Chapter IV: Part 4

Another most useful Italian preparation is Ravioli, which is compounded of a variety of good things. As Leporello says in Don Giovanni: “Madamina, il catalogo è questo!” Eggs, Macaroni, Paste, Pork, Chicken, Vegetables, and Cheese. It is a sort of White Knight portmanteau food, and if quite fresh (it is best in summer) is rightly termed “A dinner in one course”--if you cook it badly you may omit one letter in the last word.

This is how to prepare Ravioli with the help of Chaffinda. To two pints of boiling water in the Chafing Dish put a quarter of a pound of Ravioli; boil for ten minutes, then strain. Return to the dish; add half a teaspoon of butter, the same of grated Parmesan cheese, and hot it up for three minutes. Additional zest may be given, though it is by no means necessary, by cooking with the Ravioli a few fresh mushrooms, tomatoes, or even anchovies or olives. The best Ravioli I have found in London come from the Vegetable Meal Company of Soho.

With Macaroni or Ravioli I always suggest the drinking of Chianti, or Lacrima Christi. The former can often be obtained of quite good quality, not too rough or fiery. As to the latter, it is rare to find it drinkable. As a rule it is impossible. But the combination of food and wine is a good memory-reviver of a week at Genoa.

“Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palates urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken, to shun sickness, when we purge;
Even so, being full of your ne’er cloying sweetness
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding.”

SHAKESPEARE (Sonnet cxviii.).

Madame de Staël said that she did not believe in ghosts--but that she was afraid of them. After the same fashion, I do not altogether believe in sauces, or perhaps I ought to say in any save the very simplest; but I fully recognise their great value in the assimilation of food.

Many dishes, without their special sauces, would be like a well-known song sung without an accompaniment. However beautifully delivered, no one, be he never so musical, could honestly say that he enjoyed Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” unaccompanied. The accompaniment is so much a part of the artistic whole that to separate them would be sheer vandalism. Something of the same intimate oneness exists in cookery. Who would care to eat lamb divorced from mint sauce, or boiled mutton without the necessary caper sauce, or goose minus apple sauce?

At the same time it is a culinary axiom that the less sauce used the better. A dish--any dish--“covered in sauce” is an abomination. We have the august authority of Pliny for moderation and simplicity. “Their best and most wholesome feeding is upon one dish, and no more, and the same plaine and simple: for surely this huddling of many meats one upon another of divers tastes is pestiferous. But sundrie sauces are more dangerous than that.” This is Holland’s translation.

Another point worthy of consideration is that sauce is to a great extent a geographical expression. What may be most excellent in Madrid is wholly out of place in Inverness; and what is nice at Nice is nasty at Norwich.

Insufficient account, I venture to think, is taken of the influence of climate upon national food, and it is often difficult if not impossible to acclimatise foreign fare to British stomachs, not because of anything inherent in the food, but simply as a matter of latitude. It is an historical commonplace that in the bleak cold north of Europe boar’s flesh was found more to man’s taste than that of the bull or bear, because it is fatter, richer, and produces much more heat. For this very reason in the South and East of Europe the flesh of swine is an abomination. In the Scandinavian Edda we are told that a boar was killed every night for the food of the warriors who feasted in high Valhalla. The bones were all preserved, together with the hide and head, and in the morning they were put together and re-endowed with life. The name of this huge pig was Sœhrimner, the cauldron in which it was boiled was called Eldhrimner, and the cook Andhrimner.

Both bear-ham and boar-ham are delicacies to this day in the North of Europe.

Much depends, too, upon the cooking; bad cooking is waste, both of money and comfort. Those whom God has joined in matrimony, ill-cooked joints and worse-cooked potatoes have often put asunder. In sauces, above all things, careful cooking, implicit keeping to the exact formulæ of recipes, and a restraint of all imagination, are immensely necessary. Not even the greatest artist can afford to juggle with sauces. They are fixed, immutable, and unalterable. A very favourite expression in French culinary manuals is the injunction to the cook: _Travaillez bien votre sauce_. The amateur sauce-maker would do well to bear this in mind. The sauce must be well worked, amalgamated, combined; otherwise it is a mere mess, lacking cohesion and perfection.

It is alleged of the incomparable Soyer that he said that sauces are to cookery what grammar is to language. Whether he really said so or not matters little. Some of the Soyer sauces are classics to this day, and not to be lightly imitated--especially on the Chafing Dish.

Let it be borne in mind that each and every sauce should have a character of its own. Many otherwise quite virtuous cooks live and die in the belief that they cannot make a sauce sufficiently savoury without putting into it everything that happens to be available, thinking, ignorantly enough, that every addition is bound to be an improvement.

There are only two real foundation sauces--_mères sauces_, or _grandes sauces_, as the French call them--the white and the brown sauce. All other sauces are more or less based on these two.

The great Carême resigned the position of Master of the Mouth to George IV. after only a few weeks’ service, and at an honorarium of £1000 a year, because he could not bear the English climate. His culinary swan-song took the form of a wondrous sauce, now alas! lost, which he called _la dernière pensée de Carême_.

A quite excellent and easily prepared sauce, which the very poorest households can make, and which will give zest to the simplest meal, is that described in the Delamere Cookery Book. This is the recipe for Pleasant Companionship sauce. A kind word will stir up the dormant appetite, while a harsh one will extinguish it, and, what is worse, will check the digestion of nutriment already taken. Such sauce may be regarded as Moral Sauce.

Reasoning from these winged words, we may infer that the remark so often heard from the mouths of little girl-children in the street: “Now, I won’t ’ave none o’ your sauce!” must really mean that there is a lack of Moral Sauce in the family circle.

In the recipes for the following sauces, I have purposely kept the ingredients as simple as possible; they are all reliable and appetising. As to which sauce appertains especially to which fish or meat, I do not propose to enter. That is a matter of taste, experience, and individuality, and I need hardly add that a white sauce does not go well with brown meat, nor brown sauce with white meat. Such admonitions are surely unnecessary to the advanced Chafist.

