIQUE,
PHILOSOPHIQUE, ANECDOTIQUE ET LITTÉRAIRE DES SUBSTANCES ALIMENTAIRES ET
DES OBJETS QUI LEUR SONT RELATIFS, DES PRINCIPALES FÊTES, MŒURS,
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Gaubert. HYGIÈNE DE LA DIGESTION. Suivi d'un nouveau dictionnaire des
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Seignobos (Mme.). LE LIVRE DES PETITS MÉNAGES. Ouvrage contenant 206
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d'habiller toute sorte de viandes--le tout revue nouvellement. Lyon:
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Fournier (Edouard). LIVRE D'OR DES MÉTIERS. Histoire des hôtelleries,
cabarets, hôtels garnis, restaurants et cafés et des anciennes
communautés et confréries d'hôteliers, des marchands de vins, de
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Carême (A.). LE MAÎTRE-D'HÔTEL FRANÇAIS; OU, PARALLÈLE DE LA CUISINE
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MANUEL DE LA CUISINIÈRE PROVENÇALE. Contenant la Préparation et la
Conservation des Aliments particuliers à la Provence; suivi de la
Cuisine bourgeoise. Marseille: Chauffard, 1858. (12mo) pp. 276.

MANUEL (LE) DE LA FRIANDISE; OU, LES TALENTS DE MA CUISINIÈRE ISABEAU
MIS EN LUMIÈRE. Contenant l'Art de faire soi-même une excellente
Cuisine, et de manger de bons morceaux sans faire trop dépense, etc.
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Martin (Alexandre). MANUEL DE L'AMATEUR DE MELONS; OU, L'ART DE
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Martin (Alexandre). MANUEL DE L'AMATEUR DES TRUFFES; OU, L'ART
D'OBTENIR DES TRUFFES. Au moyen des plants artificiels, dans les parcs,
bosquets, jardins, etc., etc., précédé d'une histoire de la truffe
et d'anecdotes gourmandes, et suivi d'un traité sur la culture des
champignons. Seconde édition. Paris: Leroi; Audin, 1829 (18mo) pp. xii,
143.

La Reynière (Grimod de). MANUEL DES AMPHITRYONS. Contenant un Traité de
la Dissection des Viandes à Table, la Nomenclature des Menus les plus
Nouveaux pour chacque Saison, et des Elemens de Politesse Gourmande.
Ouvrage indispensable à tous ceux qui sont jaloux de faire bonne chère,
et de la faire faire aux autres. Orné d'un grand nombre de planches
gravées en taille-douce. A Paris, chez Capelle et Renand, 1808. (8vo)
pp. 384.

Cardelli (M.). MANUEL DES GOURMANDS; OU, L'ART DE FAIRE LES HONNEURS DE
SA TABLE. Paris: Librairie Roret. s. d. (18mo).

Courchamps (Maurice Cousin, Comte de). NÉO-PHYSIOLOGIE DU GOÛT
PAR ORDRE ALPHABÉTIQUE; OU, DICTIONNAIRE GÉNÉRAL DE LA CUISINE
FRANÇAISE ANCIENNE ET MODERNE, ETC., ETC. Enrichi de plusieurs menus,
prescriptions culinaires, et autres opuscules inédits de M. de la
Reynière, auteur de l'Almanach des Gourmands; suivi d'une collection
générale des menus français depuis le douzième siècle. Paris, 1839.
(8vo) pp. 635. (Dumas' favourite work on cookery.)

Périgord (A. B. de). NOUVEL ALMANACH DES GOURMANDS. Paris: Bandouin
Frères, 1825. (8vo) pp. xxiv, 224.

Cardelli (M.). NOUVEL MANUEL COMPLET DU CUISINIER ET DE LA CUISINIÈRE
À L'USAGE DE LA VILLE ET DE LA CAMPAGNE. Nouvelle Edition. Paris:
Librairie Roret, 1818. (18mo) pp. 472.

Briffault (Eugène). PARIS À TABLE. Illustré par Bertall. Paris: J.
Hetzel, 1846. (8vo) pp. 184.

PASTISSIER (LE) FRANÇOIS. Où est enseigné la manière de faire toute
sorte de Pastisserie, très-utile à toutes sortes de personnes. A
Amsterdam, chez Louys et Daniel Elzevier, 1654. (12mo) pp. 252.

Carême (A.). LE PÂTISSIER PITTORESQUE, ETC., ETC. Nouvelle édition.
Paris, au Dépôt de la Librairie, 1854. (8vo) pp. 56.

Carême (A.). LE PÂTISSIER ROYAL PARISIEN; OU, TRAITÉ ELÉMENTAIRE ET
PRATIQUE DE LA PATISSERIE ANCIENNE ET MODERNE, ETC., ETC. Paris: J. G.
Dentu, 1815. 2 vols. (8vo), pp. 482, 447.

Brisse (Baron). LA PETITE CUISINE. 3^{ème} Edition. Paris: E. Donnaud,
1875. (18mo) pp. 429.

Geair (Mlle. J.). LA PETITE CUISINIÈRE BOURGEOISE, AVEC RENSEIGNEMENTS
UTILES AUX FAMILLES. Par Mlle. Julie Geair, professeur. Paris, impr.
Barnagaud, 1889. (16mo) pp. 738.

Brillat-Savarin. PHYSIOLOGIE DU GOÛT; OU, MÉDITATIONS DE GASTRONOMIE
TRANSCENDANTE. Ouvrage théorique, historique et à l'ordre du jour,
dédié aux gastronomes parisiens, par un professeur, membre de plusieurs
sociétés littéraires et savantes. Paris: A. Sautelet et C^{ie}, 1826. 2
vols. (8vo), pp. 390, 422. (First edition of the "Physiologie.")

Delveau (Alfred). LES PLAISIRS DE PARIS. Guide pratique et illustré.
Paris: Achille Faure, 1867. (16mo) pp. 299.

PROMENADE GASTRONOMIQUE DANS PARIS. Présentant un tableau fidèle,
anecdotique et comique des faits et gestes des cuisiniers et
cuisinières de tous les étages, ainsi que des traiteurs, restaurateurs,
consommateurs, etc. Par un Amateur. Paris: Librairie Orientale de
Dondey-Dupré, 1833. (18mo) pp. 171.

Reiber (Emile). LES PROPOS DE TABLE DE LA VIEILLE ALSACE. Illustrés
tout au long de Dessins originaux des anciens Maîtres alsaciens. Paris:
chez Launette, 1886. (4to) pp. xvi, 231.

Rouvière. QUELQUES CONSEILS SUR L'HYGIÈNE DU CUISINIER. Par F.
Rouvière, restaurateur. Bordeaux, impr. J. Durand, 1886. (18mo) pp. 108.

Chavette (Eugène). RESTAURATEURS ET RESTAURÉS. Dessins par Cham. Paris:
A. Le Chevalier, 1867. (16mo) pp. 126.

Cauderlier. LA SANTÉ PAR LES ALIMENTS. Pour vivre de 50 à 80 ans et
plus. Gand: Imprimerie de Léon de Busscher, 1882. (8vo) pp. 304.

Gogué. LES SECRETS DE LA CUISINE FRANÇAISE. Par A. Gogué, ancien chef
des cuisines du Comte Ducayla, de Lord Melville, etc. Ouvrage illustré
de 45 gravures sur bois par Rouyer. Paris, Librairie Hachette, 1856.
(12mo) pp. 438.

LES SOUPERS DE LA COUR; OU, L'ART DE TRAVAILLER TOUTES SORTES D'ALIMENS
POUR SERVIR LES MEILLEURS TABLES, SUIVANT LES QUATRE SAISONS. A Paris,
chez Guillyn, 1755. 4 vols. (12mo).

Staffe (B^{onne}). TRADITIONS CULINAIRES ET L'ART DE MANGER TOUTES
CHOSES À TABLE. Paris, Havard, 1896. (12mo) pp. 400.

Bontou. TRAITÉ DE CUISINE BOURGEOISE BORDELAISE. Bordeaux: Feret et
Fils, 1898. (12mo) pp. 682.

