CHAPTER X
VEGETABLES
Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses.”
Use and abuse of the potato—Its eccentricities—Its origin—Hawkins, not Raleigh, introduced it into England—With or without the “jacket”?—Don’t let it be à-la-ed—Benevolence and large-heartedness of the cabbage family—Peas on earth—Pythagoras on the bean—“Giving him beans”—“Haricot” a misnomer—“Borston” beans—Frijoles—The carrot—Crécy soup—The Prince of Wales—The Black Prince and the King of Bohemia.
Item, the Potato, earth-apple, murphy, or spud; the most useful, as well as the most exasperating gift of a bountiful Providence. Those inclined to obesity may skip the greater part of this chapter. You can employ a potato for almost anything. It comes in very handy for the manufacture of starch, sugar, Irish stew, Scotch whisky, and Colorado beetles. Cut it in half, and with one half you restore an old master, and with the other drive the cat from the back garden. More deadly battles have been waged over the proper way to cook a potato, than over a parish boundary, or an Irish eviction. Strong-headed men hurl the spud high in air, and receive and fracture it on their frontal bones; whilst a juggler like Paul Cinquevalli can do what he likes with it. Worn inside the pocket, it is an infallible cure for chronic rheumatism, fits, and tubercular meningitis. Worn inside the body it will convert a living skeleton into a Daniel Lambert. Plant potatoes in a game district, and if they come up you will find that after the haulms have withered you can capture all your rich neighbour’s pheasants, and half the partridges in the country. A nicely-baked potato, deftly placed beneath the root of his tail, will make the worst “jibber” in the world travel; whilst, when combined with buttermilk, and a modicum of meal, the earth-apple has been known to nourish millions of the rising generation, and to give them sufficient strength and courage to owe their back rents, and accuracy of aim for exterminating the brutal owner of the soil.
The waiter, bless ye! the harmless, flat-footed waiter, doesn’t know all this. Potatoes to him are simply 2d. or 3d. in the little account, according to whether they be “biled, mash, or soty”; and if questioned as to the natural history of the floury tuber, he would probably assume an air of injured innocence, and assure you that during his reign of “thirty-five year, man and boy,” that establishment had “never ’ad no complaints.”
The potato is most eccentric in disposition, and its cultivator should know by heart the beautiful ode of Horace which commences
The experiences of the writer as a potato grower have been somewhat mixed, and occasionally like the following:—Set your snowflakes in deeply-trenched, heavily-manured ground, a foot apart. In due time you will get a really fine crop of groundsel, charlock, and slugs, with enough bind-weed to strangle the sea-serpent. Clear all this rubbish off, and after a week or two the eye will be gladdened with the sight of the delicate green leaf of the tuber peeping through the soil. Slow music. Enter the Earl of Frost. No; they will not all be cut off. You will get one tuber. Peel it carefully, and place it in the pig-stye—the peeling spoils the quality of the pork. Throw the peeling away—on the bed in which you have sown annuals for choice—and in the late Spring you will have a row of potatoes which will do you credit.
But this is frivolous. The origin of the potato is doubtful; but that it was used by the ancients, in warfare, is tolerably certain. Long before the Spaniards reached the New World it was cultivated largely by the Incas; and it was the Spaniards who brought the tuber to Europe, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was brought to England from Virginia by Sir John Hawkins in 1563; and again in 1586 by Sir Francis Drake, to whom, as the introducer of the potato, a statue was erected at Offenburg, in Baden, in 1853. In schools and other haunts of ignorance, the credit for the introduction of the tuber used to be and is (I believe) still given to Sir Walter Raleigh, who has been wrongly accredited with as many “good things” as have been Theodore Hook or Sidney Smith. And I may mention en parenthèse, that I don’t entirely believe that cloak story. For many years the tuber was known in England as the “Batata”—overhaul your Lorna Doone—and in France, until the close of the eighteenth century, the earth apple was looked upon with suspicion, as the cause of leprosy and assorted fevers; just as the tomato, at the close of the more civilised nineteenth century, is said by the vulgar and swine-headed to breed cancer.
Now then, With or without the jacket? And the reader who imagines that I am going to answer the question has too much imagination. As the old butler in Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone observes, there is much to be said on both sides. Personally I lean to the “no-jacket” side, unless the tuber be baked; and I would make it penal to serve a potato in any other way than boiled, steamed, or baked.[5] The bad fairy Ala should have no hand in its manipulation; and there be few æsthetic eaters who would not prefer the old-fashioned “ball of flour” to slices of the sodden article swimming in a bath of grease and parsley, and called a Sauté. The horrible concoction yclept “preserved potatoes,” which used to be served out aboard sailing vessels, after the passengers had eaten all the real articles, and which tasted like bad pease-pudding dressed with furniture polish, is, happily, deceased. And the best potatoes, the same breed which our fathers and our forefathers munched in the Covent Garden “Cave of Harmony,” grow, I am credibly informed, in Jermyn Street. Moreover if you wish to spoil a dish of good spuds, there is no surer way than by leaving on the dish-cover. So much for boiling ’em—or steaming ’em.
The Cabbage is a fine, friendly fellow, who makes himself at home, and generally useful, in the garden; whilst his great heart swells, and swells, in the full knowledge that he is doing his level best to please all. Though cut down in the springtime of his youth, his benevolence is so great that he will sprout again from his headless trunk, if required, and given time for reflection. The Romans introduced him into Great Britain, but there was a sort of cow-cabbage in the island before that time which our blue forefathers used to devour with their bacon, and steaks, in a raw state.
