chapterCHAPTER·V·FLESH·AND·FOWL
chapterCHAPTER·V·FLESH·AND·FOWL
CHAPTER·V·FLESH·AND·FOWL
“Alas! how simple to these cates comparedWas that crude apple that diverted Eve?”Milton(“Paradise Regained”).
“Alas! how simple to these cates comparedWas that crude apple that diverted Eve?”Milton(“Paradise Regained”).
“Alas! how simple to these cates comparedWas that crude apple that diverted Eve?”Milton(“Paradise Regained”).
“Alas! how simple to these cates compared
Was that crude apple that diverted Eve?”
Milton(“Paradise Regained”).
Ithas always been a puzzle to me why folks take flesh and fowl so much more seriously than fish and vegetables. Your fair neighbour at a dinner-party will prattle gaily through soup and fish, of polo or pantomime, according to the season, but as soon as meat or bird makes its appearance she, all unconsciously, dives into deeper topics, and talks of palæontology or premature burial. Why? Of course, if this had only happened to myself, I should know that I was a sepulchral bore, but I find, on inquiry, that it is the experience of nine men out of ten.
In W. H. Mallock’s “New Republic,”some quite nice people find before them at dinner a menu of the conversation expected of them, as well as of the food to be eaten. It was arranged something after the fashion of the bill of fare of a great dinner where the wines are indicated against each course. Thus instead ofTortue Claire—Amontillado, something like this,Crême d’Asperges—Our Foreign Policy, was printed on the card. Mr. Mallock relates that the scheme was not found practicable, but the idea, in itself, seems alluring and full of possibilities. Anyhow, it is obvious to the most casual diner-out that there is a direct, if indefinable, link between cates and conversation, and that the tide of talk ebbs and flows through the menu according to a certain unascertained but more or less fixed law.
The great question of Sauce has broken up many Damon-Pythias friendships, and brought havoc into sundry happy homes. No two people think exactly alike on Sauces. There are so many schools. The Flamboyant, the Renaissance, the Simplicists, the Natural Flavourites, the Neo-Soho, and many others. The only way to gastronomic salvation is tosteer a careful course between extremes, and to take that which is best and most expedient from each and every school.
A very refined and intelligent cannibal once had the politeness to ask the future ornament of his stock-pot, “With what sauce would you like to be eaten?” “But I don’t want to be eaten at all,” was the reply. “That is entirely beside the question,” said the cannibal. This rather suggests the famous Green Sauce which La Coste offered to Sir Thomas Dundas, at the Duke of York’s table, with the whispered advice, “With this sauce you would enjoy eating your grandfather.”
Do what we will, we cannot get away from Sauce. It is a necessary if unobtrusive concomitant of the plainest meats. But it can be mitigated, assuaged; and from a loathly disguise it can be transformed into a dulcet accompaniment. “Les animaux se repaissent; l’homme mange: l’homme d’esprit seul sait manger,” said Brillat-Savarin, who achieved much of his literary success by gross flattery of the palates of his friends. Charles de Monselet, the author of “La Cuisinière Poétique,” and a very earnest advocate ofsimplicity, as against rioting in the stewpans, wrote: “The man who pays no attention to the food he consumes can only be likened to a pig in whose trough the trotters of his own son, a pair of braces, and a box of dominoes are equally welcome.”
At the same time the affectation of simplicity is often grossly overdone. When Lord Byron first met Tom Moore at Samuel Rogers’ rooms in St. James’s Place, the noble lord affected a lack of appetite for anything except potatoes and vinegar, biscuits and soda water; but he made a very hearty meal at his club afterwards. Again, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was certainly not affected, but probably absent-minded, when he felt hungry would dash into the first baker’s shop, buy a loaf, and rush out again, breaking off pieces as he walked, and eating them there and then, his scanty meal being eked out by common raisins, a small stock of which he kept in his waistcoat pocket.
