NTPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES

3 3433 05692848 8



Cookery



spt 1969
1521 WEST
Botiveen 101 and 2
STREET
AVONS
Dallas





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Entas sweertans Dando.
KETTNER’S
BOOK OF THE TABLE
A MANUAL OF COOKERY
PRACTICAL
THEORETICAL
HISTORICAL
These are not fruits forbidden : no interdict
Defends the touching of these viands pure;
Their taste no knowledge works, at least of evil,
But life preserves, destroys life's enemy,
Hunger, with sweet restorative delight.
Paradise Regained
LONDON
DULAU AND CO. SOHO SQUARE
1877
e
Қ«>


902
Hazell, Watson, and Viney Printers, London and Aylesbury


TO
GEORGE AUGUSTUS S ALA.
One of the most accomplished men of his time, the readiest
of writers, the rarest of humourists, a most winning
orator, a most cunning draughtsman, laden with a learn-
ing which would crush most men, and blest with a heart
which is almost that of a woman; he probably knows
more about the history of cookery in all countries of the
world than any man alive, and to him therefore these
pages are inscribed with sincere adiniration.





INTRODUCTION
PT HOEVER writes a new book on cookery has to
begin with an apology—there are so many,
and most of them so bad. All contain good
ideas, original or borrowed ; but most of them
are chaotic and overlaid with rubbish,—the wildest con-
fusion of receipts, distinctions without differences, and
endless repetitions,—the result of stupidity, of vanity, and
of slavish deference to authority. A trifling variation is
given to a well-known dish ; a new name is bestowed upon
it to flatter somebody's vanity; and then follows another
and another receipt to choke up the cookery books and to
bewilder their readers. People run after novelties which are
not novelties at all, and in the turmoil of details lose sight
of the central idea which ought to govern the composition.
Much as the folly of new names and the slavishness of
imitation may have to do in producing such intolerable
confusion, the worst part of it unhappily is due to sheer
ignorance and stupidity, as a few examples will show.
In the first place, we find a multitude of receipts where
one is enough. There is a well-known soup which appears
in cookery books under nine or ten different names-
Brunoise, Jardinière, Printanier, Chiffonnade, Macédoine,
Julienne, Faubonne, Paysanne, Flamande, Mitonnage,
Croûte au Pot. The same book may not use all these
names, but it is puzzling to find one book using one name


Introduction
and another another. One of them, the Julienne, is pecu-
liar, but the peculiarity is nearly lost in modern cookery ;
and we may say that practically all ten are one and the same
soup, with differences which are wholly accidental. Put
into the soup a variety of vegetables such as a gardener's
wife might filch in her apron, and there is the soup à la
Jardinière. It is also the soup à la Macédoine. Put into it
the early spring vegetables, and there is the spring soup. Put
into it the modest assortment, the onion and the cabbage,
which a peasant's wife might command, and which corres-
ponds very much to the limited supply of any winter garden,
and there is the soup à la Paysanne. Put in crusts of bread,
either because vegetables are scarce, or because you are
afraid of them, and there is Croûte au Pot. Put in
Brussels sprouts, and there is something to suggest a new
name-Flemish soup_because Brussels is the capital of the
Flemish country. There is nothing scientific in this. It
is a mere senseless heaping up of names and receipts, to the
ruin of cooks and to the incessant disappointment of the
dinner-table.
In other cases we have a single receipt where we might
well have half a dozen-as witness aspic jelly. The science
of the kitchen is so proud of its achievement in this one
receipt, that it rests in its triumph, makes no attempt at
variety, and afflicts us with one eternal cold meat sauce.
The English have been often satirised for their one sauce-
the so-called melted butter. But French cookery, with all
its pretensions, ought to be ashamed of the monotony pro-
duced by aspic. In England especially, where cold meats
are in great request, the monotony of aspic is too palpable.
The dinner of Englishmen, far more than of foreigners,
implies a large joint of meat which has afterwards to be
eaten cold. There is cold meat at breakfast, cold meat at
luncheon, cold meat at supper, cold meat all the day-which
is eaten with pickles for lack of good sauce. Here was a
great opportunity for cooks to provide appropriate sauces.
1
w


Introduction
The most appropriate sauce for cold meat is a jelly, or half
jelly, of some sort; and the French have invented one
jellied sauce to go with cold viands—aspic. It is not to be
, supposed that one and the same sauce will suit every meat
alike, every taste alike, or even the same taste at different
times. We cannot take the same everlasting aspic with
cold meat all the year round. But the cookery books,
with scarcely an exception, give one single receipt for
savoury jelly, and they call it aspic, though it does not
contain a particle of aspic in it. What aspic is will be
explained in its proper place. Here it must be enough to
point out that, be it what it may, it is absurd to use this
one precious jelly with a false name, morning, noon, and
night, and all the year through, with fish, flesh, and fowl,
in season and out of season. Francatelli—and he may be
taken as a type of all the great French cooks—gives a most
elaborate receipt for aspic jelly; and he is so satisfied with
it that, having to prepare a cold supper for 300 people, he
works it up in every one of his fifty-six dishes which are
not sweet nor hot. At the end of his great work, now in
its twenty-third edition, and of such authority that many
of the best people swear by it, he gives a great many bills
of fare which are set forth as models for imitation. Most
of these are for hot dinners ; but in two of them he shows
what modern cookery can do in the way of a cold refection.
It will be enough to quote his bill for the cold viands of
his supper :-
“BALL SUPPER FOR 300 PERSONS-Summer,
8 Grosses Pièces on ornamental stands.
2 Raised pies of fowls and ham
with truffles, garnished with
aspic jelly.
2 Galantines of poulards, with
aspic jelly.
2 Hams ornamented with aspic
jelly.
2 Boars' heads ornamented with
aspic jelly.


Introduction
48 Cold Entrées, dished up on silver plates.
6 Groups of plovers' eggs, gar- 6 Mayonnaises of fowl.
nished with aspic jelly. 6 Mayonnaises of fillets of
6 Plates of cold roast fowls with salmon.
aspic jelly (cut up).
6 Entrées of lamb cutlets à la
6 Plates of tongue in slices, gar- Bellevue.
nished with aspic jelly. 6 Entrées of chaud-froid fri-
6 Lobster salads.
cassée of chicken.
36 cold roast fowls and 4 tongues, to be kept in reserve for the
purpose of replenishing these entrées as they are eaten.”
It may be observed that in some of the dishes thus enume-
rated there is no appearance of the ubiquitous aspic ; but
in turning to the receipts for their preparation, even to that
for lobster salad, it will be found that they all call in the
aid of aspic jelly. And this is the result of science-
this the height of art. It produces, with such elaborate
forms and majestic ceremonies, an aspic jelly without aspic,
that, exhausted in the effort, it can proceed no further, and
seems to think that here at last, in this supreme sauce,
we have a sure resting-place—the true blessedness—the
ewigkeit.
Too much art in cookery may be as fatal as too little ;
and it is impossible to read some of the receipts of the
master-cooks without wishing that they could forget high
art and come down to common sense. For an odd illustra-
tion, take the sauce which is called Robert-originally a
Roebuck sauce, now a sauce for broiled or roasted pork
and for goose. Its history will be found under its proper
name. English taste has long since found out what are
the proper adjuncts for roasted or broiled pork—namely,
onion, apple, and mustard. The onions, combined some-
times with sage, are presented in a mash ; there is apple
sauce with a gentle acidity; there is the pungent bitter of
the mustard ; and each of these flavouring elements is
kept apart upon the plate. The old French cooks deter-
mined on a similar combination; but the ingredients were


Introduction
mixed together in the kitchen, and served up as Sauce
Robert. It was simply a mash of onions well browned in
butter, with the addition of some French mustard, con-
taining, it is needless to say, tarragon vinegar, the acid
of which takes the place of the apple in the parallel English
arrangement. Simple as it is, it would be difficult, by the
most elaborate devices, to concoct a sauce better suited for
its purpose and more relished. The receipt for it will be
found, in all its simplicity, in the classical work of Beau-
villiers-the first cookery book which had any pretension
to scientific accuracy.
But ask for the Sauce Robert at clubs and restaurants,
whether in Paris or London : it is impossible to recognise
it in the liquid which is now served under its name. The
great chefs cannot rest content with the simplicity of the old
receipt. They glory in high art and all the wonders of
science ; and they have improved upon the sauce until its
fine gusto is lost in a weak civilisation. The Sauce Robert
was bountiful in its onions-indeed, illimitable. In the
sauce of the modern Boulevards the quantity is reduced :
onions are not polite enough—and sometimes they are
intermingled with chopped gherkins. In the Sauce Robert
there was no thought of wine or ketchup, nor any thought
of vinegar beyond the little tarragon vinegar involved in
French mustard. But one set of artists (Bernard, Dubois,
and Gouffé at their head) now load it with wine, and even
ketchup; another set (Francatelli at their head) drench it
with vinegar, making it a kind of Sharp sauce ; while
there are cookery books whose writers think that they
cannot have too much of a good thing, and drown the
sauce in wine and ketchup as well as vinegar. If cooks
wish to invent a new sauce, let them give it a new name ;
and if diners want to have with their pork-chops a sharp
sauce like that served on the Boulevards, let them have it
—the taste is intelligible. But if they want Sauce Robert,
they surely ought to get it in the simplicity of the old


