Chapter II: may be regarded as an Intermezzo--but a most important one, (6)

The alligator-pear--or let us call it avocado, please--is one of the Creator's masterpieces--what we would call a stroke of genius had a mortal originated it. But, like other works of genius, it is not appreciated by all--or at once. An American, writing from the West Indies, declared that there the avocado is "ever present and always welcomed." But, he proceeds, it is "a pitfall and a snare, and many a green foreigner has been taken in by the name and afterwards by the pear itself. Such a magnificent specimen of this luscious fruit, the 'pear,' as the one seen in the Jamaica markets causes the hand of the new arrival to go down promptly into his pocket for a penny with which the coveted fruit is secured. Yum, yum! A pear weighing three or four pounds! What a feast! The knife appears, a generous slice is cut out, but when it touches the palate! Yah! It is a flat, flabby, tasteless vegetable (although it grows on a tree), but sliced and eaten with salt at the table it forms a pleasant relish."

Had this man eaten it with French dressing he would have found it a food fit for gods. The avocado was undoubtedly created to serve as a salad. If you cut it in two, lengthwise, and take out the big stone, you have two halves like those of a small melon. The flesh, firm though soft and custardy, has a most exquisite flavor--a faint flavor which, with oil and vinegar makes a symphony of fragrance.

Until a few years ago I myself, misled by poor specimens, groped in utter darkness as to the enchantments of the avocado. It was Hildegarde Hawthorne who, returning from Jamaica, brought us some choice samples. There was joy in the mansion thereat. It was like the discovery of a new song by Schubert or Grieg, or a new painting by Titian.

After writing the above remarks I came across a clipping in which an evident epicure objected to "desecrating" the avocado pear by oil or mayonnaise dressing when served. "Eat it with a spoon slowly," he advises, "to give time for the pleasure it imparts to permeate the very soul, and let who will rail at fate. There are those who give it a slight sprinkling of salt, others who dust it over with a little white pepper, but personally I would as soon think of flavoring my currant jelly with garlic or my chateau Yquem with Trinidad rum."

This sounds plausible, and I admit that a perfect avocado is better without than with vinegar and oil. An imperfect one isn't; and in most cases we have found in our dining-room that the avocado is rather too rich to be eaten without a little acid dressing. It contains seventeen per cent. of oil, and is known in some regions as the "butter fruit."

To return to France. Next to the artichoke and the escarole--which is the better of the two I don't know--the most desirable thing it has given us in the way of salads is the romaine--but how much whiter, crisper and tenderer it is in Paris than what is offered for sale under that name in New York!

Another chance to coin good money, messieurs gardeners! Americans _must_ have the best, and if you don't supply it, a rival will.

The American lobster and shrimp salads cannot be beaten; but we have much to learn of the French and other Europeans as to the endless varieties of green, vegetable, fish and meat salads by way of multiplying the pleasures of the table, and banishing intestinal dyspepsia, for which salads are more remedial than Fletcherizing.

When once the importance of this subject is fully understood, salads will become the principal lunch dishes in American homes and restaurants, especially during the hot months when to be "three miles from a lemon"--or something else that is refreshingly sour--is a hygienic tragedy.

"Fruit salads," when not sour, make desirable desserts. When not sour, such combinations should not be called salads. As a rule sour fruit mixtures seem incongruous to a _trained_ palate.

In these days of Debussyan influences one must be prepared for all sorts of anarchistic combinations of flavors. Personally, I draw the line at the compound of Roquefort cheese and sour salad now placed unblushingly on some American tables. The mixture of these two delicacies is awful. One can easily see how the illegitimate union was suggested by the illogical custom of serving cheese with salad, dressed or undressed--the usual English way.

VEGETABLES AS A SEPARATE COURSE.

The mess just referred to, which would make a Parisian gourmet shudder, is only one illustration of the Anglo-American mistaken policy of serving together foods that are preferable separately. On this point, too, France has an important lesson to teach us, particularly in the serving of vegetables.

The making of a menu requires as much taste and judgment as the arranging of a concert program. Next to variety, contrast is the most important thing to be considered. A vegetable served separately provides some of this needful contrast.

An English epicure declares that the secret of the excellence in French cookery lies in the lavish use of vegetables. "Where we use one kind, French cooks use twenty."

This point was sufficiently dwelt on in the paragraphs relating to the making of savory soups and stews. It illustrates Gallic skill in culinary _orchestration_. But the French know that at a dinner, as at a concert, a _solo_ piece is desirable, and therefore they always serve one choice vegetable as a separate course.

As a matter of course the vegetable selected for this distinction--be it peas, beans, spinach, cauliflower, asparagus, artichoke, carrots, or whatnot--must be particularly fresh and succulent. It must also, like the singer's solo number, have an accompaniment, that is to say an appropriate sauce.

No French cook would spoil the delicate natural flavor of green peas with mint, as the English do. I once asked a waiter in a London restaurant why mint was put with the peas. He promptly replied: "Peas 'ave no flavor, sir!"

In France, butter (French butter) is used as the best accompaniment to a solo vegetable. It makes the string beans and whatever else it goes with more savory, without obliterating their individual flavor, as the mint does in the case of peas.

PARIS RESTAURANTS.

