Chapter IX: The Roast

The definition given of the word roast in the “Dictionnaire des termes du vieux François,”[15] is a very curious one. Here it is:--“Rost et raust du rosty. Ce mot vient de _rusticus_ parceque le feu noirci, et brule la viande comme le soleil qui hâle le visage des paysans.” Anything more futile, trivial, and far-fetched than this it were impossible to conceive; yet a person daily accustomed to lexicographic studies will simply smile at meanings so forced and strained--meanings very common, however, with dictionary makers and lexicographers.

Boxhornius, in his Britannico-Latin Dictionary, tells us _rhost_ (_sic_) is an ancient British word. “Antiquam esse vocem Brittanicam, ostendit nomen Regis Armoricani, Daniel Dremrost ab ustis, oculis, vel usto vultu sic dicti.” Wolfgang Lazius, also, in his tenth book, “de Migrationibus Gentium” states that rost (_sic_) in the Vandal and Teuton languages signifies a grill; and Jean Bruyère, in his book “de Re Cibariâ,”[16] says, that in early times in France, a guest who was invited to a dinner without a roast on a day when it was lawful to eat meat--in other words, to live _en gras_--fared very frugally indeed, if by any accident the roast was omitted. This can be well credited, for among the English and French the roast has been always the principal dish, or, as our neighbours would say, the _pièce de résistance_.

In very early times, in Paris, there were what were called in old French, _rôstisseries_, where roast meats were sold ready to be eaten instantly at meals. Du Loir tells us that in the mediæval times, an Italian patriarch thought nothing so admirable at Paris as these _rôtisseries_, where he could find such delicate tit-bits as a roast _gigot_, or a roast shoulder or leg of lamb. The _rôtisseries_ were kept by _rôtisseurs_ and _rôtisseuses_, and they exist to this day. There were independently of these general _rôtisseurs_, and _rôtisseuses_ as they were called _en blanc_, who sold only larded roasts, such as _filets piqués_, &c.

The _traiteur_, or the _cuisinier traiteur_, was sometimes also a _rôtisseur_, a calling distinguished from the _pâtissier_ or pastry-cook. The Company of _Maître Rôtisseurs_ in France was much older than the Company of _Maître Cuisiniers_, which latter was only erected into a corporation in 1559, in the reign of Henry IV. The statutes of the _Maître Rôtisseurs_ were granted by Stephen Boileau, Provost of Paris, about 1258. The _rôtisseurs_, for the most part, lived in the street called _Aux Oyers_, where, so late as 1767, a great many of them were established.

I have in another and preceding chapter remarked, that the French kitchen was very much indebted to Italian cookery. The truth is, that the Italians of the middle ages have been in most sciences the instructors of Europe. Catherine de Medici came to France surrounded with a legion of cooks, _rôtisseurs_ and _pâtissiers_, and these new-comers first improved the cookery already existing, and having found apt scholars in the French, were soon surpassed by their pupils.

The art of roasting is considered an especial art by our neighbours. It is very true, that there is no process in cookery so simple, and yet very few can accomplish it properly. A roast, whether of beef, mutton, venison, lamb, or fowl, should neither be under nor over done. The great secret therefore is to avoid either extreme, and so to hit the middle point. Venison, beef, mutton, lamb, require to be equally done through all the parts, yet no portion of the gravy should be wasted. Scorching is not roasting, and burning is not browning a joint. The best joint of beef for roasting in England is the sirloin. The fire should be brisk and clear, as well as large, steady, and intense in proportion to the size of the joint, and the meat should be perpetually basted, so that no cessation in the process should take place. Large joints should be put down soon after the fire is made up and begins to burn. The gradual access of the heat to meat prevents its burning. If a joint be burned in the early process, it is an evil scarcely remediable in the subsequent stages of the operation of roasting. For this reason it is that in the great kitchens in France there is always some one whose special duty it is to attend to the roast alone. In the fourth volume of the “Almanach des Gourmands,” it is said that a dinner may be compared to the rooms of a house, and the roast is the _salon_ or principal apartment. “The _salon_ in a French house,” says M. Grimod de la Reynière, “is the room on which an hospitable host spends all his spare money. It is furnished and decorated with the greatest care, because in this room the master receives his friends. Just a like process is pursued in respect to the roast that smokes upon his table. It is the dish that has cost him most money, and on which he hopes to content and feast his guests.” It is, therefore, most important that the roast, by its excellence, juice, and tenderness, should satisfy; for if it be bad, burned, or hard, all however excellent that has preceded it, is forgotten; a tristful silence succeeds to hilarity, and the grieved Amphitryon seeks to repair the blunder of his cook by the production of excellent wine.

The misfortune is, that there is no strict law to “rule the roast.” The doing it to a turn depends on a congeries of circumstances and contingencies which are eternally varying. The beef or mutton may be old, tough, sinewy, or not sufficiently hung. A great deal depends on the size of the coal or wood before which it is placed. Much also on the regular basting or the punctual arrival of the guests. Sometimes a delay of five or ten minutes spoils a beautiful roast joint, and renders it flavourless and insipid. “Ainsi,” says Grimod, (becoming poetical) “Ainsi que la beauté dans sa fleur, il n’a qu’un moment pour être cuelli et ce moment une fois passé ne revient jamais.”

