Chapter XXXII: Part 32

“We copy the following, by the Vicountess de Malleville, from the last number of the _Courrier de l’Europe_. Without subscribing to the justice of all the writer’s remarks, we think, as the opinion of an intelligent foreigner, that the article will be read with some interest.

“‘We now quit the upper regions and follow the secretary of the club, and the politest and most obliging cicerone in the world. Theatrically speaking, we have as yet only seen the stage and its sumptuous decorations from the boxes and pit; we now go behind the scenes, among the scene-shifters and the machinists. But unlike in a theatre, we see no naked walls behind the scenes--no tattered draperies--no floors strewed with sawdust. This fine apartment is the kitchen--spacious as a ball-room, kept in the finest order, and white as a young bride. All-powerful steam, the noise of which salutes your ear as you enter, here performs a variety of offices: it diffuses a uniform heat to large rows of dishes, warms the metal plates, upon which are disposed the dishes that have been called for, and that are in waiting to be sent above; it turns the spits, draws the water, carries up the coal, and moves the plate like an intelligent and indefatigable servant. Stay awhile before this octagonal apparatus, which occupies the centre of the place. Around you the water boils and the stewpans bubble, and a little further on is a moveable furnace, before which pieces of meat are converted into savoury _rôtis_--here are sauces and gravies, stews, broths, soups, &c.; in the distance are Dutch ovens, marble mortars, lighted stoves, iced plates of metal for fish, and various compartments for vegetables, fruits, roots, and spices. After this inadequate, though prodigious nomenclature, the reader may perhaps picture to himself a state of general confusion, a disordered assemblage, resembling that of a heap of oyster-shells. If so, he is mistaken. For, in fact, you see very little, or scarcely anything, of all the objects above described; the order of their arrangement is so perfect, their distribution as a whole, and in their relative bearings to one another, all are so intelligently considered, that you require the aid of a guide to direct you in exploring them, and a good deal of time to classify in your mind all your discoveries.

“‘The man who devised the plan of this magnificent kitchen, over which he rules and governs without question or dispute, the _artiste_ who directs by his gestures his subalterns tricked out in white, and whose eye takes in at a glance the most difficult combinations in the culinary art--in a word, the _chef_ by whom every _gourmet_ admitted within the precincts of the Reform Club swears, is M. Soyer, of whom it may justly be said that he is not more distinguished as a professor of the science of the Vatels and Caremes, than as a well-behaved and modest man. Allow him, therefore, to give you the history of his discoveries and improvements; let him conduct you into the smallest recesses of his establishment, the cleanliness of which would shame many a drawing-room; and listen to him, also, as he informs you that those precious pictures which crowd his own parlour are from the pencil of a wife who has recently been taken from him by a premature death. Of this you might almost doubt till he again affirms it, for, judging from the poetry of the composition, and the vigour of the colouring and the design, you might swear that these pictures were the work of Murillo when he was young.

“‘Let all strangers who come to London for business, or pleasure, or curiosity, or for whatever cause, not fail to visit the Reform Club. In an age of utilitarianism, and of the search for the comfortable, like ours, there is more to be learned here than in the ruins of the Coliseum, of the Parthenon, or of Memphis.’”--_Chambers’s Journal._

“_Workhouse Cookery._--The disclosures in the Andover Union have thrown quite a new light on the science of cookery, which not even the inspiration of a Soyer could have hit upon. That ingenious _chef de cuisine_ has blended together pastry and politics; with considerable skill he has invented a Crême d’Angleterre, consisting of charms borrowed from the female aristocracy; but those ingredients, imaginary and unsubstantial as they are, must be considered as solids when compared with the materials used for constituting the dishes served up to the paupers in the Andover Union. Butter, according to the new poor law cookery, is made from the skimmings of grease pots, and parochial tea is made from boiling old leaves which have already had their strength drawn out of them.

“A new cookery book, edited by M’Dougal, the master of the Andover Union, is evidently a desideratum in culinary literature, which even Soyer’s universal genius has hitherto left unsupplied.”--_Punch._

* * * * *

THE GASTRONOMIC REGENERATOR.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

THE TIMES.

_The Gastronomic Regenerator._--_The Modern Cook._--“Any body can dine,” says the clever and profound author of the ‘Original,’ “but very few know how to dine so as to ensure the greatest quantity of health and enjoyment.” The pith and truth of this remark are unquestionable; and, indeed, we know nothing more painful than that utter disregard of the very first principles of gastronomic science evinced by so many unprincipled and reckless individuals of the present day, who eat as though the sole object of eating were to sustain life. Not that they take the best means for accomplishing even that ignoble end. The rules, whose observance renders eating a luxury and an art, also conduce in the highest degree to health. Sacrifices to Ceres and Bacchus, in the very act of the offering, should have a sweet fragrance in the nostrils of Hygeia.

Who shall affix a boundary to the possible progress of an art? Let the vulgar do so, who, struck by apparent perfection, conclude at once that the force of genius “can no further go.” We assert fearlessly that the limits of human creation and improvement are yet unknown. Least of all are they to be defined with reference to that great art which has been styled “the standard and gauge of human civilization,” and which Montaigne, with less respect, denominated the _science de la gueule_. Sceptics were they who, revelling at the table of Louis XIV in the sauces of a Bechamel, or lingering at the board of the great Condé over the _chefs d’œuvre_ of a Vatel--that illustrious martyr to a point of culinary honour!--or inhaling gently and delicately, and degustating slowly, and with marvellous discrimination, the exquisite and quintessential results of the vigils of an Ude, who refused, in their turns, to believe that the science professed by these great men could be capable of improvement, or was susceptible of higher elevation. Alas! have we not lived to vote the resources of all _perruque_ and _rococo_, and to behold the precious laurels that wreathed the temples of the culinary demigods of the 18th century, transferred by acclamation in the 19th to the mighty brows of a Carême and a Beauvilliers, a Soyer and a Francatelli--great names every one--poetizers of the spit, philosophers of the larder, sublime fire-worshippers, high priests of a kitchen fuller than Druidical groves of deep and sacred mysteries?