The French have reason to boast that the gastronomic center of the world is in Paris, within a circle intersected by a line drawn from the Place de l'Opéra to the Place Vendôme. In this region there are scores of restaurants of the first rank in which one eats the best soups and stews, the best veal, the best poultry, the best salads and sauces, the best vegetables, the best entrées, the best bread and butter, the best cheeses, to be found anywhere on this big planet of ours. Some persons, for sufficient reasons, prefer English roast meats or German, Swiss, or Austrian pastry, but in the preparation of the foods just named French supremacy is unquestionable.

It takes months--and a big purse--to get an adequate idea of the good things offered at the Paris restaurants. Each has its special dishes and sauces, handed down in some cases from generation to generation. Not to have a unique sauce for sole, or a monopoly in a special kind of soup, would subject an establishment to the danger of being classed as second-rate.

Paris is full of professional epicures--prominent among them are authors and journalists--who frequent certain places for special famous dishes and who quickly resent any deterioration or carelessness on the part of the chef. It is these connoisseurs who are served best; they are willing to give the cook time to prepare a dish scientifically, and they take time to eat it hygienically, that is, with lingering enjoyment of its appetizing flavors.

These gourmets appreciate epicurean subtleties like that practiced by the late Frédéric of the Tour d'Argent, who held that "different kinds of fuel should be used for the roasting of different kinds of meat, believing that the spiced scents of some woods transmitted in the cooking add to the pleasure of eating all kinds of game";--a notion which was acted on by the ancient Romans as well as by Japanese gourmets, and which is also justified by the fact that in the smoking of ham and bacon it makes a decided difference what kind of wood is burned.

One of the oldest Parisian restaurants is the Boeuf à la Mode which, for more than a century, has owed its vogue in part to its special way of preparing and serving the dish after which it is named.

A specialty of these restaurants is pancake. In our own country "French pancake" is usually a thick, leathery griddle cake rolled round a spoonful of jelly and served tepid on a tepid plate. In Paris the head waiter himself attends to the important function of putting the finishing touches on the cakes. They are brought in from the kitchen thin, crisp, and hot; but that is not enough. The waiter has before him a chafing dish into which he puts one of the cakes, with a hard sauce, and some liqueur which is set on fire. He has also before him a pile of hot plates for each of the diners; into one of these plates each cake is transferred when ready and brought to you by another waiter, to be eaten red-hot. It is worth a trip across the Atlantic to eat those pancakes.

Mutton on the best Parisian menus is not simply mutton. It is mutton of a particular "vintage," and in some cases the name of the breeder of the sheep is printed on the bill of fare.

Fruit is brought to the table in large baskets. Cherries, and particularly the fragrant wild strawberries, seem doubly appetizing when served that way. A fragrant French melon sometimes perfumes a whole dining-room. Those who have to count their francs, however, had better inquire as to prices before indulging freely in fancy fruits.

Very expensive, though worth the money, are the _langoustes_, which are as good as the American lobster. Better still are the _écrevisses_, or crawfish, which are kept on sale alive in the great market place, and are therefore always good, and safe to eat.

Some restaurants are favored for their lunches, others for their dinners, still others for their late suppers. In this last class, it is needless to say, vulgar extravagance prevails. Usually there is the latest kind of dancing, or music, or some other kind of stupefying noise, and gastronomy takes a back seat.

Warm weather brings into favor the summer restaurants, in which usually one can lunch or dine in the garden or under a tree. That the breathing of outdoor air while eating is as great an appetizer as the savory food itself, is one of the many lessons we have yet to learn of the French and other Europeans.

How did the restaurants of Paris get their culinary supremacy?

During the Revolution many of the nobles were ruined, and their chefs--among them Méot, Robert, Roze, Véry, Leda, Legacque, Beauvilliers, Naudet, Edon became caterers to gourmets at large. "Beauvilliers, who established his restaurant about 1782, was for fifteen years the most famous restaurateur of Paris, and provided liberally such delicate and sublimated dishes as those which had hitherto been found only on the tables of the king, of the nobles, and of the farmers-general. The great restaurateurs of modern Paris are nearly all successors of one or the other of the famous cooks above mentioned," as Theodore Child pointed out.

In the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris I came across books giving curious glimpses of the restaurants at earlier periods. In 1574 there was published a "Discours sur les causes de l'extrême cherté qui est aujourd'hui en France et sur les moyens d'y remédier." The author complains that people are no longer satisfied with three courses but must have meats in half-a-dozen styles, with sauces, _hachés_, _pasticeries_, all sorts of _salmigondis_, etc. Every one he says, now goes to dine at Le More, Sanson, Innocent, or Havart, "maistres de volupté et despense, qui en une chose publique bien policée et reglée seraient bannis et chassez comme corrupteurs des mœurs."

This diatribe against the providers of savory food as corruptors of public morals who, if the police tended to its duty, would be chased from the city, seems to indicate that Puritan ideas on the subject of the enjoyment of food once prevailed even in France.

As late as 1842 there were only seventeen restaurants in Paris, where now there are more than seventeen times seventeen. At the date mentioned, most of them were near the Palais Royal, and one could dine for two francs--forty cents!--while lunch was only a franc and a quarter. There were places where a workman could get, for twenty centimes (four cents), bread, wine, soup, and meat enough for a meal.

In Paris, as elsewhere, prices have soared since that time, but correspondingly cheap eating places abound in all quarters. The lowest-priced restaurants likely to be patronized by tourists and resident foreigners are the Duval, and other "Bouillons," at which one who knows may get good dishes. Well-to-do Parisians and foreigners may often be seen in these eating places, and one of them actually has a star of excellence in Baedeker.

