THE MORNING CHRONICLE.
Alexis Soyer, the Gastronomic Regenerator.—Everybody who knows him, everybody who has sat before his dishes, everybody interested in the promotion of the Reform cause, or who likes to have a good dinner at home, has long since said in his heart “Why does not Soyer write a book about cookery?” When Reform was flagging, when Peel had it all his own way, before a country party was thought of, or a revolt seemed possible, when the idea of the Whigs coming in was hopeless, and the party therefore needed consolation, what did Soyer do? At that moment of general depression Alexis Soyer inventedcutlets à la réforme.Hedidn’t despair,heknew theavenirthat was before the party. He rallied them round the invigorating table, from which they rose cheered and courageous; flushed with victuals, their attack upon the enemy was irresistible (as under such circumstances the charge of Britons always is), and Downing-street may be said to be the dessert of the dinners in Pall-mall. He is one of the greatest politicians and pacificators in the world. If they had him in Conciliation-hall, even there they would leave off quarrelling. Look at his influence upon the diplomacy of our country! In this very day’s paper appears an account of a dinner at that very Reform Club which Soyer loves, and which has stood as sponsor to the great cutlets which he invented—of a dinner at which Lord Palmerston and Ibrahim Pacha had their hands in the same dish of pilaff, and the maker of that dish was Alexis Soyer. To such a noble and magnanimous spirit as Soyer’s evidently is, such a meeting will cause pride and thankfulness indeed. It is a happy omen. They have eaten salt together, and the peace of the world is assured.
How it was that Gibbon came to write the ‘Decline and Fall;’ under what particular circumstances Newton conceived the theory of gravitation; how Scott invented his works, &c., are historic anecdotes with which all persons interested in literature are familiar. It is always pleasant to know how and where a great thought came into the brain of a great man, and so it is agreeable to know how this cookery book, which all the world longed for, was suggested to Soyer. (See the Preface.)
Surely this preface is one of the most remarkable documents that ever ushered any book into the world. Soyer has made it a rule never to refuse anything in his power to the ladies (the rogue)!—and, amongst other favours, they asked him for a cookery-book. The requestcaused him “a thrill of horror;” but being in a library in the midst of a hall, where he met withoneof Milton’s allegorical works, Locke’s profound ideas, and severalchefs d’œuvreof that noble champion of literature, Shakspeare, what should his eye turn to but a cookery-book closeted in such company! “The terrifying effect of that succulent volume” made him determine that he never would write a book of the culinary sort.
What was the consequence? The very determination not to write, forced him into “a thousand gastronomic reflections.” Write he must, and it was sheer modesty that generated the Regenerator. Mark the pleasantry upon the word “lost,” the last word in the preface, and fancy Soyer lost in Paradise. Tempter! if you had been in any such place, to what could you not have persuaded the first gourmand! In fine, Soyer determined to write this book, because he justly “considered that the pleasures of the table are an every-day enjoyment,which reflects good and evil on all classes.” And when we remember that he has written the work in ten months, during which he has also supplied 25,000 dinners to the gentlemen of the Reform Club, and 38 dinners of importance, comprising 70,000 dishes; that he had to provide daily for 60 servants, and to do the honours of the club to 15,000 visitors, one may fancy what genius and perseverance can accomplish. He says he is “entirely satisfied with the composition, distribution, and arrangement of the volume.”Exegit monumentumin fact. He has been and done it. He gives you his signature, his portraiten buste, and another full length, in which he is represented in his parlour at home (where, in spite of his avocations, he has leisure to receive his friends and consume a most prodigious quantity of victuals), surrounded by a select society of private friends, dispensing to them some of the luxuries which he describes in his 700 pages.
After a few prefatory observations about carving, for which he has invented a new and apparently successful, though unintelligible method—about larding, which he recommends to the English “middle classes”—the seasons of fish and game, &c.—the utensils for the kitchen—Soyer plunges into sauces at once, as the great test of culinary civilization. The key-sauces are the White Sauce, No. 7, and the Brown Sauce, No. 1. They are theprincipiaof the science—they are the sauces which Soyer daily and principally uses. If the reader suspects that we are going to transcribe the formula for the preparation of these sauces, he is disappointed. No; let those who want the sauce buy the book, and enjoy both.
From sauces we go to “Potages or Soups” (and what are these, in fact, but diluted and agreeable sauce?), commencing with the clear light broth, orFIRST STOCKof soup, and proceeding to a hundred delicious varieties—the Louis Philippe, the Jerusalem, the Marcus-Hill, the Princess Royal, &c. Nothing can be more delicate or worthy of a young princess than this latter little soup; whereas the “potage à la comtesse,” beginning with “cut half a pound of lean ham with an onion,” is of a much stronger character. All these soups are flavoured with appropriate observations, as, for instance—“In fact it is much better for all thick soups to be too thin than too thick.” Louis Philippe soup, he says, should contain “Brussels sprouts,boiled very green.” Here is sorely some wicked satire here.
From soup we come to fish, as in the order of nature; thence to the hors-d’œuvre and removes, to the flancs, the entrées, the roasts, the vegetables, the sweets, or the entremets, and the second-course removes. As the critic reads from page to page his task becomes absolutely painful, so delicious is the style, so “succulent” are the descriptions, and so provoking the hunger which they inspire. Every now and then you get anecdotes, historical and topographical allusions, &c. (See p. 472.)