Ferry de la Bellone (De). LA TRUFFE: ETUDE SUR LES TRUFFES ET LES
TRUFFIÈRES. Paris: J. B. Baillière et Fils, 1888. (16mo.)

Chatillon-Plessis. LA VIE À TABLE À LA FIN DU XIX^C. SIÈCLE. Theorie
pratique et historique de Gastronomie moderne, etc. Paris: Librairie de
Firmin-Didot et C^{ie}, 1894. (8vo) pp. 411.

Franklin (Alfred). LA VIE PRIVÉE D'AUTREFOIS ...LES REPAS. Paris: Plon,
Nourrit et C^{ie}, 1887. (18mo) pp. 300.




                                 INDEX


    "Accomplish'd Cook (The)," Robert May's, 99

    Ahasuerus (King), feast of, 12

    Aigrefeuille (M. d'), as an epicure, 69, 70, 129

    Aldergrove (John), on game, 354

    "Almanach des Gourmands," quoted, 70;
      referred to, 73, 112 _et seq._, 157, 184, 233, 336;
      its purpose, 132;
      aphorisms of, 138-139.
      _Vide_ also "G. de la Reynière"

    "Almanach Gourmand (L')," referred to, 225

    "Almanach Gourmand (Le Double)," quoted, 258

    Alsace, excellence of its cooks, 149

    "Ancienne Alsace à Table (L')," 148-150

    Angelica, 434

    Anne (Queen), as a gourmande, 102

    "Apician Morsels," a piratical volume, 336

    Apicius, as a cook, 29;
      referred to, 40, 41, 50, 200

    Apios tuberosa, or ground-nut, 255

    Appetites (great), anecdote of the Vicomte de Viel-Castel, 214;
      anecdote of a Swiss guard, 218;
      anecdote of a French drummer, 218;
      anecdote of an English chaplain, 288

    Archestratus, his lost poem on gastronomy, 13

    "Art Culinaire (L')," 121, 347, 408

    "Art de Diner en Ville (L')," 76

    "Art de la Cuisine Française au Dix-neuvième Siècle (L')," 206

    "Art du Cuisinier (L')," 71-72

    Arthus (Désiré), on old tavern-signs, 68

    "Art of Cookery (The)," Mrs. Glasse's, 107-111, 316

    "Art of Cookery (King's)," quoted, 93, 344

    "Art of Dining (The)," Thos. Walker's, 319;
      Abraham Hayward's, 331 _et seq._

    Arts (the) and their masters, 131

    Athenæus, quoted, 8, 13, 16, 18, 21-23

    Attendance, importance of perfect, 321

    Audubon, on game, 362, 363, 370

    Autumn, glories of, 373 _et seq._, 398

    "Avalanche" (the), of Carême, 200

    Azincourt (Albouis), referred to, 130


    Baba, its history and virtues, 434

    Babiroussa (the), anecdote of, 212

    Bakers, the art of the German, 146, 171

    Baking, an ancient form of cooking, 10

    Balzac, quoted, 5, 351;
      referred to, 177;
      as a gastronomer, 219

    Banquets, early English, 90, 91

    Banville (Théodore de), quoted, 227;
      referred to, 341, 445

    Baron Brisse, quoted, 32, 180, 344, 371, 405, 417;
      as a gastronomer, 227-228;
      his splendid gastronomic axiom, 228

    Barras (Vicomte de), dinner of, 65

    Baryé, referred to, 246

    Basting, importance of, 228

    Baudelaire (Charles), referred to, 445

    Beauvilliers, referred to, 6, 69, 70, 199, 202, 213, 386, 435;
      quoted, 71, 110, 234, 442

    Béchamel, referred to, 54-55

    Beecher (Rev. Henry Ward), on pies, 436

    Beef, baron of, a royal dish, 92;
      sirloin of, its origin, 99

    Beer, quotation in praise of, 145

    Beer-gardens, German, 151 _et seq._

    Beers, of Germany, 163-164, 168

    Bellone (Dr. de la), on the truffle, 390, 395

    Bénédictine, liqueur of, its history, 283-284

    Béranger, poem on the restaurant, 140

    Berchoux, referred to, 58, 72, 184;
      his poem on gastronomy, 73 _et seq._, 385

    Bernard (Gentil), referred to, 73

    Bertinazzi (Carlin), referred to, 129

    Beverages, importance of, 4;
      their relation to national cookery, 151-152, 163-164

    Bignon, anecdotes of, 342-343

    Bishop (a) of Burgundy, anecdote of, 304

    Blaze de Bury, on women, 433

    Blot (Pierre), 435

    Boar, the wild, 26, 39, 234, 236, 243, 246-247, 366

    Boar's-head, carols on the, 91, 93

    Boileau, axiom on punctuality, 269

    Boiling, a primitive method of cooking, 11

    "Boke of Keruynge," quoted, 85-87

    "Boke of Nurture," quoted, 84-85

    Bonaparte, Napoleon, as a gastronomer, 76

    Bonnechose (Cardinal), his famous _mot_, 284

    Bossuet, his "Oraison Funèbre" referred to, 232

    Bramble (Mathew), referred to, 324

    Bratwurst-Glöcklein, 163

    Breadstuffs, the first, 7;
      used by the early English, 83

    Breckenridge (Vice-Pres.), anecdote of, 253-255

    Brontë (Charlotte), on the curate's dinner, 288

    Brouwer (Adrian), referred to, 445

    Browne (Wm.), sonnet on the mushroom, 400

    Bryant, "Lines to a Waterfowl," 292

    Bubble and Squeak, 278

    Buckland (Frank), referred to, 243

    Buffon, anecdote of, 385

    Bulwer, on the fox, 161


    Cæsar, his prodigal feasts, 44

    Café (_vide_ also "Restaurant,") Véry, referred to, 6, 52, 213,
        220, 258;
      Voisin, referred to, 52;
      Hardy, referred to, 52, 69, 220;
      Riche, referred to, 52, 220, 250;
      Véfour, referred to, 213, 258;
      de Paris, referred to, 214, 219, 220, 221, 222, 258;
      its great vogue in the '40's, 219;
      Anglais, referred to, 220, 258;
      Philippe, referred to, 258

    Caligula, referred to, 43

    Cambacérès, as a gastronomer, 69, 205;
      referred to, 195

    Camerani (M.), referred to, 129

    Capon (the), as a favourite of the clergy, 306

    Caraway-seed, abuse of, in Germany, 169

    Carême, referred to, 13, 70, 194, 199-207, 211, 223, 229, 348-349,
        350, 385, 408, 443;
      eulogy of, 207

    Carp (the), as a favourite of the clergy, 306, 308

    Carver, Vatel's definition of a, 60

    Carving, importance of, 87, 138;
      a novel monastic method of, 307

    "Castle of Indolence (The)," quoted, 238

    Cèpes. _Vide_ "Mushrooms"

    Charles II, as an epicure, 99

    Châteauroux (Duchesse de), 63

    Chatillon-Plessis, gastronomical axiom of, 265

    Cheese, Martin Schookius' book on, 146;
      German varieties of, 167;
      its proper place at dinner, 263;
      its place and mission at dinner, 440

    Child (Theodore), as a false dietetic mentor, 417

    Civet of hare, 51

    Claré, 96

    Claudius, his great dining-room, 43

    Clergy (the), elaborate banquets given by, 90;
      table excesses of, in old Alsace, 149.
      _Vide_ also individual references

    Climate _vs._ alimentation, 168, 270, 334

    Clough (Arthur Hugh), poem on "The Dinner," 336

    "Cobbe's Prophecies," quoted, 80

    Cocktail, physiology of the, 196

    Coffee, remote use of, 9

    Colbert, referred to, 55

    "Compleat Housewife (The)," Mrs. E. Smith's, 98, 106, 109

    "Compleat Practical Cook (The)," Charles Carter's, 103

    Compots, 157, 174, 432

    Condé (Prince de), referred to, 54, 58, 60

    Contades (Maréchal de), referred to, 159

    Cook, Montaigne's reference to a, 51-52;
      Berchoux's reference to a, 74;
      importance of a good, 113;
      attributes necessary for a good, 203, 207;
      anecdote of a new, 259;
      anecdote of a, 393