“The most evolved and final variety of the cabbage,” writes a savant, “is the Cauliflower, in which the vegetative surplus becomes poured into the flowering head, of which the flowering is more or less checked; the inflorescence becoming a dense corymb instead of an open panicle, and the majority of the flowers aborting”—the head gardener usually tells you all this in the Scottish language—“so as to become incapable of producing seed. Let a specially vegetative cabbage repeat the excessive development of its leaf parenchyma, and we have the wrinkled and blistered Savoy, of which the hardy constitution, but comparative coarseness, become also more intelligible; again a specially vegetative cauliflower gives us an easily grown and hardy winter variety, Broccoli”—Broccilo in Costerese—“from which, and not from the ordinary cauliflower, a sprouting variety arises in turn.”
In Jersey the cabbage-stalks are dried, varnished, and used as spars for thatched roofs, as also for the correction of the youthful population. Cook all varieties of the cabbage in water already at the boil, with a little salt and soda in it. The French sprinkle cheese on a cauliflower, to make it more tasty, and it then becomes
Choufleur aû Gratin.
Remove the green leaves, and underboil your cauliflower. Pour over it some butter sauce in which have been mixed two ounces of grated cheese—half Gruyère and half Parmesan. Powder with bread crumbs, or raspings, and with more grated cheese. Lastly, pour over it a teaspoonful of oiled butter. Place in a hot oven and bake till the surface is a golden brown, which should be in from ten to fifteen minutes. Serve in same dish.
Vegetarians should be particularly careful to soak every description of cabbage in salt and water before cooking. Otherwise the vegetarians will probably eat a considerable portion of animal food.
Here occurs an opportunity for the recipe for an elegant dish, which the French call Perdrix aux Choux, which is simply
Partridge Stewed with Cabbage, etc.
A brace of birds browned in the stewpan with butter or good dripping, and a portion of a hand of pickled pork in small pieces, some chopped onion and a clove or two. Add some broth, two carrots (chopped), a bay-leaf, and a chopped sausage or two. Then add a Savoy cabbage, cut into quarters, and seasoned with pepper and salt. Let all simmer together for an hour and a half. Then drain the cabbage, and place it, squashed down, on a dish. Arrange the birds in the middle, surround them with the pieces of pork and sausage, and pour over all the liquor from the stew.
This is an excellent dish, and savours more of Teutonic than of French cooking. But you mustn’t tell a Frenchman this, if he be bigger than yourself.
The toothsome Pea has been cultivated in the East from time immemorial, though the ancient Greeks and Romans do not appear to have had knowledge of such a dainty. Had Vitellius known the virtues of duck and green peas he would probably have not been so wrapt up in his favourite dormice, stuffed with poppy-seed and stewed in honey. The ancient Egyptians knew all about the little pulse, and not one of the leaders of society was mummified without a pod or two being placed amongst his wrappings. And after thousand of years said peas, when sown, have been known to germinate. The mummy pea-plant, however, but seldom bears fruit. Our idiotic ancestors, the ancient Britons, knew nothing about peas, nor do any of their descendants appear to have troubled about the vegetable before the reign of the Virgin Queen. Then they were imported from Holland, together with schnapps, curaçoa, and other things, and no “swagger” banquet was held without a dish of “fresh-shelled ’uns,” which were accounted “fit dainties for ladies, they came so far and cost so dear.” In England up-to-date peas are frequently accompanied by pigeon pie at table; the dove family being especially partial to the little pulse, either when attached to the haulm, in the garden, or in a dried state. So that the crafty husbandman, who possesses a shot gun, frequently gathereth both pea and pigeon. A chalky soil is especially favourable to pea cultivation; and deal sawdust sprinkled well over the rows immediately after the setting of the seed will frustrate the knavish tricks of the field mouse, who also likes peas. The man who discovered the affinity between mint and this vegetable ought to have received a gold medal, and I would gladly attend the execution of the caitiff who invented the tinned peas which we get at the foreign restaurants, at three times the price of the English article.
Here is a good simple recipe for Pea Soup, made from the dried article:
Soak a quart of split peas in rain-water for twelve hours. Put them in the pot with one carrot, one onion, one leek, a sprig or two of parsley (all chopped), one pound of streaky bacon, and three quarts of the liquor in which either beef, mutton, pork, or poultry may have been boiled. Boil for nearly three hours, remove the bacon, and strain the soup through a tammy. Heat up, and serve with dried mint, and small cubes of fat bacon fried crisp.
Green-Pea Soup is made in precisely the same way; but the peas will not need soaking beforehand, and thrifty housewives put in the shells as well.