How finely it is written! “Willyour excellencycall to-morrow morning?” Talleyrand’s friend says nothing, but you see his rank at once, and when his excellency is gone, the Prince of Benevent rings the bell and orders—some of his favorite dishes. There is an account in the volume of crawfish aux truffes à la Sampayo, which makes one almost frantic with hunger.
And what will the reader say to this dish, which is the invention, not of Soyer the cook, but of Soyer the poet:—“The Celestial and Terrestrial Cream of Great Britain.” (See p. 710.)
If this dish was provided for his Highness Ibrahim Pacha last night, no Eastern prince since the days of the Barmecide was ever so entertained.Ardebit Alexim.His Highness will be bribing away this Gascon genius at any price to Cairo. He will become —— Pacha, and the cause of Reform will begin to droop.
Besides poetry, there are pictures in this incomparable volume. The dindonneau à la Nelson (of which the croustade is the bow of a ship, in compliment to the hero of Aboukir) is a picture worthy of Turner. The engraving of Soyer’s own parlour, where a pretty maid is in waiting (and an exceedingly pretty girl, by the way, is seated by the great artist) is an enticing interior, in which any man would like to let his portrait appear. The picture of “Salade de Grouse à la Soyer” is a capital portrait, and will be recognized by all who know and love the original. Soyer’s own portrait we have mentioned before. But perhaps the finest andmost interesting work of art in the volume, is the plate at p. 294, which represents, of the natural size, a mutton cutlet, a pork cutlet, and a lamb cutlet. This cut—this plate of cutlets we should say—is incomparable.
THE MORNING POST.
In spite of all that we have heard for some years past about the enlightenment of the age, there are still certain vulgar errors, and errors on very vital subjects, to which the English adhere with all the constancy of martyrs.
Perhaps these errors are more abundant in relation to the preparation of food than to almost any other matter. At present, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the generality of people in England have only roast and boil, after a fashion; and there the culinary acquirements of the multitude find their extreme limits. Others, there are, indeed, who take a higher flight; they affect soups and gravies, and even aspire to put vegetables on their tables; but in all these cases nothing can be more inartificial than the system pursued. Hot water is the chief ingredient, and pepper the condiment. Thus, for soup;—fry two or three slices of coarse beef in plenty of fat, boil it in water, and saturate it with pepper and salt, and your tureen is provided for. Of mutton broth we are not so sure of the process; but the decoction has all the appearance of being composed of the eternal hot water, stirred with a tallow candle, to give the necessary number of globules of grease on the surface, and ornamented at the top with a few floating particles of parsley. A gravy in more frequent use is exceedingly simple. When a leg of mutton is roasted, the person miscalled a cook pours a teacupful of water over the joint, and the gravy is complete. Vegetables are only required to retain as much as possible of the fetid water in which they are boiled, and to be sunk as deep in melted butter as a river bound collier is in the sea, and they are considered “a dainty dish to set before a king.”
Such are a few everyday examples of the English practice of cookery—principles it evidently has none. In France they order these things differently. During a succession of revolutions, extending over a space of nearly sixty years, constitutions have been abandoned as soon as adopted; kings and nobles have been murdered; butLa Cuisinehas ever been held inviolate, and chefs deserving of the name have not ceased to be venerated. And what is the result?—that in France, where the raw material is, with the single exception of veal, perhaps, inferior to ours, a dinner can be produced worthy of Lucullus; in England, save under the superintendence of French artists, such a feat is plainly impossible. Surely, then, it behoves us to do what we may for availing ourselves, in their fullest extent, of the advantages we have received from nature, not perhaps by going the somewhat extreme length that we have heard suggested, of establishing professorships of gastronomy in our universities, on the broad ground that domestic is as well worthy of being encouraged as political economy, but by profiting, to the best of our abilities, under the instructions of those who really understand the art in which we are so lamentably deficient. So desirable an object has hitherto been baffled by the popular prejudice that good cookery is necessarily unwholesome. It is no such thing. An accomplished cook is an accomplished chemist; he knows the several affinities of substances for each other, and not only balances these with the utmost exactitude, but even prescribes, with the same view, the particular description of wine proper to each stage of his banquet. We all remember the celebrated answer of Carême to George IV, whose cuisine he superintended while that sovereign was regent. “Carême,” said the prince, “your cookery will be the death of me; see how I am suffering from indigestion.” “Sire,” replied the professor, “I am innocent of the charge; it is my duty to provide you with a dinner, the discretion to use it properly must originate with your royal highness.” So true is it that the evil lies in the abuse and not in the use of good things.
Another objection to elaborate cookery is the expense it is supposed to involve. Both the points have been satisfactorily met in the work before us. The many receipts furnished by M. Soyer, and they amount to nearly two thousand, afford evidence at once of careful study and of extreme delicacy. Everything gross is excluded, and the more nutritious portions of food are alone preserved, in such forms as to please the eye and the palate, without embarrassment to the digestive process. Neither of these objects is attained under the ordinary English system. Huge joints offend the sight, and half-raw meat tasks the organs of digestion beyond their power, by presenting to them masses of unbroken fibres. To save trouble to the stomach the fibre must be destroyed by the action of heat, and this can never be effected by exposing food to the fire during only half the time that is necessary.
