Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Some hostesses, indeed, cultivate the Japanese grammar of the arrangement of flowers, which gives a particular and especial value to each leaf, branch, and stalk. Others again will have merely half a dozen blooms, all told, on the table, but each bloom perfect of its kind, and displayed to the best advantage. High vases are as obsolete as the dodo, and people are gradually becoming alive to the fact that four or five exquisite roses in a big flat Hawthorn dish are more decorative than all the miserable little white china cupids in Regent Street.

The choice of odours, too, is an important consideration. No hostess with any consideration for the olfactory nerves of her guests would put strongly perfumed flowers on the dinner-table. They would only destroy the flavour of the cates, and cause annoyance rather than pleasure. Even the lovely syringa, which a good lady once described as “a respectable gardenia,” is too strong, and at the most a purely neutral scent is permissible.

In the height of summer I have met a single water-lily floating in a copper dish in the middle of the table; the lily was so perfect in itself that any other decoration would have seemed superfluous and impertinent. The stalks of flowers seen through clear glass are as beautiful as the blooms, and an arrangement of green leaves only, with no flower at all, is, if rightly understood and designed, very difficult to beat.

Only recently, dining in an artist’s studio, I was delighted with a few sprays of medlar blossom on the table, and a mass of hydrangea on the sideboard, immediately below a shelf of old pewter. The harmony was wonderfully beautiful. Such touches of taste entirely alter the character of a dinner, and from a mere feeding party it becomes an artistic pleasure. For, after all, the mere act of eating is not in itself beautiful.

Reverting to the food-faddist, there are some who, quite apart from doctors’ reasons, have the most peculiar likes and dislikes. Some never touch soup; others positively like boiled veal; and it is on record that Dr. Johnson poured lobster sauce over his plum-pudding. It is not easy to understand this extraordinary combination of the great lexicographer, but the story has good authority.

Some folk, quite worthy folk too, like cold meat and pickles, even when abroad; others make a point of drinking the wine of the country. It is told of the great Duke of Wellington that when journeying through France with Alava, in 1814, on being asked at what time they should start next day, he invariably replied “At daybreak.” And to the question what they should have for dinner, he always answered, “Cold meat.” “_Je les ai eu en horreur, à la fin_,” Alava declared, “_ces deux mots-là_--‘daybreak’ _et_ ‘cold meat.’”

The menu of a good summer dinner is always interesting. Here is one which should amply satisfy the most fastidious. It was cooked by one of the best chefs in London, and seems to me to contain some particularly interesting features.

MENU DU DINER

Zakuska.
Potage à la Dauphine.
Purée d’asperges à la St. Georges.
Filets de Sole Bagration.
Saumon froid à la Doria.
Ris de Veau en Caisses à la Périgueux.
Petites Croustades Glacés à la Montglas.
Selle de Mouton froid.
Courges farcies.
Cannetons Sautés. Sauce Bigarade.
Salade de Choux Rouges.
Maïs à l’Américaine.
Macédoine de Fruits.
Bombe de Juillet.
Glace de Crème aux Truffes.

Another hot-weather menu is a comparatively simple luncheon, and is principally remarkable for the fact that it is entirely cold, from the prawns to the coffee. We have all of us, of course, had many cold lunches, racing, motoring, at Henley, or elsewhere, but as a rule these casual meals lack character and homogeneity; they are of a “chucked-together” sort of nature, and whilst serving a useful purpose of their own, can hardly be called perfect pictures of their kind. No such objection can, I think, be made to the subjoined.

MENU DU DÉJEUNER

Crevettes Roses.
Consommé en Gelée.
Salade de Poisson.
Truite froide. Sauce Rémoulade.
Filet de Bœuf aux Légumes Glacés.
Poulet Provençale.
Salade Miladi.
Pêches Daisy Miller.
Coupe Jacques.
Café Glacé.

The following little story from Mr. G. W. E. Russell’s “Londoner’s Logbook” has a delightful gastronomical moral, which might be adopted, with advantage, by many hosts of to-day: “‘Come and dine at eight--pot-luck, you know. Don’t dress.’ That hospitable formula recalls a genial knight who dwelt in Berkeley Square, and, applying his whole mind to the subject of dinners, attained to high perfection in the art of giving them. Two benevolent practices of his invention linger pleasantly in the memory. He caused each course to begin at a different point at the table, so that every guest in turn got the first chance at a dish. He dealt out the asparagus like cards, an equal number of pieces to each guest; and if on completion of the deal he saw that any one had got smaller pieces than his neighbours, he used the residue to redress the inequality. Surely such are those actions of the just which smell sweet and blossom in the dust.”

OYSTERS]

“Tom, whom to-day no noise stirs,
Lies buried in these cloisters;
If at the last trump
He does not quickly jump;
Only cry ‘Oysters!’”

_Epitaph on a Colchester Man’s Grave_

If you have eaten an oyster at Colchester or Faversham, in August, fresh from the sea; or a melting native at Milton, the best oyster in the world, in October; a Helford native in Cornwall; Whispered Pandores and Aberdours at Edinburgh, on the “Feast of Shells,” one hundred for a shilling, dripping in Prestonpans sea-water; Carlingfords and Powldoodies, of Burran, at Dublin; or even a Jersey oyster at St. Heliers, you know what an oyster should be.

These are the words of wisdom, written some thirty years ago by Herbert Byng Hall, a gastronomic writer of some eminence, who had made a special study of the Oyster, and wrote thereon learnedly and _con amore_.