The two bulky and important volumes before us are characteristic of the distinguished artists to whom we own them. Written, the one by a Frenchman, the other by an Englishman (for Mr. Francatelli, in spite of his name, boasts of an Anglican origin), they differ greatly in form, although in substance, as far as the uninitiated may judge, they are equally excellent. The Modern Cook enters upon his task in a grave and business-like fashion, never tempted into digression, never moved into metaphor, ever keeping in view his main object, which, we an proud to say, is eminently patriotic, for he seeks to elevate the character and position of the English Cook, and to produce a work creditable to the gastronomic knowledge of the nation. “The Gastronomic Regenerator” is a different personage. He can afford to garnish his prose with the flowers of fancy, as his material dishes are crowned with _croustades_ and _atelettes_; he handles with equal ability the quill of Pegasus and the larding-needle, and records with the former the achievements of the latter, in a strain of enthusiasm and heroic sensibility that are not to be surpassed even in the odes of a poet laureate. We confess at the outset that there is much to marvel at in the recondite pages of the Regenerator, but there is nothing to admire more than his matchless modesty, his courteous urbanity, his devotion to the fair sex, and his occasional touching and highly imaginative digressions.

“Why do you not write and publish a Cookery-book? was a question continually put to me. For a considerable time this scientific word caused a thrill of horror to pervade my frame, and brought back to my mind that one day, being in a most superb library in the midst of a splendid baronial hall, by chance I met with one of Milton’s allegorical works, the profound ideas of Locke, the several _chefs d’œuvre_ of one of the noblest champions of literature, Shakspeare; when all at once my attention was attracted by the nineteenth edition of a voluminous work: such an immense success of publication caused me to say, ‘Oh! you celebrated man, posterity counts every hour of fame upon your regretted ashes!’ Opening this work with intense curiosity, to my great disappointment what did I see,--a receipt for Ox-tail Soup! The terrifying effect produced upon me by this succulent volume made me determine that my few ideas, whether culinary or domestic, should never encumber a sanctuary which should be entirely devoted to works worthy of a place in the Temple of the Muses.”

Why, then, great artist, transgress this noble resolution? Why commit a desecration which, indeed, is no desecration, save to your own pre-eminent and too fastidious judgment? Ah, shall we confess it? It is the old story, familiar to the playgoing public, and to the printers of playbills. “The particular desire of several persons of distinction,” and especially of the ladies, to whose appeals M. Soyer Informs us he could never turn a deaf ear, has dragged the sage from his retirement, and compelled him to do violence to a settled conviction and a holy purpose. Some idea of the sacrifice which M. Soyer was called upon to make by the entreaties of the ladies and the distinguished individuals adverted to, may be gathered from the history of the hero during the composition of his work. For ten months he laboured at the pyramid which the remotest posterity shall applaud; and during the whole of that period he was intent upon providing the countless meals which a living generation have already approved and fully digested. Talk of the labours of a Prime Minister or Lord Chancellor! Sir R. Peel was not an idle man. Lord Brougham is a tolerably busy one. Could either, we ask, in the short space of ten months--ten “little months”--have written ‘The Gastronomic Regenerator,’ and furnished 25,000 dinners, 38 banquets of importance, comprising above 70,000 dishes, besides providing daily for 60 servants, and receiving the visits of 15,000 strangers, all too eager to inspect the renowned altar of a great Apician temple? All this did M. Soyer, and we back him for industry against even the indefatigable Brougham.