By way of contrast, it is related of George Frederick Handel, the great composer, a man of voracious appetite and exaggerated capacity, that he ordered dinner for three at a tavern,and, being hungry, asked, “Is de tinner retty?” The waiter replied that he was waiting for the company to come. “I am de gompany,” said Handel, “bring up de tinnerprestissimo.” This anecdote, probably unveracious, is often attributed to Papa Haydn—which is ridiculous.
Joints and whole birds, save very small ones, are of course out of the question with a Chafing Dish, but steaks, cutlets, disjointed birds, and a thousand varieties of treating flesh and fowl, raw and cooked, are well within its range.
Rump Steak.
Beef steak, or rump steak, is very palatable cooked in the following manner. Give a one-pound steak a thorough beating. Mallets are made for this express purpose, but if such an implement be not available, I have used the head of a poker, wrapped in cloth, with great effect. This drubbing makes the meat tender. Put the steak into the dish with two tablespoons of butter and three slices of lemon. Cook it slowly for twelve minutes.Then pour over it a cupful of bouillon and a wine-glass of claret. Simmer it for ten minutes more with an added teaspoon of Worcester sauce, salt and pepper. Before serving the steak, which ought to be thoroughly tender, squeeze a lemon over it. Onions are, I venture to think, a great improvement, and two of them, cut in rings, may well be added, after the first twelve minutes’ cooking.
The Roast Beef of Old England which has done so much to maintain the reputation of Great Britain on the Continent, is strangely mistreated and man-handled in foreign parts. It is often servedsaignantor nearly raw, under the mistaken belief that we like it that way. Moreover, in very old French cookery books, roast mutton and roast lamb are gravely designatedRosbif de MoutonandRosbif d’Agneaurespectively. Was this sheer flattery, or ignorance, or both?
Devilled Beef.
Devilled Beef can be highly recommended in this fashion: Three thick slices of coldcooked roast beef, lean. Butter them as though they were slices of bread. Then dose them liberally with the following mixture: One teaspoon made mustard, half a teaspoon black pepper, same of salt, a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, and a tablespoon of vinegar. Cook them in this in the Chafing Dish, until the meat begins to curl up at the edges.
This, although very good, is mere journeyman work and not a “creation.” Did not Aristotle say that a man who eats a dinner is a better judge of it than the cook? That is judgment, however, not creation, and the French cook-artists call their dishes “creations”—like the dressmakers.
A chop, I contend, should only be cooked on a gridiron—grilled, that is to say, over an open fire. Any other treatment is an offence which, in a more enlightened age, would be made indictable. St. Lawrence would rise in his grave and object, were a chop put in a Chafing Dish—and quite right too! St. Lawrence is of course the patron saint of the grill, for is he not said to have been broiled alive on a gridiron? According to therespectable authority of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, his dying words were:
“This side enough is toasted, so turn me, tyrant,eat,And see whether, raw or roasted, I make thebetter meat.”
“This side enough is toasted, so turn me, tyrant,eat,And see whether, raw or roasted, I make thebetter meat.”
“This side enough is toasted, so turn me, tyrant,eat,And see whether, raw or roasted, I make thebetter meat.”
“This side enough is toasted, so turn me, tyrant,
eat,
And see whether, raw or roasted, I make the
better meat.”
Chipped Beef.
One of the best things produced in America, besides buyers of spurious art works and donors of Free Libraries, is Chipped Beef. You can buy it in tins and treat it thus. Put three tablespoons of butter in the dish. When just melted add a tablespoon of flour; stir until smooth. Then add the Chipped Beef, which must have been previously soaked in cold water for ten minutes; let it simmer for eight minutes, then stir in the beaten-up yolks of two eggs, and serve very hot. Every day is Thanksgiving Day when one eats Chipped Beef, and it is a selfish dish to cook, because one wants to eat it all oneself; and the worst of eating is that it takes away one’s appetite—although there is a proverb to the contrary.
