In the savour and scent of his music,His magnetic and mastering song.
In the savour and scent of his music,His magnetic and mastering song.
In the savour and scent of his music,His magnetic and mastering song.
In the savour and scent of his music,
His magnetic and mastering song.
And the Burgundy will make superfluous Port and Tokay, and all the dessert wines, sweet or dry, which unsympathetic diners range before them upon the coming of the fruit.
Drink nothing else until wineglass be pushed aside for cup of coffee, black and sweet of savour, a blend of Mocha and Mysore. Rich, thick, luxurious, Turkish coffee would be a most fitting epilogue. But then, see that you refuse the more frivolous, feminine liqueurs. Cognac, old and strong-hearted, alone would meet the hour's emotions—Cognac, the gift ofthe gods, the immortal liquid. Lean back and smoke in silence, unless speech, exchanged with the one kind spirit, may be golden and perfect as the dinner.
At midsummer, thegourmandsubsists chiefly on hope of the good time coming. The 12th ushers in season of glorious plenty. But, for the moment, there is a lull in the market's activity. Green things there are in abundance; but upon green things alone it is not good for man to live. Consult the oracle; turn to the immortal, infallible "Almanack," and confirmation of this sad truth will stare you in the face plainly, relentlessly. Sucking-pig is sole consolation offered by benevolent De la Reynière to well-nigh inconsolable man. But what a poem in the sucking-pig that gambols gaily over his pages: a delicious roasted creature, its little belly stuffed full of liver and truffles and mushrooms, capers, anchovies, aromatic pepper, and salt, all wrought together into one elegantfarce; while in dish apart, as indispensable acolyte, an orange sauce waits to complete the masterpiece!En daube, this amiablelittle beast is not to be despised, noren ragoûtneed it be dismissed with disdain, though, let man of letters beware! The Society of Authors, with his welfare at heart, should warn him while still there is time. What zest might be given to the savourlessAuthor, their organ, were its columns well filled with stately and brilliant discourses upon food and good eating. How the writer of delicate perceptions should eat: is that not, as subject, prettier and more profitable far than how much money he can make by publishing here and lecturing there?
The poorgourmand, in sorry plight during midsummer's famine, may seek blessed light also from Filippini, Delmonico's cook. Out of the fulness of his heart he speaketh, leaving not one of August's thirty-one shortening days without elaboratemenu. But London must fast while New York feasts. At Delmonico's, happy diners may smile gracious welcome to Lima beans and sweet corn, to succotash and egg-plant, to chickenà l'okraand clam chowder, but what hope for the patrons of Verrey's and Nichol's? What hope, unless, forthwith, they emigrate to that promised land beyond thebroad Atlantic? For the rest, Filippini reveals not the originality, the invention that one would have hoped from him, even at the season when men are struck dead by the sun in the streets of his dear town of adoption. Roast turkey, with cranberry sauce, is suggestive of November's drear days; Brussels sprouts sum up greengrocers' resources in midwinter. But why falter? Hope need never be abandoned by the wise, whose faith is strong in himself.
The season presents difficulties, but the beautiful dinner may still be designed. To meet August's flaming mood, it should be rich, and frankly voluptuous. Let flowers that bespeak autumn's approach and the fulness of harvest give the dinner its keynote. In Delft bowl, of appropriate coarseness, heap the late summer's first dahlias, all scarlet and gold as London's sunset at the fall of the year. To the earth's ripeness and fertility their bold, unabashed hues bear loud and triumphant witness.
Let the soup be at once tribute and farewell to spring that has gone. Regret will be luxuriously expressed inpurée de petits pois; spinach added to the fresh peas to lend flavour and colour,a dash of sugar for sweetness' sake, a pinch ofpaprikato counteract it, a suspicion of onion to strengthen it. Arrowroot, in discreet measure, will answer for thickening, and impart more becoming consistency even than flour. Pleasure in the eating will be tempered by sorrow in the prospect of parting, and therefore intensified a hundredfold. Where the joy in possession but for the ever-present fear of loss?
With the second course, banish regret. Forget yesterday; be indifferent to to-morrow; revel riotously in to-day.Hure de saumon à la Cambacérèswill point out the way to supreme surrender. Close to the head, the delicate silver-rose of the fish must be cut in lavish proportions; braised gently, its removal to the dish that is waiting is signal to surround it with truffles and mushrooms and stoned olives—garland beyond compare; a sauce of drawn butter, seasoned withpaprikaand lemon juice and parsley, is essential accompaniment. And now the present truly has conquered!
The third course must not betray the second's promise. Gay and fantastic, it must be well able to stand the dread test of comparison.Rognons d'agneau à l'éþicurienneenters nobly into the breach; the lamb's dainty kidneys are split and grilled with decorum, their fragrant centres are adorned with sympatheticsauce Tartare, golden potatoesà la Parisienneinsist upon serving as garniture, and Mr Senn demands, as finishing touch, the stimulating seduction ofsauce Poivrade. Who now will say that August is barren of delicious devices?
To follow:poulet sauté à l'Hongroise, the clash of the Czardas captured and imprisoned in a stew-pan. With the Racoczy's wild drumming stirring memory into frenzy, stew the fowl, already cut into six willing pieces, with butter, a well-minced onion, pepper—paprikaby choice—and salt; ten minutes will suffice—how, indeed, endure the strain a second longer? Then to the notes of the cymbal, moisten withBéchamelsauce and fair quantity of cream, and rejoice in the fine Romany rapture for just twenty minutes more. Decorate withcroûtons, and send fancy, without fetters, wandering across the plains and over the mountains of song-bound Magyarland. To play the gypsy, free as the deer in the forest, as the bird in the air, is notthis as it should be in the month, more than all others, pledged topleinairisme? Insipid, as life without love, is the dinner without imagination.
Vegetables have no special place in the scheme of August's dinner. But a salad will not come amiss. Remember, the feast is ordered in sheer voluptuousness of spirit. The fifth course calls for the scarlet splendour of tomatoes; and the presiding dahlias, in bowl of Delft, clamour for the gold ofmayonnaisesauce to carry out the exulting trumpeting harmony. A hint, here, to the earnest, ambitiousgourmand; if cream be worked, deftly and slowly, into the thickening sauce, sublime will be the results.