Somehow or other there is something persuasively and personally intimate in one’s relations with an oyster, or with a couple of dozen oysters, for that matter. One does not feel the same sentimental regard for the pig that provides one with one’s morning rasher of bacon that one does for the merest preprandial oyster. And this feeling of friendship, almost intimacy, is always to be found in the writings of those who dilate upon “the breedy creatures,” as Christopher North called our illustrious bivalves in the “Noctes Ambrosianæ.”

Dr. Kitchiner, for instance, says: “Those who wish to enjoy this delicious restorative in its utmost perfection must eat it at the moment it is opened, with its own gravy in the undershell; if not eaten absolutely alive, its flavour and spirit are lost. The true lover of an oyster will have some regard for the feelings of his little favourite, and contrive to detach the fish from the shell so dexterously that the oyster is hardly conscious he has been ejected from his lodging till he feels the teeth of the piscivorous gourmet tickling him to death.”

There are other instances innumerable of a certain dainty touch in dealing with oysters. Contact with them seems to engender humour, good nature, and a tricksey spirit. Huxley called oysters “a delicious flash of gustatory lightning”; and there is a story told of the great master, G. F. Watts, who was challenged by Millais and Leighton to produce a humorous picture, whereupon he painted a primitive man and woman on the seashore. The woman is looking with awestruck admiration at the man who has just swallowed an oyster. The man himself appears very doubtful as to the result. The picture was called “B.C. The First Oyster.”

It was originally said in a very old number of the “North British Review,” that “he must have been a very bold man who first swallowed an oyster.” An old legend assigns the first act of oyster-eating to a very natural cause. It is related that a man walking by the sea one day picked up an oyster, just as it was in the act of gaping. Observing the extreme smoothness of the interior of the shell, he insinuated his finger between them that he might feel their shining surface, when suddenly they closed upon the exploring digit, with a sensation less pleasurable than he anticipated. The prompt withdrawal of his finger was scarcely a more natural movement than its transfer to his mouth. It is not very clear why people (including babies) when they hurt their fingers put them into their mouths; but it is very certain that they do, and in this case the result was most fortunate. The owner of the finger tasted oyster juice for the first time, as Elia’s Chinaman, having burned his finger, first tasted crackling. The savour was delicious; he had made a great discovery; so he picked up the oysters, forced open the shells, banqueted upon the contents, and soon brought oyster-eating into fashion.

That tender personal regard for the innocent oyster, which I have just referred to, is very manifest in one of the most widely known poems in the English language. I mean Lewis Carroll’s “Walrus and the Carpenter.”

“O Oysters, come and walk with us!”
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach;
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.”

* * * * *

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?”
But answer came there none.
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.

The kindly regard for the susceptibilities of the oysters is kept up even until the dire _dénoûment_ of the drama. Again we are touched by a fragment by the same author, of which, alas, we shall never know the full purport. It runs thus:--

I passed by his garden and marked, with one eye,
How the owl and the oyster were sharing a pie.
(_Cætera desunt._)

Mr. Thomas Hardy did not, I am sure, in the title of his novel, “The Return of the Native,” intend to celebrate the coming of oysters into the dinner menu, but it seems to sum up in a brief and pithy phrase one of the great events of the autumn. The old convention that oysters are only eatable in those months which are spelled with an “r” has, of course, much to be said for it; at any rate, so far as British oysters are concerned.

Abroad it is different, and the _parcs aux huîtres_ at French watering-places give quite excellent oysters in August, and even in July. The _huîtres de Marennes_, _huîtres d’Ostende_, and the tiny little green ones are by no means to be despised, although they do not, perhaps, quite come up in lusciousness of flavour to the real Whitstable native.

We are somewhat oyster-spoiled in this country, and particularly in London. We go to Scott’s, Sweeting’s, Driver’s, Hampton’s, Rule’s, or any first-class oyster shops, and we get, as we know we shall get, the very best brand of the very best oyster in the world; fresh, clean, untainted, and uncontaminated, which, after all is said and done, cannot be vouched for in the case of second-rate hotels and caterers.

Whether to drink champagne, Chablis, stout, or nothing with oysters is a nice point which has not as yet been authoritatively decided. Of course, champagne and Chablis go far to assimilate the oyster, but at the same time there are those (and--dare I confess it?--I am amongst the number) who are venturesome enough to assert that the oyster, pure and simple, requires no alcoholic addition. Drink Chablis, or a light hock, _after_ the oyster feast, by all means; but when eating your two or three dozen on the deep shell (always order them on the deep shell) imbibe their own liquor only, and be thankful.

“Un voyageur anglais, transi de froid, arrive dans une hôtellerie de village où il n’y avait d’autre feu que celui de la cuisine, dont la cheminée était gardée par un grand nombre de voyageurs arrivées avant lui. Pour se faire faire place, il usa d’un stratagème assez original. Il avait aperçu en entrant quelques cloyères d’huîtres. Il dit au maître de la maison, ‘Monsieur, avez-vous des huîtres?’ ‘Oui, Monsieur, et de très-fraîches.’ ‘Faites-en porter une cloyère à mon cheval.’ ‘Comment, Monsieur, est-ce que votre cheval mange des huîtres?’ ‘Oui, Monsieur; au surplus, faites ce que je dis; s’il ne les mange pas, d’autres les mangeront.’