But it is always comfortable to be content (or nearly so) on good plain food, instead of on the misguided concoctions of addle-egged and-pated foreigners, which leave one in the position of the unfortunate vultures in the famous Oxford prize poem, who
“Satiated with one horrid meal,No second rapture for another feel.”
“Satiated with one horrid meal,No second rapture for another feel.”
“Satiated with one horrid meal,No second rapture for another feel.”
“Satiated with one horrid meal,
No second rapture for another feel.”
Zrazy.
This is how to make Polish Zrazy in a Chafing Dish. Buy the whole undercut (fillet) of a small sirloin. Cut it into inch slices. Brown two sliced onions in the Dish in a large walnut of butter. Add the meat, a teaspoon of Paprika, salt, and half a dozen cloves. Cover up, and let it hot up to boiling. Do not uncover, as the great thing is to let it steam in its ownfumet. Shake the pan now and again, so that it shall amalgamate well. After once boiling up, let it simmer for fifteen minutes, add a good squeeze of lemon, a glass of claret, and serve with the accompaniment of potato salad.
“This dish of meat is too good for anybut anglers, or very honest men,” says Izaak Walton of a like concoction.
Frizzled Ham.
Do you think you would like Frizzled Ham? I do; and this is how I cook it. Start with half a pound of rather fat ham in thin slices. Put half a tablespoon of butter in the pan, and when very hot add the ham. As soon as it begins to curl at the edges, dust the slices with dry flour, which will soon turn brown. Turn the lamp down and keep simmering. Now mix in a bowl half a tablespoon of vinegar and the same of dry mustard. Pour it over the ham, add enough boiling water to cover the meat, put in three drops of Tabasco, and let it all boil up for a minute.
Ham in Hades.
Another and somewhat similar way of preparing ham, which has been very successful, particularly at supper-time, after, say, a lobster salad, has been christenedHam in Hades.
Make a mixture of a teaspoon of made mustard, a tablespoon of Tarragon vinegar, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of Paprika, a teaspoon of Worcester sauce. Spread this mixture on both sides of half a dozen slices of ham. Put two tablespoons of olive oil in the Chafer. When this begins to smoke, put in the ham and brown it quickly on both sides.
Gallimaufrey.
Gallimaufrey is a very old dish, meaning reallyAll Sorts. Shakespeare calls it Gaily-Mawfrey. A very excellent Modern Gallimaufrey is prepared thus: Three thickish slices of ham with two walnuts of butter in the Dish. Let it cook slowly. Add six peeled and washed Jerusalem artichokes, three sliced carrots, one sliced onion. Let it go on simmering. Now put in a couple of dozen haricot beans, a sprig of parsley, three cloves, a wineglass of sherry, a blade of mace, salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of sugar. Simmer it for twenty minutes, bringing it at last just to the boil. It is then an agreeable stew, which is probably as totally unlike thereal old-fashioned Gallimaufrey as anything possibly could be. But that really does not matter.
Gallimaufrey dates back to the time of Master Robert May, who published a memorable cook-book in 1660, which is not without its humours. A real old English banquet, it seems, would not be complete without two pies, the one filled with live frogs, and the other with birds. These are for the particular delectation of the ladies. “They will desire to see what is in the pies; where lifting first the lid off one pie, out skips some frogs, which makes the ladies to skip and shreek; next after the other pie, whence come out the birds, who, by a natural instinct, flying at the light, will put out the candles. So that what with frogs beneath, and birds above, it will cause much delight and pleasure to the whole company.”
They were right merry folk then!
Bubble and Squeak.