Harmless and nutritious a vegetable as the Bean would appear to be, it did not altogether find favour with the ancients. Pythagoras, who had quaint ideas on the subject of the human soul, forbade his disciples to eat beans, because they were generated in the foul ooze out of which man was created. Lucian, who had a vivid imagination, describes a philosopher in Hades who was particularly hard on the bean, to eat which he declared was as great a crime as to eat one’s father’s head. And yet Lucian was accounted a man of common sense in his time. The Romans only ate beans at funerals, being under the idea that the souls of the dead abode in the vegetable. According to tradition, the “caller herrin’” hawked in the streets of Edinburgh were once known as “lives o’ men,” from the risks run by the fishermen. And the Romans introduced the bean into England by way of cheering up our blue forefathers. In the Roman festival of Lemuralia, the father of the family was accustomed to throw black beans over his head, whilst repeating an incantation. This ceremony probably inspired Lucian’s philosopher—for whom, however, every allowance should be made, when we come to consider his place of residence—with his jaundiced views of the Faba vulgaris. Curiously enough, amongst the vulgar folk, at the present day, there would seem to be some sort of prejudice against the vegetable; or why should “I’ll give him beans” be a synonymous threat with “I’ll do him all the mischief I can?”
There is plenty of nourishment in a bean; that is the opinion of the entire medical faculty. And whilst beans and bacon make a favourite summer repast for the farm-labourer and his family, the dish is also (at the commencement of the bean season) to be met with at the tables of the wealthy. The aroma of the flower of the broad bean was once compared, in one of John Leech’s studies in Punch, to “the most delicious ’air oil,” but, apart from this fragrance, there is but little sentiment about the Faba vulgaris. A much more graceful vegetable is the Phaseolus vulgaris, the kidney, or, as the idiotic French call it, the haricot bean. It is just as sensible to call a leg of Welsh mutton a pré salé, or salt meadow. No well-behaved hashed venison introduces himself to our notice unless accompanied by a dish of kidney beans. And few people in Europe besides Frenchmen and convicts eat the dried seeds of this form of bean, which is frequently sown in suburban gardens to form a fence to keep out cats. But the suburban cat knows a trick worth a dozen of that one; and no bean that was ever born will arrest his progress, or turn him from his evil ways. It is criminal to smother the kidney bean with melted butter at table. A little oil, vinegar, and pepper agree with him much better.
In the great continent of America, the kidney-bean seed, dried, is freely partaken of. Pork and “Borston” beans, in fact, form the national dish, and right good it is. But do not attempt any violent exercise after eating the same. The Mexicans are the largest bean-eaters in the world. They fry the vegetables in oil or stew them with peppers and onions, and these frijoles form the principal sustenance of the lower orders. An English “bean feast” (Vulg. beano) is a feast at which no beans, and not many other things, are eaten. The intelligent foreigner may take it that beano simply means the worship of Bacchus.
With the exception of the onion there is no more useful aid to cookery of all sorts than the lowly carrot, which was introduced into England—no, not by the Romans—from Holland, in the sixteenth century. And the ladies who attended the court of Charles I. were in the habit of wearing carrot leaves in the hair, and on their court robes, instead of feathers. A similar fashion might be revived at the present epoch, with advantage to the banking account of vile man.
As the Flemish gardeners brought over the roots, we should not despise carrots cooked in the Flemish way. Simmer some young carrots in butter, with pepper and salt. Add cream (or milk and yolk of eggs), a pinch of sugar, and a little chopped parsley.
H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, according to report, invariably eats carrot soup on the 26th of August. The French call it “Crécy” soup, because their best carrots grow there; and Crécy it may be remembered was also the scene of a great battle, when one Englishman proved better than five Frenchmen. In this battle the Black Prince performed prodigies of valour, afterwards assuming the crest of the late Bohemian King—three ostrich feathers (surely these should be carrot tops?) with the motto “Ich Dien.”
Crécy Soup.
Place a mirepoix of white wine in the pot, and put a quantity of sliced carrots atop. Moisten with broth, and keep simmering till the carrots are done. Then pour into a mortar, pound, and pass through a tammy. Thin it with more broth, sweeten in the proportion of one tablespoonful of sugar to two gallons of soup; heat up, pop a little butter in at the finish, and in serving it add either small cubes of fried bread, or rice boiled as for curry (see page 145).
CHAPTER XI
VEGETABLES (continued)
Then why with sauces rich alloy them?”
The brief lives of the best—A vegetable with a pedigree—Argenteuil—The Elysian Fields—The tomato the emblem of love—“Neeps”—Spinach—“Stomach-brush”—The savoury tear-provoker—Invaluable for wasp-stings—Celery merely cultivated “smallage”—The “Apium”—The parsnip—O Jerusalem!—The golden sunflower—How to get pheasants—A vegetarian banquet—“Swelling wisibly.”
It is one of the most exasperating laws and ordinations of Nature that the nicest things shall last the shortest time. “Whom the gods love die young,” is an ancient proverb; and the produce of the garden which is most agreeable to man invariably gives out too soon. Look at peas. Every gardener of worth puts in the seed so that you may get the different rows of marrow-fats and telephones and ne plus ultras in “succession”; and up they all come, at one and the same time, whilst, if you fail to pick them all at once, the combined efforts of mildew and the sun will soon save you the labour of picking them at all. Look at strawberries; and why can’t they stay in our midst all the year round, like the various members of the cabbage family?