“Le maître obéit, et les voyageurs allaient voir un cheval manger des huîtres--qu’il ne mangea pas. Pendant ce temps, le nouvel arrivé prend place au feu. Le maître de retour lui dit, ‘Monsieur, je savais bien que votre cheval ne mangeait pas d’huîtres.’ ‘Eh bien, non,’ dit l’Anglais, ‘je les mangerai; ces messieurs ont quitté leur place, je la garderai; ainsi à tout cela, il n’y aura rien de perdu.’ Et, en effet, il vida la cloyère sans quitter le coin du feu.”

This is a quotation, apt enough, I think, from “La Gastronomie pour Rire, ou Anecdotes, Réflexions, Maximes, et Folies Gourmandes,” par César Gardeton, auteur du “Directeur des Estomacs,” Paris, 1827.

As a useful recipe for oysters, I should like to refer to an extract from a letter from Swift to Stella; it runs thuswise:--

Lord Masham made me go home with him to eat boiled oysters.
Take oysters, wash them clean; that is, wash their shells
clean; then put your oysters in an earthen pot, with their
hollow side down; then put this pot, covered, into a great
kettle with water, and so let them boil. Your oysters are
boiled in their own liquor, and do not mix water.

If oysters have to be cooked at all, which is a doctrine I do not support, then the above seems as good a way as any other. Really good oysters are, anyhow, too precious to be cooked, but should be degustated _in puris naturalibus_.

A story which I venture to think apocryphal is quoted by W. R. Hare in a curious little book, “On the Search for a Dinner,” published in London in 1857. Speaking of dining in Paris, he refers to the celebrated restaurant the _Rocher du Cancale_, and relates how an English “Milord” drove up to the establishment and ordered (and ate) a hearty meal of twenty-nine dozen oysters; after which Milord died suddenly--and no wonder! They carried him down with great difficulty to the carriage. The groom, on seeing his master’s body arrive, exclaimed, with great coolness, “It is the third time that Milord gives himself the pleasure of dying of indigestion.” “He will not die a fourth time,” answered the _patron_, with sorrow. Milord was buried at Père-la-Chaise. His facetious friends deposit every year by the remains of the defunct an enormous quantity of oyster-shells. The tomb is about five-and-twenty yards from that of Héloise and Abélard. On a slab of black marble the following epitaph is inscribed: “Here lies ----, dead for the third time in a duel with the oysters of the Rocher du Cancale.”

I confess that I have not had the curiosity to verify the tombstone.

Brillat-Savarin has an oyster anecdote to the effect that he was at Versailles in the year 1798 as Commissary of the Directory, and had frequently to meet the Registrar of the Tribunal, M. Laperte. The latter was so fond of oysters that he used to grumble about never having had enough to satisfy him. Being determined to procure him that satisfaction, Brillat-Savarin asked Laperte to dinner, and the latter accepted. “I kept up with him,” says the host, “to the third dozen, letting him then go on by himself. He went on steadily to the thirty-second dozen--that is to say, for more than an hour, as they were opened but slowly--and as in the meantime I had nothing else to do--a state quite unbearable at table--I stopped him just as he was beginning to show more appetite than ever. My dear friend,” I said, “it must be some other day that you have enough to satisfy you; let us now have some dinner.” We took dinner, and he showed all the vigour and hunger of a man who had been fasting.

These oyster-gorges are, however, mere epitomes of vulgar gluttony. There is no more gastronomic satisfaction to be got out of thirty-three dozen than out of the conventional two dozen. In fact, doctors rarely prescribe more than one dozen at a time.

Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, Cicero and Seneca, Pliny, Ætius, and the old Greek doctor Oribasius, whom Julian the Apostate delighted to honour, have all enlarged upon the virtues of the oyster. It would be easy to add to the list and to quote corroborative passages, but the thing has been done so often and so copiously, that it would certainly be supererogatory and tedious. The _Tabella Cibaria_ has been referred to by every culinary scribe, and we really know more about the oyster habits of the Romans than we do about those of the inhabitants of the Hebrides; which is absurd.

G. A. Sala says that the Pontiffs of Pagan Rome caused oysters to be served at every repast; but the delicacy must have been very expensive, since a basket of oysters cost the equivalent of nine pounds sterling. They were served raw and were dexterously opened by a slave at a side-table at the beginning of the dinner.

There is a story told of an astute Roman epicure named Fulvius Hirpinus who constructed on his estate, close to the seashore, a fish-pond where he stored or “parked” oysters, which he fattened with paste and cooked wine, worked to the consistency of honey. He was certainly astute because besides regaling himself and his friends on these artificially fattened oysters, he drove a roaring trade in selling them wholesale and retail to the nobility and gentry of Rome.

The same authority goes on to say that, oddly enough, in a comparatively modern cookery book, that of Will Rabisha, there is a direction, a rather ferocious one, that while oysters are undergoing the process of broiling they should be fed with white wine and grated bread. Of course many ways were adopted in those days for the feeding of oysters; but a paste of oatmeal and water seems to have been the staple of the sustenance given to the creatures before they were considered to be fit for the table.

The Greeks, according to Athenæus, boiled and fried their oysters, finding them, however, best of all when roasted in the coals till the shells opened.

As early as the seventeenth century the French prepared them _en etuvée_ and _en fricasée_. Both recipes appear in the “Délices de la Campagne” (1654), a book of extreme interest and full of quaint information; but not, it would seem, strictly reliable as a record of the cookery of the time.

We are so accustomed nowadays to pay half a crown, three and sixpence, and even more for our dozen oysters, that it seems almost incredible that our fathers regaled themselves thereon at the common or general price of sixpence a dozen. An old poem on the subject says:--

Happy the man, who, void of care and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A splendid shilling: he nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale.