Not to know Bubble and Squeak is to admit one’s ignorance of one of the goodthings of this earth. Chaffinda can tackle it, and in this wise. It is an old Cornish version. There may be others, but there can be none better. The dish needs cabbage, and it is most practical to get a young fresh cabbage, boiled, pressed, and chopped into shreds before you begin the actual cooking. It saves time and trouble. Put a tablespoon of butter in the Chafing Dish, also one chopped onion, and the cabbage. Let it frizzle and absorb the butter. Just before boiling, add gradually a cupful of milk, pepper and salt. As soon as it boils up, take it off and put it aside in a hot dish. Now hot up three underdone slices of cooked cold roast beef in two tablespoons of butter, turning them frequently, so that they shall be well cooked on both sides; add a tablespoon of Worcester sauce and the same of vinegar. Now make a mound of the cooked cabbage, and put the slices of well-done meat around it, upright. You will regret that you did not cook double the quantity.
There are so many kinds of sausages that it is difficult to pitch upon the best for Chafing purposes. Slices of the Brunswickspecies are excellent in pea-soup. The genuine liver sausage makes good sandwiches. The more elaborate French kinds are akin to galantine. The Italian Bologna and Mortadella have their friends. But, after all, the well-made Cambridge sausage is hard to beat. I plump for the Cambridge variety.
Hodge’s Sausages.
This is a Cambridge recipe for Hodge’s Sausages. Put as many as you think you can eat in the dish with a walnut of butter for every two, pepper and salt, and a tablespoon of Worcester sauce. Then add one sliced apple for each sausage. Take out the cores, but do not peel them. Stab the sausages with a fork to prevent their bursting. Cook for twelve minutes. American apples are good for this dish, and also the homegrown Keswick Codlin, Blenheim Orange, or Hambledon Deux Ans.
There is something peculiarly bucolic about Hodge’s Sausages which may commend itself to the rurally minded. To me, it brings the scent of the hay over the spirit-lamp.
Goulasch.
Another appetising stew is Goulasch. Beat well a half-pound (or larger) steak; cut it into pieces the size of a domino. Put them in the Chafing Dish with two cold cooked potatoes chopped into dice. Pour over the meat and the vegetables two tablespoons of olive oil, and as soon as it simmers add an onion in slices, half a teaspoon of Paprika, salt, and a cupful of bouillon. Cover it up, and let it cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Just before serving drop in half a dozen stoned olives.
So much for beef. The next meat is of course mutton, for which three recipes should suffice. The first is Mutton Steaks, and is adapted from a Welsh recipe. I have a very interesting Welsh cookery book, tersely entitled: “Llyfr Cogino a Chadw ty: yn cynwys Pa fodd? A Paham? Cogyddiaeth.” I am sorry that ignorance prevents my giving anything out of it, but I think that I have got the title nearly right.
Mutton Steaks.
To make Mutton Steaks, cut three slices, each an inch thick, from the middle of a cold cooked leg of mutton. Put them in the Dish with enough water to cover them, pepper and salt, and five small onions. Cover it up and let the meat brown thoroughly on one side, then turn it over and add a walnut of butter and a tablespoon of flour. Do not allow it to boil, but keep it simmering gently for at least fifteen minutes. If raw meat be used, the result is also quite satisfactory, but it is well in that case to replace the water by a cup of bouillon.
Turkish Mutton.
Turkish Mutton, locally termedEtena Jarvat: this is one of those dishes which may fairly be included in Brillat-Savarin’smagistères restoratifs. It is easy enough to chafe.
Cut half a pound of uncooked mutton (from the leg from choice, but not absolutely necessary) into medium dice. Put the meatinto the Chafing Dish with salt, pepper and dripping, fat, oil, or butter, according to taste, but oil is preferable. When the meat turns brown, add half a pound of previously cooked and sliced French beans, also half a pint of water or bouillon (latter for choice) and a bunch of simples, either thyme or marjoram, or both. Simmer steadily for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Carrots can be used instead of beans. Just before serving turn up the flame full, and let it come just to the boil.
Mutton Venison.