    Cook-book, the ideal, defined, 442-446

    Cook-books, early Italian, 49;
      early Spanish, 50;
      early French, 52;
      early English, 81 _et seq._, 317;
      17th-century English, 93 _et seq._;
      old German, 147-148, 150;
      modern (_vide_ specific references), written by the clergy, 281

    Cookery, its relation to life and health, 3, 70, 71, 251, 257-258,
        286, 430;
      modern progress in, 4;
      _vs._ matrimony, 6;
      Italian school of, 6, 49, 51, 195;
      compared to painting, 6, 203;
      in Biblical times, 7, 8, 9;
      of the ancient Persians, 11, 12;
      of the ancient Greeks, 13 _et seq._;
      of the ancient Sicilians, 14;
      of the ancient Romans, 24 _et seq._;
      period of its greatest distinction in Rome, 25;
      decline of ancient, 48;
      _vs._ literature and art, 48;
      the renaissance of, 49 _et seq._;
      of Spain, 50,423;
      its relation to the mind, 64, 176;
      _vs._ diplomacy, 70;
      home _vs._ the haute-cuisine, 72, 350, 429;
      cry of its decadence, 79, 258;
      Parisian school of, in England, 99;
      of the English rural classes, 101, 102;
      modern English, 111, 269 _et seq._;
      importance of good writers on, 113, 199;
      period of its greatest distinction in France, 116;
      complementary to national beverages, 151, 153;
      excellence of German, 156, 174;
      Carême's and the Marquis de Cussy's opinion of old Roman, 201;
      of America, 249 _et seq._;
      of the modern French, 259 (_vide_ also special references);
      its relation to the church, 280 _et seq._;
      a difficult art, 442.
      _Vide_ also "Gastronomy"

    Cooking-schools, 251, 260

    Cooks, jealousy of, 14, 202;
      regulating the health of, 136

    "Cook's Oracle (The)," 316 _et seq._

    Cordon-bleu, origin of the term, 62

    Cucumber, remote use of, 9;
      its virtues, 425

    Cuisine, the ideal, defined, 258

    Cuisine classique (the), 200

    "Cuisinier Parisien (Le)," quoted, 203;
      referred to, 206, 349

    Curaçoa sec, as a digestive, 192

    Curé, anecdote of a, 293

    Cussy (Marquis de), referred to, 67, 127, 211, 213, 225, 305;
      quoted, 120, 181, 201, 346, 383, 408

    Cuyp, referred to, 6, 203, 245


    Davis, Lieutenant-Colonel Newnham, 337-339

    De Candolle, referred to, 256

    Deffand (Mme. du), on strawberries, 144

    Delavigne (Cassimir), on dinners, 112

    "Délices de la Campagne (Les)," 59

    Délille (l'Abbé), on gardening, 71

    De Quincey on midday dining, 146

    "De re Culinaria," 29, 41, 50

    Désaugiers, poem on women, 119

    Dessert, its mission defined, 430;
      etymology of the term, 438

    Dickens (Charles), on dining, 329

    Dinner, hours of, 83;
      a good one, a simple one, 116, 320, 322, 324;
      punctuality at, 126, 269, 291, 318, 319;
      a wineless, 127, 263-266, 294, 295;
      inhuman hours of, 145-146, 150;
      its true hygienic hour, 146, 268, 269;
      Savarin's definition of a perfect, 190;
      Carême's classic, at the Baron Rothschild's villa, 200;
      Dumas' definition of a good, 213;
      of the Vicomte de Viel-Castel, 214;
      the Sunday engorgement, 266;
      evils of the "theatre", 267;
      a good, as defined by an eminent Baptist ecclesiast, 299;
      by the Ettrick Shepherd, 309;
      by Thackeray, 315;
      by Kitchener, 318;
      by the Earl of Dudley, 320;
      French definition of a perfect, 320;
      importance of variety in the bill of fare, 329;
      the graceful liar as an adjunct to, 331;
      Arthur Hugh Clough's poem on the, 336

    Dinners, poor "company," 126, 261, 321, 329;
      ministerial, 195;
      similarity of, 195, 325, 328;
      false etiquette of, 331

    "Dinners and Diners," 337-339

    Dish, the first recorded, 7

    Dishes, new, 72, 353, 380;
      testing of, 135;
      Hungarian, 167;
      abuse of certain, 261

    Dom Gobelot, anecdote of, 310

    Domitian, referred to, 43

    Dom Pérignon, the inventor of champagne, 283

    Don Quixote, referred to, 50

    "Double Almanach Gourmand (Le)," referred to, 340

    Douw (Gérard), referred to, 197

    Drayton (Michael), quoted, 360

    Dreams, viands provocative of, 197

    Drinking-Cups, of the ancients, 31

    Du Barry (Mme.), a supper of, 62

    Dubufe, referred to, 234

    Duck, wild, the art of carving a, 87;
      "When Father carves the" (poem), 87;
      canvasback, 249, 369;
      canvasback, Rev. Joseph Barber's poem on, 292;
      wild, 359, 366, 369

    Dumas (Alexandre), quoted, 5, 49, 56, 206, 213, 214, 224, 225, 383;
      referred to, 131, 149, 211-225, 321;
      as a cook, 211;
      as a gastronomer, 221;
      anecdote of, as a chef, 222, 223

    Dumas fils (Alexandre), referred to, 5

    Dumonteil (Fulbert), his saying about truffles, 10


    Eating, evils of irregular, 267

    Egyptians, table appointments of, 10

    Elephant, proper sauce to eat one with, 345

    Ely (Rev. Joseph A.), translation of poem on the pig, 232

    Emerson, his _mot_ on pies, 437

    Emetics, use of, among the ancients, 15

    English, meals of the early, 82;
      not appreciative of fine cooking, 210, 274

    "Englishman in Paris (An)," quoted, 222

    Epicure, definition of an, 128, 131

    "Epicurean (The)," referred to, 353

    Epicurus, his maxims, 15

    Evelyn (John), on salads, 411

    Exercise, virtues of, 75, 378


    "Faerie Queene (The)," quoted, 235

    Fairy-rings. _Vide_ "Mushrooms"

    Fayot (M.), quoted, 3, 5;
      referred to, 321

    "Feasts of Autolycus (The)," quoted, 343

    Fête champêtre. _Vide_ "A shooting jaunt"

    Fieldfare, 361

    Fig-pecker (the), 44, 192, 361

    Fish, fondness of the old Latins for, 26;
      days in Elizabeth's era, 90, 308;
      omelettes and pâtés of, 149;
      variety and superiority of American, 251;
      its complementary wine, 309;
      proper cookery of, 368

    Flamingo (the), as a table bird, 44

    Fletcher (John), quoted, 96

    Flint cracker, origin of the, 263

    Fouquet, referred to, 54, 55, 58

    Francatelli, referred to, 6, 106, 199, 208, 226, 350

    France (Anatole), his _mot_ on the pâté de Chartres, 434

    Frederick the Great, his poem to his cook, 146

    Frog (the), his first leap into the frying-pan, 150

    Fruit, after dinner, 267

    Fruits, the first cultivated, 9;
      glass-grown in England, 273;
      superiority of those of western New York, 274

    Frying, theory of, 179

    Fuger (Bishop), anecdote of, 310 _et seq._


    Game, Savarin's references to, 192, 193, 197;
      Anthony Hayward on its cookery, 333;
      preservation and protection of, 357-358;
      definition of the term, 358;
      effect of food upon flavour of, 359-360, 362-363, 370;
      proper wines to accompany, 372;
      species, haunts, pursuit, protection, value, and cookery of,
      _Vide_ chapter "The Spoils of the Cover"