A sweet, at this juncture, would err if over-chaste in conception. Picture to yourself the absurd figure cut by tapioca pudding or apple dumpling on conscientiously voluptuousmenu? Amacédoine méringuéewould have more legitimate claim to close the banquet with distinction. August supplies fruit without stint: plums and greengages and apricots and nectarines and peaches and pears and grapes andbananas; all join together to sweet purpose, with ecstatic intent; a large wineglass of Claret, a generous sprinkling of Cognac will guard against puerility. The protectingméringueshould be crisp and pale golden brown; and later it will need the reinforcement of thick luscious cream.
A sweet fails to delight, unless a savoury comes speedily after.Caviar de Russie en crêpesis worthy successor ofmacédoine méringue. Mingle cream with thecaviar, and none who eats will have cause to complain. It reconciles to the barbarous, even where Tolstoi and Marie Bashkirtseff may have failed.
To dally with fruit is graceful excuse to linger longer over wine. Plums and greengages, their bloom still fresh, their plump roundness never yet submitted to trial by fire, figs—pale northern ghosts, alas!—peaches, grapes, make exquisite interlude—between dinner and coffee. Refrain not: abstinence, of all follies created by man, is the most wicked, the most unpardonable.
Drink Chambertin, that the song in your heart may be fervent and firm. Drink, thatyour courage may be strong for the feasting. Shake off the shackles of timidity. Be fearless and brave, turning a deaf ear to the temptations of the temperate. To be moderate at midsummer is to disregard the imperative commands of immoderate nature.
Coffee, made as the Turks make it, will bring languorous, irresistible message from the sensuous East.Fine Champagnewill add the energy of the fiery West. Adorable combination! Oh, East is East, and West is West; but the twain the day of the August dinner shall meet.
Tradition is a kindly tyrant. Why then strive to shake off its shackles? To bow the neck gladly beneath the yoke is at times to win rich reward, first in charm of association, and then in pleasantness of actual fact.
Is there not a tradition in England that supper is more appropriate to the quiet of Sunday evenings than dinner? No use to ask whence it arose or whither it leads. There it is, though many would evade it as senseless makeshift. To forswear dinner for all time and eternity would be worse than folly; it is life's most solemn, most joyous ceremony. But once and again, for dear sake of contrast, to find a seducing substitute is wisdom in a world where all pleasures fail, and man is constant to one thing never. And now that summer has come and holds the green earth in its ardent embrace, now that days are long, and sweetest hours are those when the sun sinks low, there is newdelight in the evening meal that leaves one free to dream in the twilight, that does not summon one indoors just as all outdoors is loveliest. Supper on every day in the week would be a mistake; but on one in seven it may well be commended, especially when the month is June. In the afternoon, tea is served in the garden, or whatever London can offer in the garden's stead. There are a few strawberries in a pretty old porcelain dish to lend an air of dainty substance, and there is rich cream in which they may hide their pretty blushes; and there is gay talk and happy silence. Indolent hours follow. Is it not Sunday, and are not all weekly cares pigeon-holed out of sight?
Nor do the advantages of the occasional supper end here. It is excellent excuse for the ice-cold banquet which in the warm summer-time has its own immeasurable virtues. A supper should be cold; else it deteriorates into mere sham dinner. Never do cold dishes seem more delicious than when cruel thermometer is at fever heat. You see? There is logic in the Sunday evening supper, at this season of all seasons for love, and eating, and drinking.
But supper does not mean, necessarily, veal and ham pie, above which British imagination dares not soar. It is not limited to the half-demolished joint—sad wreck of midday's meal. It may be as fair and harmonious as dinner itself, as noble a tribute to the artist, as superb a creation. Only the thoughtless and prosaic will dismiss it carelessly in the ordering, believing that any odds and ends will answer. Whatever is left over is to many the one possible conception of the late evening meal. But thegourmand, exulting in his gluttony, makes of it a work of art, good in the eating, good in the remembrance thereof.
Summer allows wide scope for his fertile fancy. He may begin with salmon, refreshing to the eye in its arrangement of pale silver and rose, cold as the glaciers of Greenland after its long hours of repose on voluptuous bed of ice. Amayonnaisesauce, creamy and rich, turning the silver to gold, like a fairy godmother of legend, is the cherished accompaniment. The feeling of wonder, aroused in the hours of watching under the trees, being still upper-most, it will seem as if the soft hues of theafterglow had been embodied in this exquisite prologue, with its rose and citron, its gold and soft grey tints.
Tender spring chickens may then give greeting to the summer-time. They also will have spent hours in close communion with solid blocks of ice, and will be as cool as the breezes that blow over the high snow fields of Switzerland. For, be it noted in passing, without a refrigerator the perfect supper is sheer impossibility. Success depends largely upon temperature. Lukewarm supper would be as detestable as a lukewarm dinner. With the innocent chickens, chilling and chaste, a green salad will be as appropriate as edelweiss on Alpine slopes. It should be made of the hearts of the youngest of young cabbage lettuces, touched with onions, and fatigued with the one most admirable salad dressing that man ever devised. Linger as long as may be, for this surely is one of the beautiful moments that repay the artist for his toiling and his intervals of despair.
Asparagus will prove most seemly successor. Let it also be cold beyond suspicion. A sauceof vinegar and oil, pepper and salt, force it to yield its most subtle sweetness. It will prove another course to call for lingering. Unless happiness be realised, of what use is it to be happy? He who is not conscious of pleasure when he eats is not worthy to sit at table with the elect. Like the animals, he is content to feed, and the art of the cook is, alas! lost upon him.
A savoury at this banquet would be superfluous. The presence of cheese would be but deference to convention, and faithfulness to tradition does not demand as its price sacrifice of all freedom in detail. The asparagus would be dishonoured were it to give place to aught more substantial than strawberries. Sometimes in the day'smenu, as in a decorative scheme, loveliness is enhanced by repetition. As a second curve emphasises the grace of the first, so strawberries at supper carry out with great elegance the strawberry scheme of afternoon tea. Pretty hillocks of sugar, and deep pools of cream, make a rich setting for this jewel among fruits.
The wine, clearly, should be white, and it,too, should be iced—remember the month is June. Few Rhine wines could consistently refuse to be pressed into service. But French vineyards have greater charm than German, though the Lorelei may sing in near waters, and to Graves, or Barsac, preference will be wisely proffered.
