Cakes & Ale / A Dissertation on Banquets Interspersed with Various Recipes, More or Less Original, and anecdotes, mainly veracious

Imitation—Dear Lady Thistlebrain—Try it on the dog—Criminality of the English Caterer—The stove, the stink, the steamer—Roasting v. Baking—False Economy—Dirty ovens—Frills and fingers—Time over Dinner—A long-winded Bishop—Corned beef.

Now for the cause, alluded to at the end of the last chapter.

Imprimis, the French invasion is due to the universal craze for imitation, which may be the sincerest form of flattery, but which frequently leads to bad results. For years past the fair sex of Great Britain have been looking to Paris for fashion in dress, as well as in cookery; whilst the other sex have long held the mistaken notion that “they manage things better in France.” The idea that France is the only country capable of clothing the outer and the inner man, artistically, has taken deep root. Thus, if the Duchess of Dulverton import, regardless of expense, a divine creation in bonnets from the Rue de Castiglione, and air the same in church, it is good odds that little Mrs. Stokes, of the Talbot Road, Bayswater, will have had the chapeau copied, at about one-twentieth of the original cost, by the next Sabbath day. Dear Lady Thistlebrain, who has such taste (since she quitted the family mangle in Little Toke Street, Lambeth, for two mansions, a castle, and a deer park), and with whom money is no object, pays her chef the wages of an ambassador, and everybody raves over her dinners. Mrs. Potter of Maida Vale sets her “gal” (who studied higher gastronomy, together with the piano, and flower-painting on satin, at the Board School) to work on similar menus—with, on the whole, disastrous results. The London society and fashion journals encourage this snobbish idea by quoting menus, most of them ridiculous. Amongst the middle classes the custom of giving dinner parties at hotels has for some time past been spreading, partly to save trouble, and partly to save the brain of the domestic cook; so that instead of sitting down to a plain dinner, with, maybe, an entrée or two sent in by the local confectioner—around the family mahogany tree, all may be fanciful decoration, and not half enough to eat, electric light, and à la with attendance charged in the bill.

The only way to stop this sort of thing is to bring the system into ridicule, to try it on the groundlings. A fair leader of ton, late in the sixties, appeared one morning in the haunts of fashion, her shapely shoulders covered with a cape of finest Russian sables, to the general admiration and envy of all her compeers. Thereupon, what did her dearest friend and (of course) most deadly rival do? Get a similar cape, or one of finer quality? Not a bit of it. She drove off, then and there, to her furriers, and had her coachman and footman fitted with similar capes, in (of course) cheaper material; and, when next afternoon she took the air in the park, in her perfectly appointed landau, her fur-clad menials created something like a panic in the camp of her enemy, whilst fur capes for fair leaders of “ton,” were, like hashed venison at a City luncheon, very soon “hoff.”

It is extremely probable that, could it be arranged to feed our starving poor, beneath the public gaze, on sôles Normandes, côtelettes à la Reform, and salmi de gibier truffé; to feast our workhouse children on bisque d’écrévisses and Ananas à la Créole, the upper classes of Great Britain would soon revert to plain roast and boiled.

But after all it is the English caterer who is chiefly to blame for his own undoing. How is it that in what may be called the “food streets” of the metropolis the foreign food-supplier should outnumber the purveyor of the Roast Beef of Old England in the proportion of fifty to one? Simply because the Roast Beef of Old England has become almost as extinct as the Dodo. There are but few English kitchens, at this end of the nineteenth century, in the which meat is roasted in front of the fire.

In order to save the cost of fuel, most English (save the mark!) cooking is now performed by gas or steam; and at many large establishments the food, whether fish, flesh, fowl, vegetables or pastry, all goes, in a raw state, into a species of chest of drawers made of block-tin, in which receptacle the daily luncheons, dinners, and suppers are steamed and robbed of all flavour, save that of hot tin. The pity of it! Better, far better for mankind the à la system than to be gradually “steamed” into the tomb!

It is alleged that as good results in the way of roasting can be got from an oven as from the spit. But that oven must be ventilated—with both an inlet and an outlet ventilator, for one will not act without the other. It is also advisable that said oven should be cleaned out occasionally; for a hot oven with no joint therein will emit odours anything but agreeable, if not attended to; and it is not too sweeping a statement to say that the majority of ovens in busy kitchens are foul. The system of steaming food (the alleged “roasts” being subsequently browned in an oven) is of comparatively recent date; but the oven as a roaster was the invention of one Count Rumford, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In one of his lectures on oven-roasting, this nobleman remarked that he despaired of getting any Englishman to believe his words; so that he was evidently confronted with plenty of prejudice, which it is devoutly to be prayed still exists in English homes. For I do vow and protest that the oven odours which pervade the neighbourhood of the Strand, London, at midday, are by no means calculated to whet the appetite of the would-be luncher or diner. This is what such an authority as Mr. Buckmaster wrote on the subject of the spit versus the oven:

“I believe I am regarded as a sort of heretic on the question of roasting meat. My opinion is that the essential condition of good roasting is constant basting, and this the meat is not likely to have when shut up in an iron box; and what is not easily done is easily neglected.”

In this connection there are more heretics than Mr. Buckmaster. But if during my lifetime the days of burning heretics should be revived, I shall certainly move the Court of Criminal Appeal in favour of being roasted or grilled before, or over, the fire, instead of being deprived of my natural juices in an iron box.

Some few “roast” houses are still in existence in London, but they be few and far between; and since Mr. Cooper gave up the “Albion,” nearly opposite the stage-door of Drury Lane Theatre, the lover of good, wholesome, English food has lost one old-fashioned tavern in the which he was certain of enjoying such food.

It has been repeatedly urged in favour of French cookery that it is so economical. But economy in the preparation of food is by no means an unmixed blessing. I do not believe that much sole-leather is used up in the ordinary ragoût, or salmi; but many of us who can afford more expensive joints have a prejudice against “scrags”; whilst the tails of mutton chops frequently have a tainted flavour, and the drumsticks and backs of fowls are only fit to grill, or boil down into gravy. And it is not only the alien who is economical in his preparation of the banquet. Many of the dwellers in the highways and bye-ways of our great metropolis will boil down the outer skin of a ham, and place a portion thereof, together with such scraps as may also be purchased, at a penny or twopence the plateful, at the ham and beef emporium, with maybe a “block ornament” or two from the butcher’s, in a pie dish, with a superstructure of potatoes, and have the “scrap pie” cooked at the baker’s for the Sunday dinner. Poor wretches! Not much “waste” goes on in such households. But I have known the “gal” who tortured the food in a cheap lodging-house throw away the water in which a joint had just been boiled, but whether this was from sheer ignorance, or “cussedness,” or the desire to save herself any future labour in the concoction of soup, deponent sayeth not. By the way, it is in the matter of soup that the tastes of the British and French peasantry differ so materially. Unless he or she be absolutely starving, it is next to impossible to get one of the groundlings of old England to attempt a basin of soup. And when they do attempt the same, it has been already made for them. The Scotch, who are born cooks, know much better than this; but do not, O reader, if at all thin of skin, or refined of ear, listen too attentively to the thanks which a denizen of the “disthressful counthry” will bestow upon you for a “dhirty bowl o’ bone-juice.”

How many modern diners, we wonder, know the original object of placing frills around the shank of a leg or shoulder of mutton, a ham, the shins of a fowl, or the bone of a cutlet? Fingers were made before—and a long time before—forks. In the seventeenth century—prior to which epoch not much nicety was observed in carving, or eating—we read that “English gentlewomen were instructed by schoolmistresses and professors of etiquette as to the ways in which it behoved them to carve joints. That she might be able to grasp a roasted chicken without greasing her left hand, the gentle housewife was careful to trim its foot and the lower part of its legs with cut paper. The paper frill which may still be seen round the bony point and small end of a leg of mutton, is a memorial of the fashion in which joints were dressed for the dainty hands of lady-carvers, in time prior to the introduction of the carving-fork, an implement that was not in universal use so late as the Commonwealth.”

How long we should sit over the dinner-table is a matter of controversy. At the commencement of the nineteenth century, in the hard-drinking times, our forefathers were loth indeed to quit the table. But the fairer portion of the guests were accustomed to adjourn early, for tea and scandal in the withdrawing-room, the while their lords sat and quarrelled over their port, with locked doors; and where they fell there they frequently passed the night. The editor of the Almanach des Gourmands wrote: “Five hours at table are a reasonable latitude to allow in the case of a large party and recondite cheer.” But the worthy Grimod de la Reymière, the editor aforesaid, lived at a period when dinner was not served as late as 8.30 P.M. There is a legend of an Archbishop of York “who sat three entire years at dinner.” But this is one of those tales which specially suited the dull, brandy-sodden brains of our ancestors. The facts are simply as follows:—the archbishop had just sat down to dinner at noon when an Italian priest called. Hearing that the dignitary was sitting at meat the priest whiled away an hour in looking at the minster, and called again, but was again “repelled by the porter.” Twice more that afternoon did the surly porter repel the Italian, and at the fourth visit “the porter, in a heate, answered never a worde, and churlishlie did shutte the gates upon him.” Then the discomfited Italian returned to Rome; and three years later, encountering an Englishman in the Eternal City, who declared himself right well known to His Grace of York, the Italian, all smiles, inquired: “I pray you, good sir, hath that archbishop finished dinner yet?” Hence the story, which was doubtless originally told by a fly-fisher.

It is not a little singular that with increasing civilisation, a gong, which is of barbaric, or semi-barbaric origin, should be the means usually employed to summon us to the dinner-table. In days of yore the horn, or cornet, was blown as the signal. Alexander Dumas tells us that “at the period when noon was the dinner hour, the horn or cornet (le cor) was used in great houses to announce dinner. Hence came an expression which has been lost; they used to say cornet (or trumpet) the dinner (cornez le diner).” And we are asked to believe that to this practice “corned” beef owes its derivation. “In days when inferior people ate little meat in the winter months save salted beef, the more usual form of the order was cornez le bœuf, or ‘corn the beef.’ Richardson errs egregiously when he insists that corned beef derived its distinguishing epithet from the grains or corns of salt with which it was pickled. Corned beef is trumpeted beef, or as we should nowadays say, dinner-bell beef.”

Well—“I hae ma doots,” as the Scotsman said. I am not so sure that Richardson erred egregiously. But after all, as long as the beef be good, and can be carved without the aid of pick and spade, what does it matter? Let us to dinner!

CHAPTER VIII

DINNER (continued)

A merry Christmas—Bin F—A Noel banquet—Water-cress—How Royalty fares—The Tsar—Bouillabaisse—Tournedos—Bisque—Vol-au-vent—Prè salé—Chinese banquets—A fixed bayonet—Bernardin salmi—The duck-squeezer—American cookery—“Borston” beans—He couldn’t eat beef.

A Christmas dinner in the early Victorian era! Quelle fête magnifique! The man who did not keep Christmas in a fitting manner in those days was not thought much of. “Dines by himself at the club on Christmas day!” was the way the late Mr. George Payne of sporting memory, summed up a certain middle-aged recluse, with heaps of money, who, although he had two estates in the country, preferred to live in two small rooms in St. James’s Place, S.W., and to take his meals at “Arthur’s.”

And how we boys (not to mention the little lasses in white frocks and black mittens) used to overeat ourselves, on such occasions, with no fear of pill, draught, or “staying in,” before our eyes!

The writer has in his mind’s eye a good specimen of such an old-fashioned dinner, as served in the fifties. It was pretty much the same feast every Christmas. We commenced with some sort of clear soup, with meat in it. Then came a codfish, crimped—the head of that household would have as soon thought of eating a sôle au vin blanc as of putting before his family an uncrimped cod—with plenty of liver, oyster sauce, and pickled walnuts; and at the other end of the table was a dish of fried smelts. Entrées? Had any of the diners asked for an entrée, his or her exit from the room would have been a somewhat rapid one. A noble sirloin of Scotch beef faced a boiled turkey anointed with celery sauce; and then appeared the blazing pudding, and the mince-pies. For the next course, a dish of toasted (or rather stewed) cheese, home-made and full of richness, was handed round, with dry toast, the bearer of which was closely pursued by a varlet carrying a huge double-handed vessel of hot spiced-ale, bobbing or floating about in the which were roasted crab-apples and sippets of toast; and it was de rigueur for each of those who sat at meat to extract a sippet, to eat with the cheese.

How the old retainer, grey and plethoric with service, loved us boys, and how he would manœuvre to obtain for us the tit-bits! A favoured servitor was “Joseph”; and though my revered progenitor was ostensibly the head of the house, he would, on occasion, “run a bad second” to “Joseph.” Memory is still keen of a certain chilly evening in September, when the ladies had retired to the drawing-room, and the male guests were invited to be seated at the small table which had been wheeled close to the replenished fire.

“Joseph,” said the dear old man, “bring us a bottle or two of the yellow seal—you know—Bin F.”

The servitor drew near to his master, and in a stage whisper exclaimed:

“You can’t afford it, sir!”

“What’s that?” roared the indignant old man.

“You can’t afford it, sir—Hawthornden’s won th’ Leger!”

“Good Gad!” A pause—and then, “Well, never mind, Joseph, we’ll have up the yellow seal, all the same.”

One of the writer’s last Christmas dinners was partaken of in a sweet little house in Mayfair; and affords somewhat of a contrast with the meal quoted above. We took our appetites away with a salad composed of anchovies, capers, truffles, and other things, a Russian sardine or two, and rolls and butter. Thence, we drifted into Bouillabaisse (a tasty but bile-provoking broth), toyed with some filets de sôle à la Parisienne (good but greasy), and disposed of a tournedos, with a nice fat oyster atop, apiece (et parlez-moi d’ça!). Then came some dickey-birds sur canapé—alleged to be snipe, but destitute of flavour, save that of the tin they had been spoiled in, and of the “canopy.” An alien cook can not cook game, whatever choice confections he may turn out—at least that is the experience of the writer. We had cressons, of course, with the birds; though how water-cress can possibly assimilate with the flesh of a snipe is questionable. “Water-creases” are all very well at tea in the arbour, but don’t go smoothly with any sort of fowl; and to put such rank stuff into a salad—as my hostess’s cook did—is absolutely criminal.

To continue the Mayfair banquet, the salad was followed by a soufflée à la Noel (which reminded some of the more imaginative of our party of the festive season), some cheese straws, and the customary ices, coffee, and liqueurs. On the whole, not a bad meal; but what would old Father Christmas have said thereto? What would my revered progenitor have remarked, had he been allowed to revisit the glimpses of the moon? He did not love our lively neighbours; and, upon the only occasion on which he was inveigled across the Channel, took especial care to recross it the very next day, lest, through circumstances not under his own control, he might come to be “buried amongst these d——d French!”

The following menu may give some idea as to how

Royalty

entertains its guests. Said menu, as will be seen, is comparatively simple, and many of the dishes are French only in name:—

Huîtres
——
Consommé aux œufs pochés
Bisque d’écrevisses
——
Turbot, sauce d’homard
Fillets de saumon à l’Indienne
——
Vol-au-vent Financière
Mauviettes sur le Nid
——
Selle de mouton de Galles rotie
Poulardes à l’Estragon
——
Faisans
Bécassines sur croûte
——
Chouxfleur au gratin
——
Plum Pudding
Bavarois aux abricots
——
Glace à la Mocha

Truly a pattern dinner, this; and ’twould be sheer impertinence to comment thereon, beyond remarking that English dishes should, in common fairness, be called by English names.

Her Imperial Majesty the Tsaritza, on the night of her arrival at Darmstadt, in October 1896, sat down, together with her august husband, to the following simple meal:—

Consommé de Volaille Cronstades d’écrevisses
——
Filet de Turbot à la Joinville
——
Cimier de Chevreuil
[A haunch of Roebuck is far to be desired above
the same quarter of the red deer].
——
Terrine de Perdreaux
——
Ponche Royale
——
Poularde de Metz
——
Choux de Bruxelles
——
Bavarois aux Abricots
——
Glaces Panachées

The partiality of crowned heads towards “Bavarois aux Abricots”—“Bavarois” is simply Bavarian cheese, a superior sort of blanc mange—is proverbial. And the above repast was served on priceless Meissen china and silver. The only remarks I will make upon the above menu are that it is quite possible that the capon may have come from Metz, though not very probable. French cooks name their meat and poultry in the most reckless fashion. For instance, owing to this reckless nomenclature the belief has grown that the best ducks come from Rouen. Nothing of the sort. There are just as good ducks raised at West Hartlepool as at Rouen. “Rouen” in the bill-of-fare is simply a corruption of “roan”; and a “roan duck” is a quacker who has assumed (through crossing) the reddish plumage of the wild bird. As for (alleged) Surrey fowls, most of them come from Heathfield in Sussex, whence £142,000 worth were sent in 1896.

Let us enquire into the composition of some of the high-sounding plats, served up by the average chef.

Bouillabaisse.—Of it Thackeray sang—

Avoid eels and herrings in this concoction as too oily. Soles, mullet, John Dory, whiting, flounders, perch, roach, and mussels will blend well, and allow half a pound of fish for each person. For every pound of fish put in the stewpan a pint of water, a quarter of a pint of white wine, and a tablespoonful of salad oil. If there be four partakers, add two sliced onions, two cloves, two bay-leaves, two leeks (the white part only, chopped), four cloves of garlic, a tablespoonful chopped parsley, a good squeeze of lemon juice, half an ounce of chopped capsicums, a teaspoonful (or more ad lib.) of saffron, with pepper and salt. Mix the chopped fish in all this, and boil for half an hour. Let the mixture “gallop” and strain into a tureen with sippets, and the fish served separately.

Tournedos.—No relation to tornado, and you won’t find the word in any Gallic dictionary. A tournedos is a thin collop of beef, steeped in a marinade for twenty-four hours (personally I prefer it without the aid of the marine) and fried lightly. Turn it but once. The oyster atop is simply scalded. Try this dish.

Bisque.—In the seventeenth century this was made from pigeons by the poor barbarians who knew not the gentle lobster, nor the confiding crayfish. Heat up to boiling-point a Mirepoix of white wine. You don’t know what a

Mirepoix

is? Simply a faggot of vegetables, named after a notorious cuckold of noble birth in the time of Louis XV. Two carrots, two onions, two shalots, two bay-leaves, a sprig of thyme and a clove of garlic. Mince very small, with half a pound of fat bacon, half a pound of raw ham, pepper and salt, and a little butter. Add a sufficiency of white wine. In this mixture cook two dozen crayfish for twenty minutes, continually tossing them about till red, when take them out to cool. Shell them, all but the claws, which should be pounded in a mortar and mixed with butter. The flesh of the tails is reserved to be put in the soup at the last minute; the body-flesh goes back into the mirepoix, to which two quarts of broth are now added. Add the pounded shells to the soup, simmer for an hour and a half, strain, heat up, add a piece of butter, the tails, a seasoning of cayenne, and a few quenelles of whiting.

Vol-au-vent Financière.—This always reminds me of the fearful threat hurled by the waiter in the “Bab Ballads” at his flighty sweetheart:

Make your crust—light as air, and flaky as snow, an you value your situation—and fill with button mushrooms, truffles, cock’s-combs, quenelles of chicken, and sweetbread, all chopped, seasoned, and moistened with a butter sauce. Brown gravy is objectionable. Garnish the Vol with fried parsley, which goes well with most luxuries of this sort.

There are some words which occur frequently in French cookery which, to the ordinary perfidious Briton, are cruelly misleading. For years I was under the impression that Brillat Savarin was a species of filleted fish (brill) in a rich gravy, instead of a French magistrate, who treated gastronomy poetically, and always ate his food too fast. And only within the last decade have I discovered what a

Pré Salé

really means. Literally, it is “salt meadow, or marsh.” It is said that sheep fed on a salt marsh make excellent mutton; but is it not about time for Britannia, the alleged pride of the ocean, and ruler of its billows, to put her foot down and protest against a leg of “prime Down”—but recently landed from the Antipodes—being described on the card as a Gigot de pré salé?

The meals, like the ways, of the “Heathen Chinee” are peculiar. Some of his food, to quote poor Corney Grain, is “absolutely beastly.”

Li Hung Chang

was welcomed to Carlton House Terrace, London, with a dinner, in twelve courses, the following being the principal items:—Roast duck, roast pork and raspberry jam, followed by dressed cucumber. Shrimps were devoured, armour and all, with leeks, gherkins, and mushrooms. A couple of young chickens preserved in wine and vinegar, with green peas, a purée of pigeon’s legs followed by an assortment of sour jellies. The banquet concluded with sponge cakes and tea.

In his own land the

Chinaman’s Evening Repast

is much more variegated than the above. It is almost as long as a Chinese drama, and includes melon seeds, bitter almonds, bamboo sprouts, jelly-fish, cucumber, roast duck, chicken stewed in spirit dregs,[4] peas, prawns, sausages, scallions, fish-brawn, pork chops, plum blossoms, oranges, bird’s-nest soup, pigeons’ eggs in bean curd—the eggs being “postponed” ones—fungus, shrimps, macerated fish-fins, ham in flour, ham in honey, turnip cakes, roast sucking-pig, fish maws, roast mutton, wild ducks’ feet, water chestnuts, egg rolls, lily seeds, stewed mushrooms, dressed crab with jam, chrysanthemum pasties, bêche-de-mer, and pigs’ feet in honey. Can it be wondered at that this nation should have been brought to its knees by gallant little Japan?

The Englishman in China

has not a particularly good time of it, in the gastronomic way, and H.M. forces in Hong Kong are largely dependent on Shanghai for supplies. There is “plenty pig” all over the land; but the dairy-fed pork of old England is preferable. And the way “this little pig goes to market” savours so strongly of the most refined cruelty that a branch of the R.S.P.C.A. would have the busiest of times of it over yonder.

Reverting to French cookery, here is an appetising dish, called a

Bernardin Salmi.

It should be prepared in the dining-room, before the eyes of the guests; and Grimod de la Reyniere (to whom the recipe was given by the prior of an abbey of Bernardin monks) recommends that the salmi should be conveyed to the mouth with a fork, for fear of devouring one’s fingers, should they touch the sauce.

Take three woodcocks, underdone, and cut them into neat portions. On a silver dish bruise the livers and trails, squeeze over them the juice of four (?) lemons, and grate over them a little of the thin rind. Add the portions of woodcock, seasoned with salt, and—according to the prior—mixed spices and two teaspoonfuls of French mustard; but the writer would substitute cayenne seul; over all half a wine-glass of sherry; and then put the dish over a spirit lamp. When the mixture is nearly boiling, add a tablespoonful of salad oil, blow out the light, and stir well. Four lemons are mentioned in this recipe, as at the time it was written lemons were very small when “cocks” were “in.” Two imported lemons (or limes) will amply suffice nowadays.

A Salmi of Wild Duck

can be made almost in the same way, but here the aid of that modern instrument the Duck-Squeezer is necessary.

Cut the best of the meat in slices, off a lightly-roasted wild-duck, after brought to table; break up the carcase and place in a species of mill (silver) called a “duck-squeezer,” which possesses a spout through which the richness of the animal escapes, after being squeezed. Make a gravy of this liquor, in a silver dish (with a spirit lamp beneath), added to a small pat of butter, the juice of a lemon, a tablespoonful of Worcester sauce, with cayenne and salt to taste, and half a wine-glassful of port wine. Warm the meat through in this gravy, which must not boil.

Of course these two last-named dishes are only intended for bachelor-parties. Lovely woman must not be kept waiting for “duck-squeezers” or anything else.

The Jesuits

introduced the turkey into Europe, of which feat the Jesuits need not boast too much; for to some minds there be many better edible birds; and the “gobbler” requires, when roasted or boiled, plenty of seasoning to make him palatable. The French stuff him in his roasted state, with truffles, fat force-meat, or chestnuts, and invariably “bard” the bird—“bard” is old English as well as old French—with fat bacon. The French turkey is also frequently brazed, with an abundant mirepoix made with what their cooks call “Madére,” but which is really Marsala. It is only we English who boil the “gobbler,” and stuff him (or her, for it is the hen who usually goes into the pot) with oysters, or force-meat, with celery sauce. Probably the best parts of the turkey are his legs, when grilled for breakfast, and smothered with the sauce mentioned in one of the chapters on “Breakfast”; and

Pulled Turkey

makes an agreeable luncheon-dish, or entrée at dinner, the breast-meat being pulled off the bone with a fork, and fricasseed, surrounded in the dish by the grilled thighs and pinions.

Who introduced the turkey into America deponent sayeth not. Probably, like Topsy, it “growed” there. Anyhow the bird is so familiar a table-companion in the States, that Americans, when on tour in Europe, fight very shy of him. “Tukkey, sah, cranberry sarce,” used to be the stereotyped reply of the black waiter when interrogated on the subject of the bill of fare.

Coloured Help

is, however, gradually being ousted (together with sulphur matches) from the big hotels in New York, where white waiting and white food are coming into, or have come into, regular use. In fact, with the occasional addition of one or other of such special dishes as terrapin, soft-shell crab, clam chowder, and the everlasting pork and beans, a dinner in New York differs very little at the time of writing (1897) from one in London. The taste for

Clam Chowder

is an acquired one, nor will stewed tortoise ever rank with thick turtle in British estimation, although ’tis not the same tortoise which is used in London households to break the coals with. A

Canvass-back Duck,

if eaten in the land of his birth, is decidedly the most delicately-flavoured of all the “Quack” family. His favourite food is said to be wild celery, and his favoured haunts the neighbourhood of Chesapeake Bay, from whose waters comes the much prized “diamond-back” terrapin, which is sold at the rate of 50$ or 60$ the dozen. The canvass-back duck, however, suffers in transportation; in fact, the tendency of the ice-house aboard ship is to rob all food of its flavour.

But however good be the living in

New York City

—where the hotels are the best in the world, and whose Mr. Delmonico can give points to all sorts and conditions of food caterers—it is “a bit rough” in the provinces. There is a story told of a young actor, on tour, who “struck” a small town out West, and put up at a small inn. In the course of time dinner was served, and the landlord waited at table. The principal cover was removed, disclosing a fine joint of coarsish, indifferently-cooked beef. Our young actor was strangely moved at the sight.

“What?” he cried. “Beef again? This is horrible! I’ve seen no other food for months, and I’m sick and tired of it. I can’t eat beef.”

Whereupon his host whipped out a huge “six-shooter” revolver, and covering the recalcitrant beef-eater, coolly remarked:

“Guess you kin!”

But I don’t believe that story, any more than I believe the anecdote of the cowboys and the daylight let through the visitor who couldn’t eat beans.

CHAPTER IX

DINNER (continued)

French soup—A regimental dinner—A city banquet—Baksheesh—Aboard ship—An ideal dinner—Cod’s liver—Sleeping in the kitchen—A fricandeau—Regimental messes—Peter the Great—Napoleon the Great—Victoria—The Iron Duke—Mushrooms—A medical opinion—A North Pole banquet—Dogs as food—Plain unvarnished fare—The Kent Road cookery—More beans than bacon.

“What’s in a name?” inquired the love-sick Juliet. “What?” echoes the bad fairy “Ala.” After all the fuss made by the French over their soups, we might expect more variety than is given us. If it be true that we English have only one sauce, it is equally true that our lively neighbours have only one soup—and that one is a broth. It is known to the frequenters of restaurants under at least eleven different names Brunoise, Jardinière, Printanier, Chiffonade, Macédoine, Julienne, Faubonne, Paysanne, Flamande, Mitonnage, Croûte au Pot, and, as Sam Weller would say, “It’s the flavouring as does it.” It is simply bouillon, plain broth, and weak at that. The addition of a cabbage, or a leek, or a common or beggar’s crust, will change a potage à la Jardinière into a Croûte au Pot, and vice versa. Great is “Ala”; and five hundred per cent is her profit!

The amount of money lavished by diners-about upon the productions of the alien chef would be ludicrous to consider, were not the extravagance absolutely criminal. The writer has partaken of about the most expensive dinner—English for the most part, with French names to the dishes—that could be put on the table, the charge being (including wines) one guinea per mouth. Another banquet, given by a gay youth who had acquired a large sum through ruining somebody else on the Stock Exchange—the meal positively reeking of Ala—was charged for by the hotel manager at the rate of sixteen pounds per head, also including wines. I was told afterwards, though I am still sceptical as to the veracity of the statement, that the flowers on the table at that banquet cost alone more than £75. And only on the previous Sunday, our host’s father—a just nobleman and a God-fearing—had delivered a lecture, at a popular institution, on “Thrift.”

Here follows the menu of the above-mentioned guinea meal,

A Regimental Dinner,

held at a well-known city house.

And some of the younger officers complained bitterly at having to pay £1:1s. for the privilege of “larking” over such a course!

There are only three faults I can find in the above programme: (1) Confusion to the man who expects the British Army to swallow green fat in French. (2) Whitebait is far too delicately flavoured a fowl to curry. (3) Too much eating and drinking.

City Dinners

are for the most part an infliction (or affliction) on the diner. With more than fourscore sitting at meat, the miracle of the loaves and fishes is repeated—with, frequently, the fish left out.

“I give you my word, dear old chappie,” once exclaimed a gilded youth who had been assisting at one of these functions, to the writer, “all I could get hold of, during the struggle, was an orange and a cold plate!”

The great and powerful system of

Baksheesh,

of course, enters largely into these public entertainments; and the man who omits to fee the waiter in advance, as a rule, “gets left.” Bookmakers and others who go racing are the greatest sinners in this respect. A well-known magnate of the betting-ring (1896) invariably, after arriving at an hotel, hunts up the chef, and sheds upon him a “fiver,” or a “tenner,” according to the size of the house, and the repute of its cookery. And that metallician and his party are not likely to starve during their stay, whatever may be the fate of those who omit to “remember” the Commissariat Department. I have seen the same bookmaker carry, with his own hands, the remains of a great dish of “Hot-pot” into the dining-room of his neighbours, who had been ringing for a waiter, and clamouring for food for the best part of an hour, without effect.

The same system prevails aboard ship; and the passenger who has not propitiated the head steward at the commencement of the voyage will not fare sumptuously. The steamship companies may deny this statement; but ’tis true nevertheless.

Dinner Afloat.

Here is an average dinner-card during a life on the ocean wave:

Julienne soup, boiled salmon with shrimp sauce, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, jugged hare, French beans à la Maître d’Hôtel, chicken curry, roast turkey with purée of chestnuts, fanchouettes (what are they?), sausage rolls, greengage tarts, plum-puddings, lemon-jellies, biscuits and cheese, fruit, coffee.

Plenty of variety here, though some epicures might resent the presence of a sausage-roll (the common or railway-station bag of mystery) on the dinner table. But since the carriage of live stock aboard passenger ships has been abandoned, the living is not nearly as good; for, as before observed, the tendency of the ice-house is to make all flesh taste alike. Civilisation has, doubtless, done wonders for us; but most people prefer mutton to have a flavour distinct from that of beef.

My

Ideal Dinner

was partaken of in a little old-fashioned hostelry (at the west end of London), whose name the concentrated efforts of all the wild horses in the world would not extract. Familiarity breeds contempt, and publicity oft kills that which is brought to light. Our host was a wine-merchant in a large way of business.

“I can only promise you plain food, good sirs,” he mentioned, in advance—“no foreign kick-shaws; but everything done to a turn.”

Six of us started with clear turtle, followed by a thick wedge out of the middle of a patriarchal codfish, with plenty of liver. And here a pause must be made. In not one cookery-book known to mankind can be found a recipe for cooking the

Liver of a Cod.

Of course it should not be cooked with the fish, but in a separate vessel. The writer once went the rounds of the kitchens to obtain information on this point.

“’Bout half-an-hour,” said one cook, a “hard-bitten” looking food-spoiler.

“Ma foi! I cook not at all the liver of the cod,” said an unshorn son of Normandy. “He is for the malade only.”

After asking a number of questions, and a journey literally “round the town,” the deduction made from the various answers was that a piece of liver enough for six people would take eighteen minutes, after being placed in boiling water.

To continue with our dinner. No sauce with the oysters, but these simply scalded in their own liquor. Then came on a monster steak, an inch thick, cut from the rump immediately before being placed on the gridiron. And here a word on the grilling of a steak. We English place it nearer the fire than do our lively neighbours, whose grills do not, in consequence, present that firm surface which is the charm of an English steak. The late Mr. Godfrey Turner of the Daily Telegraph (who was almost as great an authority as Mr. Sala on gastronomies) once observed to the writer, “Never turn your steak, or chop, more than once.” Though by no means a disciple of Ala, he was evidently a believer in the French method of grilling, which leaves a sodden, flabby surface on the meat. The French cook only turns a steak once; but if he had his gridiron as close to the fire as his English rival, the chef would inevitably cremate his morçeau d’bœuf. I take it that in grilling, as in roasting, the meat should, in the first instance, almost touch the glowing embers.

We had nothing but horse-radish with our steak, which was succeeded by golden plovers (about the best bird that flies) and marrow bones. And a dig into a ripe Stilton concluded a banquet which we would not have exchanged for the best efforts of Francatelli himself.

Yes—despite the efforts of the bad fairy Ala, the English method of cooking good food—if deftly and properly employed—is a long way the better method. Unfortunately, through the fault of the English themselves, this method is but seldom employed deftly or properly. And at a cheap English eating-house the kitchen is usually as dirty and malodorous as at an inexpensive foreign restaurant. As both invariably serve as sleeping apartments during the silent watches of the night, this is, perhaps, not altogether to be wondered at.

But there is one plât in the French cookery book which is not to be sneered at, or even condemned with faint praise. A properly-dressed fricandeau is a dainty morsel indeed. In fact the word fricand means, in English, “dainty.” Here is the recipe of the celebrated Gouffé for the Fricandeau:

Three pounds of veal fillet, trimmed, and larded with fat bacon. Put in the glazing stewpan the trimmings, two ounces of sliced carrot, two ditto onion, with pepper and salt. Lay the fricandeau on the top; add half a pint of broth; boil the broth till it is reduced and becomes thick and yellow; add a pint and a half more broth, and simmer for an hour and a quarter—the stewpan half covered. Then close the stewpan and put live coals on the top. Baste the fricandeau with the gravy—presumably after the removal of the dead coals—every four minutes till it is sufficiently glazed; then take it out and place on a dish. Strain the gravy, skim off the fat, and pour over the meat. It may be added that a spirit lamp beneath the dish is (or should be) de rigueur.

In their clubs, those (alleged) “gilded saloons of profligacy and debauchery, favoured of the aristocracy,” men, as a rule dine wisely, and well, and, moreover, cheaply. The extravagant diner-out, with his crude views on the eternal fitness of things, selects an hotel, or restaurant, in the which, although the food may be of the worst quality, and the cookery of the greasiest, the charges are certain to be on the millionaire scale. For bad dinners, like bad lodgings, are invariably the dearest.

At the Mess-Table

of the British officer there is not much riot or extravagance nowadays, and the food is but indifferently well cooked; though there was a time when the youngest cornet would turn up his nose at anything commoner than a “special cuvée” of champagne, and would unite with his fellows in the “bear-fight” which invariably concluded a “guest night,” and during which the messman, or one of his myrmidons, was occasionally placed atop of the ante-room fire. And there was one messman who even preferred that mode of treatment to being lectured by his colonel. Said officer was starchy, punctilious, and long-winded, and upon one occasion, when the chaplain to the garrison was his guest at dinner, addressed the terrified servant somewhat after this wise:

“Mr. Messman—I have this evening bidden to our feast this eminent divine, who prayeth daily that we may receive the fruits of the earth in due season; to which I, an humble layman, am in the habit of responding: ‘We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.’ Mr. Messman, don’t let me see those d——d figs on the table again.”

At a military guest-night in India, a turkey and a “Europe” ham are—or were—de rigueur at table; and on the whole the warrior fares well, if the khansamah do not attempt luxuries. His chicken cutlets are not despicable, and we can even forgive the repetition of the vilolif but his bifisteakishtoo (stewed steak) is usually too highly-spiced for the European palate. Later in the evening, however, he will come out strong with duvlebone, and grilled sardines in curlpapers. The presence of the bagpipes, in the mess-room of a Highland regiment, when men have well drunk, is cruelly unkind—to the Saxon guest at all events. The bagpipe is doubtless a melodious instrument (to trained ears), but its melodies are apt to “hum i’ th’ head o’er muckle ye ken,” after a course of haggis washed down with sparkling wines and old port.

“Tell me what a man eats,” said Brillat Savarin, “and I’ll tell you what he is.”

Peter the Great

did not like the presence of “listening lacqueys” in the dining-room. Peter’s favourite dinner was, like himself, peculiar: “A soup, with four cabbages in it; gruel; pig, with sour cream for sauce; cold roast meat with pickled cucumbers or salad; lemons and lamprey, salt meat, ham, and Limburg cheese.”

“Lemons and lamprey” must have had a roughish seat, atop of pig and sour cream. I once tasted lampreys—only once. It was in Worcestershire, and said lampreys were stewed (I fancy) in burgundy, and served in a small tureen—en casserole, our lively neighbours would have called the production, which was grateful, but much embarrassed with richness.

Napoleon the Great,

whose tastes were simple, is said to have preferred a broiled breast of mutton to any other dinner-dish. Napoleon III., however, encouraged extravagance of living; and Zola tells us in Le Débâcle that the unfortunate emperor, ill as he was, used to sit down to so many courses of rich foods every night until “the downfall” arrived at Sédan, and that a train of cooks and scullions with (literally) a “batterie” de cuisine, was attached to his staff.

Her Majesty

Queen Victoria’s dinner-table is invariably graced with a cold sirloin of beef, amongst other joints; and the same simple fare has satisfied the aspirations and gratified the palate of full many a celebrity. The great

Duke of Wellington

was partial to a well-made Irish stew; and nothing delighted Charles Dickens more than a slice out of the breast of a hot roast-goose.

A word about the mushroom. Although said to be of enormous value in sauces and ragouts, I shall always maintain that the mushroom is best when eaten all by his quaint self. His flavour is so delicate that ’tis pitiful to mix him with fish, flesh, or fowl—more especially the first-named. I have seen mushrooms and bacon cooked together, and I have seen beef-steak (cut into small pieces) and bacon cooked together, and it was with some difficulty that my Irish host got me out of the kitchen. If ever I am hanged, it will be for killing a cook. Above all never eat mushrooms which you have not seen in their uncooked state. The mushroom, like the truffle, loses more flavour the longer he is kept; and to “postpone” either is fatal.

“The plainer the meal the longer the life.” Thus an eminent physician—already mentioned in these pages. “We begin with soup, and perhaps a glass of cold punch, to be followed by a piece of turbot, or a slice of salmon with lobster sauce; and while the venison or South-down is getting ready, we toy with a piece of sweetbread, and mellow it with a bumper of Madeira. No sooner is the mutton or venison disposed of, with its never-failing accompaniments of jelly and vegetables, than we set the whole of it in a ferment with champagne, and drown it with hock and sauterne. These are quickly followed by the wing and breast of a partridge, or a bit of pheasant or wild duck; and when the stomach is all on fire with excitement, we cool it for an instant with a piece of iced pudding, and then immediately lash it into a fury with undiluted alcohol in the form of cognac or a strong liqueur; after which there comes a spoonful or so of jelly as an emollient, a morsel of ripe Stilton as a digestant, a piquant salad to whet the appetite for wine, and a glass of old port to persuade the stomach, if it can, into quietness. All these are more leisurely succeeded by dessert, with its baked meats, its fruits, and its strong drinks, to be afterwards muddled with coffee, and complicated into a rare mixture with tea, floating with the richest cream.”

Hoity, toity! And not a word about a French plât, or even a curry, either! But we must remember that this diatribe comes from a gentleman who has laid down the theory that cold water is not only the cheapest of beverages, but the best. Exception, too, may be taken to the statement that a “piquant salad” whets the appetite for wine. I had always imagined that a salad—and, indeed, anything with vinegar in its composition—rather spoilt the human palate for wine than otherwise. And what sort of “baked meats” are usually served with desert?

How the Poor Live.

An esteemed friend who has seen better days, sends word how to dine a man, his wife, and three children for 7½d. He heads his letter

The Kent Road Cookery.

A stew is prepared with the following ingredients: 1 lb. bullock’s cheek (3½d.), ½ pint white beans (1d.), ½ pint lentils (1d.), pot-herbs (1d.), 2 lb. potatoes (1d.)—Total 7½d.

When he has friends, the banquet is more expensive: 1 lb. bullock’s cheek (3½d.), ½ lb. cow-heel (2½d.), ½ lb. leg of beef (3d.), 1 pint white beans (2d.), ½ pint lentils (1d.), pot-herbs (1d.), 5 lb. potatoes (2d.)—total 1s. 3d.

As we never know what may happen, the above menus may come in useful.

Doctor Nansen’s Banquet

on the ice-floe, to celebrate his failure to discover the Pole, was simple enough, at all events. But it would hardly commend itself to the fin de siècle “Johnny.” There was raw gull in it, by way of a full-flavoured combination of poisson and entrée; there was meat chocolate in it, and peli—I should say, pemmican. There were pancakes, made of oatmeal and dog’s blood, fried in seal’s blubber. And I rather fancy the relevé was Chien au nature. For in his most interesting work, Across Greenland, Doctor Nansen has inserted the statement that the man who turns his nose up at raw dog for dinner is unfit for an Arctic expedition. For my own poor part, I would take my chance with a Porterhouse steak, cut from a Polar bear.

Prison Fare.

Another simple meal. Any visitor to one of H.M. penitentiaries may have noticed in the cells a statement to the effect that “beans and bacon” may be substituted for meat, for the convicts’ dinners, on certain days. “Beans and bacon” sounds rural, if not absolutely bucolic. “Fancy giving such good food to the wretches!” once exclaimed a lady visitor. But those who have sampled the said “beans and bacon” say that it is hardly to be preferred to the six ounces of Australian dingo or the coarse suet-duff (plumless) which furnish the ordinary prison dinner. For the tablespoonful of pappy beans with which the captive staves off starvation are of the genus “haricot”; and the parallelogram of salted hog’s-flesh which accompanies the beans does not exceed, in size, the ordinary railway ticket.