Then, as to the expense of superior cookery, M. Soyer has taken the best means of refuting the error by showing that much improvement may be made without addition to the cost. In one portion of his book he provides materials for the dinner of an emperor; in the other, entitled, “My Kitchen at Home,” he enables the smallest private family, or even the solitary bachelor, to live well on small means.
It would be incompatible with our limits to discuss fully the two systems of the author, and to abstain from any illustration of them would be unjust to him and unsatisfactory to the reader. We will therefore give one example of each—the magnificent and the simple; and the first shall be a banquet served at the Reform Club, on the 9th of May last to a private party of ten persons (see page 609), and for a dinner party for eight persons, at home (see page 636).
Of the simple arrangement for a bachelor or a married couple, combining, as they do, elegance with economy, we cannot give a selection; because we would not offer a brick as a specimen of the house; but we strongly recommend them to all who are tired of conventional dinners composed of everlasting chops and steaks.
In short the work of M. Soyer is one that cannot fail of being extensively read. If it be worth while to spend as much time as everybody does in eating, it is surely advisable to see that our time is not thrown away—that we live like civilized beings rather than New Zealand savages. In this important point the system of M. Soyer is worthy of praise, and we feel that we only anticipate our readers in thanking him for the labour he has bestowed in elucidating a pursuit that, in despite of twaddle, is at least one of the minor amenities of life.
THE MORNING HERALD.
We approach with all due reverence and respect the discussion of the important and mysterious changes effected by the chemical action of that most potent of all galvanic agencies, whose resistless influence is acknowledged by sages, philosophers, and statesmen, and whose sympathetic vibrations finds response in every breast—thebatterie de cuisine. ‘The Gastronomic Regenerator; a New System of Cookery.’ We have given both the titles, because in so deeply interesting a race, all parties from the Royal duke, whose gracious condescension sanctions the dedication in the title-page, to the humble artisan who sniffs the fragrant perfume as he passes the area of the Reform Club, are entitled to start fair; and to the uninitiated the pronomen would require a greater amount of consideration than accords with good digestion. For ourselves, we can only say, with the cockney lady in the play, “How delightfully unintelligible! how far-fetched! how French!” But we have a shrewd guess that the impracticable title was designed, like some of hissauces piquantes, as a cabalistic whet or provocative to the teeming fancies and gustatory glories of the interior, and that pronounced with due emphasis and discretion before a meal, it would “create an appetite under the very ribs of death.” The importance of a good dinner is become almost an axiom in morals and philosophy; with ourselves it has been elevated to the rank of an article of faith. We cannot, therefore, too highly appreciate the labours of distinguished men who, like M. Soyer, sacrifice themselves to a sense of public duty, and present to an admiring and hungry world those treasures ofgastronomiewhich are the very triumph of artistic skill. The ancient proverb has it that “any one can dine,” to which modern political economy has added, “if he have the means,”—happily for the present generation they live in the third era of progressive advancement, when dining has become a science, and the good things which Providence has abundantly supplied to us are rendered subservient at once to health and refined enjoyment. M. Soyer tells us that nothing better disposes the human mind to amiable feelings than a dinner,bien conçu et artistement préparé. How deeply grateful, then, should our countrymen feel who make dining the great business of life, and with whom a dinner forms the grand rallying point for every striking demonstration of pleasure, or business, or friendship, or charity, to one who in the proud humility of his unrivalled genius is content to rank a good cook only on the same footing as a wise counsellor! We have been accustomed to vaunt of our liberty, our independence, and our unbounded wealth, but to our eternal disgrace be it recorded that, while we enjoy the fruits of their labours, we are silent on the subject of our obligations to the accomplishedcuisinier. The talent and research of a Vatel, a Carême, and a Bechamel have done much to place us on an equality with our more fastidious and artistic neighbours, the French—it remained for a Soyer to consummate the good work, and place the golden atelette upon the croustade of thedindonneau à la Nelson. M. Soyer has evidently a just appreciation of the dignity of the science of which he is so distinguished a professor; with a mind comprehensive enough to grasp all the most intricate and difficult combinations of the culinary art, he is above the littleness of discarding his guests because they may add salt to their soup, contenting himself with the sage maxim that “it is the duty of the cook to season for the guests, and not the guests for the cook.” And verily, if all our cooks were such “top” Soyers, it would be downright heresy to “paint the lily or add a perfume to the violet.” Since we read the work we have been tempted more than once to renounce our honest convictions, and sell our party for a mess ofpotage—à la Julienne. We had no idea that so much good could emanate from the Reform Club, and lived in the belief that their dinners were as dull as their dogmas, and theirpâtésas indifferentas their principles. But political discussions are interdicted over the dinner table, and with M. Soyer as caterer we honestly confess that we could dine in all love and amity with a Radical or a Repealer, and get “jolly” with a Chartist or an Owenite. We shall entertain a better opinion all our lives of a party so well served in the culinary department. Our readers will be naturally anxious to learn the moving cause of the thousand gastronomic reflections that crowd the volume—what powerful agency impelled himtot adire labores; and but for the habit of discursiveness which has marred our fortunes to the present hour we should have given it the prominence it deservedly obtains in the preface. Honour then to whom honour is due,—place aux dames—it is “at the request of several persons of distinction, particularly the ladies, to whom I have always made it a rule never to refuse anything in my power.” Never was there so touching a tribute of homage; never was the proverbial gallantry of his countrymen so strikingly or so gracefully exemplified. But we have all this time withheld our readers from a peep into the interior, and here our difficulties begin. We have rambled through the greater portion of the 700 or 800 pages of the book, and find every recipe an epic, every dish a picture, and every sauce a study. We are perplexed between the glories of thedîner Lucullusian, the mostrecherchédinner ever dressed, thepagodatique entrée, thegateau Britannique à l’amiral, the ortolaned truffles which Soyer devised, but the fates forbid, and the more unpretending but not less valuable details of “My Kitchen at Home,” redolent of savoury and appetitizing streams, which are within the reach of the middle and humbler classes. All are exquisite in their way; and had the Abyssinian prince, who roamed over half the globe in search of happiness, but lighted on this volume he would have sat down contentedly, ordered a new dish for every day in the year, and abandoned all thought of returning to the happy valley.Mais revenons à nos moutons, the approach to which is stopped by thecheveux de friseof a carving-knife and fork. Now carving, being, thecoup de grâceto cookery, rather unaccountably, but probably artistically, occupies the first chapter; and our author, after referring to the tribulation of carving “for appetites more or less colossal, and when all eyes are fixed upon you with anxious avidity,” opens his instructions with the following curious historic anecdote (see p. xii).