Butter Sauce.

Two tablespoons of butter, the same of flour; melt and mix together in the Dish, bring to boiling-point and allow to boil up for half a minute, then pour in a cupful of boiling water, to reduce the same to the consistency of cream; boil up again, stirring all the time, add a squeeze of lemon before serving.

White Sauce.

Mix well in the Chafing Dish two tablespoons of flour, one of butter, a small grating of nutmeg, a little pepper and salt; add a tumbler of milk; hot it up, stirring the while, and strain before using.

Brown Sauce.

Two tablespoons of butter. Heat and stir until it is brown and sizzling, then add a tablespoon of Tarragon vinegar, the same of Worcester sauce, half a tablespoon of chopped capers, a teaspoon of anchovy sauce, and a wine-glass of bouillon. Boil up all this for three minutes.

Piquant Sauce.

Mix up in the Dish a teaspoon of each of the following, chopped finely: gherkins, capers, shallots (or mild onions); add half a teaspoon of black pepper and a tablespoon of vinegar. Boil this for three minutes, then add a wine-glass of bouillon and a tablespoon of “brown thickening”--which is sold ready made by grocers--and a dash of anchovy sauce. Boil up again and skim the surface before using.

Maître d’Hôtel Sauce.

Mix up well two tablespoons of butter with one of flour, a grating of nutmeg, half a teaspoon of black pepper, the same of salt, rather more of chopped parsley, and a good squeeze of lemon. Put all this in the Chafing Dish with a tablespoon of milk. Stir it until it boils up, and then serve very hot.

Ravigote or Rémoulade Sauce.

These are to all intents and purposes the same sauce, save that Rémoulade has an added dose of oil and mustard. Mix a tablespoon of flour with the same of butter, a grating of nutmeg, half a teaspoon of pepper, the same of salt, the same of chopped parsley, and a good squeeze of lemon. Put this in the Chafing Dish with a tablespoon of bouillon, boil it up and skim it. Now mix up separately a tablespoon each of Tarragon and Chili vinegar and Worcester sauce, with a teaspoon of anchovy sauce. Boil up this mixture, and after two minutes’ boiling add it to the former mixture and combine the two.

Reform Sauce.

A cupful of bouillon in the Dish, add a wine-glass of port (or claret, but port is more orthodox), half as much Worcester sauce, a teaspoon of anchovy sauce, and a full tablespoon of red currant jelly. Boil it all up for three minutes, and skim before using.

Soubise Sauce.

Peel and slice four onions; put them in the Dish with a teaspoon of butter, a little nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Cover up and stew very slowly until the onions are almost dissolved. Then add two tablespoons of flour, a cold cooked potato cut into dice, a cupful of bouillon, and the same of milk. Stir and boil for three minutes. Then rub the sauce through a sieve and hot up again before serving.

Bread Sauce.

A tablespoon of bread-crumbs in the Dish with an onion, pepper and salt, a cup of milk, and half a tablespoon of butter. Hot up and stir for four minutes. Take out the onion before using.

Mustard Sauce.

To the foregoing plain butter sauce add a teaspoon of made mustard, a tablespoon of Chili vinegar, a squeeze of lemon, and a teaspoon of anchovy sauce. Make and serve very hot.

Poor Man’s Sauce.

Chop up a fair-sized onion in the Chafing Dish with half a tablespoon of butter. Fry to a light brown, then add a cup of bouillon, a teaspoon of vinegar, pepper and salt, and a teaspoon of chopped parsley. Stir vigorously and add gradually half a tablespoon of flour, and another half-tablespoon of butter. Boil up the sauce for two minutes.

Madeleine Sauce.

Put in the Dish a teaspoon of bread-crumbs, two shredded shallots, a walnut of butter, a teaspoon of vinegar and two tablespoons of bouillon. Boil this for three minutes with pepper and salt. The sauce should not be too thick.

Black Butter Sauce.

A walnut of butter in the dish; heat it till it is thoroughly brown, then add a tablespoon of vinegar, pepper and salt, and hot it up again.

Italian Sauce.

Put in the dish the peel of a quarter of a lemon, three sprigs of parsley, one of thyme, four button mushrooms, cut up small, a walnut of butter, and a suspicion of garlic. Hot up, and when all is well mixed pour in half a cup of bouillon; let it get thick, but not boil. Then take out the garlic, and add half a walnut of butter.

Onion Sauce.

Cut up two good-sized onions into slices. Simmer them gently with a tablespoon of butter and two slices of ham, one fat slice and one lean slice, a teaspoon of flour, salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar, a wine-glass of bouillon, and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Hot up for three minutes.

Gubbins’ Sauce.

This is the best sauce I know, and I have tried many, for grills or anything in that way. I copy it verbatim (and without permission) from that most excellent food-book entitled “Cakes and Ale,” by Mr. Edward Spencer. Gubbins’ Sauce is peculiarly adaptable to the Chafing Dish, and is made in this wise: Fill the lower hot-water dish with boiling water. Keep it so. Melt in the Chafing Dish proper a lump of butter the size of a large walnut. Stir into it, when melted, two teaspoonsful of made mustard, then a dessert-spoonful of vinegar, half that quantity of Tarragon vinegar, and a tablespoonful of cream--Devonshire or English. Season with salt, black pepper and cayenne, according to the (presumed) tastes and requirements of the breakfasters. So far the recipe. I should add that although the ingenious inventor puts Gubbins’ Sauce with a grill among his breakfast allurements, it is by no means necessary to confine it to that meal. I have found it excellent at midnight--and later--with devilled kidneys, and it is not to be despised at any time of the day when you feel that way inclined.