This is from “The Splendid Shilling,” by John Philip, which, according to Steele in the “Tatler,” was “the finest burlesque poem in the English language.”

Just exactly why the price of oysters should have increased so enormously in recent years has never been satisfactorily explained. Many ridiculous reasons have been given, but they seem either impertinent, or inadequate, or both. We need only refer to the pages of the “Pickwick Papers” for confirmation.

“Before proceeding to the Legacy Duty Office about proving the will of his late wife, Mr. Weller, senior, and his fellow-coachmen, as witnesses, bethought themselves of having a drop of beer, and a little cold beef, or an oyster. These viands were promptly produced, and the luncheon was done ample justice to. If one individual evinced greater powers than another it was the coachman with the hoarse voice, who took an imperial pint of vinegar with his oysters, and did not betray the least emotion.”

Another and more striking illustration.

“It’s a very remarkable circumstance, sir,” said Sam Weller, “that poverty and oysters always seem to go together; the poorer a place is the greater call there seems to be for oysters. Look here, sir! blest if I don’t think that ven a man’s wery poor he rushes out of his lodgings, and eats oysters for regular desperation.”

The Colchester Oyster Feast is an annual function which is usually graced by the presence and assistance of political and other notabilities. The Mayor and Corporation open the proceedings by “sizing” the oysters, eating a large number at luncheon, and following the luncheon with prescribed draughts of gin and slices of gingerbread. This historic repast seems, on the face of it, to be of a somewhat incongruous nature; but it is said by those who have survived it, and their number is very large, that the cates and beverage go well together, and never quarrel among themselves.

Until comparatively recent times, another annual Oyster Feast took place at Edinburgh, with a kind of civic ceremonial, known as the Feast of Shells. A voyage was made by Provosts and Bailiffs to the oyster beds in the Firth of Forth, and “though the solemnity of wedding the Frith formed no part of the Chief Magistrate’s office, as wedding the Adriatic with a gold ring did that of the Doge of Venice,” three cheers were given by all present as the first “dredge” was hoisted on to the deck of the civic barge.

There is an old fisherman’s song, now almost forgotten, one verse of which runs:--

The Herring loves the merry moonlight,
The Mackerel loves the wind,
But the Oyster loves the dredger’s song,
For he comes of a gentle kind.

Many years ago a sort of popular belief was current to the absurd effect that Oysters could be trained to sing. It is impossible to says whence the superstition arose, but it was helped by a noted exhibition, in London, of a “Whistling Oyster” which was supposed to emit certain sibilant sounds. Thousands flocked to hear it, but it was more or less conclusively proved, however, that it was a trick of ventriloquism on the part of the showman.

In Tom Hood’s “Miss Kilmansegg and her Golden Leg,” there is an apt reference to a Colchester Oyster, when they were very much cheaper than they are to-day, and, as before mentioned, were practically poor men’s food.

What different fates our stars accord!
One babe is welcomed, and wooed as a lord,
Another is shunned like a leper;
One to the world’s wine, and honey, and corn,
Another, like Colchester native, is born
To its vinegar only, and pepper.

The Americans always seem to do things on a larger scale than we, in our effete little island, are able to do. They excel even in the fecundity of their oysters. The British mollusc _Ostrea edulis_ produces about a million young in a season. One of the American variety, _Ostrea Virginiana_, about ten times as many.

There is a great Oyster cult in the United States, and the different manners of cooking, preparing, and serving the oyster are manifold. A book might be written on the pros and cons of cooking an oyster at all, and opinions as to its legitimacy differ, even among the erudite on the subject. Be that as it may, the Americans certainly owe much of their nerve-strength, hustlesomeness, and vigour to their enormous oyster consumption. It is the ideal food to replace and restore nerve power. It is hardly too much to say that the oyster is the foundation of America’s commercial success.

Oliver Wendell Holmes says somewhere that two immense oysters should be carved in marble and placed on top of the Washington monument in Baltimore, instead of the statue of the immortal George. “I am not in favour of removing the Father of his Country from off his imposing pedestal, but should like to compromise matters by making him sit on a pile of oyster-shells in lieu of a curule chair.”

When Thackeray went to Boston in 1852 he had some trouble with the very large American oyster. “He first selected the smallest one of the half-dozen (rejecting a larger one because, as he said, it resembled the High Priest’s servant’s ear that Peter cut off), and then bowed his head as though he were saying Grace. Opening his mouth very wide, he struggled for a moment, after which all was over. I shall never forget the comic look of despair he cast upon the other five over-occupied shells. I asked him how he felt. ‘Profoundly grateful,’ he said, ‘as if I had swallowed a small baby.’”

But Thackeray was not an authority, for he ranked “the dear little juicy green oysters of France” above the “great white flaccid natives in England that look as if they had been fed on pork.” This is ungenerous.

The poet Gay wrote in praise of Oysters when Fleet Ditch, now turned into the Farringdon Street sewer, was still a London eyesore. It appears to have been a centre of London Oyster hucksters.

If where Fleet Ditch with muddy current flows
You chance to roam, where oyster tubs in rows
Are ranged beside the posts, there stay thy haste,
And with the savoury fish indulge thy taste.

Oysters are not unconnected with Pearls, although a real Oyster-lover must necessarily regret that a large number of his darling food is sacrificed for the trivial purpose of feminine adornment. It seems such waste! It were well to cast pearls before swine, if the molluscs were reserved for the pig-keepers. The pearls, by the by, which are used in heraldry to denote the gradations of rank in the coronets of peers, are the produce of the _Pinna marina_, the large pearl-oyster of the East Indies.