That more than one of the 38 banquets were of the highest moment, and must at the time have engrossed the mind of their accomplished author, to the serious derangement of his literary avocations, admits of no question the moment we peruse one bill of fare which M. Soyer places before our dazzled and admiring eyes. A memorable dinner was given at the Reform Club, upon the 9th day of May of the present year, to a select party of ten highly-gifted connoisseurs; none of your gobble-and-gulp people, who, in their melancholy ignorance, swallow a _potage à la Comte de Paris_, or a _rissolette à la Pompadour_, with the same frightful _nonchalance_ as a sailor will devour his pea-soup, or a rustic bolt his bacon; but creatures of ethereal natures, devotees of what the painters call “high art;” men who feed their bodies only to give elasticity and vigour to their souls. The _Diner Lucullusian à la Sampayo_ was ordered with a magnificent contempt of expense. No money was to be spared in obtaining the most novel, luxurious, and rare compounds that ingenuity could discover or gold procure. Stimulated by the anxious and repeated visits of a noble-spirited, and judicious guide, a Grove and a Jay, a Townsend and a Morel, a Slater and a Solomon, surpassed themselves in the quality of the viands they purveyed. One dish, the “_Buisson d’Ecrévisses Pagodatique au vin de Champagne à la Sampayo_” cost something more than seven guineas--a trifle! Two large bottles of Perigord truffles, value four guineas, were stewed with the _écrévisses_ in champagne. We have no heart to proceed, for “the author regrets that, in fulfilment of an agreement between him and M. Sampayo, he is restricted from giving the receipt of crawfish _à la Sampayo_.” Why was the dish mentioned at all, if the world is still to be deprived of the receipt? The loss is a national one. Doubtless it would have been very popular at the small clubs, and in great request with gentlemen of limited incomes! But to return to the incomparable dinner. There were _dotrelles aux feuilles de vignes_, and there was _miroton de homard aux œufs de pluvier_, and there were many other dishes, too, enough as you would think to crown the happiness of a cook, and to satisfy the ambition of the proudest caterer in Christendom. You know not cooks. At page 608 of ‘The Regenerator,’ the soft sigh of a Soyer falls painfully upon the reader’s ear; and no wonder! A brilliant thought--one of those superb inspirations, the property of great minds--had occurred to our author during the procreation of this matchless banquet. Mentioned by him to the mysterious and too exclusive Sampayo and his friends, they caught with joy the idea. Two dozen of ortolans and twelve of the largest and finest truffles were to be procured, and in each of the latter a hole was to be dug, wherein one of the unctuous and semi-transparent little volatiles was to be buried. Yes, the delicate native of Provence gloriously interred in the choicest production of Perigord; then must a piece of calf or lamb’s caul (exquisite minuteness of description!) cover the aperture and shelter the imprisoned bird; then was there to be braising in a gravy of fowls and Lachrymæ Christi, poached forcemeat upon the dish, the truffles in pyramid. Upon that, a _purée_ with the truffle that bad been dug out of the graves, and a _garniture_ of roasted ortolans. Stupendous thought! we have read of superior minds overcoming obstacles long deemed insurmountable, and have gathered from the perusal strength for the difficult struggle of life. Such strength find we here. “An ortolan,” said Alexis Soyer, pondering on the difficult and self-appointed task, “an ortolan can hardly be truffled, but I will undertake that a truffle shall be ortolaned!” He might have added, “‘Tis not in mortals to command success; we’ll do more, Sampayo, we’ll deserve it;” for great as the Regenerator’s conception was, it was not destined to be realized. The elements were unpropitious, and the ortolans did not arrive in time from Paris, whence they had been ordered. This, however, was the only failure. Everything else was to the turn, the minute. At seven o’clock the Severn salmon arrived alive, and by express from Gloucester. Ten minutes later it smoked upon the board. Happy Sampayo!--happier guests!--immortal Soyer!

We turn to the pictorial portion of this notable book. After the agreeable portrait of the author, which faces the title-page, the first of the woodcuts that attracts attention is “The Table of the Wealthy,” with the motto, “_Rien ne dispose mieux l’esprit humain à des transactions amicales qu’un dîner bien conçu et artistement préparé_.” A great maxim of diplomacy! How many treaties of peace and commerce have owed their conclusion to the mollifying effects of a series of good dinners! What numerous misunderstandings have been arranged and thorny points happily settled, less by the wisdom of the ambassador than by the ability of the ambassador’s cook! On a judiciously-compounded sauce, or a _rôti cuit à point_, or the seasoning of a _salmi_, or the twirl of a _casserole_, may depend the fate of a crowned head,--the marriage of a prince,--the weal or woe of a nation. Is cookery, then, no art? Truly is it--the highest, the noblest!

A second plate, “My Table at Home,” represents M. Soyer, in his _foyers_, presiding over a select party assembled round his hospitable and well-furnished board. Behold again the unrivalled gallantry of the country, and the individual finding a vent in a poetic and touching smile. “A gastronomical _réunion_, without ladies,” says the chief cook of the Reform Club,” is a parterre without flowers, the ocean without waves, a fleet without sails.”

Talking of fleets, let us pass on at once to the Turkey _à la Nelson_, which deceased but much honoured bird is placed with its tail in the prow of a Roman galley, duly provided with anchor, sail, and all fitting appurtenances, and surmounted by fictitious ducklings, manufactured, as we are informed, but should never have divined, of the legs of fowls. Further on we have the _Gateau Britannique à l‘Amiral_, a comely corvette of cake, coppered with chocolate, displaying wafer sails and sugar rigging, tossing upon waves of _gelée à la Bacchante_,--her canvas swelling to a favouring breeze,--her sides dripping with wine and marmalade,--her interior, even to the hatchways, filled with such a freight as none but Soyer could provide, and perfect _gourmets_ thoroughly appreciate. It is whispered that upon this gallant ship Commodore Napier did fearful execution in the presence of his quondam foe and present friend, Ibrahim Pacha, when that illustrious individual dined with the Commodore at his club. Assaulting the craft with the fierce impetuosity for which the hero of Acre is so renowned, and thrusting his boarding-pike--his spoon we would say--deep into the hold of the luscious craft, he destroyed in an instant Soyer’s labour of a day. Timbers were stove in or out,--sails came down by the run,--masts went by the board,--and all was wreck, where a second before all had been symmetry and perfection.