Be fearful of striking a false note. See that the coffee, black and strong though it be, is as cold as wine and salmon, chicken and salad. And pour the green Chartreuse into glasses that have been first filled with crushed ice. And as you smoke your cigarette, ask yourself if the Sunday evening supper tradition be not one crying for preservation at all costs.
When another week has rolled by and disappeared into theEwigkeit, vary themenu. An element of thebizarre, the strange, the unaccustomed, often lends irresistible piquancy. Be faithful to the refrigerator, however fickle to other loves. Open the banquet with a stirring salad fashioned of red herring and potatoes, and, perhaps, a few leaves of lettuce. It savours of the sensational, and stimulates appetite.
That disappointment may not ensue, desert well-trodden paths, and, borrowing from Germany, serve a dish of meat, amusing in its quaint variety. Slices of lamb may provide a pretty centre, surrounding them, scatter slices of the sausage of Brunswick and Bologna, here and there set in relief against a piece of greyLeberwurst. As garniture, encircle the dish with a garland of anchovies, curled up into enchanting little balls, and gherkins, and hard-boiled eggs cut in delicate rounds. Memories will crowd fast upon you as you eat; memories of the little German towns and their forgotten hilltops, visited in summers long since gone, of the little German inn, and the friendly land-lord, eager to please; of the foaming mugs of beer, and the tall, slender goblets of white wine. Before supper is done, you will have travelled leagues upon leagues into the playtime of the past.
Cheese now is as essential as it would have been intrusive in the othermenu. Gruyère should be your choice, and if you would have it of fine flavour, seek it not at the English cheesemonger's, but at the little Germandelicatessenshop. Brown bread would best enter into the spirit of the feast.
As epilogue, fruit can never be discordant, and what fruit in early June insists upon being eaten with such sweet persistency as the strawberry. But, on your German evening, fatigue it with Kirsch, leave it on its icy couch until the very last minute, and memories of the Lapérouse will mingle with those of the smoky inn of the Fatherland.
Is there any question that Hock is the wine, when sausage and red herring and Gruyère cheese figure so prominently in themenu'scomposition? Drink it from tall slender glass, that it may take you fully into its confidence. Coffee need not be iced. In fact, it should positively be hot—can you doubt it? And Cognac now will prove more responsive to your mood than Chartreuse. There is no written law to regulate these matters. But the true artist needs no code to guide him. He knows instinctively what is right and what is wrong, and doubts can never assail him.
"When all around the wind doth blow," draw close the curtains, build up a roaring fire, light lamp and candles, and begin your dinner with a good—good, mind you—dish of soup. Words of wisdom are these, to be pondered over by the woman who would make her evening dinner a joyful anticipation, a cherished memory.
Soup, with so much else good and great, is misunderstood in an England merrier than dainty in her feasting. Better is this matter ordered across the Border. For the healthy-minded, Scotch mists have their compensation in Scotch broth; odoriferous and appetising is its very name. But in England, soup long since became synonymous with turtle, and the guzzling alderman of legend. Richness is held its one essential quality—richness, not strength. Too often, a thick, greasy mess, that could appeal but to the coarsest hunger,will be set before you, instead of the dish that can be comforting and sustaining both, and yet meddles not with the appetite. It should be but a prelude to the meal—the prologue, as it were, to the play—its excellence, a welcome forecast of delights to follow, a welcome stimulus to light talk and lighter laughter. OverJulienneorbisquefrowns are smoothed away, and guests who sat down to table in monosyllabic gloom will plunge boldly into epigrammatic or anecdotic gaiety ere ever the fish be served.
Magical, indeed, is the spell good soup can cast. Of its services as medicine or tonic, why speak? Beef tea gives courage to battle with pain and suffering;consommécheers the hours of convalescence. Let all honour be done to it for its virtues in the sick-room; but with so cheerful a subject, it is pleasanter to dwell on its more cheerful aspects.
More legitimate is it to consider the happy part it plays in the traveller's programme. And for this—it must be repeated, as for all the best things in thegourmand'slife—one journeys to France. But first remember—that contrastmay add piquancy to the Frenchmenu—the fare that awaits the weary, disconsolate traveller at English railway station: the stodgy bun, Bath and penny varieties both, and the triangular sandwich; the tea drawn overnight, and the lukewarm bovril, hopelessly inadequate substitute for soup freshly made from beef or stock. At a luncheon bar thus wickedly equipped, eating becomes what it never should be!—a sad, terrible necessity, a pleasureless safeguard against pangs of hunger, a mere animal function, and therefore a degradation to the human being educated to look upon food and drink—even so might the painter regard his colours, the sculptor his clay and marble—as means only to a perfect artistic end.
Or, consider also, to make the contrast stronger, the choicest banquet American railways, for all the famed American enterprise, provide. To journey by the "Pullman vestibuled train" from New York to Chicago is luxury, if you will. Upon your point of view depends the exact amount of enjoyment yielded by meals eaten while you dash through the world at the rate of eighty miles an hour, moreor less, and generally less. There is charm in the coloured waiters, each with gay flower in his buttonhole, and gayer smile on his jolly, black face; there is pretence in the cheap, heavy, clumsy Limoges off which you eat, out of which you drink, in the sham silver case in which your Champagne bottle is brought, if for Champagne you are foolish enough to call. But bitterness is in your wine cup, for the wine is flat; heaviness is in your breakfast or dinner, for bread is underdone and sodden, and butter is bad, and the endless array of little plates discourages with its suggestion of vulgar plenty and artless selection; and all is vanity and vexation, save the corn bread—the beautiful golden corn bread, which deserves a chapter to itself—and the fruit: the bananas and grapes, and peaches and oranges, luscious and ravishing as they seldom are on any but American soil. Nor will you mend matters by bestowing your patronage upon the railway restaurants of the big towns where you stop: the dirty, fly-bitten lunch counters. Pretentious, gorgeous, magnificent, they maybe; but good, no! All, even the privilege of journeying at the rate of eightymiles an hour, would you give for one bowl of good soup at the Amiensbuffet.