Then look at Asparagus. The gardener who could persuade the heads of this department to pop up in succession, from January to December would earn more money than the Prime Minister. The favourite vegetable of the ancient Romans was introduced by them, with their accustomed unselfishness, into Britain, where it has since flourished—more particularly in the alluvial soil of the Thames valley in the neighbourhood of Mortlake and Richmond, ground which is also especially favourable to the growth of celery. In an ancient work called De Re Rustica, Cato the Elder, who was born 234 B.C., has much to say—far more, indeed, than I can translate without the aid of a dictionary or “crib”—about the virtues and proper cultivation of asparagus; and Pliny, another noble Roman, devotes several chapters of his Natural History (published at the commencement of the Christian era) to the same subject. “Of all the productions of your garden” says this Mr. Pliny, “your chief care will be your asparagus.” And the cheerful and sanguine householder of to-day who sows his asparagus, and expects to get it “while he waits” has ample consolation for disappointment in the reflection that his labours will benefit posterity, if not the next tenant.
The foreigners can beat us for size, in the matter of asparagus; but ours is a long way in front for flavour. In France the vegetable is very largely grown at Argenteuil on the Seine, a district which has also produced, and still produces, a wine which is almost as dangerous to man as hydrocyanic acid, and which was invariably served in the restaurants, after the sitting had been a lengthy one, no matter what special brand might have been ordered. English hosts play the same game with their “military” ports and inferior sherries. The Argenteuil asparagus is now grown between the vines—at least 1000 acres are in cultivation—hence the peculiar flavour which, however grateful it may be to Frenchmen, is somewhat sickly and not to be compared with that of the “little gentleman in Green,” nearly the whole of whom we English can consume with safety to digestion.
According to Greek mythology, asparagus grew in the Elysian fields; but whether the blessed took oil and vinegar with it, or the “bill-sticker’s paste,” so favoured in middle-class kitchens of to-day, there is no record. It goes best, however, with a plain salad dressing—a “spot” of mustard worked into a tablespoonful of oil, and a dessert-spoonful of tarragon vinegar, with pepper and salt ad lib.
Asparagus is no longer known in the British pharmacopœia, but the French make large medicinal use of its root, which is supposed to still the action of the heart, like foxglove, and to act as a preventive of calculi. In cooking the vegetable, tie in small bundles, which should be stood on end in the saucepan, so that the delicate heads should be steamed, and not touched by the boiling water. Many cooks will contest this point; which, however, does not admit of argument.
There was once a discussion in a well-known hostelry, as to whether the
Tomato
was a fruit or a vegetable. Eventually the head-waiter was invited to solve the great question. He did so on the spot.
“Tumarter, sir? Tumarter’s a hextra.”
And as a “hextra” it has never since that period ceased to be regarded. A native of South America, the plant was introduced into Europe by the Spaniards, late in the sixteenth century, and the English got it in 1596. Still until a quarter of a century ago the tomato has not been largely cultivated, save by the market gardener; in fact in private gardens it was conspicuous by its absence. Those who eat it do not invariably succumb to cancer; and the dyspeptic should always keep it on the premises. As the tomato is also known as the “love-apple,” a great point was missed by our old friend Sergeant Buzfuz, in the celebrated Bardell v. Pickwick trial, when referring to the postscript, “chops, and tomato sauce.” Possibly Charles Dickens was not an authority on veget—— I beg pardon, “hextras.”
Here is a French recipe for
Tomate au Gratin:
Cut open the tops and scoop out the pulp. Pass it through a sieve, to clear away the pips, and mix with it either a modicum of butter, or oil, some chopped shalot and garlic, with pepper and salt. Simmer the mixture for a quarter of an hour, then stir in some bread-crumbs, previously soaked in broth, and some yolks of egg. When cold, fill the tomato skins with the mixture, shake some fine bread raspings over each, and bake in quick oven for ten or twelve minutes.
The
Turnip
is not, as might be sometimes imagined, entirely composed of compressed deal splinters, but is a vegetable which was cultivated in India long before the Britons got it. The Scotch call turnips “neeps”; but the Scotch will do anything. Probably no member of the vegetable family is so great a favourite with the insect pests sent on earth by an all-wise Providence to prevent mankind having too much to eat. But see that you get a few turnips to cook when there is roast duck for dinner.
Spinach
was introduced into Spain by the Arabs, and as neither nation possessed at that time, at all events, the attribute of extra-cleanliness, they must have eaten a great deal of “matter in the wrong place,” otherwise known as dirt. For if ever there was a vegetable the preparation of which for table would justify any cook in giving notice to leave, it is spinach.
The Germans have nick-named it “stomach-brush,” and there is no plant growing which conduces more to the health of man. But there has been more trouble over the proper way to serve it at table than over Armenia. The French chop up their épinards and mix butter, or gravy, with the mess. Many English, on the other hand, prefer the leaves cooked whole. It is all a matter of taste.
But I seem to scent a soft, sweet fragrance in the air, a homely and health-giving reek, which warns me that I have too long neglected to touch upon the many virtues of the
Onion.
Indigenous to India in the form of
Garlic
(or gar-leek, the original onion), the Egyptians got hold of the tear-provoker and cultivated it 2000 years before the Christian era. So that few of the mortals of whom we have ever read can have been ignorant of the uses of the onion, or gar-leek. But knowledge and practice have enabled modern gardeners to produce larger bulbs than even the most imaginative of the ancients can have dreamt of. To mention all the uses to which the onion is put in the kitchen would be to write a book too weighty for any known motive power to convey to the British Museum; but it may be briefly observed of the juice of the Cepa that it is invaluable for almost any purpose, from flavouring a dish fit to set before a king, to the alleviation of the inflammation caused by the poison-bearing needle which the restless wasp keeps for use within his, or her, tail. In fact, the inhabited portion of the globe had better be without noses than without onions.