“The Gastronomic Regenerator: a Simplified and entirely New System of Cookery,” by Monsieur A. Soyer of the Reform Club, London, 1846. Such is the mouth-filling title of one of the most interesting and curious works of the last century. The two-page dialogue with Lord M(arcus) H(ill), and the extraordinary recipe for “The Celestial and Terrestrial Cream of Great Britain,” are in themselves inimitable in their quaint pomposity. _Maga_ for August 1846 reviews the work kindly and good-humouredly, and says that the “Gastronomic Regenerator” reminds them of no book so much as the “Despatches of Arthur Duke of Wellington.” It may be a matter of dispute, adds _Maga_, whether Wellington or Soyer acquired his knowledge in the face of the hotter fire. Although Soyer was comic in his pompous affectation it must not be forgotten that he did splendid work in the Crimea in feeding the sick and wounded. Also his sauces are master works. And for these two things much may be forgiven him.

The foregoing sauces are best described as the regulars. There are plenty of others, mostly of a rather elaborate description, which those more experienced than myself must describe. I will content myself with adding quite a few irregular or freak sauces, if I may use the expression.

Fisherman’s Sauce.

This is a rather rich mixture, adapted for fresh-water fish. After a decent day’s sport with the tricksome Mayfly, the quarter of an hour just before dinner may profitably be employed in concocting it. Half a pint of cream, or milk, but cream is better, two tablespoons of walnut ketchup, home made for choice, and one tablespoon of anchovy sauce. Boil these up for five minutes, and just before serving add a small walnut of butter, a teaspoon of flour, a squeeze of lemon, and a pinch of cayenne. Stir up all together, and serve very hot. It is the best fresh-water fish-sauce going.

Bigarade Sauce.

This is essentially the wild-duck sauce, and is a welcome and agreeable variant on the stereotyped port-wine sauce. Pare the rind of two oranges, shred the rind thinly, and boil up for five minutes in as little water as possible. Set the rind aside. Melt a walnut of butter in the Dish, mix it with half a tablespoon of flour, and stir it till it begins to burn; add a cupful of bouillon, pepper and salt, the squeezed juice of both oranges, and a teaspoon of soft white sugar. Now put in the shredded rinds, boil up for two minutes, and serve with the duck. If you have not time to make this sauce, mix a glass of port wine, a dash of cayenne, and a squeeze of lemon. Slice the breast of the duck and pour this mixture over it. A very useful adjunct to wild duck is a simple orange salad. Divide two or three oranges into sections, dress them with oil, vinegar, pepper and salt, and eat it as you would any ordinary salad.

Périgueux Sauce.

This is simply Truffle Sauce, and appeals mainly to the vulgar-minded. It is made thus: Chop up two truffles very finely. Put them in the Chafing Dish with a glass of sherry and a walnut of butter, and boil for five minutes; add pepper and salt and a squeeze of lemon. I am of opinion that truffles (which the ancients thought were the product of thunder) should only be eaten in one way, and that is _en serviette_, cooked in hot wood ashes and eaten with praise and thanksgiving. The flavour of truffles I take to be one of the most perfect in the whole category of food-stuffs. Their indiscriminate use in shreds, choppings, patterns, and for ornament, I consider to be a capital sin. The _charcutier_ is mostly to blame for this; any old thing dressed up _aux truffes_ he considers a delicacy. One day a band of knowledgeable eaters will slay all _charcutiers_.

Truffles suggest pigs; pigs suggest, to me, Berkshire; and Berkshire a certain witty lady who, speaking of a local magnate, a self-made man, and a very wealthy one too, but who retained his awfully uncouth manners, described him as a wild boar whom civilisation had turned into a pig. I fear me there are many such.

One of the English Kings died of a surfeit of lampreys, and one of the French Ministers of a surfeit of truffles, which were also alleged to have mainly contributed to the demise of the famous gourmand Béquet, who was the predecessor of Jules Janin on the _Débats_, and on whom Roger de Beauvoir wrote this epitaph:

“Cy-gît Béquet, le franc glouton
Qui but tout ce qu’il eut de rente;
Son gilet n’avait qu’un bouton,
Son nez en avait plus de trente!”

An ex-chef to whom I told this story of Béquet was profoundly moved, and said simply: “It must have been a beautiful death!”

“And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.”

SHAKESPEARE (Sonnet cii.).

The warm glow of virtuous satisfaction induced by the knowledge that one has done what was expected of one is my sole excuse for the contents of this chapter. I have no sweet tooth, and my experience in the cooking of sweets has been limited to the few recipes which come later on. Even these I would rather have omitted, because it is so easy to buy _éclairs_, _petits fours_, and other “dulceties” wherewith to finish off a Chafing-Dish meal, but it is just on the confines of possibility that this book may be read by a lady--or, if I am lucky, by two or even three--and I should be indeed accounted a poor instructor if I omitted sweets from my curriculum. “I humbly beg pardon of heaven, and the lady,” as Mr. Pepys said when he kissed the cook.

“Give the bairns pudding in plenty, again say I”--so wrote Sir Walter Scott, and I am heartily at one with him, but Chaffinda does not accommodate herself to the fabrication of pudding--and, besides, children ought to be in bed when supper-time brings the Chafing Dish on the table. Baking is of course impossible, and boiling in a cloth equally so. I have already said that Chaffinda--being so nearly human--has her limitations, and these are two of them, which I, for one, in no wise regret. Nevertheless, pudding is a great institution--in its proper place--which is childhood.

Our national Jack Pudding was a common object of whilom country fairs, a sort of typical buffoon who performed pudding tricks on a stage; one of them being to swallow a number of yards of black puddings amidst yokel plaudits. Curiously enough, and this is an etymological puzzle well worth following up, the typical buffoon of most European countries is christened after the commonest article of the daily food of the people. France has her Jean Potage; Germany, Hanswurst; Italy, Macaroni; and Holland, Pickel Herringe. This can hardly be a coincidence.

The learned Dr. Thudichum wisely says: “The state of culture of every nation can be estimated comparatively by its confectionery, even when we know little of its cookery, for confectionery is the most advanced and refined part of cookery, and thus enables an expert to draw a conclusion backwards regarding the kind of cookery out of which it originated.”

This is certainly true to a limited extent, but to attempt a rough and ready analysis on these lines is like dissecting a hummingbird with a hatchet. Generalisations are as dangerous as July oysters.