    Garum, of the ancients, 46

    Gastaldy (Dr.), anecdote of, 120;
      as an epicure, 130

    Gastronomer, the ideal, defined, 442-446

    Gastronomic tests, Savarin's illustration of, 190

    Gastronomy, Archestratus' lost poem on, 13;
      Berchoux's poem on, 73-76, 184;
      as defined by M. de Borose, 81;
      as defined by La Reynière, 128;
      French _vs._ German, 145, 151, 152;
      finesse of its ethics, 157-158;
      one of the most important arts, 176;
      as defined by the "Dictionnaire de la Conversation," 184;
      as defined by Savarin, 184;
      cry of its decadence, 194;
      its mainspring the pig, 229 _et seq._;
      as promoted by the religious orders, 285 _et seq._, 335;
      in relation to sauces, 345;
      St. Ange's disquisition on, 378-381;
      in relation to sport, 354, 356, 445.
      _Vide_ also "Cookery," "Dinners," and individual references

    Gavarni, his _mot_ on the mushroom, 407

    Gemüthlichkeit, of the Germans, 153, 174

    Gérard (Charles), referred to, 148-150

    Gerarde, quoted, 256, 400, 411

    Gibson (W. Hamilton), 406, 407

    Glacer à la flamme, 203

    Glatigny (Albert), quoted, 63, 341

    Gluttony, as defined by woman, 343

    Goethe, referred to, 147, 430;
      poem on game, 169

    Goldsmith (Oliver), quoted, 108

    Gonthier (Johann), referred to, 52

    Good-will, a sportsman's waste of, 381

    Goose (the), merits of, in Germany, 156;
      in Strassburg and Alsace, 159-161;
      and applesauce, 244

    "Goret (La Mort du)," poem, 232

    Gouffé (Jules), referred to, 199, 225-226, 227, 229, 445

    Gourmand, La Reynière's definition of a, 127-128

    Gourmandise, as defined by Savarin, 186;
      _vs._ beauty, 187;
      Gérard (Charles), quoted, 199

    Gout, 143, 270, 346, 444;
      prevalence of, among the ancients, 46;
      prevalence of in England, 96, 102;
      _vs._ pâté de foie gras, 162

    Grace before meat, 291, 297

    Graces, the three spirituous, 196

    "Grad' aus dem Wirthshaus," German convivial song, 173

    "Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine," 211 _et seq._

    Greeks, meals of the ancient, 19;
      gluttony of the ancient, 23

    Greeley (Horace), anecdote of, 239

    Grog, origin of the word, 97

    Grouse, ruffed, 356, 359, 364, 366, 370, 375, 376, 411;
      pinnated, or prairie-chicken, 363, 365


    Hafiz, quoted, 423

    Hagenmark, 432

    Hamerton, referred to, 243

    "Hare, first catch your," origin of the term, 110

    Harvest-home, poem on the celebration of, 101

    Hasenbraten and Hasenpfeffer, 168

    Hayward (Abraham), referred to, 331 _et seq._

    Hayward (Anthony), on a chaplain's appetite, 288

    Heidelberg, a dinner at the Wolfsbrunnen, 152

    Heliogabalus, gluttony of his reign, 46-48;
      inventor of vol-au-vent à la financière, 48

    Henry VIII, his fondness for sweets, 430

    Herodotus, quoted, 10

    Herrick, quoted, 79, 102

    Herring, the "marinirte," 167

    Hertford (Lord), anecdote of, 333

    Hervilly (Ernest d'), referred to, 233

    Hippocras, 57, 93, 94, 96

    Hirztag, a strange custom of that festival, 150

    Hollar, quoted, 358

    Homer, quoted, 20

    Hone (Wm.), poem on mince-pie, 435

    Hood (Thomas), referred to, 316

    Horace, quoted, 11, 26, 39, 40, 113, 398;
      referred to, 38, 39;
      his fondness for sweets, 428-429

    Host, a delicate, as defined by La Reynière, 139;
      _vs._ guest, Baron Brisse's aphorism on, 228;
      his duty to his guests, 264-265, 330-331

    Housewife, troubles of the, 260

    Hugo (Victor), referred to, 341

    Hunt (Leigh), on pig-driving, 239


    Ice-cream, discoverer of, 434

    Indian summer, poem on, 373

    Indigestion, La Reynière on the causes of, 133

    Ingoldsby (Thomas), referred to, 289;
      quoted, 280, 291, 306, 438


    Jacque (Charles), referred to, 233, 245

    Janin (Jules), referred to, 5, 211, 213, 348, 445

    Jefferies (Richard), on feasting the chapel-pastor, 287

    Johnson (Dr.), quoted, 111, 248

    Jordaens, referred to, 6

    Jury dégustateur (the), 120 _et seq._

    Juvenal, referred to, 34, 37, 40;
      quoted, 37, 42


    "Kalendare de Potages dyuers," 88, 90

    Kempis (Thomas à), his fondness for salmon, 309

    King (Wm.), poem on cookery, 279

    Kitchener (Dr. Wm.), referred to, 106

    Kuchen, merits of the German, 169, 174

    "Kuchenmeisterey," 171


    La Bruyère, quoted, 229, 380

    Lacroix (Octave), his tribute to Dumas, 211

    La Fontaine, referred to, 116

    Laguipière, referred to, 6, 201, 202

    Lamb (Charles), referred to, 17, 239, 240-242, 430;
      his apology to the pig, 240

    Lampridius, quoted, 47

    Larding (art of), its discoverer, 281

    La Reynière (Grimod de), referred to, 66, 72, 112 _et seq._,
        178, 196, 213, 225, 317, 336, 361, 443;
      poem of, 117;
      quoted, 118, 233, 236, 287, 345, 348, 383, 411;
      his home kitchen, 131, 132;
      as a gastronomer, 132;
      denounced by Savarin, 158;
      his tribute to Savarin, 177.
      _Vide_ also "l'Almanach des Gourmands"

    La Rochefoucauld, quoted, 5

    Leckerbissen and Frauenessen, 172

    Lennox (Lady), anecdote of, 335

    Liar, charm of the accomplished, 331

    Liqueurs (celebrated), of monastic invention, 283-285

    "Livre de Cuisine (Le)," 225

    Locust (the), as an article of diet, 7

    Louis XIII, as a gastronomer, 53;
      XIV, as a gastronomer, 64 _et seq._;
      XV, as a gastronomer, 61;
      XVIII, as a gastronomer, 76, 78

    Lucullus, as an epicure, 41-43;
      referred to, 45, 200, 201

    Luncheon, an ideal woodland, 375 _et seq._

    Lyne (Bishop de), referred to, 149


    Macaroni, Dr. Gastaldy on, 120

    Macaroni, Rossini's lost recipe for, 220

    Madeleine (the), Dumas' story of, 169

    Mæcenas, referred to, 38, 39

    Magee (Bishop), anecdote of, 394

    Mahony (Rev. Francis), poem on pâté de foie gras, 161;
      his "Watergrasshill Carousal," 309

    Maintenon (Mme. de), referred to, 67, 63, 340

    Maître d'hôtel, duties and importance of the, 136-138, 204

    "Maître d'Hôtel Français (Le)," 206

    "Manuel des Amphitryons," quoted, 69;
      referred to, 93-95

    Markham (Gervaise), referred to, 93-95;
      quoted, 409

    Marriage, Balzac's definition of, 351

    Martial, quoted, 24, 31, 33, 44;
      referred to, 37, 38, 40

    Marvell (Andrew), referred to, 81, 252

    Mauri (Cardinal), his fondness for "Est, Est, Est," 311

    Mead, its composition, 97

    Medici (Catherine de), 52, 433

    Melons, 9, 273, 298

    "Memoirs of a Stomach," quoted, 271

    "Memorials of Gormandizing," 329

    Metheglin, 96, 98, 439

    Metzelsuppe, Uhland's poem on, 166

    Mézeray (Mlle.), referred to, 117-119, 125, 126

    Mind _vs._ stomach, 5

    Mistletoe-thrush, 361

    "Modern Cook (The)," 208

    Mohrenkeller, of Nürnberg, 163

    Molière, referred to, 57, 58, 113

    Monselet (Charles), quoted, 175, 194, 206, 264;
      referred to, 211, 225, 232, 340