Like the tomato, Celery is a “hextra”—and a very important one. If you buy the heads at half-a-crown per hundred and sell them at threepence a portion, it will not exercise your calculating powers to discover the profits which can be made out of this simple root. Celery is simply cultivated “smallage”; a weed which has existed in Britain since the age of ice. It was the Italians who made the discovery that educated smallage would become celery; and it is worthy of note that their forefathers, the conquerors of the world, with the Greeks, seem to have known “no touch of it”—as a relish, at all events; though some writers will have it that the “Apium,” with which the victors at the Isthmian and other games were crowned was not parsley but the leaf of the celery plant. But what does it matter? Celery is invaluable as a flavourer, and when properly cultivated, and not stringy, a most delightful and satisfactory substance to bite. In fact a pretty woman never shows to more advantage than when nibbling a crisp, “short” head of celery—provided she possess pretty teeth.
With boiled turkey, or ditto pheasant, celery sauce is de rigueur; and it should be flavoured slightly with slices of onion, an ounce of butter being allowed to every head of celery. The French are fond of it stewed; and as long as the flavour of the gravy, or jus, does not disguise the flavour of the celery, it is excellent when thus treated. Its merits in a salad will be touched upon in another chapter.
The Parsnip is a native of England, where it is chiefly used to make an inferior kind of spirit, or a dreadful brand of wine. Otherwise few people would trouble to cultivate the parsnip; for we can’t be having boiled pork or salt fish for dinner every day. The Vegetable Marrow is a member of the pumpkin family and is a comparatively tasteless occupant of the garden, its appearance in which heralds the departure of summer. In the suburbs, if you want to annoy the people next door, you cannot do better than put in a marrow plant or two. If they come to anything, and get plenty of water, they will crawl all over your neighbour’s premises; and unless he is fond of the breed, and cuts and cooks them, they make him mad. The frugal housewife, blessed with a large family, makes jam of the surplus marrows; but I prefer a conserve of apricot, gooseberry, or greengage. Another purpose to which to put this vegetable is—
Scoop out the seeds, after cutting it in half, lengthways. Fill the space with minced veal (cooked), small cubes of bacon, and plenty of seasoning—some people add the yoke of an egg—put on the other half marrow, and bake for half-an-hour.
This Baked Marrow is a cheap and homely dish which, like many another savoury dish, seldom finds its way to the rich man’s dining-room.
The Artichoke is a species of thistle; and the man who pays the usual high-toned restaurant prices for the pleasure of eating such insipid food, is an—never mind what. Boil the thing in salt and water, and dip the ends of the leaves in oil and vinegar, or Holland sauce, before eating. Then you will enjoy the really fine flavour of the—oil and vinegar, or Holland sauce.
The so-called Jerusalem Artichoke is really a species of sunflower. Its tuber is not a universal favourite, though it possesses far from a coarse flavour. The plant has nothing whatever to do with Jerusalem, and never had. Put a tuber or two into your garden, and you will have Jerusalem artichokes as long as you live on those premises. For the vegetable will stay with you as long as the gout, or the rate-gatherer. Pheasants are particularly partial to this sort of crop.
By far the best vegetable production of the gorgeous East is the
Brinjal
’Tis oval in shape, and about the size of a hen’s egg, the surface being purple in colour. It is usually cut in twain and done “on the grating”; I have met something very like the brinjal in Covent Garden; but can find no record of the vegetable’s pedigree in any book.
Although there are still many vegetarian restaurants in our large towns, the prejudice against animal food is, happily, dying out; and if ridicule could kill, we should not hear much more of the “cranks” who with delightful inconsistency, would spurn a collop of beef, and gorge themselves on milk, in every shape and form. If milk, butter, and cheese be not animal food I should like to know what is? And it is as reasonable to ask a man to sustain life on dried peas and mushrooms as to feed a tiger on cabbages.
Once, and only once, has the writer attempted a
Vegetarian Banquet.
It was savoury enough; and possessed the additional merit of being cheap. Decidedly “filling at the price” was that meal. We—I had a messmate—commenced with (alleged) Scotch broth—which consisted principally of dried peas, pearl barley, and oatmeal—and a large slice of really excellent brown bread was served, to each, with this broth. Thereupon followed a savoury stew of onions and tomatoes, relieved by a “savoury pie,” apparently made from potatoes, leeks, bread crumbs, butter, and “postponed” mushrooms. We had “gone straight” up to now, but both shied a bit at the maccaroni and grated cheese. We had two bottles of ginger beer apiece, with this dinner, which cost less than three shillings for the two, after the dapper little waitress had been feed. On leaving, we both agreed to visit that cleanly and well-ordered little house again, if only from motives of economy; but within half an hour that programme was changed.
Like the old lady at the tea-drinking, I commenced to “swell wisibly”; and so did my companion.
“Mon alive!” he gasped. “I feel just for all the wor-rld like a captive balloon, or a puffy-dunter—that’s a puffing whale, ye ken. I’ll veesit yon onion-hoose nae mair i’ ma life!”
And I think it cost us something like half a sovereign in old brandy to neutralise the effects of that vegetarian banquet.
CHAPTER XII
CURRIES
That I will speak to thee.”