A curious pearl case came before the law courts in Hamburg recently. A merchant and his wife, dining at a local restaurant, began their dinner, as right-minded folk always should, with oysters. In one of the shells they found quite a considerable-sized and admirably formed pearl. They were about to carry it off in triumph, when the restaurant-keeper interfered and claimed it as his property. This was disputed, and the matter taken to law, the pearl in question being valued by experts at one hundred and fifty pounds. Eventually the decision was given against the restaurant proprietor, the judge holding that by purchasing the oysters the guest was entitled to anything found in them. A just and upright judge!

Between 1775 and 1818 there lived and flourished (more or less) in Malta, Naples, Paris, and elsewhere, a notable composer, Nicolo Isouard, more generally known as Nicolo. He wrote many operas, all of which are now forgotten. Having lived in Naples he was a great macaroni eater, and prepared the dish himself in a somewhat original manner. He stuffed each tube of macaroni with a mixture of marrow, _pâté de foie gras_, chopped truffles, and cut-up oysters. He then heated up the preparation, and ate it with his left hand covering up his eyes, for he asserted that he could not afford to allow the beautiful thoughts engendered by such exquisite food to be disturbed by any extraneous mundane sights. No wonder he died young.

There is a Russian story, averagely true I opine, of the emancipation of a serf through the agency of oysters. One of the ancestors of the banking firm of Sjalouschine was originally a serf of Prince Cheremeteff. The serf, by dealing in corn and cattle, had become very well-to-do, and he asked the Prince again and again to set him free, even offering him large sums of money as the price of his emancipation. But the Prince always refused, as he was rather tickled by the idea of owning a serf who was comparatively a rich man.

In the beginning of one September the serf went to St. Petersburg on business, and brought back with him a barrel of oysters, the first of the season. When he returned he asked to see the Prince, but was told that His Highness was in a terribly bad temper because his chef had forgotten to order any oysters. Whereupon the serf went straight to the Prince and offered him his barrel of oysters in exchange for his freedom. The Prince being, as aforesaid, of a humorous disposition, and besides, wanting the oysters badly, was taken by the notion. He agreed to the bargain, and clenched it by saying, “We will now lunch together on the oysters.”

The family of Sjalouschine is said to bear oysters on their coat-of-arms in memory of the emancipation.

At a dinner-party where there were twelve covers, one of the courses consisted of scalloped oysters in silver shells. The set of shells was broken--there were only eleven. The mistress, therefore, told the butler that she would not eat any oysters. When the oyster course came, he placed before his mistress one of the shells. To his horror she did not decline it. She took up her fork and was about to plunge into it, when the man flew to her side. “Pardon me, madam,” he murmured, “but you said I was to remind you that the doctor forbade your eating oysters on any account.”

WAITERS AND SNAILS]

“Will you walk a little faster?” said the Whiting to the Snail;
“There’s a lobster close behind me and he’s treading on my tail.”

LEWIS CARROLL

The collocation of Waiters and Snails under one chapter-heading is not entirely fortuitous. The remote connexion which may fairly be said to exist between the two is not perhaps as marked to-day as it was some time ago, for waiters are improving rapidly, and snails--well, snails are remaining very much where they used to be. The advent of the well-trained foreign waiter has done much to improve our restaurant dinner-table, and, incidentally, the temper of the average diner. Of the expert, deft, and _sober_ British waiter there is also nothing but good to be said. The snail has no family relationship with either of these classes.

Unfortunately, however, there are others, many others, who are slow, dirty, ignorant, and only occasionally sober. It is such as these who degrade waiterdom, and to whom the snail is a fit comparison--save that the waiter is not edible. Nothing could be smarter than a good English waiter with a knowledge of foreign dishes, or a good foreign waiter with a knowledge of English; and thanks to the interest now taken in everything appertaining to dining in public places, neither is now as uncommon as he used to be.

One P. Z. Didsbury, an American deipnosophist, once said in his wisdom: “In a restaurant when a waiter offers you turbot, ask for salmon, and when he offers you a sole, order a mackerel; as language to men, so fish has been given to the waiter to disguise his thoughts.”

This maligns the individual waiter, of course; the man who is used to attending on you, who knows your likes and dislikes, and takes a personal interest in your contentment, but it is fairly typical of the average restaurant waiter who sees you for the first time and thinks you just one of the ordinary mob. For the casual customer is the facile dupe of the waiter. He comes, he orders his dinner, or preferably, permits it to be ordered for him, pays his bill, and goes away. Eating with him partakes of the stoking process, and he recks little of the particular _à la_ offered to him, if it be toothsome, and saucily disguised.

In the best restaurants, as well in England as on the Continent, deception, fraud, and trickery are comparatively rare. They would not pay. But in nearly every restaurant below the class of the best some one or other or all of the traditional time-honoured wiles of the waiter are practised on the more or less unsuspecting customer.