Nothing that relates to the kitchen or the table has been neglected or overlooked by the Regenerator. We have plans and drawings of kitchens of every description, from the matchless establishments of the Reform Club, with its ice drawers, slate wells, steam closets, _bains marie_, and fifty other modern refinements, to the unpretending cooking-places of the cottage or the bachelor. But perhaps the section of the book to be chiefly prized by the general reader and indifferent gastronome, is the short one relating to carving. Good carvers are almost as rare as good tenor singers. The proper dissection of flesh and fowl is a matter of high importance, rarely excelled in, but should be always studied. It is an accomplishment almost as indispensable as reading and writing, and quite as graceful. “If you should, unhappily,” says Launcelot Sturgeon, in his Essays, Moral, Philosophical, and Stomachic, “be forced to carve at table, neither labour at the joint till you put yourself in a heat, nor make such a desperate effort to dissect it as may put your neighbours in fear of their lives; however, if an accident should happen, make no excuses, for they are only an acknowledgment of awkwardness. We remember to have seen a man of high fashion deposit a turkey in this way in the lap of a lady, but with admirable composure, and without offering the slightest apology, he finished a story which he was telling at the same time, and then quietly turning to her, merely said, ‘Madam, I’ll thank you for that turkey.’” To those who may not possess similar coolness, and the same stoical indifference to the fate of ladies’ dresses and the results of ladies’ indignation, M. Soyer’s improvements in carving are valuable indeed.

“Nature, says I to myself, compels us to dine more or less once a day; each of those days you are, honorable reader, subject to meet en _tête-à-tête_ with a fowl, poularde, duck, pheasant, or other volatile species; is it not bad enough to have sacrificed the lives of those _amimaus bienfaisans_ to satisfy our indefatigable appetites, without pulling and tearing to atoms the remains of our benefactors? it is high time for the credit of humanity and the comfort of quiet families, to put an end to the massacre of those innocents.”

Incomparable benevolence! Tenderest commiseration! Perfect humanity! “We will be sacrificers, not butchers, Caius Cassius.” The philanthropic progress of the century has reached the kitchen, and animal love is most intense in the vicinity of the stockpot. What would the kitchen of the Reform Club be without humanity and the liberal sentiments? No more will barbarous cooks be haunted by horrid visons of the night! Incipient porkers shall no longer pine away their sweetness, and strive to toughen their crackling in anticipation of a final flagellation. Eels shall no longer be required to give up their skins before their ghosts, and some humaner process than a surfeit of food, a deprivation of drink, and a gradual roasting near a scorching fire, will, let us hope, be discovered, to give to the livers of ducks that glorious expansion and pinguid richness so much appreciated by the epicure. We will not despair of witnessing, under the dominion of M. Soyer, the introduction and use of some instrument analogous to the guillotine, which by a stroke shall do its deadly necessary work: nay, might not advances lately made in Mesmerism be turned to good account in procuring painless death to those whom the feeling Soyer so beautifully calls our “benefactors?” A goose, in a state of coma, would be uncognizant of the penknife that divides its jugular; calves and sheep properly subjected to the action of the magnetic fluid would pass from life into the larder without a struggle or a groan. But to carving! For joints, our author gives most lucid directions, which, if properly studied, cannot fail to convert the merest tyro into an admirable carver. For game and poultry he has done more. He has invented an instrument, to be had at Bramah’s, in Piccadilly, and with which printed directions are given, by the aid of which the joints of birds are severed without the smallest detriment to their good looks. “Formerly,” he says, “nothing was more difficult to carve than wild fowl, the continual motion (when alive) of the wings and legs making the sinews almost as tough as wires, puzzling the best of carvers to separate them; my new method has quite abolished such a domestic tribulation.” For which, as well as for the many other benefits conferred by him upon the human race and the brute creation, we beg to reiterate our humble hearty thanks to the talented author of ‘The Gastronomic Regenerator.’

THE MORNING CHRONICLE.

_Alexis Soyer, the Gastronomic Regenerator._--Everybody who knows him, everybody who has sat before his dishes, everybody interested in the promotion of the Reform cause, or who likes to have a good dinner at home, has long since said in his heart “Why does not Soyer write a book about cookery?” When Reform was flagging, when Peel had it all his own way, before a country party was thought of, or a revolt seemed possible, when the idea of the Whigs coming in was hopeless, and the party therefore needed consolation, what did Soyer do? At that moment of general depression Alexis Soyer invented _cutlets à la réforme_. _He_ didn’t despair, _he_ knew the _avenir_ that was before the party. He rallied them round the invigorating table, from which they rose cheered and courageous; flushed with victuals, their attack upon the enemy was irresistible (as under such circumstances the charge of Britons always is), and Downing-street may be said to be the dessert of the dinners in Pall-mall. He is one of the greatest politicians and pacificators in the world. If they had him in Conciliation-hall, even there they would leave off quarrelling. Look at his influence upon the diplomacy of our country! In this very day’s paper appears an account of a dinner at that very Reform Club which Soyer loves, and which has stood as sponsor to the great cutlets which he invented--of a dinner at which Lord Palmerston and Ibrahim Pacha had their hands in the same dish of pilaff, and the maker of that dish was Alexis Soyer. To such a noble and magnanimous spirit as Soyer’s evidently is, such a meeting will cause pride and thankfulness indeed. It is a happy omen. They have eaten salt together, and the peace of the world is assured.

How it was that Gibbon came to write the ‘Decline and Fall;’ under what particular circumstances Newton conceived the theory of gravitation; how Scott invented his works, &c., are historic anecdotes with which all persons interested in literature are familiar. It is always pleasant to know how and where a great thought came into the brain of a great man, and so it is agreeable to know how this cookery book, which all the world longed for, was suggested to Soyer. (See the Preface.)

Surely this preface is one of the most remarkable documents that ever ushered any book into the world. Soyer has made it a rule never to refuse anything in his power to the ladies (the rogue)!--and, amongst other favours, they asked him for a cookery-book. The request caused him “a thrill of horror;” but being in a library in the midst of a hall, where he met with _one_ of Milton’s allegorical works, Locke’s profound ideas, and several _chefs d’œuvre_ of that noble champion of literature, Shakspeare, what should his eye turn to but a cookery-book closeted in such company! “The terrifying effect of that succulent volume” made him determine that he never would write a book of the culinary sort.