At one of these establishments I had one of the best _petites marmites_ I have ever eaten. If you don't know what a petite marmite is I am sorry for you. I have dined repeatedly with a Frenchman noted both as artist and epicure, and each time he ordered petite marmite. If you ask a French head waiter's advice in London or Paris, he is more likely than not to suggest petite marmite. It is so good, and the making of it gives such a deep insight into French methods that I will quote the recipe by Escoffier in his "Le Guide Culinaire." It is for ten people.

_Nutritious elements_: 2 lbs. beef, one lb. lean, the other
well mixed with fat, as the end of a rib. 1 marrowbone wrapped
in cheese-cloth, 1 fowl--not too young and tender, giblets
from four fowls. _Liquid_: 3 litres (about three quarts) of
white consommé--recipe follows--the seasoning to be added just
before serving.

_Aromatic elements_: 2-5 lb. carrots (200 grammes), 2-5 lb.
nearly ripe turnips, 3-10 lb. leeks (150 grammes), 1 small
celery heart, ½ lb. cabbage, blanched, cooked separately
with bouillon and drippings.

"_Observations:_ The 'Petite Marmite' consommé is served
without clarifying, and owes its merit only to the materials
which it contains and the extreme care brought to its
preparation. It must be served slightly fat. Its special
savor, different from clarified consommé, must recall the
homely Pot-au-feu, and be recognized unmistakably in Croute
au pot, Consommé à la Bouchère, and others of which it is the
base, the only difference being that these consommés do not
need absolutely to have fowl in them, whereas it is rigorously
obligatory in the Petite Marmite.

"For 10 litres of white consommé 7 kilos of beef (between
14 and 15 lbs.) 4 kilos being lean meat, the other 3 soup
bone, 21-5 lbs. carrots (5 or 6), 900 grammes (nearly 2 lbs.)
turnips, 1 lb. leeks, 2-5 lb. parsnips, 2 medium-sized onions,
3 cloves, 3 cloves of garlic, 3 pieces celery, 14 litres (14
quarts approximately) cold water, 70 grammes brown salt (salt
that has not been purified). Cook five hours.

"_Observations_: Simple consommé is habitually cooked 5 hours,
which is quite sufficient to get all the nutritious elements
from the beef. On the other hand this is quite insufficient
for the bones and fails to extract their nutritive principles.
To obtain this result slow cooking from 12 to 15 hours is
necessary. In great kitchens it has become the habit to make
a first consommé with the bones (crushed) which will cook
at least 12 hours. This consommé is then used for a second
cooking of the meat alone which takes about 4 hours, that
is only the time necessary to cook the meat. This second
operation can be shortened by cutting meat and vegetables in
small pieces and clarifying them as usual."

As the American practice of bluffing--of charging a high price for a poor thing, to make the consumer think it must be good--is not a Parisian trait, the more expensive the restaurant, the better the food is likely to be.

Next to the Bouillons, in the culinary hierarchy, are the Brasseries. At these, one can get well prepared dishes at reasonable prices, which are always marked on the bill of fare; and, as the name indicates, one can take a glass of beer or a bottle of mineral water instead of the expensive wine which the highest class restaurants expect every one to order, on penalty of perhaps not being served with a meal prepared in the chef's best mood.

These leading restaurants are at present in the throes of a serious struggle for existence; pessimists go so far as to predict the extinction of the whole species in the not very distant future. The Maison Dorée and the Café Riche had to make way some years ago for business houses that could better afford to pay the soaring rents, and in 1912 the Durand was transformed into a tailoring establishment. Of the old classical restaurants the Tour d'Argent, Lapérouse, Paillard, Bœuf à la Mode, Voisin, hold their own, yet I have dined in them on evenings when they were anything but crowded.

Doubtless the custom of some of these places of not affixing prices to the viands offered on the bill of fare has had something to do with bringing about this result. Even a well-to-do diner does not always care to be entirely at the mercy of the head waiter in the making-up of his bill. But it is the multiplying of the brasseries that is chiefly responsible for the decline of the high-priced restaurants, and another dangerous rival that has helped to bring it about is the palatial, up-to-date hotel. Some of these hotels employ as good chefs as the leading restaurants and offer as abundant opportunities for sumptuous and savory repasts, at prices tall enough to please the most reckless visitor from New York or Buenos Ayres.

Gourmets will doubtless continue to frequent the classical restaurants as long as they maintain their high standard. It would be a historic as well as a gastronomic calamity to have them disappear. If necessary the Government should give them a subvention as it does to the Opéra and the Théâtre Français; for these epicurean establishments have done quite as much as the theaters to make France famous among the civilized nations of the world.

It is owing to them that French long ago became the culinary world-language. Go wherever you please, from Paris to Berlin, to Lucerne, Milan, Vienna, Constantinople, Tokio; or, in the other direction, to London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Melbourne,--everywhere, at the leading restaurants, you will find the menu printed in French, and, in case of a course dinner, the viands offered in the order prescribed by French gourmets.