For, when everything is said, it is the soup which makes travelling so easy and luxurious in France. A breakfast, or a dinner, of courses, well-cooked, and well-served into the bargain, you may eat at many a wayside station. Wine, ordinary as its name, perhaps, but still good and honest, is to be had for a paltry sum whenever the train may stop. Crisp rolls, lightbriochestempt you to unwise excesses. Not a province, scarce a town, but has its own special dainty; nougat at Montélimart, sausages at Arles,pâté de foie grasat Pèrigueux; and so you might go on mapping out the country according to, not its departments, but its dishes. These, however, the experienced traveller would gladly sacrifice for the delicate, strong, refreshing, inspiritingbouillon, served at everybuffet. This it is which helps one to forget fatigue and dust and cinders, and the odious Frenchman who will have all the windows shut.Bouillon, and not wine, gives one new heart to face the long night and the longer miles. With it the day's journey is well begun and well ended. It sustainsand nourishes; and, better still, it has its own æsthetic value; perfect in itself, it is the one perfect dish for the place and purpose. No wonder, then, that it has kindled even Mr Henry James into at least a show of enthusiasm; his bowls ofbouillonever remain in the reader's memory, the most prominent pleasures of his "Little Tour in France."
Equally desirable in illness and in health, during one's journeys abroad and one's days at home, why is it then that soup has never yet been praised and glorified as it should? How is it that its greatness has inspired neither ode nor epic; that it has been left to a parody—clever, to be sure, but cleverness alone is not tribute sufficient—in a child's book to sing its perfections. It should be extolled, and it has been vilified; insults have been heaped upon it; ingratitude from man has been its portion. The soup tureen is as poetic as the loving cup; why should it suggest but the baldest prose to its most ardent worshippers?
"Thick or clear?" whispers the restaurant waiter in your ear, as he points to the soups on the bill of fare. "Thick or clear,"—there youhave the two all-important divisions. In that simple phrase is expressed the whole science of soupmaking; face to face with first principles it brings you. But whether you elect for the one or the other, this great fundamental truth there is, ever to be borne in mind: let fresh meat be the basis of yourconsomméas of yourbisque, of yourgumboas of yourpâtes d'Italie. True, in an emergency, Liebig, and all its many offshoots, may serve you—and serve you well. But if you be a woman of feeling, of fancy, of imagination, for this emergency alone will you reserve your Liebig. Who would eat tinned pineapple when the fresh fruit is to be had? Would you give bottled tomatoes preference when the gaypommes d'amour, just picked, ornament every stall in the market? Beef extract in skilful hands may work wonders; the soup made from it may deceive the connoisseur of great repute. But what then? Have you no conscience, no respect for your art, that you would thus deceive?
Tinned soups also there be in infinite variety, ox-tail, and mock-turtle, andJulienne, and gravy, and chicken broth, and many more thanone likes to think of. But dire indeed must be your need before you have recourse to them. They, too, will answer in the hour of want. But at the best, they prove but make-shifts, but paltry make-believes to be avoided, even as you steer clear of the soup vegetables and herbs—bits of carrot and onion and turnip and who knows what?—bottled ingeniously, pretty to the eye, without flavour to the palate. One does not eat to please the sense of sight alone!
When, heroically, you have forsworn the ensnaring tin and the insinuating bottle, the horizon widens before you. "Thick and clear": the phrase suggests but narrow compass; broad beyond measure is the sphere it really opens.
Of all the Doges of Bobbio, but one—if tradition be true—sickened of his hundred soups. Three hundred and sixty-five might have been their number with results no more disastrous. Given a cook of good instincts and gay imagination, and from one year's end to the other never need the same soup be served a second time.
A word, first, as to its proper place on themenu. The conservative Briton might thinkthis a subject upon which the last word long since had been spoken. If soup at all, then must it appear betweenhors d'œuvreand fish: as well for Catholic to question the doctrine of infallibility as for self-respecting man to doubt the propriety of this arrangement. But they don't know everything down in Great Britain, and other men there be of other minds. Order a dinner in the American West, and a procession of smiling, white-robed blacks—talking, alas! no more the good old darkey, but pure American—swoop down upon you, bringing at once, in disheartening medley, your blue-points, your gumbo, your terrapin, your reed birds, and your apple pie. What sacrilege! In the pleasantest little restaurant in all Rome, close to the Piazza Colonna, within sound of the Corso, was once to be seen any evening in the week—may be still, for that matter—a bemedalled major finishing his dinner with hisminestrainstead of hisdolce. But if a fat, little grey-haired man once consent to wear a coat scarce longer than an Eton jacket, may not, in reason, worse enormities be expected of him? Truth to tell, the British convention, borrowed from France,is the best. If, in good earnest, you would profit by yourpotage, give it place of honour at the top of themenu. Leave light and frivolous sweets to lighter, more frivolous moments, when, hunger appeased, man may unbend to trifles.
What the great Alexandre calls thegrand consomméis the basis of all soup—and sauce making. Study his very word with reverence; carry out his every suggestion with devotion. Among the ingredients of this consummatebouillonhis mighty mind runs riot. Not even the adventures of the immortal Musketeers stimulated his fancy to wilder flights. His directions, large and lavish as himself, would the economical housewife read with awe and something of terror. Veal and beef and fowl—a venerable cock will answer—and rabbit and partridges of yester-year; these be no more than the foundation. Thrown into themarmitein fair and fitting proportions, then must they be watched, anxiously and intelligently, as they boil; spoonfuls of the commonbouillonshould be poured upon them from time to time; there must be added onions and carrots, andcelery and parsley, and whatever aromatic herbs may be handy, and oil, if you have it; and after four hours of boiling slowly and demurely over a gentle fire, and, next, straining through coarse linen, you may really begin to prepare your soup.
If to these heights the ordinary man—or woman—may not soar, then will the good, substantial, everydaybouillon, orpot-au-feu—made of beef alone, but ever flavoured with vegetables—fulfil the same purpose, not so deliciously, but still fairly well. In households where soup is, as it should be, a daily necessity, stock may be made and kept for convenience. But if you would have yourpot-au-feuin perfection, let the saucepan, ormarmite—the English word is commonplace, the French term charms—be not of iron, but of earthenware: rich tawny brown or golden green in colour, as you see it in many a French market-place, if the least feeling for artistic fitness dwells within your soul. Seven hours are neededpour faire sourire le pot-au-feu—the expression is not to be translated. Where soups are concerned the English language is poor, and cold, and halting;the speech of France alone can honour them aright.