There is, for instance, the well-known trick of “Putting the change to bed.” It is preferably employed when a man is dining with a lady who, to the cynical and experienced eye of the waiter, is obviously not his wife. This is the very simple _modus operandi._ Your bill, we will say, as presented to you, discreetly folded in half on a plate, comes to one pound fifteen shillings. You place a couple of sovereigns under the upper fold of the bill. The waiter returns with the change. If you are careless you do not count it. You see half a crown on the bill, and say nonchalantly “All right.” Whereupon the waiter is exceeding glad, for you have given him five shillings. If, on the other hand, you are observant, accurate, and careful, you will say, “The change is not right.” The waiter, who has carefully concealed the second half-crown between the bill and the plate, will semi-indignantly say, “I beg your pardon, sir!” and drawing away the bill, the two half-crowns will be exposed to view. After having doubted his word, you cannot do less than give the poor man the two coins. So the waiter scores either way. “Putting the change to bed” rarely fails.

Mr. Pinero illustrated this trick very neatly in his delightful farce, “The Magistrate,” some years ago at the Old Court Theatre.

It is said that some of the most famous conjurers of to-day began life as restaurant waiters, and certainly the knack of palming the cork of the wine you ordered, and serving you with an inferior quality thereof, meanwhile gravely depositing the palmed cork next to the bottle, in its cradle, is a very old and usually successful trick. It is as well, too, to see that the label on the wine bottle is dry and stuck fast, because, unless you have ordered the man “just to take the chill off,” he may have helped himself from the common stock of red or white wine, and affixed the label of your particular vintage as he came upstairs.

It is quite extraordinary how many men who pride themselves on knowing a good bottle of wine are deceived in this way. There is an old story of three men dining together at a cheap restaurant. One ordered a pint of Pontet Canet, another a pint of Medoc, and the third a pint of Beaune. The waiter went to a speaking-tube, and shouted down it, “Three small reds!”

The question of the substitution of corks has many and quaint developments. An enormous trade is done at third- and fourth-rate restaurants with “faked” champagne, which it were mere flattery to call even “sparkling petrol.” The _restaurateurs_, foreigners it is to be hoped to a man, import a thoroughly innocuous thin white wine, and then bottle and aerate it, just as they would soda-water. The corks are replaced (after being drawn) by genuine corks of well-known brands, and there is a large market for good, sound, used champagne corks. This market is supplied by the waiters at good-class restaurants, where wines correct to designation are served. If the diner does not happen to collect champagne corks (and few of us have this weakness), the waiter carefully gathers them when clearing the table for dessert.

This is a genuine letter addressed by such a waiter to a reputable firm of champagne importers: “I beg to send you a hundred corks of the well-known brands of ---- and ----. They may be useful to you. I am waiter at ----, and am often asked by customers to recommend a wine. Awaiting your favourable reply, I am, etc.”

Another kind of waiter, neither as sharp nor as business-like as the foregoing, on being asked what liqueur brandies they had, replied, “Two, sir; one’s 1854 and the other’s a shilling.” That kind of waiter, however, is more fool than thief.

A very pretty dodge, and one, moreover, which the continental waiter finds very remunerative, is to add the date of the month to the amount of the bill. If you are dining on 24 June, and the addition comes to thirty-five francs, it is very easy to combine the two sums, particularly if the date be somewhat carelessly inscribed at the head of the account. The foreign waiter is a rare judge of character, and can usually (though not always) tell beforehand whether or no it be safe to try any of his little games.

A favourite _truc_ in foreign cafés, and one for which one should always be on the look out, is the giving of bad silver in the way of change, as many foreign coinages are now obsolete, and one cannot be too careful in this respect. It is usually a matter of date. The coin is not a bad coin, but simply not current. The Swiss two-franc piece, for instance, is all right if Madame Helvetia is depicted sitting down, but all wrong if she be standing up. Then the Greek, Roumanian, and Turkish coins are non-admissible, and certain Italian cart-wheels or five-lire pieces no longer acceptable. It requires some experience to recognize at a glance in a handful of silver how many coins are right and how many wrong.

A fraud of this kind was defeated, and met with its own just reward, only last summer at a French casino, a notorious haunt of the “slim” waiter. An Englishman having had _consommations_ to the amount of two francs, paid with a louis, and received eighteen francs change. Of this change he subsequently found that seven francs, a five-franc and a two-franc piece, were useless. He returned the next night with some friends, found out the same waiter, ordered sundry refreshment, and when paying-time came, settled the bill with the useless coins he had received the night before. The waiter refused to accept them, the guest refused on his part to pay in any other coin. The matter was referred to an official of the casino, the matter explained, and the English guest was supported. For once, therefore, the waiter was hoist with his own petard.

It is common knowledge that the waiters among themselves have a regular trade in these coins; they change hands at about one-third of their face value, and the dupe is, nine times out of ten, the British tourist.

It would be unfair to suggest that all waiters are guilty of these or similar wiles. There are hundreds of good, trustworthy waiters who would disdain them, and who know by experience, precept, or intuition that honesty is the best policy in the dining as in other worlds.

At a first-class waiters’ training school or college, such as the well-known Radunski’s, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, or one or other of the Swiss establishments, all such tricks are sternly discouraged, and the budding _maître d’hôtel_ is strongly impressed with the golden rule that it does not pay, in the long run, to cheat clients in any shape or form.

This is especially true of the highest class of restaurant, for waiters travel about Europe a great deal, and the man who waits on you at the Carlton to-night may turn up at the Ritz in Paris next week, at Monte Carlo next month, and at Homburg next year. If he has cheated you badly, you will remember him (though not in the time-honoured waiter’s sense), and his good name will be gone once and for all.

I referred just now to the foreign schools for waiters where they are systematically, and one might almost say scientifically, trained for their profession, which is neither an easy nor, in the end, an unremunerative one. Many sons of well-to-do German, Swiss, and Italian hotel and restaurant proprietors, lads who have been to good schools and received a first-class education, are content to begin at the very bottom of the ladder, even as _piccolo_ or boy attendant, and gradually to work their way through all the ranks even to that of _maître d’hôtel_.