In Germany, after the Franco-Prussian war, chauvinistic attempts were made to banish French words from the bill of fare. These attempts were, as Hermann Dunger frankly admits in his _Verdeutschungswörterbuch_ (1882), a failure; in some cases the comic consequence was that Germans who recognized a dish under its French name hadn't the remotest idea what it was when translated into their own language. Like the Italian forte, piano, adagio, diminuendo, and other musical expression marks, French gastronomic words have become parts of a spontaneous Esperanto--a world-language, which has come to stay; a perpetual reminder of the most important contribution made by the great French nation to modern civilization--the gradual substitution, everywhere, and particularly in Germany and England, of refined methods of preparing food in place of the barbarous mediæval ones prevalent until two centuries ago.

We get an interesting glimpse of French gastronomic leadership by glancing at the words successively adopted by the Germans. In 1715, when the "Frauenzimmerlexicon" of Amaranthes appeared, the following French words had already gained currency, among them: bouillon, carbonade, champignon, côtelette, coulis, crème, à la daube, entremets, farce, fricadelle, fricandeau, fricassé, gelée, hachis, marinieren, omelette, pikant, potage, ragout, saucisse; and for most of these there was no exact equivalent in German.

During the time of Louis XV Germany further imported the following: dejeuner, diner, souper, dessert, entrée, fumet, haut-goût, poularde, saucière, sorbet, table d'hôte, bonbon, champagne, limonade, liqueur.

To a later period belong braiser, bœuf à la mode, consommé, filet, hors d'œuvre, konserve, roulade. These as well as the words gastronome and gourmand were imported during the early decades of the nineteenth century. To the second half of the century belong croquette, entrecôte, flan, remoulade, meringue, purée, vol-au-vent. The word menu was not adopted in Germany till after 1850.

RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN INFLUENCES.

In Paris as in New York one can make a gastronomic tour of the world. While the French, in return for all the culinary terms they have lent their neighbors seem to have adopted only one Teutonic word ("Bock," for beer), they amiably tolerate the presence within their walls of German and Austrian restaurants, some of which are excellent, though thoroughly exotic from the French point of view. In one of them the host is so much of an epicure himself that in his delight with the Viennese menu he sketches for you, he will blow a kiss at the enjoyments it calls up in his imagination.

Most Germans and Austrians, however, are glad to frequent the French restaurants while in Paris, and the same, as Col. Newnham-Davis informs us, is true of the English visitor, though if he desires a chop or a steak, he can have one made to order in one of the many grill rooms in foreign style that have come into existence, and in one of which the joints of beef and mutton are wheeled to the tables and carved there to order, as in some London eating houses. The Italians are more apt to cling to their own style of cookery, and they have plenty of places adorned with Chianti bottles where they can have their spaghetti, their risotto, their fritto misto, and their other excellent fries. The Spanish also have places where they can indulge their appetite for home dishes; and so have many other nations, including Greeks, as well as the Turks and other Orientals.

Of all the foreigners only two, the Russians and the Americans, have had a definite influence on the French cuisine and menu--and not to their advantage, it must be confessed.

From the Russians the Paris restaurateurs borrowed the custom of beginning a meal with hors d'œuvres, or appetizers. I remember the time when the hors d'œuvres in France simply meant radishes, butter, and a few thin slices of sausage which were placed on the table at once and against indulging in which the guide books warned tourists unless they were prepared to face a substantial addition to their bill. To-day, the price of the appetizers is usually noted on the bill of fare, and it is not at all high, even at the aristocratic restaurants. Cold smoked salmon, tunny fish, sardines, baby artichokes in oil, various vegetable, fish, and lobster salads, cold eggs, sliced sausages, and sundry other delicacies are offered, with bread and butter.

These things undoubtedly are good, and they are appetizers; but they are also appetite destroyers--quite too substantial to preface an elaborate dinner. In Russia and Scandinavia, where the extreme cold creates a ravenous appetite and a great capacity for stowing away things, they may be all right; but in temperate climes, and for dwellers in cities who get little exercise, they are too heavy. When I see one of these displays of cold dishes I always think what a tempting lunch they would make all by themselves; but if I eat them before dinner I certainly cannot enjoy what follows as much as I would without them; and that, I believe, is the experience of most diners who are not neighbors of the Eskimos.

It is different with caviare and oysters. These are merely appetizers, containing little nourishment; but caviare is not for everybody, and as for oysters, since they must be served ice-cold, it is unwise to chill the stomach by beginning with them. Let them follow the soup, which is, because of its warmth and its stimulating effect on the digestive glands, the best thing to begin a meal with. Muskmelons and grapefruit may be allowed to precede it if served without ice, which certainly impairs their flavor.

While adopting the Russian hors d'œuvre habit, the Parisians have had too much taste and moderation to indulge in its Gargantuan extremes. The performances of Russians and Swedes border on the miraculous.

If Russians in Paris cannot everywhere indulge in the riotous profusion of hors d'œuvre they have at home, they can do so at La Rue's, which has a full line of them and also of diverse other "mets Russes nationaux."

Americans who wish to eat ham and eggs, or hash, or corn muffins, griddle cakes, breakfast cereals and that sort of thing, may find them in hotels and in not a few of the restaurants. American lobsters, at Eiffel Tower prices, are on every menu, and there are places where oysters from across the Atlantic, as well as native, can be ordered raw, scalloped, fried, broiled, or in diverse stews, _tout comme chez nous_. The numerous grill rooms are also accommodating, though they do not open early enough to offer an American breakfast, while the hotels seldom venture on anything beyond bacon and eggs before lunch time.

It would be well if the Parisians ate an American breakfast and followed it up with a lighter lunch; but it would require another revolution to bring about such a reform.