With goodbouillonthere is naught the genius may not do. Into it the Frenchchefputs a few small slices of bread, and, as you eat, you wonder if terrapin or turtle ever tasted better. With the addition of neatly-chopped carrots and onions, and turnips and celery, you haveJulienne; or, with dainty asparagus tops, sweet fresh peas, tiny stinging radishes, delicate young onions,printanier, with its suggestions of spring and blossoms in every mouthful. This last, surely, is the lyric among soups. Decide upon cheese instead, and you will set a Daudet singing you a poem in prose: "Oh! la bonne odeur de soupe au fromage!"Pâtes d'Italie,vermicelli,macaroni, each will prove a separate ecstasy, if you but remember the grated Parmesan that must be sprinkled over it without stint—as in Italy. Days there be when nothing seems so in keeping as rice: others, when cabbage hath charm, that is, if first in your simmeringbouillona piece of ham—whether of York, of Strasbourg, or of Virginia—be left for three hours or more; again, to thicken the golden liquidwith tapioca may seem of all devices the most adorable. And so may you ring the changes day after day, week after week, month after month.
If of these lighter soups you tire, then turn with new hope and longing to the stimulating list ofpuréesandcrèmes. Let tomatoes, or peas, or beans, or lentils, as you will, be the keynote, always you may count upon a harmony inspiriting and divine; a rapture tenfold greater if it be enjoyed in some favourite corner at Marguery's or Voisin's, where the masterpiece awaits the chosen few. Or if, when London fogs are heavy and life proves burdensome, comfort is in the very name of broth, then put it to the test in its mutton, Scotch, chicken, or dozen and more varieties, and may it give you new courage to face the worst!
But if for pleasure solely you eat your soup, as you should, unless illness or the blue devils have you firm in their grasp, a few varieties there be which to all the rest are even as is the rose to lesser flowers, as is the onion to vegetables of more prosaic virtue. Clams are a joy if you add to them but salt and pepper—cayenneby preference—and a dash of lemon juice: as a chowder, they are a substantial dream to linger over; but made into soup they reach the very topmost bent of their being: it is the end for which they were created. Of oysters this is no less true. Veal stock or mutton broth may pass as prosaic basis of the delicacy; but better depend upon milk and cream, and of the latter be not sparing. Mace, in discreet measure, left flowing in the liquid will give the finishing, the indispensable touch. Oh, the inexhaustible resources of the sea! With these delights rankbisque, that pricelesspurée, made of crayfish—in this case a pinch of allspice instead of mace—and if in its fullest glory you would know it, go eat it at the Lapérouse on the Quai des Grands Augustins; eat it, as from the window of the low room in theentresol, you look over toward the towers of Notre Dame.
Be a good Catholic on Fridays, that, withpotages maigres—their name, too, is legion—your soups may be increased and multiplied, and thus infinity become your portion.
Have you ever considered the sole: the simple, unassuming sole, in Quaker-like garb, striking a quiet grey note in every fishmonger's window, a constant rebuke to the mackerel that makes such vain parade of its green audacity, of the lobster that flaunts its scarlet boldness in the face of the passer-by? By its own merits the sole appeals; upon no meretricious charm does it base its claim for notice. Flat and elusive, it seems to seek retirement, to beg to be forgotten. And yet, year by year, it goes on, unostentatiously and surely increasing in price; year by year, it establishes, with firm hold, its preeminence upon themenuof every well-regulatedtable d'hôte.
But here pause a moment, and reflect. For it is this verytable d'hôtewhich bids fair to be the sole's undoing. If it has been maligned and misunderstood, it is because, swaddled in bread-crumbs, fried in indifferent butter, it hascome to be the symbol of hotel orpensiondinner, until the frivolous and heedless begin to believe that it cannot exist otherwise, that in its irrepressible bread-crumbs it must swim through the silent sea.
The conscientiousgourmandknows better, however. He knows that bread-crumbs and frying-pan are but mere child's play compared to its diviner devices. It has been said that the number and various shapes of fishes are not "more strange or more fit for contemplation than their different natures, inclinations, and actions." But fitter subject still for the contemplative, and still more strange, is their marvellous, well-nigh limitless, culinary ambition. Triumph after triumph the most modest of them all yearns to achieve, and if this sublime yearning be ever and always suppressed and thwarted and misdoubted, the fault lies with dull, plodding, unenterprising humans. Not one yearns to such infinite purpose as the sole; not one is so snubbed and enslaved. A very Nora among fish, how often must it long to escape and to live its own life—or, to be more accurate, to die its own death!
Not that bread-crumbs and frying-pan are not all very well in their way. Given a discreet cook, pure virginal butter, a swift fire, and a slice of fresh juicy lemon, something not far short of perfection may be reached. But other ways there are, more suggestive, more inspiring, more godlike. Turn to the Frenchchefand learn wisdom from him.
First and foremost in this glorious repertory comessole à la Normande, which, under another name, is the special distinction and pride of the Restaurant Marguery. Take your sole—from the waters of Dieppe would you have the best—and place it, with endearing, lover-like caress, in a pretty earthenware dish, with butter for only companion. At the same time, in sympathetic saucepan, lay mussels to the number of two dozen, opened and well cleaned, as a matter of course; and let each rejoice in the society of a stimulating mushroom; when almost done, but not quite, make of them a garland round the expectant sole; cover their too seductive beauty with a rich white sauce; re-kindle their passion in the oven for a few minutes; and serve immediately and hot. Joy isthe result; pure, uncontaminated joy. If this be too simple for your taste, then court elaboration and more complex sensation after this fashion: from the first, unite the sole to two of its most devoted admirers, the oyster and the mussel—twelve, say, of each—and let thyme and fragrant herbs and onion and white wine and truffles be close witnesses of their union. Seize the sole when it is yet but half cooked; stretch it out gently in another dish, to which oysters and mussels must follow in hot, precipitate flight. And now the veiling sauce, again white, must have calf's kidney and salt pork for foundation, and the first gravy of the fish for fragrance and seasoning. Mushrooms and lemon in slices may be added to the garniture. And if at the first mouthful you do not thrill with rapture, the Thames will prove scarce deep and muddy enough to hide your shame.
Put to severest test, the love of the sole for the oyster is never betrayed. Would you be convinced—and it is worth the trouble—experiment withsole farcie aux huîtres, a dish so perfect that surely, like manna, it must have come straight from Heaven. In prosaic practicallanguage, it is thus composed: you stuff your sole with forcemeat of oysters and truffles, you season with salt and carrot and lemon, you steep it in white wine—not sweet, or the sole is dishonoured—you cook it in the oven, and you serve the happy fish on a richragoûtof the oysters and truffles. Or, another tender conceit that you may make yours to your own great profit and enlightenment, issole farcie aux crevettes. In this case it is wise to fillet the sole and wrap each fillet about the shrimps, which have been well mixed and pounded with butter. A richBéchamelsauce and garniture of lemons complete a composition so masterly that, before it, as before a fine Velasquez, criticism is silenced.
Sole au gratin, though simpler, is none the less desirable. Let your first care be the sauce, elegantly fashioned of butter and mushrooms and shallots and parsley; pour a little—on your own judgment you have best rely for exact quantity—into a baking-dish; lay the sole upon this liquid couch; deluge it with the remainder of the sauce, exhilarating white wine, and lemon juice; bury it under bread-crumbs,and bake it until it rivals a Rembrandt in richness and splendour.
In antiquarian moments,fricasey soals white, and admit that your foremothers were more accomplished artists than you. What folly to boast of modern progress when, at table, the Englishman of to-day is but a brute savage compared with his ancestors of a hundred years and more ago! But take heart: be humble, read this golden book, and the day of emancipation cannot be very far distant. Make yourfricaseyas a step in the right direction. According to the infallible book, "skin, wash, and gut your soals very clean, cut off their heads, dry them in a cloth, then with your knife very carefully cut the flesh from the bones and fins on both sides. Cut the flesh long ways, and then across, so that each soal will be in eight pieces; take the heads and bones, then put them into a saucepan with a pint of water, a bundle of sweet herbs, an onion, a little whole pepper, two or three blades of mace, a little salt, a very little piece of lemon peel, and a little crust of bread. Cover it close, let it boil till half is wasted, thenstrain it through a fine sieve, put it into a stew-pan, put in the soals and half a pint of white wine, a little parsley chopped fine, a few mushrooms cut small, a piece of butter as big as an hen's egg, rolled in flour, grate a little nutmeg, set all together on the fire, but keep shaking the pan all the while till the fish is done enough. Then dish it up, and garnish with lemon." And now, what think you of that?
If for variety you would present a brownfricasey, an arrangement in browns as startling as a poster by Lautrec or Anquetin, add anchovy to your seasoning, exchange white wine for red, and introduce into the mixture truffles and morels, and mushrooms, and a spoonful of catchup. The beauty of the colour none can deny; the subtlety of the flavour none can resist.
Another step in the right direction, which is the old, will lead you to sole pie, a dish of parts. Eels must be used, as is the steak in a pigeon's pie for instance; and nutmeg and parsley and anchovies must serve for seasoning. It is a pleasant fancy, redolent of the days gone by.
Hear Wagner in Baireuth (though illusions may fly like dust before a March wind); see Velasquez in Madrid; eatBouillabaissein Marseilles. And eat, moreover, with no fear of disenchantment; the saffron's gold has richer tone, theail'saroma sweeter savour, under hot blue southern skies than in the cold sunless north.
How much Thackeray is swallowed with yourBouillabaisse? asks the cynical American, vowed to all eternity to his baked shad and soft-shelled crab; how much Thackeray? echoes the orthodox Englishman, whose salmon, cucumberless, smacks of heresy, and whose whiting, if it held not its tail decorously in its bread crumbed mouth, would be cast for ever into outer darkness. Sentiment there may be: not born, however, of Thackeray's verse, butof days spent in Provençal sunshine, of banquets eaten at Provençal tables. Call forBouillabaissein the Paris restaurant, at the Lapérouse or Marguery's (you might call for it for a year and a day in London restaurants and always in vain); and if the dish brought back something of the true flavour, over it is cast the glamour and romance of its far southern home, of the land of troubadours and of Tartarin. But order it in Marseilles, and the flavour will all be there, and the sunshine and the gaiety, and the song as well; fact outstrips the imagination of even the meridional; the present defies memory to outdo its charm.
And it must be in the Marseilles that glitters under midsummer's sun and grows radiant in its light. Those who have not seen Marseilles at this season know it not. The peevish finder of fault raves of drainage and dynamite, of dirt and anarchy. But turn a deaf ear and go to Marseilles gaily and without dread. Walk out in the early morning on the quays; the summer sky is cloudless; the sea as blue as in the painter's bluest dream; the hills but warm purple shadows resting upon its waters. Theair is hot, perhaps, but soft and dry, and the breeze blows fresh from over the Mediterranean. Already, on every side, signs there are of the day's coming sacrifice. In sunlight and in shadow are piled high the sea's sweetest, choicest fruits: mussels in their sombre purple shells; lobsters, rich and brown; fish, scarlet and gold and green. Lemons, freshly plucked from near gardens, are scattered among the fragrant pile, and here and there trail long sprays of salt, pungent seaweed. The faint smell ofailcomes to you gently from unseen kitchens, the feeling ofBouillabaisseis everywhere, and tender anticipation illumines the faces of the passers-by. Great is the pretence of activity in the harbour and in the streets; at a glance, mere paltry traffic might seem the city's one and only end. But Marseilles' true mission, the sole reason for its existence, is that man may know how goodly a thing it is to eatBouillabaisseat noon on a warm summer day.
But when the hour comes, turn from the hotel, however excellent; turn from the Provençal version of the Parisian Duval, however cheap and nasty; choose rather the nativeheadquarters of the immortal dish. Under pleasant awning sit out on the pavement, behind the friendly trees in tubs that suggest privacy, and yet hide nothing of the view beyond. For half the joy in the steaming, golden masterpiece is in the background found for it; in the sunlit harbour and forest of masts; in the classic shores where has disembarked so many a hero, from ancient Phenician or Greek, down to valiant Tartarin, with the brave camel that saw him shoot all his lions! Acoup de vin, and, as you eat, as you watch, with eyes half blinded, the glittering, glowing picture, you begin to understand the meaning of the southerngaléjade. Your heart softens, the endless beggars no longer beg from you in vain, while only the slenderness of your purse keeps you from buying out every boy with fans or matches, every stray Moor with silly slippers and sillier antimacassars; your imagination is kindled, so that later, at the gaycafé, where still you sit in the open street, as you look at the Turks and sailors, at the Arabs and Lascars, at the Eastern women in trousers and niggers in rags, in a word, at Marseilles' "Congress of Nations,"that even Barnum in his most ambitious moments never approached, far less surpassed, you, too, believe that had Paris but its Canebière, it might be transformed into a little Marseilles on the banks of the Seine. So potent is the influence of blessedBouillabaisse!