And then follow some very sage reflections upon the necessity of dining “more or less once a day,” and a pathetic appeal to the “manglers” not to tear to atoms the remains of our benefactors; and with this flourish of the knife enter “directions for carving,” which are extremely brief and simple, and which are wound up with the hint, seldom attended to by even experienced carvers, that nothing is more creditable to a carver than leaving a piece of meat, game, or poultry fit to reappear at table in an inviting state.
One extract more, and we shall terminate our pleasing labours, premising that our selection has been made more with a view to novelty than from any want of morerecherchéand attractive materials. Thefanfareis with reference to the Frenchpot-au-feu(see p. 649).
But here we must pause, for we are almost cloyed with sweets and dainties. With the best appetite and inclination in the world, we are reluctantly compelled to subscribe to our artist’s doctrine, that a man can dine but once a day, and our literary banquet has been already a most seductive and profuse one. We purposed giving the recipe of the far-famed pot-au-feu, but we presume it is already, or shortly will be, in the hands of all the world, and if any of our readers have not yet made up their minds, we advise them to send without loss of time to Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.
THE MORNING ADVERTISER.
“The fame of the Reform Club and its matchlesscuisine, under the direction of that great master of his art, Alexis Soyer, have gone to the uttermost ends of the earth. To render that fame imperishable, Soyer has composed his ‘Gastronomic Regenerator,’ a work which is destined to throw all others, from the time-honoured Mrs. Glass to the learned Eustache Ude, into the shade. The former, most loveable in her way, will henceforth only be remembered for her one receipt, “first catch your hare,” &c.; the piquancy, theutile et dulcecharacteristics of Soyer, like one of his own chyle-begetting and renowned sauces, entirely neutralises, absorbs, swallows up the greatest effort of Ude.Tempus edax rerum!Soyer is a wit and a wag of the first water; hence a perusal of the introduction to the goodly volume before us acts as a whet. “Laugh and grow fat” is an old and a true adage; read Soyer’s introduction, and the veriest valetudinarian will afterwards sit down and eat like a man! Soyer’s experience has been vast—magnifique! hear, on the important head, what he tells his readers:—“During the last ten months I had to furnish 25,000 dinners for the gentlemen of the Reform Club, and 38 dinner parties of importance, comprising above 70,000 dishes, and to provide daily for 60 servants of the establishment, independent of about 15,000 visitors who have seen the kitchen department in that lapse of time.” Authors frequently assign a reason for writing; Soyer, in this respect, is not behindhand; in his preface hesays;—“At the request of several persons of distinction who have visited the Reform Club, particularly ladies, to whom I have always made it a rule never to refuse anything in my power, for, indeed, it must have been the fair sex who have had the majority in this domestic argument to gain this gastronomical election. Why do you not write and publish a cookery-book? was a question continually put to me. For a considerable time this scientific word caused a thrill of horror to pervade my frame, and brought back to my mind that one day, being in a most superb library in the midst of a splendid baronial hall, by chance I met with one of Milton’s allegorical works, the profound ideas of Locke, and severalchefs d’œuvreof one of the noblest champions of literature, Shakspeare; when all at once my attention was attracted by the nineteenth edition of a voluminous work. Such an immense success of publication caused me to say, ‘Oh, you celebrated man, posterity counts every hour of fame upon your regretted ashes!’ Opening this work with intense curiosity, to my great disappointment, what did I see,—a receipt for Oxtail Soup! The terrifying effect produced upon me by this succulent volume, made me determine that my few ideas, whether culinary or domestic, should never encumber a sanctuary which should be entirely devoted to works worthy of a place in the Temple of the Muses.” That section of the work entitled “Soyer’s new mode of carving” (worthy of the deepest attention) is thus ushered in:—“You are all aware, honorable readers, of the continual tribulation in carving at table, for appetites more or less colossal, and when all eyes are fixed upon you with anxious avidity. Very few persons are perfect in this art, which requires not only grace, but a great deal of skill. Others become very nervous; many complain of the knife which has not the least objection to be found fault with; or else they say, this capon, pheasant, or poulard is not young, and consequently not of the best quality. You may sometimes be right, but it certainly often happens that the greatest gourmand is the worst carver, and complains sadly during that very long process, saying to himself “I am last to be served, my dinner will be cold.” Soyer’s motto is, “cleanliness is the soul of the kitchen;” thecuisineof the Reform Club is a perfect embodiment of this healthful axiom. That portion of the work before us devoted to “The Kitchen at Home,” deserves the attentive perusal of every housewife who wishes to enjoy comfort herself and be the cause of it to others; the author is almost as earnest and enthusiastic in his directions for the production of a good rump-steak pudding for the stomach of common life as he is for that of the most aristocratic and indulged. The work is, in short, one suited to the palace of the prince, and the cottage of the peasant. The two thousand practical receipts it contains, adapted to the incomes of all parties, have been eaten by a “committee of taste,” who have pronounced a verdict in their favour. It is appropriately dedicated to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, and the volume is rendered more valuable by its numerous well-executed illustrations. The frontispiece is a fine portrait of the author, after a painting by the once-accomplished and now lamented Madame Soyer. It is a most truthful portrait; each feature indicates the man—the play of the eloquent lip in there, at once the portal of wit and the minister of intense palatic sensibility.Vive le Soyer!