Apple Fritters.

Now for my sweets. The first one on the list is the familiar Apple Fritter, or _Beignet de Pommes_. It is quite easily cooked, especially if a little care be taken over the concoction of the all-important matter of batter.

Begin by carefully peeling four apples, fairly large ones for choice, then cut them into slices, about one-eighth of an inch thick, and take out the cores. Now make the batter. Put four tablespoons of flour in a basin with half a teaspoon of salt. Pour one tablespoon of oil on to half a tumbler of tepid water. They will not mix of course. Add this gradually to the flour, stirring it well. Next beat up two whites of egg to a very stiff froth, and stir it lightly into the flour. The batter is then ready for use. The eggs should not be added until you are quite ready to make the fritters. Now with a skewer or fork take up the apple rings, one by one, dip them in the batter, see that they are well covered, and then drop them into the Chafing Dish in which you have heated two tablespoons of butter to boiling-point. Fry the apples until they are soft, and of a golden brown colour. Drain them on kitchen paper, and sprinkle them with a little castor sugar.

Stewed Apples.

Apples, plainly stewed in slices, in milk and sugar, and then served on a bed of rice, are very satisfactory. The experimenting Chafist will find that sweets can very often be adapted so as to be suitable for the Chafing Dish. But always rehearse your impromptus before trying them in public.

Stewed Rhubarb.

Cut a pound of fresh sweet rhubarb into two-inch lengths, put it in the Chafing Dish with a tumbler of water, the peel of one lemon, and a tablespoon of soft white sugar. Let it boil up until the rhubarb is quite soft, and then either serve hot, or--preferably--let it get quite cold and serve with clotted cream.

Almost any stoneless fruit can be cooked in the same way. Gooseberries, currants, strawberries, and raspberries all make excellent compote, but care must be taken that the fruit does not get pulpy: it should be quite soft, but retain its proper shape. Quite ripe fruit is not so desirable as fruit that is just going to be ripe.

Fried Pineapple.

Cut a smallish pine into half-inch slices, paring the skin, of course, and split in half three or four ordinary penny sponge cakes. Fry these latter in the Chafing Dish in a tablespoon of butter till they are light brown on both sides. Take them out and keep them hot. Fry the pine slices in a like amount of butter and their own juice. Pour over them a wine-glassful of brandy and serve on the browned sponge cake. Cream may be added, but it is not at all necessary.

Coffee Chestnuts.

Shell a dozen chestnuts, and boil them for five minutes, then remove the skins. Put them back in the Chafing Dish with enough fresh water to cover them, and a tablespoon of soft white sugar, boil them until they are soft. Take them out and drain them, but do not break them up. Now put in the Chafing Dish the yolk of one egg, another tablespoon of soft white sugar, half a teacup of strong black coffee, a liqueur of brandy and a tablespoon of milk or cream. Keep on stirring till just upon boiling, then pour over the chestnuts, and serve hot.

It is not requisite to add brandy or other spirits to the foregoing dishes. It certainly tends to completeness of flavour, and, especially with cooked fruits, seems to bring out a subtle aroma or bouquet, but many most estimable gourmets dispense with all spirits in cookery, and are none the less well fed. Spirits should never be given in food for the young.

A Surrey curate opened the Sunday School one day with the well-known hymn, “Little drops of water, little grains of sand.” In the middle of the first verse he stopped the singing, and complained strongly of the half-hearted manner in which it was sung. He made a fresh start. “Now then,” he shouted, “little drops of water, and for goodness sake put some spirit into it!” And he wore a blue ribbon in his buttonhole too!

I should have liked to give the full recipe for a seventeenth-century “Quelque-Shose,” according to Master Robert May’s cook-book. The ingredients read temptingly--if somewhat lavish in quantity. Forty eggs are required, which are to be made in the form of omelets, which are to be “rolled up like a wafer” and served with “white wine, sugar, and juyce of lemon.” Another recipe of the same artist was for “Pie Extraordinary, or Bride Pie, which was made of ”severall compounds, being of severall distinct pies on one bottom.” At a rough guess this may have been the forerunner of our latter-day Bride-cakes, with their superimposed layers of almond paste, and consolidated indigestion. It is always marvellous to me that there are so few sudden deaths after a wedding, particularly if the cut cake has been handed about promiscuously.

Bananas contain three times as much nourishment as meat or potatoes, and as a food are declared to be superior to bread. They are as good raw as cooked, and my only advice is to take care to buy the smaller, more delicate kinds, and to avoid the grosser plantains, which are musty and flavourless. The kind known as “Lady’s Fingers” are the best of all.

Banana Cream.

Tear off a strip of skin from each of half a dozen bananas. Put them in the Dish with a tablespoon of milk, and a sprinkle of soft sugar. Heat them up until the skins are quite brown and the fruit soft and pulpy. Then strip the skins, add some more sugar, and serve with sponge-cake fingers.

Rice Milk.

Put in the Chafing Dish a teacupful of clean boiled rice, rather more than a pint of milk, a small stick of cinnamon, and a bay leaf. Add a heaped tablespoon of soft white sugar, and a suspicion of vanilla. Boil up very slowly, and remove spices before serving.

Skansk Gröt.

There is a very good Swedish pudding, known as Skansk Gröt, which is made in the following wise: Boil in the Chafing Dish half a pound of clean rice, with the peel of a lemon, and half a stick of cinnamon, and a cup of milk. Just before it comes to the boil add four apples, sliced and cored but not peeled, and a handful of stoned raisins, a tablespoon of sifted sugar, and a wine-glass of sherry. Boil all this for eight minutes, then take out the lemon peel and the cinnamon before serving. This Skansk Gröt can be eaten hot or cold, with or without cream or milk. It is good anyway.

Stuffed Figs.

Stuff a quarter of a pound of good pulled figs with blanched almonds, split in half. Put in the Chafing Dish a tablespoon of soft white sugar, a teaspoon of lemon juice, and a wine-glass of claret. Heat this up, but do not boil. Add the figs, cover up, and cook for eight minutes, when they ought to be quite tender and ready to serve.