Different modes of manufacture—The “native” fraud—“That man’s family”—The French kari—A Parsee curry—“The oyster in the sauce”—Ingredients—Malay curry—Locusts—When to serve—What to curry—Prawn curry—Dry curry, a champion recipe—Rice—The Bombay duck.
The poor Indian grinds his coriander seeds, green ginger, and other ingredients between two large flat stones; taking a whiff at the family “hubble-bubble” pipe at intervals. The frugal British housewife purchases (alleged) curry powder in the warehouse of Italy—where it may have lived on, like Claudian, “through the centuries”—stirs a spoonful or two into the hashed mutton, surrounds it with a wall of clammy rice, and calls it Benares Curry, made from the recipe of a very dear uncle who met his death while tiger-shooting. And you will be in the minority if you do not cut this savoury meat with a knife, and eat potatoes, and very often cabbage, with it. The far-seeing eating-house keeper corrals a Lascar or a discharged Mehtar into the firm, gives him his board, a pound a month, and a clean puggaree and Kummerbund daily, and “stars” him in the bill as an “Indian chef, fresh from the Chowringhee Club, Calcutta.” And it is part of the duties of this Oriental—supposed by the unwary to be at least a prince in his native land—to hand the portions of curry, which he may or may not have concocted, to the appreciative guests, who enjoy the repast all the more from having the scent of the Hooghly brought across the footlights. I was once sadly and solemnly reproved by the head waiter of a very “swagger” establishment indeed for sending away, after one little taste, the (alleged) curry which had been handed me by an exile from Ind, in snow-white raiment.
“You really ought to have eaten that, sir,” said the waiter, “for that man’s family have been celebrated curry-makers for generations.”
I smole a broad smile. In the Land of the Moguls the very babies who roll in the dust know the secret of curry-making. But that “that man” had had any hand in the horrible concoction placed before me I still resolutely decline to believe. And how can a man be cook and waiter at the same time? The “native curry-maker,” depend on it, is more or less of a fraud; and his aid is only invoked as an excuse for overcharging.
At the Oriental Club are served, or used to be served, really excellent curries, assorted; for as there be more ways than one of killing a cat, so are there more curries than one. The French turn out a horrible mixture, with parsley and mushrooms in it, which they call kari; it is called by a still worse name on the Boulevards, and the children of our lively neighbours are frequently threatened with it by their nurses.
On the whole, the East Indian method is the best; and the most philanthropic curry I ever tasted was one which my own Khitmughar had just prepared, with infinite pains, for his own consumption. The poor heathen had prospected a feast, as it was one of his numerous “big days”; so, despising the homely dhal, on the which, with a plate of rice and a modicum of rancid butter, he was wont to sustain existence, he had manufactured a savoury mess of pottage, the looks of which gratified me. So, at the risk of starting another Mutiny, it was ordained that the slave should serve the refection at the table of the “protector of the poor.” And a pukkha curry it was, too. Another dish of native manufacture with which the writer became acquainted was a
Parsee Curry.
The eminent firm of Jehangeer on one occasion presented a petition to the commanding-officer that they might be allowed to supply a special curry to the mess one guest-night. The request was probably made as an inducement to some of the young officers to pay a little on account of their “owings” to the firm; but it is to be feared that no special vote of thanks followed the sampling of that special curry. It was a curry! I tasted it for a week (as the Frenchman did the soup of Swindon); and the Parsee chef must have upset the entire contents of the spice-box into it. I never felt more like murder than when the hotel cook in Manchester put nutmeg in the oyster sauce; but after that curry, the strangling of the entire firm of Jehangeer would, in our cantonments, at all events, have been brought in “justifiable homicide.”
“Oyster sauce” recalls a quaint simile I once heard a bookmaker make use of. He was talking of one of his aristocratic debtors, whom he described as sure to pay up, if you could only get hold of him. “But mark you,” continued the layer of odds, “he’s just about as easy to get hold of as the oyster in the sauce, at one of our moonicipal banquets!” But return we to our coriander seeds. There is absolutely no reason why the frugal housewife in this country should not make her own curry powder from day to day, as it may be required. Here is an average Indian recipe; but it must be remembered that in the gorgeous East tastes vary as much as elsewhere, and that Bengal, Bombay, Madras (including Burmah), Ceylon, and the Straits Settlements, have all different methods of preparing a curry.
A few coriander and cumin seeds—according to taste—eight peppercorns, a small piece of turmeric, and one dried chili, all pounded together.
When making the curry mixture, take a piece of the heart of a cabbage, the size of a hen’s egg; chop it fine and add one sour apple in thin slices the size of a Keswick codlin, the juice of a medium-sized lemon, a salt-spoonful of black pepper, and a tablespoonful of the above curry powder. Mix all well together; then take six medium-sized onions which have been chopped small and fried a delicate brown, a clove of garlic, also chopped small, two ounces of fresh butter, two ounces of flour, and one pint of beef gravy. Boil up this lot (which commences with the onions), and when boiling stir in the rest of the mixture. Let it all simmer down, and then add the solid part of the curry, i.e. the meat, cut in portions not larger than two inches square.
Remember, O frugal housewife, that the turmeric portion of the entertainment should be added with a niggard hand. “Too much turmeric” is the fault which is found with most curries made in England. I remember, when a boy, that there was an idea rooted in my mind that curries were made with Doctor Gregory’s Powder, an unsavoury drug with which we were periodically regaled by the head nurse; and there was always a fierce conflict at the dinner-table when the bill-of-fare included this (as we supposed) physic-al terror. But it was simply the taste of turmeric to which we took exception.