What was the consequence? The very determination not to write, forced him into “a thousand gastronomic reflections.” Write he must, and it was sheer modesty that generated the Regenerator. Mark the pleasantry upon the word “lost,” the last word in the preface, and fancy Soyer lost in Paradise. Tempter! if you had been in any such place, to what could you not have persuaded the first gourmand! In fine, Soyer determined to write this book, because he justly “considered that the pleasures of the table are an every-day enjoyment, _which reflects good and evil on all classes_.” And when we remember that he has written the work in ten months, during which he has also supplied 25,000 dinners to the gentlemen of the Reform Club, and 38 dinners of importance, comprising 70,000 dishes; that he had to provide daily for 60 servants, and to do the honours of the club to 15,000 visitors, one may fancy what genius and perseverance can accomplish. He says he is “entirely satisfied with the composition, distribution, and arrangement of the volume.” _Exegit monumentum_ in fact. He has been and done it. He gives you his signature, his portrait _en buste_, and another full length, in which he is represented in his parlour at home (where, in spite of his avocations, he has leisure to receive his friends and consume a most prodigious quantity of victuals), surrounded by a select society of private friends, dispensing to them some of the luxuries which he describes in his 700 pages.

After a few prefatory observations about carving, for which he has invented a new and apparently successful, though unintelligible method--about larding, which he recommends to the English “middle classes”--the seasons of fish and game, &c.--the utensils for the kitchen--Soyer plunges into sauces at once, as the great test of culinary civilization. The key-sauces are the White Sauce, No. 7, and the Brown Sauce, No. 1. They are the _principia_ of the science--they are the sauces which Soyer daily and principally uses. If the reader suspects that we are going to transcribe the formula for the preparation of these sauces, he is disappointed. No; let those who want the sauce buy the book, and enjoy both.

From sauces we go to “Potages or Soups” (and what are these, in fact, but diluted and agreeable sauce?), commencing with the clear light broth, or FIRST STOCK of soup, and proceeding to a hundred delicious varieties--the Louis Philippe, the Jerusalem, the Marcus-Hill, the Princess Royal, &c. Nothing can be more delicate or worthy of a young princess than this latter little soup; whereas the “potage à la comtesse,” beginning with “cut half a pound of lean ham with an onion,” is of a much stronger character. All these soups are flavoured with appropriate observations, as, for instance--“In fact it is much better for all thick soups to be too thin than too thick.” Louis Philippe soup, he says, should contain “Brussels sprouts, _boiled very green_.” Here is sorely some wicked satire here.

From soup we come to fish, as in the order of nature; thence to the hors-d’œuvre and removes, to the flancs, the entrées, the roasts, the vegetables, the sweets, or the entremets, and the second-course removes. As the critic reads from page to page his task becomes absolutely painful, so delicious is the style, so “succulent” are the descriptions, and so provoking the hunger which they inspire. Every now and then you get anecdotes, historical and topographical allusions, &c. (See p. 472.)

How finely it is written! “Will _your excellency_ call to-morrow morning?” Talleyrand’s friend says nothing, but you see his rank at once, and when his excellency is gone, the Prince of Benevent rings the bell and orders--some of his favorite dishes. There is an account in the volume of crawfish aux truffes à la Sampayo, which makes one almost frantic with hunger.

And what will the reader say to this dish, which is the invention, not of Soyer the cook, but of Soyer the poet:--“The Celestial and Terrestrial Cream of Great Britain.” (See p. 710.)

If this dish was provided for his Highness Ibrahim Pacha last night, no Eastern prince since the days of the Barmecide was ever so entertained. _Ardebit Alexim._ His Highness will be bribing away this Gascon genius at any price to Cairo. He will become---- Pacha, and the cause of Reform will begin to droop.

Besides poetry, there are pictures in this incomparable volume. The dindonneau à la Nelson (of which the croustade is the bow of a ship, in compliment to the hero of Aboukir) is a picture worthy of Turner. The engraving of Soyer’s own parlour, where a pretty maid is in waiting (and an exceedingly pretty girl, by the way, is seated by the great artist) is an enticing interior, in which any man would like to let his portrait appear. The picture of “Salade de Grouse à la Soyer” is a capital portrait, and will be recognized by all who know and love the original. Soyer’s own portrait we have mentioned before. But perhaps the finest and most interesting work of art in the volume, is the plate at p. 294, which represents, of the natural size, a mutton cutlet, a pork cutlet, and a lamb cutlet. This cut--this plate of cutlets we should say--is incomparable.

THE MORNING POST.

In spite of all that we have heard for some years past about the enlightenment of the age, there are still certain vulgar errors, and errors on very vital subjects, to which the English adhere with all the constancy of martyrs.

Perhaps these errors are more abundant in relation to the preparation of food than to almost any other matter. At present, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the generality of people in England have only roast and boil, after a fashion; and there the culinary acquirements of the multitude find their extreme limits. Others, there are, indeed, who take a higher flight; they affect soups and gravies, and even aspire to put vegetables on their tables; but in all these cases nothing can be more inartificial than the system pursued. Hot water is the chief ingredient, and pepper the condiment. Thus, for soup;--fry two or three slices of coarse beef in plenty of fat, boil it in water, and saturate it with pepper and salt, and your tureen is provided for. Of mutton broth we are not so sure of the process; but the decoction has all the appearance of being composed of the eternal hot water, stirred with a tallow candle, to give the necessary number of globules of grease on the surface, and ornamented at the top with a few floating particles of parsley. A gravy in more frequent use is exceedingly simple. When a leg of mutton is roasted, the person miscalled a cook pours a teacupful of water over the joint, and the gravy is complete. Vegetables are only required to retain as much as possible of the fetid water in which they are boiled, and to be sunk as deep in melted butter as a river bound collier is in the sea, and they are considered “a dainty dish to set before a king.”