Or, some burning Sunday, you may rise with the dawn and take early morning train for Martigues, lying, a white and shining barrier, between the Etangs de Berre and Caronte. And there, on its bridges and canal banks, idly watching the fishing-boats, or wandering up and down its olive-clad hill-sides, the morning hours may be gently loafed away, until the Angelus rings a joyful summons to M. Bernard's hotel in the shadyPlace. Dark and cool is the spacious dining-room; eager and attentive the bewildered Désirée. Be not a minute late, for M. Bernard'sBouillabaisseis justly famed, and not only all Marseilles, but all the country near hastens thither to eat it on Sundays, when it is served in itsédition de luxe. Pretty Arlésiennes in dainty fichus, cyclists in knickerbockers, rich Marseillais, painters from Paris join in praise and thanksgiving. Andfrom one end of the world to the other, you might journey in vain in search of an emotion so sweet as that aroused by the first fragrant fumes of the dish set before you, the first rapturous taste of the sauce-steeped bread, of the strange fish so strangely seasoned.
But why, in any case, remain content with salmon alone whenBouillabaissecan be made, even in dark and sunless England? Quite the same it can never be as in the land of sunburnt mirth and jollity. The light and the brilliancy and the gaiety of its background must be ever missing in the home of fog and spleen. The gay little fish of the Mediterranean never swim in the drear, unresponsive waters that break on the white cliffs of England and the stern rocks of the Hebrides. But other fish there be, in great plenty, that, in the absence of the original, may answer as praiseworthy copies.
After all, to cut turbot and whiting and soles and trout in small pieces, to cook them all together, instead of each separately, is not the unpardonable sin, however the British housewife may protest to the contrary. And as to the other ingredients, is not good olive oil soldin bottles in many a London shop? Are sweet herbs and garlic unknown in Covent Garden? Are there no French and Italian grocers in Soho, with whom saffron is no less a necessity than mustard or pepper? And bread? who would dare aver that England has no bakers?
It is not a difficult dish to prepare. Its cooks may not boast of secrets known only to themselves, like the maker of process blocks or patent pills. Their methods they disclose without reservation, though alas! their genius they may not so easily impart. First of all, then, see to your sauce: oil, pure and sweet, is its foundation; uponailand herbs of the most aromatic it depends for its seasoning. In this, place your fish selected and mixed as fancy prompts; a whiting, a sole—filleted of course—a small proportion of turbot, and as much salmon, if solely for the touch of colour it gives—the artist never forgets to appeal to the eye as to the palate. Boil thoroughly, sprinkling at the last moment sympathetic saffron on the sweet-smelling offering. Have ready thick slices of bread daintily arranged in a convenient dish; just before serving pour over themthe greater part of the unrivalled sauce, now gold and glorious with its saffron tint; pour the rest, with the fish, into another dish—a bowl, would you be quite correct—and let as few seconds as possible elapse between dishing this perfect work of art and eating it. Upon its smell alone man might live and thrive. Its colour is an inspiration to the painter, the subtlety of its flavour a text to the poet. Montenard and Dauphin may go on, year after year, painting olive-lined roads and ports of Toulon: the true Provençal artist will be he who fills his canvas with the radiance and richness ofBouillabaisse.
Would you emulate M. Bernard and make aBouillabaisse de luxeit may prove a tax upon your purse, but not upon your powers. For when thus lavishly inclined, you but add lobster or crab or crayfish and the needed luxury is secured. It is a small difference in the telling, but in the eating, how much, how unspeakable is this little more! Easily satisfied indeed must be the prosaic mortal who, having once revelled inBouillabaisse de luxe, would ever again still his cravings with the simpler arrangement.
If, in cruel December, the vegetable fails us, in another direction we may look for and find—if we be wise and liberal—novelty without stint. From the oyster, when it is understood aright, spring perpetual joy and rapturous surprises. But, sad to tell, in England men have slighted it and misdoubted its greatness. Englishmen eat it and declare it good; but, as with salad, they know not how to prepare it. Because it is excellent in its rawness, they can imagine no further use for it, unless, perhaps, to furnish a rich motive for sauce, or sometimes for soup. Even raw—again like salad—they are apt to brutalise it. To drown it in vinegar is the height of their ambition; an imperial pint was the quantity needed by Mr Weller's friend to destroy the delicacy of its flavour, the salt sweetness of its aroma. The Greeks knewbetter: according to Athenæus, boiled and fried they served their oysters, finding them, however, best of all when roasted in the coals till the shells opened. As early as the seventeenth century, the French, preparing themen étuvéeanden fricassée, included them in theirDélices de la campagne. The American to-day exhausts his genius for invention in devising rare and cunning methods by which to extract their full strength and savour. Why should Englishmen tarry behind the other peoples on the earth in paying the oyster the tribute of sympathetic appreciation?
Its merit when raw, no man of sensibility and wisdom will deny. Base-minded, indeed, must be he who thinks to enhance its value by converting it into a defence against influenza or any other human ill. The ancients held it indigestible unless cooked; but to talk of it as if it were a drug for our healing, a poison for our discomforting, is to dishonour, without rhyme or reason, the noblest of all shell-fish. Who would not risk an indigestion, or worse, for the pleasure raw oysters have it in their power to give? Was there one, among thewedding guests at the "Marriage of Hebe," who feared the course of "oysters with closed shells, which are very difficult to open but very easy to eat"?
Easy to eat, yes; but first you must decide which, of the many varieties of oyster the sea offers, you had best order for your own delight. There are some men who, with Thackeray, rank the "dear little juicy green oysters of France" above the "great white flaccid natives in England, that look as if they had been fed on pork." To many, the coppery taste of this English native passes for a charm—poor deluded creatures! To others it seems the very abomination of desolation. But the true epicure, who may not have them, as had oyster-loving Greeks of old, from Abydus or Chalcedon, will revel most of all in the American species: the dainty little Blue-Point, or its long, sweet, plump brother of the north—to swallow it was like swallowing a baby, Thackeray thought.