Paris has become considerably Americanized. One can hardly wonder at having our cotton seed oil served instead of the noble juice of the olive at the cheap restaurants; but when I found that it was used unblushingly at some of the more expensive places I was shocked at this sign of decadence--or effrontery--and visions of cold storage poultry, salted butter, and doughy bread with inedible crust--but no! such things no one would _ever_ dare to place before Parisians!

The fact that their own olive oil is not as a rule equal to the best Italian may have made them for the moment tolerant of the American invader. The health authorities speak of diverse other substitutions and adulterants as being in use; but these are not necessarily American, though we lead the world in our tolerance of them.

What the Parisians chiefly complain about in reference to American influence is that it has introduced our national vice of hurry into the kitchen and the dining-room. When so many of the wealthiest patrons of the restaurants expect to get dishes served at a moment's notice, to be gulped down and hastily followed by others, the very strongholds of gastronomic France--slow cooking and leisurely eating--are assailed.

The chief danger to the French cuisine lies in the fact that, as Mr. Paderewski put it in a talk I had with him on this subject, "it is so much easier to prepare a meal the American way."

South Americans, though they have little to boast of at home in the way of pleasures of the table, adapt themselves more easily to French ways, and as they are rapidly increasing in numbers in Paris and spend even more money than the North Americans, their influence will perhaps counteract that of the impatient visitors from the United States, who usually know so much more about making dollars than about spending them rationally.

Every American has attended banquets at which there was more to feast the eyes than the palate. In the _Figaro_ Marcel Prévost complained (1910) that this sort of thing was gaining in Paris. "Mangeront-ils?" he asked--will Parisians of the future eat? Judging by the present tendency, they will not, he answers--they will feed. They will take nourishment, but gastronomy, the art of dining with intelligence and pleasure, will have ceased to exist. In the house the cause of this change is what Prévost calls the "progrès de la coquetterie féminine." Women, to be sure, were never the greatest of the culinary artists, but they used to pay some attention to food and its preparation, whereas at present their chief thought is of the appearance of the dining-room and the table. The linen, the porcelain, the glassware, must be of the finest, the flowers of the costliest, but the food and wine are provided by a paid caterer, who seldom knows his business. As for eating in restaurants or hotels, that is no better. The famous "maisons" have disappeared, to be replaced by huge palaces, in which everything is showy and sumptuous but the food everywhere the same, without distinction or individuality. What is worse, the younger generation does not seem to regret this. French youth even drink American cocktails and are not ashamed!

While there is no doubt some truth in these allegations they are absurdly exaggerated. Complaints as to the decadence of French cookery have been made at regular intervals--like the complaints about the disappearance of great singers. I once amused myself by writing an article covering three centuries, in which I quoted the laments of each generation over the decline of the art of song as compared with the brilliant achievements of the preceding generation of singers. Were it worth while I might compile equally amusing evidence on the subject of the French cuisine. Thackeray complained of a similarity of dinners. Charles Monselet in 1879, looked "in vain for the tables that are praised or the hosts that are renowned." In 1866 Nestor Roqueplan complained that the French "no longer find places devoted to the Flemish kitchen, others to the Normandy, Lyonnaise, Toulousian, Bordelaise, or Provençal kitchens." But he had the good sense to add that "France nevertheless is still the country where eating is found at its best."

So it is at the present day, and is likely to be for years to come. No matter how many of the best chefs are taken away by American millionaires or Russian Grand Dukes, Paris remains the world's high school of culinary art.

PROVINCIAL LOCAL FLAVORS.

While there may be fewer opportunities than there were formerly to get special Lyonnaise, Toulousian, or Bordelaise dishes in Paris, the Provinces themselves offer abundant opportunity to study and enjoy the infinite variety of French cookery. How large a field is open to the student may be inferred from the fact that Col. Newnham-Davis devotes no fewer than seventy pages of his "Gourmet's Guide to Europe" to a study of the inns, hotels, and restaurants of Provincial France. He found that "almost every town of any importance has some special dish or some special pâté of its own; there are hundreds of good old inns where the cuisine is that of their province, and there are great tracts of country which ought to be marked by some special color on all guide-book maps, where the cookery is universally good."

This noted English epicure advises gourmets who have time to journey leisurely and especially those who have an automobile at command, to make a journey of gastronomic exploration in the district between Montpellier and Toulouse, which is "a cradle of good cooks" and where some of the traditions of cookery of the old Romans still linger. The land of the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Saône is another and more northerly paradise of good cooking. "In Dordogne there is not a peasant who cannot get a traveler _en panne_ a truffled omelette which would make an alderman's mouth water ... and all the Midi from the Alps to the Pyrenees is a happy hunting ground for the gastronome."

My own experience in these regions is much more limited, but wherever I followed this epicure's advice I found him a reliable guide. In most parts of France, however, a guide to good cheer is hardly needed, for you can stop at almost any inn with the assurance of getting a savory lunch, dinner, or supper. In Provençal inns garlic is no doubt used too freely, but no harm can come to those who cannot stomach it, since its warning appeals as distinctly to the nose as the rattlesnake's does to the ear.

The Pyrenees are famed for trout and chicken. The chicken we found excellent, the trout less so. An innkeeper with whom I discussed the matter admitted frankly that they left something to be desired in the matter of flavor. A Parisian epicure to whom I had mentioned trout one day, shook his head and suggested sole or turbot instead.

Sole is at its best at Dieppe. In that town there is a restaurant, formerly frequented by Whistler, where the waiter, to please fastidious guests, proudly serves soles caught with his own hands in the early morning hours.

Cannes has a hotel the guests of which can go to a tank and with a net catch the particular fishes they want to eat half an hour later. At Aix-les-Bains there is a caterer who "will not have any salt-water fish in his larder, for Aix in summer is so hot that sea fish do not always come to table quite fresh, and this risk he will not run, in the interest of his clients."

America is not the only country where oysters are cheap. At Caen one pays only ten or twelve cents for a dozen of the best bivalves from Ouistreham and Courselles.

All along the French coast, west and south, one comes across dishes which owe their unique and usually delicious flavor to some special variety of shell fish, peculiar to the place, which is added to the sauce.

Marseilles is perhaps the best place for experimenting with shellfishes new to the visitor's palate. That this city owes its international fame largely to a special marine stew called bouillabaisse everybody knows. As I have eaten this dish in Marseilles itself but once and that so long ago that I do not remember the details, I will quote Col. Newnham-Davis's graphic remarks on it:

"The Southerners firmly believe that this dish cannot be properly made except of the fish that swim in the Mediterranean; the rascaz, a little fellow all head and eyes, being an essential in the savory stew, along with the eel, the lobster, the dory, the mackerel, and the girelle. Thackeray has sung the ballad of the dish as he used to eat it and his _recette_, because it is poetry, is accepted, though it is but the fresh-water edition of the stew. If you do not like oil, garlic, and saffron, which all come into its composition, give it a wide berth; but I should mention that the bouillabaisse at the Reserve is quite a mild and lady-like stew compared to that one gets at Bregailla's or the restaurants of the Rue Noailles."

Marseilles is not far from Italy, but before we proceed to that country, to learn what it can teach us in regard to wholesome and enjoyable foods, we must return for a moment to Paris to consider a few more of the specialties in which it asserts its gastronomic supremacy.

However interesting the Provinces may be because of their local dishes and delicacies, and because of the proof they afford that the value of well-cooked food is appreciated throughout France, their most important function, from our point of view, is that of providing the first-class material out of which the Parisian cooks prepare their chefs d'œuvres of culinary art. This material is sent daily from all directions to the metropolis in special express trains, to be offered for sale in the Halles Centrales, which, to the lover of good food and beautiful flowers, is one of the most interesting spots on earth.

THE WORLD'S GREATEST MARKET PLACE.

Emile Zola made these Halles Centrales the background of one of his naturalistic stories, "Le Ventre de Paris." Even his realistic and graphic descriptions fail, however, to convey an adequate idea of the colossal food traffic carried on in this market place, which, to be sure, is now much bigger than it was when he wrote his novel, not long after the erection of the vast structure, in 1851.

Ten pavilions there are in this building, each of them containing two hundred and fifty stalls. Retail dealers are installed in the front pavilions, while the others are occupied by the wholesale vendors, whose business also overflows into the streets leading to the market place. For the storing of provisions there is further a cellar under the Halles, divided into twelve hundred compartments.

To see this food market in its most characteristic aspects one has to get up long before the sun. It was half past four on a May morning when my wife and I unbolted the door of our hotel and hailed an auto-taxi to take us to the Halles. All Paris was still in bed, with the exception of the street-cleaners, who were giving the city its morning bath, a few chauffeurs, and the market gardeners, porters, vendors and buyers whose business it is to bring and distribute the daily provisions of the French metropolis. The following details as to what we saw are taken from an article written by my companion:

"At this early hour buyers are still rare. Inquisitive Americans may wander about with the freedom of disembodied spirits, and without attracting much more attention. We kept discreetly out of the way of hurrying porters and of swearing cartmen who were bringing their huge loads of vegetables to market. From the carts enormous mounds of carrots, long white turnips, cauliflowers, salads of all kinds, cabbages, sorrel tied in neat packages, radishes black and red, were being unloaded and stacked with incredible dexterity and rapidity, each mound a picture; the carrots and turnips were built up in square fortresses, the vegetables turned outward with perfect regularity, an orange and white feast to the eye, as well as a promise of joys to come for the palate. Beside these are heaped pointed cabbages of freshest green; cauliflowers as white as bridal bouquets; lettuces laid head down; escarole and romaine lying on their sides, displaying round, appetizing tips; chicory, a frizzled tangle of greenish white; while nearby bee-hive heaps of rosy radishes add another vivid color note.

"A little farther on our noses are greeted by the most exquisite perfumes, coming from large baskets of strawberries--the big cultivated ones--and the still more fragrant wild berries, the 'petites fraises des bois' which Parisians so dote on. Cherries, too, are plentiful, but they do not fill the air with luscious odors, as do the strawberries, though their deeper red, the gloss of their perfect surface and the contrasting pale green of their stems are a delight to the eye.

"The æstheticism of the Paris Halles is one of its dominant characteristics. Flowers appear in every corner mixed in with the stalls for edibles. Although a whole cross-street is given over to them, they are too abundant, Paris loves them too well, and needs too many for them to find sufficient room in one place only. A whole long block is devoted to _bleuets_, the simple corn flowers of the fields, packed in bunches a foot square; but roses reign supreme, pink, red, tea, moss, of all varieties, picked fresh and adding their perfumes to those of fruits and vegetables.