Such are a few everyday examples of the English practice of cookery--principles it evidently has none. In France they order these things differently. During a succession of revolutions, extending over a space of nearly sixty years, constitutions have been abandoned as soon as adopted; kings and nobles have been murdered; but _La Cuisine_ has ever been held inviolate, and chefs deserving of the name have not ceased to be venerated. And what is the result?--that in France, where the raw material is, with the single exception of veal, perhaps, inferior to ours, a dinner can be produced worthy of Lucullus; in England, save under the superintendence of French artists, such a feat is plainly impossible. Surely, then, it behoves us to do what we may for availing ourselves, in their fullest extent, of the advantages we have received from nature, not perhaps by going the somewhat extreme length that we have heard suggested, of establishing professorships of gastronomy in our universities, on the broad ground that domestic is as well worthy of being encouraged as political economy, but by profiting, to the best of our abilities, under the instructions of those who really understand the art in which we are so lamentably deficient. So desirable an object has hitherto been baffled by the popular prejudice that good cookery is necessarily unwholesome. It is no such thing. An accomplished cook is an accomplished chemist; he knows the several affinities of substances for each other, and not only balances these with the utmost exactitude, but even prescribes, with the same view, the particular description of wine proper to each stage of his banquet. We all remember the celebrated answer of Carême to George IV, whose cuisine he superintended while that sovereign was regent. “Carême,” said the prince, “your cookery will be the death of me; see how I am suffering from indigestion.” “Sire,” replied the professor, “I am innocent of the charge; it is my duty to provide you with a dinner, the discretion to use it properly must originate with your royal highness.” So true is it that the evil lies in the abuse and not in the use of good things.

Another objection to elaborate cookery is the expense it is supposed to involve. Both the points have been satisfactorily met in the work before us. The many receipts furnished by M. Soyer, and they amount to nearly two thousand, afford evidence at once of careful study and of extreme delicacy. Everything gross is excluded, and the more nutritious portions of food are alone preserved, in such forms as to please the eye and the palate, without embarrassment to the digestive process. Neither of these objects is attained under the ordinary English system. Huge joints offend the sight, and half-raw meat tasks the organs of digestion beyond their power, by presenting to them masses of unbroken fibres. To save trouble to the stomach the fibre must be destroyed by the action of heat, and this can never be effected by exposing food to the fire during only half the time that is necessary.

Then, as to the expense of superior cookery, M. Soyer has taken the best means of refuting the error by showing that much improvement may be made without addition to the cost. In one portion of his book he provides materials for the dinner of an emperor; in the other, entitled, “My Kitchen at Home,” he enables the smallest private family, or even the solitary bachelor, to live well on small means.

It would be incompatible with our limits to discuss fully the two systems of the author, and to abstain from any illustration of them would be unjust to him and unsatisfactory to the reader. We will therefore give one example of each--the magnificent and the simple; and the first shall be a banquet served at the Reform Club, on the 9th of May last to a private party of ten persons (see page 609), and for a dinner party for eight persons, at home (see page 636).

Of the simple arrangement for a bachelor or a married couple, combining, as they do, elegance with economy, we cannot give a selection; because we would not offer a brick as a specimen of the house; but we strongly recommend them to all who are tired of conventional dinners composed of everlasting chops and steaks.

In short the work of M. Soyer is one that cannot fail of being extensively read. If it be worth while to spend as much time as everybody does in eating, it is surely advisable to see that our time is not thrown away--that we live like civilized beings rather than New Zealand savages. In this important point the system of M. Soyer is worthy of praise, and we feel that we only anticipate our readers in thanking him for the labour he has bestowed in elucidating a pursuit that, in despite of twaddle, is at least one of the minor amenities of life.

THE MORNING HERALD.