Mutton Venison is a compromise, and may be recommended as such. We live in an age of compromise, so why not bring it into our cookery? Make an extra strong decoction of bouillon from any good meat-juice, three tablespoons in quantity, mince into it an onion, and put in the pan with a tablespoonful of Worcester sauce, three drops of Tabasco, a glass of claret, a dessert-spoon of red-currant jelly (or guava or blackberry jelly), pepper and salt. When very hot put inabout a pound of slices of cold cooked leg of mutton, lean, cut into strips. Let it simmer for twenty minutes. It is not a bit like venison, but distinctly good nevertheless.
Plump and Wallop.
“Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me?Three plumps and a wallop for ae bawbee.”
“Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me?Three plumps and a wallop for ae bawbee.”
“Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me?Three plumps and a wallop for ae bawbee.”
“Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me?
Three plumps and a wallop for ae bawbee.”
This advertisement, it is alleged, was addressed to the good people of Kirkmahoe, who were so poor that they could not afford to put any meat into their broth. A cobbler invested all his money in buying four sheep shanks, and when a neighbour wanted to make mutton broth, for the payment of one halfpenny the cobbler would “plump” one of the sheep shanks into the boiling water and give it a “wallop,” or whisk round. He then wrapped it in a cabbage leaf and took it home. This was called a “gustin bone,” and was supposed to give a rich “gust” to the broth.
Potatoes and Point.
A Boer recipe of much the same description was known in early Transvaal days (long before the War) as “Potatoes and Point.” The poor “Bijwoner” family was served all round with potatoes, and a red herring was hung up in the middle of the room. The elders were allowed to rub their potatoes on the herring, but the youngsters might only point theirs towards the delicacy at the end of a fork. The mere proximity of the highly-flavoured herring was supposed to give the potato a flavour.
Lots of quite worthy folk gorge themselves periodically and keep their children on the border-line of starvation. A certain exaggeratedly selfish family man of my acquaintance, who for economic reasons lived somewhere in the wilds of West Kensington, made it his unholy practice to dine once a month with a couple of boon companions of the same sex at the Carlton or Prince’s, and at the conclusion of a remarkable dinner was wont to blurt out: “By George, I wish I could afford to bring the wife and children here!”
Scouse.
Permit me now to suggest a trial of that very old and famous dish, Scouse. It is prepared in the following fashion: Get one pound of lean, dairy-fed pork, cooked and cold. Cut it into half-inch squares; sprinkle them with flour, salt, Paprika, and dip them lightly in French mustard. Put in the Chafing Dish three chopped onions, half a teaspoon of sugar, one wine-glass of vinegar, three cloves, a blade of mace and a bayleaf. Cover up and let it simmer, not boil, while the quantity of liquid is reduced by one half. Add the pork with half a pint of bouillon, and simmer for another ten minutes.
Young pork, like young veal, is always excellent, but it can be too young. A sucking pig with lacklustre eye and a lemon in its jaws is pathetic and none too appetising. Veal, in England at any rate, is often tasteless and somewhat dull. Not so very long ago, in Ireland, they used to kill newborn calves, bake them in an oven with potatoes, and call the dish “Staggering Bob.”
Kabobs.
Kabobs have probably come to us from India, via the Cape. This is an old Capetown-Malay recipe which is thoroughly reliable. Half a pound of cold veal; the same of lean ham, both cut into slices a quarter of an inch thick; three apples, and three onions. Cut the meat and the vegetables into rounds with a knife or cutter, about the size of a crown piece. Skewer them up on wooden (or, if you are a de Beers shareholder, on silver) skewers, in the following order: (1) a round of veal; (2) a round of apple; (3) a round of ham; (4) around of onion. Sprinkle them with pepper, salt and curry-powder. Put them in the Chafing Dish with a teacupful of bouillon and a walnut of butter; simmer steadily for twenty minutes, then thicken the gravy with a little flour, and serve either with boiled rice, or toast, or both.
Brigands’ Fowls.