It is not therefore an exaggeration to say that good roasters are even more difficult to find than good cooks. It was the opinion of so competent a judge as this, that in an establishment where the cook attended both to the preparing of the dinner and the roast, the roast was sure to be bad. I will not go to this length, for an experienced kitchen-maid can always bestow on the roast of the first and second course all the attention necessary. The roast, according to this great and experienced authority, is divided into great and little roast--_gros rôt et petit rôt_. The larger roast comprises venison, beef, mutton, veal, lamb, and pork, quarters of wild boar, &c., and the smaller, fowl, grouse, and small birds. Grimod recommends that smaller birds should be larded with a slice of good lard. Great care should be taken in the selection of the lard, for a rancid lard will spoil the best bird that ever flew. At large dinners, the editor of the “Almanach” holds that the roast should be served without _entrées_ or _entremets_, flanked merely by four different _salades_. A general rule among cooks is to allow a quarter of an hour to each pound of the joint. Thus a joint of eight pounds will take two hours. Slow roasting adds to the tenderness and flavour of a joint, and it may be observed, that the longer a joint is kept the less time it will require in roasting.

Our roasts in England (with the single exception of a leg of mutton) are better than in France. The quality of the meat (with the exception of veal) is much better, and good English cooks excel in roasting meat and game. Our game is much finer than in France, though we have nothing to equal the French poularde of the Mans, in the department of the Sarthe. Nothing in France can compare to our haunches and necks of venison, to our barons and sirloins of beef, to our haunches, saddles, and legs of mutton, to our barons and fore-quarters of lamb. Our beef is in season all the year round, and may be given as a roast from October to March. Our saddles, haunches, legs, and necks of mutton, may also be given as a roast for the first course, being varied with pork, veal, and roast turkey. For a second course in January and February, we have widgeon and woodcock, snipe, teal, wild duck and black game, hares, &c. All this game is better flavoured and better roasted in England than in France. In April, we have excellent lamb for a first course, with guinea-fowls and ducklings for a second. In May we have poulardes and quails, turkey poults, &c., for a second. Venison begins in June, and in August we have grouse, and that excellent bird the golden plover. A little later come partridges, black cock, and then snipe and wild duck, while lamb and mutton alternate in the first. Mutton, whether as a roast, or an _entrée_ in the shape of cutlets, can be alike served; and with Swift’s receipt for roasting mutton, I will conclude this branch of the subject:

“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!”

I by no means mean to imply that our neighbours, the French, have not a greater variety of ways of dressing their roasts for first and second courses than we have; all I mean to assert is, that our simple roasting of venison, beef, mutton, and game, is better than the French. The material to work upon is incomparably better. _Toujours perdrix_, however, is sure to pall on the palate, and our object should be to vary our mode of dressing these excellent materials. Till schools of cookery become more general, it will not be safe for a host, with an ordinary plain cook, to set before his guest a _filet de bœuf_, sauce _à la poivrade_, a _salmi_ of partridge, or a _filet de canard sauvage_.

It would even be a dangerous experiment in many cases to essay a loin of veal _à la Béchamel_, fillets of fowl _à la tartare_, a common _fricassée_ of chicken, or a braized saddle of lamb _à la jardinière_.

It is perhaps unnecessary to say that pork, veal, and lamb should be done well; turkeys and fowls should have no red in them, but game should be somewhat underdone.

I have already said that the time necessary to roast a joint depends on a variety of circumstances, of which an experienced male or female cook will be the best judge. The following table, however, very nearly approximates to the exact time, supposing a coal fire to be employed:--

A joint of beef weighing 20 lbs. 4 hours.

„ 10 lbs. 2½ „

„ 6 lbs. 2 „

A joint of veal 10 lbs. 3½ „

„ 4 lbs. 2 „

A joint of mutton 10 lbs. 2 „

„ 6 lbs. 1½ „

„ 4 lbs. 1 „

A leg of lamb 1½ „

A joint of fresh pork 8 lbs. 4 „

„ 4 lbs. 1¾ „

A haunch of buck venison 4 „

A neck of buck 1½ to 2 „

A joint of venison 10 lbs. 2½ „

„ 6 lbs. 1½ „

(Venison should be rather under than over done.)

A large turkey 2 „

A medium-sized one 1¼ „

A turkey poult 1 „

A capon 1 „

A poularde 1¼ „

A large fowl ¾ „

A goose 1 to 1¼ „

A gosling ¾ „

A pigeon ½ „

A hare 1½ „

A leveret ¾ „

A rabbit ½ „

A pheasant ½ „

A partridge 20 minutes.

Cock of the wood, or black game, 1 to 1¼ hour.

Grouse ½ „

Woodcock ½ „

Snipe 20 minutes.

Golden plover 20 „

Teal 15 „

Quail 20 „

Larks 20 „

Ortolans 15 „

Fig-pecker 15 „