Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

According to an excellent gastronomic authority, the best snails in Paris are to be found at Prunier’s, in the Rue Duphot, near the Madeleine. He boils his snails in a liquid which is partly composed of good white wine, with a little garlic and bay leaves, thyme, onions, and carrots in it. The snails are served in small silver bowls, and the weapon of offence is a two-pronged silver fork. The first time that one holds a long black steaming thing on a fork, and hesitates whether to put it into one’s mouth or not, is rather a strange moment.

Most people who try the experiment of snail-eating take the snail out of their mouths quicker than they put it in. Burgundy is the correct wine to drink with your snails.

The Hungarian manner of cooking snails is, after the boiling and cleaning, to cut them small, mix them with chopped-up anchovies, and to serve them hot on hot toast, a squeeze of lemon and a dash of red pepper giving the dish its final touches. The curiosity of the Hungarian method of cooking and serving the snails is that no man, unless he was told, would know what he was eating.

Francatelli, in his “Modern Cook,” strongly recommends snails, and gives a method of cooking them, nearly akin to the usual French way. In fact, nearly all foreign cookery books give one or more recipes, either as broth, stew, or _à la Bourgignon_.

The “London Gazette” of 23 March, 1739, tells us that “Mrs. Joanna Stephens received from the Government five thousand pounds for revealing the secret of her famous cure for stone in the bladder. This consisted chiefly of egg shells and Snails, mixed with Soap, Honey, and Herbs.” Rather earlier than this date “Lady Honeywood’s Snail Water” was much used for complaints of the chest.

Defoe, writing in 1722, described a cookshop “where you may bespeak a dinner for four or five shillings a head up to a guinea or what sum you will”; one of the items being “a ragout of fatted snails.”

Has any literary critic ever noticed the curious similarity between a verse of Sir John Suckling and Robert Herrick, who were, of course, contemporaries? I am reminded of it because _Snails_ are used by the latter where _Mice_ are referred to by the former.

In Sir John Suckling’s “Ballad upon a Wedding,” everybody knows the lines:--

Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out.

In Robert Herrick’s poem, “On Her Feet,” occurs this verse:--

Her pretty feet like snails, did creep
A little out, and then
As if they played at bo-peep,
Did soon draw in again.

The comparison is interesting.

Quite recently a case brought under the Workmen’s Compensation Act in Paris revealed the existence of a hitherto unknown industry. This was none other than the manufacture of artificial snails.

The evidence showed that a workman had had a finger broken by a machine whose object was to cut boiled calves’ lights into portions shaped like a small corkscrew for insertion into the empty shells of snails which had been thrown into dustbins after their contents had been consumed, and thence gathered by the _chiffonniers_, or ragpickers, and sold to the proprietor of the factory. The revelation caused a sensation of horror among the Parisian population, for whom the succulent snail is a delicious delicacy partaken of on all occasions of festivity, and purchased at prices ranging from 6d. to 8d. per dozen. It was stated by the injured workman that by the substitution of calves’ lights the fabricated “snails” could be sold at the factory at 2d. a dozen.

The small horticultural speculator in Germany has of late years been taking a leaf from the book of his neighbours, and become an ardent cultivator of the luscious edible snail, a delicacy Hans is now as assiduous in tending for ultimate sale in the market as ever was Jacques Bonhomme. July is considered the best month for collecting this gasteropodous mollusc prior to fattening him for his final appearance in the shape of a dainty parsley-and-butter-bespattered _bonne bouche_ for some “good liver” in Berlin or elsewhere.

These large white snails come from the vineyards principally about the Rhine and the Moselle; the breeder for gastronomic purposes, however, confines his little flock, when once secured from amid the umbrageous vines, to a special little “run” of their own, where henceforth their whole duty consists in “doing themselves well.” The “run” is fixed up on a sunny stretch of lawn, hemmed in with boards upon which is smeared clay mixed with vinegar and salt and water--so as to prevent any crawling out of bounds.

In the United States edible snails are frequently to be seen exposed for sale; but they are not raised in that country, and those on sale have been shipped to America alive from Europe.

In Vienna, again, during Lent there is a snail market, the snails coming in barrels from Swabia. The great centre for the consumption of snails, however, is Paris and some of the French provinces. There is, indeed, a very large trade in this commodity in France, the large white snail being in special demand in Paris, while the garden and wood snails are in common use among poorer consumers in all parts of France.

The collecting of snails is carried on in the French provinces all day long by men, women, and children, who with iron hooks search for them at the foot of thorn hedges and under ivy, and in winter in old walls. If lucky, a good searcher will collect from one thousand to fifteen hundred snails. These are paid for according to their weight, about a thousand snails averaging ten kilogrammes, and the payment varies with the prices current in the Paris market, but it usually ranges from twenty to forty centimes per kilo. The work, therefore, cannot be said to be well paid.

A curious superstition existed for many years with regard to the Snail in Southern Germany. Practically all snail shells have their volutes or spirals (_Helix_--a snail--a screw--a spiral) twisting from right to left. Once in about twenty thousand snails the twist is found to be from left to right. This snail was then dubbed “The Snail King,” and was sold at a fancy price as an amulet or luck-bringer. It would be curious to know whether this custom has been noticed elsewhere.

In a biography of Adam Smith, by Francis W. Hirst, a nice snail story is told of Professors Black and Hutton, the fathers of the modern sciences of modern chemistry and modern geology.

It so chanced that Black and Hutton had held some discourse together upon the folly of abstaining from feeding on the crustaceous creatures of the land, when those of the sea were considered as delicacies. Snails were known to be nutritious and wholesome, even “sanative” in some cases. The epicures of ancient Rome enumerated the snails of Lucca among the richest and rarest delicacies, and the modern Italians still held them in esteem. So a gastronomic experiment was resolved on. The snails were procured, dieted for a time, then stewed.

“A huge dish of snails was placed before them; but philosophers are but men after all; and the stomachs of both doctors began to revolt against the proposed experiment. Nevertheless, if they looked with disgust on the snails, they retained their awe for each other; so that each, conceiving the symptoms of internal revolt peculiar to himself, began with infinite exertion to swallow in very small quantities the mess which he loathed. Dr. Black at length ‘showed the white feather,’ but in a very delicate manner, as if to sound the opinion of his messmate. ‘Doctor,’ he said, in his precise and quiet style, ‘Doctor, do you not think that they taste a little--a very little green?’ ‘D----d green, d----d green indeed! Tak’ them awa’--tak’ them awa!’ vociferated Dr. Hutton, starting up from the table and giving full vent to his feelings.”

As a final tribute to the usefulness of the Snail, it may not be generally known that they are matchless as window cleaners.

An old coloured woman selling snails occasionally makes her appearance in certain streets in Philadelphia. She carries an old basket in which the snails repose on freshly sprinkled leaves. These are not sold as food, but for cleaning the outside of windowpanes. The snail is damped and placed upon the glass, where it at once moves around and devours all insects and foreign matter, leaving the pane as bright and clear as crystal. There are old-established business places in Philadelphia where the upper windows, when cleaned at all, are always cleaned by snails. There is also a fine market for snails among the owners of aquariums, as they keep the glass clean and bright.

DISHES OF HISTORY]

“Only a pomegranate is he who, when he gapes his
mouth, displays the contents of his heart.”

JAPANESE PROVERB.

History and cookery are linked together so closely that a study of the one science implies, or should imply, a study of the other. For the best part of a century and a half the notable names of contemporary history are allied to dishes which perpetuated their glory and have come down to us as ornaments alike of the monarchy and the menu.

The period is of course that of the fourteenth and fifteenth Louis of France, and for several (mainly esoteric) reasons that brilliant and fascinating age produced most of the classic dishes of high cookery, dishes which have become, so to say, _standardized_, and which every chef who respects the traditions of his art serves, or ought to serve, in precisely the same manner in which they were designed by their original inventors.

The average diner, when he sees on the menu of his Masonic banquet, his annual Mansion House dinner, or his City Company feast, the name of some historic celebrity tacked on to the roast, the entrée or the sweet, recks little of its origin and inner meaning. To him it is just something to be eaten, nothing more or less. And yet, if the chef be competent, properly trained, and alive to his educational responsibilities, these dishes have each their own story, their own interest, and their own special and peculiar virtue.

Take as an instance _Côtelettes de Mouton à la Maintenon_. These succulent dainties perpetuate for all time the memory of a lady, who, whatsoever her faults, was at least charming, interesting, and something more than passing fair. When the _Grand Monarque_ became queasy and past his prime, Madame invented, out of her own powdered head, these cutlets, which in their envelopes of paper (_en papillotes_) guarded the royal digestion against the evils of too much grease. Again, _Cailles à la Mirepoix_ owe their origin to the Marshal of that name; _Poulardes à la Montmorency_ were actually first cooked by the Duke de Montmorency; _Petites Bouchées à la Reine_ are called after Maria Leczinska, wife of Louis Quinze; and _filets de Volaille à la Bellevue_ were evolved for the King by the Pompadour, who excelled in the dainty manipulation of her silver _batterie de cuisine_.

The Regent Orleans is responsible for _pain à la d’Orléans_, a very light and digestible form of bread; and his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, first conceived and executed those delightful morsels _filets de lapereau à la Berri_. The Duchess de Villeroy, afterwards Maréchale de Luxembourg, a brilliant light of the Court of the fifteenth Louis, thought out, cooked, and christened the _poulets à la Villeroy_, which remain, and deservedly so, a toothsome and delightful dish, even unto this day. The _Chartreuse à la Mauconseil_ is called after the Marquise of that name; and the _Vol-au-Vent à la Nesle_, which is still often met with, though not always classically cooked, derives its name from the Marquis de Nesle (not he of the Tower), who refused a peerage “to remain premier marquis of France.”

In rather earlier days the Marquis de Béchamel invented a cream sauce for turbot and cod which still, if somewhat perverted, perpetuates his name. _Gigot à la Mailly_ was the result of profound study on the part of the first mistress of Louis XV, who by her culinary art attempted, and succeeded, in alienating the royal affection from her own sister, who was an undesirable rival. _Soupe à la Condé_ was, in later years, called after the famous cousin of Louis XVIII; and the Prince de Soubise, notorious under Louis XV for giving great dinners, and paying nobody but his cooks and the young ladies of the opera, lent his name, through his cook, Bertrand, to the onion sauce which we still hold dear.

French cooks of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who did honour to their employers by christening magnificent creations after them only copied previous Apician artists, who, according to the “De Opsoniis,” named their inventions after Varro, Julius Matius, Julius Fronto, Celsinius, Vitellius, Commodus, and Didius Julianus. But the chefs of the golden age of cookery also delighted to honour men of comparatively humble station who took a keen and semi-professional interest in the art of _la gueule_, as Montaigne calls it.

There was, for instance, a certain _petit abbé_, _le père Douillet_, to whom much honour is done in those four delightful volumes of cook-lore entitled “Les Soupers de la Cour.” They were published in 1755, and were written or compiled by one Manon, a literary cook of the period to whom reference has already been made. The _abbé_ appears to have been much appreciated by the author, for his books contain delectable recipes for _Poulets_, _Brochet_, _Merlans_, _Cailles_, and _Champignons_, all _au Père Douillet_, not, it will be noticed, _à la (manière de) Père Douillet_, but just _au Père Douillet_, a rare and great distinction.

The best-known official cooks of Louis XV were Moustier and Vincent de la Chapelle. The latter is responsible for a very serious and noteworthy cookery book which has never lacked honour in its own and other countries. De la Gorse mentions a dinner given by the King, at St. Hubert, where all the dishes were prepared by the distinguished guests, such as the Prince de Beaufremont, the Marquis de Polignac, the Duke de Goutant, the Duke d’Ayen, the Duke de Coigny, and the Duke de la Vallière; the King himself contributed a _Poularde au Basilic_.

Such a famous gourmet as Richelieu naturally has left his mark in culinary literature. We have the _Chartreuse à la Cardinal_, _Boudin de poulet à la Richelieu_, _Gigot à la Richelieu_, and many more. The rather famous _potage à la Camerani_, a most excellent concoction, is called after a notability of that name, to whom Grimod de la Reynière dedicated volume one of his immortal “Almanach des Gourmands,” as “one of the most erudite epicures of France.”

King Stanislas Leszcnyski of Poland invented the _Baba_ to make amends for the harshness of his own name, which the French tongue found hard to pronounce. Its original ingredients were German yeast, flour, butter, eggs, cream, sugar, saffron, candied peel, raisins, currants, and Madeira, Malaga, or rum. According to Brillat-Savarin, the _Baba_ is especially beloved by women; “it renders her more plastic, and man more expansive--only to look at it the eyes laugh and the heart sings.”

Who thinks nowadays of the battle when he degustates _Poulet à la Marengo_? And yet nothing is more authentic than its inception on that memorable occasion. The battle occurred, it may be remembered, on 14 June, 1800. Napoleon had, naturally, a somewhat hurried meal. There was no butter in camp, but plenty of sound olive oil. So the _casserole_ was bottomed with oil, to which was added the garlic and the mignonette. The fowl was then moistened with white wine and garnished with sippets of toast, mushrooms, and morels, in default of truffles. The result was pronounced to be exquisite. Nowadays we omit the mignonette and substitute a bay leaf, thyme, and parsley; garlic is thought to be too strong, so we use shalot; the mushrooms are still permitted, but we ignore the morels. And so we have the _Poulet à la Marengo_.

Literature has been honoured by Carême in his _Soupe à la Lamartine_, history in _Potage à la Dumesnil_, philosophy in _Purée Buffon_, and just before the death of the great artist he invented a vegetable soup which he christened _Soupe à la Victor Hugo_. This same cook paid the doctor who cured him of indigestion by dedicating to him his _Perche à la Gaubert_. In rather later years we find a _Poularde à la George Sand_ invented by Azèma, formerly chef at Prince’s. It is stewed in white wine, flavoured with crayfish, butter and tails, truffles and olives, with a garnishing of _feuilletage_.

The stage is ever prominent in gastronomic annals; it must suffice to mention _Filets de Sole à la Belle Otèro_, _Pêche Melba_, _Croustades à la Coquelin_, _Salade Rachel_, and _Consommé Sarah Bernhardt_, all of which are nowadays fairly standard dishes.

Although no man was ever more susceptible to flattery and adulation than Alexandre Dumas (_père_), yet there were marked degrees in the way in which he accepted such complimentary tribute and homage, varying from the mere _merci, mon cher_, in reply to congratulations on a recently published book, to a cordial embrace and the swearing of an everlasting friendship to the man who praised his cooking.

Dumas’s partiality for travelling and hunting developed his culinary instincts, and he has related in his “Journey through Spain” how dire necessity suggested to him the excellence of salad mixed without oil or vinegar. References to cookery are scattered here and there all through his works, particularly in his “Impressions de Voyage,” and again in his “Propos d’Art et de Cuisine,” wherein occurs the famous “Causerie Culinaire,” embodying the recipe for “macaroncello” and the delightful address to his readers, “Je prie Dieu qu’il vous tienne en bon appétit, vous conserve en bon estomac, et vous garde de faire de la littérature.”

The author of “An Englishman in Paris” describes how he watched Dumas cook a whole dinner, consisting of “soupe aux choux,” a wonderful carp, “ragout de mouton à la hongroise,” “rôti de faisans,” and a “salade japonaise.” He adds: “I never dined like that before or after--not even a week later, when Dr. Véron and Sophie made the _amende honorable_ in the Rue Taitbout.”

In the kitchen, as in the theatre, the great novelist was master of all difficulties. He delighted to make a triumph of an opportunity of which others would only have made a failure. For himself he would have been content with a couple of eggs; but if, as he wrote, he heard the cook complaining, “What shall I do? There are twenty to dinner this evening, and I have only three tomatoes left for my sauce! It is impossible!” then the master would lift his head and cry, “Let me see what I can do!”

So saying, he would rush headlong into the kitchen just as he was in his usual working dress, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up above his elbows, and calling everybody in the place round him to watch his prowess, he would labour among the stewpans for a good hour, ordering all those who had followed him to the kitchen to different menial tasks--one to slice the carrots, one to peel potatoes, one to chop up herbs--turning them all into scullions in fact.

The blustering, boisterous genius as easily dominated the kitchen as he did the literary world of the time. His cooking was energy and bustle personified. Meat and butter were mingled with fine wines in the saucepans, half a dozen sauces were being watched in the _bain-marie_, and all the while he was cracking jokes and laughing at them most loudly himself.

It was a wonderful and inspiring sight, and, as may be imagined, Dumas seasoned the conversation as well as the dishes with the spice of his wit and humour. No matter how serious his thoughts had been a few moments before, it seemed as if the atmosphere of the kitchen had the power to dissipate them. He forgot all his ever-present cares, and was radiant with grease and hilarity.

Then suddenly, without the slightest warning, he would utter a melodramatic scream and rush out of the kitchen to his study. He had remembered the final _dénoûment_ of a scene he had left unfinished. He would reinstate himself at his writing-table and take up the thread of the story as if no interruption whatever had occurred. Many a dish that delighted his guests was cooked in this extraordinary fashion, between two thrilling chapters, and the wonderful part about his culinary work was that the very dishes and ingredients seemed in some unaccountable way to accommodate themselves to his casual and erratic manner. What would have been utterly ruined under any other chef seemed to succeed even extra well under his neglect.

Lacroix (_le bibliophile Jacob_) said of him: “Assuredly it is a great attainment to be a romancist, but it is by no means a mediocre glory to be a cook. Romancist or cook, Dumas is a chef, and the two vocations appear in him to go hand in hand, or, rather, to be joined in one.”

Dumas often said, “When I have time I shall write a cookery book.” This was to be the crowning work of his literary career. He was constantly enumerating the vast sums which he alleged had been offered to him by various publishing houses for the right to produce this _magnum opus_.

It is not generally known that in the agreement which he made with the brothers Michael Lévy, in connexion with the rights of reproduction of his works already written and those that he had contracted to write in the future, he made the single exception of the famous forthcoming cookery book.

The great work “La Grande Dictionnaire de la Cuisine,” of 1152 pages, was eventually written in 1869; the manuscript was delivered to the publisher, Alphonse Lemerre, in 1870, and whilst the book was in the press the author died and the Franco-Prussian War broke out.

Its publication was therefore delayed until 1873, when it appeared with a dedication to D. J. Vuillemot, a noted _hôtelier_, who had managed the Café de la France, and had then opened on his own account, in 1862, a restaurant near the Madeleine, which proved a most disastrous failure. He had been previously the proprietor of the Hôtel de la Cloche et de la Bouteille at Compiègne. Dumas had made his acquaintance when hunting in the vicinity, and was afterwards in the habit of taking refuge with him when he wanted to be undisturbed in his literary work.

The arrest of some of the personages in “Monte Cristo” takes place at Vuillemot’s hotel, and Dumas christened after him the famous _Lapin à la Vuillemot_, which, he says, “You must absolutely have killed yourself.”

The great dictionary is perhaps something of a disappointment. It is laboured, unspontaneous, and, save in the characteristic preface, hardly worthy of its illustrious author. Nevertheless it is vast in its comprehensiveness, for, besides every imaginable dish, old and new, of the so-called legitimate cuisine, it includes receipts for lambs’ tails _glacées à la chicorée_, elephants’ feet, fillets of kangaroo flesh, snails _à la Provençale_, and directions as to the right treatment of the _babiroussa_, or wild Asian pig.

Contrary to his usual custom elsewhere, Dumas gives full credit to the other culinary authors whom he quotes, and he includes recipes from such acknowledged authorities as Brébant, Grimod de la Reynière, Magny, Grignon, Carême, Véfour, and others.

He gives thirty-one methods of cooking carp, and sixteen for treating artichokes. There is to be found also the Javanese formula for cooking halcyons’ nests, and an elaborate essay on the hocco.

The appendix consists of the celebrated “Etude sur la Moutarde,” which is a most flagrant _réclame_ of _la maison Bornibus_, but is amusing for its sheer effrontery and impudence. There was always something colossal about the man, even when he wrote about mustard.

In Molière’s “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” (Act iv. sc. 1), in the scene between Dorante and Dorimène, we find this delightful passage:--

“Si Damis s’en était mêlé, tout serait dans les règles; il y aurait partout de l’élégance et de l’érudition, et il ne manquerait pas de vous exagérer lui-même toutes les pièces du repas qu’il vous donnerait, et de vous faire tomber d’accord de sa haute capacité dans la science des bons morceaux; de vous parler d’un pain de rive à biseau doré, relevé de croûte partout, croquant tendrement sous la dent; d’un vin à séve veloutée, armé d’un verre qui n’est point trop commandant; d’un carré de mouton gourmandé de persil; d’une longe de veau de rivière, longue comme cela, blanche, délicate, et qui, sous les dents, est une vraie pâte d’amande; de perdrix relevées d’un fumet surprenant; et pour son opéra, d’une soupe à bouillon perlé, soutenue d’un jeune gros dindon, cantonnée de pigeonneaux et couronée d’oignons mariés avec de la chicorée.”

From this dinner-programme the taste of the day may fairly be gauged, and it will not be forgotten that it is in this immortal play that the famous line occurs:--

Je vis de bonne soupe, et non de beau langage;

which is so often quoted and misquoted.

But cooks are a trying and troublesome race, with extraordinarily perverse traditions of their own, a frequent antipathy to learn anything new, and an absolutely ridiculous partiality to “improve” old-fashioned dishes according to their own ideas. There ought to be condign punishment meted out to any cook who makes any so-called alteration or improvement to any well-known standardized dish, of which the composition, flavour, and artistic completeness have been settled once and for all, and to touch which is something akin to sacrilege.

Really good, intelligent, careful cooks get on in their profession, and often end up by opening establishments of their own. Many a restaurant proprietor has qualified as a first-class chef.

Does any one, by the way, know the origin of the word “restaurant”? You may search your encyclopædia in vain; but the matter is really as simple as shelling peas. The first public eating-house, as distinct from the _rôtisseur_, who cooked food “to be eaten off the premises,” was opened in Paris by a cook called Boulanger in 1750. Over his shop he displayed a sign bearing this inscription in kitchen Latin: “Venite omnes qui stomacho laboretis, et ego restaurabo vos.” This was taken up, gallicized, and passed into common parlance. Hence our modern use of the term, which, after all, is only a hundred and fifty years old.

In rereading an old book by the never-to-be-forgotten Guy de Maupassant I came across a delightful passage which so aptly describes the feelings of a true gourmet that I am tempted to transcribe it here for the benefit of all who belong to that noble fraternity. “To be wanting in the sense of taste is to have a stupid mouth, just as one may have a stupid mind. A man who cannot distinguish between a langouste and a lobster, between a herring--that admirable fish that carries within it all the savours and aromas of the sea--and a mackerel or a whiting, is comparable only to a man who could confound Balzac with Eugène Sue, and a symphony by Beethoven with a military march composed by some regimental bandmaster.”

This delicacy of taste was obviously denied to Mr. G. Bernard Shaw’s Uncle James in “Man and Superman,” of whom it is written:--

“Uncle James had a first-rate cook; he couldn’t digest anything except what she cooked. Well, the poor man was shy and hated society. But his cook was proud of her skill, and wanted to serve up dinners to princes and ambassadors. To prevent her from leaving him, that poor old man had to give a big dinner twice a month, and suffer agonies of awkwardness.”

Another writer of to-day, of quite peculiar charm and knowledge, Mr. E. H. Cooper, in his novel “A Fool’s Year,” has a delightful description of a modern London dinner-party, of the sort too often met with in the houses of those who ought to know so much better.

“Mr. Hopper’s dinner was a thing to be remembered rather than eaten. ‘The things ought to be put into a museum of curiosities,’ said St. Ives, looking round him wearily; ‘not on a decent English dinner-table. I’ve had some turtle-soup and a bit of tongue smothered in jam, and now I’m hungry. Would there be a row if I sent for some bread and cheese? Strawberries as big as peaches, and peaches as big as young footballs, may be very remarkable to look at, but I’m not going to eat them. That waiter looks kind; I’m going to ask him to bring me a piece of Stilton hidden between two biscuits. Don’t give me away, Lady Merton. I’ll do you a good turn when I find you starving at a banquet of this kind. But you know better than to come to one without eating a couple of muffins and half a pound of plum-cake first.’”

The clamour as to the inefficiency of the typical “plain cook” is incessant and fully justified. The remedies suggested are usually futile or inexpedient. Nothing is more difficult than to get a simple meal well cooked. Nothing is more easy, in London at any rate, than to get a misdescribed semi-French dinner evilly cooked. Is there no way out of this quandary? Yes. It consists in the training and apprenticing of British-born boys to the profession of cookery.

For many years past all the leading men-cooks in clubs, restaurants, and large private establishments have been, practically without exception, foreigners, whether French, Swiss, or Italian.

In Braithwaite’s “Rules and Orders for the Government of the House of an Earl,” published in the seventeenth century, the author writes: “In ancient times noblemen contented themselves to be served with such as had been bred in their own houses, but of late times none could please some but Italians and Frenchmen.”

It is much the same in our own day. The profession of cookery among Britons has died out, and, as a result, we are fed, outside our own homes, by scores of intelligent, well-educated, practised foreign cooks, who do their work, for the most part, excellently, but who could be replaced in time by the genuine home-trained article.

Although France, and particularly the Midi, has produced the greatest cooks, there is no reason why England should lag behind. It is certain that many purely insular dishes, such as Irish stew, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, tripe and onions, and such-like, can never be properly cooked by foreigners. They have not the tradition, and are too anxious to impart their own personal touch to the dish.

It is quite true that a really great chef is as rare as a really great poet or a really great general. But there is a lesser grade of thoroughly competent chef who may most certainly be evolved from the well-educated middle-class boy of to-day. The efforts of the Food and Cookery Association of London towards this end should be actively supported by all those who are interested in the nationalization of the kitchen and the reform of our digestion.

LENTEN FARE

_Festina lente_]

The most strenuous Lenten faster on record was, I venture to think, St. Macarius, who was annually in the habit of passing forty days and forty nights in a standing position with no more substantial support than a few raw cabbage-leaves on each recurring Sunday.

Simeon Stylites was even more abstemious, for he ate nothing from the beginning to the end of Lent, passing his time in praying and bowing from his columnar elevation. An admiring monk has placed it upon record that, possibly by way of assuaging the pangs of hunger, Simeon made on one day twelve hundred and forty-four separate and distinct bows.

It is doubtless an excellent thing to have the strength of mind and body to be able to act up to one’s convictions. We should find it difficult to realize the idea of a Bishop of London never breaking his fast till the evening, and then being satisfied with a solitary egg, an inch of bread, and a cup of milk and water; such, however, was the daily Lenten fare of St. Cedd, a predecessor of Dr. Winnington Ingram in the Metropolitan diocese.

It is told of St. Francis of Assisi that he ate nothing dressed by fire, unless he were very ill, and even then he caused it to be covered with ashes, or dipped into cold water. His common daily food was dry bread strewn with ashes, but--the historian adds--he did not condemn his followers to the rigorous diet which he himself observed. “Brother Ass,” as he familiarly called that self, was, in his own opinion, worthy of no better fare.

But there is another and lighter side to the picture. The Roman Catholic Church, especially the upper classes thereof, in long bygone times, did not always submit patiently to the stricter ethics of fasting. Kings and princes used to send medical and theological certificates to the Pope, begging humbly to be allowed to eat meat. The Holy Father was even begged to adjudicate on individual dishes. Pope Zacharias forbade roast hare. Under Pope John XXII the Franciscans were much vexed as to whether they really owned the soup that they ate, or whether they only had the bare _usufruct_ thereof. As only three or four of them were burned as martyrs, and no thrones were overset nor provinces ravaged, Voltaire termed these debates about niceties of diet _des sottises paisibles_.

In the reign of Henry VIII the minutes of the Lenten dinner included such fish as: a whole ling, great jowls of salt salmon, great salt eels, great jowls of salt sturgeon, fresh ling, fresh turbot, great pike, great jowls of fresh salmon, great rudds, baked turbots, salmon chines, roasted lampreys and roasted lamprons, great burbutts, and--when the fishing season was favourable--porpoise, sea-wolf, grampus, and whale.

A fairly compendious epitome of fish-food, but information is lacking as to the modes of preparation.

The most sensible remark on the fasting question was probably made by Erasmus, who said, when he was asked why he did not fast: “My mind is Catholic, but my stomach is Lutheran.” But then Erasmus was a very broad-minded sort of person. It is only necessary to read the finest novel in the English language, Charles Reade’s “Cloister and the Hearth,” to realize that fact.

For the dozenth time I was rereading “Eothen” the other day, and came upon a curious passage. Speaking of Smyrna, Kinglake says: “The number of murders committed during Lent is greater, I am told, than at any other time of the year. A man under the influence of a bean dietary (for this is the principal food of the Greeks during their fasts) will be in an apt humour for enriching the shrine of his saint, and passing a knife through his next-door neighbour.” _Que Messieurs les végéteriens commencent!_ What do they say to this? Do they feel especially bloodthirsty during Lent, or--being all-the-year-round vegetarians--do they lust after gore with any peculiar avidity?

It is curious to note that our favourite Lenten fare, salted cod and egg-sauce, to wit, is, strictly speaking, quite wrong. Eggs are not permissible food, and the orthodox eschew them altogether during their _jejunium_.

In Spain, during the crusades and the war with the Moors, a practice arose of permitting, in certain cases, the substitution of a contribution to the holy war for the observance of the Lenten abstinence, and although the object has long since ceased, the composition is still permitted under the same title of _Cruzada_.

In the seventh century a Council sitting at Toledo declared those who ate meat during Lent to be sinners unworthy to take part in the Resurrection. From that time until the eleventh century, when a gradual reaction set in, the laws of fasting and the punishments inflicted upon the transgressors became more and more strict; interdict and excommunication were among the penalties.

By degrees these became so numerous and different in kind that they were divided into

_Jejunium generale_--a fast binding for all.
_Consuetudinarium_--local fast.
_Penitentiale_--atonement for all transgressions.
_Votivum_--consequent upon a vow.
_Voluntare_--for the better carrying out of an undertaking.

These again were kept as

_Jejunium naturale_--an entire abstinence from food or drink.
_Abstinentia_--certain food only, but several times a day.
_Jejunium cum abstinentia_--the same food, but only once a day.
_Jejunium sine abstinentia_--all kinds of food, but only once a day.

The prohibited food on partial fast days included, during certain periods, not only the flesh of quadrupeds, fowl, and fish, but also the _lacticinia_, which means all that comes from quadrupeds and birds, such as eggs, milk, butter, and the like.

There are many allusions in old plays to those folk who do not fast through Lent. For instance, in Skelton’s “Colin Clout” (1500) is the following passage:--

Men call you thereforr prophanes,
Ye pieke no shrimps nor pranes;
Salt fish, stockfish, nor herring,
It is not for your wearing.
Nor in holy Lenten season,
Ye will neither Beanes nor Peasen,
But ye look to be let loose,
To a pigge or to a goose.

There is comparatively little strictness now as to Lenten food, but it is always an excuse for excellent _maigre_ dining, and the cook who cannot prepare a thoroughly good appetising and satisfying _maigre_ menu is unworthy of his calling.

One Good Friday I was dining at a very excellent French provincial hotel, the Hôtel du Chapeau-Rouge at Dunkirk, and the following most cleverly fashioned menu confronted me at dinner:--

MENU

Huîtres.
Potage Longchamps.
Bouchées Dunkerquoises.
Barbue, Sauce d’Isigny.
Pommes Nouvelles.
Petit Pois à la Française.
Salade Primeur.
Saumon à la Russe.
Ecrevisses de la Meuse.
Gâteau Pitheviers.
Fruits.

Here is another Lenten dinner, quite different in conception, but equally good in execution. It is a very artistic little production.

MENU

Caviar d’Astrackan.
Bisque d’Ecrevisses.
Truite braisée au Clicquot.
Sarcelle Rôtie.
Salade.
Petits Pois nouveaux à la Française.
Coupe Petit Duc.
Corbeille de Friandises.
Dessert.

A few years ago a noted French gourmet was taunted with the alleged fact that it was quite impossible to order a really expensive _maigre_ dinner; he retorted, as any sane gourmet naturally would, that it was the easiest thing in the world. He was given _carte blanche_, and the following was the result:--

Caviar frais.
Huîtres (Natives).
Œufs Grand-Duc.
Bouchées Joinville.
Truite saumonée au Chambertin.
Sarcelles rôties.
Salade Espérance.
Aspic de homard en Bellevue.
Asperges sauce Mousseline.
Soufflé au kirsch.
Corbeilles de fruits.
Café.

VINS.

Eau-de-vie russe.
Chablis, 1890.
Johannisberg, 1886.
Château-Léoville Poyferré, 1878.
Romanée-Conti, 1865.
Champagne frappé Baïkal (extra-dry), ’84.
Château-Yquem, 1869.
Grande fine-champagne Napoléon, 1800.

The dinner for four was exquisite, and the wines extraordinary. The total cost was just over twenty-five pounds.

In that delightful book, “Mrs. Brookfield and Her Circle,” by Charles and Frances Brookfield, there is this postscript to a letter written by the husband to his wife: “On the carte of the Carlton Club the day before yesterday (the General Fast) was to be seen these words: ‘The Committee, taking into consideration that the observance of a General Fast has been ordained, have directed that the coffee-room dinner shall be confined strictly to--Two Soups. Fish. Plain Joints. Spring Tarts. Omelettes. Cheese.’”

Another story from the same book, which although it has nothing whatever to do with Lent, has, perhaps, with food and feeding, runs as follows: “The new bishop of New Zealand, in a farewell and pathetic interview with his mother, after his appointment, was thus addressed by her in such sequence as sobs and tears would permit: ‘I suppose they will eat you, my dear--I try to think otherwise, but I suppose they will. Well!--We must leave it in the hands of Providence. But if they do--mind, my dear, and disagree with them.’”

That some at least of the less abstinent monks made very hearty meals and were quite valiant trenchermen, whether it were fast day or no, is a matter of history. At a splendid dinner given by the Legate of Avignon to the Prior of Chartreux, a superb fish, cooked to perfection and likely to have tempted the Pope himself had he been present, was handed to the Prior. He helped himself and was on the eve of eating, when one of the brothers said to him: “My father, do not touch that, it is not _maigre_. I went into the kitchen, and I saw things that would make you shudder; the sauce that you fancy is made from carrots and onions is made from ham and rabbits.” “My brother, you talk too much and are too curious,” replied the father; “the kitchen is not your place, and curiosity is a grievous sin.”

Beckford of “Vathek” fame gives a glowing account of the monastery of Alcobaça, and particularly of the kitchen thereof: “Through the centre of the immense and groined hall, not less than sixty feet in diameter, ran a brisk rivulet of the clearest water, flowing through pierced wooden reservoirs, containing every sort and size of the finest river fish. On one side loads of game and venison were heaped up; on the other vegetables and fruit in endless variety. Beyond a long line of stores, extended a row of ovens, and close to them hillocks of wheaten flour, whiter than snow, rocks of sugar, jars of the purest oil, and pastry in vast abundance, which a numerous tribe of lay-brothers and their attendants were rolling out and puffing up into a hundred different shapes, singing all the while as blithely as larks in a cornfield.” After describing the elaborate composition of the daily banquet of the monks, the author describes “a certain truffle cream which was so exquisite that the Lord Abbot piously gave thanks for it.”

A famous London character in the time of “Frazer’s Magazine” was Serjeant Murphy, M.P. for Cork. An acquaintance of Murphy’s was constantly addicted to boasting of his aristocratic friends. At a dinner-party where there were several Roman Catholics present, conversation centred round the subject of fasting, when the serjeant’s friend struck in: “It is very strange how little the highest ranks regard fast days. I was dining at the Duke of Norfolk’s on a fast day three weeks ago, and there was not a bit of fish at dinner.” “I suppose,” said Murphy, in the midst of the deep silence that followed, “that they had eaten it all in the dining-room.”

Chaucer writes of a man who

Full many a patrich had he in mewe,
And many a breme and many a luce in stew.

The stew was, of course, the monkish fish-pond, which has almost disappeared since the Reformation. The luce is the jack or pike of the fishermen, and is often found as a pun upon the family name of Lucy, which bears the pike as a charge. Richard de Lucie, who defended the castle of Falaise against Geoffry of Anjou, was Lord Diss in Norfolk; he was also Sheriff of Essex in the reign of Henry II, and built the castle of Ongar. Sir Richard Lucy, Lord Chief Justice of England, founded Lesnes Priory, near Erith, and dying in 1179, was buried within its walls. An antiquary named Weever, who had seen his tomb in 1630, states that upon the belt of the figure of the knight the fleur-de-lis, or fleur-de-luce, the rebus or name device of the Lucys, was sculptured in many places. The fleur-de-lis was here used in a doubly figurative sense for a pike or spear, to the head of which it bears some resemblance.

This is more particularly shown in the Cantelupe arms, gules, a fess vaire between three leopards’ heads jessant fleur-de-lis. The arms of Lucy are also among the quarterings borne by the family of Lowther, the head of which is, of course, Lord Lonsdale.

Certain fish, evidently intended for pike or luces, in the pavement of the Chapter House at Westminster may possibly allude to the early tradition that St. Peter’s Church was first built by King Lucius.

The ged and the pike are synonymous in North Britain, whence the Scots family of Ged bear for arms, azure, three geds, or pike, hauriant argent; Sir Walter Scott alludes to this play upon the name in Red Gauntlet. “The heralds,” he says, “who make graven images of fish, fowls, and beasts, assigned the ged for their device and escutcheon, and hewed it over their chimneys, and placed above their tombs the fish called a jack, pike, or luce, and in our tongue, a ged.”

Of this family was William Ged, an Edinburgh printer, who employed a stereotyping process as early as 1725. The Geddes, a very ancient family of Tweeddale, bear for arms, gules, an escutcheon between three luces’ heads couped argent.

Much of the good purpose of a close adherence to strict Lenten fare has no doubt been lost by our continued neglect of the manifold uses of herbs.

Amid all the talking and writing about vegetarianism very little attention seems to have been paid to the undoubted importance of the herb garden.

Our forefathers believed implicitly in the virtues of herbs, and extolled them in prose and verse. According to one of the old Roxburghe Ballads:--

Here’s pennyroyal and marygolds,
Come, buy my nettle-tops.
Here’s water-cresses and scurvy-grass,
Come, buy my sage of virtue, ho!
Come, buy my wormwood and mugworts.
Here’s all fine herbs of every sort;
Here’s southernwood that’s very good,
Dandelion and horseleek.
Here’s dragon’s-tongue and wood-sorrel,
With bear’s-foot and horehound.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London Town!

Most of these formerly well-known herbs, each having its own peculiar curative quality, are nowadays practically unknown, but a reference to old John Parkinson, or the herbals of Gerard or Turner, or the “Acetaria” of John Evelyn, would readily show that they were good for the various ills to which flesh is heir. The very earliest medicaments were largely composed of herbs, and even to-day the learned prescription of a Harley Street two-guinea specialist usually contains at least one ingredient which, under a more formal Latin name, is neither more nor less than a “garden simple” or herb.

The common marigold, for instance, which Gerard calls “the Jackanapes-on-Horseback,” was at one time much used for soups or “pottages.” In Miss Edgeworth’s story of “Simple Susan” she explains how the petals of marigolds were added, as the last touch, to the broth made for an invalid mother. Evelyn compares the common bugloss to the nepenthe of Homer, but adds that what we now call bugloss was not that of the ancients, but rather borage, “for the like virtue named corrago.”

Smallage was, of course, simply wild celery, which Parkinson says is “somewhat like parsley, but greater, greener, and more bitter.” Sweet cicely, or sweet chervil, is a kind of myrrh--“it adds a marvellous good relish to a sallet,” and the roots may be preserved or candied. The genial Culpepper, in his “English Physician Enlarged” (1565), has much to say as to the astrological virtues of the different herbs, and although his ascription of plants to their respective planets must be taken _cum grano salis_, yet he is wonderfully near the mark in many instances which he quotes as to the effect of the herb if taken as a medicine. This, for instance, is what he has to say about balm: “It is a herb of Jupiter and under Cancer, and strengthens nature much in all its actions. It causeth the mind and heart to become merry and reviveth the heart, especially of such who are overtaken in sleep, and driveth away all troublesome cares and thoughts out of the mind arising from melancholy or black choler.”

Nowadays we certainly neglect herbs, although here and there an old-fashioned gardener plants his herbs from year to year. There are still quaint old herb shops in Covent Garden, where the “simples” of our grandmothers may be bought; and there are curious customs at the Guildhall and the Old Bailey of the presentation of bunches of herbs to the presiding justices as a reminiscence of the time when their perfume was supposed to counteract the germs of plague.

It is easy to cultivate a herb garden, and amid modern “improvements” of flowers of all sorts it imparts a delightful old-world fragrance to the completeness of the pleasaunce. Moreover, herbs make the most exquisite addition to nearly every form of cookery.

Reverting to Lent and its customs, it is notable, according to old John Selden’s “Table Talk” (1689), that “our meats and our sports, much of them, have relation to Church works. The coffin of our Christmas pies in shape long, is in imitation of the cratch; our choosing kings and queens on Twelfth-night hath reference to the three kings. So, likewise, our eating of fritters, whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, Jack of Lents, etc.--they are all in imitation of Church works, emblems of martyrdom. Our tansies at Easter have reference to the bitter herbs; though at the same time, it was always the fashion for a man to have a gammon of bacon to show himself to be no Jew.”

We have it (on perhaps somewhat doubtful authority) that the most ingenious method of fasting is that recorded in the “Mappemonde Papistique,” wherein it appears that a Venetian saint had certain boxes made like mass books, and these book-boxes were filled, some with Malmsey wine, and some with the fleshiest parts of capons and partridges. These were supposed to be books of devotion, and the saint is said to have lived long and grown fat on them.

A peculiarly villainous form of torture was invented by Galeazzo Visconti (1355), which was known as Galeazzo’s Lent, because it was guaranteed to prolong the life of the unfortunate victim for forty days. This seems to have been one of the few traits of inherited family cruelty in a man who otherwise was a sort of Mæcenas of his time. He was a friend and patron of Petrarch, founded, under his direction, the University of Pavia, and brought together a considerable library.

According to Walsh, it is not generally known that the use of flesh, meat, eggs, and milk during Lent was forbidden in England, not only by ecclesiastical but also by statute law, even into the time of William III. Any violation of the law was followed by dire penalties. There is the case of the landlady of the Rose Tavern, St. Catherine’s Tower, London, in whose house during the Lent of 1563 was found a quantity of raw and cooked meat. She and four other women who were proved to have partaken of the forbidden viands were put in the stocks all night. In 1570 was passed a statute making the penalties for violating the Lenten laws sixty shillings and three months imprisonment.

Finally, as an apposite curiosity, I will quote a curious dispensation granted two hundred and seventy-six years ago and formally recorded in the parish register of Wakefield.

“To all people to whom these presents shall come, James Lister, Vicar of Wakefield, and preacher of God’s word, sendeth greeting: Whereas Alice Lister wife of Richard Lister Clerke who now soiourneth with her sonne Willm Paulden of Wakefield, by reason of her old age & many years & state, and long-contynued sickness is become so weake, and her stomack so colde, not able to digest colde meates and fish, who by the counsell of Physicions is advised to absteine from and to forbeare the eateng of all manner of fruits, fish and milk meates: Know yee therefoor for the causes aforesaide and for the better strengthening & recovery of her health, I the saide James Lister do hereby give & grant libertie and licence to her the saide Alice Lister att her will and pleasure att all tymes, as well during the tyme of Lent, as upon other fasting daies and fish daies (exhibiting by the laws to eate flesh) to dresse and eate such kind of fleshe as shal be best agreing to her stomach & weake appetite. In witnes hereof I the saide James Lister have hereunto sett my hand the eight day of ffebuary in the sixt year of the Reine of our Soveraigne Lord Charles by the Grace of God King of England Scotland ffrance and Ireland Defender of the Faith &c and in the yeare of our Lord god 1630 James Lister.”

INDEX

A

Aberdour oysters, 166

Abstinence, 247

“Academy” menu, 139

“Accomplish’d Housewife,” 84

“Accomplish’d Lady Rich’s Closet,” 109

“Acetaria,” 64, 257

Acrostic dinner, 138

Acton, Eliza, 151

“Adam’s Luxury and Eve’s Cookery,” 84

Addison, 106

Ætius, 176

Agris of Rhodes, 112

“Alarm to all Persons,” 84

“Alchemist, The,” 39

“Alice in Wonderland” menu, 142

“All’s Well That Ends Well,” 86

“Almanach des Gourmands,” 44, 225

America and snails, 207

American dinner, 117

„ oysters, 183

Amory, Blanche, 23

Angel pie, 151

Anthony, Saint, 63

Apprenticeship of cooks, 239

“Archidipno,” 71

“Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy,” 85

“Art of Dining,” 88

Artificial snails, 213

Arundel, Earl of, 206, 209

Ashburn (or Ashburner), Mrs., 85

“Atall, Dr.,” 83

Athanasius, Saint, 63

Athenæus, 39, 178

Athenian waiters, 201

Atlantus, 112

Austen, Jane, 22, 27

Austrian snails, 215

Autun, Bishop of, 206

Avignon, Legate of, 252

Ayen, Duc d’, 225

Azèma, 227

B

Baba, 226

Babiroussa, 233

Ball-supper menu, 147

“Ballade of Simpson’s,” 53

Ballantyne, James, 105

_Ballotine de Perdreau Souvaroff_, 152

Banana menu, 142

Banks, Sir Joseph, 71

Banville, Th. de, 42

_Barbe de Capucin_, 103