We approach with all due reverence and respect the discussion of the important and mysterious changes effected by the chemical action of that most potent of all galvanic agencies, whose resistless influence is acknowledged by sages, philosophers, and statesmen, and whose sympathetic vibrations finds response in every breast--the _batterie de cuisine_. ‘The Gastronomic Regenerator; a New System of Cookery.’ We have given both the titles, because in so deeply interesting a race, all parties from the Royal duke, whose gracious condescension sanctions the dedication in the title-page, to the humble artisan who sniffs the fragrant perfume as he passes the area of the Reform Club, are entitled to start fair; and to the uninitiated the pronomen would require a greater amount of consideration than accords with good digestion. For ourselves, we can only say, with the cockney lady in the play, “How delightfully unintelligible! how far-fetched! how French!” But we have a shrewd guess that the impracticable title was designed, like some of his _sauces piquantes_, as a cabalistic whet or provocative to the teeming fancies and gustatory glories of the interior, and that pronounced with due emphasis and discretion before a meal, it would “create an appetite under the very ribs of death.” The importance of a good dinner is become almost an axiom in morals and philosophy; with ourselves it has been elevated to the rank of an article of faith. We cannot, therefore, too highly appreciate the labours of distinguished men who, like M. Soyer, sacrifice themselves to a sense of public duty, and present to an admiring and hungry world those treasures of _gastronomie_ which are the very triumph of artistic skill. The ancient proverb has it that “any one can dine,” to which modern political economy has added, “if he have the means,”--happily for the present generation they live in the third era of progressive advancement, when dining has become a science, and the good things which Providence has abundantly supplied to us are rendered subservient at once to health and refined enjoyment. M. Soyer tells us that nothing better disposes the human mind to amiable feelings than a dinner, _bien conçu et artistement préparé_. How deeply grateful, then, should our countrymen feel who make dining the great business of life, and with whom a dinner forms the grand rallying point for every striking demonstration of pleasure, or business, or friendship, or charity, to one who in the proud humility of his unrivalled genius is content to rank a good cook only on the same footing as a wise counsellor! We have been accustomed to vaunt of our liberty, our independence, and our unbounded wealth, but to our eternal disgrace be it recorded that, while we enjoy the fruits of their labours, we are silent on the subject of our obligations to the accomplished _cuisinier_. The talent and research of a Vatel, a Carême, and a Bechamel have done much to place us on an equality with our more fastidious and artistic neighbours, the French--it remained for a Soyer to consummate the good work, and place the golden atelette upon the croustade of the _dindonneau à la Nelson_. M. Soyer has evidently a just appreciation of the dignity of the science of which he is so distinguished a professor; with a mind comprehensive enough to grasp all the most intricate and difficult combinations of the culinary art, he is above the littleness of discarding his guests because they may add salt to their soup, contenting himself with the sage maxim that “it is the duty of the cook to season for the guests, and not the guests for the cook.” And verily, if all our cooks were such “top” Soyers, it would be downright heresy to “paint the lily or add a perfume to the violet.” Since we read the work we have been tempted more than once to renounce our honest convictions, and sell our party for a mess of _potage_--_à la Julienne_. We had no idea that so much good could emanate from the Reform Club, and lived in the belief that their dinners were as dull as their dogmas, and their _pâtés_ as indifferent as their principles. But political discussions are interdicted over the dinner table, and with M. Soyer as caterer we honestly confess that we could dine in all love and amity with a Radical or a Repealer, and get “jolly” with a Chartist or an Owenite. We shall entertain a better opinion all our lives of a party so well served in the culinary department. Our readers will be naturally anxious to learn the moving cause of the thousand gastronomic reflections that crowd the volume--what powerful agency impelled him _tot adire labores_; and but for the habit of discursiveness which has marred our fortunes to the present hour we should have given it the prominence it deservedly obtains in the preface. Honour then to whom honour is due,--_place aux dames_--it is “at the request of several persons of distinction, particularly the ladies, to whom I have always made it a rule never to refuse anything in my power.” Never was there so touching a tribute of homage; never was the proverbial gallantry of his countrymen so strikingly or so gracefully exemplified. But we have all this time withheld our readers from a peep into the interior, and here our difficulties begin. We have rambled through the greater portion of the 700 or 800 pages of the book, and find every recipe an epic, every dish a picture, and every sauce a study. We are perplexed between the glories of the _dîner Lucullusian_, the most _recherché_ dinner ever dressed, the _pagodatique entrée_, the _gateau Britannique à l’amiral_, the ortolaned truffles which Soyer devised, but the fates forbid, and the more unpretending but not less valuable details of “My Kitchen at Home,” redolent of savoury and appetitizing streams, which are within the reach of the middle and humbler classes. All are exquisite in their way; and had the Abyssinian prince, who roamed over half the globe in search of happiness, but lighted on this volume he would have sat down contentedly, ordered a new dish for every day in the year, and abandoned all thought of returning to the happy valley. _Mais revenons à nos moutons_, the approach to which is stopped by the _cheveux de frise_ of a carving-knife and fork. Now carving, being, the _coup de grâce_ to cookery, rather unaccountably, but probably artistically, occupies the first chapter; and our author, after referring to the tribulation of carving “for appetites more or less colossal, and when all eyes are fixed upon you with anxious avidity,” opens his instructions with the following curious historic anecdote (see p. xii).

And then follow some very sage reflections upon the necessity of dining “more or less once a day,” and a pathetic appeal to the “manglers” not to tear to atoms the remains of our benefactors; and with this flourish of the knife enter “directions for carving,” which are extremely brief and simple, and which are wound up with the hint, seldom attended to by even experienced carvers, that nothing is more creditable to a carver than leaving a piece of meat, game, or poultry fit to reappear at table in an inviting state.

One extract more, and we shall terminate our pleasing labours, premising that our selection has been made more with a view to novelty than from any want of more _recherché_ and attractive materials. The _fanfare_ is with reference to the French _pot-au-feu_ (see p. 649).

But here we must pause, for we are almost cloyed with sweets and dainties. With the best appetite and inclination in the world, we are reluctantly compelled to subscribe to our artist’s doctrine, that a man can dine but once a day, and our literary banquet has been already a most seductive and profuse one. We purposed giving the recipe of the far-famed pot-au-feu, but we presume it is already, or shortly will be, in the hands of all the world, and if any of our readers have not yet made up their minds, we advise them to send without loss of time to Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.

THE MORNING ADVERTISER.