A German lad who wishes to become a waiter goes, first to Radunski, at Frankfort, or to some other regular training school for waiters. At the end of two years’ hard work, if he has gained his certificate, he goes to an hotel or restaurant as an improver, without salary, for two years or more.

Then he comes to London, and, for the sake of learning English, enters an English family at a very small wage. Having mastered English, he is off to France to learn French on similar terms.

Finally, he returns to London as an “aid” waiter, and by attending to business he can rise to be a superintendent or a manager.

But the Englishman wants to undertake skilled labour and earn full money without a proper training. Look, on the other hand, at the case of the English butler. He is renowned throughout the world, but then he was content to begin as a page and pass through the second stage of footman.

A well-known restaurant manager once said to me: “Though we are patriotic, we cannot allow patriotism to stand in the way of efficiency. We must, for our customers’ sakes, employ the best men we can get, irrespective of nationality, although we should prefer Englishmen, of course.”

Some attempt has been made, is being made in fact, to establish a training school for British waiters, but its success is, I fear, problematical. And this for various reasons. Few, if any, professional men would dream of their boys being trained to be waiters; it would be beneath their shoddy suburban dignity. Also, the class from which the average British waiter is drawn seems to be constitutionally incapable of acquiring even the merest smattering of a foreign language. He despises any tongue but his own.

The British Waiters’ Association has done excellent work on the right lines, but very much remains still to be accomplished.

The average British waiter at the ordinary railway refreshment-room is usually a terribly slow and untidy individual. True, one has learned not to expect too much at a railway station. _A la gare, comme à la gare!_

Mr. Jerome K. Jerome has an amusing tirade on the subject. He says: “The slowest waiter I know is the British railway refreshment-room waiter. His very breathing, regular, harmonious, penetrating, instinct as it is with all the better attributes of a well-preserved grandfather’s clock, conveys suggestion of dignity and peace. He is a huge, impressive person. There emanates from him an atmosphere of Lotusland. The otherwise unattractive room becomes an oasis of repose amid the turmoil of a fretful world.”

Of course the waiter’s life is a trying and arduous one. There is much worry by thoughtless clients. There are disappointments, and swindlers, and rogues. Then the actual pedestrian exercise is not little. A waiter in a restaurant in Christiania one day provided himself with a pedometer before starting his work. According to his calculations he took rather under 100,000 steps, covering some thirty-seven miles, between 8 a.m. and 12.30 a.m. Working and walking four days a week, he calculated that he covered more than 7000 miles in a year.

Another danger is threatened by the waiter’s serviette. In the _Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift_ Professor Kron inaugurated a crusade against the napkin which the waiter flourishes as a sign of his profession, but which, in the Professor’s opinion, is a deplorably unhygienic piece of linen and should be summarily abolished in all civilized countries.

Dr. Kron notices how waiters carry this thing, now in their hands, now in their trousers pockets, and sometimes under their arm. They wipe table-tops with it, wipe glasses, knives, forks with it, wipe the manly perspiration from their brows and the beer froth from their lips. No civilized man should tolerate its presence, and the Professor closes his article with the war-cry, “Away with the waiter’s napkin!” The Professor, it will be noticed, refers to the “rough” waiter only, and not to the civilized kind. He also fails to suggest a substitute for the serviette.

In a book entitled “Trouble in the Balkans” Mr. J. L. C. Booth says of Athenian waiters: “Robbery among the Greeks is not a cultivated art; it is a gift. They are all born with it. There is only one known method of getting square with an Athenian waiter, and that is to dine twice at the same place, near the door. You pay the first night.”

Enough of Waiters, however; let us to a more congenial, if allied topic, the edible Snail.

It is surely quite superfluous to enter upon any defence of Snails as an article of food. If you like them, well, you like them. If you do not, then you probably detest them. No one ever just tolerated snails. There is good historical precedent, as shall be shown hereafter, for their systematic cultivation. They are most nutritious, containing, it is alleged, twice the amount of proteid possessed by the oyster. Be that as it may, they have been a desirable article of food for many centuries past.

Paris, according to the “Figaro,” consumes eight hundred thousand kilogrammes of snails annually. High though this figure is, it will probably be exceeded, for, after having been in disgrace for some time, the _escargot_ has reconquered the favour of the gourmets.

Burgundy and the two departments of Savoy are the great sources of supply. There they are bought for 8 fr. or 9 fr. the thousand. The interesting molluscs are first sent to Auxerre, whence they are resold to Paris as coming from the vines of Macon and Dijon.

A number of intelligent speculators also practise the breeding of snails, which they place in parks enclosed in fences made of smoothly planed planks covered with tar to prevent their climbing out and escaping.

Snails, too, play a very important part in our ordinary daily food, although the snail-hater would scoff at the idea. But it is even so. What think you imparts to South Down and Dartmoor mutton its fine flavour and highly nutritive properties? Snails! The grass upon which they feed teems with small snails of the _Helix caperata_ species, and these, with or without the will of the sheep, form part of the diet of the latter, taken with the grass.

The Burgundy snail, however, has become more and more scarce during the past few seasons. The Council General of the Department of the Côte d’Or seriously took up the question, and asked the Prefect of the department to authorize a close time for snails between 15 April and 15 June. The Prefect replied that he had no power to make such an order, as the snail was not game. The Council thereupon voted a protest, and expressed the hope that the snail might rank in the category of game, and be accorded a close time.