"There are also masses of irises, France's flower, yellow and blue; spicy pinks, ranging from white to dark red, through all the shades from palest salmon to deep rose; pansies, purple or yellow, bunched by colors; peonies, rose-scented, long stemmed, heavy-headed, in crimson, in pink, in white; Iceland poppies, bitterly fragrant, white, yellow, orange.

"It is almost impossible to tear one's self away from this riot of color and perfume, but there are so many sights that demand attention.

"Even the dead are not forgotten in the great market, for in one section of the Halles, under its huge resounding roof, one may buy the bead wreaths which are made to adorn French graveyards. There is almost a western American atmosphere in this light touching upon death in this center of vivid life, and once more we realize the kinship between French and Americans--except in the matter of eating, in which alas, we are so far behind them.

"The fish market does not open till late, for Paris wants its fish fresh caught, but there is the meat market to see, and there are still streets and streets of vegetables, streets filled with people, especially of busy porters with full or empty 'hottes'--the large baskets used in carrying vegetables--on their backs; or with the flat fruit baskets, four feet by two and a half, balanced on their heads, on which they carry loads of other baskets filled with strawberries, walking along as calmly as if they were alone in the world, and as if the streets were not slippery with vegetable leaves. We found it difficult to keep our footing on this green refuse from cabbages and lettuces, carrots and turnips, which had been cut off at one blow by the men who stacked them. But it was all fresh, clean, and sweet smelling.

"By six o'clock the vegetable mounds had disappeared almost entirely, as if melted away by the rising sun, and one understands why photographs of the Paris market are so scarce. When the sun finally shines through the soft morning haze there is little left to snap-shot. Three porters in blue blouses with 'hottes' on their backs politely consented to pose, and a pretty Parisian girl, brown-eyed and red-cheeked, had gladly stood near her pile of sorrel to be caught in the camera.

"The artichokes do not pose well. Great baskets heaped with these green scaly globes fill one street, but to catch them is next to impossible. First a cart gets stalled in front of a particularly fine group, and when that is gone there is a mass of people who must pass. Every one who notices the photographic attempts asks 'Is it for the Cinéma?'--the Paris rage of the moment--and one good-natured, impertinent Parisian asks if photographs are for sale and at what price. He is really so 'sympathique,' in the French sense, that one immediately confides one's desires and difficulties to him.

"At the chicken stalls, where the would-be photographer has to change a film, she finds an exhibition of the lower-class rudeness, and also of the lower-class politeness of the French market woman. From a corner which seemed to belong to no one she is rudely requested to move on, while ten steps farther on she is made welcome, given a chair, questioned about the 'Cinéma,' and apologized to for the lack of civility of the other woman.

"At another stall among the vegetables, one saucy young woman gets well laughed at by her companions. She is not too busy to notice the strangers, and, after looking them over with rather an impertinent stare, she remarks that it is 'funny to see these English people in Paris.' A laughing rejoinder from the strangers that they are not English but Americans makes her look abashed, much to the amusement of the other women.

"In this retail department there are plenty of string beans which are better in Paris than anywhere else, but the best of which an ignorant American would not think of buying. They are small and thin, and streaked with black, almost as if rusted. To the eye they are far less tempting than the thick rich green beans in our markets, but in taste they are more luscious. On the other hand, French peas are not equal, usually, to the English and American ones, being harder and less sweet, and therefore their flavor is not impaired, as ours would be, by the fact that the market-women sell some of them shelled. A real genre picture they make, three of these women, dropping the pale green pearls into wooden bowls, and talking even faster than they shell.

"We passed rather hastily through the meat market, although that is quite as interesting in its way as the other quarters, but we were especially desirous to see the fish market in its glory. However, we had a rapid view of great beef carcasses hung in rows, hundreds of lambs, calves and other creatures, and of the neat stalls where calves' heads, pigs' and lambs' feet, livers, sweetbreads, brains, and even lungs are all hung in neat array, or displayed attractively on slabs. French dealers know to perfection how to set off their wares. They have special methods of presenting their fine poultry so that no buyer can resist them, no matter what the price may be for turkeys, ducks, capons and poulardes.

"Vine and other leaves for decorative purposes are sold regularly in the market, and no one who has not seen it can imagine how much more tempting a fine Camembert or Pont l'Evêque can appear when it is set carefully on a fresh green leaf. The large cheeses cannot be thus decorated, but the smaller ones, as well as the pats of Normandy butter and the tempting little brown pots of delicately sour 'crème D'Isigny,' are always displayed in this way. The fine fruits, too, are made the object of solicitous care; in one corner of the market we ran across two men who were tenderly unloading the most fragrant melons, and arranging fine peaches, six in a box, laid carefully on a bed of soft white cotton. The perfect bunches of grapes for which some wealthy American may, later in the day, pay a fabulous price at the Café de Paris or at Voisin's, are temptingly exhibited in the same manner. It is strange that Paris is generally more æsthetic and artistic in its food and flower displays than in those of the many other luxuries and fashions it provides for the world.