“The fame of the Reform Club and its matchless _cuisine_, under the direction of that great master of his art, Alexis Soyer, have gone to the uttermost ends of the earth. To render that fame imperishable, Soyer has composed his ‘Gastronomic Regenerator,’ a work which is destined to throw all others, from the time-honoured Mrs. Glass to the learned Eustache Ude, into the shade. The former, most loveable in her way, will henceforth only be remembered for her one receipt, “first catch your hare,” &c.; the piquancy, the _utile et dulce_ characteristics of Soyer, like one of his own chyle-begetting and renowned sauces, entirely neutralises, absorbs, swallows up the greatest effort of Ude. _Tempus edax rerum!_ Soyer is a wit and a wag of the first water; hence a perusal of the introduction to the goodly volume before us acts as a whet. “Laugh and grow fat” is an old and a true adage; read Soyer’s introduction, and the veriest valetudinarian will afterwards sit down and eat like a man! Soyer’s experience has been vast--_magnifique_! hear, on the important head, what he tells his readers:--“During the last ten months I had to furnish 25,000 dinners for the gentlemen of the Reform Club, and 38 dinner parties of importance, comprising above 70,000 dishes, and to provide daily for 60 servants of the establishment, independent of about 15,000 visitors who have seen the kitchen department in that lapse of time.” Authors frequently assign a reason for writing; Soyer, in this respect, is not behindhand; in his preface he says;--“At the request of several persons of distinction who have visited the Reform Club, particularly ladies, to whom I have always made it a rule never to refuse anything in my power, for, indeed, it must have been the fair sex who have had the majority in this domestic argument to gain this gastronomical election. Why do you not write and publish a cookery-book? was a question continually put to me. For a considerable time this scientific word caused a thrill of horror to pervade my frame, and brought back to my mind that one day, being in a most superb library in the midst of a splendid baronial hall, by chance I met with one of Milton’s allegorical works, the profound ideas of Locke, and several _chefs d’œuvre_ of one of the noblest champions of literature, Shakspeare; when all at once my attention was attracted by the nineteenth edition of a voluminous work. Such an immense success of publication caused me to say, ‘Oh, you celebrated man, posterity counts every hour of fame upon your regretted ashes!’ Opening this work with intense curiosity, to my great disappointment, what did I see,--a receipt for Oxtail Soup! The terrifying effect produced upon me by this succulent volume, made me determine that my few ideas, whether culinary or domestic, should never encumber a sanctuary which should be entirely devoted to works worthy of a place in the Temple of the Muses.” That section of the work entitled “Soyer’s new mode of carving” (worthy of the deepest attention) is thus ushered in:--“You are all aware, honorable readers, of the continual tribulation in carving at table, for appetites more or less colossal, and when all eyes are fixed upon you with anxious avidity. Very few persons are perfect in this art, which requires not only grace, but a great deal of skill. Others become very nervous; many complain of the knife which has not the least objection to be found fault with; or else they say, this capon, pheasant, or poulard is not young, and consequently not of the best quality. You may sometimes be right, but it certainly often happens that the greatest gourmand is the worst carver, and complains sadly during that very long process, saying to himself “I am last to be served, my dinner will be cold.” Soyer’s motto is, “cleanliness is the soul of the kitchen;” the _cuisine_ of the Reform Club is a perfect embodiment of this healthful axiom. That portion of the work before us devoted to “The Kitchen at Home,” deserves the attentive perusal of every housewife who wishes to enjoy comfort herself and be the cause of it to others; the author is almost as earnest and enthusiastic in his directions for the production of a good rump-steak pudding for the stomach of common life as he is for that of the most aristocratic and indulged. The work is, in short, one suited to the palace of the prince, and the cottage of the peasant. The two thousand practical receipts it contains, adapted to the incomes of all parties, have been eaten by a “committee of taste,” who have pronounced a verdict in their favour. It is appropriately dedicated to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, and the volume is rendered more valuable by its numerous well-executed illustrations. The frontispiece is a fine portrait of the author, after a painting by the once-accomplished and now lamented Madame Soyer. It is a most truthful portrait; each feature indicates the man--the play of the eloquent lip in there, at once the portal of wit and the minister of intense palatic sensibility. _Vive le Soyer!_

THE GLOBE

The Impression grows on us that the man of his age is neither Sir Robert Peel, nor Lord John Russell, nor even Ibrahim Pacha, but Alexis Soyer.

Hazlitt has said that, if literary men directed the world, they would leave nothing standing but printing presses. We know that parliamentary leaders imagine parliamentary tactics, and talk the _primum mobile_ of mankind. Eastern despots think it is the sword; but Alexis Soyer knows it is the saucepan. When Napoleon first started the distinction of the “Legion of Honour,” Moreau ridiculed it by proposing to confer a _casserole d’honneur_ on his cook. But we beg to propose some “Soyer testimonial,” without any joke at all. Have we not had a “Hudson testimonial?”--are we not threatened with a “Lambert Jones testimonial?”--to recompense, amongst other things, the laying that heavy load upon mother earth, called the Royal Exchange. What then shall be done unto the man who reared that light fabric of a Pyramid _à l’Ibrahim Pacha_, on which twenty centuries doubtless looked down last Friday evening, as they had very good reason to do,--since they might have seen Pyramids any day these two or three thousand years, but it is not every day they could see a Pyramid with “an elegant cream _à l’ananas_” on the top of it, and on the top of that again “a highly-finished portrait of the Illustrious stranger (Ibrahim Pacha’s) father, Mehemet Ali, carefully drawn on a round shape of satin _carton_.”

The veracious chronicler to whom we are now indebted for some particulars, which the world would not willingly let die, of that dinner at the Reform Club which has frighted some of our Paris contemporaries from their propriety, proceeds as follows: