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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41696 ***
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      http://archive.org/details/feastsofautolycu00penn
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FEASTS OF AUTOLYCUS
+
+The Diary of a Greedy Woman
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Edited by
+
+ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Akron, O.
+The Saalfield Publishing Company
+Chicago New York
+1900
+
+Copyright, 1896,
+by the Merriam Company.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.--_These papers were first published in the "Pall Mall Gazette,"
+under the heading, "Wares of Autolycus." It is due to the courteous
+permission of the editors of that Journal that they are now re-issued
+in book form._
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I have always wondered that woman could be so glib in claiming
+equality with man. In such trifling matters as politics and science
+and industry, I doubt if there be much to choose between the two
+sexes. But in the cultivation and practice of an art which concerns
+life more seriously, woman has hitherto proved an inferior creature.
+
+For centuries the kitchen has been her appointed sphere of action. And
+yet, here, as in the studio and the study, she has allowed man to
+carry off the laurels. Vatel, Carême, Ude, Dumas, Gouffé, Etienne,
+these are some of the immortal cooks of history: the kitchen still
+waits its Sappho. Mrs Glasse, at first, might be thought a notable
+exception; but it is not so much the merit of her book as its extreme
+rarity in the first edition which has made it famous.
+
+Woman, moreover, has eaten with as little distinction as she has
+cooked. It seems almost--much as I deplore the admission--as if she
+were of coarser clay than man, lacking the more artistic instincts,
+the subtler, daintier emotions.
+
+I think, therefore, the great interest of the following papers lies in
+the fact that they are written by a woman--a greedy woman. The
+collection, evidently, does not pretend to be a "Cook's Manual," or a
+"Housewife's Companion": already the diligent, in numbers, have
+catalogued _recipes_, with more or less exactness. It is rather a
+guide to the Beauty, the Poetry, that exists in the perfect dish, even
+as in the masterpiece of a Titian or a Swinburne. Surely hope need not
+be abandoned when there is found one woman who can eat, with
+understanding, the Feasts of Autolycus.
+
+    ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                   PAGE
+    THE VIRTUE OF GLUTTONY,           9
+
+    A PERFECT BREAKFAST,             17
+
+    TWO BREAKFASTS,                  25
+
+    THE SUBTLE SANDWICH,             33
+
+    A PERFECT DINNER,                43
+
+    AN AUTUMN DINNER,                51
+
+    A MIDSUMMER DINNER,              59
+
+    TWO SUPPERS,                     67
+
+    ON SOUP,                         75
+
+    THE SIMPLE SOLE,                 89
+
+    BOUILLABAISSE,                   97
+
+    THE MOST EXCELLENT OYSTER,      105
+
+    THE PARTRIDGE,                  117
+
+    THE ARCHANGELIC BIRD,           125
+
+    SPRING CHICKEN,                 135
+
+    THE MAGNIFICENT MUSHROOM,       143
+
+    THE INCOMPARABLE ONION,         155
+
+    THE TRIUMPHANT TOMATO,          171
+
+    A DISH OF SUNSHINE,             179
+
+    ON SALADS,                      191
+
+    THE SALADS OF SPAIN,            205
+
+    THE STIRRING SAVOURY,           215
+
+    INDISPENSABLE CHEESE,           223
+
+    A STUDY IN GREEN AND RED,       231
+
+    A MESSAGE FROM THE SOUTH,       239
+
+    ENCHANTING COFFEE,              249
+
+
+
+
+THE VIRTUE OF GLUTTONY
+
+
+Gluttony is ranked with the deadly sins; it should be honoured among
+the cardinal virtues. It was in the Dark Ages of asceticism that
+contempt for it was fostered. Selfish anchorites, vowed to dried dates
+and lentils, or browsing Nebuchadnezzar-like upon grass, thought by
+their lamentable example to rob the world of its chief blessing.
+Cheerfully, and without a scruple, they would have sacrificed beauty
+and pleasure to their own superstition. If the vineyard yielded wine
+and the orchard fruit, if cattle were sent to pasture, and the forest
+abounded in game, they believed it was that men might forswear the
+delights thus offered. And so food came into ill repute and foolish
+fasting was glorified, until a healthy appetite passed for a snare of
+the devil, and its gratification meant eternal damnation. Poor deluded
+humans, ever so keen to make the least of the short span of life
+allotted to them!
+
+With time, all superstitions fail; and asceticism went the way of many
+another ingenious folly. But as a tradition, as a convention, somehow,
+it lingered longer among women. And the old Christian duty became a
+new feminine grace. And where the fanatic had fasted that his soul
+might prove comelier in the sight of God, silly matrons and maidens
+starved, or pretended to starve, themselves that their bodies might
+seem fairer in the eyes of man. And dire, indeed, has been their
+punishment. The legend was that swooning Angelina or tear-stained
+Amelia, who, in company, toyed tenderly with a chicken wing or
+unsubstantial wafer, later retired to the pantry to stuff herself with
+jam and pickles. And thus gradually, so it is asserted, the delicacy
+of women's palate was destroyed; food to her perverted stomach was but
+a mere necessity to stay the pangs of hunger, and the pleasure of
+eating she looked upon as a deep mystery, into which only man could be
+initiated.
+
+In this there is much exaggeration, but still much truth. To-day
+women, as a rule, think all too little of the joys of eating. They
+hold lightly the treasures that should prove invaluable. They refuse
+to recognise that there is no less art in eating well than in painting
+well or writing well, and if their choice lay between swallowing a bun
+with a cup of tea in an aërated bread shop, and missing the latest
+picture show or doing without a new book, they would not hesitate; to
+the stodgy bun they would condemn themselves, though that way madness
+lies. Is it not true that the woman who would economise, first draws
+her purse-strings tight in the market and at the restaurant? With her
+milliner's bill she may find no fault, but in butcher's book, or
+grocer's, every halfpenny is to be disputed.
+
+The loss is hers, but the generous-hearted can but regret it.
+Therefore let her be brought face to face with certain fundamental
+facts, and the scales will fall quickly from her eyes, and she will
+see the truth in all its splendour.
+
+First, then, let her know that the love of good eating gives an object
+to life. She need not stray after false gods; she will not burden
+herself with silly fads, once she realizes that upon food she may
+concentrate thought and energy, and her higher nature--which to her
+means so much--be developed thereby. Why clamour for the suffrage, why
+labour for the redemption of brutal man, why wear, with noisy
+advertisement, ribbons white or blue, when three times a day there is
+a work of art, easily within her reach, to be created? All his life a
+Velasquez devoted to his pictures, a Shakespeare to his plays, a
+Wagner to his operas: why should not the woman of genius spend hers in
+designing exquisite dinners, inventing original breakfasts, and be
+respected for the nobility of her self-appointed task? For in the
+planning of the perfect meal there is art; and, after all, is not art
+the one real, the one important thing in life?
+
+And the object she thus accepts will be her pleasure as well. For the
+_gourmande_, or glutton, duty and amusement go hand in hand. Her
+dainty devices and harmonies appeal to her imagination and fancy; they
+play gently with her emotions; they develop to the utmost her pretty
+sensuousness. Mind and body alike are satisfied. And so long as this
+pleasure endures it will never seem time to die. The ancient
+philosopher thought that time had come when life afforded more evil
+than good. The good of a pleasantly planned dinner outbalances the
+evil of daily trials and tribulations.
+
+Here is another more intimate, personal reason which the woman of
+sense may not set aside with flippancy or indifference. By artistic
+gluttony, beauty is increased, if not actually created. Listen to the
+words of Brillat-Savarin, that suave and sympathetic _gourmet_: "It
+has been proved by a series of rigorously exact observations that by a
+succulent, delicate, and choice regimen, the external appearances of
+age are kept away for a long time. It gives more brilliancy to the
+eye, more freshness to the skin, more support to the muscles; and as
+it is certain in physiology that wrinkles, those formidable enemies of
+beauty, are caused by the depression of muscle, it is equally true
+that, other things being equal, those who understand eating are
+comparatively four years younger than those ignorant of that science."
+Surely he should have called it art, not science. But let that pass.
+Rejoice in the knowledge that gluttony is the best cosmetic.
+
+And more than this: a woman not only grows beautiful when she eats
+well, but she is bewitchingly lovely in the very act of eating. Listen
+again, for certain texts cannot be heard too often: "There is no more
+pretty sight than a pretty _gourmande_ under arms. Her napkin is
+nicely adjusted; one of her hands rests on the table, the other
+carries to her mouth little morsels artistically carved, or the wing
+of a partridge, which must be picked. Her eyes sparkle, her lips are
+glossy, her talk cheerful, all her movements graceful; nor is there
+lacking some spice of the coquetry which accompanies all that women
+do. With so many advantages she is irresistible, and Cato, the censor
+himself, could not help yielding to the influence." And who shall say
+that woman, declaiming on the public platform, or "spanking"
+progressive principles into the child-man, makes a prettier picture?
+
+Another plea, and one not to be scorned, is the new bond of union love
+of eating weaves between man and wife. "A wedded pair with this taste
+in common have once a day at least a pleasant opportunity of meeting."
+Sport has been pronounced a closer tie than religion, but what of
+food? What, indeed? Let men and women look to it that at table
+delicious sympathy makes them one, and marriage will cease to be a
+failure. If they agree upon their sauces and salads, what matter if
+they disagree upon mere questions of conduct and finance? Accept the
+gospel of good living and the sexual problem will be solved. She who
+first dares to write the great Food Novel will be a true champion of
+her sex. And yet women meet and dine together, and none has the
+courage to whisper the true secret of emancipation. Mostly fools!
+Alas! that it should have to be written!
+
+And think--that is, if you know how to think--of the new joy added to
+friendship, the new charm to casual acquaintanceship, when food is
+given its due, and is recognised as something to be talked of. The old
+platitudes will fade and die. The maiden will cease to ask "What do
+you think of the Academy?" The earnest one will no longer look to
+Ibsen for heavy small talk. Pretence will be wiped away,
+conversational shams abolished, and the social millennium will have
+come. Eat with understanding, and interest in the dishes set before
+you must prove genuine and engrossing, as enthusiasm over the last new
+thing in art or ethics has never been--never can be. The sensation of
+the day will prove the latest arrangement in oysters, the newest
+device in vegetables. The ambitious will trust to her kitchen to win
+her reputation; the poet will offer lyrics and pastorals with every
+course; the painter will present in every dish a lovely scheme of
+colour.
+
+Gross are they who see in eating and drinking nought but grossness.
+The woman who cannot live without a mission should now find the path
+clear before her. Let her learn first for herself the rapture that
+lies dormant in food; let her next spread abroad the joyful tidings.
+Gluttony is a vice only when it leads to stupid, inartistic excess.
+
+
+
+
+A PERFECT BREAKFAST
+
+
+Breakfast means many things to many men. Ask the American, and he will
+give as definition: "Shad, beefsteak, hash, fried potatoes, omelet,
+coffee, buckwheat cakes, waffles, corn bread, and (if he be a
+Virginian) batter pudding, at 8 o'clock A.M. sharp." Ask the
+Englishman, and he will affirm stoutly: "Tea, a rasher of bacon, dry
+toast, and marmalade as the clock strikes nine, or the half after."
+And both, differing in detail as they may and do, are alike
+barbarians, understanding nothing of the first principles of
+gastronomy.
+
+Seek out rather the Frenchman and his kinsmen of the Latin race. They
+know: and to their guidance the timid novice may trust herself without
+a fear. The blundering Teuton, however, would lead to perdition; for
+he, insensible to the charms of breakfast, does away with it
+altogether, and, as if still swayed by nursery rule, eats his dinner
+at noon--and may he long be left to enjoy it by himself! Therefore,
+in this, as in many other matters that cater to the higher pleasures,
+look to France for light and inspiration.
+
+Upon rising--and why not let the hour vary according to mood and
+inclination?--forswear all but the _petit déjeuner_: the little
+breakfast of coffee and rolls and butter. But the coffee must be of
+the best, no chicory as you hope for salvation; the rolls must be
+crisp and light and fresh, as they always are in Paris and Vienna; the
+butter must be pure and sweet. And if you possess a fragment of
+self-respect, enjoy this _petit déjeuner_ alone, in the solitude of
+your chamber. Upon the early family breakfast many and many a happy
+marriage has been wrecked; and so be warned in time.
+
+At noon once more is man fit to meet his fellow-man and woman.
+Appetite has revived. The day is at its prime. By every law of nature
+and of art, this, of all others, is the hour that calls to breakfast.
+
+When soft rains fall, and winds blow milder, and bushes in park or
+garden are sprouting and spring is at hand, grace your table with
+this same sweet promise of spring. Let rosy radish give the touch of
+colour to satisfy the eye, as chairs are drawn in close about the
+spotless cloth: the tiny, round radish, pulled in the early hours of
+the morning, still in its first virginal purity, tender, sweet, yet
+peppery, with all the piquancy of the young girl not quite a child,
+not yet a woman. In great bunches, it enlivens every stall at Covent
+Garden, and every greengrocer's window; on the breakfast-table it is
+the gayest poem that uncertain March can sing. Do not spoil it by
+adding other _hors d'oeuvres_; nothing must be allowed to destroy its
+fragrance and its savour. Bread and butter, however, will serve as
+sympathetic background, and enhance rather than lessen its charm.
+
+Vague poetic memories and aspirations stirred within you by the dainty
+radish, you will be in fitting humour for _oeufs aux saucissons_, a
+dish, surely, invented by the Angels in Paradise. There is little
+earthly in its composition or flavour; irreverent it seems to describe
+it in poor halting words. But if language prove weak, intention is
+good, and should others learn to honour this priceless delicacy, then
+will much have been accomplished. Without more ado, therefore, go to
+Benoist's, and buy the little truffled French sausages which that
+temple of delight provides. Fry them, and fry half the number of fresh
+eggs. Next, one egg and two sausages place in one of those
+irresistible little French baking-dishes, dim green or golden brown in
+colour, and, smothering them in rich wine sauce, bake, and serve--one
+little dish for each guest. Above all, study well your sauce; if it
+fail, disaster is inevitable; if it succeed, place laurel leaves in
+your hair, for you will have conquered. "A woman who has mastered
+sauces sits on the apex of civilisation."
+
+Without fear of anti-climax, pass suavely on from _oeufs aux
+saucissons_ to _rognons sautés_. In thin elegant slices your kidneys
+should be cut, before trusting them to the melted butter in the frying
+pan; for seasoning, add salt, pepper, and parsley; for thickening,
+flour; for strength, a tablespoonful or more of stock; for stimulus,
+as much good claret; then eat thereof and you will never repent.
+
+Dainty steps these to prepare the way for the breakfast's most
+substantial course, which, to be in loving sympathy with all that has
+gone before, may consist of _côtelettes de mouton au naturel_. See
+that the cutlets be small and plump, well trimmed, and beaten gently,
+once on each side, with a chopper cooled in water. Dip them into
+melted butter, grill them, turning them but once that the juice may
+not be lost, and thank kind fate that has let you live to enjoy so
+delicious a morsel. _Pommes de terre sautées_ may be deemed chaste
+enough to appear--and disappear--at the same happy moment.
+
+With welcome promise of spring the feast may end as it began. Order a
+salad to follow: cool, quieting, encouraging. When in its perfection
+cabbage lettuce is to be had, none could be more submissive and
+responsive to the wooing of oil and vinegar. Never forget to rub the
+bowl with onion, now in its first youth, ardent but less fiery than in
+the days to come, strong but less imperious. No other garniture is
+needed. The tender green of the lettuce leaves will blend and
+harmonise with the anemones and tulips, in old blue china or dazzling
+crystal, that decorate the table's centre; and though grey may be the
+skies without, something of May's softness and June's radiance will
+fill the breakfast-room with the glamour of romance.
+
+What cheese, you ask? Suisse, of course. Is not the month March? Has
+not the _menu_, so lovingly devised, sent the spring rioting through
+your veins? Suisse with sugar, and prolong the sweet dreaming while
+you may. What if work you cannot, after thus giving the reins to fancy
+and to appetite? At least you will have had your hour of happiness.
+Breakfast is not for those who toil that they may dine; their sad
+portion is the midday sandwich.
+
+Wine should be light and not too many. The true epicure will want but
+one, and he may do worse than let his choice fall upon Graves, though
+good Graves, alas! is not to be had for the asking. Much too heavy is
+Burgundy for breakfast. If your soul yearns for red wine, be
+aristocratic in your preferences, and, like the Stuarts, drink
+Claret--a good St. Estèphe or St. Julien.
+
+Coffee is indispensable, and what is true of coffee after dinner is
+true as well of coffee after breakfast. Have it of the best, or else
+not at all. For liqueur, one of the less fervent, more maidenly
+varieties, Maraschino, perhaps, or Prunelle, but make sure it is the
+Prunelle, in stone jugs, that comes from Chalon-sur-Saône. Bring out
+the cigarettes--not the Egyptian or Turkish, with suspicion of opium
+lurking in their fragrant recesses--but the cleaner, purer Virginian.
+Then smoke until, like the Gypsy in Lenau's ballad, all earthly
+trouble you have smoked away, and you master the mysteries of
+Nirvana.
+
+
+
+
+TWO BREAKFASTS
+
+
+Spring is the year's playtime. Who, while trees are growing green and
+flowers are budding, can toil with an easy conscience? Later, mere
+"use and wont" accustoms the most sensitive to sunshine and green
+leaves and fragrant blossoms. It is easy to work in the summer. But
+spring, like wine, goes to the head and gladdens the heart of man, so
+that he is fit for no other duty than the enjoyment of this new
+gladness. If he be human, and not a mere machine, he must and will
+choose it for the season of his holiday.
+
+This is why in the spring the midday breakfast appeals with most
+charm. It may be eaten in peace, with no thought of immediate return
+to inconsiderate desk or tyrannical easel. A stroll in the park, a
+walk across the fields, or over the hills and far away, should be the
+most laborious labour to follow. It would be a crime, indeed, to eat a
+dainty breakfast, daintily designed and served, in the bustle and
+nervous hurry of a working day. But when the sunny hours bring only
+new pleasure and new capacity for it, what better than to break their
+sweet monotony with a light, joyous feast that worthily plays the
+herald to the evening's banquet?
+
+It must be light, however: light as the sunshine that falls so softly
+on spotless white linen and flawless silver; gay and gracious as the
+golden daffodils in their tall glass. The table's ornaments should be
+few: would not the least touch of heaviness mar the effect of spring?
+Why, then, add to the daffodils? See, only, that they are fresh, just
+plucked from the cool green woodland, the morning dew still wet and
+shining on their golden petals, and make sure that the glass, though
+simple, is as shapely as Venice or Whitefriars can fashion it.
+
+Daffodils will smile a welcome, if radishes come to give them
+greeting; radishes, round and rosy and crisp; there is a separate joy
+in the low sound of teeth crunching in their crispness. Vienna rolls
+(and London can now supply them) and rich yellow butter from Devon
+dairies carry out the scheme of the first garden-like course.
+
+Sweeter smiles fall from the daffodils, if now they prove motive to a
+fine symphony in gold; as they will if _omelette aux rognons_ be
+chosen as second course. Do not trust the omelet to heavy-handed cook,
+who thinks it means a compromise between piecrust and pancake. It must
+be frothy, and strong in that quality of lightness which gives the
+keynote to the composition as a whole. Enclosed within its melting
+gold, at its very heart, as it were, lie the kidneys elegantly minced
+and seasoned with delicate care. It is a dish predestined for the
+midday breakfast, too beautiful to be wasted on the early, dull,
+morning hours; too immaterial for the evening's demands.
+
+Its memory will linger pleasantly, even when _pilaff de volaille à
+l'Indienne_ succeeds, offering a new and more stirring symphony in the
+same radiant gold. For golden is the rice, stained with curry, as it
+encircles the pretty, soft mound of chicken livers, brown and
+delicious. Here the breakfast reaches its one substantial point; but
+meat more heavy would seem vulgar and gross. The curry must not be
+too hot, but rather gentle and genial like the lovely May sunshine.
+
+Now, a pause and a contrast. Gold fades into green. As are the stalks
+to the daffodils, so the dish of _petits pois aux laitues_ to _pilaff_
+and _omelette_. The peas are so young that no device need be sought to
+disguise their age; later on, like faded beauty, they may have
+recourse to many a trick and a pose, but not as yet. The lettuce, as
+unsophisticated, will but emphasise their exquisite youth. It is a
+combination that has all the wonderful charm of infant leaves and
+tentative buds on one and the same branch of the spring-fired bush.
+
+No sweet. Would not the artifice of jellies and cream pall after such
+a succession of Nature's dear tributes? Surely the _menu_ should
+finish as it began, in entrancing simplicity. Port Salut is a cheese
+that smells of the dairy; that, for all its monastic origin, suggests
+the pink and white Hetty or Tess with sleeves well uprolled over
+curved, dimpling arms. Eat it with Bath Oliver biscuits, and sigh that
+the end should come so soon. Where the need to drag in the mummy at
+the close of the feast? The ancients were wise; with the last course
+does it not ever stare at you cruelly, with mocking reminder that
+eating, like love, hath an end?
+
+Graves is the wine to drink with daffodil-crowned feast--golden
+Graves, light as the breakfast, gay as the sunshine, gladdening as the
+spring itself. Coffee completes the composition nobly, if it be black
+and strong. And for liqueur, Benedictine, in colour and feeling alike,
+enters most fittingly into the harmony. Smoke cigarettes from
+Virginia, that southern land of luxuriant spring flowers.
+
+There is no monotony in spring sunshine; why, then, let spring's
+breakfast always strike the same monotonous note? Another day, another
+mood, and so, as logical consequence, another _menu_. From your own
+garden gather a bunch of late tulips, scarlet and glowing, but cool in
+their shelter of long tapering leaves. Fill a bowl with them: it may
+be a rare bronze from Japan, or a fine piece of old Delft, or anything
+else, provided it be somewhat sumptuous as becomes the blossoms it
+holds. Open with that triumph of colour which would have enchanted a
+Titian or a Monticelli: the roseate salmon of the Rhine, smoked to a
+turn, and cut in thin slices, all but transparent. It kindles desire
+and lends new zest to appetite.
+
+After so ardent a preparation, what better suited for ensuing course
+than _oeufs brouillés aux pointes d'asperges_? the eggs golden and
+fleecy as the clouds in the sunset's glow; the asparagus points
+imparting that exquisite flavour which is so essentially their own.
+Cloudlike, the loveliness gradually and gracefully disappears, as in a
+poet's dream or a painter's impression, and spring acquires a new
+meaning, a new power to enchant.
+
+Who, with a soul, could pass on to a roast or a big heating joint?
+More to the purpose is _ris de veau à la Toulouse_, the sweetbreads
+broiled with distinction, and then, in pretty fluted _caissons_,
+surrounded with _Béchamel_ sauce and ravishing _ragoût_ of mushrooms
+and cock's combs. They are light as a feather, but still a trifle
+flamboyant in honour of the tulips, while the name carries with it
+gaiety from the gay southern town of the _Jeux Floraux_.
+
+Next, a salad is not out of place. Make it of tomatoes, scarlet and
+stirring, like some strange tropical blossoms decking the shrine of
+the sun. Just a suspicion of shallot in the bowl; the perfect dressing
+of vinegar and oil, pepper and salt; and the luxuriant tropics could
+not yield a richer and more fragrant offering. It is a salad that vies
+with Cleopatra in its defiance to custom. Love for it grows stronger
+with experience. The oftener it is enjoyed the greater the desire to
+enjoy it again.
+
+Why, then, venture to destroy the impression it leaves with the
+cloying insipidity of some ill-timed sweet? It is almost too early for
+strawberries worth the eating, save in a _macédoine_, and they alone
+would come next in order, without introducing an element of confusion
+in the well-proportioned breakfast of spring. A savoury, too, would,
+at this special juncture, have its drawbacks. Cheese again best
+fulfils the conditions imposed. But now, something stronger, something
+more definite than Port Salut is called for; if Camembert prove the
+cheese of your choice, there will be no chance for criticism. One
+warning: see that it is ripe; for the Camembert that crumbles in its
+dryness is nothing short of iniquitous.
+
+Tulips and tomatoes point to Claret as the wine to be drunk. Burgundy
+is for the evening, when candles are lighted, and the hours of
+dreaming have begun. St. Estèphe, at noon, has infinite merit, and
+responds to the tulip's call with greater warmth than any white wine,
+whether from the vineyards of France or Germany, of Hungary or Italy.
+Coffee, as a matter of course, is to the elegantly-designed breakfast
+what the Butterfly is to the Nocturne. And when all is said, few
+liqueurs accord with it so graciously as Cognac; that is, if the
+dishes to precede it have tended to that joyful flamboyancy born of
+the artist's exuberance in moments of creation.
+
+Eat either breakfast, or both; and be thankful that spring comes once
+a year.
+
+
+
+
+THE SUBTLE SANDWICH
+
+
+If things yield themselves unto our mercy why should we not have the
+fruition of them, or apply them to our advantage? From evil, good may
+come; from the little, springs greatness. A reckless gamester, to defy
+the pangs of hunger, which might drag him from his beloved cards,
+brings to the gaming table slices of bread with ham between. If other
+men despise--or deplore, according to their passing mood--his folly,
+to their own pleasure and profit can they still turn his invention.
+The sandwich has become a universal possession for all time, though
+for a century the earl who created it has lain dead. His foibles
+should be forgotten, his one redeeming virtue remembered. For him a
+fair and spacious niche in the world's Valhalla.
+
+A hero indeed is he who left the sandwich as an heirloom to humanity.
+It truly is the staff of life, a substantial meal for starving
+traveller or bread-winner; but none the less an incomparable work of
+art, a joy to the _gourmand_ of fancy and discretion. The very name
+has come to be a pregnant symbol of holiday-making for all with souls
+to stir at the thought of food and drink. It is an inexhaustible
+stimulus to the imagination; to the memory a tender guide to the
+past's happiest days and hours.
+
+For, in fancy, between the slices of bread, place thick,
+uncompromising pieces of beef or mutton, and to the Alps you are at
+once transported. Again, on the short, fragrant grass you sit; from
+its temporary snow-grave a little above, Perren or Imboden fetches the
+bottle of wine, ordinary enough in reality, nectar as you drink it
+there; Seiler's supplies you take from the faithful knapsack, opening
+paper package after paper package; and your feast of big, honest,
+no-nonsense-about-them sandwiches you devour with the appetite of a
+schoolboy, and the zeal of the convert to plain living and high
+mountain climbing.
+
+Or, thin the slices, make them the covering for ham and tongue, or--if
+you be greatly favoured--for sardines and anchovies; and then memory
+will spread for you the banquet in the pleasant pastures that border
+the Cam, the willows bowering you from the August sun with shade, your
+boat moored to the cool bank; and with Claret cup, poured, mayhap,
+into old college tankards, you quench your thirst, while lazily you
+listen to the distant plashing of oars and lowing of kine, and all
+life drifts into an idle dream.
+
+Or, the ham of Bayonne, the _pâté de foie gras_ of Périgueux, you bury
+in the deep recesses of a long, narrow, crisp _petit pain_, and then,
+quick in a French railway carriage will you find yourself: a bottle of
+wine is at your side; the _Echo de Paris_ lies spread on the seat
+before you; out of the window long lines of poplars go marching with
+you toward Paris, whither you are bound "to make the feast."
+
+Grim and gruesome, it may be, are some of the memories evoked:
+ill-considered excursions to the bar of the English railway station,
+hasty lunches in chance bun shops, foolish testings of "ham and beef"
+limitations. But, henceforth, take heed to chasten your experience
+with the sandwich, that remembrance may not play you such scurvy
+tricks. Treat it aright with understanding and respect, and it will
+keep you in glad holiday humour, in the eating thereof as in the
+memory.
+
+Life, alas! is not all play in Thames sunshine and keen Alpine air, or
+in hopeful journeying through the pleasant land of France. But in the
+everyday of stern work and doleful dissipation the sandwich is an ally
+of infallible trustworthiness and infinite resources. In the hour of
+need it is never found wanting. To dine well, authorities have
+proclaimed in _ex cathedrâ_ utterance, you must lunch lightly; but
+not, therefore, does it follow that the light luncheon should be
+repellently prosaic. Let it be dainty--a graceful lyric--that it may
+fill you with hope of the coming dinner. And lyrical indeed is the
+savoury sandwich, well cut and garnished, served on rare faïence or
+old silver; a glass, or perhaps two, of Bordeaux of some famous
+vintage, to strengthen its subtle flavour.
+
+An ally again at afternoon tea it proves, if at five o'clock drink tea
+you must; a mistake, surely, if you value your dinner. To belittle
+the excellence of crumpets and muffins well toasted, would be to
+betray a narrow mind and senseless prejudice; but these buttery,
+greasy delicacies in private should be eaten, where the ladies of
+Cranford sucked their oranges. And at the best their excellence is
+homely. In the sandwich well devised is something exotic and strange,
+some charm elusive and mysterious.
+
+But let not the sandwich be of ham, except rarely, for the
+etherealized luncheon, the mystic tea. Reserve this well-meaning, but
+unpoetic, viand for the journey and the day of open-air sport, to
+which so admirably it is fitted. Nor so reserving it, will you be
+hampered in making what Dumas calls _tartines à l'Anglaise_. Infinity
+is at your disposal, if you be large and liberal enough to grasp the
+fact. One hundred numbered the varieties known to that genius of
+Glasgow, who, for his researches, has been honoured by a place in
+dictionary and Encyclopædia. To these you may add, if time and leisure
+you find for a trip to Budapest and the famous Kügler's, where, with
+your tea, will be served such exquisite sandwiches, so original and
+many in their devices that you can but come away marvelling, in all
+eagerness to emulate the artist who designed them.
+
+For the luncheon sandwich, choose from the countless treasures of
+the sea. Rapture is in the sardine, not the oiled from France, but
+the smoked from Norway; tunny fish or anchovies are dreams of delight;
+_caviar_, an ecstacy, the more delicious if a dash of lemon juice
+be added. And, if you would know these in perfection, use brown
+bread instead of white. Salmon is not to be scorned, nor turbot to
+be turned from in contempt; they become triumphs if you are not too
+niggardly with cayenne pepper; triumphs not unknown to Cheapside.
+Nor are the various so-called creams--of shrimps, of lobster, of
+salmon--altogether to be despised, and they, too, the better prove for
+the judicious touch of cayenne. But confine not your experiments to
+the conventional or the recommended. Overhaul the counter of the
+fishmonger. Set your wits to work. Cultivate your artistic instincts.
+Invent! Create! Many are the men who have painted pictures: few those
+who have composed a new and perfect sandwich.
+
+Upon the egg, likewise, you may rely for inspiration--the humble hen's
+egg, or the lordly plover's. Hard-boiled, in thin slices (oh! the
+memories of Kügler's, and the Russian railway station, and the _hor
+d'oeuvres_, Tartar-guarded sideboard, now awakened!) or well grated;
+by itself, or in endless combinations, the egg will ever repay your
+confidence.
+
+Upon sausage, also, you may count with loving faith. _Butterbrod mit
+Wurst_--_Wurst_ and philosophy, these are the German masterpieces. And
+here, you may visit the _delicatessen_ shop to good purpose.
+Goose-liver, Brunswick, garlic, Bologna, truffled--all fulfil their
+highest destiny, when in thinnest of thin slices, you lay them between
+slices no less thin of buttered bread--brown or white, as artistic
+appropriateness suggests--a faint suspicion of mustard to lend them
+piquancy.
+
+Beef and mutton, when not cut in Alpine chunks, are comforting, and
+with mustard duly applied, grateful as well. Fowl and game, galantine
+and tongue, veal and brawn--no meat there is, whether fresh or boned
+or potted, that does not adapt itself gracefully to certain occasions,
+to certain needs. And here, again, be not slow to arrange new
+harmonies, to suggest new schemes. It should be your endeavor always
+to give style and individuality to your sandwiches.
+
+Cheese in shavings, or grated, has great merit. Greater still has the
+cool cucumber, fragrant from its garden ground, the unrivalled tomato,
+the crisp, sharp mustard and cress. Scarce a green thing growing that
+will not lend itself to the true artist in sandwich-making. Lettuce,
+celery, watercress, radishes--not one may you not test to your own
+higher happiness. And your art may be measured by your success in
+proving the onion to be the poetic soul of the sandwich, as of the
+salad bowl. For afternoon tea the dainty green sandwich is the
+daintiest of them all.
+
+If to sweets your taste incline, then easily may you be gratified,
+though it be a taste smacking of the nursery and the schoolroom. Jams
+and marmalades you may press into service; chocolate or candied fruit.
+And sponge cake may take the place of bread, and, with strawberries
+between, you have the American strawberry short-cake.
+
+But, whatever your sandwich, above all things see that its proportions
+be delicate and symmetrical; that it please the eye before ever the
+first fragment has passed into the mouth.
+
+
+
+
+A PERFECT DINNER
+
+
+Fashion and art have little in common. Save for chance, they would
+remain always as the poles apart. The laws of the one are transitory,
+of the other eternal; and as irreconcilable are they in the
+observance. Make then your choice between them, since no man may serve
+two masters.
+
+Know that if ever the noble art of cookery be wrecked, it will be upon
+the quicksands of Fashion. In many ways is it threatened by the
+passing mode, but, above all others, one danger looms up before it,
+grim, relentless, tragic: the more awful because, to the thoughtless,
+at first it seems sweet as siren's singing. It is an evil born of the
+love of display and of the keen competition between Fashion's
+votaries. For they who would pose as delicate diners, think to eclipse
+their rivals by number of courses and bewildering variety. How to
+prolong the _menu_, rather than how to perfect it, is their constant
+study. In excess they would emulate the banquets of the ancients,
+though they are too refined by far to revive the old vomitories--the
+indispensable antidote. Dish follows dish, conceit is piled upon
+conceit; and with what result? Before dinner is half over, palates are
+jaded, "fine shades" can no more be appreciated, every new course
+awakens fear of the morrow's indigestion. Or else, pleasure is
+tempered by caution, a melancholy compromise; nothing is really eaten,
+the daintiest devices are but trifled with, and dinner is degraded
+into a torture fit for Tantalus. Surely, never was there a more cruel,
+fickle mistress than Fashion! Sad, immeasurably sad, the fate of her
+worshippers.
+
+Art despises show, it disdains rivalry, and it knows not excess. A
+Velasquez or a Whistler never overloads his canvas for the sake of
+gorgeous detail. To the artist in words, superfluous ornament is the
+unpardonable sin. And so with the lovers of Gasterea, the tenth and
+fairest of the Muses. Better by far Omar Khayyam's jug of wine and
+loaf of bread, if both be good, than all the ill-regulated banquets of
+a Lucullus. Who would hesitate between the feasts of Heliogabalus and
+the frugal fowl and the young kid, the raisins, figs, and nuts of
+Horace?
+
+It matters not how many courses between oysters and coffee Fashion may
+decree, if, turning your back upon her and her silly pretensions, you
+devise a few that it will be a privilege for your guests to eat, a joy
+for them to remember. Bear in mind the master's model luncheon and its
+success. No _menu_ could have been simpler; none more delicious. The
+table was laid for three, a goodly number, for all the slurs cast upon
+it. At each plate were "two dozen oysters with a bright golden lemon;
+at each end of the table stood a bottle of Sauterne, carefully wiped
+all except the cork, which showed unmistakably that it was long since
+the wine had been bottled." After the oysters roasted kidneys were
+served; next, truffled _foie-gras_; then the famous _fondue_, the
+beautiful arrangement of eggs beaten up with cheese, prepared over a
+chafing-dish at table, stimulating appetite by all the delights of
+anticipation. Fruit followed, and coffee; and last, two liqueurs, "one
+a spirit, to clear, and the other an oil, to soothe." Be not content
+to read, but go and do likewise!
+
+Imagine a dinner planned on the same pattern, and the conventional
+banquet of the day soon will seem to you the monstrosity it is.
+Observe two all-important rules and you may not wander far wrong. One
+is to limit the number of courses; the other to serve first the
+substantial dishes, then those that are lighter, first the simpler
+wines, afterwards those of finer flavours.
+
+The _hors d'oeuvre_, however, is an exception. If too substantial it
+would defeat its end. It must whet the appetite, not blunt it. In its
+flavour must its strength lie; at once keen and subtle, it should
+stimulate, but never satisfy. An anchovy salad touches perfection; the
+anchovies--the boneless species from France--the olives skilfully
+stoned, the capers in carefully studied proportions, the yellow of the
+egg well grated, the parsley, chopped fine, must be arranged by an
+artist with a fine feeling for decorative effect, and the dressing of
+oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt, poured gently over the design so as
+not to destroy the poetry of line and colour. A crisp Vienna roll,
+with sweet fresh butter, makes an excellent accompaniment, but one to
+be enjoyed in moderation.
+
+_Crème Soubise_ is the soup to follow. Thick, creamy, onion-scented,
+the first spoonful enchants, and a glamour is at once cast over dinner
+and diners. Sufficing in itself, it needs neither Parmesan nor toast
+to enhance its merits. Like a beautiful woman, unadorned it is adorned
+the most.
+
+Admirably, it prepares the way for oysters, deftly scalloped, with
+shallots and fragrant _bouquet garni_ to lend them savour, and bread
+crumbs to form a rich golden-brown outer covering. If not unmindful of
+the eye's pleasure, you will make as many shells as there are guests
+serve the purpose of a single dish.
+
+Without loitering or dallying with useless _entrées_, come at once to
+the one substantial course of the pleasant feast--and see that it be
+not too substantial. Avoid the heavy, clumsy, unimaginative joint.
+Decide rather for idyllic, _Tournedos aux Champignons_; the fillet
+tender and _saignant_, as the French say, the mushrooms, not of the
+little button variety, suggesting tins or bottles, but large and
+black and fresh from the market. Rapture is their inevitable sauce:
+rapture too deep for words. To share the same plate _pommes soufflées_
+may be found worthy.
+
+None but the irreverent would seek to blur their impressions by eating
+other meats after so delectable a dish. Order, rather, a vegetable
+salad, fresh and soothing: potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, celery, a
+suspicion of garlic, and a sprinkling of parsley. Eat slowly; foolish
+is the impatient man who gallops through his pleasures in hot haste.
+
+And now, be bold, defy convention, and do away with sweets. After so
+tender a poem, who could rejoice in the prose of pudding? But "a last
+course at dinner, wanting cheese, is like a pretty woman with only one
+eye." Therefore, unless you be blind to beauty, let cheese be served.
+Port Salut will do as well as another; neither too strong nor too
+mild, it has qualities not to be prized lightly.
+
+Fruit is the sweet _envoy_ to the Ballade of Dinner. And of all
+winter's fruits, the fragrant, spicy little Tangerine orange is most
+delicious and suggestive. Its perfume alone, to those who have dined
+discreetly, is a magic pass to the happy land of dreams. Conversation
+rallies, wit flashes, confidences are begotten over walnuts and
+almonds, and so, unless in surly, taciturn mood--as who could be after
+so exquisite a dinner?--let these have a place upon your _menu_.
+
+See that your wines are as perfect of their kind as your courses. Too
+many would be a dire mistake. A good Sauterne, a light Burgundy will
+answer well if "of the first quality." Cheap, or of a poor vintage,
+they will ruin the choicest dish.
+
+Upon coffee, too, much depends. It must be strong, it must be rich, it
+must be hot. But strength and richness may not be had unless it be
+fresh roasted and ground. Worse a hundredfold you may do than to mix
+Mocha with Mysore; theirs is one of the few happy unions. If romance
+have charm for you, then finish with a little glass of green
+Chartreuse--the yellow is for the feeble and the namby-pamby;
+powerful, indeed, is the spell it works, powerful and ecstatic.
+
+And having thus well and wisely dined, the cares of life will slip
+from you; its vexations and annoyances will dwindle into nothingness.
+Serene, at peace with yourself and all mankind, you may then claim as
+your right the true joys of living.
+
+
+
+
+AN AUTUMN DINNER
+
+
+Why sigh if summer be done, and already grey skies, like a pall, hang
+over fog-choked London town? The sun may shine, wild winds may blow,
+but every evening brings with it the happy dinner hour. With the
+autumn days foolish men play at being pessimists, and talk in
+platitudes of the cruel fall of the leaf and death of love. And what
+matter? May they not still eat and drink? May they not still know that
+most supreme of all joys, the perfect dish perfectly served? Small
+indeed is the evil of a broken heart compared to a coarsened palate or
+disordered digestion.
+
+"Therefore have we cause to be merry!--and to cast away all care."
+Autumn has less to distract from the pleasure that never fails. The
+glare of foolish sunlight no longer lures to outdoor debauches, the
+soft breath of the south wind no longer breathes hope of happiness in
+Arcadian simplicity. We can sit in peace by our fireside, and dream
+dreams of a long succession of triumphant _menus_. The touch of frost
+in the air is as a spur to the artist's invention; it quickens
+ambition, and stirs to loftier aspiration. The summer languor is
+dissipated, and with the re-birth of activity is re-awakened desire
+for the delicious, the _piquante_, the fantastic.
+
+Let an autumn dinner then be created! dainty, as all art must be, with
+that elegance and distinction and individuality without which the
+masterpiece is not. Strike the personal note; forswear commonplace.
+
+The glorious, unexpected overture shall be _soupe aux moules_. For
+this great advantage it can boast: it holds the attention not only in
+the short--all too short--moment of eating, but from early in the
+morning of the eventful day; nor does it allow itself to be forgotten
+as the eager hours race on. At eleven--and the heart leaps for delight
+as the clock strikes--the _pot-au-feu_ is placed upon the fire; at
+four, tomatoes and onions--the onions white as the driven
+snow--communing in all good fellowship in a worthy saucepan follow;
+and at five, after an hour's boiling, they are strained through a
+sieve, peppered, salted, and seasoned. And now is the time for the
+mussels, swimming in a sauce made of a bottle of white wine, a
+_bouquet-garni_, carrot, excellent vinegar, and a glass of ordinary
+red wine, to be offered up in their turn, and some thirty minutes will
+suffice for the ceremony. At this critical point, bouillon, tomatoes,
+and mussels meet in a proper pot well rubbed with garlic, and an
+ardent quarter of an hour will consummate the union. As you eat,
+something of the ardour becomes yours, and in an ecstasy the dinner
+begins.
+
+Sad indeed would it prove were imagination exhausted with so promising
+a prelude. Each succeeding course must lead to new ecstasy, else will
+the dinner turn out the worst of failures. In _turbot au gratin_, the
+ecstatic possibilities are by no means limited. In a chaste silver
+dish, make a pretty wall of potatoes, which have been beaten to flour,
+enlivened with pepper and salt, enriched with butter and cream--cream
+thick and fresh and altogether adorable--seasoned with Parmesan
+cheese, and left on the stove for ten minutes, neither more nor less;
+let the wall enclose layers of turbot, already cooked and in pieces,
+of melted butter and of cream, with a fair covering of bread-crumbs;
+and rely upon a quick oven to complete the masterpiece.
+
+After so pretty a conceit, where would be the poetry in heavy joints
+or solid meats? _Ris de veau aux truffes_ surely would be more in
+sympathy; the sweetbreads baked and browned very tenderly, the sauce
+fashioned of truffles duly sliced, marsala, lemon juice, salt and
+_paprika_, with a fair foundation of benevolent bouillon. And with so
+exquisite a dish no disturbing vegetable should be served.
+
+And after? If you still hanker for the roast beef and horseradish of
+Old England, then go and gorge yourself at the first convenient
+restaurant. Would you interrupt a symphony that the orchestra might
+play "God save the Queen"? Would you set the chorus in "Atalanta in
+Calydon" to singing odes by Mr Alfred Austen? There is a place for
+all things, and the place for roast beef is not on the ecstatic
+_menu_. Grouse, rather, would meet the diner's mood--grouse with
+memories of the broad moor and purple heather. Roast them at a clear
+fire, basting them with maternal care. Remember that they, as well as
+pheasants and partridges, should "have gravy in the dish and
+bread-sauce in a cup." Their true affinity is less the vegetable,
+however artistically prepared, than the salad, serenely simple, that
+discord may not be risked. Not this the time for the bewildering
+_macédoine_, or the brilliant tomato. Choose, instead, lettuce; crisp
+cool _Romaine_ by choice. Sober restraint should dignify the dressing;
+a suspicion of chives may be allowed; a sprinkling of well-chopped
+tarragon leaves is indispensable. Words are weak to express, but the
+true poet strong to feel the loveliness now fast reaching its climax.
+
+It is autumn, the mood is fantastic: a sweet, if it tend not to the
+vulgarity of heavy puddings and stodgy pies, will introduce an
+amusing, a sprightly element. _Omelette soufflée_ claims the
+privilege. But it must be light as air, all but ethereal in substance,
+a mere nothing to melt in the mouth like a beautiful dream. And yet in
+melting it must yield a flavour as soft as the fragrance of flowers,
+and as evanescent. The sensation must be but a passing one that
+piques the curiosity and soothes the excited palate. A dash of
+orange-flower water, redolent of the graceful days that are no more,
+another of wine from Andalusian vineyards, and the sensation may be
+secured.
+
+By the law of contrasts the vague must give way to the decided. The
+stirring, glorious climax after the brief, gentle interlude, will be
+had in _canapé des olives farcies_, the olives stuffed with anchovies
+and capers, deluged with cayenne, prone on their beds of toast and
+girded about with astonished watercress.
+
+Fruit will seem a graceful afterthought; pears all golden, save where
+the sun, a passionate lover, with his kisses set them to blushing a
+rosy red; grapes, purple and white and voluptuous; figs, overflowing
+with the exotic sweetness of their far southern home; peaches, tender
+and juicy and desirable. To eat is to eschew all prose, to spread the
+wings of the soul in glad poetic flight. What matter, indeed, if the
+curtains shut out stormy night or monstrous fog?
+
+Rejoice that no blue ribbon dangles unnecessarily and ignominiously
+at your buttonhole. Wine, rich wine to sing in the glass with "odorous
+music," the autumn dinner demands. Burgundy, rich red Burgundy, it
+should be; Beaune or Pomard as you will, to fire the blood and set the
+fancy free. And let none other but yourself warm it; study its
+temperature as the lover might study the frowns and smiles of his
+beloved. And the "Spirit of Wine" will sing in your hearts that you
+too may triumph
+
+    In the savour and scent of his music,
+    His magnetic and mastering song.
+
+And the Burgundy will make superfluous Port and Tokay, and all the
+dessert wines, sweet or dry, which unsympathetic diners range before
+them upon the coming of the fruit.
+
+Drink nothing else until wineglass be pushed aside for cup of coffee,
+black and sweet of savour, a blend of Mocha and Mysore. Rich, thick,
+luxurious, Turkish coffee would be a most fitting epilogue. But then,
+see that you refuse the more frivolous, feminine liqueurs. Cognac, old
+and strong-hearted, alone would meet the hour's emotions--Cognac, the
+gift of the gods, the immortal liquid. Lean back and smoke in
+silence, unless speech, exchanged with the one kind spirit, may be
+golden and perfect as the dinner.
+
+
+
+
+A MIDSUMMER DINNER
+
+
+At midsummer, the _gourmand_ subsists chiefly on hope of the good time
+coming. The 12th ushers in season of glorious plenty. But, for the
+moment, there is a lull in the market's activity. Green things there
+are in abundance; but upon green things alone it is not good for man
+to live. Consult the oracle; turn to the immortal, infallible
+"Almanack," and confirmation of this sad truth will stare you in the
+face plainly, relentlessly. Sucking-pig is sole consolation offered by
+benevolent De la Reynière to well-nigh inconsolable man. But what a
+poem in the sucking-pig that gambols gaily over his pages: a delicious
+roasted creature, its little belly stuffed full of liver and truffles
+and mushrooms, capers, anchovies, aromatic pepper, and salt, all
+wrought together into one elegant _farce_; while in dish apart, as
+indispensable acolyte, an orange sauce waits to complete the
+masterpiece! _En daube_, this amiable little beast is not to be
+despised, nor _en ragoût_ need it be dismissed with disdain, though,
+let man of letters beware! The Society of Authors, with his welfare at
+heart, should warn him while still there is time. What zest might be
+given to the savourless _Author_, their organ, were its columns well
+filled with stately and brilliant discourses upon food and good
+eating. How the writer of delicate perceptions should eat: is that
+not, as subject, prettier and more profitable far than how much money
+he can make by publishing here and lecturing there?
+
+The poor _gourmand_, in sorry plight during midsummer's famine, may
+seek blessed light also from Filippini, Delmonico's cook. Out of the
+fulness of his heart he speaketh, leaving not one of August's
+thirty-one shortening days without elaborate _menu_. But London must
+fast while New York feasts. At Delmonico's, happy diners may smile
+gracious welcome to Lima beans and sweet corn, to succotash and
+egg-plant, to chicken _à l'okra_ and clam chowder, but what hope for
+the patrons of Verrey's and Nichol's? What hope, unless, forthwith,
+they emigrate to that promised land beyond the broad Atlantic? For
+the rest, Filippini reveals not the originality, the invention that
+one would have hoped from him, even at the season when men are struck
+dead by the sun in the streets of his dear town of adoption. Roast
+turkey, with cranberry sauce, is suggestive of November's drear days;
+Brussels sprouts sum up greengrocers' resources in midwinter. But why
+falter? Hope need never be abandoned by the wise, whose faith is
+strong in himself.
+
+The season presents difficulties, but the beautiful dinner may still
+be designed. To meet August's flaming mood, it should be rich, and
+frankly voluptuous. Let flowers that bespeak autumn's approach and the
+fulness of harvest give the dinner its keynote. In Delft bowl, of
+appropriate coarseness, heap the late summer's first dahlias, all
+scarlet and gold as London's sunset at the fall of the year. To the
+earth's ripeness and fertility their bold, unabashed hues bear loud
+and triumphant witness.
+
+Let the soup be at once tribute and farewell to spring that has gone.
+Regret will be luxuriously expressed in _purée de petits pois_;
+spinach added to the fresh peas to lend flavour and colour, a dash of
+sugar for sweetness' sake, a pinch of _paprika_ to counteract it, a
+suspicion of onion to strengthen it. Arrowroot, in discreet measure,
+will answer for thickening, and impart more becoming consistency even
+than flour. Pleasure in the eating will be tempered by sorrow in the
+prospect of parting, and therefore intensified a hundredfold. Where
+the joy in possession but for the ever-present fear of loss?
+
+With the second course, banish regret. Forget yesterday; be
+indifferent to to-morrow; revel riotously in to-day. _Hure de saumon à
+la Cambacérès_ will point out the way to supreme surrender. Close to
+the head, the delicate silver-rose of the fish must be cut in lavish
+proportions; braised gently, its removal to the dish that is waiting
+is signal to surround it with truffles and mushrooms and stoned
+olives--garland beyond compare; a sauce of drawn butter, seasoned with
+_paprika_ and lemon juice and parsley, is essential accompaniment. And
+now the present truly has conquered!
+
+The third course must not betray the second's promise. Gay and
+fantastic, it must be well able to stand the dread test of
+comparison. _Rognons d'agneau à l'éþicurienne_ enters nobly into the
+breach; the lamb's dainty kidneys are split and grilled with decorum,
+their fragrant centres are adorned with sympathetic _sauce Tartare_,
+golden potatoes _à la Parisienne_ insist upon serving as garniture,
+and Mr Senn demands, as finishing touch, the stimulating seduction of
+_sauce Poivrade_. Who now will say that August is barren of delicious
+devices?
+
+To follow: _poulet sauté à l'Hongroise_, the clash of the Czardas
+captured and imprisoned in a stew-pan. With the Racoczy's wild drumming
+stirring memory into frenzy, stew the fowl, already cut into six
+willing pieces, with butter, a well-minced onion, pepper--_paprika_
+by choice--and salt; ten minutes will suffice--how, indeed, endure
+the strain a second longer? Then to the notes of the cymbal, moisten
+with _Béchamel_ sauce and fair quantity of cream, and rejoice in
+the fine Romany rapture for just twenty minutes more. Decorate with
+_croûtons_, and send fancy, without fetters, wandering across the
+plains and over the mountains of song-bound Magyarland. To play the
+gypsy, free as the deer in the forest, as the bird in the air, is not
+this as it should be in the month, more than all others, pledged
+to _pleinairisme_? Insipid, as life without love, is the dinner without
+imagination.
+
+Vegetables have no special place in the scheme of August's dinner. But
+a salad will not come amiss. Remember, the feast is ordered in sheer
+voluptuousness of spirit. The fifth course calls for the scarlet
+splendour of tomatoes; and the presiding dahlias, in bowl of Delft,
+clamour for the gold of _mayonnaise_ sauce to carry out the exulting
+trumpeting harmony. A hint, here, to the earnest, ambitious
+_gourmand_; if cream be worked, deftly and slowly, into the thickening
+sauce, sublime will be the results.
+
+A sweet, at this juncture, would err if over-chaste in conception.
+Picture to yourself the absurd figure cut by tapioca pudding or apple
+dumpling on conscientiously voluptuous _menu_? A _macédoine méringuée_
+would have more legitimate claim to close the banquet with
+distinction. August supplies fruit without stint: plums and greengages
+and apricots and nectarines and peaches and pears and grapes and
+bananas; all join together to sweet purpose, with ecstatic intent; a
+large wineglass of Claret, a generous sprinkling of Cognac will guard
+against puerility. The protecting _méringue_ should be crisp and pale
+golden brown; and later it will need the reinforcement of thick
+luscious cream.
+
+A sweet fails to delight, unless a savoury comes speedily after.
+_Caviar de Russie en crêpes_ is worthy successor of _macédoine
+méringue_. Mingle cream with the _caviar_, and none who eats will have
+cause to complain. It reconciles to the barbarous, even where Tolstoi
+and Marie Bashkirtseff may have failed.
+
+To dally with fruit is graceful excuse to linger longer over wine.
+Plums and greengages, their bloom still fresh, their plump roundness
+never yet submitted to trial by fire, figs--pale northern ghosts,
+alas!--peaches, grapes, make exquisite interlude--between dinner and
+coffee. Refrain not: abstinence, of all follies created by man, is the
+most wicked, the most unpardonable.
+
+Drink Chambertin, that the song in your heart may be fervent and firm.
+Drink, that your courage may be strong for the feasting. Shake off
+the shackles of timidity. Be fearless and brave, turning a deaf ear to
+the temptations of the temperate. To be moderate at midsummer is to
+disregard the imperative commands of immoderate nature.
+
+Coffee, made as the Turks make it, will bring languorous, irresistible
+message from the sensuous East. _Fine Champagne_ will add the energy
+of the fiery West. Adorable combination! Oh, East is East, and West is
+West; but the twain the day of the August dinner shall meet.
+
+
+
+
+TWO SUPPERS
+
+
+Tradition is a kindly tyrant. Why then strive to shake off its
+shackles? To bow the neck gladly beneath the yoke is at times to win
+rich reward, first in charm of association, and then in pleasantness
+of actual fact.
+
+Is there not a tradition in England that supper is more appropriate to
+the quiet of Sunday evenings than dinner? No use to ask whence it
+arose or whither it leads. There it is, though many would evade it as
+senseless makeshift. To forswear dinner for all time and eternity
+would be worse than folly; it is life's most solemn, most joyous
+ceremony. But once and again, for dear sake of contrast, to find a
+seducing substitute is wisdom in a world where all pleasures fail, and
+man is constant to one thing never. And now that summer has come and
+holds the green earth in its ardent embrace, now that days are long,
+and sweetest hours are those when the sun sinks low, there is new
+delight in the evening meal that leaves one free to dream in the
+twilight, that does not summon one indoors just as all outdoors is
+loveliest. Supper on every day in the week would be a mistake; but on
+one in seven it may well be commended, especially when the month is
+June. In the afternoon, tea is served in the garden, or whatever
+London can offer in the garden's stead. There are a few strawberries
+in a pretty old porcelain dish to lend an air of dainty substance, and
+there is rich cream in which they may hide their pretty blushes; and
+there is gay talk and happy silence. Indolent hours follow. Is it not
+Sunday, and are not all weekly cares pigeon-holed out of sight?
+
+Nor do the advantages of the occasional supper end here. It is
+excellent excuse for the ice-cold banquet which in the warm
+summer-time has its own immeasurable virtues. A supper should be cold;
+else it deteriorates into mere sham dinner. Never do cold dishes seem
+more delicious than when cruel thermometer is at fever heat. You see?
+There is logic in the Sunday evening supper, at this season of all
+seasons for love, and eating, and drinking.
+
+But supper does not mean, necessarily, veal and ham pie, above which
+British imagination dares not soar. It is not limited to the
+half-demolished joint--sad wreck of midday's meal. It may be as fair
+and harmonious as dinner itself, as noble a tribute to the artist, as
+superb a creation. Only the thoughtless and prosaic will dismiss it
+carelessly in the ordering, believing that any odds and ends will
+answer. Whatever is left over is to many the one possible conception
+of the late evening meal. But the _gourmand_, exulting in his
+gluttony, makes of it a work of art, good in the eating, good in the
+remembrance thereof.
+
+Summer allows wide scope for his fertile fancy. He may begin with
+salmon, refreshing to the eye in its arrangement of pale silver and
+rose, cold as the glaciers of Greenland after its long hours of repose
+on voluptuous bed of ice. A _mayonnaise_ sauce, creamy and rich,
+turning the silver to gold, like a fairy godmother of legend, is the
+cherished accompaniment. The feeling of wonder, aroused in the hours
+of watching under the trees, being still upper-most, it will seem as
+if the soft hues of the afterglow had been embodied in this exquisite
+prologue, with its rose and citron, its gold and soft grey tints.
+
+Tender spring chickens may then give greeting to the summer-time. They
+also will have spent hours in close communion with solid blocks of
+ice, and will be as cool as the breezes that blow over the high snow
+fields of Switzerland. For, be it noted in passing, without a
+refrigerator the perfect supper is sheer impossibility. Success
+depends largely upon temperature. Lukewarm supper would be as
+detestable as a lukewarm dinner. With the innocent chickens, chilling
+and chaste, a green salad will be as appropriate as edelweiss on
+Alpine slopes. It should be made of the hearts of the youngest of
+young cabbage lettuces, touched with onions, and fatigued with the one
+most admirable salad dressing that man ever devised. Linger as long as
+may be, for this surely is one of the beautiful moments that repay the
+artist for his toiling and his intervals of despair.
+
+Asparagus will prove most seemly successor. Let it also be cold beyond
+suspicion. A sauce of vinegar and oil, pepper and salt, force it to
+yield its most subtle sweetness. It will prove another course to call
+for lingering. Unless happiness be realised, of what use is it to be
+happy? He who is not conscious of pleasure when he eats is not worthy
+to sit at table with the elect. Like the animals, he is content to
+feed, and the art of the cook is, alas! lost upon him.
+
+A savoury at this banquet would be superfluous. The presence of cheese
+would be but deference to convention, and faithfulness to tradition
+does not demand as its price sacrifice of all freedom in detail. The
+asparagus would be dishonoured were it to give place to aught more
+substantial than strawberries. Sometimes in the day's _menu_, as in a
+decorative scheme, loveliness is enhanced by repetition. As a second
+curve emphasises the grace of the first, so strawberries at supper
+carry out with great elegance the strawberry scheme of afternoon tea.
+Pretty hillocks of sugar, and deep pools of cream, make a rich setting
+for this jewel among fruits.
+
+The wine, clearly, should be white, and it, too, should be
+iced--remember the month is June. Few Rhine wines could consistently
+refuse to be pressed into service. But French vineyards have greater
+charm than German, though the Lorelei may sing in near waters, and to
+Graves, or Barsac, preference will be wisely proffered.
+
+Be fearful of striking a false note. See that the coffee, black and
+strong though it be, is as cold as wine and salmon, chicken and salad.
+And pour the green Chartreuse into glasses that have been first filled
+with crushed ice. And as you smoke your cigarette, ask yourself if the
+Sunday evening supper tradition be not one crying for preservation at
+all costs.
+
+When another week has rolled by and disappeared into the _Ewigkeit_,
+vary the _menu_. An element of the _bizarre_, the strange, the
+unaccustomed, often lends irresistible piquancy. Be faithful to the
+refrigerator, however fickle to other loves. Open the banquet with a
+stirring salad fashioned of red herring and potatoes, and, perhaps, a
+few leaves of lettuce. It savours of the sensational, and stimulates
+appetite.
+
+That disappointment may not ensue, desert well-trodden paths, and,
+borrowing from Germany, serve a dish of meat, amusing in its quaint
+variety. Slices of lamb may provide a pretty centre, surrounding them,
+scatter slices of the sausage of Brunswick and Bologna, here and there
+set in relief against a piece of grey _Leberwurst_. As garniture,
+encircle the dish with a garland of anchovies, curled up into
+enchanting little balls, and gherkins, and hard-boiled eggs cut in
+delicate rounds. Memories will crowd fast upon you as you eat;
+memories of the little German towns and their forgotten hilltops,
+visited in summers long since gone, of the little German inn, and the
+friendly land-lord, eager to please; of the foaming mugs of beer, and
+the tall, slender goblets of white wine. Before supper is done, you
+will have travelled leagues upon leagues into the playtime of the
+past.
+
+Cheese now is as essential as it would have been intrusive in the
+other _menu_. Gruyère should be your choice, and if you would have it
+of fine flavour, seek it not at the English cheesemonger's, but at the
+little German _delicatessen_ shop. Brown bread would best enter into
+the spirit of the feast.
+
+As epilogue, fruit can never be discordant, and what fruit in early
+June insists upon being eaten with such sweet persistency as the
+strawberry. But, on your German evening, fatigue it with Kirsch, leave
+it on its icy couch until the very last minute, and memories of the
+Lapérouse will mingle with those of the smoky inn of the Fatherland.
+
+Is there any question that Hock is the wine, when sausage and red
+herring and Gruyère cheese figure so prominently in the _menu's_
+composition? Drink it from tall slender glass, that it may take you
+fully into its confidence. Coffee need not be iced. In fact, it should
+positively be hot--can you doubt it? And Cognac now will prove more
+responsive to your mood than Chartreuse. There is no written law to
+regulate these matters. But the true artist needs no code to guide
+him. He knows instinctively what is right and what is wrong, and
+doubts can never assail him.
+
+
+
+
+ON SOUP
+
+
+"When all around the wind doth blow," draw close the curtains, build
+up a roaring fire, light lamp and candles, and begin your dinner with
+a good--_good_, mind you--dish of soup. Words of wisdom are these, to
+be pondered over by the woman who would make her evening dinner a
+joyful anticipation, a cherished memory.
+
+Soup, with so much else good and great, is misunderstood in an England
+merrier than dainty in her feasting. Better is this matter ordered
+across the Border. For the healthy-minded, Scotch mists have their
+compensation in Scotch broth; odoriferous and appetising is its very
+name. But in England, soup long since became synonymous with turtle,
+and the guzzling alderman of legend. Richness is held its one
+essential quality--richness, not strength. Too often, a thick, greasy
+mess, that could appeal but to the coarsest hunger, will be set
+before you, instead of the dish that can be comforting and sustaining
+both, and yet meddles not with the appetite. It should be but a
+prelude to the meal--the prologue, as it were, to the play--its
+excellence, a welcome forecast of delights to follow, a welcome
+stimulus to light talk and lighter laughter. Over _Julienne_ or
+_bisque_ frowns are smoothed away, and guests who sat down to table in
+monosyllabic gloom will plunge boldly into epigrammatic or anecdotic
+gaiety ere ever the fish be served.
+
+Magical, indeed, is the spell good soup can cast. Of its services as
+medicine or tonic, why speak? Beef tea gives courage to battle with
+pain and suffering; _consommé_ cheers the hours of convalescence. Let
+all honour be done to it for its virtues in the sick-room; but with so
+cheerful a subject, it is pleasanter to dwell on its more cheerful
+aspects.
+
+More legitimate is it to consider the happy part it plays in the
+traveller's programme. And for this--it must be repeated, as for all
+the best things in the _gourmand's_ life--one journeys to France. But
+first remember--that contrast may add piquancy to the French
+_menu_--the fare that awaits the weary, disconsolate traveller at
+English railway station: the stodgy bun, Bath and penny varieties
+both, and the triangular sandwich; the tea drawn overnight, and the
+lukewarm bovril, hopelessly inadequate substitute for soup freshly
+made from beef or stock. At a luncheon bar thus wickedly equipped,
+eating becomes what it never should be!--a sad, terrible necessity, a
+pleasureless safeguard against pangs of hunger, a mere animal
+function, and therefore a degradation to the human being educated to
+look upon food and drink--even so might the painter regard his
+colours, the sculptor his clay and marble--as means only to a perfect
+artistic end.
+
+Or, consider also, to make the contrast stronger, the choicest banquet
+American railways, for all the famed American enterprise, provide. To
+journey by the "Pullman vestibuled train" from New York to Chicago is
+luxury, if you will. Upon your point of view depends the exact amount
+of enjoyment yielded by meals eaten while you dash through the world
+at the rate of eighty miles an hour, more or less, and generally
+less. There is charm in the coloured waiters, each with gay flower in
+his buttonhole, and gayer smile on his jolly, black face; there is
+pretence in the cheap, heavy, clumsy Limoges off which you eat, out of
+which you drink, in the sham silver case in which your Champagne
+bottle is brought, if for Champagne you are foolish enough to call.
+But bitterness is in your wine cup, for the wine is flat; heaviness is
+in your breakfast or dinner, for bread is underdone and sodden, and
+butter is bad, and the endless array of little plates discourages with
+its suggestion of vulgar plenty and artless selection; and all is
+vanity and vexation, save the corn bread--the beautiful golden corn
+bread, which deserves a chapter to itself--and the fruit: the bananas
+and grapes, and peaches and oranges, luscious and ravishing as they
+seldom are on any but American soil. Nor will you mend matters by
+bestowing your patronage upon the railway restaurants of the big towns
+where you stop: the dirty, fly-bitten lunch counters. Pretentious,
+gorgeous, magnificent, they maybe; but good, no! All, even the
+privilege of journeying at the rate of eighty miles an hour, would
+you give for one bowl of good soup at the Amiens _buffet_.
+
+For, when everything is said, it is the soup which makes travelling so
+easy and luxurious in France. A breakfast, or a dinner, of courses,
+well-cooked, and well-served into the bargain, you may eat at many a
+wayside station. Wine, ordinary as its name, perhaps, but still good
+and honest, is to be had for a paltry sum whenever the train may stop.
+Crisp rolls, light _brioches_ tempt you to unwise excesses. Not a
+province, scarce a town, but has its own special dainty; nougat at
+Montélimart, sausages at Arles, _pâté de foie gras_ at Pèrigueux; and
+so you might go on mapping out the country according to, not its
+departments, but its dishes. These, however, the experienced traveller
+would gladly sacrifice for the delicate, strong, refreshing,
+inspiriting _bouillon_, served at every _buffet_. This it is which
+helps one to forget fatigue and dust and cinders, and the odious
+Frenchman who will have all the windows shut. _Bouillon_, and not
+wine, gives one new heart to face the long night and the longer miles.
+With it the day's journey is well begun and well ended. It sustains
+and nourishes; and, better still, it has its own æsthetic value;
+perfect in itself, it is the one perfect dish for the place and
+purpose. No wonder, then, that it has kindled even Mr Henry James
+into at least a show of enthusiasm; his bowls of _bouillon_ ever
+remain in the reader's memory, the most prominent pleasures of his
+"Little Tour in France."
+
+Equally desirable in illness and in health, during one's journeys
+abroad and one's days at home, why is it then that soup has never yet
+been praised and glorified as it should? How is it that its greatness
+has inspired neither ode nor epic; that it has been left to a
+parody--clever, to be sure, but cleverness alone is not tribute
+sufficient--in a child's book to sing its perfections. It should be
+extolled, and it has been vilified; insults have been heaped upon it;
+ingratitude from man has been its portion. The soup tureen is as
+poetic as the loving cup; why should it suggest but the baldest prose
+to its most ardent worshippers?
+
+"Thick or clear?" whispers the restaurant waiter in your ear, as he
+points to the soups on the bill of fare. "Thick or clear,"--there you
+have the two all-important divisions. In that simple phrase is
+expressed the whole science of soupmaking; face to face with first
+principles it brings you. But whether you elect for the one or the
+other, this great fundamental truth there is, ever to be borne in
+mind: let fresh meat be the basis of your _consommé_ as of your
+_bisque_, of your _gumbo_ as of your _pâtes d'Italie_. True, in an
+emergency, Liebig, and all its many offshoots, may serve you--and
+serve you well. But if you be a woman of feeling, of fancy, of
+imagination, for this emergency alone will you reserve your Liebig.
+Who would eat tinned pineapple when the fresh fruit is to be had?
+Would you give bottled tomatoes preference when the gay _pommes
+d'amour_, just picked, ornament every stall in the market? Beef
+extract in skilful hands may work wonders; the soup made from it may
+deceive the connoisseur of great repute. But what then? Have you no
+conscience, no respect for your art, that you would thus deceive?
+
+Tinned soups also there be in infinite variety, ox-tail, and
+mock-turtle, and _Julienne_, and gravy, and chicken broth, and many
+more than one likes to think of. But dire indeed must be your need
+before you have recourse to them. They, too, will answer in the hour
+of want. But at the best, they prove but make-shifts, but paltry
+make-believes to be avoided, even as you steer clear of the soup
+vegetables and herbs--bits of carrot and onion and turnip and who
+knows what?--bottled ingeniously, pretty to the eye, without flavour
+to the palate. One does not eat to please the sense of sight alone!
+
+When, heroically, you have forsworn the ensnaring tin and the
+insinuating bottle, the horizon widens before you. "Thick and clear":
+the phrase suggests but narrow compass; broad beyond measure is the
+sphere it really opens.
+
+Of all the Doges of Bobbio, but one--if tradition be true--sickened of
+his hundred soups. Three hundred and sixty-five might have been their
+number with results no more disastrous. Given a cook of good instincts
+and gay imagination, and from one year's end to the other never need
+the same soup be served a second time.
+
+A word, first, as to its proper place on the _menu_. The conservative
+Briton might think this a subject upon which the last word long since
+had been spoken. If soup at all, then must it appear between _hors
+d'oeuvre_ and fish: as well for Catholic to question the doctrine of
+infallibility as for self-respecting man to doubt the propriety of
+this arrangement. But they don't know everything down in Great
+Britain, and other men there be of other minds. Order a dinner
+in the American West, and a procession of smiling, white-robed
+blacks--talking, alas! no more the good old darkey, but pure
+American--swoop down upon you, bringing at once, in disheartening
+medley, your blue-points, your gumbo, your terrapin, your reed birds,
+and your apple pie. What sacrilege! In the pleasantest little
+restaurant in all Rome, close to the Piazza Colonna, within sound of
+the Corso, was once to be seen any evening in the week--may be still,
+for that matter--a bemedalled major finishing his dinner with his
+_minestra_ instead of his _dolce_. But if a fat, little grey-haired
+man once consent to wear a coat scarce longer than an Eton jacket, may
+not, in reason, worse enormities be expected of him? Truth to tell,
+the British convention, borrowed from France, is the best. If, in
+good earnest, you would profit by your _potage_, give it place of
+honour at the top of the _menu_. Leave light and frivolous sweets to
+lighter, more frivolous moments, when, hunger appeased, man may unbend
+to trifles.
+
+What the great Alexandre calls the _grand consommé_ is the basis of
+all soup--and sauce making. Study his very word with reverence; carry
+out his every suggestion with devotion. Among the ingredients of this
+consummate _bouillon_ his mighty mind runs riot. Not even the
+adventures of the immortal Musketeers stimulated his fancy to wilder
+flights. His directions, large and lavish as himself, would the
+economical housewife read with awe and something of terror. Veal and
+beef and fowl--a venerable cock will answer--and rabbit and partridges
+of yester-year; these be no more than the foundation. Thrown into the
+_marmite_ in fair and fitting proportions, then must they be watched,
+anxiously and intelligently, as they boil; spoonfuls of the common
+_bouillon_ should be poured upon them from time to time; there must be
+added onions and carrots, and celery and parsley, and whatever
+aromatic herbs may be handy, and oil, if you have it; and after four
+hours of boiling slowly and demurely over a gentle fire, and, next,
+straining through coarse linen, you may really begin to prepare your
+soup.
+
+If to these heights the ordinary man--or woman--may not soar, then
+will the good, substantial, everyday _bouillon_, or _pot-au-feu_--made
+of beef alone, but ever flavoured with vegetables--fulfil the same
+purpose, not so deliciously, but still fairly well. In households
+where soup is, as it should be, a daily necessity, stock may be made
+and kept for convenience. But if you would have your _pot-au-feu_ in
+perfection, let the saucepan, or _marmite_--the English word is
+commonplace, the French term charms--be not of iron, but of
+earthenware: rich tawny brown or golden green in colour, as you see it
+in many a French market-place, if the least feeling for artistic
+fitness dwells within your soul. Seven hours are needed _pour faire
+sourire le pot-au-feu_--the expression is not to be translated. Where
+soups are concerned the English language is poor, and cold, and
+halting; the speech of France alone can honour them aright.
+
+With good _bouillon_ there is naught the genius may not do. Into it
+the French _chef_ puts a few small slices of bread, and, as you eat,
+you wonder if terrapin or turtle ever tasted better. With the addition
+of neatly-chopped carrots and onions, and turnips and celery, you have
+_Julienne_; or, with dainty asparagus tops, sweet fresh peas, tiny
+stinging radishes, delicate young onions, _printanier_, with its
+suggestions of spring and blossoms in every mouthful. This last,
+surely, is the lyric among soups. Decide upon cheese instead, and you
+will set a Daudet singing you a poem in prose: "_Oh! la bonne odeur de
+soupe au fromage!_" _Pâtes d'Italie_, _vermicelli_, _macaroni_, each
+will prove a separate ecstasy, if you but remember the grated Parmesan
+that must be sprinkled over it without stint--as in Italy. Days there
+be when nothing seems so in keeping as rice: others, when cabbage hath
+charm, that is, if first in your simmering _bouillon_ a piece of
+ham--whether of York, of Strasbourg, or of Virginia--be left for three
+hours or more; again, to thicken the golden liquid with tapioca may
+seem of all devices the most adorable. And so may you ring the changes
+day after day, week after week, month after month.
+
+If of these lighter soups you tire, then turn with new hope and
+longing to the stimulating list of _purées_ and _crèmes_. Let
+tomatoes, or peas, or beans, or lentils, as you will, be the keynote,
+always you may count upon a harmony inspiriting and divine; a rapture
+tenfold greater if it be enjoyed in some favourite corner at
+Marguery's or Voisin's, where the masterpiece awaits the chosen few.
+Or if, when London fogs are heavy and life proves burdensome, comfort
+is in the very name of broth, then put it to the test in its mutton,
+Scotch, chicken, or dozen and more varieties, and may it give you new
+courage to face the worst!
+
+But if for pleasure solely you eat your soup, as you should, unless
+illness or the blue devils have you firm in their grasp, a few
+varieties there be which to all the rest are even as is the rose to
+lesser flowers, as is the onion to vegetables of more prosaic virtue.
+Clams are a joy if you add to them but salt and pepper--cayenne by
+preference--and a dash of lemon juice: as a chowder, they are a
+substantial dream to linger over; but made into soup they reach the
+very topmost bent of their being: it is the end for which they were
+created. Of oysters this is no less true. Veal stock or mutton broth
+may pass as prosaic basis of the delicacy; but better depend upon milk
+and cream, and of the latter be not sparing. Mace, in discreet
+measure, left flowing in the liquid will give the finishing, the
+indispensable touch. Oh, the inexhaustible resources of the sea! With
+these delights rank _bisque_, that priceless _purée_, made of
+crayfish--in this case a pinch of allspice instead of mace--and if in
+its fullest glory you would know it, go eat it at the Lapérouse on the
+Quai des Grands Augustins; eat it, as from the window of the low room
+in the _entresol_, you look over toward the towers of Notre Dame.
+
+Be a good Catholic on Fridays, that, with _potages maigres_--their
+name, too, is legion--your soups may be increased and multiplied, and
+thus infinity become your portion.
+
+
+
+
+THE SIMPLE SOLE
+
+
+Have you ever considered the sole: the simple, unassuming sole, in
+Quaker-like garb, striking a quiet grey note in every fishmonger's
+window, a constant rebuke to the mackerel that makes such vain parade
+of its green audacity, of the lobster that flaunts its scarlet
+boldness in the face of the passer-by? By its own merits the sole
+appeals; upon no meretricious charm does it base its claim for notice.
+Flat and elusive, it seems to seek retirement, to beg to be forgotten.
+And yet, year by year, it goes on, unostentatiously and surely
+increasing in price; year by year, it establishes, with firm hold, its
+preeminence upon the _menu_ of every well-regulated _table d'hôte_.
+
+But here pause a moment, and reflect. For it is this very _table
+d'hôte_ which bids fair to be the sole's undoing. If it has been
+maligned and misunderstood, it is because, swaddled in bread-crumbs,
+fried in indifferent butter, it has come to be the symbol of hotel or
+_pension_ dinner, until the frivolous and heedless begin to believe
+that it cannot exist otherwise, that in its irrepressible bread-crumbs
+it must swim through the silent sea.
+
+The conscientious _gourmand_ knows better, however. He knows that
+bread-crumbs and frying-pan are but mere child's play compared to its
+diviner devices. It has been said that the number and various shapes
+of fishes are not "more strange or more fit for contemplation than
+their different natures, inclinations, and actions." But fitter
+subject still for the contemplative, and still more strange, is their
+marvellous, well-nigh limitless, culinary ambition. Triumph after
+triumph the most modest of them all yearns to achieve, and if this
+sublime yearning be ever and always suppressed and thwarted and
+misdoubted, the fault lies with dull, plodding, unenterprising humans.
+Not one yearns to such infinite purpose as the sole; not one is so
+snubbed and enslaved. A very Nora among fish, how often must it long
+to escape and to live its own life--or, to be more accurate, to die
+its own death!
+
+Not that bread-crumbs and frying-pan are not all very well in their
+way. Given a discreet cook, pure virginal butter, a swift fire, and a
+slice of fresh juicy lemon, something not far short of perfection may
+be reached. But other ways there are, more suggestive, more inspiring,
+more godlike. Turn to the French _chef_ and learn wisdom from him.
+
+First and foremost in this glorious repertory comes _sole à la
+Normande_, which, under another name, is the special distinction and
+pride of the Restaurant Marguery. Take your sole--from the waters of
+Dieppe would you have the best--and place it, with endearing,
+lover-like caress, in a pretty earthenware dish, with butter for only
+companion. At the same time, in sympathetic saucepan, lay mussels to
+the number of two dozen, opened and well cleaned, as a matter of
+course; and let each rejoice in the society of a stimulating mushroom;
+when almost done, but not quite, make of them a garland round the
+expectant sole; cover their too seductive beauty with a rich white
+sauce; re-kindle their passion in the oven for a few minutes; and
+serve immediately and hot. Joy is the result; pure, uncontaminated
+joy. If this be too simple for your taste, then court elaboration and
+more complex sensation after this fashion: from the first, unite the
+sole to two of its most devoted admirers, the oyster and the
+mussel--twelve, say, of each--and let thyme and fragrant herbs and
+onion and white wine and truffles be close witnesses of their union.
+Seize the sole when it is yet but half cooked; stretch it out gently
+in another dish, to which oysters and mussels must follow in hot,
+precipitate flight. And now the veiling sauce, again white, must have
+calf's kidney and salt pork for foundation, and the first gravy of the
+fish for fragrance and seasoning. Mushrooms and lemon in slices may be
+added to the garniture. And if at the first mouthful you do not thrill
+with rapture, the Thames will prove scarce deep and muddy enough to
+hide your shame.
+
+Put to severest test, the love of the sole for the oyster is never
+betrayed. Would you be convinced--and it is worth the trouble--experiment
+with _sole farcie aux huîtres_, a dish so perfect that surely,
+like manna, it must have come straight from Heaven. In prosaic
+practical language, it is thus composed: you stuff your sole with
+forcemeat of oysters and truffles, you season with salt and carrot
+and lemon, you steep it in white wine--not sweet, or the sole is
+dishonoured--you cook it in the oven, and you serve the happy fish
+on a rich _ragoût_ of the oysters and truffles. Or, another tender
+conceit that you may make yours to your own great profit and
+enlightenment, is _sole farcie aux crevettes_. In this case it is wise
+to fillet the sole and wrap each fillet about the shrimps, which have
+been well mixed and pounded with butter. A rich _Béchamel_ sauce and
+garniture of lemons complete a composition so masterly that, before
+it, as before a fine Velasquez, criticism is silenced.
+
+_Sole au gratin_, though simpler, is none the less desirable. Let your
+first care be the sauce, elegantly fashioned of butter and mushrooms
+and shallots and parsley; pour a little--on your own judgment you have
+best rely for exact quantity--into a baking-dish; lay the sole upon
+this liquid couch; deluge it with the remainder of the sauce,
+exhilarating white wine, and lemon juice; bury it under bread-crumbs,
+and bake it until it rivals a Rembrandt in richness and splendour.
+
+In antiquarian moments, _fricasey soals white_, and admit that your
+foremothers were more accomplished artists than you. What folly to
+boast of modern progress when, at table, the Englishman of to-day is
+but a brute savage compared with his ancestors of a hundred years and
+more ago! But take heart: be humble, read this golden book, and the
+day of emancipation cannot be very far distant. Make your _fricasey_
+as a step in the right direction. According to the infallible book,
+"skin, wash, and gut your soals very clean, cut off their heads, dry
+them in a cloth, then with your knife very carefully cut the flesh
+from the bones and fins on both sides. Cut the flesh long ways, and
+then across, so that each soal will be in eight pieces; take the heads
+and bones, then put them into a saucepan with a pint of water, a
+bundle of sweet herbs, an onion, a little whole pepper, two or three
+blades of mace, a little salt, a very little piece of lemon peel, and
+a little crust of bread. Cover it close, let it boil till half is
+wasted, then strain it through a fine sieve, put it into a stew-pan,
+put in the soals and half a pint of white wine, a little parsley
+chopped fine, a few mushrooms cut small, a piece of butter as big as
+an hen's egg, rolled in flour, grate a little nutmeg, set all together
+on the fire, but keep shaking the pan all the while till the fish is
+done enough. Then dish it up, and garnish with lemon." And now, what
+think you of that?
+
+If for variety you would present a brown _fricasey_, an arrangement in
+browns as startling as a poster by Lautrec or Anquetin, add anchovy to
+your seasoning, exchange white wine for red, and introduce into the
+mixture truffles and morels, and mushrooms, and a spoonful of catchup.
+The beauty of the colour none can deny; the subtlety of the flavour
+none can resist.
+
+Another step in the right direction, which is the old, will lead you
+to sole pie, a dish of parts. Eels must be used, as is the steak in a
+pigeon's pie for instance; and nutmeg and parsley and anchovies must
+serve for seasoning. It is a pleasant fancy, redolent of the days gone
+by.
+
+
+
+
+"BOUILLABAISSE";
+
+_A Symphony in Gold_
+
+
+Hear Wagner in Baireuth (though illusions may fly like dust before a
+March wind); see Velasquez in Madrid; eat _Bouillabaisse_ in
+Marseilles. And eat, moreover, with no fear of disenchantment; the
+saffron's gold has richer tone, the _ail's_ aroma sweeter savour,
+under hot blue southern skies than in the cold sunless north.
+
+How much Thackeray is swallowed with your _Bouillabaisse_? asks the
+cynical American, vowed to all eternity to his baked shad and
+soft-shelled crab; how much Thackeray? echoes the orthodox Englishman,
+whose salmon, cucumberless, smacks of heresy, and whose whiting, if it
+held not its tail decorously in its bread crumbed mouth, would be cast
+for ever into outer darkness. Sentiment there may be: not born,
+however, of Thackeray's verse, but of days spent in Provençal
+sunshine, of banquets eaten at Provençal tables. Call for
+_Bouillabaisse_ in the Paris restaurant, at the Lapérouse or
+Marguery's (you might call for it for a year and a day in London
+restaurants and always in vain); and if the dish brought back
+something of the true flavour, over it is cast the glamour and romance
+of its far southern home, of the land of troubadours and of Tartarin.
+But order it in Marseilles, and the flavour will all be there, and the
+sunshine and the gaiety, and the song as well; fact outstrips the
+imagination of even the meridional; the present defies memory to outdo
+its charm.
+
+And it must be in the Marseilles that glitters under midsummer's sun
+and grows radiant in its light. Those who have not seen Marseilles at
+this season know it not. The peevish finder of fault raves of drainage
+and dynamite, of dirt and anarchy. But turn a deaf ear and go to
+Marseilles gaily and without dread. Walk out in the early morning on
+the quays; the summer sky is cloudless; the sea as blue as in the
+painter's bluest dream; the hills but warm purple shadows resting upon
+its waters. The air is hot, perhaps, but soft and dry, and the breeze
+blows fresh from over the Mediterranean. Already, on every side, signs
+there are of the day's coming sacrifice. In sunlight and in shadow are
+piled high the sea's sweetest, choicest fruits: mussels in their
+sombre purple shells; lobsters, rich and brown; fish, scarlet and gold
+and green. Lemons, freshly plucked from near gardens, are scattered
+among the fragrant pile, and here and there trail long sprays of salt,
+pungent seaweed. The faint smell of _ail_ comes to you gently from
+unseen kitchens, the feeling of _Bouillabaisse_ is everywhere, and
+tender anticipation illumines the faces of the passers-by. Great is
+the pretence of activity in the harbour and in the streets; at a
+glance, mere paltry traffic might seem the city's one and only end.
+But Marseilles' true mission, the sole reason for its existence, is
+that man may know how goodly a thing it is to eat _Bouillabaisse_ at
+noon on a warm summer day.
+
+But when the hour comes, turn from the hotel, however excellent; turn
+from the Provençal version of the Parisian Duval, however cheap and
+nasty; choose rather the native headquarters of the immortal dish.
+Under pleasant awning sit out on the pavement, behind the friendly
+trees in tubs that suggest privacy, and yet hide nothing of the view
+beyond. For half the joy in the steaming, golden masterpiece is in the
+background found for it; in the sunlit harbour and forest of masts; in
+the classic shores where has disembarked so many a hero, from ancient
+Phenician or Greek, down to valiant Tartarin, with the brave camel
+that saw him shoot all his lions! A _coup de vin_, and, as you eat, as
+you watch, with eyes half blinded, the glittering, glowing picture,
+you begin to understand the meaning of the southern _galéjade_. Your
+heart softens, the endless beggars no longer beg from you in vain,
+while only the slenderness of your purse keeps you from buying out
+every boy with fans or matches, every stray Moor with silly slippers
+and sillier antimacassars; your imagination is kindled, so that later,
+at the gay _café_, where still you sit in the open street, as you look
+at the Turks and sailors, at the Arabs and Lascars, at the Eastern
+women in trousers and niggers in rags, in a word, at Marseilles'
+"Congress of Nations," that even Barnum in his most ambitious moments
+never approached, far less surpassed, you, too, believe that had Paris
+but its Canebière, it might be transformed into a little Marseilles on
+the banks of the Seine. So potent is the influence of blessed
+_Bouillabaisse_!
+
+Or, some burning Sunday, you may rise with the dawn and take early
+morning train for Martigues, lying, a white and shining barrier,
+between the Etangs de Berre and Caronte. And there, on its bridges and
+canal banks, idly watching the fishing-boats, or wandering up and down
+its olive-clad hill-sides, the morning hours may be gently loafed
+away, until the Angelus rings a joyful summons to M. Bernard's hotel
+in the shady _Place_. Dark and cool is the spacious dining-room; eager
+and attentive the bewildered Désirée. Be not a minute late, for M.
+Bernard's _Bouillabaisse_ is justly famed, and not only all
+Marseilles, but all the country near hastens thither to eat it on
+Sundays, when it is served in its _édition de luxe_. Pretty
+Arlésiennes in dainty fichus, cyclists in knickerbockers, rich
+Marseillais, painters from Paris join in praise and thanksgiving. And
+from one end of the world to the other, you might journey in vain in
+search of an emotion so sweet as that aroused by the first fragrant
+fumes of the dish set before you, the first rapturous taste of the
+sauce-steeped bread, of the strange fish so strangely seasoned.
+
+But why, in any case, remain content with salmon alone when
+_Bouillabaisse_ can be made, even in dark and sunless England? Quite
+the same it can never be as in the land of sunburnt mirth and jollity.
+The light and the brilliancy and the gaiety of its background must be
+ever missing in the home of fog and spleen. The gay little fish of the
+Mediterranean never swim in the drear, unresponsive waters that break
+on the white cliffs of England and the stern rocks of the Hebrides.
+But other fish there be, in great plenty, that, in the absence of the
+original, may answer as praiseworthy copies.
+
+After all, to cut turbot and whiting and soles and trout in small
+pieces, to cook them all together, instead of each separately, is not
+the unpardonable sin, however the British housewife may protest to the
+contrary. And as to the other ingredients, is not good olive oil sold
+in bottles in many a London shop? Are sweet herbs and garlic unknown
+in Covent Garden? Are there no French and Italian grocers in Soho,
+with whom saffron is no less a necessity than mustard or pepper? And
+bread? who would dare aver that England has no bakers?
+
+It is not a difficult dish to prepare. Its cooks may not boast of
+secrets known only to themselves, like the maker of process blocks or
+patent pills. Their methods they disclose without reservation, though
+alas! their genius they may not so easily impart. First of all, then,
+see to your sauce: oil, pure and sweet, is its foundation; upon _ail_
+and herbs of the most aromatic it depends for its seasoning. In this,
+place your fish selected and mixed as fancy prompts; a whiting, a
+sole--filleted of course--a small proportion of turbot, and as much
+salmon, if solely for the touch of colour it gives--the artist never
+forgets to appeal to the eye as to the palate. Boil thoroughly,
+sprinkling at the last moment sympathetic saffron on the
+sweet-smelling offering. Have ready thick slices of bread daintily
+arranged in a convenient dish; just before serving pour over them the
+greater part of the unrivalled sauce, now gold and glorious with its
+saffron tint; pour the rest, with the fish, into another dish--a bowl,
+would you be quite correct--and let as few seconds as possible elapse
+between dishing this perfect work of art and eating it. Upon its smell
+alone man might live and thrive. Its colour is an inspiration to the
+painter, the subtlety of its flavour a text to the poet. Montenard and
+Dauphin may go on, year after year, painting olive-lined roads and
+ports of Toulon: the true Provençal artist will be he who fills his
+canvas with the radiance and richness of _Bouillabaisse_.
+
+Would you emulate M. Bernard and make a _Bouillabaisse de luxe_ it may
+prove a tax upon your purse, but not upon your powers. For when thus
+lavishly inclined, you but add lobster or crab or crayfish and the
+needed luxury is secured. It is a small difference in the telling, but
+in the eating, how much, how unspeakable is this little more! Easily
+satisfied indeed must be the prosaic mortal who, having once revelled
+in _Bouillabaisse de luxe_, would ever again still his cravings with
+the simpler arrangement.
+
+
+
+
+THE MOST EXCELLENT OYSTER
+
+
+If, in cruel December, the vegetable fails us, in another direction we
+may look for and find--if we be wise and liberal--novelty without
+stint. From the oyster, when it is understood aright, spring perpetual
+joy and rapturous surprises. But, sad to tell, in England men have
+slighted it and misdoubted its greatness. Englishmen eat it and
+declare it good; but, as with salad, they know not how to prepare it.
+Because it is excellent in its rawness, they can imagine no further
+use for it, unless, perhaps, to furnish a rich motive for sauce, or
+sometimes for soup. Even raw--again like salad--they are apt to
+brutalise it. To drown it in vinegar is the height of their ambition;
+an imperial pint was the quantity needed by Mr Weller's friend to
+destroy the delicacy of its flavour, the salt sweetness of its aroma.
+The Greeks knew better: according to Athenæus, boiled and fried they
+served 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, preparing them _en étuvée_ and _en fricassée_,
+included them in their _Délices de la campagne_. The American to-day
+exhausts his genius for invention in devising rare and cunning methods
+by which to extract their full strength and savour. Why should
+Englishmen tarry behind the other peoples on the earth in paying the
+oyster the tribute of sympathetic appreciation?
+
+Its merit when raw, no man of sensibility and wisdom will deny.
+Base-minded, indeed, must be he who thinks to enhance its value by
+converting it into a defence against influenza or any other human ill.
+The ancients held it indigestible unless cooked; but to talk of it as
+if it were a drug for our healing, a poison for our discomforting, is
+to dishonour, without rhyme or reason, the noblest of all shell-fish.
+Who would not risk an indigestion, or worse, for the pleasure raw
+oysters have it in their power to give? Was there one, among the
+wedding guests at the "Marriage of Hebe," who feared the course of
+"oysters with closed shells, which are very difficult to open but very
+easy to eat"?
+
+Easy to eat, yes; but first you must decide which, of the many
+varieties of oyster the sea offers, you had best order for your own
+delight. There are some men who, with Thackeray, rank 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." To many, the
+coppery taste of this English native passes for a charm--poor deluded
+creatures! To others it seems the very abomination of desolation. But
+the true epicure, who may not have them, as had oyster-loving Greeks
+of old, from Abydus or Chalcedon, will revel most of all in the
+American species: the dainty little Blue-Point, or its long, sweet,
+plump brother of the north--to swallow it was like swallowing a baby,
+Thackeray thought.
+
+Once your oysters are on the half shell, let not the vinegar bottle
+tempt you; as far as it is concerned, be not only temperate, but a
+total abstainer. A sprinkling of salt, a touch of Cayenne, a dash of
+lemon juice, and then eat, and know how good it is for man to live in
+a world of oysters. For a light lunch or the perfect midnight supper,
+for an inspiring _hors d'oeuvre_, without rival is this king of
+shell-fish. If for the midnight meal you reserve it, you may be
+kindled into ecstasy by the simple addition of a glass of fine old
+Chablis or Sauterne--be not led astray by vulgar praise of stout or
+porter--and brown bread and butter cut in slices of ethereal thinness.
+Linger over this banquet, exquisite in its simplicity, long and
+lovingly, that later you may sleep with easy conscience and mind at
+rest.
+
+With raw oysters alone it were folly to remain content. If you would
+spread a more sumptuous feast, fry the largest, plumpest grown in sea
+or river, and the gates of earthly paradise will be thrown wide open
+in the frying. No more familiar cry is there in American restaurants
+than that for "an oyster fry!" Dark little oyster cellars, reached by
+precipitous steps, there are, and friendly seedy little oyster shops
+in back streets, where the frying of oysters has been exalted into a
+holy cult. And if you will, in paper boxes, the long, beautiful,
+golden-brown masterpieces you may carry away with you, to eat with
+gayer garnishing and in more sympathetic surroundings. And in winter,
+scarce a beer saloon but, at luncheon time, will set upon the counter
+a steaming dish of fried oysters; and with every glass of no matter
+what, "crackers" at discretion and one fried oyster on long generous
+fork will be handed by the white-robed guardian. But mind you take but
+one: else comes the chucker-out. Thus, only the very thirsty, in the
+course of a morning, may gain a free lunch. But, in England, what is
+known of the fried oyster?
+
+It requires no great elaboration, though much rare skill in the
+cooking. For this purpose the largest oysters must be selected: the
+fattest and most juicy. In the half-shell they may be fried, after
+seventeenth-century fashion, a touch of butter and pepper on each;
+verjuice or vinegar, and grated nutmeg added once they are served. Or
+else, taken from the shell, they may be dipped into a marvellous
+preparation of vinegar, parsley, laurel leaves, onion, chives,
+cloves, basil, and in the result the mighty imagination of the great
+Alexandre would rejoice. Or, again, in simpler American fashion,
+enveloped in unpretentious batter of eggs and bread crumbs, fry them
+until they turn to an unrivalled, indescribable golden-brown, and in
+the eating thereof the gods might envy you.
+
+If a new sensation you court, grill or broil your oyster, and you will
+have cause to exult in a loud triumphant _magnificat_. No bread crumbs
+are needed, neither laurel nor sweet spice. With but a bit of butter
+for encouragement, it will brown gently in the grilling, and become a
+delicious morsel to be eaten with reverence and remembered with
+tenderness.
+
+Or, stew them and be happy. But of rich milk, and cream, and sweet
+fresh butter, as Dumas would put it, must your stew be made:
+thickened, but scarce perceptibly, with flour, while bits of mace
+float in golden sympathy on the liquid's surface. It is the dish for
+luncheon, or for the pleasant, old-fashioned "high tea"--no such
+abomination as "meat tea" known then, if you please--of Philadelphia's
+pleasant, old-fashioned citizens. And a worse accompaniment you might
+have than waffles, light as a feather, or beaten biscuits, the pride
+of Maryland's black cooks. Men and women from the Quaker city, when in
+cruel exile, will be moved to sad tears at the very mention of Jones's
+"oyster stews" in Eleventh-street!
+
+But the glory of Penn's town is the oyster croquette--from Augustine's
+by preference. A symphony in golden brown and soft fawn grey, it
+should be crisp without, within of such delicate consistency that it
+will melt in the mouth like a dream. Pyramidal in shape, it is of
+itself so decorative that only with the rarest blue and white china,
+or the most fairy-like Limoges, will it seem in perfect harmony. It
+would be discourteous, indeed, to serve so regal a creation on any
+stray dish or plate.
+
+Exquisite pleasure lurks in scalloped oysters, or oysters _au gratin_,
+whichever you may choose to call this welcome variation of the oyster
+motive. Layers of judiciously seasoned bread-crumbs alternate with
+layers of the responsive shell-fish, and the carefully-studied
+arrangement is then browned until it enchants by colour no less than
+by fragrance. And, if you would seek further to please the eye, let
+the dish to hold so fine a work of art be a shell, with a suggestion
+of the sea in its graceful curves and tender tints. Or, if imagination
+would be more daring, let the same shell hold _huîtres farcies_,
+cunningly contrived with eels and oysters, and parsley and mushrooms,
+and spices and cream, and egg and aromatic herbs. So fantastic a
+contrivance as this touches upon sublimity.
+
+In more homely and convivial mood, roast your oysters, as the Greeks
+loved them. But to enjoy them to the utmost, roast them yourself in
+the coals of your own fire, until the ready shells open. A dash of
+salt and cayenne upon the sweet morsel within, and you may eat it at
+once, even as you take it from off the coals, and drink its salt,
+savoury liquor from the shell. A dish of anchovy toast will not seem
+amiss. But let no other viands coarsen this ideal supper. For supper
+it should be, and nothing else. The curtains must be drawn close,
+while the fire flames high; one or two congenial friends--not more; a
+dim religious light from well-shaded lamps and candles; a bottle of
+good old Chablis, and others waiting in near wine-cellar or sideboard;
+and thus may you make your own such unspeakable happiness as seldom
+falls to the lot of mortals.
+
+Or if to the past your fancy wanders, prepare your oysters,
+seventeenth century-fashion, _en étuvée_, boiled in their own liquor,
+flavoured with ingredients so various as oranges and chives, and
+served with bread-crumbs; or else, _en fricassée_, cooked with onion
+and butter, dipped in batter, and sprinkled with orange juice. Or
+again, in sheer waywardness, curry or devil them, though in this
+disguise no man may know the delicacy he is eating. Another day, bake
+them; the next, put them in a pie or a patty; the third, let them give
+substance to a _vol-au-vent_. Hesitate at no experiment; search the
+cookery-books, old and new. Be sure that the oyster, in its
+dictionary, knows no such word as fail. If in sheer recklessness you
+were, like young Mr Grigg in the Cave of Harmony, to call for a
+"mashed oyster and scalloped 'taters," no doubt the "mashed" would be
+forthcoming.
+
+As basis of soup or sauce, the oyster is without rival. Who would not
+abstain on Fridays all the year round, if every Friday brought with it
+oyster soup to mortify the flesh! But alas! four months there be
+without an R, when oysters by the wise must not be eaten. And is not
+turbot, or boiled capon, or a tender loin-steak but the excuse for
+oyster sauce? in which, if you have perfection for your end, let there
+be no stint of oysters. Then, too, in the stuffing of a fowl, oysters
+prove themselves the worthy rival of mushrooms or of chestnuts.
+
+It is a grave mistake, however, to rank the oyster as the only
+shell-fish of importance. The French know better. So did the Greeks,
+if Athenæus can be trusted. Mussels, oysters, scallops, and cockles
+led the list, according to Diocles, the Carystian. Thus are they
+enumerated by still another authority:--
+
+    A little polypus, or a small cuttle-fish,
+    A crab, a crawfish, oysters, cockles,
+    Limpets and solens, mussels and pinnas;
+    Periwinkles, too, from Mitylene.
+
+The mussel is still the delight of the French _table d'hôte_
+breakfast. Charming to look at is the deep dish where, floating in
+parsley-strewn sauce, the beautiful purple shells open gently to show
+the golden-grey treasures within. Well may the commercial in the
+provinces heap high his plate with the food he loves, while about him
+hungry men stare, wondering how much will be left for their portion.
+But who in England eats mussels? Only a little lower the Greeks ranked
+periwinkles, which now, associated as they are with 'Arriet and her
+pin, the fastidious affect to despise. It has been written of late, by
+a novelist seeking to be witty, that there is no poetry in
+periwinkles; but Æschylus could stoop to mention them in his great
+tragedies. The "degradation of the lower classes" the same weak wit
+attributes to overindulgence in winkles. With as much reason might the
+art and philosophy of Greece be traced to "periwinkles from Mitylene."
+Cooked in the good sauce of France, the humble winkle might take rank
+with the Whitstable native at three-and-six the dozen, and thus would
+the lowly be exalted. The snail, likewise, we might cultivate to our
+own immeasurable advantage.
+
+
+
+
+THE PARTRIDGE
+
+
+With September, the _gourmand's_ fancy gaily turns to thoughts of
+partridges. For his pleasure sportsmen, afar in autumn's cool country,
+work diligently from morn to eve; or, it may be, he himself plays the
+sportsman by day that he may prove the worthier _gourmand_ by night.
+And the bird is deserving of his affections. It has been honoured
+alike in history and romance.
+
+Among moderns, a Daudet is found to study and consider its emotions
+under fire; among ancients, few neglected it, from Aristophanes to
+Aristotle, who declared it "a very ill-disposed and cunning animal;
+much devoted, moreover, to amatory enjoyment." With such a character,
+its two hearts count for little; far gone, indeed, must be the
+sentimentalist of our moral age who would stay its slayer's hand. What
+if it be true, as Chamæleon of Pontus said of old, that from listening
+to its singing in desert places man arrived at the art of music?
+Alive it may have an æsthetic value; but if it be without morals
+should it not perish? In eating it, therefore, does not man perform a
+solemn duty? Nay, should not the New Woman exult in flaunting its
+sober feathers in her masculine hat?
+
+So might reason the apostle of social purity. But the _gourmand_
+questions nothing save the daintiness of the bird's flesh, the merit
+of its flavour. And the practical answer to this questioning silences
+all doubts. Clearly the partridge was created that he might eat it and
+find it good.
+
+It is because of the rare excellence of the pretty bird, in autumn
+making a feathered frieze in every poulterer's window, that too much
+consideration cannot be given to its treatment in the kitchen. Its
+virtues can be easily marred by the indifferent, or unsympathetic
+_chef_. Left hanging too short a time, left cooking too long, and it
+will sink into commonplace, so that all might wonder wherefore its
+praises have been ever loudly sung. Hang it in a cool place, and leave
+it there until the last moment possible--you understand? Now that
+winds are cold, and a feeling of frost is in the air, to banish it a
+fortnight would not be unwise.
+
+To roast a partridge may seem a sadly simple device when so many more
+ingenious schemes are at your disposal. But for all that, none can be
+recommended with enthusiasm more keenly felt. For in the roasting none
+of its sweet savour is lost, none of its natural tenderness sacrificed
+on the one hand, exaggerated on the other. The process requires less
+intelligence than an artistic touch. Truss your birds in seemly
+fashion, when, as if in birdlike emulation of Hedda Gabler, they cry
+for vine leaves on their breast. Over the vine leaves tie less
+romantic, but more succulent, bacon, cut in slices of the thinnest.
+Then, in front of a quick, clear fire baste prodigally with butter. A
+little flour, judiciously sprinkled, will add richness to the
+nut-brown colour the susceptible birds develop in the roasting. Now
+they are ready to serve, remember that "partridges should have gravy
+in the dish, and bread-sauce in a cup"--it is Mrs Glasse who has said
+it. It would be no crime to add watercress, or parsley, as garniture,
+or toast as a soft bed for the happy victims. And to eat with them,
+prepare a crisp lettuce salad, to which the merest suspicion of
+tarragon leaves, well chopped, has been added. And the gods themselves
+might envy you your joy and gladness in the eating.
+
+A word as to the carving, or "dissection of the partridge," as it was
+called in days when England understood and gloried in the arts of the
+kitchen. Thus was the _Grand Escuyer Tranchant_--the Great Master
+carver, that is--instructed: "A partridge is for the most part carved
+and served whole, like a pigeon; but yet he may be served in pieces;
+but when you will carve him to serve whole, you must only cut the
+joints and lay them abroad; but if you serve him by pieces, you must
+begin to serve with a wing." Why not carve and serve according to
+tradition, and so lend new dignity to your feasting?
+
+If of roast partridge you weary, and from France would take a hint,
+seek novelty and happiness in _Perdrix aux choux_. For this, birds of
+an older generation will answer as well as their more tender young,
+since for two hours, in a wrapping of bacon and buttered paper, they
+must simmer gently on their couch of cabbage. To evolve the required
+flavour, into the same pot must go a saveloy, and perhaps salt pork in
+slices, a bunch of fragrant herbs, onions and carrots and cloves and
+salt and butter _à discrétion_. The birds must be drained before they
+pass from the pot to the dish; around them the cabbage, likewise
+drained, must be set as a garland, and the saveloy, in pretty pieces,
+may be placed here and there. Behold another of the many good gifts
+France has presented to us.
+
+_Perdrix à l'Espagnole_ may again vary anew the delicious monotony. In
+this variety the partridges are boiled, covered with a rich gravy, and
+plentifully adorned with green peppers. It was in a moment of divine
+inspiration the Spaniard invented so piquant an arrangement. But the
+resources of boiled partridges, apt to be forgotten or overlooked, are
+well-nigh limitless, and as charming as they are many. Very important
+is it that the birds be well boiled, quickly, in much water. The rest
+depends upon the sauce. This may be of cream and butter alone; or else
+of celery and cream, seasoned with mace and pepper. Or else of
+mushrooms and cream, or of the livers and parsley and butter; or of
+white wine; or of any and every good thing that goes to the making of
+superlative sauce. What a chance, too, to exercise your imagination,
+to reveal your ingenuity! Five long months are before you; see that
+you make the most of them.
+
+If your soul delight in the fantastic, let few days pass before you
+have tested the quaint joys of _Partridge Mettenes_. The recipe shall
+be printed word for word as written by the Master Cook, Giles: "Take
+Partridges and roast them, then take Cream"--these with capitals,
+observe--"and Grapes, with Bread, scorched against the Fire, and beat
+all this together; but first steep your Bread in Broth or Claret-Wine;
+then strain all this through a strainer with Spice, Cinnamon, and a
+little Mustard; set all a-boyling with a pretty deal of Sugar, but
+take heed that it doth not burn too, and when you would serve away
+your Partridge, put them into a Dish, and your Sauce under them, and
+garnish your Dish with Sweetmeats and Sugarplums."
+
+Here is another device, fantastic chiefly in name: "Partridges _à
+l'eau béniste_ or Holy Water." It has the virtue of simplicity. "Take
+partridges and rost them, and when they are rosted, cut them into
+little pieces, and put them into a Dish with a little fair Water and
+Salt, and make them boyl a little, and so serve them away." Or else, O
+pleasant alternative! "you may make a Sauce with Rose-water and Wine,
+the Juice of Apples and Oranges, but there must be three times as much
+Rose-water as Wine."
+
+Reading this, who will dare deny that Master Cook Giles is an
+authority to be respected, of whose recipes the poor prosaic modern
+kitchen may not receive too many? Space, therefore, must be yielded to
+at least one more: "Partridges à la Tonnelette." "Take a partridge and
+rost it, then put it into a Pot; this done, take white Bread and
+scortch or toste it very brown, but not burn it, and put it a-steeping
+in good Claret-wine, and when it is well steep'd strain it through a
+strainer with some good Broth, and a few Onions fryed in Lard, with a
+little Cinnamon, Cloves, and Nutmegs, and other small Spices, and a
+little Sugar, and put into it a handful of Currants, and make that
+which you have strained out boyl all together, and when it is time to
+serve your Partridges, put your Sauces into a Dish, and lay your
+Partridges upon it, and so serve it."
+
+Such pretty fancies, it were a shame to follow with bald prose. Yet,
+bear in mind that partridges may be braised with mushrooms or
+truffles; that they may be broiled or baked; that they disgrace
+neither pie nor pudding; and that they offer welcome basis for a
+_salmi_ and _purée_. Lay this to heart.
+
+
+
+
+THE ARCHANGELIC BIRD
+
+
+Michaelmas is a season of sad associations. The quarter's rent is due,
+alas! The quarter's gas, alas! and, alas a hundred times! the
+half-yearly rates. Bank accounts dwindle; spirits sink; life seems but
+a blank and dreary desert.
+
+Into the gloom, settling down thicker and more throttling than
+November's fog, there flutters and waddles a big white bird, a saviour
+of men. It is the noble goose, the goose, ridiculed and misunderstood,
+that comes chivalrously and fearlessly to the rescue; the goose that
+once saved Rome's Capitol, the goose still honoured as most alert of
+sentinels within Barcelona's cathedral precincts, the goose that,
+followed by a goose-girl, is the beloved of artists. Because of its
+nobility of character, its devotion, wherein it rivals benevolent
+mastiff and kindly terrier, its courage, its strength, St Michael,
+glorious and effulgent archangel, took it for his own bird of birds,
+to be so intimately connected with him that now to show respect to
+the Saint is to eat the goose. The Feast of Michaelmas, to the
+right-minded and the orthodox, means roast goose and apple sauce.
+Soulless authorities, burrowing in mouldy records, can find no better
+reason for this close relationship than that, at September's close,
+great is the number of geese cackling in homely barnyard, great their
+perfection. Numerous generations since England's fourth Edward sat
+upon the throne (and who can say how many before his time?), have held
+the cooking of the goose for dinner as no less sacred a ceremony on
+the Angel's feast day than the morning's service in church. And this,
+would the pugnacious Michael have permitted for such gross material
+considerations? Never; let it be said once and for all: never. He knew
+the goose for the bird that lays the golden egg; he knew full well its
+dignity and might that make it still a terror to be met on lonely
+common by them who use its name as symbol of silliness; he knew that
+strong as well as faint hearted hesitate to say "Bo" discourteously to
+any goose, whether it be a wanderer in French pastures or one of the
+dust-raising flock, in the twilight, cackling homeward over
+Transylvanian highways. In a word, Michael knew his bird; and our duty
+it is to believe in it a dish for Michaelmas with the blind,
+unquestioning allegiance of perfect faith. Coarse its flesh may be in
+comparison with the dainty duck and tender chicken; commonplace in
+comparison with the glorious grouse and proud partridge. The modest,
+respectable _bourgeois_ it may seem among poultry. And yet, if the
+Archangel has chosen it for his own, who shall say him nay? Study
+rather to disguise its native coarseness, to enliven its excellent
+dulness.
+
+To roast it is the simplest form the Michaelmas celebration allows.
+See first that your fire be very good; take care to singe the
+sacrificial goose with a piece of white paper, and baste it with a
+piece of butter; drudge it (the word is Mrs Glasse's) with a little
+flour, and when the smoke begins to draw to the fire, and it looks
+plump, baste it again and drudge it with a little flour, and take it
+up. In sober mood, stuff it with sage and onion; in more flamboyant
+moments, let your choice rest upon chestnuts. Tradition insists upon
+a little good gravy in a basin by itself, and some apple-sauce in
+another; but sauce of gooseberries, not to be had fresh, however, for
+Michaelmas, is the _gourmet's_ choice.
+
+A hint as to carving. How many a beautiful bird, or majestic joint,
+has been shamelessly insulted by ill-trained carver! Of old the master
+of the household accepted the "dissection of a goose" after the High
+Dutch fashion and the Italian both, his own predilections leaning
+rather toward the High Dutch, "for they cut the breast into more
+pieces, and so by consequence fill more Plates"--good thrifty burghers
+that they were. Learn then, and master "the order how they carve and
+how they send it away; as (1), on the first Plate a thigh; (2),
+another thigh; (3), a side of the rump, with a piece of the breast;
+(4), the other side of the rump, with another piece of the breast;
+(5), a wing; (6), the other wing; (7), the rest of the stomach, upon
+which, if there be little of the brawn left, you may joyn the two
+small forked bones; to the eighth, the merry-thought, with the rest of
+the rump, and any else, at your discretion. If you will, you may join
+some of the breast with the best piece which you always present to the
+most considerable person at the table first, and take notice too, by
+the bye, the brawn of the breast ought to be for the most part served
+out first." Give heed unto these directions, and far wrong you may not
+go.
+
+Days are when simple expression of faith is all too inadequate. The
+devout yearns for something more ornate, something more elaborate. Let
+the outcome of this yearning be _oie à la chipolata_, and Michael in
+Paradise will smell the sweet savour and smile. It is difficult, but
+delicious. Cover the bottom of your stew-pan with lard; place upon it
+two or three slices of beef and ham, a bouquet of parsley and chives,
+three carrots and two or three onions, a touch of garlic, a few
+cloves, thyme, laurel leaves, basil, and salt, and thus you will have
+prepared a sweet, soft bed for your goose. Immediately disturb the
+bird's slumbers by pouring over it a glass of good Madeira, a bottle
+of white wine, a glass of cognac, and two or three spoonfuls of strong
+bouillon made of fowls. Now put your pan on the fire, stew your goose
+for an hour, lift it out, arrange it on a fair dish, and envelop it in
+the very richest _chipolata_ it is in your power to make. And what is
+a _chipolata_? An Italian creation half sauce, half _ragoût_;
+fashioned of carrots and turnips, and chestnuts and onions, and
+sausage and mushrooms, and artichokes and celery, and strong veal
+gravy.
+
+Archangelic smiles must broaden into silent laughter at the mere
+mention of "a Potage of Green Geese." It is a conceit redolent of the
+olden time, when gaiety was still ranked among the cardinal virtues,
+and men ate their fill with no fear of a dyspeptic to-morrow. Since it
+is an ancient masterpiece, in the ancient words must it be explained,
+or else it will be dishonoured in the telling. "Take your Green-geese
+and boyl them the usual way, and when they are boyled take them up and
+fry them whole in a frying-pan to colour them, either with the fat of
+bacon or hog's-lard, called nowadays _manège de pork_; then take
+ginger, long pepper, and cloves; beat all this together, and season
+them with this spice; a little parsley and sage, and put them into a
+little of the same broth that they were boyled in, and sprinkle a
+little grated cheese over them, and let them have a little stew, and
+then dish them up with sipets under them." A brave disguise, truly,
+for humblest goose.
+
+In a pie likewise--unless the fashioning thereof be entrusted to the
+indiscreet cook--it presents a brave appearance. Walls of crust line a
+spacious dish; a pickled dried tongue is boiled; a fowl and a goose
+are boned; seasoning is wrought of mace, beaten pepper, and salt; and
+then, Oh the marvel of it! fowl is lain in the goose, tongue in the
+fowl, goose in the dish. A half a pound of butter separates bird from
+pastry cover. And, hot or cold, pleasure may be had in the eating. Not
+the highest pleasure, perhaps, but still pleasure not to be scorned.
+
+If you would boil a goose, see, as you respect your stomach, that it
+be first salted for a week. With onion sauce it may be becomingly
+adorned, or again, with simple cabbage, boiled, chopped small, and
+stewed in butter. Or, plunge gaily into the _rococo_ style, and
+decorate it _à l' Arlésienne_; stuffed with onions and chestnuts,
+boiled in company with carrots and celery and onions and parsley and
+cloves, floated in tomato sauce, it is as chock full of playful
+surprises as the _Cartuja_ of Granada. Another device to be
+recommended is the grilling of the legs and the serving them with
+_laitues farcies_--and Michael will laugh outright; or _à la
+Provençale_, and words fail; or _aux tomates_, the love-apples that
+not the hardest heart can resist. Of the great and good Carême these
+are the suggestions; treasure them up, therefore, where memory may not
+rust or aspiration decay, for the dinner may come when you will be
+glad to have them at hand.
+
+Of the giblets and liver of the goose is there not a long, exultant
+chapter yet to be written? In far Strasburg geese, in perpetual
+darkness and torture, fatten with strange morbid fat, that the
+sensitive, who shrink from a bull fight and cry out against the
+cruelty of the cockpit, may revel in _pâté de foie gras_. So long as
+the world lives, may there still be this delectable _pâté_ to delight.
+But why not be honest: admit that between the torture of the bull that
+we may see, and the torture of the goose that we may eat, difference
+there is none? Give sensitiveness full play, and sordid vegetarianism
+is the logical result.
+
+
+
+
+SPRING CHICKEN
+
+
+Gluttony, it has been written--and with wisdom--deserves nothing but
+praise and encouragement. For two reasons. "Physically, it is the
+result and proof of the digestive organs being perfect. Morally, it
+shows implicit resignation to the commands of nature, who, in ordering
+man to eat that he may live, gives him appetite to invite, flavour to
+encourage, and pleasure to reward." But there is a third reason, too
+often overlooked even by the professional glutton: love of good eating
+is an incentive to thought, a stimulus to the imagination. The man of
+the most active mind and liveliest fancy is he who eats well and
+conscientiously considers each dish as it is set before him.
+
+The test seldom fails. Run through the list of poets and painters of
+your acquaintance; do not they who eat best write the finest verse and
+paint the strongest pictures? Those who pretend indifference and live
+on unspeakable messes are betrayed in the foolish affectation and
+tedious eccentricity of their work; those who feel indifference are
+already beyond hope and had better far be selling tape across counters
+or adding up figures in loathsome ledgers. Memory, borrowing from her
+store-house of treasures, lingers with tender appreciation and regret
+upon one unrivalled breakfast, exquisitely cooked, exquisitely served,
+and exquisitely eaten, when lilacs were sweet and horse-chestnuts
+blossoming in the boulevards and avenues of Paris. And he upon whose
+table the banquet was spread is an artist who towers head and
+shoulders above the pigmies of his generation. It were rash, indeed,
+to maintain that because he eats daintily therefore he paints like the
+master he is; but who, on the other hand, would dare aver that because
+he paints supremely well therefore is he the prince of _gourmets_?
+Here cause and effect are not to be defined by cold logic, not to be
+labelled by barren philosophy. One thing alone is certain; if love of
+good eating will not create genius it can but develop it.
+
+Consequently, it would be impossible to think too much of what you are
+eating to-day and purpose to eat to-morrow. It is your duty above all
+things to see that your food is in harmony with place and season. The
+question now is, what beast or bird is fitting holocaust for the first
+warm months of spring? Beef is too heating, too substantial; mutton
+too monotonous, veal too prosaic. Lamb hath charm, but a charm that by
+constant usage may be speedily exhausted. Does not mint sauce, pall at
+times? Place, then, your trust in the poultry-yard that your pleasure
+may be long in the spring.
+
+To begin with, poultry pleases because of its idyllic and pastoral
+associations. The plucked birds, from shop windows, flaunting their
+nakedness in the face of the world, recall the old red-roofed
+farmhouse among the elms, and the pretty farmer's daughter in neat,
+fresh gingham, scattering grain in the midst of her feathered
+favourites; they suggest the first cool light of dawn and the
+irrepressible cock crowing the glad approach of day; in a word, they
+are reminders of the country's simple joys--unendurable at the time,
+dear and sacred when remembered in town.
+
+The gentle little spring chicken is sweet and adorable above all its
+kindred poultry. It is innocent and guileless as Bellini's angels,
+dream-like and strange as Botticelli's. It is the very concentration
+of spring; as your teeth meet in its tender, yielding flesh, you
+think, whether you will or no, of violets and primroses, and hedgerows
+white with may; you feel the balmy breath of the south wind; the world
+is scented for you with lilac and narcissus; and, for the time being,
+life is a perfect poem. But--why is there always a but?--your cook has
+it in her power to ruin the rhythm, to make of melodious lyric the
+most discordant prose. No less depends upon the being who cooks the
+chicken than upon the hen who laid the egg. If hitherto you have
+offended through heedlessness, see now that you approach the subject
+with a determination to profit.
+
+Of all ways of cooking a spring chicken, frying is first to be
+commended; and of all ways of frying the American is most sympathetic.
+Fried chicken! To write the word is to be carried back to the sunny
+South; to see, in the mind's eye, the old, black, fat, smiling
+_mammie_, in gorgeous bandana turban, and the little black
+piccaninnies bringing in relays of hot muffins. Oh, the happy days of
+the long ago! It is easy to give the _recipe_, but what can it avail
+unless the _mammie_ goes with it? Another admirable device is in
+broiling. One fashion is to divide your chicken down the back and
+flatten it, seeing, as you have a heart within you, that no bones be
+broken. Set it lovingly on a trivet placed for the purpose in a
+baking-tin into which water, to the depth of an inch, has been poured.
+Cover your tin; bake the sweet offering for ten minutes or so; take it
+from the oven; touch it delicately with the purest of pure olive oil,
+and for another ten minutes broil it over a good brisk fire. And if in
+the result you do not taste heaven, hasten to the hermit's cell in the
+desert, and, for the remainder of your days, grow thin on lentils and
+dates.
+
+Or, if you would broil your chicken after the fashion of infallible
+Mrs Glasse, slit it as before, season it with pepper and salt, lay it
+on a clear fire at a great distance, broil first the inside, then the
+out, cover it with delicate bread-crumbs, and let it be of a fine
+brown, but not burnt. And keep this note carefully in your mind: "You
+may make just what sauce you fancy."
+
+To roast a spring chicken will do no harm, but let it not be overdone.
+Twenty minutes suffice for the ceremony. Bacon, in thinnest of thin
+slices, gracefully rolled, is not unworthy to be served with it. In
+boiling, something of its virginal flavour may be sacrificed, but
+still there is compensating gain; it may be eaten with white mushroom
+sauce, made of mushrooms and cream, and seasoned with nutmeg and mace.
+Here is a poem, sweeter far than all songs of immortal choirs or the
+weak pipings of our minor singers.
+
+As the chicken outgrows the childish state, you may go to Monte Carlo
+in search of one hint at least, for its disposal. There you will learn
+to cut it into quarters, to stew it in wine and shallots, to add, at
+the psychological moment, tomatoes in slices, and to serve a dish that
+baffles description. Or you may journey to Spain, and find that
+country's kitchen slandered when you eat _poulet au ris à l'
+Espagnole_, chicken cooked in a _marmite_ with rice, artichokes, green
+and red chillies, and salad oil, and served, where the artist dwells,
+in the blessed _marmite_ itself--in unimaginative London, even, you
+may buy one, green or brown, whichever you will, at a delightful shop
+in Shaftsbury-avenue. Again, you may wander to Holland--it is a short
+journey, and not disagreeable by way of Harwich--and be ready to swear
+that no fashion can surpass the Dutch of boiling chickens with rice or
+vermicelli, spicing them with pepper and cloves, and, at table,
+substituting for sauce sugar and cinnamon. But to omit these last two
+garnishments will not mean a mortal sin upon your conscience. In more
+festive mood hasten at once to France, and there you will be no less
+certain that the way of ways is to begin to broil your chicken,
+already quartered, but, when half done, to put it in a stew-pan with
+gravy, and white wine, salt and pepper, fried veal balls, onions, and
+shallots, and, according to season, gooseberries or grapes. Do you not
+grow hungry as you read? But wait: this is not all. As the beautiful
+mixture is stewing--on a charcoal fire if possible--thicken the liquor
+with yolks of eggs and the juice of lemon, and for ever after bless
+Mrs Glasse for having initiated you into these noble and ennobling
+mysteries.
+
+Braise your chicken, fricassee it, make it into mince, croquettes,
+krameskies; eat it cold; convert it into galantine; bury it in aspic;
+do what you will with it, so long as you do it well, it can bring you
+but happiness and peace.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAGNIFICENT MUSHROOM
+
+
+From remote ages dates the triumph of the mushroom--the majestic,
+magnificent mushroom. Glorious Greeks feasted on it and were glad.
+What say Poliochus and Antiphanes? What Athenæus? In verse only, could
+be duly praised those fragrant mushrooms of old, which were roasted
+for dinner and eaten with delicate snails caught in the dewy morning,
+and olives tenderly pounded; washed down with wine, good if not over
+strong or of famous vintage. O the simple, happy days of long ago!
+
+There are times when the classic simplicity and dignity of the Greek
+you may emulate, and your amusement find in mushrooms dressed with
+vinegar, or honey and vinegar, or honey, or salt. But then, all other
+courses must be in keeping. The snails and olives must not be omitted.
+Maize there must be, well winnowed from the chaff, and rich, ripe
+purple figs. And, who knows? the full flavour thereof might not be
+yielded to the most earnest adventurer were couches not substituted
+for stiff, ungainly chairs. By many a lesser trifle has digestion
+been, if not ruined, influenced for ill.
+
+But the classic experiment, if repeated too often, might seem very
+odious. The modern _gourmand_, or artist, is a romanticist, whether he
+will or no. No screaming red waistcoat marks the romantic movement in
+the kitchen, and yet there it has been stronger even than in art and
+literature. The picturesque must be had at any cost. Simplicity is not
+spurned, far from it; but it must be seasoned with becoming sprinkling
+of romance. What could be simpler than the common mushroom grilled, so
+self-sufficient in its chaste severity that it allows but salt and
+pepper and butter to approach it, as it lies, fragrant and delicious,
+on its gridiron, calling, like another St Lawrence, to be turned when
+one side is fairly done. And yet when, ready to be served, its rich
+brown beauty is spread upon the paler brown of the toast, and above
+rests butter's brilliant gold, have you not an arrangement as
+romantic in conception as the "Ernani" of the master, or the pastoral
+of Corot? Paltry meats and undesirable vegetables should not be
+allowed to dispute supremacy with it. Serve it alone, as you respect
+yourself. Do not make your breakfast or dinner table as preposterous a
+blunder as the modern picture gallery.
+
+Should simplicity pall upon you--and moments there are when it cannot
+fail to pall--enrich your grilled mushrooms with a sauce of melted
+butter and onions and parsley, and a single note of garlic, and the
+result will be enchanting mushrooms _à la bourdelaise_. If _au beurre_
+you would eat them, to accord with your passing mood of suave
+serenity, stew them gently and considerately in daintiest stew-pan
+your kitchen can provide, and let cayenne and powdered mace exult, as
+the romantic elements of the stirring poem.
+
+A still more poetic fancy may be met and sweetly satisfied by _ragoût_
+of mushrooms. Listen reverently, for it is food fit to be set before
+the angels. Over the mushrooms, first boiled on a quick fire, pour a
+gill of pure red wine--and the best Burgundy thus used will not be
+wasted; then scatter spices, mace, and nutmeg, with a discreet hand;
+boil once more; pour the marvellous mixture upon five or six--or more,
+if wanted--yolks of eggs, hard-boiled; garnish the dish with grilled
+mushrooms, and bless the day that you were born, predestined, as you
+were, from all eternity for this one interval of rapture.
+
+Possibility of rapture there is likewise in a white _fricassée_ of
+mushrooms, which, if you have your own happiness at heart, you cannot
+afford to despise. Secure then, without delay--for who would play fast
+and loose with happiness?--a quart of fresh mushrooms. Clean them with
+hands as tender as if bathing a new-born babe. In three spoonfuls of
+water, and three of milk, let them boil up three times. See that
+temptation leads you not to violate the sanctity of this thrice-three.
+Nutmeg, mace, butter, a pint of rich thick cream alone, at this
+juncture, will appease the saucepan's longings. Shake well; and all
+the time, mind you. Be careful there is no curdling, or
+else--damnation. The masterpiece once triumphantly achieved and set
+upon a table covered with a fair white cloth, great will be the
+rejoicing in the Earthly Paradise of your dining-room.
+
+Another sensation, another thrill awaits you in mushrooms _au gratin_.
+Here, indeed, is romanticism gone mad. Grated bacon, shallots, a
+_bouquet garni_, mace, pepper and salt, eggs and butter share the
+baking-dish with the mushrooms; bread-crumbs complete the strange,
+subtle combination, upon which you may break your fast, dine, sup and
+sleep, as Valentine upon the very naked name of love. A sorry plight
+were yours if love, fickle and fading, could be preferred to a dish of
+mushrooms fashioned so fantastically.
+
+"And oh! what lovely, beautiful eating there is in this world!" It is
+Heine who said it--Heine who, for a good dinner, would have given
+twice the three hundred years of eternal fame offered by Voltaire for
+a good digestion. But lovely and beautiful are but feeble words when
+it is a question of the mess of mushrooms, for which who would not
+sacrifice eternal fame for ever, in all cheerfulness and glee?
+
+The reigning sultana in the mushroom's harem is the brilliant golden
+egg. Sweet symphonies in brown and gold are the dishes their union
+yields. _OEufs brouillés aux champignons_--has not the very name a
+pretty sound? It is a delight best suited to the midday breakfast; a
+joyous course to follow the anchovy salad, the eel well smoked, or
+whatever dainty _hors d'oeuvre_ may stimulate to further appetite. The
+eggs, scrambled and rivalling the buttercup's rich gold, are laid
+delicately on crisp toast, and present a couch, soft as down, for a
+layer of mushrooms. Let Ruskin rave of Turner's sunsets, let the glory
+of the Venetians be a delight among art critics; but when did Turner
+or Titian or Tintoret invent a finer scheme of colour than egg and
+mushroom thus combined for the greater happiness of the few? A silver
+dish or one of rarest porcelain should be frame for a picture so
+perfect.
+
+Borrow a hint from the Hungarians, and vary the arrangement to your
+own profit. Make a _purée_ of the mushrooms, as rich as cream permits,
+and offer it as foundation for eggs poached deftly and swiftly: a
+harmony in soft dove-like greys and pale yellow, the result. It is an
+admirable contrivance, a credit to Szomorodni-drinking Magyars. And
+there is no known reason why it should not be eaten on Thames side as
+on the banks of the Danube. Szomorodni, in its native splendour, alas!
+is not to be had in London town. But, without sacrilege, Chablis or
+Graves, or Sauterne may take its place. To drink red wine would be to
+strike a false note in the harmony.
+
+Another day, another dish, which you cannot do better than make
+_omelette aux champignons_. And if you will, you may eat it even as it
+was prepared for Royal Stuarts by Master Cook Rose, who wrote almost
+as prettily as he cooked. Thus:--"Stove your champignons between two
+dishes, season them with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then make an
+omelette with a dozen of eggs, and when he is ready cover him over
+with your champignons, and fold him up, triangle-wise, and serve him
+with the juice of lemons over him." A royal dish, indeed.
+
+Creatures of infinite resources, eggs and mushrooms meet in cases to
+produce a new and distinct joy. The mushrooms, stewed in milk
+thickened with the yolks of raw eggs and bread-crumbs, line the little
+fluted china cases; into each a fresh egg is broken; then more
+mushrooms and bread-crumbs are spread gently above; a shallow pan, its
+bottom just covered with hot water, receives the cases, and ten
+minutes in the oven will complete a triumph which, once tasted, you
+may well remember all the days of your life.
+
+The kidney is loved by the mushroom scarce less tenderly than the egg.
+_Rognons aux champignons_, fragrant rich, ravishing, may also be
+claimed by the happy midday hour. And like so many a noble dish, it
+lavishes upon you the pleasures of anticipation. For the kidneys, cut
+in slices and laid in thickened gravy, must stew slowly, slowly--never
+boiling, unless you would have them vie with leather in consistency.
+At an early stage the mushrooms, also in pieces, may be added, and
+pepper and salt according to inclination. And slowly, slowly let the
+stewing continue. At the last supreme moment pour in a glass of
+generous red wine, or if it please you more, Marsala, and serve
+without delay. Chambertin, or Nuits, at peace in its cradle, is
+surely the wine decreed by fate to drink with so sublime a creation.
+
+With the tender _filet_, mushrooms prove irresistible; with the
+graceful cutlet they seem so ravishing that even _sauce Soubise_, the
+once inseparable, may for the moment be easily forgotten. And veal is
+no less susceptible to its charms: let _noisettes de veau aux
+champignons_ be the _entrée_ of to-morrow's dinner, and you will
+return thanks to your deliverer from the roast!
+
+As sauce, mushroom is the chosen one of fowl and fish alike. Join your
+mushrooms to _Béchamel_, one of the great mother sauces, and you will
+have the wonder that Carême, its creator, served first to the
+Princesse de B. How resist so aristocratic a precedent? _Grasse_, or
+_maigre_, you can make it, as the season demands. Or to a like end you
+may devote that other marvel, _purée de champignons à la Laguipierre_,
+whose patron was the great Louis de Rohan, and into whose mysteries
+Carême was initiated by the "Grand M. Dunan." Ham, tomato, nutmeg,
+pepper, lemon juice, are the chief ingredients that enter into its
+composition. Who, after testing it, will dare find naught but vexation
+and vanity in the reign of the Sixteenth Louis? Subtle variation may
+be had by substituting as foundation, _sauce à la régence_ or _sauce à
+la princesse_ for _sauce Béchamel_; while a sensation apart springs
+from the lofty alliance between oysters and mushrooms.
+
+How natural that for masterpieces in mushrooms royalty so often has
+stood sponsor! Upon the Prince of Wurtemberg rests the glorious
+responsibility of Seine shad _à la purée de champignons_. If history
+records not his name, a prince--in spirit at least--must also have
+been the first happy man to eat red mullets _aux champignons_, or eels
+_aux huîtres et aux champignons_; show yourself as princely before you
+are a week older. While a king was he who first smiled upon that
+kingly _ragoût_ of mushrooms, mussels, and shrimps. Be you a king in
+your turn--there are few pleasures equal to it.
+
+"For white fowls of all sort," Mrs Glasse recommends her mushroom
+sauce, thus giving loose reins to the artist's fancy. The fowl may be
+boiled, and then rich with cream must be the sauce that redeems it
+from insipidity. It may be roasted, and then let the mushrooms be
+somewhat more in evidence. Or it may be broiled, and then mayhap it
+would be wise to grill the mushrooms whole, instead of converting them
+into sauce. Or--here is another suggestion, and be thankful for
+it--mince your chicken, which toast will receive gladly as a covering
+and set upon it, as already upon _oeufs brouillés_, the mushrooms
+grilled in butter. Long might you live, far might you wander, before
+chancing upon another delicacy so worthy. Though, truth to tell--and
+where gastronomy is the subject it is always best to be
+honest--_croquettes de poulet aux champignons_ seem well-nigh
+worthier. If you would decide for yourself, try both, and joy go with
+you in the trying.
+
+An afterthought: dress livers with mushroom sauce, and this is the
+manner in which it should be done. "Take some pickled or fresh
+mushrooms, cut small--both if you have them--and let the livers be
+bruised fine, with a good deal of parsley chopped small, a spoonful or
+two of catchup, a glass of white wine, and as much good gravy as will
+make sauce enough; thicken it with a piece of butter rolled in flour.
+This does for either roast or boiled."
+
+For the rest, how count the innumerable ways in which the mushroom
+adds to the gaiety of the gourmand? What would the _vol-au-vent_ be
+without it? What the "Fine Pye," made otherwise of carps and
+artichokes and crayfishes' feet and lobster claws and nutmeg and
+cloves alone? What, according to the "Complete Court Cook," so proper
+for the second course as the patty all of mushrooms? What garniture
+fairer for "ragoo" or _fricassée_, according to the same authority,
+than mushroom _farcis_? But, however they may be served and eaten,
+mushrooms you must make yours at any cost. To say that you do not like
+them is confession of your own philistinism. Learn to like them;
+_will_ to like them, or else your sojourn on this earth will be a
+wretched waste. You will have lived your life in vain if, at its
+close, you have missed one of its finest emotions.
+
+
+
+
+THE INCOMPARABLE ONION
+
+
+Too often the poet sees but the tears that live in an onion; not the
+smiles. And yet the smiles are there, broad and genial, or subtle and
+tender. "Rose among roots," its very name revives memories of pleasant
+feasting; its fragrance is rich forecast of delights to come. Without
+it, there would be no gastronomic art. Banish it from the kitchen, and
+all pleasure of eating flies with it. Its presence lends colour and
+enchantment to the most modest dish; its absence reduces the rarest
+dainty to hopeless insipidity, and the diner to despair.
+
+The secret of good cooking lies in the discreet and sympathetic
+treatment of the onion. For what culinary masterpiece is there that
+may not be improved by it? It gives vivacity to soup, life to sauce;
+it is the "poetic soul" of the salad bowl; the touch of romance in the
+well-cooked vegetable. To it, sturdiest joint and lightest stew, crisp
+rissole and stimulating stuffing look for inspiration and charm--and
+never are they disappointed! But woe betide the unwary woman who would
+approach it for sacrilegious ends. If life holds nothing better than
+the onion in the right hand, it offers nothing sadder and more
+degrading than the onion brutalised. Wide is the gulf fixed between
+the delicate sauce of a Prince de Soubise, and the coarse, unsavoury
+sausage and onion mess of the Strand. Let the perfection of the first
+be your ideal; the horrid coarseness of the latter shun as you would
+the devil.
+
+The fragrance of this "wine-scented" esculent not only whets the
+appetite; it abounds in associations glad and picturesque. All Italy
+is in the fine, penetrating smell; and all Provence; and all Spain. An
+onion or garlic-scented atmosphere hovers alike over the narrow
+_calli_ of Venice, the cool courts of Cordova, and the thronged
+amphitheatre of Arles. It is only the atmosphere breathed by the Latin
+peoples of the South, so that ever must it suggest blue skies and
+endless sunshine, cypress groves and olive orchards. For the traveller
+it is interwoven with memories of the golden canvases of Titian, the
+song of Dante, the music of Mascagni. The violet may not work a
+sweeter spell, nor the carnation yield a more intoxicating perfume.
+
+And some men there have been in the past to rank the onion as a root
+sacred to Aphrodite: food for lovers. To the poetry of it none but the
+dull and brutal can long remain indifferent.
+
+Needless, then, to dwell upon its more prosaic side: upon its power as
+a tonic, its value as a medicine. Medicinal properties it has, as the
+drunkard knows full well. But why consider the drunkard? Leave him to
+the tender mercies of the doctor. _Gourmandise_, or the love of good
+eating, here the one and only concern, is opposed to excess. "Every
+man who eats to indigestion, or makes himself drunk, runs the risk of
+being erased from the list of its votaries."
+
+The onion is but the name for a large family, of which shallots,
+garlic, and chives are chief and most honoured varieties. Moreover,
+country and climate work upon it changes many and strange. In the
+south it becomes larger and more opulent, like the women. And yet, as
+it increases in size, it loses in strength--who shall say why? And
+the loss truly is an improvement. Our own onion often is strong even
+unto rankness. Therefore, as all good housewives understand, the
+Spanish species for most purposes may be used instead, and great will
+be the gain thereby. Still further south, still further east, you will
+journey but to find the onion fainter in flavour, until in India it
+seems but a pale parody of its English prototype. And again, at
+different seasons, very different are its most salient qualities. In
+great gladness of heart everyone must look forward to the dainty
+little spring onion: adorable as vegetable cooked in good white sauce,
+inscrutable as guardian spirit of fresh green salad, irreproachable as
+pickle in vinegar and mustard.
+
+Garlic is one of the most gracious gifts of the gods to men--a gift,
+alas! too frequently abused. In the vegetable world, it has something
+of the value of scarlet among colours, of the clarionet's call in
+music. Brazen, and crude, and screaming, when dragged into undue
+prominence, it may yet be made to harmonise divinely with fish and
+fowl, with meat, and other greens. Thrown wholesale into a salad, it
+is odious and insupportable; but used to rub the salad bowl, and then
+cast aside, its virtue may not be exaggerated. For it, as for lovers,
+the season of seasons is the happy spring time. Its true home is
+Provence. What would be the land of the troubadour and the Félibre
+without the _ail_ that festoons every greengrocer's shop, that adorns
+every dish at every banquet of rich and poor alike? As well rid
+_bouillabaisse_ of its saffron as of its _ail_; as well forget the
+_pomme d'amour_ in the sauce for _macaroni_, or the rosemary and the
+thyme on the spit with the little birds. The verse of Roumanille and
+Mistral smells sweet of _ail_; Tartarin and Numa Roumestan are heroes
+nourished upon it. It is the very essence of _farandoles_ and
+_ferrades_, of bull-fights and water tournaments. A pinch of _ail_, a
+_coup de vin_, and then--
+
+    Viva la joia,
+    Fidon la tristessa!
+
+And all the while we, in the cold, gloomy north, eat garlic and are
+hated for it by friends and foes. Only in the hot south can life
+_ail_-inspired pass for a _galejado_ or jest.
+
+To the onion, the shallot is as the sketch to the finished picture;
+slighter, it may be; but often subtler and more suggestive. Unrivalled
+in salads and sauces, it is without compare in the sumptuous seasoning
+of the most fantastic viands. It does not assert itself with the fury
+and pertinacity of garlic; it does not announce its presence with the
+self-consciousness of the onion. It appeals by more refined devices,
+by gentler means, and is to be prized accordingly. Small and brown, it
+is pleasant to look upon as the humble wild rose by the side of the
+_Gloire de Dijon_. And, though it never attain to the untempered
+voluptuousness of the onion, it develops its sweetness and strength
+under the hottest suns of summer: in July, August, and September, does
+it mature; then do its charms ripen; then may it be enjoyed in full
+perfection, and satisfy the most riotous gluttony.
+
+Shallots for summer by preference, but chives for spring: the delicate
+chives, the long, slim leaves, fair to look upon, sweet to smell,
+sweeter still to eat in crisp green salad. The name is a little poem;
+the thing itself falls not far short of the divine. Other varieties
+there be, other offshoots of the great onion--mother of all; none,
+however, of greater repute, of wider possibilities than these. To know
+them well is to master the fundamental principles of the art of
+cookery. But this is knowledge given unto the few; the many, no doubt,
+will remain for ever in the outer darkness, where the onion is
+condemned to everlasting companionship with the sausage--not
+altogether their fault, perhaps. In cookery, as in all else, too often
+the blind do lead the blind. But a few years since and a "delicate
+diner," an authority unto himself at least, produced upon the art of
+dining a book, not without reputation. But to turn to its index is to
+find not one reference to the onion: all the poetry gone; little but
+prose left! And this from an authority!
+
+The onion, as a dish, is excellent; as seasoning it has still more
+pleasant and commodious merits. The modern _chef_ uses it chiefly to
+season; the ancient _cordon bleu_ set his wits to work to discover
+spices and aromatic ingredients wherewith to season it. Thus,
+according to Philemon,--
+
+    If you want an onion, just consider
+    What great expense it takes to make it good;
+    You must have cheese, and honey, and sesame,
+    Oil, leeks, and vinegar, and assafoetida,
+    To dress it up with; for by itself the onion
+    Is bitter and unpleasant to the taste.
+
+A pretty mess, indeed; and who is there brave enough to-day to test
+it? Honey and onion! it suggests the ingenious contrivances of the
+mediæval kitchen. The most daring experiment now would be a dash of
+wine, red or white, a suspicion of mustard, a touch of tomato in the
+sauce for onions, stewed or boiled, baked or stuffed. To venture upon
+further flights of fancy the average cook would consider indiscreet,
+though to the genius all things are possible. However, its talents for
+giving savour and character to other dishes is inexhaustible.
+
+There is no desire more natural than that of knowledge; there is no
+knowledge nobler than that of the "gullet-science." "The discovery of
+a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the
+discovery of a planet!" What would be Talleyrand's record but for that
+moment of inspiration when, into the mysteries of Parmesan with soup,
+he initiated his countrymen? To what purpose the Crusades, had
+Crusaders not seen and loved the garlic on the plains of Askalon,
+and brought it home with them, their one glorious trophy. To a pudding
+Richelieu gave his name; the Prince de Soubise lent his to a sauce,
+and thereby won for it immortality.
+
+A benefactor to his race indeed he was: worthy of a shrine in the
+Temple of Humanity. For, plucking the soul from the onion, he laid
+bare its hidden and sweetest treasure to the elect. Scarce a sauce is
+served that owes not fragrance and flavour to the wine-scented root;
+to it, _Béarnaise_, _Maître d'Hôtel_, _Espagnole_, _Italienne_,
+_Béchamel_, _Provençale_, and who shall say how many more? look for
+the last supreme touch that redeems them from insipid commonplace. But
+_Sauce Soubise_ is the very idealisation of the onion, its very
+essence; at once delicate and strong; at once as simple and as perfect
+as all great works of art.
+
+The plodding painter looks upon a nocturne by Whistler, and thinks how
+easy, how preposterously easy! A touch here, a stroke there, and the
+thing is done. But let him try! And so with _Sauce Soubise_. Turn to
+the first cookery book at hand, and read the _recipe_. "Peel four
+large onions and cut them into thin slices; sprinkle a little pepper
+and salt upon them, together with a small quantity of nutmeg; put them
+into a saucepan with a slice of fresh butter, and steam gently"--let
+them smile, the true artist would say--"till they are soft." But why
+go on with elaborate directions? Why describe the exact quantity of
+flour, the size of the potato, the proportions of milk and cream to be
+added? Why explain in detail the process of rubbing through a sieve?
+In telling or the reading these matters seem not above the
+intelligence of a little child. But in the actual making, only the
+artist understands the secret of perfection, and his understanding is
+born within him, not borrowed from dry statistics and formal tables.
+He may safely be left to vary his methods; he may add sugar, he may
+omit nutmeg; he may fry the onions instead of boiling, for love of the
+tinge of brown, rich and sombre, thus obtained. But, whatever he does,
+always with a wooden spoon will he stir his savoury mixture; always,
+as result, produce a godlike sauce which the mutton cutlets of
+Paradise, vying with Heine's roast goose, will offer of their own
+accord at celestial banquets. What wonder that a certain famous French
+count despised the prosaic politician who had never heard of cutlets
+_à la Soubise_?
+
+However, not alone in sauce can the condescending onion come to the
+aid of dull, substantial flesh and fowl. Its virtue, when joined to
+sage in stuffing, who will gainsay? Even chestnuts, destined to stuff
+to repletion the yawning turkey, cannot afford to ignore the
+insinuating shallot or bolder garlic; while no meat comes into the
+market that will not prove the better and the sweeter for at least a
+suspicion of onion or of _ail_. A barbarian truly is the cook who
+flings a mass of fried onions upon the tender steak, and then thinks
+to offer you a rare and dainty dish. Not with such wholesale brutality
+can the ideal be attained. The French chef has more tact. He will take
+his _gigot_ and sympathetically prick it here and there with garlic or
+with chives, even as it is roasting; and whoever has never tasted
+mutton thus prepared knows not the sublimest heights of human
+happiness. Or else he will make a _bouquet garni_ of his own, entirely
+of these aromatic roots and leaves, and fasten it in dainty fashion to
+the joint; pleasure is doubled when he forgets to remove it, and the
+meat is placed upon the table, still bearing its delicious decoration.
+Moods there be that call for stronger effects: moods when the blazing
+poppy field of a Monet pleases more than the quiet moonlight of a
+Cazin; when Tennyson is put aside for Swinburne. At such times, call
+for a shoulder of mutton, well stuffed with onions, and still further
+satiate your keen, vigorous appetite with a bottle of Beaune or
+Pomard. But here, a warning: eat and drink with at least a pretence of
+moderation. Remember that, but for an excess of shoulder of mutton and
+onions, Napoleon might not have been defeated at Leipzig.
+
+But at all times, and in all places, onions clamour for moderation. A
+salad of tomatoes buried under thick layers of this powerful esculent
+must disgust; gently sprinkled with chopped-up chives or shallots, it
+enraptures. Potatoes _à la Lyonnaise_, curried eggs, Irish stew,
+_Gulyas_, _ragoût_, alike demand restraint in their preparation, a
+sweet reasonableness in the hand that distributes the onion.
+
+For the delicate diner, as for the drunkard, onion soup has charm. It
+is of the nature of _sauce Soubise_, and what mightier recommendation
+could be given it? Thus Dumas, the high priest of the kitchen, made
+it: a dozen onions--Spanish by preference--minced with discretion,
+fried in freshest of fresh butter until turned to a fair golden
+yellow, he boiled in three pints or so of water, adequately seasoned
+with salt and pepper; and then, at the end of twenty full minutes, he
+mixed with this preparation the yolks of two or three eggs, and poured
+the exquisite liquid upon bread, cut and ready. At the thought alone
+the mouth waters, the eye brightens. The adventurous, now and again,
+add ham or rice, vegetables or a _bouquet garni_. But this as you
+will, according to the passing hour's leisure. Only of one thing make
+sure--in Dumas confidence is ever to be placed without doubt or
+hesitation.
+
+Dumas' soup for dinner; but for breakfast the unrivalled omelette of
+Brillat-Savarin. It is made after this fashion: the roes of two carp,
+a piece of fresh tunny, and shallots, well hashed and mixed, are
+thrown into a saucepan with a lump of butter beyond reproach, and
+whipped up till the butter is melted, which, says the great one,
+"constitutes the speciality of the omelette;" in the meantime, let
+some one prepare, upon an oval dish, a mixture of butter and parsley,
+lemon juice, and chives--not shallots here, let the careless note--the
+plate to be left waiting over hot embers; next beat up twelve eggs,
+pour in the roes and tunny, stir with the zeal and sympathy of an
+artist, spread upon the plate that waits so patiently, serve at once;
+and words fail to describe the ecstasy that follows. Especially, to
+quote again so eminent an authority, let the omelette "be washed down
+with some good old wine, and you will see wonders," undreamed of by
+haschish or opium eater.
+
+When the little delicate spring onion is smelt in the land, a shame,
+indeed, it would be to waste its tender virginal freshness upon sauce
+and soup. Rather refrain from touching it with sharp knife or cruel
+chopper, but in its graceful maiden form boil it, smother it in rich
+pure cream, and serve it on toast, to the unspeakable delectation of
+the devout. Life yields few more precious moments. Until spring comes,
+however, you may do worse than apply the same treatment to the older
+onion. In this case, as pleasure's crown of pleasure, adorn the
+surface with grated Gruyère, and, like the ancient hero, you will wish
+your throat as long as a crane's neck, that so you might the longer
+and more leisurely taste what you swallow.
+
+Onions _farcis_ are beloved by the epicure. A nobler dish could scarce
+be devised. You may make your forcemeats of what you will, beef or
+mutton, fowl or game; you may, an' you please, add truffles,
+mushrooms, olives, and capers. But know one thing; tasteless it will
+prove, and lifeless, unless bacon lurk unseen somewhere within its
+depths. Ham will answer in a way, but never so well as humbler bacon.
+The onion that lends itself most kindly to this device is the Spanish.
+
+One word more. As the _ite missa est_ of the discourse let this
+truth--a blessing in itself--be spoken. As with meat, so with
+vegetables, few are not the better for the friendly companionship of
+the onion, or one of its many offshoots. Peas, beans, tomatoes,
+egg-plant are not indifferent to its blandishments. If honour be paid
+to the first pig that uprooted a truffle, what of the first man who
+boiled an onion? And what of the still mightier genius who first used
+it as seasoning for his daily fare? Every _gourmet_ should rise up and
+call him blessed.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRIUMPHANT TOMATO
+
+
+The triumph of the tomato has given hungry men and women a new lease
+of pleasure. Sad and drear were the days when the _gourmet_ thought to
+feast, and the beautiful scarlet fruit had no place upon his table.
+The ancient _chef_ knew it not, nor the mediæval artist who, even
+without it, could create marvellous works the modern may not hope to
+rival. Like so many good things, it first saw the light in that happy
+Western Continent where the canvas-back duck makes its home and shad
+swim in fertile rivers. What, indeed, was life, what the gift of
+eating, before the Columbus of the kitchen had discovered the tomato,
+the turkey, and the yellow Indian corn? Reflect upon it, and be
+grateful that you, at least, were not born in the Dark Age of cookery!
+
+Poor, stupid man! a treasure was presented to him freely and
+generously, and he thrust it from him. The tomato offered itself a
+willing sacrifice, and he scorned it, mistaking gold for dross. The
+American--and long years in purgatory will not redeem his
+fault--looked upon it with suspicion. To-day, it is true, he honours
+it aright: in the summer-time he bows down before its gay freshness;
+in the winter he cherishes it in tins. It has become as indispensable
+to him as salt or butter. He values it at its true worth. But still,
+half a century has not passed since he doubted it, heaping insults
+upon its trusting sweetness. He fancied poison lurked within it. O the
+cruel fancy! There it was, perfect and most desirable, and he, blind
+fool, would not touch it until endless hours of stewing had lessened,
+if not utterly destroyed, its fresh young charms. And the Englishman
+was no wiser. Within the last decade only has he welcomed the stranger
+at his gates, and at the best his welcome has been but halting and
+half-hearted. The many continue obstinately to despise it; the few
+have pledged their allegiance with reservations. The Latin, and even
+the wild Hun, were converted without a fear of misgiving while the
+Anglo-Saxon faltered and was weak. Many and beautiful are the strange
+dishes the tomato adorns in Magyarland. Was there ever a _menu_ in
+sunny Italy that did not include this meat or that vegetable _al
+pomodoro_? The very Spaniard, whom rumour weds irrevocably to garlic,
+nourishes a tender passion for the voluptuous red fruit, and wins
+rapture from it. And deep and true is the Provençal's love for his
+_pomme d'amour_; is not the name a measure of his affection? The Love
+Apple! Were there, after all, tomatoes in Judea, and were these the
+apples that comforted the love-sick Shulamite?
+
+Now that the tomato has forced universal recognition; now that in
+England it lends glory of colour to the greengrocer's display; now
+that the hothouse defeats the cruel siege of the seasons, and mild
+May, as well as mellow September, yields apples of love, pause a
+moment, turn from the trivial cares of life, to meditate upon its
+manifold virtues.
+
+The tomato as a vegetable should be the first point of the meditation.
+Let us reflect. Stewed, though not as in America of old, until all
+flavour is lost, it has the merit of simplicity by no means to be
+underestimated: drained of the greater part of its juice, thickened
+slightly with flour, it cannot disappoint. _Au gratin_, it aspires to
+more delirious joys: the pleasure yielded develops in proportion to
+the pains taken to produce it. Into a baking dish olive oil is poured
+in moderation; a sprinkling of salt and pepper and fragrant herbs well
+powdered, together with bread-crumbs duly grated, follows; next the
+tomatoes, eager and blushing, whole or in dainty halves, as the
+impulse of the moment may prompt; more bread-crumbs and pepper and
+salt and herbs must cover them gently, more oil be poured upon the
+stirring harmony; and an hour in the oven will turn you out as pretty
+a side-dish as was ever devised by ingenious Mrs Glasse, who--O the
+pity of it--lived too soon for fond dalliance with love's crowning
+vegetable.
+
+_Farcies_ tomatoes may not easily be surpassed. Upon your whim or
+choice it will depend whether you stuff them whole, or cut them in
+half for so ineffable a purpose. And upon your whim likewise depends
+the special forcemeat used. Chopped mushrooms, parsley and shallot,
+seasoned with discretion, leave little to ask for. Prepare, instead,
+sausage meat, garlic, parsley, tarragon, and chives, and the tomatoes
+so stuffed you may without pedantry call _à la Grimod de la Reynière_.
+But whatever you call them, count upon happiness in the eating.
+
+Second point of the meditation: the tomato as an auxiliary. If you
+have learned the trick of association, at once you see before you a
+steaming harmony in pale yellow and scarlet, the long soft tubes of
+_macaroni_ or _spaghetti_ encompassed round about by a deep stream of
+tomatoes stewed and seasoned; at once you feast upon _macaroni al
+pomodoro_ and Chianti, and Italy lies, like a map, before your mind's
+eye, its towns and villages marked by this dish of dishes. With rice,
+tomatoes are no less in pleasant, peaceful unity; in stuffed
+_paprika_, or pepper, they find their true affinity. Grilled, they
+make a sympathetic garniture for _filet piqué à la Richelieu_;
+stuffed, they are the proper accompaniment of _tournedos à la Leslie_;
+neatly halved, they serve as a foundation to soles _à la Loie Fuller_.
+Chickens clamour for them as ally, and so does the saltest of salt
+cod. In a word, a new combination they might with ease provide for
+every day in the year. Enough will have been said if this one truth is
+established: there is scarce a fish or fowl, scarce any meat or
+vegetable, that is not the better and the nobler for the temporary
+union with the tomato.
+
+And now, the third point of the meditation, which, too often, escapes
+the prosaic, unmeditative islander: the tomato as a dish for
+breakfast. Only recently it was thus that two of rare beauty and sweet
+savour fulfilled their destiny: on a plate fashioned by barbarous
+potters on the banks of the Danube, where the love-apple grows in gay
+profusion, stretched a thin, crisp slice of bacon decoratively
+streaked with fat and grilled to a turn; it bore, as twin flowers, the
+two tomatoes, also grilled, fragrant, tender, delectable. Surely here
+was a poetic prelude to the day's toil. To Belgium all praise be given
+for teaching that, stewed and encircling buttered or scrambled eggs,
+tomatoes may again enliven the breakfast table, that bitter test of
+conjugal devotion; to France, the credit of spreading them at the
+bottom of plate or dish as a bed for eggs artistically poached or
+fried. History records the names of generals and dates of battles,
+but what chronicler has immortalised the genius who first enclosed
+tomatoes in an omelet? This is a brutal, ungrateful world we live in.
+
+And now pass on to the fourth heading, and new ecstasies: the tomato
+as salad. Remember that the tomatoes must be deftly sliced in their
+skins or else the juice escapes; that a touch of onion or garlic is
+indispensable; that the dressing must be of oil and vinegar, pepper
+and salt; unless, of course, a _mayonnaise_ be made. Another weird
+salad there is with qualities to endear it to the morbid and neurotic.
+Let it be explained briefly, that lurid description may not be thought
+to exaggerate lurid attraction: drop your tomatoes, brilliantly red as
+the abhorred Scarlet Woman, into hot water in order to free them of
+their skins; place them whole, and in passionate proximity, in a dish
+of silver or delicate porcelain; smother them under a thick layer of
+whipped cream. For the sake of decoration and the unexpected, stick in
+here and there a pistachio nut, and thank the gods for the new
+sensation.
+
+In soup, thin or clear, the tomato knows no rival; in sauce, it
+stands supreme, ranking worthily with the four classical sauces of the
+French _cuisine_. And here, a suggestion to be received with loud,
+jubilant _Alleluias_! Follow the example of Attila's heirs, and, as
+last touch, pour cream upon your tomato sauce. He who has known and
+eaten and loved _paprika gefüllte_ in the wilds of Transylvania, will
+bear willing witness to the admirable nature of this expedient.
+
+The more devout, the professed worshipper, will eat his love-apple
+without artificial device of cookery or dressing, with only salt for
+savour. For this excess of devotion, however, unqualified commendation
+would not be just. Unadorned the tomato is not adorned the most.
+
+But cook or serve it as you will, see that it be eaten by you and
+yours--that is the main thing. The tomatoes that make glad the heart
+of the loiterer in Covent Garden are fresh as the sweet breath of May.
+
+
+
+
+A DISH OF SUNSHINE
+
+
+"The weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational
+topics." How can the ingenious housewife talk of aught else in the
+Winter season? Not because, as Mr Stevenson argues, "the dramatic
+element in scenery is far more tractable in language, and far more
+human both in import and suggestion, than the stable features of the
+landscape," but because upon it she is dependent for ease and success
+in making her every luncheon and dinner a culinary triumph.
+
+Of what avail the morning's conference with the greengrocer's boy, or
+even the conscientious visit to the greengrocer's shop or the ramble
+through the market--unless, perhaps, and happily, her pockets be lined
+with gold, when hothouse vegetables, and out-of-season delicacies,
+must be paid for with the alacrity of a Croesus? Otherwise, dark,
+hopeless despair seizes upon her? Must she not brood in abject
+melancholy when the hideous truth is revealed to her that earth's
+resources are limited to turnip-tops and Brussels sprouts, with, it
+may be, a few Jerusalem artichokes thrown in? Celery, the lordly, is
+frozen. Cauliflower, the fragrant, frost-bitten irretrievably, will
+not yield to the most urgent inducements of hot water. Lettuce is a
+thing of the past and of the future. Sad and drear indeed is the
+immediate prospect. For surely turnip-tops are a delusion, and against
+the monotony of sprouts the aspiring soul rebels.
+
+It is at this crisis that hope flames right in a strangely neglected
+corner. Italian sunshine and blue skies, concentrated in flour paste,
+wrought into tubes and ribbons, squares and lozenges, come to gladden
+the sinking heart and cheer the drooping spirits. Why despair when
+_macaroni_ is always to be had, inestimable as a vegetable, unrivalled
+as an _entrée_, a perfect meal, if you choose, in itself?
+
+Upon the imagination of those to whom food is something besides a mere
+satisfaction to carnal appetite, _macaroni_ works a strange, subtle
+spell. The very name conjures up sweet poetic visions; it is the
+magic crystal or beryl stone, in which may be seen known things, dear
+to the memory: smiling valleys where the vines are festooned, not as
+Virgil saw them, from elm to elm, but from mulberry to mulberry; and
+where the beautiful, broad-horned, white oxen drag, in solemn dignity,
+the crawling plough; olive-clad slopes and lonely stone palms; the
+gleam of sunlit rivers winding with the reeds and the tall, slim
+poplars; the friendly wayside _trattoria_ and the pleasant refrain of
+the beaming _cameriere_, "_Subito Signora; ecco!_"--a refrain
+ceaseless as the buzzing of bees among the clover. In a dish of
+_macaroni_ lies all Italy for the woman with eyes to see or a heart to
+feel.
+
+Or visions more personal, more intimate, she may summon for her own
+delight; the midday halt and lunch in Castiglione del Lago on its
+gentle hill-top, the blue of Thrasymene's lake shining between the
+olives, and all fair to behold, save the _padrone_ with his
+conscienceless charges for the bowl of _macaroni_ that had been so
+good in the eating. Or else, perhaps, the evening meal in the long
+refectory at Monte Oliveto, with the white-robed brothers; or, again,
+the unforgettable breakfast at Pompeii's _Albergo del Sole_, the good
+wine ranged upon the old tree trunk that serves as central column, the
+peacock, tail outspread, strutting about among the chairs and tables,
+the overpowering sweetness of the flowering bean stealing, from near
+fields, through open doors and windows. Or, still again, the thought
+of Pompeii sends one off upon the journey from its ruined streets to
+Naples--on one side the Bay, on the other the uninterrupted line of
+villages, every low white house adorned with garlands of _macaroni_
+drying peacefully and swiftly in the hot sun. And a few pence only
+will it cost to dream such dreams of beauty and of gladness.
+
+Many as are the devices for preparing this stuff that dreams are made
+of, none can excel the simplest of all. Eat it the way the Italian
+loves it, and for yourself you open up new vistas of pleasure. And
+what could be easier? In water well salted--upon the salt much
+depends--the _macaroni_, preferably in the large generous tubes, is
+boiled for twenty minutes, or half an hour, until it is as soft as
+soft may be without breaking. A capacious bowl, its sides well
+buttered and sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese, must wait in
+readiness. Into it put the _macaroni_, well drained of the water, into
+its midst drop a large piece of sweet, fresh butter, and sprinkle,
+without stint, more of the indispensable Parmesan; mix wisely and with
+discrimination; and then eat to your soul's, or stomach's, content. To
+further your joy, have at your side a flash of Chianti, pure and
+strong, standing in no need of baptism. The gods never fared better.
+But, one word of advice: if this dish you serve for luncheon, defy
+convention, and make it the first and last and only course. It may
+seem meagre in the telling. But to treat it with due respect and
+justice much must be eaten, and this much makes more impossible even
+to the hopeful.
+
+Another word of advice: never break or cut the _macaroni_ into small
+pieces; the cook who dares to disobey in this particular deserves
+instant and peremptory dismissal. Where is the poetry, where the art,
+if it can be eaten with as little trouble and planning as an everyday
+potato, or a mess of greens? Who, that has seen, can forget the
+skilful Italian winding the long steaming tubes around and around his
+fork, his whole soul and intelligence concentrated upon the pretty
+feat of transposing these tubes from his fork to his mouth. It is
+difficult; yes, especially for the foreigner; but where is the
+pleasure without pain? As well tear your Troyon or your Diaz into
+shreds, and enjoy it in bits, as violate the virginal lengths of your
+_macaroni_.
+
+In more lavish mood, prepare it _al sugo_, and no cause need you fear
+for regret. It is well-nigh as simple; the _macaroni_, or better still
+_spaghetti_, the smaller, daintier variety, once boiled, is taken from
+the water only to be plunged in rich gravy, its quantity varying
+according to the quantity of _spaghetti_ used; let it boil anew, or
+rather simmer, until each long tube is well saturated; then, add the
+cheese and butter, and say your _Benedicite_ with a full heart.
+
+Or, would you have it richer still, and so tempt Providence? Make
+tomato the foundation of the gravy, spice it with cloves, bring out
+the sweet _bouquet garni_, serve with butter and Parmesan cheese as
+before, and call the result _Macaroni à la Napolitaine_. _Spaghetti_,
+here again, will answer the purpose as well, nor will the pretty,
+flat, wavy ribbon species come amiss. To court perfection, rely upon
+mushrooms for one of the chief elements in this adorable concoction,
+and the whole world over you may travel without finding a dish worthy
+to compete with it. _Macaroni_ can yield nothing more exquisite,
+though not yet are its resources exhausted.
+
+_Au gratin_ it is also to be commended. The preliminary boiling may
+now, as always, be taken for granted. With its chosen and well-tried
+accompaniments of butter and Parmesan cheese, and steeped in a good
+white sauce, it may simmer gently over the fire until the sympathetic
+butter be absorbed; then in a decently prepared dish, and covered with
+bread-crumbs, it should bake until it is warmed into a golden-brown
+harmony that enraptures the eye. Or with stronger seasoning, with
+onion and pepper and cayenne, you may create a savoury beyond compare.
+Or combined with the same ingredients you may stew your _macaroni_ in
+milk, and revel in _macaroni sauté_; worse a hundred times, truly,
+might you fare.
+
+But, if you would be wholly reckless, why, then try _Macaroni à la
+Pontife_, and know that human ambition may scarce pretend to nobler
+achievements. For a mould of goodly proportions you fill with
+_macaroni_ and forcemeat of fowl and larks and bits of bacon and
+mushrooms and game filleted; and this ineffable arrangement you
+moisten with gravy and allow to simmer slowly, as befits its
+importance, for an hour; eat it, and at last you too, with Faust, may
+hail the fleeting moment, and bid it stay, because it is so fair!
+
+In puddings and pies _macaroni_ is most excellent. But if you be not
+lost beyond redemption, never sweeten either one or the other; the
+suggestion of such sacrilege alone is horrid. Into little croquettes
+it may by cunning hands be modelled; _en timbale_, in well-shaped
+mould, it reveals new and welcome possibilities. With fish it
+assimilates admirably; in soup it is above criticism. It will
+strengthen the flavour of chestnuts, nor will it disdain the
+stimulating influence of wine, white or red. And in the guise of
+_nouilles_, or nudels, it may be stuffed with forcemeat of fowl or
+beef, and so clamour for the rich tomato sauce.
+
+
+
+
+ON SALADS
+
+
+To speak of salads in aught but the most reverential spirit were
+sacrilege. To be honoured aright, they should be eaten only in the
+company of the devout or in complete solitude--and perhaps this latter
+is the wiser plan. Who, but the outer barbarian, will not with a good
+salad,
+
+    A book, a taper, and a cup
+    Of country wine, divinely sup?
+
+Over your hot meats you cannot linger; if alone with them, and read
+you must, a common newspaper, opened at the day's despatches, best
+serves your purpose; else, your gravies and sauces congeal into a
+horrid white mess upon your plate, and tepid is every unsavoury morsel
+your fork carries to your mouth. But over any one of the "salad
+clan"--lettuce or tomato, beans or potato, as fancy prompts--you can
+revel at leisure in your Balzac, your Heine, your Montaigne, which,
+surely, it would be desecration to spread open by the side of the
+steaming roast or the prosaic bacon and eggs. There has always seemed
+one thing lacking in Omar's Paradise: a salad, he should have
+bargained for with his Book of Verses, his Jug of Wine, and Loaf of
+Bread "underneath the Bough."
+
+Far behind has the Continent left Great Britain in the matter of
+salads. To eat them in perfection you must cross the Channel--as,
+indeed, you must in the pursuit of all the daintiest dishes--and
+travel still farther than France. The French will give you for
+breakfast a bowl of _Soissons_, for dinner a _Romaine_, which long
+survive as tender memories; even the humble dandelion they have
+enlisted in the good cause. With the Italian you will fare no less
+well; better it may be, for, with the poetic feeling that has
+disappeared for ever from their art and architecture, they fill the
+salad bowl at times with such delicate conceits as tender young violet
+leaves, so that you may smell the spring in the blossoms at your
+throat, while you devour it in the greens set before you. But in
+Germany, though there may be less play of fancy in the choice of
+materials, there is far greater poetry in the mixing of them. As an
+atonement for that offence against civilisation, the midday dinner,
+the Germans have invented a late supper that defies the critic: the
+very meanest _Speise-Saal_ is transfigured when the gaslight falls
+softly on the delicious potato or cucumber or herring salads of the
+country, flanked by the tall slim glasses of amber Rhenish wine. But,
+excelling Germany, even as Germany excels France, Hungary is the true
+home of the salad. It would take a book to exhaust the praise it there
+inspires. To die eating salad on the banks of the Danube to the wail
+of the Czardas--that would be the true death! What, however, save the
+ideals realised, is to be effected in a land where tomatoes are as
+plentiful as are potatoes in Ireland?
+
+The Briton, it must be admitted, has of late progressed. Gone is the
+time when his favourite salad was a horror unspeakable: an onion and a
+lettuce served whole, chopped up by himself, smothered in salt and
+pepper, and fairly sluiced with vinegar. To understand the full
+iniquity of it, you must remember what an excess of vinegar the
+stalwart Briton was equal to in those days, now happily past. An
+imperial pint, Mr Weller's friend, the coachman with the hoarse voice,
+took with his oysters without betraying the least emotion. As
+benighted, smacking no less of the Dark Ages, is the custom of serving
+with cheese a lettuce (of the long crisp species known as _cos_ in the
+cookery books), cut ruthlessly in halves. You are supposed to dip the
+leaves into salt, and afterwards return thanks with a grateful heart.
+Many there are who will still eat lettuce in this fashion with their
+tea; the curious student of evolution can point to it as a survival of
+the old barbarism; to the mustard and cress or cucumber sandwiches
+which have replaced it, as a higher phase of development.
+
+But, though these sorry customs still survive here and there, even as
+superstitions linger among ignorant peasants, British eyes are opening
+to the truth. The coming of the salad in England marks the passing of
+the Englishman from barbarous depth to civilised heights. Has he not
+exchanged his old-love Frith for Whistler, and has he not risen from
+G. P. R. James to George Meredith? Not a whit less important in the
+history of his civilisation is his emancipation from that vile,
+vinegar-drenched abomination to the succulent tomato, the unrivalled
+potato, well "fatigued" in the "capacious salad-bowl."
+
+Of every woman worthy of the name, it is the duty to master the secret
+of the perfect salad, and to prepare it for her own--and man's--greater
+comfort and joy in this life, and--who knows?--salvation in the
+next. This secret is all in the dressing. It is easy enough to buy
+in the market, or order at the greengrocer's a lettuce, or a cucumber,
+or a pound of tomatoes. But to make of them a masterpiece, there's
+the rub. Upon the dressing and "fatiguing" success depends. The
+mission of the lettuce, the resources of the bean were undreamed
+of until the first woman--it must have been a woman!--divined
+the virtue that lies in the harmonious combination of oil and
+vinegar. Vinegar alone and undiluted is for the vulgar; mixed
+with oil it as much surpasses nectar and ambrosia as these hitherto
+have been reckoned superior to the liquors of mere human brewing. Of
+_mayonnaise_ nothing need as yet be said; it ranks rather with sauces,
+irreproachable when poured upon salmon, or chicken, or lobster--upon
+the simpler and more delicate salads it seems well-nigh too strong and
+coarse. The one legitimate dressing in these cases is made of vinegar
+and oil, pepper and salt, and, on certain rare occasions, mustard.
+
+As with sauces, it is simple to put down in black and white the
+several ingredients of the good dressing. But what of the proportions?
+What of the methods of mixing? In the large towns of the United States
+where men and women delight in the pleasures of the table, are
+specialists who spend their afternoons going from house to house,
+preparing the salads for the day's coming great event. And perhaps, in
+the end, all mankind may see advantages in this division of labour.
+For only the genius born can mix a salad dressing as it should be
+mixed. Quantities of pepper and salt, of oil and vinegar for him (or
+her) are not measured by rule or recipe, but by inspiration. You may
+generalise and insist upon one spoonful of oil for every guest and one
+for the bowl--somewhat in the manner of tea-making--and then
+one-third the quantity of vinegar. But out of these proportions the
+Philistine will evolve for you a nauseating concoction; the initiated,
+a dressing of transcendental merit.
+
+As much depends upon the mixing as upon the proportions. The foolish
+pour in first their oil, then their vinegar, and leave the rest to
+chance, with results one shudders to remember. The two must be mixed
+together even as they are poured over the salad, and here the task but
+begins. For next, they must be mixed with the salad. To "fatigue" it
+the French call this special part of the process, and indeed, to
+create a work of art, you must mix and mix and mix until you are
+fatigued yourself, and your tomatoes or potatoes reduced to one-half
+their original bulk. Then will the dressing have soaked through and
+through them, then will every mouthful be a special plea for gluttony,
+an eloquent argument for the one vice that need not pall with years.
+
+One other ingredient must not be omitted here, since it is as
+essential as the oil itself. This is the onion--
+
+    Rose among roots, the maiden fair,
+    Wine-scented and poetic soul
+
+of every salad. You may rub with it the bowl, you may chop it up fine
+and sprinkle with it the lettuce, as you might sprinkle an omelet with
+herbs. But there, in one form or another, it must be. The French have
+a tendency to abuse it; they will cut it in great slices to spread
+between layers of tomatoes or cucumbers. But there is a touch of
+grossness in this device. It is just the _soupçon_ you crave, just the
+subtle flavour it alone can impart. You do not want your salad, when
+it comes on the table, to suggest nothing so much as the stewed steak
+and onions shops in the Strand! The fates forbid.
+
+"What diversities soever there be in herbs, all are shuffled up
+together under the name of sallade." And Montaigne wrote in sadness,
+knowing well that there could be no error more fatal. Have you ever
+asked for a salad at the greengrocer's, and been offered a collection
+of weeds befitting nothing so much as Betsy Prig's capacious pocket?
+Have you ever, at the table of the indifferent, been served with the
+same collection plentifully drenched with "salad cream"? But these are
+painful memories, speedily to be put aside and banished for evermore.
+Some combinations there are of herbs or greens or vegetables
+unspeakably delicious, even in the thought thereof. But it is not at
+haphazard, by an unsympathetic greengrocer, they can be made; not in
+haste, from bottles of atrocities, they can be dressed. They are the
+result of conscientious study, of consummate art.
+
+Besides, some varieties there be of flavour too delicate to be
+tampered with: for instance, the cabbage lettuce, as the vulgar call
+it, which comes in about Easter time, but which, at the cost of a
+little trouble, can be had all the year round. For some reason
+unknown, your hard-hearted greengrocer, half the time, objects to it
+seriously, declares it not to be found from end to end of Covent
+Garden. But let him understand that upon his providing it depends your
+custom, and he fetches it--the unprincipled one--fast enough. The
+ragged outer leaves pulled away, crisp and fresh is the heart, a cool
+green and white harmony not to be touched by brutal knife. The leaves
+must be torn apart, gently and lovingly, as the painter plays with the
+colours on his palette. Then, thrown into the bowl which already has
+been well rubbed with onion, and slices of hard-boiled egg laid upon
+the top for adornment and flavouring alike, at once may the dressing
+of oil and vinegar and salt and pepper be poured on, and the process
+of "fatiguing" begin. You need add nothing more, to know, as you eat,
+that life, so long as salads are left to us, is well worth the living.
+
+To say this is to differ in a measure from the great Alexandre, a
+misfortune surely to be avoided. To this lettuce he would add herbs of
+every kind; nay, even oysters, or tortoise eggs, or anchovies, or
+olives--in fact, the subject is one which has sent his ever delightful
+imagination to work most riotously. But, in all humility, must it
+still be urged that the cabbage lettuce is best ungarnished, save, it
+may be, by a touch of the unrivalled celery or slices of the adorable
+tomato--never, if yours be the heart of an artist, by the smallest
+fragment of the coarse, crude, stupid beetroot.
+
+The _romaine_, or _cos_, however, is none the worse for Dumas'
+suggestions; indeed, it is much the better. Its long stiff leaves, as
+they are, may not be "fatigued" with anything approaching ease or
+success. It is to be said--with hesitation perhaps, and yet to be
+said--that they make the better salad for being cut before they are
+put into the bowl. As if to atone for this unavoidable liberty, dainty
+additions may not come amiss: the tender little boneless anchovies,
+fish of almost any and every kind--most admirably, salmon and a bit of
+red herring in conjunction--cucumbers, celery, tomatoes, radishes--all
+will blend well and harmoniously. Be bold in your experiments, and
+fear nothing. Many failures are a paltry price to pay for one perfect
+dish.
+
+Of other green salads the name is legion: endive, dandelion leaves,
+chicory, chervil, mustard and cress, and a hundred and more besides
+before the resources of France--more especially the Midi--and Italy be
+exhausted. And none may be eaten becomingly without the oil and
+vinegar dressing; all are the pleasanter for the _soupçon_ of onion,
+and the egg, hard-boiled; a few gain by more variegated garniture.
+
+But these minor salads--as they might be classed--pale before the
+glories of the tomato: the _pomodoro_ of the Italian, the _pomme
+d'amour_ of the Provençal--sweet, musical names, that linger tenderly
+on the lips. And, indeed, if the tomato were veritably the "love
+apple" of the Scriptures, and, in Adam's proprietorship, the olives
+already yielded oil, the vines vinegar, then the tragedy in the Garden
+of Eden may be explained without the aid of commentary. Many a
+man--Esau notably--has sold his birthright for less than a good tomato
+salad.
+
+Dante's _Inferno_ were too good for the depraved who prepare it, as if
+it were a paltry pickle, with a dosing of vinegar. It must first
+receive the stimulus of the onion; then its dressing must be fortified
+by the least suspicion of mustard--English, French, or German, it
+matters not which--and if the pleasure that follows does not reconcile
+you to Paradise lost, as well might you live on dry bread and cold
+water for the rest of your natural days. The joys of the epicure,
+clearly, are not for you. It seems base and sordid to offer for so
+exquisite a delicacy hygienic references. But the world is still full
+of misguided men who prize "dietetic principles" above the delights of
+gluttony; once assured that from the eating of the tomato will come
+none of the evils "to which flesh is _erroneously supposed_ to be
+heir," they might be induced to put tomato salad, made in right
+fashion, to the test. Then must they be confirmed faddists indeed, if
+they do not learn that one eats not merely to digest.
+
+To the mystical German, the potato first revealed virtues undreamed of
+by the blind who had thought it but a cheap article of food to satisfy
+hunger, even by the French who had carried it to such sublime heights
+in their _purées_ and _soufflés_, their _Parisiennes_ and
+_Lyonnaises_. Not until it has been allowed to cool, been cut in thin
+slices, been dressed as a salad, were its subtlest charms suspected.
+To the German--to that outer barbarian of the midday dinner--we owe at
+least this one great debt of gratitude. Like none other, does the
+potato-salad lend itself to the most fantastic play of fancy. It
+stimulates imagination, it awakens ambition. A thousand and one ways
+there be of preparing it, each better than the last. With celery, with
+carrots, with tomatoes, with radishes, with parsley, with cucumber,
+with every green thing that grows--in greatest perfection with okras,
+the vegetable dear to Hungarian and American, unknown to poor
+Britons--it combines graciously and deliciously, each combination a
+new ecstasy. And, moreover, it is capable of endless decoration; any
+woman with a grain of ingenuity can make of it a thing of beauty, to
+look upon which is to sharpen the dullest appetite. So decorative are
+its possibilities, that at times it is a struggle to decide between
+its merits as an ornament and its qualities as a delicacy. For truth
+is, it becomes all the more palatable if dressed and "fatigued" an
+hour or so before it is eaten, and the oil and vinegar given time to
+soak through every slice and fragment. The wise will disdain, for the
+purpose, the ordinary potato, but procure instead the little, hard
+"salad potato," which never crumbles; it comes usually from Hamburg,
+and is to be bought for a trifle in the German _delicatessen_ shops of
+London.
+
+Poetic in the early spring is the salad of "superb asparagus"--pity it
+should ever be eaten hot with drawn butter!--or of artichoke, or of
+cucumber--the latter never fail to sprinkle with parsley, touch with
+onion, and "fatigue" a good half hour before serving. Later, the
+French bean, or the scarlet runner should be the lyrical element of
+the feast. And in winter, when curtains are drawn and lamps lit, and
+fires burn bright, the substantial _Soissons_, for all its memories of
+French commercials, is not to be despised. But, if your soul aspires
+to more ethereal flights, then create a vegetable salad--cauliflower,
+and peas, and potatoes, and beans, and carrots in rhythmical
+proportions and harmonious blending of hues.
+
+
+
+
+THE SALADS OF SPAIN
+
+
+They are still many and delicious as when Beckford ate them and was
+glad, a hundred and more years ago. The treasures of the Incas have
+dwindled and disappeared; the Alhambra has decayed and been restored
+on its high hill-top; the masterpieces of Velasquez have been torn
+from palace walls, to hang in convenient rows in public museums; the
+greatness of Spain has long been waning. But the Spaniard still mixes
+his salads with the art and distinction that have been his for
+centuries. Herein, at least, his genius has not been dimmed, nor his
+success grown less. And so long as this remains true, so long will
+there be hope of a new Renaissance in the Iberian peninsula. By a
+nation's salads may you judge of its degree of civilisation; thus
+tested, Spain is in the van, not the rear, of all European countries.
+
+It is no small achievement to give distinctive character to national
+salads, to-day that the virtue of vinegar and oil and the
+infallibility of incomparable onion are universally acknowledged and
+respected. And yet Spain, in no idle spirit of self-puffery, can boast
+of this achievement. She has brought to her _insalada_ a new element,
+not wholly unknown elsewhere--in Hungary, for instance--but one which
+only by the Spaniard has been fully appreciated, constantly
+introduced, and turned to purest profit. This element--need it be
+said?--is the pepper, now red, now green. The basis of the Spanish
+salad may be--nay, is--the same as in other lands: tomato, cucumber,
+lettuce, beans, potatoes. But to these is added pepper--not miserably
+dried and powdered, but fresh and whole, or in generous slices--and
+behold! a new combination is created, a new flavour evolved. And it is
+a flavour so strong, yet subtle withal, so aromatic and spicy, so
+_bizarre_ and picturesque--dream-inspiring as the aroma of green
+Chartreuse, stimulating as Cognac of ripe years--that the wonder is
+its praises hitherto have not been more loudly sung, its delights more
+widely cultivated. The trumpet-note struck by the glowing scarlet is
+fitting herald of the rapturous thrills that follow in the eating. Not
+more voluptuous than the salad thus adorned were the beauties of the
+harem, who doubtless feasted upon it under the cypresses and myrtles
+of Andalusia.
+
+The tendency of the Spaniard is ever to harmony, intricate and
+infinite. Is not his dish of dishes his _olla cocida_? Is not his
+favourite course of vegetables the _pisto_? And so likewise with his
+salads: now he may give you tomato just touched with pepper, cucumber
+just enlivened by the same stirring presence. But more often he will
+present you an arrangement which, in its elaboration, may well baffle
+the first investigation of the student. Peppers, as like as not of
+both species, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, garlic cut fine as if for a
+mince of greens--"pepper hash," the American crudely calls an
+arrangement closely akin in motive--are mingled together so deftly,
+are steeped in vinegar and oil so effectually, as to seem, not many in
+one, but _the_ one in many, the crowning glory of the glorious
+vegetable world of the South. Nothing in common has this delectable
+salad with the _macédoine_, which the Spaniard also makes. Peas and
+carrots, potatoes and tomatoes, beans and cauliflowers meet to new
+purpose, when peppers, red and ardent, wander hither and thither in
+their midst waging war upon insipidity, destroying, as if by fire, the
+tame and the commonplace. Again, lettuce untainted by garlic,
+resisting the slightest suspicion of complexity, may answer for the
+foolish foreigner who knows no better. But in lettuce prepared for
+himself the Spaniard spares not the fragrant garlic; neither does he
+omit his beloved peppers, while he never rebels, rejoicing rather, if
+occasional slices of cucumber and tomatoes lie hid between the cool
+green leaves.
+
+But fish furnishes him with text for still more eloquent flights,
+still loftier compositions. A _mayonnaise_ he can make such as never
+yet was eaten under milder suns and duller skies; and a _mayonnaise_
+far from exhausts his all but unlimited resources. Sardines he will
+take, or tunny, or any fish that swims, and that, already cooked, has
+been either shut up long weeks in protecting tins or left but a few
+hours to cool. Whatever the fish chosen, he places it neatly and
+confidently at the bottom of his dish; above it he lays lettuce leaves
+and garlic and long brilliant slices of scarlet pepper; round about it
+he weaves a garniture of olives and hard-boiled eggs that reveal their
+hearts of gold. The unrivalled, if cosmopolitan, sauce of vinegar and
+oil is poured upon the whole and made doubly welcome. But details are
+varied in every fish salad served in Spain; only in its perfection
+does it prove unalterable.
+
+These, and their hundred offshoots were conceived in serious moments.
+But once, in sheer levity of spirit and indolence, the gay Andalusian
+determined to invent a salad that, to the world beyond his snowy
+Sierras, would seem wildest jest, but to himself would answer for food
+and drink, and, because of its simplicity and therefore cheapness,
+save him many a useless hour of gaining his dinner at the sweat of his
+brow. And so, to the strumming of guitars and click of castanets, now
+never heard save in books of travel through Andalusia, _gaspacho_
+appeared; destined to be for ever after the target for every
+travel-writer's wit, the daily fare of its inventor and his
+descendants. To the Andalusian _gaspacho_ is as _macaroni_ to the
+Neapolitan, _bouillabaisse_ to the Provençal, chops and steaks to the
+Englishman. In hotels, grotesquely French or pretentiously English,
+where butter comes out of tins, and salad is garlicless, _gaspacho_
+may be but surreptitiously concocted for the secret benefit of the
+household. But go to the genuine Andalusian _posada_ or house, travel
+in Andalusian boat, or breakfast at Andalusian buffet, and ten to one
+_gaspacho_ figures on the _menu_.
+
+To describe it, Gautier must be borrowed from. What would you? When
+the master has pronounced upon any given subject, why add an
+inefficient postscript? When a readymade definition, admirably
+rendered, is at your command, why be at the pains of making a new one
+for yourself? Never be guilty of any work when others may do it for
+you, is surely the one and only golden rule of life. Listen, then, to
+the considerate Gautier: "_Gaspacho_ deserves a description to itself,
+and so we shall give here the recipe which would have made the late
+Brillat-Savarin's hair stand on end. You pour water into a soup
+tureen, to this water you add vinegar" (why omit the oil, you
+brilliant but not always reliable poet?), "shreds of garlic, onions
+cut in quarters, slices of cucumber, some pieces of pepper, a pinch of
+salt; then you add bits of bread, which are left to soak in this
+agreeable mess, and you serve cold." It should be further explained
+that, in the season, tomatoes are almost invariably introduced, that
+they and all the greens are chopped up very fine, and that the whole
+has the consistency of a _julienne_ supplied with an unusually lavish
+quantity of vegetables. It is eaten with a spoon from a soup plate,
+though on the _menu_ it appears as a course just before the sweets.
+This explanation made, listen again to Gautier, who writes in
+frivolous mood. "With us, dogs but tolerably well bred would refuse to
+compromise their noses in such a mixture. It is the favourite dish of
+the Andalusians, and the prettiest women, without fear, swallow at
+evening great spoonfuls of this infernal soup. _Gaspacho_ is held to
+be most refreshing, an opinion which to us seems a trifle daring, and
+yet, extraordinary as it may be found at the first taste, you finish
+by accustoming yourself to it, and even liking it."
+
+He was right. _Gaspacho_ has its good points: it is pleasant to the
+taste, piquant in its very absurdity; it is refreshing, better than
+richly-spiced sauces when the sun shines hot at midday. Andalusians
+have not been labouring under a delusion these many years. The pepper
+is a stimulant; vinegar, oil, and water unite in a drink more cooling
+and thirst-quenching than abominable red wine of Valdepeñas. Would you
+be luxurious, would you have your _gaspacho_ differ somewhat from the
+poor man's, drop in a lump of ice, and double will be your pleasure in
+the eating.
+
+Like all good things _gaspacho_ has received that sincerest form of
+flattery, imitation; and, what is more gratifying, received it at
+home. Lettuce, cut in tiny pieces, is set floating in a large bowl of
+water, vinegar, and oil, well seasoned with salt. Refreshing this also
+is claimed to be; though so strange a sight is it to the uninitiated
+that a prim schoolma'am, strayed from Miss Wilkins's stories into
+Andalusia, has been seen to throw up hands of wonder, and heard to
+declare that that salad would find a niche in her diary, to which, as
+a rule, she confided nothing less precious than her thoughts. Happy
+Spain, to have so conquered! What is Granada to the possession of so
+chaste a tribute?
+
+
+
+
+THE STIRRING SAVOURY
+
+
+First impressions have their value: they may not be dismissed in
+flippancy of spirit. But for this reason must last impressions be held
+things of nought, not worthy the consideration of ambitious or
+intelligent man? First impressions at times are washed away by the
+rich, fast stream of after-events, even as the first on a slate
+disappear under the obliterating sponge; last impressions remain to
+bear testimony after the more tangible facts have passed into the
+_ewigkeit_. Else, where the use of the ballade's _envoy_, of the final
+sweet or stirring scene as the curtain falls upon the play?
+
+It is the same with all the arts--with love, too, for that matter,
+were there but space to prove it. Love, however, dwindles in
+importance when there is question of dinner or breakfast. Life
+consists of eating and drinking, as greater philosophers than Sir
+Andrew Aguecheek have learned to their infinite delight, have
+preached to the solace of others. Therefore, so order your life that
+the last impressions of your eating and drinking may be more joyful,
+more beautiful than the first; then, and only then, will you have
+solved that problem of problems which, since the world began, has set
+many a Galahad upon long and weary quest. It behoves you to see that
+the feast, which opened with ecstasy, does not close with platitude,
+and thus cover you with shame and confusion. A paltry amateur, a
+clumsy bungler, is he who squanders all his talent upon the soup, and
+leaves the savoury to take care of itself. Be warned in time!
+
+The patriotic claim the savoury as England's invention. Their
+patriotism is pretty and pleasing; moreover, it is not without a
+glimmering of truth. For to England belongs the glorious discovery
+that the dinner which ends with a savoury ends with rapture that
+passeth human understanding! The thing itself has its near of kin, its
+ancestors, as one might say. Caviar, olives, lax, anchovies, herrings'
+roe, sardines, and as many more of the large and noble family--do not
+these appear as _antipasti_ in Italy? In Russia and Scandinavia do
+they not, spread symmetrically on side table, serve the purpose of
+America's cocktail? And among the palms, as among the pines, coldness
+is held to be an essential quality in them. Hot from the ardent oven,
+the Parisian welcomes their presence between the soup and the fish,
+and many are the enthusiasts who declare this to be the one and only
+time for their discreet appearance upon the _menu_. Reason is in the
+plea: none but the narrow-minded would condemn it untested and
+untried. He who prizes change, who rebels even against the monotony of
+the perfect, may now and again follow this fashion so gaily applauded
+by _gourmets_ of distinction. But, remembering the _much_ that depends
+upon last impressions, the wise will reserve his savoury to make
+therewith a fair, brave ending.
+
+There still walk upon this brutal earth poor heedless women who, in
+the innocence of their hearts, believe that the one destiny of cheese
+is to lie, cut up in little pieces, in a three-cornered dish, which it
+shares with misplaced biscuits and well-meaning rolls of butter, and,
+it may be, chilling celery. But cheese, which in many ways has
+achieved such marvels, may be wrought into savouries beyond compare.
+As _soufflé_, either _au Gruyère_ or _au Parmesan_, it becomes light
+and dainty as the poet's lyric, and surely should be served only on
+porcelain of the finest. It is simple to say how the miracle is
+worked: a well-heated oven, a proper saucepan, butter, water, pepper,
+salt and sugar in becoming proportions, the yolks of eggs and grated
+Parmesan, the whites of the eggs added, as if an afterthought; and
+twenty-five minutes in the expectant oven will do the rest. But was
+ever lyric turned out by rule and measure? Even the inspired artist
+has been known to fail with his _soufflé_. Here, indeed, is a miracle,
+best entrusted to none but the genius.
+
+_Canapé au Parmesan_ has pretensions which the result justifies. On
+the bread, fried as golden as the haloes of Fra Angelico's angels, the
+grated Parmesan, mingled with salt and pepper, is spread. A Dutch oven
+yields temporary asylum until the cheese be melted, when, quicker than
+thought, the _canapés_ are set upon a pretty dish and served to happy
+mortals. _Ramaquins_ of cheese, in cases or out, can boast of charms
+the most seductive. Nor in _gougère_ or _beignet_ or _bouchée_ will
+Parmesan betray confidence. Again, in _pailles_, or straws, on fire
+with cayenne, and tied with fluttering ribbons into enticing bunches,
+this happy child of the South reveals new powers of seduction. So long
+as there is cheese to command, the most fastidious need not wander far
+in search of savouries.
+
+The anchovy may be made a dangerous rival to Parmesan. Whole, or in
+paste, it yields enchanting harmonies, burning and fervent as lover's
+prayer. Let your choice fall upon the boneless anchovies of France, if
+you would aim at the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of labour.
+True it is that labour in the kitchen is ever a joy; but, expended
+upon one creation when it might be divided among many, must not
+sacrifice of variety in sensation be the price paid? Fried after the
+fashion of whitebait, sprinkled with _paprika_, and refreshed with
+lemon juice, anchovies become quite irresistible as _Orlys d'anchois_.
+Prepared in cases, like Parmesan, they are proof against criticism as
+_tartelettes_. Now figuring as _petites bouchées_, now as
+_rissolettes_, they fail not to awaken new and delicious emotions.
+They simply clamour for certain exquisite combinations, to-day with
+hard-boiled egg passed through a sieve, to-morrow with olives from
+sunny Provence; thin brown bread and butter, or toast, the crisp
+foundation. But rarely do they go masquerading so riotously as in the
+garb of _croûtes d'anchois_: first, the golden _croûton_, then a slice
+of tomato, then a slice of cucumber, then a layer of caviar, then a
+layer of anchovies scarlet with _paprika_ and garnished with leaves of
+chervil; and behold! you have a pyramid more memorable far than any
+raised on Egyptian sands--a pyramid that you need not travel silly
+miles to see: it is yours, any day and any hour, for the ordering.
+
+Lax laid lightly on toast is a pale rose triumph. _Olives
+farcies_--caper and anchovy chief ingredients of the _farce_--come
+like a flaming ray of southern sunlight. Haddock is smoked in the land
+across the border solely that it may ravish the elect in its grandest
+phase as _croustades de merluche fumée_. By the shores of the blue
+Mediterranean, sardines are packed in tins that the delicate diner of
+the far north may know pleasure's crown of pleasure in _canapé de
+sardines diablées_. Caviar craves no more elaborate seasoning than
+lemon juice and _paprika_ can give; herring roe sighs for devilled
+biscuit as friendly resting-place. Shrimp and lobster vie with one
+another for the honour either _bouchée_ or _canapé_ bestows. And ham
+and tongue pray eagerly to be grated and transformed into bewildering
+_croûtes_. The ever-willing mushroom refuses to be outsped in the
+blessed contest, but murmurs audibly, "_Au gratin_ I am adorable;"
+while the egg whispers, "Stuff me, and the roses and raptures are
+yours!"
+
+But what would the art of eating be without the egg? In two strange
+and striking combinations it carries the savoury to the topmost rung
+in the ladder of gastronomy. Its union with inexhaustible anchovy and
+Bombay duck has for issue "Bombay toast," the very name whereof has
+brought new hope to staid dons and earnest scholars. Pledged to
+anchovies once more and butter and cream--Mormon-like in its choice of
+many mates--it offers as result "Scotch woodcock," a challenge to fill
+high the glass with Claret red and rare.
+
+Endless is the stimulating list. For cannot the humble bloater be
+pressed into service, and the modest cod? Do not many more vegetables
+than spinach, that plays so strong a part in _Raviole à la Genoese_,
+answer promptly when called upon for aid? And what of the gherkin?
+What of the almond--the almond mingled with caviar and cayenne? And
+what of this, that, and the other, and ingenious combinations by the
+score? Be enterprising! Be original! And success awaits you.
+
+
+
+
+INDISPENSABLE CHEESE
+
+
+With bread and cheese and kisses for daily fare, life is held to be
+perfect by the poet. But love may grow bitter before cheese loses its
+savour. Therefore the wise, who value the pleasures of the table above
+tender dalliance, put their faith in strong Limburger or fragrant
+Brie, rather than in empty kisses. If only this lesson of wisdom could
+be mastered by all men and women, how much less cruel life might be!
+
+Nor is cheese without its poetry to comfort the hater of pure prose.
+Once the "glory of fair Sicily," there must ever linger about it sweet
+echoes of Sicilian song sung under the wild olives and beneath the
+elms, where Theocritus "watched the visionary flocks." Did not "a
+great white cream-cheese" buy that wondrous bowl--the "miracle of
+varied work"--for which Thyrsis sang the pastoral song? Cheese-fed
+were the shepherds who piped in the shadow of the ilex tree, while the
+calves were dancing in the soft green grass; cheese-scented was the
+breath of the fair maidens and beautiful youths they loved. Is there a
+woman with soul so dead, who, when in a little country inn fresh
+cheese is laid before her, cannot fancy that she sees the goats and
+kids among the tamarisks of the sun-kissed Sicilian hills, and hears
+the perfect voices of Daphnis and Menalcas, the two herdsmen "skilled
+in song"?
+
+Perhaps because cheese has been relegated to the last course at midday
+breakfast, or at dinner, has it lost much of its charm for the
+heedless. But who, indeed, playing with peach or orange at dessert,
+knows the fruit's true flavour as well as he who plucks it fresh from
+the tree while wandering through the peach orchards of Delaware or the
+orange groves of Florida? Take a long walk over the moors and through
+the heather, or cycle for hours along winding lanes, and then, at
+noon, eat a lunch of bread and cheese, and--even without the
+kisses--you will find in the frugal fare a godlike banquet. Time was
+when bits cut from the huge carcase of a well-battered Cheddar, washed
+down with foaming shandygaff, seemed more delicious far than the
+choicest dishes at the Lapérouse or Voisin's. Memory journeys back
+with joy to the fragrant, tough, little goat's cheese, with flask of
+Chianti, set out upon the rough wooden table in front of some wayside
+vine-trellised _albergo_, while traveller and cycle rested at the hour
+when shade is most pleasant to men. How many a tramp, through the
+valleys and over the passes of Switzerland, has been made the easier
+by the substantial slice of good Gruyère and the cup of wine well
+cooled in near snow-drifts! How many rides awheel through the pleasant
+land of France have been the swifter for the Camembert and roll
+devoured by the way!
+
+Places and hours there are when cheese is best. But seldom is it
+wholly unwelcome. From dinner, whatever may then be its limitations,
+some think it must never be omitted. Remember, they say, as well a
+woman with but one eye as a last course without cheese. But see that
+you show sympathy and discretion in selecting the variety most in
+harmony with your _menu_, or else the epicure's labours will indeed be
+lost. It is not enough to visit the cheesemonger's, and to accept any
+and every kind offered. The matter is one requiring time and thought
+and long experience. You must understand the possibilities of each
+cheese chosen, you must bear in mind the special requirements of each
+meal prepared. Preposterous it would be truly to serve the
+mild-flavoured plebeian species from Canada or America after a
+carefully ordered dinner at Verrey's; wasteful, to use adorable Port
+Salut or aromatic Rocquefort for a pudding or a Welsh rabbit.
+
+Study gastronomic proprieties, cultivate your imagination, and as the
+days follow each other fewer will be your mistakes. Heavy Stilton and
+nutritious Cheddar, you will know, belong by right to undisguised
+joint and irrepressible greens: to a "good old-fashioned English
+dinner" they prove becoming accompaniments. Excellent they are, after
+their fashion, to be honoured and respected; but something of the
+seriousness and the stolidity of their native land has entered into
+them, and to gayer, more frivolous moods they are as unsuited as a
+sermon to a ballroom. If, however, to the joint you cling with
+tenacity, and solemn Stilton be the cheese of your election, do not
+fail to ripen it with port of the finest vintage or good old ale
+gently poured into holes, here and there scooped out for the purpose,
+and then filled once more with the cheese itself.
+
+Strength, fierce in perfume and flavour alike, lies in Limburger, but
+it is strength which demands not beef or mutton, but _wurst_ and
+_sauerkraut_. Take it not home with you, unless you would place a
+highly-scented barrier between yourself and your friends; but, in deep
+thankfulness of heart, eat it after you have lunched well and heartily
+in the Vienna Cafe, which overlooks Leicester Square, or in that other
+which commands Mudie's and Oxford Street. And thanks will be deepened
+a hundredfold if, while eating, you call for a long refreshing draught
+of Munich beer.
+
+Sweet, redolent of herbs, are gracious Gorgonzola, of which such
+ribald tales are told by the irreverent, and royal Rocquefort, in its
+silver wrapping; eaten after "the perfect dinner," each has merit
+immeasurable--merit heightened by a glass of Beaune or Chambertin.
+Then, too, is the hour for Port Salut, with its soothing suggestion
+of monastic peace and contentment, alone a safeguard against
+indigestion and other unspeakable horrors; if you respect your
+appetite seek it nowhere save in the German _delicatessen_ shop, but
+there order it with an easy conscience and confidence in the
+white-coated, white-aproned ministering spirit at the counter. Thither
+also turn for good Camembert; but, as you hope for pleasure in the
+eating, be not too ready to accept the first box offered: test the
+cheese within with sensitive finger, and value it according to its
+softness, for an unripe Camembert, that crumbles at touch of the
+knife, is deadlier far than all the seven deadly sins. It should be
+soft and flowing almost as languid _Fromage de Brie_, indolent and
+melting on its couch of straw. Beyond all cheese, Gruyère calls for
+study and reflection, so many are the shams, by an unscrupulous market
+furnished, in its place. As palely yellow as a Liberty scarf, as
+riddled with holes as cellular cotton, it should be sweet as Port
+Salut, and yet with a reserve of strength that makes it the rival of
+Limburger.
+
+But blessed among cheeses, a romance in itself, is the creamy, subtle
+little _Suisse_, delectable as Dumas calls it. Soft and sweet as the
+breath of spring, it belongs to the season of lilacs and love. Its
+name evokes a vision of Paris, radiant in the Maytime, the long
+avenues and boulevards all white and pink with blossoming
+horse-chestnuts, the air heavy laden with the fragrance of flowers; a
+vision of the accustomed corner in the old restaurant looking out upon
+the Seine, and of the paternal waiter bearing the fresh _Suisse_ on
+dainty green leaf. Life holds few such thrilling interludes! You may
+eat it with salt, and think yourself old and wise; but why not be true
+to the spirit of spring? Why not let yourself go a little, and, eating
+your _Suisse_ with sugar, be young and foolish and unreasonably happy
+again?
+
+Authorities there be who rank the _Broccio_ of Corsica above the
+_Suisse_, and credit it with delicious freshness and Virgilian
+flavour. To taste it among its wild hills, then, would be well worth
+the long journey to the island in the Mediterranean. In the meantime,
+however, none need quarrel with _Suisse_. Hardly a country or district
+in the world really that has not its own special cheese; he who would
+discover them all and catalogue them must needs write a treatise on
+geography.
+
+But to eat cheese in its many varieties, with butter or salt or sugar,
+as the case may be, and to think its mission thus fulfilled, would be
+to underestimate its inexhaustible resources. Innumerable are the
+masterpieces the culinary artist will make of it. In an omelet you
+would pronounce it unsurpassable, so long as kind fate did not set
+before you the consummate _Fondue_. As a pudding you would declare it
+not to be approached, if sometimes crisp cheese straws were not served
+with dinner's last course. On an ocean voyage, Welsh-rabbit late at
+night will seem to you the marvel of marvels; on a railway journey a
+cheese sandwich at noon you will think still more miraculous--but let
+the sandwich be made of brown bread, and mix butter and mustard and
+anchovies with the cheese. The wonders that may be worked with
+Parmesan alone--whether in conjunction with _macaroni_, or soup, or
+cauliflower, or many a dish beside--would be eloquent text for a new
+chapter.
+
+
+
+
+A STUDY IN GREEN AND RED
+
+
+You may search from end to end of the vast Louvre; you may wander from
+room to room in England's National Gallery; you may travel to the
+Pitti, to the Ryks Museum, to the Prado; and no richer, more stirring
+arrangement of colour will you find than in that corner of your
+kitchen garden where June's strawberries grow ripe. From under the
+green of broad leaves the red fruit looks out and up to the sun in
+splendour unsurpassed by paint upon canvas. And the country, with
+lavish prodigality born of great plenty, takes pity upon the drear,
+drab town, and, packing this glory of colour in baskets and crates,
+despatches it to adorn greengrocer's window and costermonger's cart.
+"Strawberries all ripe, sixpence a pound," is the itinerant sign which
+now sends a thrill through Fleet Street and brings joy to the Strand.
+
+To modern weakling the strawberry is strong with the strength of
+classical approval. The Greek loved it; the Latin vied with him in the
+ardour of his affection. Poets sang its wonders and immortalised its
+charms. Its perfume was sweet in the nostrils of Virgil; its flavour
+enraptured the palate of Ovid; and at banquets under the shadow of the
+Acropolis and on sunny Pincian Hill, the strawberry, cultivated and
+wild, held place of honour among the dear fruits of the earth.
+
+Nor did it disappear before the barbarian's inroads. Europe might be
+laid waste; beauty and learning and art might be aliens in the land
+that was once their home; human enjoyment might centre upon a
+millennium to come rather than upon delights already warm within men's
+grasp. But still the strawberry survived. Life grew ugly and rue and
+barren. But from under broad leaves the little red fruit still looked
+out and up to the sun; and, by loveliness of colour and form, of
+flavour and scent, proved one of the chief factors in reclaiming man
+from barbarism, in leading him gently along the high road to
+civilisation and the joy of life.
+
+Respect for its exquisite perfection was ever deep and heartfelt.
+Gooseberries might be turned to wine and figure as fools; raspberries
+and currants might be imprisoned within stodgy puddings. But the
+strawberry, giver of health, creator of pleasure, seldom was submitted
+to desecration by fire. As it ripened, thus was it eaten: cool,
+scarlet, and adorable. At times when, according to the shifting of the
+seasons, its presence no longer made glad the hearts of its lovers,
+desire invented a substitute. As the deserted swain takes what cold
+comfort he can from the portrait of his mistress, so the faithful
+stayed themselves with the strawberry's counterfeit. And thus was it
+made: "Take the paste of Massepain, and roul it in your hands in form
+of a Strawberry, then wet it in the juice of Barberries or red
+Gooseberries, turn them about in this juice pretty hard, then take
+them out and put them into a dish and dry them before a fire, then wet
+them again for three or four times together in the same juice, and
+they will seem like perfect Strawberries." Master Cook Giles Rose is
+the authority, and none knew better.
+
+If, in moment of folly, in an effort to escape monotony, however
+sweet, the strawberry was robbed of its freshness, it was that it
+might be enclosed in a tart. Then--how account for man's
+inconsistency?--it was so disguised, so modified by this, that, or the
+other companion in misery, that it seemed less a strawberry than ever
+Master Rose's ingenious counterfeit. And, in witness thereof, read
+Robert May, the Accomplished Cook, his recipe: "Wash the strawberries
+and put them into the tart; season them with cinnamon, ginger, and a
+little red wine, then put on the sugar, bake it half an hour, ice it,
+scrape on sugar, and serve it." A pretty mess, in truth, and yet, for
+sentiment's sake, worth repetition in this degenerate latter day.
+Queen Anne preserved the tradition of her Stuart forefathers, and in
+"The Queen's Royal Cooker," a little book graced by the Royal
+portrait, Robert May's tart reappears, cinnamon, ginger, and all. So
+it was handed down from generation to generation, cropping up here and
+there with mild persistency, and now at last, after long career of
+unpopularity, receiving distinction anew.
+
+One tart in a season, as tribute to the past, will suffice. It were a
+shame to defile the delicate fruit in more unstinted quantities.
+Reserve it rather for dessert, that in fragile porcelain dish or frail
+glass bowl it may lose nothing of the fragrance and crispness and glow
+of colour that distinguished it as it lay upon the brown earth under
+cool green shelter. To let it retain unto the very last its little
+green stem is to lend to dinner or breakfast table the same stirring,
+splendid harmony that lit up, as with a flame, the kitchen garden's
+memorable corner. But if with cream the fruit is to be eaten, then
+comfort and elegance insist upon green stem's removal before ever the
+bowl be filled or the dish receive its dainty burden.
+
+At early "little breakfast" of coffee and rolls, or tea and toast, as
+you will, what more delicious, what fresher beginning to the day's
+heat and struggles, then the plate of strawberries newly picked from
+their bed? Banish cream and sugar from this initiative meal. At the
+dawn of daily duty and pleasure, food should be light and airy and
+unsubstantial. Then the stem, clinging fast to the fruit's luscious
+flesh, is surely in place. Half the delight is in plucking the berry
+from the plate as if from the bush.
+
+After midday breakfast, after evening dinner, however, it is another
+matter. Cream now is in order; cream, thick and sweet and pure,
+covering the departing strawberry with a white pall, as loving and
+tender as the snow that protects desolate pastures and defenceless
+slopes from winter's icy, inexorable fingers. Sprinkle sugar with the
+cream, as flowers might be strewn before the altars of Dionysius and
+Demeter.
+
+Cream may, for time being, seem wholly without rivals as the
+strawberry's mate, the two joined together by a bond that no man would
+dare put asunder. But the strawberry has been proven fickle in its
+loves--a very Cressida among fruits. For to Kirsch it offers ecstatic
+welcome, while Champagne meets with no less riotous greeting. To
+Cognac it will dispense its favours with easy graciousness, and from
+the hot embrace of Maraschino it makes no endeavour to escape. Now, it
+may seem as simple and guileless as Chloe, and again as wily and
+well-versed as Egypt's far-famed Queen. But with the results of its
+several unions who will dare find fault? In each it reveals new,
+unsuspecting qualities, subtle and ravishing. On pretty, white-draped
+tea-table, rose-embowered, carnation-scented, the strawberry figures
+to fairest advantage when Champagne holds it in thrall; in this hour
+and bower cream would savour of undue heaviness, would reveal itself
+all too substantial and palpable a lover. Again, when elaborate dinner
+draws to an end, and dessert follows upon long procession of soup and
+fish and _entrées_ and roasts and vegetables and salads and poultry
+and sweets and savouries, and who knows what--then the strawberry
+becomes most irresistible upon yielding itself, a willing victim, to
+the bold demands of Kirsch. A _macédoine_ of Kirsch-drowned
+strawberries, iced to a point, is a dish for which gods might languish
+without shame.
+
+She who loves justice never fears to tell the whole truth and nothing
+but the truth. To cook the strawberry is to rob it of its sweetest
+bloom and freshness. But there have been others to think otherwise, as
+it must in fairness be added. To the American, strawberry short-cake
+represents one of the summits of earthly bliss. In ices, many will see
+the little fruit buried without a pang of regret; and the device has
+its merits. As syrup, distended with soda-water and ice-cream, the
+conservative Londoner may now drink it at Fuller's. In the flat, open,
+national tart, the Frenchman places it, and congratulates himself upon
+the work of art which is the outcome. Or, accepting Gouffé as master,
+he will soar, one day, to the extraordinary heights of _coupe en
+nougat garnie de fraises_, and find a flamboyant colour-print to serve
+as guide; the next he will descend to the mere homeliness of _beignets
+de fraises_; and, as he waxes more adventurous, he will produce
+_bouchées de dame_, or _pain à la duchesse_, _madeleines en surprise_
+or _profiteroles_, each and all with the strawberry for motive. The
+spirit of enterprise is to be commended, and not one of Gouffé's list
+but will repay the student in wealth of experience gained. The lover,
+however, finds it not always easy to remember the student within him,
+and if joy in the eating be his chief ambition, he will be constant to
+the fresh fruit ever.
+
+
+
+
+A MESSAGE FROM THE SOUTH
+
+
+What know we of the orange in our barbarous North? To us it is an
+alien, a makeshift, that answers well when, our own harvests over,
+winter, sterile and gloomy, settles upon the land. But in the joyous
+South all the year round it ripens, its golden liquid a solace when
+heat and dust parch the throat, as when winds from the frozen North
+blow with unwonted cold. The tree that bears it is as eager to produce
+as the mothers of Israel, and, in its haste and impatience, often it
+whitens its branches with blossoms while still they glow with fruit,
+even as Beckford long since saw them in the groves of Naples.
+
+Bright, rich colour the costermonger's barrow, piled high with oranges
+from distant Southern shores, gives to London's dingy streets; and not
+a greengrocer's window but takes on new beauty and resplendence when
+decorated by the brilliant heaps. But meretricious seems the
+loveliness of the orange here, when once it has been seen hanging from
+heavy-laden boughs, gleaming between cool dark leaves in its own home,
+whether on Guadalquivir's banks or Naples' bay, whether in western
+Florida or eastern Jaffa. What has a fruit that languishes in the
+garden of Lindajara and basks in Amalfi's sunshine, to do with London
+costermongers and fog-drenched shops?
+
+Wearied and jaded by the long journey, disheartened by the injustice
+done to it when plucked in its young, green immaturity, it grows sour
+and bitter by the way, until, when it comes to the country of its
+exile, but a faint, feeble suggestion of its original flavour remains.
+With us, for instance, does not the orange of Valencia mean a little,
+thin-skinned, acid, miserable fruit, only endurable when smothered in
+sugar or drowned in Cognac? But eaten in Valencia, what is it then and
+there? Large and ample are its seductive proportions; its skin,
+deeply, gloriously golden, forswears all meagreness, though never too
+thick to shut out the mellowing sunshine; its juice flows in splendid
+streams as if to vie with the Sierra's quenchless springs; and the
+fruit is soft and sweet as the sweet, soft Southern maidens whose
+white teeth meet and gleam in its pulp of pure, uncontaminated gold. A
+fruit this for romance--a fruit for the Houris of Paradise; not to be
+peddled about in brutal barrows among feather-bearing 'Arriets.
+
+In the South, it were a crime not to eat this fruit, created for the
+immortals, just as God made it. Sugar could be added but to its
+dishonour; the pots and pans of the sacrilegious cook would be
+desecration unspeakable. Feast then, upon its natural charms, and as
+the hot Southern breeze brings to you the scent of strange Southern
+blossoms, and the sky stretches blindingly blue above, and _One_ sits
+at your side feasting in silent sympathy, fancy yourself, if you will,
+the new Adam--or Eve--for whom the flaming swords have been lowered,
+and the long-closed gates of the Garden of Eden thrown wide open.
+
+But in the North, banish romance, banish imagination; bring to the
+study of the orange the prose of necessity, and realism of the
+earnest student. And sometimes, from prose--who knows?--poetry may
+spring; from realism will be evolved wild dreaming.
+
+If the orange be from Jaffa, or "hail" from Florida, and care bestowed
+upon it during its long voyaging, then will it need no Northern
+artifice to enhance the pleasure in its power to give. True that
+something--much, indeed--it will have lost; but something of its
+Southern, spicy, subtle sweetness still survives--of the Orient's
+glamour, of the mystery of the Western wilderness of flower and fruit.
+Eat it, therefore, as it is, unadorned, unspoiled. Tear away tenderly
+the covering that cleaves to it so closely; tear the fruit apart with
+intelligent fingers; to cut it is to sacrifice its cooling juice to
+inanimate china, and to deprive yourself of the first freshness of its
+charms.
+
+When, however, as generally--to our sorrow, be it said--the orange
+arrives a parody of itself, it were better to join it to one of its
+several dearest affinities. In well-selected company, it may recover
+the shadow, and more, of the splendour it elsewhere enjoys in solitary
+state. Thus disguised, it may wander from dessert to the course of
+sweets, and by so wandering save the resourceless from the monotony of
+rice and rizine, batter and bread-and-butter puddings, whose fitting
+realm is the nursery, and from an eternity of tarts which do not, like
+a good design, gain by repetition. In cocoanut, the orange recognises
+a fellow exile, and the two, coming together, yield a new flavour, a
+new delight. For this purpose, the orange must be cut that the juice
+may flow, and if in symmetrical rounds, the effect will be more
+satisfying to the critical. Let the slices be laid at once in the bowl
+destined to hold them at the moment of serving, that not a drop of
+juice may escape, and arrange them so that over every layer of orange
+reposes a layer of sugar. Then taking the cocoanut that has been well
+drained, grate it as fine as patience will allow; under it bury the
+orange until the gold is all concealed, and the dish looks white and
+light and soft as the driven snow. No harm will be done, but, on the
+contrary, much good, by preparing some hours before dinner. It is a
+pretty conceit; half unwillingly the spoon disturbs this summery
+snow-field. But well that it does, for the combination pleases the
+palate no less than the eye. The orange summons forth the most
+excellent qualities of the cocoanut; the cocoanut suppresses the
+acidity and crudeness of the expatriated orange.
+
+With sugar alone, the orange--of this secondary order be it
+remembered--comes not amiss, when the soul yearns for placidness and
+peace. If more stirring sensations be craved, baste the cut-up oranges
+and sugar with Cognac, and eat to your own edification. Again prepare
+some hours before serving, and be not stingy with the Cognac: keep
+basting constantly; and be certain that if the result please you not,
+the fault lies not with the fruit and spirits, both exultant in the
+unexpected union.
+
+The conservative, unused to such devices, envelop oranges in soulless
+fritters and imprison them in stodgy puddings. Beware their example!
+One followed, there is no telling the depths of plodding imbecility to
+which you may be plunged. Not for the frying-pan or the pudding-bowl
+was the golden fruit predestined. Better eat no sweets whatever than
+thus degrade the orange and reveal our own shortcomings.
+
+Who will deny that in the world's great drinks the orange has played
+its part with much distinction? In bitters it is supreme, if gin in
+due proportions be added. And where would mankind be by now, had the
+orange-evolved liqueurs remained undiscovered? How many happy
+after-dinner hours would never have been! How insipid the flavour of
+Claret and Champagne-cup! Even temperance drinks may be endured when
+orange is their basis. Go to Madrid or Granada, drink _bebida helada
+de naranja_, and confess that in Spain the teetotallers, if any such
+exist, have their compensation. A _purée neigeuse, une espèce de glace
+liquide_, Gautier described it in a moment of expansion; and, when art
+is in question, what Gautier has praised who would revile? With the
+Spanish _bebida de naranja_, the American orange water ice may dispute
+the palm.
+
+In humbler incarnation it appears as marmalade, without which the
+well-regulated household can do as little as without sapolio or
+Reckitt's blue. Who throughout the British Isles does not know the
+name of Keiller? Bread and butter might better go than this most
+British of British institutions, the country's stay and support in
+time of peace, its bulwark when war drives Tommy Atkins into action.
+Thus has the North turned the South to its own everyday uses, and the
+fruit of poets passes into the food of millions.
+
+In fruit salad, orange should be given a leading and conspicuous rôle,
+the aromatic little Tangerine competing gaily and guilelessly with the
+ordinary orange of commerce. There is scarce another fruit that grows
+with which it does not assimilate, with which it does not mingle, to
+the infinite advantage of the ardent _gourmet_. This, none knows
+better than the Spaniard, slandered sorely when reported a barbarian
+at table. If some of his refinements we could but imitate, artists
+truly we might be considered. He it is who first thought to pour upon
+his strawberries, not thick cream, but the delicate juice of the
+orange freshly cut. Here is a combination beyond compare; and is there
+not many another that might be tested as profitably? Orange and
+apricot, orange and plum, orange and peach. Experiment; for even
+where failure follows, will not a new sensation have been secured? The
+failure need never be repeated. But to each new success will be
+awarded life eternal.
+
+
+
+
+ENCHANTING COFFEE
+
+
+A perfectly wise man is he who is fully expert and skilful in the true
+use of sensualities, as in all other duties belonging to life. In the
+household where wisdom rules, dinner, from savoury _hors d'oeuvre_ to
+aromatic coffee, will be without reproach--or suspicion. The foolish
+devote their powers to this course or that, and in one supreme but
+ill-advised endeavour exhaust their every resource. Invention carries
+them no further than the soul; even discreet imitation cannot pilot
+them beyond the _entrée_. With each succeeding dish their folly
+becomes more obvious, until it culminates in the coffee, which,
+instead of the divine elixir it should be, proves but a vile,
+degrading concoction of chicory. Here is the chief among gastronomic
+tests; the hostess who knows not how to prepare a cup of coffee that
+will bring new light to her guests' eyes, new gaiety to their talk, is
+not worthy to receive them; the guest, who does not know good coffee
+when it is set before him deserves to be cast into outer darkness and
+fed for evermore upon brimstone and treacle. Better far throw pearls
+before swine, than pour good coffee into the cups of the indifferent.
+
+The sympathies of the gourmand are all for the mighty ones of old--for
+an Epicurus in Greece, a Lucullus in Rome--to whom the gods had not
+yet given the greatest of their gifts, coffee. Sad indeed the banquet,
+dreamy the evening uncheered, unblessed by fragrant Mocha or mild
+Mysore. Poor mortals still stood without the gates of Paradise, never
+once foreseeing the exquisite joys to come, unconscious of the penalty
+they paid for living so much too soon. And while they thus dwelt in
+sorrowful ignorance, shepherds, leading their flocks through sweet
+pasture-land, paused in their happy singing to note that the little
+kids and lambs, and even staid goats and sheep, waxed friskier and
+merrier, and frolicked with all the more light-hearted abandonment
+after they had browsed upon a certain berry-bearing bush. Thyme and
+lavender, mint and marjoram, never thus got into their little legs,
+and sent them flying off on such jolly rambles and led them into such
+unseemly antics. And the shepherds, no doubt, plucked the berry and
+tasted it, and found it good. And one day--who knows how?--by chance,
+they roasted it, and the fragrance was as incense in their nostrils.
+And then, another time they pounded it, and, it may be by merest
+accident, it fell into the water boiling over the fire for their
+midday meal. And thus, first, coffee was made.
+
+To Abyssinia, otherwise an unknown factor in the history of good
+living, belongs the credit of producing the first coffee-drinkers. All
+honour where honour is due. The debt of the modern to Greece and Rome
+is smaller far than to that remote country which not one man in ten,
+to whom coffee is a daily necessity, could point out upon the map.
+
+Arabs, wandering hither and thither, came to Abyssinia as they
+journeyed, and there drank the good drink and rejoiced. Among them
+were pious Moslems, who at times nodded over prayers, and, yawning
+pitifully as texts were murmured by lazy lips, knew that damnation
+must be their doom unless sleep were banished from their heavy eyes
+at prayer time. And to them as to the sheep and lambs, as to the goats
+and kids, the wonder-working berry brought wakefulness and gaiety. And
+into Arabia the Happy, they carried it in triumph, and coffee was
+drunk not for temporal pleasure but for spiritual uses. It kept
+worshippers awake and alert for the greater glory of Allah, and the
+faithful accepted it with praise and thanksgiving.
+
+But, again, like the flocks in Abyssinian pastures, it made them too
+alert, it seems. After coffee, prayer grew frolicsome, and a faction
+arose to call it an intoxicant, to declare the drinking of it a sin
+against the Koran. Schisms followed, and heresies, and evils dire and
+manifold. But coffee fought a good fight against its enemies and its
+detractors; and from Arabia it passed to Constantinople, from Turkey
+to England, and so on from country to country, until in the end there
+was not one in Europe, or in the New World (which men had not then so
+long discovered), but had welcomed the berry that clears the clouded
+brain and stimulates the jaded body.
+
+To all men its finest secrets have not been revealed. Dishonoured by
+many it has been and still is. Unspeakable liquids, some thick and
+muddy, others thin and pale, borrow its name with an assurance and
+insolence that fool the ignorant. Chicory arrogantly and
+unscrupulously pretends to compete with it, and the thoughtless are
+deceived, and go their way through life obdurate and unrepentant,
+deliberately blinding themselves to the truth. Others understand not
+the hour and the place, and order it at strange moments and for
+stranger functions. Americans there be who, from thick, heavy, odious
+cups, drink it, plentifully weakened with milk, as the one proper and
+fit accompaniment for dinner; a spoonful of coffee follows a spoonful
+of soup; another is prelude to the joint; a second cup poisons the
+sweet. On the other hand, be it admitted in fairness, no coffee is
+purer and better than that of the American who has not fallen into
+such mistaken courses. And he who doubts should, without delay, drop
+in at Fuller's in Regent Street, or the Strand, where to taste is to
+believe.
+
+In the afternoon, plump German matrons and maids gather about the
+coffee-pot, and fancy, poor souls! that they, of all womankind, are
+most discriminating in their choice of time and opportunity. Gossip
+flows smoothly on; household matters are placidly discussed; and the
+one and only end of coffee remains for them, now and always, unknown
+and unsuspected. In their blameless innocence and guileless
+confidence, may they have whatever happiness belongs by right to the
+race of humble and unaspiring housewives.
+
+In England the spurious is preferred to the genuine; and rare, indeed,
+is the house or restaurant, the hotel or lodgings, where good coffee
+is the portion of blundering humanity. Over the barbarous depths into
+which the soul-inspiriting berry has been dragged in unhappy Albion,
+it is kinder to draw a veil.
+
+But in the inscrutable East, the cradle of mysticism, where no problem
+discourages earnest seekers after truth, coffee may yet be had in full
+perfection. In the West, France is not without her children of light,
+and in the tall glass of the _café_ or the deep bowl of the _auberge_
+coffee sometimes is not unworthy of the name, though chicory, the
+base, now threatens its ruin. However, Austria, nearer to the
+mother-country, makes the coffee of France seem but a paltry
+imitation, so delicious is the beautiful brown liquid, flowing in rich
+perennial streams in every _café_, gilded or more modest. And yet
+Austria, in her turn, is eclipsed, wholly and completely, by the home
+of Attila and Kossuth. Drink, if only once, coffee on the banks of the
+Danube, while gipsies "play divinely into your ear," and life will
+never more seem quite so meaningless.
+
+It is not easy to understand why the multitude continue content with a
+bad substitute when the thing itself, in all its strength and
+sweetness, may be had for the asking. A little knowledge, a trifle
+more experience, and good coffee may be the solace and stimulus of the
+honest Briton, as of the wily Turk, the wandering Arab, and the fierce
+Magyar.
+
+Know then, first, that your coffee berries must be pure and
+unadulterated. Turn a deaf ear to the tempter who urges economy and
+promises additional flavour. Against chicory, protest cannot be too
+urgent or violent. It is poison, rank and deadly. The liver it
+attacks, the nerves it destroys, and the digestion it disorganises
+hopelessly, disastrously. To the well-trained palate it is coarse
+beyond redemption. The fictitious air of strength it lends to the
+after-dinner cup delights the ignorant and saddens the wise. But why
+waste too recklessly good paper and type upon so degrading a topic?
+Why not say once and for all that chicory is impossible and revolting,
+an insult to the epicure, a cruel trial to the sybarite, a crime to
+the artist? Renounce it before it is too late, and put your trust in
+the undrugged berries from Arabia or Brazil, from Java or Porto Rico.
+Mocha is irreproachable, though it loses nothing when blended with
+Java or Mysore.
+
+As the painter mixes his colours upon his palette until the right tint
+springs into being, so, if in befitting humility and patience, you
+blend coffee with coffee, know that, the day is at hand when the
+perfect flavour will be born of the perfect union. From venturing to
+recommend one harmony above all others, the most daring would refrain;
+Mocha and Java might inspire hymns of praise in Paradise; and yet
+many _gourmets_ would yearn for a keener, stronger aroma, many sigh
+for a subtler. As in matters of love, for yourself must you choose and
+decide.
+
+Sacrilegious indeed it were if, after infinite trouble and tender care
+in your choice, you delivered the blend of your heart to the
+indifferent roasting pans, or cylinders, of any chance grocer. Roast
+it yourself, so that the sweet savour thereof fills your house with
+delicious memories of the Eastern bazaar and the Italian _piazza_.
+Roast it in small quantities, no more at a time than may be needed for
+the "little breakfast," or the after-dinner cup. And roast it fresh
+for each meal. Be not led astray by the indolent and heedless who
+prize the saving of labour above the pleasures of drink, and, without
+a blush of shame, would send you to a shop to buy your berries
+roasted. The elect listen not to the tempting of the profane. In a
+saucepan, with lid, may the all-important deed be done. Or else a
+vessel shaped for the solemn rite may be bought. But whichever be
+used, let your undivided attention direct the process; else the
+berries will be burnt. A small piece of pure, irreproachable butter in
+the pan or "drum" will prove a friendly ally. While still hot, place
+the brown berries--carefully separating those done to a turn from the
+over-burnt, if any such there be--in the expectant mill, and grind at
+once.
+
+If much depend upon the roasting, no less is the responsibility that
+rests with the grinding. The working of the mill, soft and low as
+heard from afar, makes most musical accompaniment to dinner's later
+courses. It is guarantee of excellence, certificate of merit. Thus
+trusted to the mill, when time presses, none of the coffee's essence
+can escape, none of its aroma. And there is art in the grinding:
+ground exceeding small it may answer for boiling, but not for
+filtering or dripping; and so be wary. If picturesqueness of
+preparation have charms for you, then discard the mill and, vying with
+the Turks, crush the berries in a mortar with a wooden crusher. The
+difference in results, though counted vast by the pedant, in truth
+exists not save in the imagination.
+
+And now collect your thoughts in all seriousness and reverence, for
+the supreme moment has come. The berries are roasted and ground: the
+coffee is to be made! And how? That's the problem to the Englishwoman
+to whom good coffee is a mystery as unfathomable as original sin or
+papal infallibility. How? By a process so ridiculously easy as to be
+laughed to scorn by the complex modern. In all art it is the
+same--simplicity, the fruit of knowledge and experience, is a virtue
+beyond compare. But poor blind humans, groping after would-be ideals,
+seek the complicated, mistaking it to be the artistic. Arguing then,
+from their own foolish standpoint, they invent strange and weird
+machines in which they hope to manufacture perfection; coffee-pots,
+globular in shape, which must be turned suddenly, swiftly, surely, at
+the critical instant, else will love's labour all be lost;
+coffee-pots, with glass tubes up which the brown liquid rushes, then
+falls again, a Niagara in miniature; coffee-pots with accommodating
+whistles blowing shrill warning to the slothful; coffee-pots that
+explode, bomb-like, at the slightest provocation; coffee-pots that
+splutter, overflow, burst, get out of order, and, in a word, do
+everything that is dreadful and unseemly. Of these, one and all, fight
+shy. Coffee calls not for a practical engineer to run the machine.
+
+In three ways, so simple a child may understand, so perfect a god
+might marvel, can the delectable drink, that gives wakefulness and a
+clear brain, be made. In the first place, in ordinary pot, it may be
+boiled, allowing a tablespoonful of the ground berries to a cup of
+water, taking the pot off the fire, once the beautiful, seductive
+brown froth is formed on the top, pouring in a small teaspoonful of
+water that the grounds may settle; serve without delay, linger over it
+lovingly, and then go forth gaily to conquer and rejoice.
+
+In the second place--more to be commended--use a _cafétière_, or
+filter of tin or earthenware, the latter by preference. Place the
+coffee, ground not too fine, and in the same proportions, in the upper
+compartment. Pour in slowly water that is just at the boiling point, a
+little only at a time, keeping the kettle always on the fire that the
+all-important boiling point may not be lost, and let the water filter
+or drip slowly through the grounds spread in a neat layer. Some there
+be who stand the pot or lower compartment in a pan of boiling water,
+and they have reason with them. Others who, when all the water has
+passed through to the pot below, set it to filtering, or dripping, a
+second time, and they are not wholly wrong. But of all things, be
+careful that the coffee does not cool in the process. Of life's many
+abominations, lukewarm coffee is the most abominable.
+
+The third of the three ways yields Turkish coffee. The special pots
+for the purpose, with their open tops and long handles, are to be
+found in one or more large Regent-street and Oxford-street shops. Get
+the proper vessel, since it answers best, and is, however, a pleasure
+to the eye, a stimulus to the imagination of all who at one happy
+period of their lives have dwelt in Turkey or neighbouring lands. Now,
+grind your coffee finer, but be faithful to the same proportions. Into
+the water drop first the sugar, measuring it according to your taste
+or mood, or leaving it out altogether if its sweetness offend you. Put
+your pot on the fire, and when the water is boiling merrily, drop in
+the coffee. To a boil, as kitchen slang has it, let it come, but gay
+bubbles on its surface must be signal to lift off the pot; put it on
+the fire again, almost at once, remove it bubbling a second time, put
+it on again, and again remove it. This device repeated thrice will be
+enough, though a fourth repetition can do no harm. A teaspoonful of
+cold water will compel unruly grounds to settle. Pour the thick, rich,
+brown liquid, as it breaks into beautiful yellow froth on the top,
+into the daintiest cups your cupboard holds, and drink it and
+happiness together.
+
+To add cream or milk to Turkish coffee would be a crime; nor must more
+sugar be dropped into its fragrant, luscious depths. Ordinary
+after-dinner coffee should also be drunk without cream or milk, if
+pleasure be the drinker's end. Indeed, a question it is whether it be
+ever wise to dilute or thicken coffee and tea with milk, however well
+boiled, with cream, however fresh. The flavour is destroyed, the aroma
+weakened. But black coffee with breakfast would mean to begin the day
+at too high a state of pressure, in undue exhilaration of spirits. To
+speak honestly, coffee is no less a mistake in the morning hours than
+Whisky-and-soda or Absinthe. But custom has sanctioned it; it has
+become a bad habit from one end of the Continent to the other, in
+innumerable otherwise wholly decorous British households. But slaves
+of habit should wear their chains so that there is as little friction
+and chafing as possible. Therefore, make your morning coffee strong
+and aromatic and pure as if destined for after-dinner delights: but
+pour into it much milk; half and half would prove proportions within
+reason. Not out of the way is it to borrow a hint from provincial
+France and serve _café-au-lait_ in great bowls, thus tacitly placing
+it forever on a plane apart from _café noir_. Or else, borrow wisdom
+from wily Magyar and frivolous Austrian, and exquisite, dainty,
+decorative whipped cream heap up high on the surface of the morning
+cup. Take train to-morrow for Budapest; haunt its _cafés_ and
+kiosques, from the stately Reuter to the Danube-commanding Hungaria;
+study their methods with diligence and sincerity; and then, if there
+be a spark of benevolence within you, return to preach the glad
+gospel of good coffee to the heathen at home. A hero you would be,
+worthy countryman of Nelson and of Wellington; and thus surely should
+you win for yourself fame, and a niche in Westminster Abbey.
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Minor spelling inconsistencies, mainly hyphenated and accented
+words, have been made consistent.
+
+St. Estéphe changed to St. Estèphe.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41696 ***