THE GLOBE
The Impression grows on us that the man of his age is neither Sir Robert Peel, nor Lord John Russell, nor even Ibrahim Pacha, but Alexis Soyer.
Hazlitt has said that, if literary men directed the world, they would leave nothing standing but printing presses. We know that parliamentary leaders imagine parliamentary tactics, and talk theprimum mobileof mankind. Eastern despots think it is the sword; but Alexis Soyer knows it is the saucepan. When Napoleon first started the distinction of the “Legion of Honour,” Moreau ridiculed it by proposing to confer acasserole d’honneuron his cook. But we beg to propose some “Soyer testimonial,” without any joke at all. Have we not had a “Hudson testimonial?”—are we not threatened with a “Lambert Jones testimonial?”—to recompense, amongst other things, the laying that heavy load upon mother earth, called the Royal Exchange. What then shall be done unto the man who reared that light fabric of a Pyramidà l’Ibrahim Pacha, on which twenty centuries doubtless looked down last Friday evening, as they had very good reason to do,—since they might have seen Pyramids any day these two or three thousand years, but it is not every day they could see a Pyramid with “an elegant creamà l’ananas” on the top of it, and on the top of that again “a highly-finished portrait of the Illustrious stranger (Ibrahim Pacha’s) father, Mehemet Ali, carefully drawn on a round shape of satincarton.”
The veracious chronicler to whom we are now indebted for some particulars, which the world would not willingly let die, of that dinner at the Reform Club which has frighted some of our Paris contemporaries from their propriety, proceeds as follows:
“The appearance of this ‘Crème d’Egypte à l’Ibrahim Pacha’ immediately caught his Royal Highness’s attention, who at once perceived the honour conferred upon him. Hecarefully took off the portraiten cartonin his hands to admire it; and after showing it to several of his suite, he affectionately placed it in his bosom near his heart, with the intention of never parting with it again. But what was his astonishment, on looking at the spot where the former portrait had been deposited, at seeing in the cream, as under a glass, the portrait of himself, as highly finished, and as striking a likeness as any miniature painter could have produced, and surrounded by a gilt-like frame! Monsieur Soyer, having been sent for by the party, was highly complimented by his Highness through his interpreter, who desired to know where and how he could procure such a likeness of his father, and how was his own so correctly drawn in the cream? ‘Please tell his Highness,’ said Monsieur Soyer to the interpreter, ‘that both were executed from the original sketches drawn by our celebrated artist Horace Vernet, whilst in Alexandria. The portrait in the cream is drawn on wafer-paper, which, placed on the damp jelly, representing the glass, dissolves, and nothing remains but the appearance of the portrait drawn in light water-colours. The imitation of the gilt frame is made witheau de vieof Dantzic, and gold water mixed with jelly, the gold leaf of which forms the frame. After having been thanked by the Pacha, the pyramidal cream of Egypt was ordered to be shown to each guest, by sliding it from one to the other round the table (which was more than 250 feet), to the great satisfaction and admiration of every one present. Though everything was eatable in it, this magnificent dish was respected, and remained untouched, but every one tried to partake of the fruit which surrounded this extraordinary and appropriate culinary wonder.”
The above is given chiefly for the benefit of our Paris contemporaries, who do us the honour to mention that “le Globe nous fait connaître les étranges discours qu’ils ont, l’un et l’autre(Lord Palmerston and Sir C. Napier),recités à cette occasion.” Waiving the question whether there was anything “strange” in either speech we beg our Paris contemporaries to observe that their compatriot, Monsieur Soyer had effected a most skilful diversion from all delicate topics whatsoever.
“Segnitus irritant animos demisan per auresQuam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.”
“Segnitus irritant animos demisan per auresQuam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.”
“Segnitus irritant animos demisan per auresQuam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.”
Ibrahim Pacha’s interpreter, it now appears, had other things to do than to interpret either political retrospects or prospects, as touched by the several speakers. And surely it might soften the hearts of our jealous friends about the Palais Royal, to see how large a part of the triumph of the day was, in fact, a French triumph. Would we could stop here! But truth compels us to say that our ally, Monsieur Soyer, forces us, in the sequel, to feel strange doubts of his thorough devotion to English interests.
“The next dish which much amused his Highness was the one entitled theGateau Britannique à l’Amiral, being the representation of an old man-of-war, bearing the English and Egyptian flag drawn on rice-paper, the ship being filled with icemousseuse aux pêches, and loaded with large strawberries, cherries, grapes, and bunches of currants, being so placed on the table that the brave and gallant Commodore Napier had to help from this cargo the illustrious stranger, who did not cease smiling. During that process the moisture and liquor of the ice, which gradually melted, saturated the hull of the vessel, which was made of a kind of delicate sponge cake. Whilst the gallant commodore was in the act of helping the remains of the ice, the ship gave way, and formed a complete wreck, which caused great hilarity among the company who were close enough to witness the scene.”
The above might form a most fertile text for sinister inferences, if we possessed the talent in that line of some of our Paris contemporaries. We content ourselves with expressing our satisfaction that Monsieur Soyer never has been, and we hope never will be, intrusted with the charge of Surveyor of the Navy, in addition to that of Chef de Cuisine at the Reform Club. We have no objection to his buildinggateaux Britanniques, which “give way” in the heat of action; but we desire to see nobriocheofhiscontriving in the Mediterranean.
THE SUN.
Who has not heard of thecuisineof the Reform Club? Who has not heard of itschef, Alexis Soyer, and hissoufflet monstre à la Clontarf, and hiscréme de l’Egypte à l’Ibrahim Pacha? Well, here we have the mighty gastronomic magician coming forward, inproprié persona, and informing us of the methods be employs to produce those results which astonish and delight the world. If we mistake not, this book of M. Soyer’s is destined to produce a revolution in the kitchens of England, and to substitute for the fat, greasy, unscientific school of cookery the science of gastronomy, a science which teaches the art of extracting from food, animal and vegetable, the nutritions portions in such a manner as to please the eye and the taste, while at the same time the material is economised to the utmost. The following passage shows that M. Soyer has had considerable experience on the subject of which he treats:
“During the last ten months, I had to furnish 25,000 dinners for the gentlemen of the Reform Club, and 38 dinner parties of importance, comprising above 70,000 dishes, and to provide daily for 60 servants of the establishment, independent of about 15,000 visitors who have seen the kitchen department in that lapse of time.”
The result of that experience we have in this volume. He gives us bills of fare for parties of all sizes, from a coronation banquet to a bachelor’s snug party in chambers. He also gives us plans of kitchens of all sizes, from the magnificent gastronomical laboratory of the Reform Club to my “Kitchen at Home,” which is suited to the means and requirements of the solitary bachelor. Let all those who are tired of the eternal roast and boiled, alternating with chop and steak—who think that mutton broth is not the only potage in the world—that there are methods of dressing fish other than plain boiling and frying, and other sauces than melted butter—purchase M. Soyer’s book. They will find that it is indeed that which it professes itself to be—a Gastronomic Regenerator.
BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.
Cookery and Civilization.It is only after passing through an ordeal cruelly insidious, tolerably severe, and rather protracted, that we feel conscientiously entitled to assert our ability to dine every day of every week at the Reform Club, without jeopardy to those immutable principles which are incorruptible by Whigs and indestructible by Rats. A sneer, perhaps, is curling with “beautiful disdain” the lips of some Conservative Achilles. Let us nip his complacent sense of invulnerability in the bud. To eat and to err are equally attributes of humanity. Looking at ourselves in the mirror of honest criticism, we behold features as unchangeable as sublunary vicissitudes will allow.
“Time writes no wrinkles on our azure brow.”
“Time writes no wrinkles on our azure brow.”
“Time writes no wrinkles on our azure brow.”
Witness it! ye many years of wondrous alternation—of lurid tempest and sunny calm—of disastrous rout and triumphant procession—of shouting pæan and wailing dirge—witness the imperturbable tenor of our way! Attest it, thou goodly array of the tomes of Maga, laden and sparkling, now as ever, with wisdom and wit, science and fancy!—attest the unwavering fidelity of our career! All this is very true; but the secret annals of the good can never be free from temptations, and never are in reality unblotted by peccadilloes. The fury of the demagogue has been our laughing-stock—the versatility of trimming politicians, our scorn. We have crouched before none of the powers which have been, or be; neither have we been carried off our feet by the whirlwinds of popular passion. Yet it is difficult to resist a good dinner. The victories of Miltiades robbed Themistocles of sleep. The triumphs of Soyer are apt to affect us, “with a difference,” after the same fashion.
There was, we remember, a spirit of surly independence within us on visiting, for the first time, the “high capital” of Whiggery, where the Tail at present,
“New rubb’d with balm, expatiate and conferTheir state affairs.”
“New rubb’d with balm, expatiate and conferTheir state affairs.”
“New rubb’d with balm, expatiate and conferTheir state affairs.”