Once your oysters are on the half shell, let not the vinegar bottle tempt you; as far as it is concerned, be not only temperate, but a totalabstainer. A sprinkling of salt, a touch of Cayenne, a dash of lemon juice, and then eat, and know how good it is for man to live in a world of oysters. For a light lunch or the perfect midnight supper, for an inspiringhors d'œuvre, without rival is this king of shell-fish. If for the midnight meal you reserve it, you may be kindled into ecstasy by the simple addition of a glass of fine old Chablis or Sauterne—be not led astray by vulgar praise of stout or porter—and brown bread and butter cut in slices of ethereal thinness. Linger over this banquet, exquisite in its simplicity, long and lovingly, that later you may sleep with easy conscience and mind at rest.
With raw oysters alone it were folly to remain content. If you would spread a more sumptuous feast, fry the largest, plumpest grown in sea or river, and the gates of earthly paradise will be thrown wide open in the frying. No more familiar cry is there in American restaurants than that for "an oyster fry!" Dark little oyster cellars, reached by precipitous steps, there are, and friendly seedy little oyster shops in back streets, where the fryingof oysters has been exalted into a holy cult. And if you will, in paper boxes, the long, beautiful, golden-brown masterpieces you may carry away with you, to eat with gayer garnishing and in more sympathetic surroundings. And in winter, scarce a beer saloon but, at luncheon time, will set upon the counter a steaming dish of fried oysters; and with every glass of no matter what, "crackers" at discretion and one fried oyster on long generous fork will be handed by the white-robed guardian. But mind you take but one: else comes the chucker-out. Thus, only the very thirsty, in the course of a morning, may gain a free lunch. But, in England, what is known of the fried oyster?
It requires no great elaboration, though much rare skill in the cooking. For this purpose the largest oysters must be selected: the fattest and most juicy. In the half-shell they may be fried, after seventeenth-century fashion, a touch of butter and pepper on each; verjuice or vinegar, and grated nutmeg added once they are served. Or else, taken from the shell, they may be dipped into a marvellous preparationof vinegar, parsley, laurel leaves, onion, chives, cloves, basil, and in the result the mighty imagination of the great Alexandre would rejoice. Or, again, in simpler American fashion, enveloped in unpretentious batter of eggs and bread crumbs, fry them until they turn to an unrivalled, indescribable golden-brown, and in the eating thereof the gods might envy you.
If a new sensation you court, grill or broil your oyster, and you will have cause to exult in a loud triumphantmagnificat. No bread crumbs are needed, neither laurel nor sweet spice. With but a bit of butter for encouragement, it will brown gently in the grilling, and become a delicious morsel to be eaten with reverence and remembered with tenderness.
Or, stew them and be happy. But of rich milk, and cream, and sweet fresh butter, as Dumas would put it, must your stew be made: thickened, but scarce perceptibly, with flour, while bits of mace float in golden sympathy on the liquid's surface. It is the dish for luncheon, or for the pleasant, old-fashioned "high tea"—no such abomination as "meat tea" known then, if you please—of Philadelphia's pleasant,old-fashioned citizens. And a worse accompaniment you might have than waffles, light as a feather, or beaten biscuits, the pride of Maryland's black cooks. Men and women from the Quaker city, when in cruel exile, will be moved to sad tears at the very mention of Jones's "oyster stews" in Eleventh-street!
But the glory of Penn's town is the oyster croquette—from Augustine's by preference. A symphony in golden brown and soft fawn grey, it should be crisp without, within of such delicate consistency that it will melt in the mouth like a dream. Pyramidal in shape, it is of itself so decorative that only with the rarest blue and white china, or the most fairy-like Limoges, will it seem in perfect harmony. It would be discourteous, indeed, to serve so regal a creation on any stray dish or plate.
Exquisite pleasure lurks in scalloped oysters, or oystersau gratin, whichever you may choose to call this welcome variation of the oyster motive. Layers of judiciously seasoned bread-crumbs alternate with layers of the responsive shell-fish, and the carefully-studied arrangement is then browned until it enchants by colourno less than by fragrance. And, if you would seek further to please the eye, let the dish to hold so fine a work of art be a shell, with a suggestion of the sea in its graceful curves and tender tints. Or, if imagination would be more daring, let the same shell holdhuîtres farcies, cunningly contrived with eels and oysters, and parsley and mushrooms, and spices and cream, and egg and aromatic herbs. So fantastic a contrivance as this touches upon sublimity.
In more homely and convivial mood, roast your oysters, as the Greeks loved them. But to enjoy them to the utmost, roast them yourself in the coals of your own fire, until the ready shells open. A dash of salt and cayenne upon the sweet morsel within, and you may eat it at once, even as you take it from off the coals, and drink its salt, savoury liquor from the shell. A dish of anchovy toast will not seem amiss. But let no other viands coarsen this ideal supper. For supper it should be, and nothing else. The curtains must be drawn close, while the fire flames high; one or two congenial friends—not more; a dim religious light fromwell-shaded lamps and candles; a bottle of good old Chablis, and others waiting in near wine-cellar or sideboard; and thus may you make your own such unspeakable happiness as seldom falls to the lot of mortals.
Or if to the past your fancy wanders, prepare your oysters, seventeenth century-fashion,en étuvée, boiled in their own liquor, flavoured with ingredients so various as oranges and chives, and served with bread-crumbs; or else,en fricassée, cooked with onion and butter, dipped in batter, and sprinkled with orange juice. Or again, in sheer waywardness, curry or devil them, though in this disguise no man may know the delicacy he is eating. Another day, bake them; the next, put them in a pie or a patty; the third, let them give substance to avol-au-vent. Hesitate at no experiment; search the cookery-books, old and new. Be sure that the oyster, in its dictionary, knows no such word as fail. If in sheer recklessness you were, like young Mr Grigg in the Cave of Harmony, to call for a "mashed oyster and scalloped 'taters," no doubt the "mashed" would be forthcoming.
As basis of soup or sauce, the oyster is without rival. Who would not abstain on Fridays all the year round, if every Friday brought with it oyster soup to mortify the flesh! But alas! four months there be without an R, when oysters by the wise must not be eaten. And is not turbot, or boiled capon, or a tender loin-steak but the excuse for oyster sauce? in which, if you have perfection for your end, let there be no stint of oysters. Then, too, in the stuffing of a fowl, oysters prove themselves the worthy rival of mushrooms or of chestnuts.
It is a grave mistake, however, to rank the oyster as the only shell-fish of importance. The French know better. So did the Greeks, if Athenæus can be trusted. Mussels, oysters, scallops, and cockles led the list, according to Diocles, the Carystian. Thus are they enumerated by still another authority:—