    Montaigne, quoted, 6, 51, 200, 376, 414;
      referred to, 147, 283

    Montauron (Seigneur de), 54

    Montausier (Duc de), 54, 55

    Montespan (Mme. de), 58, 63

    Montgomery (James), poem on the daisy, 424

    Morellet (l'Abbé), anecdote of, 304

    Morgan (Lady), referred to, 62;
      quoted, 200

    Mouchy (Maréchal de), anecdote of, 64

    Moynier (M. M.), referred to, 394, 396

    Müller (Wilhelm), poem of, quoted, 311

    Mullet, a much-valued fish, 32, 47;
      origin of the name, 33

    Murger (Henri), referred to, 341

    Mushrooms, 362;
      species, qualities, history, haunts, literature, and cookery of,
        397-408

    Musset (Alfred de), quoted, 219

    Mutton, Pré-Salé and Southdown, 359, 380


    Napoleon I, as a gastronomer, 61

    Nasidienus, the feast of, 39, 40

    Nero, his _Domus aurea_, 43

    Ninon de l'Enclos, referred to, 175, 178, 200

    North, (Christopher), 309, 316

    "Nouvel Almanach des Gourmands," quoted, 220

    Nudels, 167


    Oaks, list of truffle-producing, 391

    Oil and vinegar, 415-416

    "Old Cookery Books," quoted, 275

    Olive-oil, remote use of, 8

    Olla podrida, 50;
      en grande, 50

    Omelette (the curé's), anecdote of, 299-302

    Onderdonk (Bishop), anecdote of, 295

    Onion, an ancient vegetable, 9;
      tribe, virtues of the, 100, 107, 231, 387

    "Original (The)," 319 _et seq._

    Orsay (Comte d'), on French cookery, 258

    Ortolans, 76, 361

    Ostade, referred to, 74, 445

    Oudry, referred to, 234

    Ovens, Carême's remarks on, 202

    Oyster-beds, first artificial, 27

    Oysters, ancient modes of cooking, 89;
      superiority  of American, 252


    Pain perdu, 89

    Painting, Italian school of, 6, 48, 245;
      Dutch and Flemish schools of, 6, 246, 445;
      French school of, 246

    "Panthropeon, or History of Food (The)," 17, 209

    Papabotte (the), 362-363

    Parkinson (John), 81, 411

    Parsley, virtues of, 106, 231

    Pastry, La Reynière's definitions of, 138;
      Carême's definition of, 202

    Pâte de foie gras, 7, 130, 156, 158, 161, 162, 189, 235, 236, 397;
      La Reynière's account of a, 123;
      its history, 159;
      d'écrevisses, 203;
      de Chartres, 434

    "Pâtissier français (Le)," 59

    Pennell (Elizabeth Robins), quoted, 107, 342

    Pensey (Henrion de), his famous gastronomic axiom, 252

    Pepper, superiority of adulterated, 417

    Pepys (Diary of), quoted, 99-101

    Perdrix à l'espagnol, 50

    Perfumes, use of, at feasts, 13, 28

    Petit-Radel (M.), anecdote of, 77

    "Petite Cuisine (La)," 227

    Petrarch, on wine, 293

    Petronius Arbiter, referred to, 35, 37

    Pheasant (the), 289, 359

    Philippe d'Orléans, as a gastronomer, 61

    "Philosopher's  Banquet (The)," quoted, 106

    Physicians, as gastronomers, 78, 267

    "Physiologie du Goût (La)." referred to and quoted, 175 _et seq._,
        206, 351, 395.
      _Vide_ also  "Savarin"

    Pie (pumpkin), its origin, 273;
      a game, 372

    Pies, 249, 430 _et seq._;
      wild boar, 89;
      strange early English, 95

    Pig (the), his popularity as a signboard, 67;
      of Westphalia and Rothenburg, 164;
      as a factor of gastronomy, 229 _et seq._;
      "Dissertation  sur le Cochon," 231;
      "Gli Elogi del Porco," 231;
      M. Pouvoisin's eulogy of, 232;
      Rev. Joseph A. Ely's eulogy of, 232;
      Monselet's eulogy of, 232;
      Southey's eulogy of, 232;
      La Reynière's eulogies of, 233, 236;
      Ernest d'Hervilly's sonnet to, 233;
      Spenser's and Thomson's unjust strictures on, 235, 238;
      the Southern razorback, 235, 306;
      fondness for truffles, 236, 389;
      Leigh Hunt's essay on, 239;
      Charles Lamb's apology  to the elder animal, 240;
      as a retriever of game, 244;
      a German eulogy of, 244;
      his influence upon the polite arts, 245-246;
      "Rôti-Cochon," 261, 414

    "Pig-Driving, On the Graces and Anxieties of," 239

    Planked shad, origin of, 253 _et seq._

    Pliny, quoted, 31;
      referred to, 40, 384, 395

    Plover, upland or grass, 361 _et seq._

    Plum-porridge, 435

    Plum-pudding, and history of, 334, 434-435

    Pompadour (Marquise de), 63

    Pope, quoted, 83, 103

    Pork, the favourite dish of the ancients, 17;
      origin of, 230

    Pork-pie, 89

    Porridge, use of, by the ancients, 24

    Potato, history of the, 255-256, 306

    Potatoes, in England, 272, 330

    Pot-au-feu, importance of the, 224

    Propertius, quoted, 38

    Prout (Father). _Vide_ Rev. Francis Mahony "Psalm, a penitential,"
        286

    Puff-balls. _Vide_ "Mushrooms"

    Punch, origin of the word, 97

    Punctuality. _Vide_ "Dinner, punctuality at"

    Pumpkin, an ancient vegetable, 9


    Quail, 363, 365, 366, 375, 382


    Recipes
      A Blue-violet Salad ("The Story of My House"), 426
      "A Bride's Pie" (Mrs. Glasse), 110
      A good brown gravy (Mrs. Glasse), 109
      A liver-pudding boiled (Mrs. Glasse), 109
      Bakewell pudding, 276
      Bouillon, Dumas' mode of preparing, 224
      Brook trout (Savarin), 179;
        (Baron Brisse's formulas), 180
      Cabbage, Apicius' recipes for, 29
      Cèpes (Vuillemot's recipe for), 405
      Chicken, Artimidor's recipe for, 18
      Cock ale, Markham's formula for, 98
      "Dish of Roses" (the). Laurentius' recipe for, 18
      Flounder-souchy (Kitchener), 327
      Gigot de mouton à la Richelieu (St. Ange), 380
      Guisado, the Spanish, 51
      How to collar a pig (Mrs. Smith), 109
      How to roast a pig (Mrs. Glasse), 110
      Kalter Aufschnitt, 169
      Mutton Cutlets (Mrs. Walter Ellis), 276
      Partridge aux choux (Baron Brisse), 371
      Pheasant à la Sainte-Alliance (Savarin), 193
      Potage aux choux (Dumas), 224
      Quail à la financière (Gouffé), 226
      Roast goose _à l'allemande_, 157
      Sack-posset (Sir Fleetwood Fletcher), 439
      Sauce for venison, mutton, and game (Francatelli), 208;
        for green geese and ducklings,  278;
        à la Schönberg (Her Gracious Serenity), 352
      Spare-rib (Charles Lamb's new formula), 242
      "The Curé's Omelette" (Savarin), 302
      The hunter's sandwich, 441

    Ranhofer (Charles), referred to, 353

    Récamier (Mme.), referred to, 300

    Reed-birds, 359, 361

    Rembrandt, referred to, 6

    Restaurants, first Parisian, 64, 66;
      excessive charges of Parisian, 140, 220, 342;
      Bignon, referred to, 219;
      American, 250;
      advantage of dining at, 339;
      Glatigny's sonnet on, 341;
      Bignon's, 341-343;
      Trois Frères Provençeaux, referred to, 258;
      a dinner at, in 1860, 297;
      English, 270, 275, 338.
      _Vide_ also "Cafés," and specific references

    Retz (Cardinal de), referred to, 171

    Réveillé-Parise (Dr.), referred to, 339

    Richelieu (Cardinal de), 54, 302, 380;
      (Maréchal, Duc de), 303, 348

    Riquette, referred to, 202

    Ristori (Mme.), referred to, 220

    Roasting, as defined by the Marquis de Cussy, 120

    Robert, referred to, 6, 69, 194, 201, 202

    Rocher de Cancale (restaurant of), 52, 115, 117, 118, 187, 221;
      a celebrated menu of, 140-142