To admire anything was not our mood:
“The ascending pileStood fix’d her stately heighth; and straight the doors,Opening their brazen folds, discover, wideWithin, her ample spaces, o’er the smoothAnd level pavement.”
“The ascending pileStood fix’d her stately heighth; and straight the doors,Opening their brazen folds, discover, wideWithin, her ample spaces, o’er the smoothAnd level pavement.”
“The ascending pileStood fix’d her stately heighth; and straight the doors,Opening their brazen folds, discover, wideWithin, her ample spaces, o’er the smoothAnd level pavement.”
And as these lines suggested themselves, we recollected who the first Whig is said to have been, and whose architectural glories Milton was recording. We never yet heard a Radical disparage a peer of the realm without being convinced, that deep in the pocket, next his heart, lay an incautious hospitable invitation from the noble lord, to which a precipitate answer in the affirmative had already been dispatched. Analogously, in the magnificent edifice, whose tesselated floor we were treading gingerly, it seemed to us that we surveyed an unmistakable monument of an innate predilection for the splendours and comforts, the pomp and theabandon, of a “proud aristocracy.” This was before dinner, and we were hungry. To tell all that happened to us for some hours afterwards, would, in fact, force us to transfer to our pages more than half of the volume which is prompting these observations. Suffice it to say, that when we again stood on Pall-Mall, a bland philanthropy of sentiment, embracing all races, and classes, and sects of men, permeated our bosom. Whence came the mellowing influence, seeing that we had been, as our custom is, very innocent of wine? Nor could it be the seductive eloquence of the company. We had, indeed, been roundly vituperated in argument by the Liberator. Oh, yes! but we had been fed by the Regenerator.
To us, then, on these things much meditating—so Cicero and Brougham love to write—many of the speculations in which we had indulged, and of the principles which we had advocated, were obviously not quite in harmony with the views long inculcated by us on a docile public. Suddenly the truth flashed across and illuminated the perplexity of our ponderings. We were aware that, early in the evening, a much milder censure than usual upon some factious Liberal manœuvre had passed our lips. This took place just about the fourth spoonful of soup. The spells were already in operation under the shape of “potage à la Marcus Hill.” There is a fascination even in the name of this “delicious soup”—such is the epithet of Soyer—which our readers will better understand in the sequel. Again it was impossible to deny that we had hazarded several equivocal observations in reference to the Palmerstonian policy in Syria. But it was equally true that such inadvertencies slipped from us while laboriously engaged in determining a delicate competition between “John Dorée à l’Orléannaise” and “saumon à la Beyrout.” A transient compliment to the influence at elections of the famous Duchess of Devonshire was little liable to objection, we imagined, during a playful examination of a few “aiguillettes de volaille à la jolie fille.” More questionable, it must be admitted, were certain assertions regarding the Five Points, enunciated hastily over a “neck of mutton à la Charte.” No fault, however, had we to find with the cutting facetiousness with which we had garnished “cotelettes d’agneau à la réforme en surprise aux champignons.” The title of this dish was so ludicrously applicable to the consternation of the remnants of the Melbourne ministry—the cutlets of lamb—in finding themselves outrun in the race by mushroom free-traders, that our pleasantly thereanent was irresistible. It was difficult, at the same time, to justify the expression of an opinion, infinitely too favorable to Peel’s commercial policy, yielding to the allurements of a “turban des cailles à la financière.” And, on the whole, we smarted beneath a consciousness that all our conversation had been perceptibly flavoured by “filets de bécasses à la Talleyrand.”
The result of these reflections was, simply, an alarming conviction of the tremendous influence exercised by Soyer throughout all the workings of the British constitution. The causes of the success of the League begin to dawn upon us, while our gravest suspicions are confirmed by the appearance, at this peculiar crisis, of ‘The Gastronomic Regenerator.’ What patriotism can withstand a superabundance of untaxed food, cooked according to the tuition of Soyer? How can public virtue keep its ground against such a rush of the raw material, covered by such a “batterie de cuisine?” Cobden and Soyer, in alliance, have given a new turn, and terribly literal power, to the fable of Menenius Agrippa.
“There was a time when all the body’s membersRebell’d against the belly.”
“There was a time when all the body’s membersRebell’d against the belly.”
“There was a time when all the body’s membersRebell’d against the belly.”
Such times are gone. The belly now has it all its own way, while
“The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,”
“The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,”
“The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,”
are conjunctly and severally cuffed or bunged up, or broken, or stifled, unless they are perpetually ministering to the service of the great cormorant corporation. It is mighty well to talk of the dissolution of the League. The testament of Cæsar, commented on by Mark Antony, was eventually more fatal to the liberties of Rome, than the irrepressible ambition which originally urged the arch-traitor across the Rubicon. ‘The Gastronomic Regenerator,’ in the hands of every housewife in the country, is merely to convert the most invincible portion of the community into a perpetual militia of free-traders. All cooks proverbially encourage an enormous consumption of victuals. The study of Soyer will infallibly transform three fourths of the empire into cooks. Consequently, the demand for every variety of sustenance, by an immense majority of the nation, will be exorbitant and perennial. No syllogism can be more unassailable. We venture also to affirm that the judgment of posterity will be rigidly true in apportioning the endurance of fame which the conflicting merits of our great benefactors may deserve. It is far from unlikely that the glories of a Peel may be disregarded, forgotten, and unsung, when the trophies of a Soyer, still odorous, and unctuous, and fresh, shall be in everybody’s mouth.