Whisky Apples.

Peel and core, but do not cut up, four largeish apples, not necessarily cooking ones; in fact sweet eating apples are better. Put them in the Chafing Dish with six tablespoons of soft white sugar, the rind and juice of half a lemon, and an inch stick of cinnamon, a tiny bit of vanilla, and half a tumbler of whisky. Let this simmer over a low flame for a good half-hour, till the apples are soft. When quite done put them on a hot dish and pour the sauce over them.

There is an old tradition among whist players to the effect that there are at the present moment seven hundred and fourteen Englishmen wandering in destitution upon the continent of Europe, because they would not lead trumps when they held five. I do not desire to find myself in a like case, so I have played my trumps, and must abide by the consequences. I do not propose to invent impossible sweets which I have not tested in the Chafing Dish, give them high-falutin’ titles, and palm them off on unsuspecting and all-confiding Chafing students. Let them turn inventors themselves, and my blessing go with them!

I have purposely said little or nothing on the subject of appropriate drinks to accompany Chaffinda’s efforts, because that is, to a certain extent, a personal matter. At the same time it may be useful to know that it is very easy to mature cheap claret. The trick is French, and fairly reliable. It happens sometimes that the ordinary dinner claret of commerce leaves something to be desired in the way of flavour and palatability. It may be sour, acrid, harsh, biting, vinegary, and half a dozen other things, all unpleasant. Add to a glass of such ordinary wine a teaspoonful of very hot water. The effect is usually magical. The wine seems ten years older. It becomes softer, mellower, suaver, and really almost drinkable. _Le petit vin bleu du pays_ becomes almost a _cru_.

Some people drink coffee after dinner, and eke after lunch, if they have time--and lunch. Others use it as a barometer. You can do both, if you know how. It is very simple. The coffee must be very hot. Drop a lump of sugar into the cup, and before stirring it observe how the bubbles rise. If they rush towards the middle of the cup and meet, then it is going to be fine weather. If they remain close to the edge of the cup it will rain or snow. If they separate but wander about vaguely, then the weather will be changeable. This barometer is not infallible, but it has been known to be accurate. Try it. Café frequenters on the boulevards spend hours in checking the prognostications of their coffee by the weather reports in the papers.

I should like to give a few final hints on Chafing-Dish party-giving, the result of my own experience, which has been both bitter and sweet. Imprimis: “Don’t ask too many people,” as H. J. Byron said on his deathbed, when his coachman told him that one of his horses was ailing and he thought he had better give him a ball. “You should always be two,” quoth the Abbé Morellet, “to eat a truffled turkey. It is my invariable practice. I am going to dine off one to-day. We shall be two--the turkey and myself.”

A fellow feeding makes us wondrous kind, and I do not for a moment suggest that Chafing-Dish meals should always be soli, far from it; a duet is delightful, a trio tactful, and a quartet quieting. I cannot advise going beyond that number. Chaffinda is always present, of course, but she does not count as company, she is merely the hand-maiden, the _geisha_, the tutelary genius hovering over the meal.

I have already enjoined the absolute necessity of rehearsal; leave nothing to chance. If you want to make your little effect, see that it is properly stage-managed: your properties ready, your limes in working order, and your band parts ready and complete. “In the green salad days of my youth, when I rarely spoke aught but the truth,” I tried more than once to dazzle my guests with unrehearsed effects, but in every case the result was dire failure. All that sort of thing is magnificent, but it is not cookery.

Again, do not attempt too elaborate a bill of fare. Be pre-Raphaelite in your attention to detail rather than Academic in your mass of lavish decoration. Of two evils choose the prettier, and prefer a discreet little meal of soup, meat, vegetable and savoury, to an elaborate programme which defeats its own ends, and clogs the appetite.

It is such much better form to be simple, poor and proud--besides, it costs less. About forty years ago the late Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborn wrote a letter on the growing love of luxury to the _Times_, in the course of which he said: “The wealthy per force of their positions must have large expensive establishments; they are doomed to live in show houses; they are the proper consumers of the produce of the decorative arts; but they yet have to eat, and here comes the question. How can they eat in character? How can they dine up to their pictures, sculpture, plate, and music?”

The answer is easy enough. They can never dine up to their pictures, because they are usually dyspeptic.

“I had some hopes of the cook at first, but when I talked to her tightly and closely, I could make nothing of her: she was all wiggle-waggle, and I could never persuade her to be categorical.”

DR. JOHNSON (“D’Arblay’s Memoirs”).

Some of us have been to school. It was usually a long time ago. Still, here and there a man with a memory may recollect that when Achilles, in the “Iliad,” has granted the request of the unhappy Priam in reference to the dead body of his son, his next remark to the old man is an eminently practical and sensible one: “Let us now go to dinner!” It has struck me that this classical allusion may have been one of the reasons for the erection of the Achilles statue at Hyde Park Corner; just to remind late dawdlers in the Park that dinner-time and dressing-tide wait for no man or woman.

I have already had the presumption to suggest that we eat too often and too much and too late and too elaborately; this has emboldened me to further frankness. A French friend who “knew himself” in dining matters said to me once: “En Angleterre on se nourrit bien, mais on ne dine pas.” He was both right and wrong. Right as regards the very pseudo-French cookery of the affluent middle-class, wrong as regards the best restaurants and hotels.

Buckle, in his “History of Civilisation,” following Cabanis, considers food as one of the four physical agents most powerfully influencing the human race. Men’s manners and morality, their customs and condition, depend mainly on what they eat. The boldness of the Norseman and the timidity of the Bengalee are justly due to their respective preference for meat or vegetables, for carbonaceous or nitrogenous diet. Slavery in India is the direct result of rice, in Egypt of dates, of maize in Mexico and Peru.

We must, therefore, adapt ourselves to circumstances in so far as the circumstances adapt themselves to us. It is no longer fashionable to get drunk, and in a generation or two it will be the worst kind of form to eat more than three courses at dinner.

“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are,” said Brillat-Savarin, Judge of the French Court of Cassation in 1826, and _not_ a professed cook, as so many folk seem to imagine. He goes on to say: “The gourmets by predestination can be easily told. They have broad faces, bright eyes, small foreheads, short noses, full lips, and rounded chins. The females are plump and pretty rather than handsome, with a tendency to _embonpoint_.”

This is not complimentary, and does not seem to be borne out by experience. Women gourmets are fewer than men, but they make up in knowledge what they lack in number. Both Goethe and Byron have left it on record that they objected to seeing women eat, but nowadays, with better table manners, it is not a disagreeable sight, except perhaps at a Swiss _table d’hôte_.

An English dinner-party, in the present year of grace, is not at all ugly. It may be--and sometimes is--almost a thing of beauty. The modern dinner-table approaches as nearly to the old Greek type as is compatible with the widely divergent character of the two civilisations. It certainly follows the classic pattern in two valuable particulars--beauty and repose. True, we do not wreathe our heads in roses, nor carry doves nestling in the folds of our robes, nor pour libations of wine over one another (such a messy habit!), but we have done away, for good and all, let us hope, with the dreadful mid-Victorian table decorations. Instead of hideous dish-covers, branching candelabra, hideous _épergnes_, and appalling “set pieces,” we have Hawthorn bowls of roses, delicate Venetian glass, beaten copper finger-bowls, perfectly plain silver, and the simplest of white china. Everything perfect of its kind, and its kind the non-ostentatious.

We have also become franker in the honest avowal of our appetites. Even in our grandmothers’ time it was considered somewhat immodest to take a second helping without being pressed. Pressure was expected as a politeness from the host. An old manual of table etiquette says: “Offer every dish at least thrice to each guest. Timid appetites must be tempted, for they exist still, especially among literary folk!”

Altogether we are much politer, outwardly at any rate, than we used to be. Even a Royal Duke has manners. So he had formerly--but they were mostly bad. It is told of one of the Royal Family, of a couple of generations ago, that he was dining at Belvoir, and his host, noticing His Royal Highness studying the menu at dinner, asked him if he would like anything that did not appear on the bill of fare. “Yes; roast pig and apple dumpling,” was the gracious reply.

The daring simplicity of the royal appetite is splendid, but the pity is that it was not more pleasantly put.

Another reform in our dining arrangements is the greater love which folks now bear to fresh air. Formerly dining-rooms were heated up as though the guests were early cucumbers, and wanted forcing. This, I am sure, contributed greatly to the dulness of the average dinner-party. As the result of careful observation, I have found, by experimenting with a thermometer, that at a temperature of 62° Fahrenheit conversation flows easily and every one’s wits are at their best and sharpest. At 75° or higher the most elastic spirits become subdued. If any one says to me: “So-and-so was not himself last night at dinner,” I am always tempted to ask: “What was the temperature?”

Why will people, when they dine out in public places, insist on having music? It seems to me a confusion of the arts, and with little ear for music I cannot bring myself to take my soup in polka time, or masticate my whitebait to the _Intermezzo_ from “Cavalleria Rusticana.” It is quite a modern fad, for in 1874 G. A. Sala discusses music at dinner in a magazine, and only refers to it in royal palaces. With all deference to those who know better, it seems to me to be rather rude to good music, and to a good dinner.

All the foregoing is in direct relation to the art of the Chafing Dish, because the refinement of modern cookery is nowhere more evident than in dealing with Chaffinda. I have been to a dinner-party where two Chafing Dishes were brought on to the table after the sweets, one being placed before the host and the other before the hostess. Deft servants handed the necessary ingredients, and in five minutes, the guests (we were eight, I think) were enjoying a little egg savoury, piping hot, and cooked before their eyes. This sort of thing may become quite common. Who knows?

The table for an ordinary Chafing-Dish meal, whether luncheon, dinner or supper, such as might be cooked after a diligent study of the foregoing chapters, should be arranged as simply as possible. One end bears the Chafing Dish on its own little tray and cloth. The remaining three-quarters of the table may be laid for a smallish party, and, by all the canons of good taste, avoid decorating it with tulle or nun’s veiling, or chiffon, or whatever the silly, flimsy, puffy stuff is called. You might as well put ostrich feathers and bombazine in the middle of the table. Good simple glass and china, the older the better, as a rule, because the forms are more beautiful; and I see no need for uniformity in either service, so long as each individual piece is beautiful in itself. Pewter plates retain the heat splendidly, and some of the old ones are excellent in design. Wooden platters are affected by some people for meats, and I confess that the red juice of the meat on the well-scrubbed surface is very pleasing. Keep the centre ornament very low, so that one can see and talk across it. A big dish of almost any old blue and white ware, with a very few flowers, but each bloom perfect in itself, is my own ideal. Nothing is more trying than to talk to your opposite neighbour across a small table, through a mass of tightly packed towering flowers, or a jungle of dense fern. It is not beautiful, but just annoying.

Chafing-Dish cookery, I am delighted to be able to add, seems to engender the love of beautiful things. It is so easy to pick up and use, in parlour cookery, all sorts of quaint and delightful pieces of china of curious and old-fashioned design. They may not all be genuine; in fact, most of them are pretty certain not to be. But if the shape is good, the colouring pleasing, and the form well adapted for holding sauce, sweetmeats, condiments, or anything else, then, so far as Chaffinda is concerned, their genuineness and intrinsic value is a secondary matter.

One is occasionally tempted by the offer of a real old silver Chafing Dish with or without an ivory handle. Cooking in such an implement would be an ultra refinement of the art. But the temptation must be resisted, such things are not for daily use, although at one time and in some houses a silver dish no doubt was always put before the master, wherein to make his Welsh Rabbit.

There is a sort of huge silver Chafing Dish in the Cluny Museum, which rather suggests a cauldron, so vast are its dimensions. It is evidently fairly old and has seen much use, though it is not quite evident what could have been cooked in it, unless it were the original _marmite_ of Monsieur Deharme, which never left off cooking.