Introduction
receipt, which is perfect in its way. It is absurd to spoil
a good sauce in the name of high art, and to muddle
our cookery books by a vainglorious falsification of the
receipts.
Take another example of mystification, and it must be
added, of exceeding folly—to use no stronger epithet. It
is connected with the illustrious name of Châteaubriand.
One of the foremost clubs in London one day changed its
cook; and its members were astonished to find that the
steak which had formerly been served to them under the
name of filet de boeuf was now always announced as a
Châteaubriand. The cook was called to account. What
was the meaning of the new name? Why should plain
Englishmen be puzzled with a new name—the slang of
the kitchen ? Why should they not, as of old, get the
fillet to which they were accustomed? The cook had really
nothing to say. He could only tell that a Châteaubriand
was the fashionable name in Paris for a steak cut from the
best part of the fillet, and that it was thicker than the
ordinary fillet-steaks-nearly two inches. The members
of the club were not satisfied with this explanation; and
to the great disgust of the chef, who felt the sublimity of
the name of Châteaubriand, the order was given that
henceforth a steak from the fillet should be announced as
before on the bills under the time-honoured name of filet
de bauf.
They were quite right; and even if the cook, better
informed, had been able to give them the true history and
meaning of a Châteaubriand, there can be little doubt that
they would have still arrived at the same decision. He
was correct in stating that a Châteaubriand is cut from
the best part of the fillet, and is nearly twice the ordinary
thickness of a steak: but is this all ? is this enough to
suggest the name of Châteaubriand ? The thickness of
the steak involves a peculiar method of cooking it. It is
so thick that by the ordinary method it might be burnt o


Introduction
the surface when quite raw inside ; and therefore—though
the new method is neglected and is even forgotten very
much—it was put upon the fire between two other slices
of beef, which, if burnt upon the grill, could be thrown
away. It may still be asked, what has this to do with
Châteaubriand, that his name should be attached to a steak
so prepared ? Here we come into a region of culpable
levity. Châteaubriand published his most famous work
under the name of Le Génie du Christianisme. The
profane wits of the kitchen thought that a good steak sent
to the fire between two malefactor steaks was a fair parody
of the Génie du Christianisme. If I remember rightly it
was at Champeaux' in the Place de la Bourse that this
eccentric idea took form and burst upon Paris. As to the
amount of sense or of folly displayed in the selection of a
name, it is needless to say a word ; as to the good sense
of the mode of cooking the steak, judgment is pronounced
in the fact that, though the Châteaubriand still remains
as thick as ever, it is rare now to see it grilled between
two other steaks—that being too extravagant. Indeed, in
Gouffé's great work on cookery, which must always be
mentioned with respect for the good sense and good taste
which pervade it, there is not a hint given that the Château-
briand is to be cooked, or was ever cooked, between the
two robber steaks. Most cookery books say not one word
of the Châteaubriand, which ranks now as the prime steak
of the French table, and which appears in Parisian dinner
bills to bewilder the benighted Englishman with a mag-
nificent but unintelligible name.
It is scarcely worth while to speak of minor follies.
When we find in the most popular cookery books of
France that roast mutton and lamb are designated Rosbif
de mouton, and Rosbif d'agneau, we recognise that no
great harm is done, and only laugh at the awkwardness
of a people who cannot detect their own word boeuf when
they see it in a different spelling. Or again, when in


Introduction
is not so in much
English cookery books we find that Palestine soup is not
what we should expect-a soup common in the Holy
Land,—but one made of tubers derived from America,
and called, by corruption of Girasole, Jerusalem artichokes,
we may rejoice over a jest, and need not complain of prac-
tical injury. The disease of the cookery books goes very
much deeper than this. Dr. Johnson hit the truth a
century ago. “I could write,” he says, "a better book of
cookery than has yet been written. It should be a book
upon philosophical principles. Pharmacy is now made
much more simple. Cookery may be made so too. A
prescription which is now compounded of five ingredients
formerly had fifty in it. So in cookery. If the nature of
the ingredients be well known, much fewer will do." There
is no need to talk here of philosophy : all that is wanted
is common sense. And one thing is pretty evident—that
whereas in the laboratory of the chemist elements are
minimised and processes are simplified to the last degree,
in the laboratory of the kitchen we see the very reverse,
and it is considered the height of science and of art to
multiply ingredients and to make processes as intricate
and ceremonious as possible. An artistic chef seems to
be ashamed of a simple receipt; although it should be
the pride of science to reduce labour and to aim at unity.
The preparation of a French sauce will soon be as full of
forms and ceremonies as the dances and incantations round
the witches' cauldron, with its
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blindworm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing.
The multiplication of ingredients and processes with a
long tedious ritual, more than half of which is idle, leads
directly to the multiplication of receipts—one scarcely
differing froin another. There is an old saying that too
many cooks spoil the broth ; and much the same is true of


Introduction
cookery books. The multiplication of receipts destroys
their usefulness and drives the reader to despair. It is
the ambition of an author to make his book as complete
as possible and to neglect nothing of value. But he soon
finds that every one who starts a new receipt is fanatical
over it: there is nothing like it, nothing to be compared
with it—a new light bas dawned upon the world since it
was discovered—and whoever has not got his pet secret is
in outer darkness. The pet secret may turn upon a detail
which is of no importance—but all the same, his fancy
has vivified it ; and whoever uses black pepper where he
would use cayenne, or should venture on claret where
he declares for port, is a miserable ass bereft of under-
standing. The author having to choose a receipt is over-
whelmed by the resounding asseverations of enthusiastic
gastronomers; and unable to pick and choose among them,
or to assert his independence of judgment, determines to
be on the right side, and puts down higgledy-piggledy all
the applauded receipts that come in his way. There has
scarcely ever been a cookery book written of which the
most cursory reader could not say that from this cause
alone-the multiplicity of uncertain receipts—it contains
an immense amount of surplusage. It is a garden full of
weeds and good plants run to seed. The prescriptions
confuse and sometimes confute one another, and not one-
half of them are convincing. The last new cookery book
published in this country proclaims as its recommendation
that it contains 10,000 receipts; and nearly all the popular
handbooks in the same strain advertise the immense
number of their nostrums. Who wants 10,000 prescrip-
tions in a country where most of us get on all our lives
with a few dozen good dishes, and where even the fancies
of an epicure are limited to a few scores ? It has been
calculated that there are something like 500 soups; and
-rême used to boast that he had turned out about 300.
an' far the greater number of these he probably prepared


10
Introduction
but once in his life ; and it is quite certain that the
great majority of them were trifling repetitions one of
another. How soups can be multiplied we have already
seen in the various forms of garden soups, where clear
gravy is used.
After all, it is probable that receipts would not be so
multiplied in the books but for a great practical fallacy.
It is always assumed that a cookery book will make a
cook. Nothing can be more false. If a man or a woman
has not the soul of a cook, the most minute receipts will
only end in failure. Sganarelle is made to say by Molière
—“Rôti, bouilli—même chose ;” and it is a literal verity
that there are persons pretending to be cooks who are as
ignorant as Sganarelle, and who cannot tell what is the
essential peculiarity of roasting, or why some meats are to
be roasted and others only stewed. If on the other hand
the soul of the cook is there, it is almost always enough
to give general rules and leading principles, and to leave
the cook to make variations according to his taste or his
means. Lord Byron, in Italy, gave the most minute direc-
tions for his plum-pudding ; it came out like a broth, and
was served in a tureen. There are copks in the best
kitchens who have been shown ever so often how to clarify
broth: yet they fail, and have to try over and over again
before they can succeed. The great thing, it cannot be
too often repeated, is to teach a principle, and then its
application to special cases follows as a matter of course.
He who has learnt to broil a steak properly does not
require a special receipt for broiling a mutton chop ; and
he who can make half a dozen sauces has really learnt how
to make half a hundred without extra receipts.
It is well to be particular in receipts; but it is idle to put
out of sight the fact that particulars vary every day, in every
country, and in every household. The sugar of England
is a good deal sweeter than the sugar of France. Tbo
salt of France is much more salt than that of Englai of