    Rohan (Cardinal), referred to, 150

    Romans, luxury of the ancient, 25 _et seq._;
      meals of the ancient, 27

    Ronsard, referred to, 52;
      quoted, 79

    Roques (Joseph), 408

    "Royal Cookery" (Patrick Lamb's), 102

    Rubens, referred to, 6, 245

    Ruffs and reeves, 335

    Ruysdael, referred to, 6


    Sack-posset, 96

    St. Ange, gastronomic homily of, 378-382

    Ste. Beuve, quoted, 381

    Saint-Simon, quoted, 55

    Salad, 362;
      virtues of, as defined by Savarin, 301, 411;
      virtues of, as defined by La Reynière, 411;
      its mission and place at the dinner, 418

    Salads, remote use of, 10

    Salmis. La Reynière's lost monastic recipe for, 286

    Sandpiper (Bartramian). _Vide_  "Plover"  and "Papabotte"

    Sanzai (Archbishop), anecdote of, 304

    Sardanapalus, as a gastronomer, 12

    Sauce, a good, as defined by Baron Brisse, 334;
      a good, as defined by La Reynière, 345;
      anchovy, 345;
      (a good), its qualification, 349

    Sauce tartare, a novel, 256

    Sauces old English, 84;
      best for brook trout, 191;
      (Francatelli's), for mutton and game, 209, 368;
      (English), 277;
      merits of, 249, 345;
      Harvey's, origin and anecdote of, 277;
      bread, 289, 368;
      their relation to gastronomy, 345;
      Marquis de Cussy on, 346;
      mayonnaise, its history and etymology, 348-349, 421;
      à la Schönberg, 352;
      a list of, for the home cuisine, 352;
      apple, 368;
      à la Richelieu, 381

    Saucier (the), 346

    Sauerkraut, 371;
      when invented, 150;
      (French), not to be commended, 223

    Sausages, the German the master-maker of, 152, 423;
      German species and varieties of, 163-166

    Savarin, referred to, 75, 113, 114, 225, 305, 351, 370, 434, 443;
      denounced by M. de Courchamps, 158;
      as a gastronomer, 181, 206;
      his discourtesy to La Reynière, 195;
      poem of, 197;
      quoted, 300-302, 383, 395, 411.
      _Vide_ also "Physiologie du Goût (La)"

    Scott (Sir Walter), referred to, 309

    Seasonings, used by the ancients, 28-30;
      used by the English, 83, 108;
      importance of, 446

    Seneca, quoted, 5, 31, 32, 41, 46;
      referred to, 40, 44

    Sévigné (Marquis de), referred to, 175, 200

    Shakespeare, quoted, 246, 441

    Shelley, referred to, 234

    Shooting jaunt, a, 375 _et seq._

    Shuttleworth (Canon), his famous "grace," 291

    Signboards (old), and their mottoes, 67

    Smell (the), its influence on the taste, 182

    Smith (Rev. Sydney), his _mot_ on pâté de foie gras, 158;
      gastronomic anecdote of, 249;
      his _mot_ on the pheasant, 286;
      his poem on roast mutton, 290;
      on fanatics, 294;
      his poem on salad, 412

    Sneyders, referred to, 6, 234, 445

    Snipe, 356, 359, 365, 366, 411

    Société des Mereredis, 118, 129, 130

    Solomon, his table, 11

    Sora, or rail (the), 360

    Soubise (Prince de), anecdote of his chef, 37

    Soup, bisque d'écrevisses, 150;
      aux choux, 224;
      croûte-au-pot, 224, 275;
      Julienne, 281;
      first mention of, 281

    "Soupers de la Cour (Les)," 62

    Soups, German, 167

    Southey, referred to, 232

    Soyer, referred to, 17, 106, 199, 209-210

    Spartan black broth, 13

    Spätzle, 167

    Speaking-tube, invented by La Reynière, 126

    Speisekarte, a typical, 154

    Spenser, quoted, 235;
      referred to, 238

    Sport. _Vide_ chapter "The Spoils of the Cover"

    Stimulants, before dinner, 196

    Stomach (the), its joys and sorrows, 5;
      its offices, 267, 317, 319

    Strawberries _vs._ gout, 143, 432

    ---- ---- ---- (Rev. Dr.), anecdote of, 296-299

    Sweetmeats, 379

    Sweet potato, 256

    Sydney (Sir Robert), anecdote of, 89


    Tables volantes, 62

    Talleyrand (Prince de), as a gastronomer, 69, 202

    Talon (Joseph), discoverer of truffle culture, 388

    Taste (the), Savarin's analysis of, 181-184;
      influence of smell on, 182

    Teniers, referred to, 6, 445

    Tennyson, referred to, 316

    Thackeray, referred to, 159, 195, 387;
      as a gastronomer, 315, 329;
      quoted, 327, 340

    Thomson, quoted, 238

    Thoreau, on the mushroom, 402, 403

    Tiberius, death from poisoned mushrooms, 43;
      as an epicure, 44;
      his fondness for cucumbers, 425

    Timon (Bishop), of Buffalo, anecdote of, 293

    Toast, a celebrated French, to femininity, 283

    Toasts, form of, among the ancients, 27

    Tobacco, introduction of, 28

    Total abstainer, anecdote of a, 265;
      abstinence, poem on, 295

    Total abstainers _vs._ guests, 263-266;
      brandied peaches, 433

    Trimalchio, dinner of, 35

    Trout, brook, best sauce for, 181;
      of the English chalk-streams, 364;
      American _vs._ the European, 365

    "Truffe (De la)," 394

    "Truffe (La)," 390

    Truffles, 143, 159, 210, 235, 434;
      species, qualities, history, cultivation, cookery, literature,
        and phenomena of. _Vide_ chapter "Two Esculents par
        excellence"

    Turbot (the), 33

    Turkey, a truffled, 122, 304, 385;
      history of the, 304, 305;
      wild, 369-370;
      wild _vs._ the domestic, 369, 370

    Turtle feasts, American, 267


    Ude, referred to, 6, 106, 190, 207

    Uhland, referred to, 163, 166

    Ulric (St.), festival of, 308

    Urbain-Dubois, referred to, 199, 226


    Van Mieris, referred to, 197

    Vatel, referred to, 6, 54, 58, 130;
      on carving, 59

    Vegetables, used by the ancients, 9, 10, 28, 29;
      poor cookery of, in Great Britain, 272;
      importance of good, 330

    Verneuil (G. de), referred to, 130

    Véron (Dr.), anecdote of, 221;
      on the restaurant,  339

    Verres, referred to, 43

    Viel-Castel (Vicomte de), anecdote of, 214

    Vienna roll (the), origin of, 171

    Vincent La Chapelle, 61

    Vineyards (celebrated), first founded by the ecclesiasts, 282

    Virgil, referred to, 234

    Vitellius, referred to, 43, 44

    Vol-au-vent à la financière, 203;
      inventor of, 48

    Vopallière (Marquis de), referred to, 71

    Vuillemot, referred to, 212, 213


    Walker (Thos.), 106, 195, 319 _et seq._;
      as a gastronomer, 326

    Walton (Isaac), referred to, 81

    Ward (Artemus), his _mot_ on hasty pudding, 134;
      his _mot_ on pies, 437

    Weenix, referred to, 234, 445

    Wheat, original home of, 9

    Wheatears, 335, 361

    White (Gilbert), referred to, 243, 272;
      quoted, 360

    Whitebait, as eulogized by Thackeray, 328, 387

    Whitefish (the), 45

    Wines, of the ancients, 13, 17, 30, 40;
      of the ancient Romans, 30;
      in use in England, 96-98;
      difficulty of testing, 135;
      German, 168;
      of old Alsace, 159;
      brut champagne, 262, 431;
      importance of good, 262, 264, 265;
      champagne, 262, 270, 323, 337, 438;
      champagne, its virtues, 283, 379;
      their relation to the clergy, 282, 291, 293, 295, 309 _et seq._;
      "Est, Est, Est," history of, 310 _et seq._;
      importance of a sufficient variety, 322-323;
      their relation to game, 356, 372;
      to truffles and mushrooms, 394, 408;
      Château Yquem, crême, of 1861 and 1864, 427;
      as a medium of hygiene, 444