The French sportsman’s category of game is tolerably wide, and includes birds which we do not rightly understand under that generic title. Still, to include snails as game seems a trifle--well, far-fetched. It would be difficult to shoot snails, save with a pop-gun at perhaps six feet. It might be easier to stalk them. After all, we have a close time for oysters, which are not much more game-like than snails. The point for France surely is not whether snails should rank as reptiles or insects, vermin or cattle, but whether they are worth preserving. And the Burgundy snail is.

In the time of Pliny, we are told, a concoction of snails beaten up in warm water was recommended for coughs. The Romans were very fond of snails, which they fattened in special “cochlearia,” feeding them with bran soaked in wine until they attained quite large dimensions. Charles the Fifth of Spain died of indigestion brought on by eating immoderately of snails.

Mrs. Delaney, writing in 1758, says: “Two or three Snails should be boiled in the barley-water which Mary takes, who coughs at night. She must know nothing of it. They give no manner of taste.”

The first importation of Snails into England has been attributed to Sir Kenelm Digby (1645) for his wife. Also the apple snail was brought to the South Downs of Surrey and Sussex, as well as to Box Hill in the sixteenth century, by one of the Earls of Arundel for his Countess, who dressed and ate them to promote the cure of consumption, from which she suffered.

Snails did not really come into French vogue until the return of Louis XVIII, in 1814, on which occasion the Bishop of Autun entertained the Emperor Alexander of Russia. The popular host, who was a famous gastronome, had in his service a most accomplished cook, the best in Paris at that time; they put their heads together and hit upon Snails as the most suitable novelty for presenting to the imperial guest. Together with this dish, which was handed round, there appeared on the card under the heading _Escargots à la Bourgignonne_ a description of the delicious seasoning with which each shell was filled up.

In 1854, M. de la Marr, of Paris, set forth the virtues of _Helicin_ as a glutinous extract obtained from snails, and which had long been given in broth as a successful domestic remedy for pulmonary phthisis.

Gipsies are great snail eaters, but they first starve these gasteropods, which are given to devour poisonous plants, and must be rendered free from the same, for it is certain that Snails retain for a time the flavour and odour of the vegetables on which they feed.

The above most interesting particulars may be read, at greater length, in a compendious and reliable work, entitled “Meals Medicinal,” by Dr. W. T. Fernie.

There is an increasing export of Snails from England to America. As many as ten thousand are packed in a cask, of which hundreds are shipped annually. But there is and always has been a large home consumption, particularly in certain counties. In some Gloucestershire towns they quite outclass whelks and winkles as a snack to accompany a glass of beer, and they are commonly hawked by the basket, cooked ready for eating, round the public-houses. Snail broth or stewed snails is a well-known and thoroughly approved rural remedy for consumption, and indeed all chest complaints. In Hampshire, to help weak eyes, snails are made into a poultice with soaked breadcrusts. The glass men at Newcastle have a Snail Feast once a year. They collect the snails in the fields and hedgerows on the Sunday before the anniversary, and their wives wash, clean, and stuff them according to established tradition. According to the authority of Mr. F. H. Elsey, librarian of the Surrey Archæological Society, the edible snail, _Helix pomatia_, was most probably introduced into this country by the Romans from Gaul. It is not peculiar to Surrey, for it is found in Kent; and Sowerby, in his “Illustrated Index of British Shells,” gives the southern chalky districts. It is no doubt confined to these by the large size of its shell, requiring the secretion of lime for its formation. This snail hibernates from October to April in a subterranean burrow.

It has been said this snail was brought to this country from Italy by Thomas, Earl of Arundel (Earl Marshal). “His lady,” says Salmon, “delighting in such food.” Evelyn remarks that “this huge and fleshy snail was had in delicus by the Earl himself.” Mr. Elsey entirely agrees with Lieut.-Col. Godwin-Austen, the well-known authority upon mollusca, that the snail was here long before the Earl of Arundel’s time.

Two very fine shells of this snail, one measuring 1¾ in. long, 1⅛ in. broad, and 1⅛ in. high, can be seen in the Surrey Archæological Museum, Castle Arch, Guildford. These two specimens were found by Mr. Elsey a few years ago just below where Mr. W. P. Trench’s house is built adjoining the Echo Pits, Guildford, in a hedge now grubbed up.

There is a suggestion in Spenser that the edible snail is the poor man’s oyster, and Dr. Yeo confirms this. Some little while ago Canon Horsley strongly recommended the more general adoption of snails as an article of food, although he naively admitted that he had never eaten one himself. Thereupon the “Lancet” said: “There is nothing to be said against the proposal from a dietetic point of view; the snail is both nutritious and tasty.” The professional journal goes on to say:--

“The snail has been called ‘the poor man’s oyster,’ though we do not remember to have seen it eaten raw. We know, however, that it makes an excellent fish sauce, and may be used for the same purpose as oyster sauce. Possibly also a few snails in a steak-and-kidney pudding would increase the tastiness of this popular food.

“Care must be exercised in the choice of the snail for food purposes, as it is well known that snails feed on poisonous plants, and it is the custom in France to allow a few days to elapse after they have been taken from their feeding ground, in order that any poisonous matters may be eliminated.

“According to analysis, very nearly 90 per cent of the solid matter of the snail is proteid matter, available directly for repairing the tissues of the body.

“Besides this, there is about 6 per cent of fat and 4 per cent of mineral matter, including phosphates.”