Cold fowls lend themselves in a hundred ways to the kind attentions of Chaffinda.Mention of quite a few of these must urge the gastronomer to further experiments and discoveries.Pollio à la Contrabandista: this is the way brigands cook, or ought to cook, fowls. Cut a cold cooked fowl into neat joints. Put them into the Chafing Dish with four tablespoons of olive oil, and heat up until the meat is of a light brown colour, turning the pieces frequently. Then keep the flame lower and simmering all the time; add four tomatoes cut into quarters, two chopped green chillies, one shredded Spanish onion, one tablespoon of Worcester sauce, the same of mushroom ketchup, and four cloves. Let it simmer, closely covered, for at least fifteen minutes. It will then prove a most savoury mess.
Howtowdie.
From Spain to Bonnie Scotland! This is how to cook Howtowdie. Cut up a young fowl into handy joints. Put them into the Chafing Dish with two walnuts of butter, a cupful of bouillon, three sprigs of parsley, three small onions, salt and pepper. Simmercontinuously until the bird is tender. When half cooked add another cupful of bouillon to make up for evaporation. When quite cooked put the fowl on to a hot dish, surround it with poached eggs, then thicken the gravy in the pan with a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of Worcester sauce; give it a smart boil up and pour it over the fowl. This Howtowdie is adapted from an excellent recipe in “The Scottish Cookery Book containing guid plain rules for makin’ guid plain meats suitable for sma’ purses, big families, and Scotch stomachs.”
Roman Fowl.
The preparation of Roman Fowl is simplicity itself. Pour four tablespoons of olive oil into the Chafing Dish with a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of Paprika, three cloves, and herbs to taste, but do not overdo the herbs. When the oil is sizzling put in all the limbs of a lightly boiled chicken, cut up. Cook it slowly, turning the meat so that all the flesh is equally cooked all over. When done it should be a delicate brown. Add half a cupfulof tomato sauce and the same of bouillon, also three shredded onions. Simmer for eight minutes, then serve.
Creamed Chicken.
This is an American recipe, copied verbatim from an American Chafing-Dish cookery book. Two cups cold chicken cut into small pieces, one cup chicken stock, one cup milk or cream, two tablespoonfuls of butter, one heaping tablespoonful of flour, salt and pepper. Cook the butter and the flour together in the Chafing Dish; add the stock and milk and stir until smooth; put in the chicken, salt and pepper, and cook three minutes longer.
Other times, other manners. Contrast with the severe simplicity of the above the sort of thing that gratified the palates of our forebears. In the fourteenth century, Sacchetti says, a baked goose stuffed with garlic and quinces was esteemed an excellent dish in Italy, and when the Gonfalonier of Florence entertained a famous doctor he gave him the stomach of a calf, boiled partridges, and pickled sardines.
Old Samuel Pepys, too, had a nice taste in food as in music, and other things. His idea of “a fine dinner” was to this effect: “A dish of marrowbones, a leg of mutton, a loin of veal, a dish of fowl; three pullets and a dozen of larks, all in a dish; a great tart, a neat’s tongue, a dish of anchovies, a dish of prawns, and cheese.”
For those who are curious in such things it is easy to find quaint recipes in old books. For instance, if you want to know how to bake a hedgehog in clay—and very good it is too—you have only to read Albert Smith’s “Christopher Tadpole” and you will know all about it. It is truly said that comparatively few people read Disraeli’s novels nowadays, but those who are culinarily inclined would do well to turn to the opening chapter of “Tancred,” where there is a delightful conversation between a grand oldmaître de bouche, “Papa Prevost,” and his pupil, the eminent chef, Leander. The pompous spirit of the culinary artist is delightfully caught and the gastronomic jargon wonderfully reproduced.