Introduction
II
The quantities to be used therefore must continually vary.
Again, everybody knows that vegetables are not alike in
flavour. Some apples are comparatively tasteless ; so are
some carrots ; and one lemon is sharper than another.
Therefore in one kitchen a lemon, an apple, or a couple of
carrots will go further to flavour a sauce than double the
number in another kitchen. Carême praised the beef of
England : he said it was perfectly beautiful, tender, deli-
cious to taste, pleasant to behold ; but he also said that it
wanted the unctuosity of the French beef, and would not
lend itself to sauces and rich consommés without using up
far more than would be required in France. What does
this mean, but that the quantities of beef used for soup
in one country will not do for the same soup in another
country? It depends on the butcher. It is the same
with ham,—the flavour of which is not to be measured by
weight. - A hundred pounds of French ham will not yield
the flavour contained in ten pounds of Spanish, German,
or English hams. It would be easy to multiply such ex-
amples, showing that quantities are deceptive, because they
are unintelligible apart from quality. When the reader
comes to the article on Soups, he will find that the very
highest authorities differ widely on the grand point as to
the quantity of water with which beef broth should be made.
Some tell us to make it with equal quantities of beef and
water ; others tell us to use four times as much water as
beef. The broth which results varies prodigiously in
strength ; so that the simple broth of one cook is often as
good as the double broth or consommé of another. Add to
this the uncertainty of the heat of fires, on which some
flavours greatly depend, and it must be evident that the
attempt to attain precision of detail in receipts is wholly
illusive. We can at best give indications and approxima-
tions, but numerical accuracy is out of the question.
In one point, however, accuracy is well within our reach ;
and nearly all the cookery books—even those produced under


12
Introduction
the eyes of great artists—make a mock of it: we can be
accurate in language. In the whole range of literature
and science, there is nothing to be found comparable to the
inaccuracy and corruption of culinary language. It is
something astounding. It seems as if all the ignorances in
the world had conspired together to darken speech and to
stupefy cooks. There is no science of cookery possible
without a correct phraseology. Science is but another
name for clear and classified knowledge ; and the first step
to it is precision of speech. It is for this reason that in
the following pages the reader will find more than usual
attention paid to the naming of dishes and to their history.
At the present moment the vocabulary of dinner is a mass
of confusion and ridiculous mistakes, which is every day
becoming worse and worse through the ignorant importation
of French names (originally themselves bad enough) into
English bills of fare. It comes of abominable pretension.
A leg of good English mutton—the best in the world—will
be entered as a Gigot of Pré Salé. What on earth has
become of the English Southdowns that they should be
described as a French Salt Marsh? I have seen a fillet-
steak served with tomatos entered as “ Filet de Boeuf à
l’Orientale,” under a notion that tomatos came originally
from the East and not from the West, and that the people
of the East are given to beef. This is not merely preten-
sion : it is perfidy. You order the Oriental fillet expecting
one thing, and you get something quite different.
Some people may innocently argue,—“What harm is
there in a wrong word so long as the dish is good ? We
eat the food and not the name.” But this is to mistake
human nature. A hungry taste is apt to be querulous, and
resents disappointment. Also there is a peculiar fastidi-
ousness in what has never yet been thoroughly analyzed
that peculiar condition known as Acquired taste. Perhaps
there is no such thing in persons who are grown up as a
perfectly pure and natural taste. The taste may be sound


Introduction
13
and even fine, but it is always more or less influenced by
custom and by association, until it breeds an Acquired
taste which is not to be reasoned with and which will not
be denied. The Greenlander takes to tallow; the southern
Frenchman glories in garlic ; the East Indian is mighty
in pepper. No force of reasoning can prove to them that
other tastes are better; they have an Acquired taste which
insists on being pampered. And precisely the same phe-
nomenon occurs, though in a less marked way, wben we
get a dish which we know, which we expect, and which
does not correspond to its name. A very pleasant Julienne
soup can be made without sorrel ; but those who look for
the sorrel always feel that without it the Julienne is a
failure. An acquired taste has been created, which suffers
under disappointment as cruelly as when the Greenlander
is deprived of his whale-blubber, the Gascon of his garlic,
and the East Indian of his curry.
Bad as it is, however, it is not on the perfidy or the pre-
tension of wrong names that it is most necessary to insist.
The great wrong about them is that they are a bar to all
chance of science and of progress in cookery. An idea
has got abroad and has been much fostered by French
authorities, that cookery as practised by the great artists is
perfect, and that there is nothing more to be done except
to ring the changes on what these artists have achieved.
It is probable enough that we shall not get many more new
foods or combinations of savour; but it is quite certain that
with the progress of science we ought to attain our results
by simpler and shorter processes, with aim more precise and
with success more assured. But nothing at all is possible
until we first of all understand each other by agreeing
upon terms about which there shall be no mistake. It is
for this reason that in the following pages I have dwelt so
much upon the mere grammar and vocabulary of the
kitchen. Till we have settled our definitions there is no
use in talking. And therefore, while in the receipts which
th the progre shorter proces But nothin


Introduction
are to follow I have done my utmost to simplify processes,
to discard mere subtleties and variations, and to cut down
useless expenses and tedious labour, I have gone first and
foremost on the principle that the greatest waste of all in
the kitchen is the waste of words. It is a simple fact of
which I undertake to produce overwhelming evidence, that
the language of the kitchen is a language “not under-,
standed of the people.” There are scores upon scores of
its terms in daily use which are little understood and not
at all fixed ; and there is not upon the face of this earth
an occupation which is carried on with so much of unintel-
ligible jargon and chattering of apes as that of preparing
food. Not only cooks but also the most learned men in
France have given up a great part of the language of
the kitchen as beyond all comprehension. We sorely want
Cadmus among the cooks. All the world remembers that
he taught the Greeks their alphabet. It is well-nigh for-
gotten that he was cook to the king of Sidon. I cannot
help thinking that cooks would do well to combine with
their cookery, like Cadmus, a little attention to the
alphabet.
Although cookery is not to be excused for its want of
science and still less for its deficiency in letters, it is
essential to add that the chemistry of food is, at least in
point of science, nearly as backward as its cookery. Of course
the chemists are extremely scientific in their methods
and dogmatic in their conclusions ; but if the object of
science be knowledge, and not mere show, I should like
to ask, what has chemistry with all its paraphernalia
done for the science of food ? Here is its last result,
embodied in a little table, which is borrowed from Dr.
Henry Letheby's book On Food. It is a table of what
is called “Nutritive Equivalents—calculated according to
the amounts of Nitrogen in the dry substances—human
milk being 100.” There never was a greater farce than
the following table of Nutritive Values :-


Introduction
15
VEGETABLE
.
.
.
..
.
·
·
Rice . .
Potatoes.
Maize
Rye.
Radish
.
Wheat .
Barley .
· · ·
81 | Oats . .
84 White Bread
100 Black Bread
106 | Peas . .
. 106 | Lentils
.
. 119 | Haricots .
. 125 | Beans .
·
138
142
166
. 239
. 276
. 283
. 320
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
ANIMAL
.
.
833
845
.
.
.
859
.
859
.
Human Milk.
Cow's Milk
Yolk of Egg .
Oysters.
Cheese ,
Eel.
Mussel.
Ox liver.
Pigeon .
Mutton . .
Salmon
100 | Lamb . .
237 White of Egg .
305 | Lobster.
305 | Skate
331 Veal .
434 Beef . .
528 Pork .
570 Turbot.
756
Ham
. 773 Herring . .
· · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · ·..
.
.
873
880
893
898
910
914
.
.
·
.
.
.
.
776
.
It appears from this that white of egg is more than
twice as nourishing as the yolk, and that a red herring is
more than nine times as nourishing as mother's milk.
What can be the worth of a science that works out such
incredible results ? Dr. Letheby has himself pointed out,
with his wonted candour, that not only would these results
-even if they were trustworthy-be valueless, since they
take no account of the digestive labour required to utilise
the different substances, but also that they cast doubt on
the received chemical doctrine that the nitrogenous ele-
ments of food are the most nutritious. In another part
of the same work he is driven to confess that, much as
physicians talk about our livers and the secretion of bile,
their true function in the digestion of food is at present


16
Introduction
unknown. It is notorious, too, that not one creature in
the universe knows what is the use of the spleen ; and the
anatomists and physiologists are still discussing what means
the pancreas or sweetbread. When thus, upon the simplest
of all questions in the science of food, chemists and physi-
cians are alike at fault and impotent, we need not be too
hard upon the cooks because they also are weak in science
and lisp much folly.


BOOK OF THE TABLE





BOOK OF THE TABLE
2
ABSINTHE.—There are two terrible verses in
the Revelation of St. John. " And the third
angel sounded his trumpet, and there fell a
great star from the heavens, burning like a
lamp, and it fell upon a third part of the rivers and
upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the
star was called Absinthe ; and the third part of the
waters became Absinthe, and many men died of the waters
because they were made bitter.” Of all the liqueurs,
absinthe has the reputation of being the most pernicious.
It is harmless enough in a small or occasional dose ; but
the French army got into the way of drinking it largely
and constantly in the Algerian campaigns of 1844-7 ;
from them it spread to the boulevards of Paris, where it
became so much a favourite that the five o'clock gossip at
the cafés every day came to be named the hour of absinthe ;
and Switzerland, which is supposed to make the best sort,
imports into France yearly more than 2,000,000 gallons of
it. When taken in excess, or when taken regularly, it is
found to be so hurtful that it is now forbidden in the
French army and navy. The Swiss absinthe, which is so
much admired and which is so baneful, is, it may be added,
not made entirely from wormwood proper, but from plants
related to it-such as southernwood, and another which
takes its name from the invulnerable Achilles.