Grimod de la Reynière places on record, as an example to all good cooks, this extraordinary _marmite_--or stockpot--of Monsieur Deharme, a restaurateur in the Rue des Grands-Augustins. He calls it “the everlasting _marmite_,” as, at the date of writing (1803), it had not been off the fire for eighty-five years! During that time it had cooked at least three hundred thousand capons, for Monsieur Deharme’s specialty was the purveying of well-cooked hot capons at any hour of the day and night. His establishment was always open, and the procession of succulent birds to the _marmite_ was unending; in fact, the Deharme fowl was regenerated perpetually in one long procession of--apparently--the same bird, born anew for each successive customer. The author adds that this _marmite_ was celebrated throughout Europe--and no wonder.

In preparing some of the recipes in preceding chapters, Chafers may find some difficulty, if it be summer-time, in keeping one portion of the dish hot whilst the other portion is cooking. When I have no fire in the room, I use a copper tray with two spirit lamps underneath. This is a splendid invention and no Chafer should be without one. Then there is another useful thing to remember. The lower hot-water dish, if filled with water and put over the lamp, only half turned up, will keep food warm in the Chafing Dish for ever so long. This is often useful to know, as it is so pleasant to find something unexpectedly prepared and ready when one had feared that all the cooking had to be done by oneself. After a late night’s work such a surprise is very comforting.

In preparing a Chafing-Dish meal it is important to remember the sequence of cooking, so that the waits between the courses shall not be too long. I use two Chafing Dishes, so that there need be no delay; one can be cleaned whilst the other is in use. If you are making soup, have the fish ready so that it only wants hotting up. If your second course takes a little time, fill up the interval with something cold, or a salad. Work out your plan carefully beforehand so that there can be no possibility of accident, and if the occasion be special, and you wish to shine to your very best advantage, I earnestly recommend you to have a full-dress rehearsal the day before, and time yourself accurately for each dish; then there can be little chance of failure.

The setting forth of menus seems to me to be an entirely futile method of filling up a cook-book. No one ever follows them, because things never happen just so as to make all the materials simultaneously available. It is much better to dip here and there in a book--to choose a soup, a meat, and a salad; or a fish, a bird, and a savoury; or a soup, a fish, and a sweet (an it be Friday)--to suit your convenience, pocket, and taste of the moment.

Further, as I have already explained, I do not pretend to have done more than touch on the fringe of the possibilities of the Chafing Dish. I have only described what I have done, and hinted at what others may do. But what I particularly want to draw attention to is the scope for original research in the cult of Chaffinda. A long winter’s evening is much more profitably spent experimenting with the Chafing Dish than--well, playing Patience, for instance.

I do not desire to make every unmarried man and woman a cook. Far from it. But it would do us no harm to think a little more of the quality of the food we eat, and less of the quantity. Few of us, however, are so stomach-ridden as Mynheer Welters, Burgomaster of Dilburg, in a delightful novel published thirty years ago, called “The Burgomaster’s Family,” by Christine Muller, and translated from the Dutch by Sir John Shaw-Lefevre. Burgomaster Welters worshipped his stomach. What a good dinner was to him no words can express. It was the realisation of all his dreams and wishes. The content of soul and the feeling of philanthropy which his eyes expressed after such a dinner must have been seen to be described. He was accused of marrying Widow de Graaff because she knew the recipe of a certain pie which she would not divulge at a less price than marriage. If any one spoke of glorious summer, he only thought of early vegetables; France reminded him of Veuve Cliquot, and Germany of Bavarian beer.

An American Chafing-Dish book in my possession contains the following quaint apothegm: “The Chafing Dish not only makes possible the sincerest expression of the most perfect hospitality, but it seems the true symbol of good fellowship.” The sentiment herein expressed is unimpeachable, and I should like to be able to use such pretty talk myself. It is exactly what I wanted to explain, but being clumsy in the expression of intimate feeling, I cannot get beyond something to this effect: “The Chafing Dish is a handy thing to have about the house, and turns up usefully at the most unexpected moments. It is a ripping good idea!”

INDEX

PAGE

Almonds, Salted, 153

Alderman’s Walk, 34

Anchovy and Cucumber Salad, 136

Anchovy Eggs, 147

Antiquity of the Chafing Dish, 3

Apple Fritters, 179

Apples, Stewed, 181
Whiskey, 187

Artichokes, Braized, 115

Artichoke Chips, Fried, 115

Bacon and Cauliflower Salad, 136

Banana Cream, 185

Beans, Broad, 120
Italian, 120
French, 119
Haricot, 122

Beef, Chipped, 86
Devilled, 84
Steak, 83
Strips, 21

Bigarade Sauce, 173

Bills of Fare, 33

Bird’s-Nest Soup, 51

Biscuits, Devilled, 154
Savoury, 152

Black Butter Sauce, 169

Bloaters, Grandfather’s, 77

Bombay Toast, 153

Braized Artichokes, 115
Olives, 152

Bread Salad, 136
Sauce, 168

Brigands’ Fowls, 99

Broad Beans, 120
Italian, 120

Brown Sauce, 165

Browned Tongue, 31

Brussels Sprouts, 121

Bubble and Squeak, 90

Butter, Black, Sauce, 169
Sauce, 164

Buttered Lobster, 63

Carrot Soup, 49

Cauliflower and Bacon Salad, 136

Celeriac Salad, 131

Celery Salad, 130

Chafed Salmon, 59

Chafing Dish, Antiquity of, 3
Outfit, 19

Chapon, The, 128

Cheese, Matador, 151

Chestnuts, 123
Coffee, 182
Devilled, 153

Chicken, Brigands’, 99
Creamed, 102
Howtowdie, 100
Minced, 24
Roman, 101

Chicory Salad, 130

Chipped Beef, 86

Cleanliness, 29

Cockroach Soup, 51

Cocotte, Eggs en, 145

Cod Pudding, 60

Coffee Barometer, 188
Chestnuts, 182

Cold Meats, 30

Court Bouillon, 69

Cream Banana, 185

Creamed Chicken, 102
Smelts, 72

Creçy Soup, 49

Cross Star Soups, 40

Cucumber and Anchovy Salad, 136

Cutlets, Mutton, 27

Dandelion Leaves, 130

Decoration of Dinner Table, 198

Devilled Beef, 84
Biscuits, 154
Chestnuts, 153

Devil, The, 154

Digestive Prawns, 65

Dining-room Temperature, 196

Dinner, Music at, 197
Table Decoration, 198

Eggs, 139
Anchovy, 147
en Cocotte, 145
Kempton, 146
Lady Effingham’s, 145
Newmarket, 146
Poached, 141
Scrambled, 141