What is Turmeric? A plant in cultivation all over India, whose tubers yield a deep yellow powder of a resinous nature. This resinous powder is sold in lumps, and is largely used for adulterating mustard; just as inferior anchovy sauce is principally composed of Armenian Bole, the deep red powder with which the actor makes up his countenance. Turmeric is also used medicinally in Hindustan, but not this side of Suez, although in chemistry it affords an infallible test for the presence of alkalies. The Coriander has become naturalised in parts of England, but is more used on the Continent. Our confectioners put the seeds in cakes and buns, also comfits, and in Germany, Norway, Sweden, and (I fancy) Russia, they figure in household bread. In the south of England, coriander and caraway seeds are sown side by side, and crops of each are obtained in alternate years. The coriander seed, too, is largely used with that of the caraway and the cumin, for making the liqueur known as Kümmel.
Cumin is mentioned in Scripture as something particularly nice. The seeds are sweet-savoured, something like those of the caraway, but more potent. In Germany they put them into bread, and the Dutch use them to flavour their cheeses. The seeds we get in England come principally from Sicily and Malta.
And now that my readers know all about the ingredients of curry-powder—it is assumed that no analysis of the chili, the ginger-root, or the peppercorn, is needed—let them emulate the pupils of Mr. Wackford Squeers, and “go and do it.”
Another Recipe for curry-powder includes fenugreek, cardamoms, allspice, and cloves; but I verily believe that this was the powder used in that abominable Parsee hell-broth, above alluded to, so it should be cautiously approached, if at all. “Fenugreek” sounds evil; and I should say a curry compounded of the above ingredients would taste like a “Number One” pick-me-up. Yet another recipe (Doctor Kitchener’s) specifies six ounces of coriander seed, five ounces of turmeric (ower muckle, I’m of opeenion) two ounces each of black pepper and mustard seed (ochone!), half an ounce of cumin seed, half an ounce of cinnamon (donner und blitzen!), and one ounce of lesser cardamoms. All these things are to be placed in a cool oven, kept therein one night, and pounded in a marble mortar next morning, preparatory to being rubbed through a sieve. “Kitchener” sounds like a good cooking name; but, with all due respect, I am not going to recommend his curry-powder.
A Malay curry is made with blanched almonds, which should be fried in butter till lightly browned. Then pound them to a paste with a sliced onion and some thin lemon-rind. Curry powder and gravy are added, and a small quantity of cream. The Malays curry all sorts of fish, flesh, and fowl, including the young shoots of the bamboo—and nice tender, succulent morsels they are. At a hotel overlooking the harbour of Point de Galle, Ceylon, “run,” at the time of the writer’s visit, by a most convivial and enterprising Yankee, a canning concocter of all sorts of “slings” and “cocktails,” there used to be quite a plethora of curries in the bill-of-fare. But for a prawn curry there is no place like the City of Palaces. And the reason for this super-excellence is that the prawns—but that story had, perhaps, best remain untold.
Curried Locusts formed one of the most eccentric dishes ever tasted by the writer. There had come upon us that day a plague of these all-devouring insects. A few billions called on us, in our kitchen gardens, in passing; and whilst they ate up every green thing—including the newly-painted wheelbarrow, and the regimental standard, which had been incautiously left out of doors—our faithful blacks managed to capture several impis of the marauding scuts, in revenge; and the mess-cook made a right savoury plât of their hind-quarters.
It is criminal to serve curry during the entrée period of dinner. And it is worse form still to hand it round after gooseberry tart and cream, and trifle, as I have seen done at one great house. In the land of its birth, the spicy pottage invariably precedes the sweets. Nubbee Bux marches solemnly round with the mixture, in a deep dish, and is succeeded by Ram Lal with the rice. And in the Madras Presidency, where dry curry is served as well as the other brand, there is a procession of three brown attendants. Highly-seasoned dishes at the commencement of a long meal are a mistake; and this is one of the reasons why I prefer the middle cut of a plain-boiled Tay salmon, or the tit-bit of a lordly turbot, or a flake or two of a Grimsby cod, to a sole Normande, or a red mullet stewed with garlic, mushrooms, and inferior claret. I have even met homard à l’Américaine, during the fish course, at the special request of a well-known Duke. The soup, too, eaten at a large dinner should be as plain as possible; the edge being fairly taken off the appetite by such concoctions as bisque, bouillabaisse, and mulligatawny—all savoury and tasty dishes, but each a meal in itself. Then I maintain that to curry whitebait is wrong; partly because curry should on no account be served before roast and boiled, and partly because the flavour of the whitebait is too delicate for the fish to be clad in spices and onions. The lesson which all dinner-givers ought to have learnt from the Ancient Romans—the first people on record who went in for æsthetic cookery—is that highly-seasoned and well-peppered dishes should figure at the end, and not the commencement of a banquet. Here follows a list of some of the productions of Nature which it is allowable to curry.
What to Curry.
Turbot. Sole. Cod.
Lobster. Crayfish. Prawns,—but not the so-called “Dublin Prawn,” which is delicious when eaten plain boiled, but no good in a curry.
Whelks.[6] Oysters. Scallops.
Mutton. Veal. Pork. Calf’s Head. Ox Palate. Tripe.[6]
Eggs. Chicken. Rabbit (the “bunny” lends itself better than anything else to this method of cooking). Pease. Kidney Beans.[6] Vegetable Marrow. Carrots. Parsnips. Bamboo Shoots. Locust Legs.
A mistaken notion has prevailed for some time amongst men and women who write books, that the Indian curry mixture is almost red-hot to the taste. As a matter of fact it is of a far milder nature than many I have tasted “on this side.” Also the Anglo-Indian does not sustain life entirely on food flavoured with turmeric and garlic. In fact, during a stay of seven years in the gorgeous East, the writer’s experience was that not one in ten touched curry at the dinner table. At second breakfast—otherwise known as “tiffin”—it was a favoured dish; but the stuff prepared for the meal of the day—or the bulk thereof—usually went to gratify the voracious appetite of the “mehters,” the Hindus who swept out the mess-rooms, and whose lowness of “caste” allowed them to eat “anything.” An eccentric meal was the mehter’s dinner. Into the empty preserved-meat tin which he brought round to the back door I have seen emptied such assorted pabulum as mock turtle soup, lobster salad, plum pudding and custard, curry, and (of course), the surplus vilolif; and in a few seconds he was squatting on his heels, and spading into the mixture with both hands.
In the Bengal Presidency cocoa-nut is freely used with a curry dressing; and as some men have as great a horror of this addition, as of oil in a salad, it is as well to consult the tastes of your guests beforehand.
A Prawn Curry I have seen made in Calcutta as follows, the proportions of spices, etc., being specially written down by a munshi:—
Pound and mix one tablespoonful of coriander seed, one tablespoonful of poppy seed, a salt-spoonful of turmeric, half a salt-spoonful of cumin seed, a pinch of ground cinnamon, a ditto of ground nutmeg, a small lump of ginger, and one salt-spoonful of salt. Mix this with butter, add two sliced onions, and fry till lightly browned. Add the prawns, shelled, and pour in the milk of a cocoa-nut. Simmer for twenty minutes, and add some lime juice.
But the champion of curries ever sampled by the writer was a dry curry—a decided improvement on those usually served in the Madras Presidency—and the recipe (which has been already published in the Sporting Times and Lady’s Pictorial), only came into the writer’s possession some years after he had quitted the land of temples.
Dry Curry.
1 lb. of meat (mutton, fowl, or white fish).
1 lb. of onions.
1 clove of garlic.
2 ounces of butter.
1 dessert-spoonful of curry powder.
1 dessert-spoonful of curry paste.
1 dessert-spoonful of chutnee (or tamarind preserve,
according to taste).
A very little cassareep, which is a condiment (only obtainable at a few London shops) made from the juice of the bitter cassava, or manioc root. Cassareep is the basis of that favourite West Indian dish “Pepper-pot.”
Salt to taste.
A good squeeze of lemon juice.First brown the onions in the butter, and then dry them. Add the garlic, which must be mashed to a pulp with the blade of a knife. Then mix the powder, paste, chutnee, and cassareep into a thin paste with the lemon juice. Mash the dried onions into this, and let all cook gently till thoroughly mixed. Then add the meat, cut into small cubes, and let all simmer very gently for three hours. This sounds a long time, but it must be remembered that the recipe is for a dry curry; and when served there should be no liquid about it.
’Tis a troublesome dish to prepare; but, judging from the flattering communications received by the writer, the lieges would seem to like it. And the mixture had better be cooked in a double or porridge-saucepan, to prevent any “catching.”
Already, in one of the breakfast chapters, has the subject of the preparation of rice, to be served with curry, been touched upon; but there will be no harm done in giving the directions again.
Rice for Curry
Soak a sufficiency of rice in cold water until by repeated strainings all the dirt is separated from it. Then put the rice into boiling water, and let it “gallop” for nine or ten minutes—no longer. Strain the water off through a colander, and dash a little cold water over the rice to separate the grains. Put in a hot dish, and serve immediately.
A simple enough recipe, surely? So let us hear no more complaints of stodgy, clammy, “puddingy” rice. Most of the cookery books give far more elaborate directions, but the above is the method usually pursued by the poor brown heathen himself.
Soyer’s recipe resembles the above; but, after draining the water from the cooked rice, it is replaced in the saucepan, the interior of which has in the interim been anointed with butter. The saucepan is then placed either near the fire (not on it), or in a slow oven, for the rice to swell.
Another way:
After washing the rice, throw it into plenty of boiling water—in the proportion of six pints of water to one pound of rice. Boil it for five minutes, and skim it; then add a wine-glassful of milk for every half pound of rice, and continue boiling for five minutes longer. Strain the water off through a colander, and put it dry into the pot, on the corner of the stove, pouring over the rice a small piece of butter, which has been melted in a tablespoonful of the hot milk and water in which the rice was boiled. Add salt, and stir the rice for five minutes more.
The decayed denizen of the ocean, dried to the consistency of biscuit, and known in Hindustan as a Bombay Duck, which is frequently eaten with curry, “over yonder,” does not find much favour, this side of Port Said, although I have met the fowl in certain city restaurants. The addition is not looked upon with any particular favour by the writer.
“I have yet to learn” once observed that great and good man, the late Doctor Joseph Pope,[7] to the writer, in a discussion on “postponed” game, “that it is a good thing to put corruption into the human stomach.”