20
Achilles
ACHILLES, named the godlike, a wonderful grill-cook
The most famous of the poets made an epic of his wrat'
and describes how he cooked a steak. Achilles is more
than an individual—he is a type. He is the type of a great
chief unbending from the cares of state to luxuriate in
art. It is a matter of history that Abraham, the father
of the faithful, could cook a veal cutlet. Louis XVIII.
(Louis le Désiré) has the credit of a great discovery in
cookery—a dish of truffles to be eaten with a purée of
ortolans. He not only invented this dish, but kept it a
secret of his cabinet, and invariably prepared it with his
own hands. It is fair to add that all great chiefs have
not shown such discernment. A statue of Achilles is raised
in Hyde Park to the honour of the Duke of Wellington,
who was indifferent to the triumphs of the table. His cook,
Félix, could not stay with him, and came with tears in his
eyes to Lord Seaford, begging that he would engage him at
reduced wages or no wages at all, for he was determined
not to remain at Apsley House. “Has the Duke been
finding fault ?” asked Lord Seaford. “Oh no,” said
poor Félix ; “I would stay if he had : he is the kindest
'and most liberal of masters; but I serve him a dinner that
would make Ude or Francatelli burst with envy, and he
say nutting ; I go out, and leave him to dine on a dinner
badly dressed by the kitchen-maid, and he say nutting. Dat
hurt my feelings.”
Seaford, begght
all, for he was wike been
ACQUA D'ORO.—There are many names for this liqueur,
French, German, and English ; but if we are to be just
we shall always hold to the Italian name, which every one
understands. It is the Italians who invented the liqueur in
the thirteenth century, and they brought it with them into
France when Catherine of Medici (1533) joined the French
court as wife of Henry II. There was at first no gold in
it-only a golden colour, like that which we now see in
Chartreuse. But as the chemists of the middle ages, and


Albert Pudding
21
ch
.
I of the renascence, nursed their dreams of golden
smutations; as there was much talk of the sovereign
ies of the king of metals; and as it was supposed that
grandest of all elixirs must be “aurum potabile," the
cers of the liqueur determined to justify its name in the
most palpable manner. They put chips of gold-leaf into it;
and so there could be no doubt of the fact that to drink
acqua d'oro was to drink gold. A change then became
necessary in the appearance of the liqueur. Gold-leaf
would not show in a gold-coloured liquid ; and therefore
the liquid, which had before been yellow, was rendered
colourless, to display the gold better. It is possible that
Dantzic may have led the way in perfecting some such
change of colour, and may thus have succeeded in giving
its name to the liqueur. Its real character, however, was
due, as above said, to the Italians, who brought with them
into France at least two liqueurs—this acqua d'oro, with
a predominant flavour of rosemary ; and rossolis, with a
predominant flavour of sundew.
Brillat-Savarin mentions it as a well-known fact that
liqueurs were first invented to soothe the old age of
Louis XIV., and on his authority the story has been
widely accepted. Any one who thinks for a moment must
doubt that it was reserved for so late a period as the old
age of Louis XIV. to invent the combination of spirits
with highly-perfumed syrups ; and the history of acqua
d'oro is a positive proof to the contrary.
ALBERT PUDDING.—It would be a misfortune if the
great and good Prince had not been commemorated at our
tables. He has been commemorated in a pudding which
is as simple as it is agreeable, which the poor man may
enjoy, and which the most opulent and fastidious cannot
ramit, it is sometimes called Albert pudding ; sometimes
Feat and Good. An angry Welshman may say that
ng before Prince Albert was born this pudding was


22
Alderman's Walk
known in Taffy-land as a Snowdon one--giving mit
fame to the hotel at the foot of Snowdon hill. It mayore
so; but the Welshman should be proud that his pudd'eat
has now been raised to the throne.
in
Beat half a pound of butter into a cream, and stir iher -
it the yolks of five eggs, half a pound of flour, six ounces
of sifted sugar, half a pound of sultana raisins, and the zest
of a lemon. Last of all add the whites of the eggs
well whisked. Have ready a mould, first well buttered
and then (for the Prince had an artistic eye) gracefully
lined with threads and slices, stars and lozenges of citron
and orange peel and angelica, in geometrical figures
worthy of the South Kensington school of design—which
the Prince fostered, and which glories in its geometrical
drawing. Pour the mixture into this mould, cover it with
oiled paper and a cloth, and steam it for three hours. Turn
out the mould, and serve it with English butter sauce,
sweetened with a little sugar and flavoured with lemon
and a glass of sherry.
ALDERMAN'S WALK.—An interesting name given to the
long incision on a haunch of mutton or venison, where the
most delicate slices are to be found.
ALDRICH.—Dean Aldrich was a Doctor of Divinity, and
the great master of logic at Oxford. His name is attached
to the following verses, which are however only a transla-
tion:
There are, if I do rightly think,
Five reasons why a man should drink :
Good wine, a friend, or being dry,
Or lest you should be by-and-by,
Or any other reason why.
The real author was a Romish priest, who wrote in
Latin,-
Si bene commemini, causæ sunt quinque bibend.- see in
Hospitis adventus ; præsens sitis ; atque futura ; ; Und
Aut vini bonitas ; aut quælibet altera causa.
the


Allemande
| 23
0 bo
nto
something to know that such cogent reasons for drink-
ire sanctioned by masters of logic and of theology.
LEXANDER or ALISANDER.—This plant is almost for-
cen, though it may still be found in Covent Garden. It
ongs to the parsley and celery order, and was at one
ae much used as a salad, but it fell into neglect when the
Italians brought celery into vogue towards the end of
the seventeenth century. The French called it “persil
de Macédoine," because it was supposed to have come from
Macedon. For this reason alone it is mentioned here. The
French authorities are much puzzled to explain how a
medley of vegetables or of fruits should now be called a
Macedon—"une Macédoine.” Their explanations are con-
jectural, are wholly insufficient; and even if nothing better
could be substituted for them must be discarded as much
too ridiculous and far-fetched. Amid these guesses it is
well to keep hold of fact, even though the fact may not
seem to give us any assistance. And the fact is that 200
years ago the word Macédoine in French cookery meant
not what we now understand—a medley, but simply the
parsley of Macedon, or, in English, the Alexander. In a
cookery book entitled Le Cuisinier Méthodique, and pub-
lished in 1662, the eighth chapter is devoted to salads.
One of the receipts is headed “Persil de Macédoine ;”
another “De Macédoine cuit;” a third “De racines de
Macédoine.” The next is for celery, and is dismissed with
this one direction—“De mesme façon que la Macédoine.”
That is the oldest use of the word I can find. The book is
in the British Museum.
ALLEMANDE—that is, Sauce Allemande, or Sauce of
Almayne. In old English and in old French cookery
there was always a broth of Almayne, but it gives one
po idea of what is now understood by the Almayne sauce,
which is nothing else than Velvet-down thickened with
olks of eggs, say four to a pint, smoothed with a pat of


24
Allspice
the freshest butter, and flavoured with lemon-juice; some-
times also, but not always, with essence of mushrooms.
How this sąuce got its name is not quite clear ; but it is
plain that, not only have the Hollander and the German
long been more or less confounded together as Dutchmen
(Deutsch), but also that the sauce Allemande or sauce of
Almayne is of the same character as the well-known Dutch
sauce or sauce Hollandaise, and is probably an attempt to im-
prove upon it. Now, Dutch sauce has a reputation among
epicures of being at once the best and the most useful of
all the sauces, while at the same time it has all the sim-
plicity for which Mynheer is renowned. It is nothing but
butter and eggs, with a little water. Suddenly, no doubt,
it entered into some Frenchman's brain to improve upon
this simplicity, and to refine upon the Dutch. He dis-
missed the water, and put Velvet-down instead of it, and,
finding the result too rich, he reduced the quantity of
butter. Make a note of this therefore: that Dutch and
Almayne sauce are but different forms of the same idea.
In Dutch or Holland sauce there is good water ; in
German or Almayne sauce there is the finest Velvet-
down.
Note another point: the Poulette sauce is another form
of the same idea. If the Almayne may be described as
an attempt to improve upon Holland sauce, the Poulette
may be described as a mock Almayne. In true Holland
sauce there is no flour. But the mock Almayne, known
as Poulette, attempts by means of flour to simulate the
effects of the Velvet-down introduced into true Almayne.
ALLSPICE.—A name of great distinction given to pimento,
because it is supposed to combine the flavour of cinnamon,
nutmeg and cloves.
ALMOND.-There is no fruit that touches the fancy sa
quickly and at so many points as the almond. If we can