Eels, Matelote, 76
Nettled, 76
Souchet, 75

Endive Salad, 130

Etena Jarvat, 94

Fatiguing, A, Salad, 128

Figs, Stuffed, 186

Fisherman’s Sauce, 173

Flattered Lobster, 64

Fowl, Brigands’, 99
Roman, 101

French Beans, 119
Names, 34
Menus, 34

Fried Artichoke Chips, 115
Herrings, 57
Parsley, 122
Pineapple, 182
Potatoes, 113
Tomatoes, 114

Fritters, Apple, 179

Frizzled Ham, 88

Gallimaufrey, 89

Game, Minced, 24

Germiny Soup, 52

Gröt, Skansk, 186

Grandfather’s Bloaters, 77

Green Peas, 123

Goulasch, 93

Gubbins’ Sauce, 170

Ham, Frizzled, 88
in Hades, 88
Jellied, 22
Toast, 151

Haricot Beans, 122

Herrings, Fried, 57

Hodge’s Sausages, 92

Howtowdie, 100

Hurried Sardines, 71

Italian Broad Beans, 120
Sauce, 170

Jardinière Salad, 136

Jellied Ham, 22

Kabobs, 99

Kedgeree, 73
Martin Harvey’s, 74

Kempton Eggs, 146

Lady Effingham’s Eggs, 145

Leeks, Welsh, 119

Lettuce Salad, 130

Lobster, Buttered, 63
Flattered, 64
Polly, 63

Locust Soup, 51

Macaroni, 155

Madeleine Sauce, 169

Maître d’Hôtel Sauce, 166

Martin Harvey’s Kedgeree, 74

Mary’s Potatoes, 112

Mashed Potato Salad, 131

Matador Cheese, 151

Matelote of Eels, 76

Mayonnaise, 7

Mealies, 125

Meat, Cold, 30

Menus, 33

Milk, Rice, 185

Minced Chicken, 24
Game, 24

Mushrooms, 116
Stewed, 117

Music at Dinner, 197

Mustard Sauce, 168

Mutton Cutlets, 27
Saddle of, 34
Steaks, 94

Mutton, Turkish, 94
Venison, 95

Nettled Eels, 76

Newmarket Eggs, 146

Oddments, 177

Olives, Braized, 152

Omelettes, 142

Onions, 9
Sauce, 170

Outfit of Chafing Dish, 19

Oysters, 68

Palestine Soup, 47

Parsley, Fried, 122

Peas, 123

Pea Soup, 42

Perigueux Sauce, 174

Pheasant, Yesterday’s, 104

Pineapple, Fried, 182

Piquant Sauce, 166

Plump and Wallop, 96

Poached Eggs, 141

Polly, Lobster, 63

Poor Man’s Sauce, 169
Soup, 46

Potatoes and Point, 97
Fried, 113
Mary’s, 112
Mashed Salad, 131
Salad, 130
Sala’s, 112
Uglies, 112

Prawns, Digestive, 65
On the Grass, 67
Wiggle, 66

Preserved Soups, 40

Pudding, 178
Cod, 60

Purée of Spinach, 116

Rabbit, Welsh, 149

Ravigote Sauce, 166

Ravioli, 157

Reform Sauce, 167

Rehearsals, Necessary, 202

Remoulade Sauce, 166

Rhubarb, Stewed, 181

Rice Milk, 185

Robert Sauce, 28

Romaine Salad, 130

Roman Fowl, 101

Rules for Salad, 128

Rump Steak, 83

Saddle of Mutton, 34

Salads, 128
Anchovy and Cucumber, 136
Bacon and Cauliflower, 136
Bread, 136
Cauliflower, 130
and Bacon, 136
Celeriac, 131
Celery, 130
Chestnuts and Sprouts, 135
Chicory, 130
Cucumber and Anchovy, 136
Dandelion, 130
Endive, 130
Green Peas and Walnuts, 135
Jardinière, 136
Lettuce, 130
Mixture, 127
Potato, 130
Mashed, 131
Romaine, 130
Rules, 128
Sprouts and Chestnuts, 135
Tomato, 130
Walnuts and Green Peas, 135

Sala’s Potatoes, 112

Salmon, Chafed, 59

Salted Almonds, 153

Sardines in a Hurry, 71
Waldorf, 71

Sauces, 159
Bigarade, 173
Black Butter, 169
Bread, 168
Brown, 165
Butter, 164
Fisherman’s, 173
Gubbins’, 170
Italian, 170
Madeleine, 169
Maître d’Hôtel, 166
Mustard, 168
Onion, 170
Perigueux, 174
Piquant, 166
Poor Man’s, 169
Ravigote, 166
Reform, 167
Robert, 28
Remoulade, 166
Soubise, 167
White, 165

Sausages, Hodge’s, 92

Savoury Biscuits, 152

Scrambled Eggs, 141

Scouse, 98

Skansk Gröt, 186

Smelts, Creamed, 72

Smothered Turbot, 70

Soubise Sauce, 167

Souchet of Eels, 75
Sprats, 61

Soups, 38
Bird’s-nest, 51
Carrot, 49
Cockroach, 51
Creçy, 49
Cross Star, 40
Germiny, 52
Locust, 51
Palestine, 47
Pea, 42
Poor Man’s, 46
Preserved, 40
Turtle, 43

Spinach Purée, 116