"At six-thirty the fish market opens, and as one approaches, the deafening noise of the wholesalers, crying their wares, and selling to the highest bidder, fills the ears. The nose, too, takes cognizance of the perfume of the sea, the salt freshness of recently caught fish, quite different from the ancient and fish-like smell of an ordinary New York fish stall. We breathe it in with almost as much pleasure as we did the fruit, vegetable and flower perfumes. Here again the eyes are satisfied as well as the nose. Pale brown fish in a pale brown basket may be an accident, but it is a happy one. Quantities of spiny 'langoustes,' with long feelers, splotched with yellow and red; of lobsters with huge claws; of neatly arranged soles, lying in pairs; of beautifully marked Spanish mackerel, of great white skates, and of many other sea-fish are being rapidly transferred from the wholesale to the retail departments. In the fresh-water section, huge tanks, with water flowing in rapidly from great faucets, hold carp, eels, and other fish, all alive; but the greater number of tanks are filled with scrambling hundreds of crawfish, the much prized French 'écrevisse,' which, with the langoustes, reach the high-water mark for shellfish prices in the restaurants--but they are worth it. The écrevisse is no better than our Oregon crawfish, but the latter are being rapidly exterminated, whereas in France the delicious creatures are properly protected.

"In this same section another French delicacy, snails, are for sale. Boxes full of them may be seen, some of the snails remaining patiently in their home corral, while others, more adventurous, were crawling up the fish tanks, or had even dropped to the floor, owing to their too great desire to explore the world.

"The market itself is quite as much inclined to spread as the snails. All the adjacent streets are filled with shops for edibles, especially of the less perishable variety, like cheeses of all kinds, some as big as auto-wheels. The cabarets do a brisk business in feeding the providers of Paris food, but foolishly we failed to try one of these places to discover what kind of breakfast the food-raisers themselves eat, and we went back to our hotel hungry, past all this mass of eatables, past cafés which were just being opened, where floors were being washed and chairs lay inhospitably on the tables. One almost felt as if Paris never was ready to eat breakfast."

Besides the Halles Centrales there are a number of smaller covered markets distributed over the city, much frequented on certain days by all classes. Women everywhere are fond of shopping, but in France foreigners as well as natives revel in the joys of marketing. Read, for instance, this joyous outburst of an American girl dwelling in Paris for her musical education:

"Now the mystery why the shops and galleries are almost deserted by the French on Wednesdays and Saturdays is explained. They are all at the market,--a dense struggling, chattering mob, pawing away at the fresh country produce, while above the din rise the shrieks and howls of the booth venders. A lively, a typically French scene. You get one of those French net-work bags, which will stretch to hold nearly a bushel of supplies, and sail into the thick of the fray. By the time you are out on the other side you are loaded to the ears with enough stuff to last the party a week and have spent just four francs. Celery, one cent a bunch. Fresh country potatoes, 35 cents a bushel. Country killed meats at one-half city prices. It is more fun than a circus, and from that time on you will set aside an hour every Wednesday and Saturday to go a-marketing, as one of the prime joys of life."

MODEL MARKET GARDENS.

The biggest vegetables and fruits are by no means always the best. But, given a good variety, the ideal to be aimed at is to have it as big as possible while still young and tender.

This ideal the French market-gardeners live up to, and that is what makes their productions a joy, first to the eyes, and then to the palate.

Intensive cultivation is the key to the mystery of how it's done. Expert testimony is to the effect that the market gardens in and around Paris are "the best and most thoroughly cultivated patches of ground in Europe." From them "at least threefold more produce is gathered than from similar extent of garden-ground elsewhere." Though the climate is far from mild--and even in the harshest months--whole trainloads of lettuce heads and other vegetables are sent daily from Paris to other cities, some of them as far away as Russia.

Eight crops in one year are frequently gathered from a garden. No time is wasted; while, for instance, the cos lettuce in one bed rears its head on high, the ground underneath is already carpeted with the green leaves of a young crop of escaroles. This rotation is one of the secrets of success. Thorough cultivation and enrichment of the soil constitute another, some of the crops being grown in beds made up almost entirely of manure. But mainly, it is "owing to the abundant watering of these gardens that the Paris markets are throughout the hot season better supplied with crisp, tender, fresh vegetables than any other capital in Europe."

Water makes up nearly the whole substance of most vegetables--for instance, over 88 per cent. of carrots, 90 of cabbage, 93 of lettuce and pumpkins, 95 of cucumbers. Withhold it on a few sunny days, and the vegetables become mere masses of tough fiber. As long ago as 1878, W. Robinson, F. L. S., whose words I have just cited, called attention in his valuable and beautifully illustrated book on the Parks and Gardens of Paris to the anomalous fact that though all failures in English gardens are attributed to "want of sun," nevertheless if there is a warm and sunny season the market supplies soon run short, owing to the absence of any preparation for watering garden crops. "Three warm days in July show their effect in Covent Garden, inconvenience the housekeeper, and injure and reduce the supplies of vegetable food at a time when these are more than ever important for health."

Since that time, no doubt, some improvement has been effected in England, but Covent Garden Market is still largely dependent on French gardeners for its best products, in the line of vegetables, and also of fruits and berries.

MUSHROOMS AND TRUFFLES.

One of the most interesting chapters in Mr. Robinson's book is on Mushroom Culture in Caves Under Paris, those he visited being at Montrouge, just outside the fortifications. The beds are from sixty to eighty feet under the street and from this single cave the daily gathering averaged from four hundred to fifteen hundred pounds, the favorite size of the mushroom gathered being about that of a chestnut.

There are thousands of abandoned stone quarries in France, hundreds of which are used by mushroom growers, who earn many millions a year by thus catering intelligently and zealously to the palates of their countrymen--and of foreigners, too, for there is a large export trade--in mushrooms, fresh, canned, powdered, bottled in oil or butter, or preserved in other ways.