Almond
25
not say that it is the most useful of fruits—a title which it
disputes with the apple-it is the most versatile and the
most poetical. The very form of the almond is delightful,
and there are phrases in which we liken to it things so
diverse as the eyes and finger-nails of beautiful women.
There is something startling to the imagination also in the
knowledge that this fruit, so fine of shape, so sweet and
soft to the palate, so soothing and medicinal in its in-
fluence, contains within itself the most potent and rapid of
poisons—hydrocyanic acid. It is another striking fact that
the almond blossoms before its leaves comes out. When
“ thro' wild March the throstle calls,” “the sunlit almond
blossom shakes” not only round the Queen's palace walls, but
in thousands of gardens throughout the land ; and it is one
of the joys of early spring about London-indeed, all over
England—to see this, about the earliest of the flowering
shrubs, with its pink blossoms upon bare branches, sug-
gesting images of hope in sorrow and triumph in desolation.
Strange, too, that the almond is a peach and a nectarine at
the same time. It is not only the parent of these fruit
trees, but there are almond trees in which almonds will
be found in a state of transition to peaches, and with both
peaches and nectarines on the same branch. Another
curious point is the caprice of the almond in bitterness.
There are not only bitter almond trees, but a number of bitter
almonds will be found growing on sweet almond trees, and
no one can be absolutely certain whether the kernel he is
about to taste will be sweet or bitter. To all this it is to be
added that the almond goes to form the most tempting
sweetmeats of children, who revel in nougat and maca-
roons, in hardbake, in sugared almonds or pralines and
in the fond union of almonds and raisins, happy pairs of
bride and bridegroom, entering into that rosy chamber of
bliss—the pearl-barred mouth of a red-lipped child.
The usefulness of the almond is wonderful. The phy-
rian knows this well. Mention has already been made of


26.
Aimona
the most rapid of poisons derived from it-prussic acid
which in weak doses holds a great place in the pharma-
copæia. The almond provides an admirable salve for the
skin, and either cures or relieves a variety of cutaneous
diseases. A few almonds eaten after dinner have been
known to give instant relief from heartburn. Almond
paste or emulsion forms a first-rate medium for the com-
bination and presentation of drugs ; and almond milk,
that is, almond triturated with sugar and water—has many
of the characteristics of animal milk, and forms a very
soothing beverage in fever, as well as a pleasant summer
drink.
To the perfumer the almond is a perfect treasure. Its
oil is the basis of Rowland's Kalydor, the still more
celebrated Macassar Oil, and Gowland's Lotion ; the flour
which remains after the oil has been extracted goes to
form what the French beautifiers call Pâte d'Amandes ;
and the husks are so rich in alkaline matter that their yield
is turned into soap.
To the cook it is not less valuable; for the almond cream
will smooth and improve some of his white soups, and in
the preparation of his sweet entremets its uses are illimi-
table, whether preserved whole and employed in decoration,
or pounded and lost to view to reappear in flavour. Blanc-
manger was originally a white chicken soup with a cream
of almonds added ; it is now a sweet entremet of almond
cream, without soup or chicken, but isinglass instead, and
allowed to cool in a mould. So it was that almond milk
was originally orgeate—a barley water. Almonds were
added to it to enrich it; and they have been found so all-
sufficient by themselves that they are used alone without
barley, and the drink is still called orgeate. For most of
the good things of which almonds are the chief ingredient,
it is best to go the confectioner ; for those in which they.
play a subordinate part, or appear under new names-a
orgeate and blancmanger—the receipts will be found under


Almond
27
special headings. Here it must be enough to describe
almond cream or milk, and the almond pudding.
Almond Milk, Cream, or Paste.-Sweet almonds are
brayed in a mortar with a slight sprinkling of bitter
ones, and from time to time, to prevent oiling, with a few
drops of cold water. According to the quantity of water,
this is either a paste, a cream, or milk. Add sugar or
syrup to taste. For orgeate, or almond milk to drink, it
used to be the rule to let the water and pounded almonds
infuse for several hours on cinders or on the angle of the
stove. Now it is considered enough to let it rest in a cool
place for about a couple of hours. When the flavour
of the almonds is extracted, the infusion is to be strained
through a napkin, to have a dash of orange-flower water
added to it, to be diluted to the thinness of a drink, and to
be kept in ice or in a very cold place, lest it should like
milk turn sour. It is very refreshing in fever or in hot
weather; and is considered especially good for orators and
all who have to use the throat much. In his great speech
of 1860, when he lost his voice, and the country was kept
waiting a week for his famous wine budget, Mr. Gladstone
might be seen drinking small glassfuls of what had all the
appearance of almond cream—though whether it was so or
not I cannot say.
Almond Cream Sauce.— Blanch an ounce of Jordan
almonds and four or five bitter ones. Pound them with
four ounces of sugar and a tablespoonful of orange-flower
water, and then add a gill of cream and two raw yolks of
eggs. Take this to the angle of the stove in a saucepan or
enamelled bowl ; whisk it into a thickish froth, and it will
become a very pretty sauce for puddings.
Almond Pudding.–Take half a pound of sweet almonds
with half a dozen bitter ones, and having blanched them,
rinray them to a smooth paste with a little orange-flower
ater to prevent their oiling. Mix this gradually with the
aten yolks of eight and the whites of four eggs, with


28
Ambigu
four ounces of clarified butter, and with sugar to taste
say from six to eight ounces. The next step is not neces-
sary, but it is advisable in order to secure the consistency
of the pudding throughout. Put it into a saucepan and
stir it constantly over a slow fire till it begins to thicken.
Then add to it a wineglassful of sherry or a liqueur-glass of
noyau—some say curaçoa. Next pour it either into a pie-dish
which has been lined with a thin puff paste, or into one
which has been rubbed with oil of sweet almonds, in order
that it may afterwards turn out, and put it into the oven,
to bake for half an hour. Serve it with a fruit syrup.
The best almonds are those called the tender-shelled-
the best of these the Jordan—and the best Jordan almonds
come not from the Jordan but from Malaga. There is no
doubt, however, that this variety came originally from
Palestine. Every reader of the Bible must know that the
Hebrews rejoiced in their almond trees. Aaron's rod that
blossomed yielded almonds, and Hebrew poetry abounds in
allusions to the almond. Needless to say, that almonds go
admirably after dinner with the wine. They may be
pleasantly varied by a little roasting. Plutarch describes
how a Roman physician, who was expected by his host
to drink largely, warded off drunkenness by eating bitter
almonds between his cups.
AMBIGU.--A convenient French name for a repast of
one course—all the dishes, hot and cold, together with the
dessert, being on the table at once-as at a ball supper.
AMERICA.—There is a great defect in this volume,
nothing being said in it of American cookery, though
much has to be said in every cookery book of food which
we owe to America—as the turkey, the potato, the
tomato, vanilla, red pepper. Let us hope that in a futuris
edition there will be no such gap.


Anchovy
29
AMPHITRYON.-Few names are more highly honoured
than this ; yet none is more ambiguous nor more curiously
linked with shame and ridicule. The true Amphitryon was
thoroughly befooled and dishonoured. He was thus injured
by the king of gods, who took his name and his form,
entered his house, and made love to his wife. When the
two Amphitryons were brought face to face, and each
claimed against the other to be the true one, the false
Amphitryon Jupiter-invited the assembled company to
dine, whereupon his friend Mercury exclaimed that this
settled the question and resolved all doubts-
Le véritable Amphitryon
Est l'Amphitryon où l'on dine.
It is a good story to laugh at. Molière brought out all its
humour with superlative gaiety, and with sly allusion to
Louis XIV. and the husband of Madame de Montespan ;
but what a tribute it is to the genius of the comedian that
no one now objects to the name, and it is always accepted
as a title of honour! The one Amphitryon is dishonoured,
the other dishonours him. No matter : dishonoured or
dishonouring, he is the true Amphitryon who gives a
dinner, and everybody is proud of deserving the name.
ANCHOVY is the most renowned herring in the world,
and is the foundation of the celebrated sauces of classical
times—garum and alec. Dr. Badham says, with perfect
truth, that the anchovy " was to the ancient world what
the herring is to the modern-compensating in some degree
for its inferiority to the last while fresh by surpassing
when cured the very herring itself as a relish ; and
furnishing the materials for the finest fish sauce either on
record or in use." The best that come to England hail
from Gorgona.
: Inchovy Butter is made with any quantity of butter
on half an ounce to an ounce for each anchovy. The
to P.ounce scale is the best for ordinary use. Skin and


30
Anchovy
bone the anchovies ; pound them in a mortar with a little
of the butter ; rub them through a sieve with the back of
a wooden spoon ; mix the rest of the butter with them ;
and if they are to be served at table cold, tint them with
rose pink and mould them into shapes.
Anchovy Essence.—The essence of anchovies sold in shops
is so often adulterated that it is wise to know how to be
independent of it. Clean six anchovies, and pound them
in a mortar with a tablespoonful of capers, two shalots,
and two red chillies. Put them in a small stewpan, with
thyme, bayleaf, mace, and a wineglassful of mushroom
ketchup, and let them simmer gently for five minutes. Then
add two wineglassfuls of good broth and reduce it rapidly.
Press it through a sieve, and finish it with a small piece
of glaze and a little lemon-juice. Never mind the want of
colour, which in the essence of the shops is too often the
result of baneful minerals.
Anchory Sauce is the English sauce—made with an-
chovy butter instead of ordinary butter ; or otherwise,
English sauce made in the ordinary way and flavoured
with essence of anchovies.
Anchovy Toast.—Cut slices of bread as for sandwiches,
and fry them in clarified butter till they become brown
without becoming hard and crisp ; spread them with
anchovy butter, upon this lay fillets of anchovies, and
serve them hot.
ANDOUILLETTE is the name of a sausage made from
andouille—the French name for chitterlings. Andouille
itself originally meant a sausage, being no other than the
Latin inductilis—a duct into which minced meat has been
inducted. We know little of the andouillette in England.
In France it is a great favourite ; but it can be had in
perfection at Dumas', 55, Prince's Street, Leicester Squhe-
It is to be grilled and eaten very hot.