    Woman, jealousy of, 14;
      imitating man's excesses, 46;
      Talleyrand's precept regarding, 79;
      compared to peaches, 119;
      as gastronomers,  125, 343, 351;
      La Reynière's distinction  of, as guests, 139;
      created for the selfish wishes of man, 174;
      her fondness for sweetmeats, 174, 429, 430, 433;
      Savarin's references to, 192;
      as an addition to a shooting-party, 192-193, 378;
      a French toast to, 283;
      as an adjunct to the dinner, 320;
      disadvantages of dining with, 338, 340;
      in the eighteenth century, 347;
      how she may hypnotise the sterner sex, 350, 429;
      a toast in sparkling St. Péray to her, 351;
      Balzac's reference to, 351;
      the wise one defined, 351;
      _vs._ champagne, 379, 429;
      compared to mushrooms, 398;
      pretty one should mix a salad, 420;
      her relation to cookery, 429;
      a foil for man's mistakes, 431;
      as a garnish  to an omelette, 432;
      her pet tipples in colonial times, 438, 439

    Woodcock, 355, 359, 365, 366, 376

    Wordsworth, referred to, 240


    Yellowshank (the), 361

    Yuan Mei, quoted, 6


FOOTNOTES:

[1] That the onion, garlic, and radish were held in particular esteem
is attested by Herodotus, who says in his time (450 B.C.) there was
an inscription on the Great Pyramid, stating that a sum amounting to
sixteen hundred talents had been paid out for these three forms of
food, which had been consumed by the workmen during the progress of its
erection.

[2] The world has scarcely been as liberal to literature as to
gastronomy; although the graceful French poet, the Abbé Philippe
Desportes, who so celebrated his mistresses Diane, Hypolite and
Cléonice in verse, was munificently rewarded for his lyrical talent by
Henry III, and presented besides with an abbey worth an annual rental
of ten thousand crowns for having written a sonnet which captivated the
Duc de Joyeuse, brother-in-law of the king.

[3] Rev. Philip Francis' transl.

[4] Sir Theodore Martin's transl.

[5] Tobacco, unknown to the ancients, did not come into use among
Asiatic and European peoples until the latter half of the sixteenth
century, or a long period after the discovery of America--nearly all
its species being of American origin. Its name, Nicotiana, was derived
from that of John Nicot of Nismes, ambassador from the King of France
to Portugal, who procured the first seeds from a Dutchman who had them
from Florida.

[6] Rev. Philip Francis' transl.

[7] "My red wing gives me my name; but it is my tongue that is
considered savory by epicures. What if my tongue had been able to
sing?"--MARTIAL, Epigrams: "The Flamingo."

[8] The Duc de Montausier used to say, _Qu'a sa tenue de convive on
reconnaissait un gentilhomme_.

[9] Les Delices de la Campagne. Suitte du Jardinier françois ov est
enseigne a preparer pour l'vsage de la vie tout ce qui croist sur la
Terre & dans les Eaux. Dedie avx dames Mesnageres. À Paris, chez Pierre
Des-Hayes, 1654.

[10] The cause assigned to Vatel's death has been disputed, some having
maintained it was not owing to the non-arrival of the fish, but because
on cooking the fish they were found "not to be so fresh as they might
be."

[11] Les Soupers de la Cour, ou l'art de travailler toutes sortes
d'alimens. Pour servir les meilleures Tables, suivant les quatre
Saisons. A Paris chez Guillyn, Libraire, 1755.

[12] L'Art du Cuisinier, par A. Beauvilliers, Ancien Officier de
Monsieur, comte de Provence, Attaché aux Extraordinaires des Maisons
Royales et actuellement Restaurateur, rue de Richelieu, No. 26 à la
grande Taverne de Londres. A Paris, chez Pillet Ainé, 1814, 2 vols.

[13]

Défendez que personne, an milieu d'un banquet, Ne vous vienne donner un
avis indiscret; Ecartez ce facheux qui vers vous s'achemine--Rien ne
doit déranger l'honnête homme qui dîne.


[14] L'Art de dîner en ville à l'usage des gens de lettres, poème en
iv chants. Seconde édition revue et corrigée. Paris, Delaunay; Colnet,
1810.

[15] Herrick, "Hesperides."

[16] The English housewife; containing the inward and outward Vertues
which ought to be in a compleat Woman; as to her skill in Physicke,
Cookery, Ordering of Great Feasts, etc., etc. London, 1631.

[17] Elizabeth Robins Pennell: "The Feasts of Autolycus."

[18] The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, which far Exceeds Every
Thing of the Kind Ever yet Published. By a Lady. London: Printed for
the Author; and sold at Mrs. Ashburn's, a China Shop, the Corner of
Fleet Ditch.

[19] Almanach des Gourmands, Suivant de Guide Dans Les Moyens de faire
excellente Chère; Par Un Viel Amateur. Troisième Edition. Revue,
Corrigée et Considérablement Augmentée. A Paris. Chez Maradan, rue
Pavés-Saint-André-des-Arcs, 1804, 1804, 1805, 1806, 1807, 1808. Chez
Joseph Chaumerot, Libraire, au Palais Royal, Galeries de Bois, 1810,
1812.

[20] Manuel des Amphitryons; contenant Un Trait de la Dissection des
viandes à table, la Nomenclature des Menus les plus nouveaux pour
chacque saison, et des Elémens de la Politesse gourmande. Ouvrage
indispensable à tous ceux qui sont jaloux de faire bonne chère, et de
la faire faire aux autres. Orné d'un grand nombre de Planches gravées
en taille-douce. Par l'Auteur de l'Almanach des Gourmands. A Paris,
Chez Capelle et Renand, MDCCCVIII.

[21] "We shall never forget a dinner that eight of us had at M.
Tailleur's, in which he made us drink forty bottles of his best wine of
all kinds, and each service of which attested the competent master of
the alimentary art."

L'ALMANACH, 4^{me} année, p. 152.

[22]

(In depths of Seidels tall we Germans find our power, As did in years
agone our ancestors of yore; For in the noble barley-wine there lingers
still a might divine.)

[23] L'Ancienne Alsace à Table. Etude Historique et Archéologique sur
l'Alimentation, les Mœurs et les Usages Epulaires de l'ancienne
Province d'Alsace: par Charles Gérard, Avocat à la Cour Impériale de
Colmar. Colmar, Imprimerie et Lithographie de Camille Decker, 1862.
Large 8vo, pp. 269.

[24] Diese Zahl bedeutet die ununterbrochenen Dienstjahre der betr.
Kellnerin.

[25] It should be distinctly stated that the rendition is by the late
Rev. Francis Mahony (_requiescat in pace!_). Recalling his scathing
stricture on "The Rogueries of Tom Moore," one were unwise not to
mention the name of the scholarly paraphrast and poet, for fear that he
might arise to wreak summary vengeance. But inasmuch as no authorship
is assigned to the poem by the versatile bard, and as one must be on
guard most of the time against the subtile spirit of fun and malice
which pervades his pages, it is probable that both the French song and
the rendition are by the same accomplished hand.

[26]

"Es lohnet mir heute Mit doppelter Beute Ein gutes Geschick; Der
redliche Diener Bringt Hasen und Hühner Zur Küche zurück; Hier find
ich gefangen, Auch Vogel noch hangen. Es lebe der Jäger, Es lebe sein
Glück!"


[27] The reader who is interested in pastoral luncheons and all their
possibilities should compare the "Halts of a Shooting Party" with the
chapter entitled "Des Parties de Campagne Gourmandes" in the fourth
volume of the "Almanach des Gourmands."

[28] "Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, par Alexandre Dumas. Paris,
Alphonse Lemerre, Editeur, Passage Choiseul, 1873."

[29] "Propos d'Art et de Cuisine."

[30] Rev. Joseph A. Ely's transl.

[31] "Le Gastronome Français" (1828). G. D. L. R., "De La Truffe."