But gastronomy has never lacked its historians. Great painters have come to itsaid, as witness the glowing canvases of Snyders, Teniers, Jordaens, Ruysdael, Jan Weenix, Melchior de Hondecoeter and Jan Fyt. Their pictures of still life, the poulterers’ shops, the heaped baskets of good cheer, the brilliant lobster, the callow lemon, the russet hare, and the lustrous plumage of the pheasant, have inspired the hand of the Masters, who must have appreciated all such culinary delicacies in order to have painted them with such loving-kindness.
Yesterday’s Pheasant.
“If partridge had the woodcock’s thighs,’Twould be the noblest bird that flies;If woodcock had the partridge breast,’Twould be the best bird ever drest.”
“If partridge had the woodcock’s thighs,’Twould be the noblest bird that flies;If woodcock had the partridge breast,’Twould be the best bird ever drest.”
“If partridge had the woodcock’s thighs,’Twould be the noblest bird that flies;If woodcock had the partridge breast,’Twould be the best bird ever drest.”
“If partridge had the woodcock’s thighs,
’Twould be the noblest bird that flies;
If woodcock had the partridge breast,
’Twould be the best bird ever drest.”
Yesterday’s Pheasant can be made into a most tempting dish by cutting up the remains into convenient chunks, omitting the bones. Put one tablespoon of butter in the Dish, add a tablespoon of flour, and keep on stirring till the mixture is smooth and light brown. Add a glass of claret, a tablespoon of Worcester sauce, pepper and salt, and bring to a boil,stirring occasionally. Now put in the chunks of pheasant, and simmer for eight minutes. An excellent accompaniment to this is chestnut and celery salad.
Any game bird may be treated in like manner, save always the woodcock, that little epitome of all that is toothsome and delicate. A curious thing about the woodcock is its extraordinarily rapid digestion. A single bird has been known to consume in a night more earthworms than half filled a moderate-sized flowerpot.
Few people know the different expressions for flocks of birds. Here are some of them: a building of rooks, a bevy of quails, a watch of nightingales, a cast of hawks, a nide of pheasants, a muster of peacocks, a plump of wildfowl, a flock of geese, a pack of grouse, a chattering of choughs, a stand of plovers, and a wisp of snipe.
A woman I know had a very good cook, who was also a plain cook—or rather, a plain-spoken cook. She had been in the place many years, and much was forgiven her. The mistress, visiting the kitchen, inspected a turkey, and remarked that it was a verythin bird. “Just you wait, M’m, till I’ve stuffed it with chestnuts,” said the cook, “you won’t know it then. It’ll be quite another thing. Just like you, M’m, when you has your di’monds on.”
I do not advise the fabrication of elaborate entrées in the Chafing Dish. They can be and have been done, but I mistrust them and find ample scope for ingenuity, inventiveness, and novelty in the cates I have already described, without venturing into the fields of fancy. Vol-au-Vent, for instance, or Brains à la Poulette, or Spanish Cream Pudding are all within the range of feasibility, but I leave the recipes to those less timorous than myself. In fact, in this case, I am at one with the waiter in the “Bab Ballads” who hurled the most awful threat in culinary literature at his flighty sweetheart:
“Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu oses,Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère:Je lui dirai d’quoi on composeVol-au-Vent à la Financière!”
“Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu oses,Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère:Je lui dirai d’quoi on composeVol-au-Vent à la Financière!”
“Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu oses,Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère:Je lui dirai d’quoi on composeVol-au-Vent à la Financière!”
“Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu oses,
Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère:
Je lui dirai d’quoi on compose
Vol-au-Vent à la Financière!”
The good things of this life are mostly plain and wholesome (with a few delightful exceptions), and we can all qualify to live inBengodi, Boccaccio’s country of content, where they tie up the vines with sausages, where you may buy a fat goose for a penny, and have the giblets thrown in into the bargain. In this place there is a mountain of Parmesan cheese, and the people’s employment is making cheese-cakes and macaroons. There is also a river which runs Malmsey wine of the very best quality.
There are no cheap excursions to Bengodi. We have to tramp there on foot—and earn our bread on the road as we travel thither.