Anise-seed
31
ANGELICA is not only thus gloriously called in ordinary
speech : its scientific name is Angelica Archangelica; and
its virtues were supposed to be so wonderful that it has
also been called The Holy Ghost, while the Carthusian
monks of the monastery at Grenoble have appropriated the
sacred plant to themselves, and made of it a liqueur—Char-
treuse—the name of which they stoutly defend in the law
courts as their monopoly. The great virtues of this angelic
drink, which the holy fathers claim to be alone possessed of,
are sudorific, diuretic, and carminative. It is interesting
to think of the angelic plant, and the holy fathers who
cultivate it, being so kindly to the bowels of the human
race, and ever intent on defeating the wind and coaxing
perspiration. The plant has a fine pungent flavour; and
the holy fathers know how to allure the senses, for they
invest their distillation with lovely tints, making a green as
well as a yellow or golden Chartreuse. In the olden time
angelica used to be blanched for salad like celery. In this
respect it has shared the fate of the alisander or parsley of
Macedon : it is no longer used for salad. The stems,
however, the stalks, and the midribs of the leaves, are
candied, and are used like candied orange and citron peel
to flavour and ornament sweet dishes. The Laplanders,
however, to this day roast the stalks, and eat them for
hoarseness, for coughs, and to produce perspiration. This
shows that if the plant be indeed worthy of the celestial
personages whose names it has received, they must be very
favourable to copious perspiration and to diuretics.
ANISE-SEED, ANISETTE. —Anise belongs to a class of
plants, including carraway or carvy, cumin, dill, and
coriander, which are supposed to have a carminative
virtue. It is therefore much prized in nurseries where
the infants suffer from flatulence. It is also supposed to
increase the supply of milk in mothers. The French seem
to prize greatly the liqueur known as Anisette of Bordeaux,


32
Appetite
Doubtless it has its virtues, but it has a sickly taste, and
may well be left among the medicine bottles of the
nursery.
The most admirable employment of anise-seed in England
is in simulating the odour of a fox. To vary the amuse-
ment of foxhunting and to make sure of a good run, the
huntsman goes forth in the morning dragging after him a
bag of anise-seed, and choosing the best line across country
for an exhilarating and not too easy ride. The hounds are
afterwards put upon the scent, and follow it as a genuine
fox to the finish.
APPETITE.— The place of appetite at the dinner-table
cannot be more happily described than by Carême. He
was for a time chef to the Prince Regent in England, who
devoted about an hour every day to a philosophical discourse
with the great artist on dinners past and dinners to come.
One day said the Prince, “ Carême, you will make me die
of indigestion. I want to eat everything you send to
table, and the temptation is too great-en vérité." The last
two words are no doubt the French way of rendering
the Regent's double-shotted language. “Sir,” answered
Carême truly, “my business is to provoke your appetite ;
it is not for me to regulate it.”.
APPLE is the best known and most useful fruit in
England. The crab or wild apple is indigenous; the
cultivated kinds have been introduced at different times,
beginning with the Romans, who were fond of them, and
had a proverb founded on the fact that a Roman meal set
out with eggs and ended with apples-"ab ovo usque ad
mala.” There has long been a theory current to account
for the scarcity of certain kinds of apples--and it is sure to
live for ages among the fruiterers, although it is now quite
exploded among scientific gardeners—that an apple lasts no
longer than its original tree. Say that the tree lasts for
200 years : at the end of that time the slips and g


Appie
33
which have been taken, at ever so many removes, from this
tree will cease to bear, though themselves quite recent. If
there is a scarcity of any kind of apple, it is through neglect.
The redstreak, which Sir Isaac Newton loved, and which
was our most popular apple in the seventeenth century,
is dying out, simply because it is not sufficiently prized : it
is replaced by better varieties everywhere, except in the
cider counties, where it is found useful. The oldest apple
of which we have any record in England is the pearmain :
it dates many centuries back, and it shows no sign of
decay. It is a curious fact, however, with regard to the
old winter pearmain, which is supposed to be the father of
all the other varieties of pearmain, that it ripens in
December. Now, the earliest record of the pearmain
occurs in a tenure in the county of Norfolk, which bears
the date 1200, and requires that 200 pearmains and four
hogsheads of pearmain cider should be paid into the
Exchequer yearly at Michaelmas. This surely implies that
the pearmain was ripe before Michaelinas,—and there is
indeed a pearmain, by some called the summer, by others
the autumn pearmain, which ripens early in September.
Dr. Hogg, however, who is the chief authority on apples
in this country, has decided that the old pearmain is the
winter variety. He has also explained that the last
syllable of the name is the same as in the old spelling of
Charlemaine. Pearmain therefore means an apple like
a great pear.
There are about 1500 varieties of apple named. It will
be enough here to give the names of about fifty of the best,
in the order of the months in which they ripen. The
names of the months mentioned after them show the
length of time they ought to keep if well looked after. It
is curious to note that, unlike other fruits, the best apples,
and those which keep the longest, are those which ripen
latest.
3


34
Apple
Dessert Apples
June-Joanneting. (August.) This is commonly called
June-eating, and the dictionaries spell it jenneting. It really
means "little John,” after John the Baptist, whose day,
the 24th of June, ought to see it ripe. It is the earliest of
all the apples; but in England we can seldom count on it
before July. It does not keep long.
July—Early Harvest. (August.) Of American origin.
Margaret. (August.) A conical, green-yellow apple,
named after St. Margaret's day, 20th July, when it ought
to be ripe. It soon turns mealy.
August–King of the Pippins. (September.) Ovate
or conical.
September-Summer Pearmain. (October.) Graven-
stein. (October.) An apple of German origin.
October—Another King of the Pippins, but not the
true ; better called Hampshire Yellow, or Golden Winter
Pearmain. Lasts till January. Golden Reinette.
(January.) Api, or Lady Apple. (April.) Named from
the forest of Api, in Brittany, where first discovered.
November—Fearn's Pippin (February.) Blenheim
Pippin. (February.) Herefordshire Pearmain. (Feb-
ruary.) Ribston Pippin. (March.) The favourite apple
of England. Golden Pippin. (April.) One of the oldest
English apples. The Empress Catherine of Russia was so
fond of it that every year she had supplies of it sent from
England, each apple wrapped in silver paper. Reinette
de Canada. (April.) Bradick's Nonpareil. (April.)
Winter Pearmain – the oldest of English apples.
(April.)
December_Dutch Mignonne. (April.) A German
apple. Downton Nonpareil. (April.) Newtown
Pippin. (April.) Named after Newtown, Long Island.
111.)


Appie
35
This apple is imported from America. For more than
a hundred years the English gardeners have tried to
reproduce it, but they cannot reach the flavour of the
American stock. Send to Liverpool for a barrel of them.
They are cheap enough.
January—Nonpareil. (May.) A Jesuit brought this
over from France. Boston Russet. (May.) With a
Ribston flavour.
February—Sturmer Pippin. (June.) The last of the
Mohicans.
Kitchen Apples
Most of these are called codlings—from the old verb to
coddle, to boil a little, stew or simmer. The peculiar
virtue of a kitchen apple is expressed in a phrase which is
a constant reminder of the Garden of Eden-to fall. An
apple is said to fall when on being cooked it forms a pulpy
mass of equal consistence. Some of the dessert apples-
as the Wormsley pippin, summer pearmain, golden winter
pearmain, Fearn’s, Blenheim and Ribston pippins, Hereford-
shire pearmain, reinette de Canada, Dutch mignonne,
Downton nonpareil—have this falling virtue, and may
therefore be used in the kitchen. The following are said
to be unfit for dessert, and are used only for cooking.
But all depends on taste, and a lady of very good taste bas
been heard to say that Sops-in-wine is the most heavenly
of the apples, and might well tempt an innocent in
Paradise or reward a goddess on Mount Ida.
August-Keswick Codling. (September.) Carlisle
Codling. (December.)
October-Hawthornden Codling. (December.) An
apple found in the poetical garden of Drummond of
Hawthornden. Beauty of Kent. (February.) Sops-
in-Wine. (February.) A very ancient English culinary
and cider apple.