[32] "Roti-Cochon ou Méthode Très-Facile pour bien apprendre les
Enfants a Lire en Latin et en Francais, par des Inscriptions moralement
expliquées de plusieurs Representations figurées de différentes choses
de leurs connoissances; très utile et meme necessaire, tant pour la vie
& le salut, que pour la gloire de Dieu. A Dijon, chez Claude Michard,
Imprimeur & Marchand Libraire à Saint Jean l'Evangéliste."

[33] "The English system of cookery it would be impertinent for me
to describe; but still, when I think of that huge round of parboiled
ox-flesh, with sodden dumplings floating in a saline, greasy mixture,
surrounded by carrots looking red with disgust and turnips pale with
dismay, I cannot help a sort of inward shudder, and making comparisons
unfavourable to English gastronomy."--MEMOIRS OF A STOMACH. Written by
Himself. London, 1853.

[34] "Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine," by W. Carew Hazlitt,
London, Elliot Stock, 1886.

[35] "Lo Scalco prattico di Vittorio Lancellotti da Camerino
All'Illustrissimo, e Reuerendiss. Prencipe il Card. Ippolito
Aldobrandino Camerlengo di Santa Chiesa. In _Roma Appresso Francesco
Corbelletti_. 1627."

[36] Cardinal Bonnechose, who was most appropriately surnamed, is
especially remembered for his bon-mot, "Le clergé est un régiment; il
faut qu'il marche."

[37]

Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps
of day, Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along....

BRYANT: Lines to a Waterfowl.


[38] Mme. Récamier.

[39]

"Hart an dem Bolsener See, Auf des Flaschenberges Hoh', Steht ein
kleiner Leichenstein Mit der kurzen Inschrift drein: _Propter nimium
Est, Est, Dominus meus mortuus est!_

"Unter diesem Monument, Welches keinen Namen nennt, Ruht ein Herr von
deutschem Blut, Deutschem Schlund und deutschem Mut, Der hier starb den
schönsten Tod--Seine Schuld vergeb' ihm Gott!"


[40] "The Cook's Oracle; Containing Receipts for Plain Cookery on the
Most Economical Plan for Private Families, etc. The Fourth Edition.
London: Printed for A. Constable & Co. 1822."

[41] "The Original, by the Late Thomas Walker, M.A., Trinity College,
Cambridge. Fifth Edition. Edited by Wm. A. Guy. London, Henry Renshaw,
1875."

[42] "The Art of Dining, or Gastronomy and Gastronomers. London: John
Murray, Albemarle Street, 1852." 12mo, pp. 137.

[43] "Dinners and Diners, Where and How to Dine in London. By
Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis. A New Enlarged and Revised Edition. London:
Grant Richards, 1901." Chapters LIII, pp. 376.

[44] "L'Hygiene des Hommes livrés aux Travaux de l'Esprit."

[45] "The Feasts of Autolycus--The Diary of a Greedy Woman. Edited by
Elizabeth Robins Pennell. London: John Lane. New York: The Merriam Co.
1896."

[46] _Coulis_--a thick gravy, and also a term formerly applied to the
fundamental sauces.

[47] "L'Art Culinaire."

[48] "All the entrées having the name Bayonnaises (a corrupt
term for Mahonnoise) were the invention of the Maréchal, Duc de
Richelieu."--MANUEL DES AMPHITRYONS.

[49] The recipes for sauce _à la Richelieu_ and Francatelli's sauce are
presented respectively in the following and in a previous chapter.

[50] "Those which feed much on cantharides require to be very carefully
cleaned, otherwise persons eating them are liable to suffer severely.
Several gentlemen of New Orleans have assured me that they have seen
persons at dinner obliged to leave the room at once, under such
circumstances as cannot well be described."--AUDUBON: The Birds of
America.

[51] "La Petite-Cuisine."

[52] "I have not defined the truffle as yet, but the definition of this
_subterranean mushroom which embraces within its outer covering the
sporangiums filled until spores subsequently destined to reproduce it_,
is the result of all I have said."--IBID.: La Truffe. Etude sur les
Truffes et les Truffières. Par le Dr. C. de Ferry de la Bellone, Ancien
Président de la Société de Médecine de Vaucluse, Président du Comice
Agricole, etc., etc. Paris, Librairie J. B. Baillière et Fils, 1888.
8vo, pp. 312.

[53] "De la Truffe, Traite Complet de ce Tubercle, contenant sa
Description et son Histoire Naturelle la plus détaillée, son
Exploitation Commerciale et sa Position dans l'Art Culinaire; suivi
d'une Quatrième Partie contenant les meilleurs moyens d'employer les
truffes en apprêts culinaires; les meilleures méthodes d'en faire
des conserves certaines; les indications, recettes et moyens les
plus positifs et les plus compliqués stir tout ce qui concerne cette
substance; par M. M. Moynier. Paris, Barba. 1836." pp. 400.

[54] "Our Edible Toadstools and Mushrooms, and How to Distinguish Them.
A Selection of Thirty Native Food Varieties Easily Recognizable by
Their Marked Individualities, with Simple Rules for the Identification
of Poisonous Species. By W. Hamilton Gibson. With Thirty Colored Plates
and Fifty-seven Other Illustrations by the Author. New York, Harper &
Brothers, Publishers, 1895."

[55] "Annual Report of the State Botanist of the State of New York.
Made to the Regents of the University, Pursuant to Chapter 355 of the
Laws of 1883. By Charles H. Peck. Albany, James B. Lyon, Publisher,
1895. Second Edition, 1897."

[56] "Studies of American Fungi, Mushrooms Edible, Poisonous, etc. By
George Francis Atkinson, Professor of Botany in Cornell University
and Botanist of the Cornell University Experiment Station, Author
of 'Studies and Illustrations of Mushrooms,' 'Biology of Ferns,'
'Elementary Botany,' 'Lessons in Botany.' With a Chapter on Recipes
for Cooking Mushrooms, by Mrs. Sarah Tyson Rorer; on the Chemistry and
Toxicology of Mushrooms, by J. F. Clark; on the Structural Characters
of Mushrooms, by H. Hasselbring. With 200 Photographs by the Author,
and Coloured Plates by F. R. Rathbun. Ithaca, N. Y.: Andrus and Church,
Publishers, 1900."

[57] "Toadstools, Mushrooms, Fungi, Edible and Poisonous. One Thousand
American Fungi. How to Select and Cook the Edible; How to Distinguish
and Avoid the Poisonous, Giving Full Botanic Descriptions Made Easy
for Reader and Student. By Charles McIlvaine, President Philadelphia
Mycological Centre, Honorary Member Salem County and Gloucester County,
N. J., Medical Societies; Assisted by Robert K. Macadam. Toadstool
Poisons and Their Treatment, Instructions to Students, Recipes for
Cooking, etc., etc. Indianapolis, U. S. A.: The Bowen-Merrill Company,
Publishers. Edition limited to 750 copies."

[58]

"Two large potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, Unwonted softness
to the salad give. Of mordant mustard add a single spoon, Distrust
the condiment that bites so soon; But deem it not, thou man of herbs,
a fault To add a double quantity of salt. Three times the spoon with
oil from Lucca crown, And once with vinegar procured from town.
True flavour needs it, and your poet begs The pounded yellow of two
well-boiled eggs; Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, And, scarce
suspected, animate the whole. And, lastly, on the flavoured compound
toss A magic teaspoon of anchovy sauce. Then though green turtle fail,
though venison's tough, And ham and turkey are not boiled enough,
Serenely full, the epicure may say, 'Fate cannot harm me, I have dined
to-day.'"


[59] "As for the pepper, never use the powdered pepper that you buy at
the grocer's and which has generally lost its flavour before it reaches
the depths of the pepper-caster. The only pepper worthy to titillate
the papillæ of a civilised man is that ground out of the peppercorn, at
the moment of use, in a little hand-mill."--THEODORE CHILD: Delicate
Feasting.

[60] "The Story of My House": "A Blue-Violet Salad."

[61] "Jam! jam! I yield me to thy potent charm."


Transcriber's Note:

1. Original spelling has been retained.

2. Punctuation and obvious spelling errors have been corrected.

3. Superscripts are shown as ^{xx} or ^x.

4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.

5. Bold script is shown as =xxx=.