The ‘Gastronomic Regenerator’ has not assumed his imposing title without a full appreciation of the dignity of his office, and the elevation of his mission. The brief and graceful “dialogue culinaire” between Lord M. H. and himself, illustrates the grand doctrines that man is a cooking animal, and that the progress of cooking is the progress of civilization. There is something prodigiously sublime in the words of the noble interlocutor, when he declares, “Read history, and you see that in every age, and among all nations, the good which has been done, and sometimes the evil, has been always preceded or followed by a copious dinner.” This language, we presume, must be considered, on the great scale, as applicable to the most solemn and momentous occurrences in the history of governments and countries. Not that we can exclude it from individual biography. Benevolencewe have always regarded as a good sauce, and have often observed it to be an excellent dessert. The man who tucks his napkin under his chin immediately after conferring a benefit on a fellow-creature, invariably manifests marvellous capabilities for digestion; and, on the other hand, the man who has dined to his own entire satisfaction, if solicited in the nick of time, will frequently evince an open-handed generosity, to which his more matutine emotions would have been strangers. But—to reverse the picture—any interruption to the near prospect of a “copious dinner” is at all times inimical to charity; while repletion, we know, occasionally reveals such unamiable dispositions as could not have been detected by the most jealous scrutiny at an earlier period of the day. Nations are but hives of individuals. We understand, therefore, the noble lord to mean, that all the history of all the thousand races of the globe concurrently teaches us that every great event, social or political, domestic or foreign, involving their national weal or woe, has been harbingered or commemorated by a “copious dinner.” Many familiar instances of this profound truth—some of very recent date—crowd into our recollection. But we cannot help suspecting a deeper meaning to be inherent in the enunciation of this “great fact.” Copious dinners are, as it strikes us, here covertly represented as the means of effecting the most extensive ameliorations. To dine is insinuated to be the first step on the highway to improvement. In the consequences which flow from dining copiously, what is beneficial is evidently stated to preponderate over what is hurtful, the qualifying “sometimes” being only attached to the latter. In this respect, dinners seem to differ from men, that the evil is more frequently “interred with their bones,” while the “good they do lives after them.” This is, assuredly ringing a dinner-bell incessantly to the whole universe. We have ourselves, not half an hour ago, paid our quota for participating within the last week in congratulatory festivities to two eminent public characters. The overwhelming recurrence, in truth, of these entertainments, drains us annually of a handsome income; and, reading as we do daily in the newspapers, how every grocer, on changing his shop round the corner, and every professor of dancing, on being driven by the surges of the Utilitarian system up another flight of stairs, must, to felicitate or soothe him, receive the tribute or consolation of a banquet and demonstration, we hold up our hands in amazement at the opulence and deglutition of Scotland.
What shall become of us, driven further onwards still, by the impetus of the ‘Gastronomic Regenerator,’ we dare not fortell. The whole year may be a circle of public feasts; and our institutions gradually, although with no small velocity, relapse into the common table of Sparta. But never, whispers Soyer, into the black broth of Lycurgus. And so he ensnares us into the recognition of another fundamental principle, that the simplicity of Laconian fare might be admirably appropriate for infant republics and penniless helots, but can afford no subsistence to an overgrown empire, and the possessors of the wealth of the world! Thus cookery marks, dates, and authenticates the refinement of mankind. The savage cuts his warm slice from the haunches of the living animal, and swallows it reeking from the kitchen of nature. The civilized European, revolting from the dreadful repast, burns, and boils, and stews, and roasts his food into an external configuration, colour, and substance, as different from its original condition as the mummy of Cheops differs from the Cheops who watched, with an imperial dilatation of his brow, the aspiring immortality of the pyramids. Both, in acting so differently, are the slaves and the types of the circumstances of their position. The functions in the frames of both are the same; but these functions curiously follow the discipline of the social situation which directs and regulates their development. The economy of the kitchen is only a counterpart, in its simplicity or complication, its rudeness or luxury, of the economy of the state. The subjects of patriarchs and despots may eat uncooked horses with relish and nourishment. The denizens of a political system whose every motion is regulated by an intricate machinery, in which the teeth of all the myriad wheels in motion are indented with inextricable multiplicity of confusion into each other, perish under any nurture which is not as intricate, complex, artificial, and confused. What a noble and comprehensive science is this Gastronomy!
“Are you not also,” says the philosophic Soyer, in the same interesting dialogue, “of opinion with me, my lord, that nothing better disposes the mind of man to amity in thought and deed, than a dinner which has been knowingly selected, and artistically served?” The answer is most pregnant. “It is my thinking so,” replies Lord M. H., “which has always made me say that a good cook is as useful as a wise minister.” Behold to what an altitude we are carried! The loaves and fishes in the hands of the Whigs, and Soyer at the Reform Club to dress them! Let us banish melancholy, and drive away dull care. The bellicose propensities of a foreign secretary are happily innocuous. The rumours of war pass by us like the idle wind which we regard not. Protocols and treaties, notes and representations, are henceforth disowned by diplomacy. The figure of Britannia, with a stewpan for her helmet, and a spit for a spear, leaning in statuesque repose on a folio copy of ‘The Gastronomic Regenerator,’