36
Apple
November - Newtown Spitzemberg. (Februarv.)
Named by William Cobbett “the matchless.” Bedford.
shire Foundling. (March.)
December-Norfolk Beefing. (June.)
Pleasant as the apple is by itself, it needs assistance in
cooking. Its taste requires nearly always to be heightened
by other fruity flavours, to be crossed with spices, to be
enriched with butter, or to be magnified in contrast with
sugars and creams. For the fruity flavour it mixes best
with apricots or quinces ; a mash or marmalade of either
of these is excellent in any of the cooked preparations ;
and the addition of lemon-juice is almost imperative. For
spicy additions the old English way was to add cloves to
every form of baked apple, but especially to apple-pie ;
now it is more usual to employ ground cinnamon; and
nutmeg, and the zest of either lemons or oranges, are also
in favour. Butter, in combination with sugar, gives a
peculiar richness to cooked apples ; but for the most part
it should not be added till the last moment-and not at all
if the apples are to be eaten cold. Sugar helps the apple
much- even a sweet one—in the cooking ; but if it is
necessary to add sugar at table, there is more of a flavour
that goes well with the apple in some of the best brown
sorts than in pounded loaf-sugar. Cream also is generally
added at the table, and all the world knows how its bland-
ness contrasts with and brings into relief the fine acid of
the fruit. Which of these helps shall be chosen for the
apple must be left to individual taste and to the accidents
of time and place. They are more or less required for
every form of cooked apple, and the reader will understand
this if no further mention should be made of their neces-
sity in some of the following receipts.
Two words more. The first—that apples, as fast as they
are peeled and cut, must be thrown into cold water to keep


Apple
37
of apples at the cor example, place co a mash or mar
them white; and lemon-juice will recover their whiteness
if they should happen to lose it. The second—that it is
always good to follow the Continental plan of dividing
cooked apples into two portions: the one to be cooked
longer than the other, and reduced to a mash or marma-
lade. In a pie, for example, place a mash or marmalade
of apples at the bottom of the dish, and heap on this the
raw slices, which are to be baked enough, but not so much
as to lose their solidity.
Black Caps.—This is the primitive form. When Eve
cooked apples for Adam, she must have baked them in their
skins. The form is kept up when its meaning has departed.
Apples were baked in their skins upon ashes, or under or
before a fire from which there was danger of ashes. The
skins were often burnt on one side, and made black caps.
But now what do we do? We punch out the cores, and
the apples have no longer a protection from ashes. We
therefore bake them in an oven or in a casserole ; and
then, to make believe that we cooked them before the fire,
we pass a salamander over them, to produce the primæval
black caps. Some people would imagine that it was time
to seek another world if black caps were abolished. They
are essential to the existence of the human race.
Baked Apples.—The apples are peeled, cored, and
arranged on a dish. The hollows are filled with sugar
and sprinkled with cinnamon. Some sugаr may be placed
round them, with a spoonful or two of water. They are
then baked in the oven.
Buttered Apples.—The same as the foregoing, with this
difference—that the hollows of the apples are filled with
butter as well as sugar ; and that, instead of putting water
in the dish, there is a mash or marmalade of apples, or it
may be of apricots.
Stered Apples or Compôte.—Simmer the apples, peeled
and cored, with clarified sugar and lemon-juice ; also a


38
Appie
scrape of the lemon-rind. Serve them with custard or
cream.
Apples and Rice. Either proceed as for buttered apples,
but placing them in a bed of sweetened and buttered rice
instead of the apple marmalade; or else take stewed apples
and arrange them on rice which has been cooked in sugar,
milk and salt, with lemon-peel. In either case finish them
in the oven.
Apples and Bread.—This is one of the most perfect of
the apple combinations. In its most refined form it is
called a Charlotte, and will be found described under that
name, which equally applies to apricots and other fruits.
A more rough and ready receipt goes by the name of
Brown Betty, whose name may be also consulted.
Apple Pie.—This English pie is famous all over the
world. Prepare the apples according to the general direc-
tion given above. Put them in a pie-dish with quinces,
for which the preparation will be found under the proper
name, with sugar and with whatever spice may be pre-
ferred. Make a paste—either No. 4, a puff paste, or No. 7,
a short paste. Cover the pie with this paste, first placing
a band of it round the wetted edge of the dish ; trim it
nicely ; decorate it with leaves of paste : egg it over, and
bake it in the oven for three-quarters of an hour.
Apple Tart.—Sufficiently described once for all under
the head of tart, which is not to be confounded with pie.
Pies are covered ; tarts open.
Apple Turnover.-Roll out a short paste, and cut it in
rounds. Put some stewed apples, with proper seasoning,
on one side of the round ; turn over the paste so as to
make a semicircle. Close the edges, trim them, and bake
them in a moderate oven for twenty minutes.
Apple Pudding.–Cut a dozen apples in quarters, toss
them with an ounce of butter, sugar and spices, over a slow


Apricot
39
fire till they begin to soften, and then let them get cold.
Line a pudding-basin with paste No. 8; put in the apples,
cover all over, tie it in a cloth, and boil it for an hour and
a half.
Apple Pudding of Nottingham.—Arrange the apples in
a pie-dish as for baking—the hollows filled with sugar and
sprinkled with cinnamon. Pour over them a light batter
—the best is described among the fritters, No. 1—and
bake for three-quarters of an hour.
Apple Fritters.—Steep the apples for an hour before-
hand in brandy and sugar, and then proceed as for other
fritters.
Apple Sauce may be made by stewing the apples; but
best by baking or roasting them. When they have fallen,
beat them smooth. with a wooden spoon, pass them through
a sieve, and add to them a very little sugar. Nearly all
the receipts recommend a tiny bit of butter : but the
quantity is so small as to be inappreciable, and is only
mentioned because cooks are afraid of simplicity. No
butter, therefore.
APRICOT.-The old form of the name is apricock, and
this is nearer the right word. The last two syllables are
the first two of precocious, with the same meaning. It is
a Latin word which went to Arabia, which was there used
with the definite article—Al-precoc, like Al-koran and
Algebra—which thence passed to Spain as Albarcoque, and
came over to England as Apricock. We owe the fruit in
England to a Catholic priest, named Wolfe, who became
gardener to King Henry VIII. But the best of all our
apricots, the Moorpark variety, came over much later. It
was at one time called the Temple apricot, from an idea
that we owe it to Sir William Temple. It was also called
the Anson, because Lord Anson was supposed to have
hitroduced it; but the probability is that it came over to
Moorpark much later, when Lord Dunmore resided there.


40
Architecture of the Table
There is a great controversy, which is still undecided
among the gardeners, whether it is or is not identical with
among the same more
the peach-apricot. It has a peculiarity in this—that the
in this that the
stone is perforated, so that a pin can be passed through it.
The aperture is not easy to find. It is in a small groove
on the thin side, near the base. A very fine fruit, it scarcely
deserves the name of Apricock—the early ripe—for it does
not ripen till the beginning or middle of August.
The apricot is cooked in all the ways prescribed for
apples. There is the Charlotte of apricots with bread ;
there is the beignet, or fritter, of apricots with batter;
there is the Condé of apricots with rice; and there is the
pie or tart of apricots with pastry. Of all the English
fruit pies or tarts, a green apricot one has long been
deemed by far the finest ; but Mr. Hayward will have it
that a green apricot pudding is a much better thing. Of
marmalades and compôtes it is needless to speak.
Carême took a great deal of pains to describe how
apricots and other fruits may be boiled, passed through a
hair sieve, and worked into a Bavarois-or Bavarian cheese.
It is better, however, to keep the cream separate, according
to one of Francatelli's receipts :
Apricot Jelly with Cream.—Put eighteen ripe apricots,
from which the stones have been removed, into a preserv-
ing pan, with a pound of loaf sugar and a gill of spring
water. Stir this on a brisk stove fire until all the fruit is
dissolved. Rub it through a hair sieve, mix two ounces of
clarified isinglass with it, and fill a jelly mould with it.
When the jelly has set firm, turn it out on a dish, and fill
the centre with whipped cream. So with pears, apples, and
quinces.
ARCHITECTURE of the Table. This is a department of
the art of cookery which has given rise to the grandest
enthusiasm and to the gravest discussions. A dish shou
look tempting and a table should look brilliant; but wh


Architecture of the Table
41
we peer into a kaleidoscope we have no desire to eat the
variegated patterns; and it is not to be supposed that food
will be more relished for being arranged as a landscape or
a garden, or for being built into picturesque ruins and
handsome statuary. There is something childish in this
desire to make our edibles pictorial. It may be left to
children to eat gingerbread kings and saccharine horses.
Nevertheless a great cook, perhaps the greatest of this
century-Carême, though he had other titles to our grati-
tude, is most of all famous for his picturesque pastry ; and
some of his structures may still be seen in the storerooms
of the Tuilleries, if they were not burnt in 1871. It is a
mistake, however, to suppose that Carême originated this
kind of ornament. Horace Walpole describes how in the
last century the Intendant of Gascony gave a magnificent
banquet on the birth of the Duke of Burgundy. The
centrepiece was covered with wax figures moved by clock-
work, which at the conclusion of the feast were set in
motion, and gave a representation of the labour of the
Dauphiness and the happy birth of an heir to the monarchy.
He also tells an anecdote of Lord Albemarle's cook in this
country, who prepared a middle dish of gods and goddesses
eighteen feet high, and complained bitterly because Lord
Albemarle would not demolish the ceiling of his dining-
room to make room for the gorgeous structure. In the
previous century an English cook, Robert May, contrived
an astonishing trophy-a ship with guns charged with
veritable powder, and a castle of pies full of live frogs and
birds. After the guns were fired the ladies were directed
to take eggshells full of perfume and throw them at each
other, " to sweeten the stink of powder.” Then the lids
were to be removed from the castle of pies ; the frogs
would jump out, making the ladies shriek ; the birds would
• fly forth, putting out the candles ; and nobody knows what
kisses and struggles and pretty adventures might happen
when the lights were out. When the candles were lit again,


42
Arrowroot
the company might proceed to the more serious business of
mastication.
ARROWROOT is nothing but starch ; and it has the same
nutritive value as expressed in chemical symbols, however
and wherever it is obtained. It contains, that is to say, in
a hundred parts, eighteen of water and eighty-two of starch.
This is a great fact for the grocers who sell one kind of
arrowroot for another. There is absolutely no difference
that can as yet be detected in the chemical constitution
of the starch in each. There is another difference,
however. It is clear to the microscopic eye in the size
and form of granules belonging to one starch and to
another. Still more, there is a marked difference in the
taste and in the digestibility of the different kinds. An
invalid can take the Bermuda and Jamaica arrowroots,
made from the root of the Maranta arundinacea, when he
can take no other. The other arrowroots—East Indian,
Brazilian, Tahitan, British—may be wholesome enough, but
they are made from different roots (British from potatoes),
which are not to be compared with the true West Indian
arrowroot, obtained from a root that was in close alliance,
if not identical, with some supposed remedy for poisoned
arrows.
Arrowroot Sauce is a lemon sauce, thickened with
arrowroot.
ARTICHOKE.—It is good for a man to eat thistles, and to
remember that he is an ass. But an artichoke is the best
of thistles, and the man who enjoys it has the satisfaction
of feeling that he is an ass of taste. There are several
elaborate ways of dressing the artichoke—the Barigoule
way and the Lyonnese way, for example, which have little to
recommend them but their elaboration. Each is a moun-
tain of labour for a mouse of result. The result is not banda
but it is always melancholy to see waste—and in art
pecially the pleasure of it is destroyed when we are m:


Asparagus
43
conscious of effort. The Barigoule and Lyonnese receipts
are frantic attempts to paint the lily and to perfume the violet.
When a great cook brings the whole battery of his kitchen
to bear upon a simple artichoke bottom, one is reminded of
Victor Hugo's comparison : “It is as if the Deity were to
bombard a lettuce with a thunderbolt.” Depend upon it
that the simplest way of dressing the artichoke is the best.
Trim it, boil it in salt and water, and let it be eaten with
oil and vinegar, with English sauce or with Holland sauce.
There is a special receipt for these sauces when served with
vegetables. Some French cooks, before sending the arti-
choke to table, are careful to remove the choke, or as they
call it, the hay. For this purpose the artichoke must either
be allowed to cool, or must be dipped in cold water, and.
heated again after the removal of the hay-which might too
vividly remind us how much we are asses. That hay in the
artichoke certainly raises a delicate question, and it must
be left to the good feeling of cooks whether they will or
will not send it up to table.
ASCALON.—Ever to be remembered as the place where
the Crusaders found the loveliest of onions, which they
brought back to Western Europe and named after the
place of its nativity. The name is now corrupted into
eschalot, shalot, and scallion. The giant Philistines who
founded Ascalon are no more. The tiny onions of Ascalon
live for ever.
ASPARAGUS.—There is no cooked vegetable which raises
expectation and lures the fancy so much as the asparagus.
We are attracted to it, as to the chief salad-plants, by some-
thing more than the craving for food.-it is a charm.
When we know that it is a lily, near of kin to the lily-
of-the-valley, we are not surprised at its power over us.
When we hear that it is ranked with the asphodels, we are
ready to believe that the fields of asphodel in which the
blessed roam in Elysium must be beds of asparagus. It is


44
Asparagus
gratifying to know that this truly Elysian lily—though it
does not look like a lily when it comes to table—is a
native of England. Of kindred plants, besides the lily-of-
the-valley, there are also in England Solomon's seal and
butcher's broom. Both of these have young shoots which
may be eaten like asparagus; and the latter is a great
curiosity, having a flower which grows out of the leaf. All
these plants have a certain narcotic and soothing influence,
which is due to a peculiar principle named by the chemists,
after their wont, asparagin. It is a pretty name, but it
does not tell us much. We have banished asparagus from
the British pharmacopoeia, but the French still hold to it,
chiefly, however, making use of the root. It is supposed
to still and soothe the action of the heart, like foxglove ;
it is also supposed to act as a lithic in preventing gravel;
and it is known to have a marked and very rapid action
on the kidneys. Whatever may be its medical virtues, we
in England know them only through the charm of the
vegetable when it comes to the table. And certainly
nowhere is it cultivated to such an extent as in the neigh-
bourhood of London. It grows wild near the seaside. At
Kynance Cove, in Cornwall, there is an island called
Asparagus Island, because of its abundance there. Loudon,
who ought to know, declares that nowhere, unless in
Holland, is the plant brought to such perfection as in
England ; and he adds—without any exception whatever
—that the asparagus beds of Mortlake and Deptford are
the most extensive in the world.
The greatest defect of the English arrangement of dinner
is that almost always vegetables are of no account save as
adjuncts. It is not understood, except in the dinners of
the poor, that a vegetable may make an excellent dish to be
eaten by itself alone. To this rule, however, there are two
exceptions made--in favour of artichokes and asparagus.
It is a question whether this exception is due to a pure
admiration of the vegetable, or to the circumstance that,


Asparagus
45
having to be eaten with the fingers, it is necessary to put
down either knife or fork in order to seize the vegetable.
The probability is, that if the Creator had thought fit, in
His wisdom, to endow the Englishman with three or four
hands, he would never be seen eating the artichoke or the
asparagus alone, but always in conjunction with some
other food.
Asparagus in Stalks.-After washing and trimming the
stalks, tie them in a bundle, or bundles, of about a score in
each, and cut the white ends even. Put them in hot water
with a small handful of salt, and boil them for twenty
minutes. Drain them then on a napkin, and serve them
on toasted bread which has been dipped in the water they
have boiled in. Send them to table with English butter
sauce, for which there is a special direction. Some, how-
ever, prefer to eat them with oil and vinegar. In this
case they are, as the French say, to be refreshed with cold
water.
Fontenelle was passionately fond of asparagus, but he
liked them with oil. His friend, the Cardinal Dubois,
liked them not less fervently, but he preferred them with a
butter sauce. Fontenelle had a great bundle of asparagus
sent to him; he told the Cardinal of it, invited him to
dinner, and promised faithfully that half should be served
with oil and half with sauce. The Cardinal accepted; but
just upon the dinner-hour came a message to his host that
he had fallen in a fit, and was dead, or dying. Fontenelle
rushed towards the kitchen: “All with oil! all with oil!” le
cried, fearing that the cook would not send up enough of his
favourite sauce to eat with all; and then, having paid this
honour to the asparagus, he returned to his dining-room to
lament over his friend. So great is the influence which
• asparagus, with oil, has been known to exert over the
human soul.
Asparagus Peas.—These are the points of young green


46
Aspic
asparagus cut into peas, and served, like peas, along with
fricandeaux, sweetbreads, or cutlets. They are also served
separately, as an entremet, and are then prepared exactly
as peas in the French fashion.
Asparagus Soup.-Cut all that is tender from a bundle
of asparagus, and boil it with some salt in about half a
gallon of water. Spinach may be added for colour, and
parsley and spring onions for flavour. When boiled
enough, strain off the liquor and keep it in reserve—at the
same time separating the asparagus from the other vege-
tables, and braying it in a mortar. Then take about two
ounces of flour, the same quantity of butter, and a spoonful
of white sugar. Pass this for five or six minutes over the
fire, to make a white roux. Mix the pounded asparagus
with it, add a little of the liquor, let it boil for a few
minutes, and pass it through a tammy, or a fine strainer,
back into the pan which contains the chief portion of
liquor. Finally, mix two yolks of eggs with half a tumbler
of cream, a little melted butter, and a pinch of grated
nutmeg. Stir this into the hot soup, and it is then ready
to be served, with some fried crusts apart.
There is no broth in the foregoing, and it is not needed.
But those who wish it can use chicken broth in place of
the water.
Asparagus with Eggs.—One of the most distinguished of
omelets is made by cooking asparagus in the usual way,
cutting the ends into peas, and mixing them with pepper
and salt in the omelet. In the same way they are excel-
lent mingled with scrambled eggs (@ufs brouillés).
ASPIC.—There are most elaborate receipts for making
aspic jelly, and on great occasions let these receipts be
followed. But as it comes constantly into use, and ought
to be ever at hand, it is necessary to make the preparation
as simple and easy as possible. Boil down calves' feet
with a faggot of potherbs (Faggot, No. 6). When this is


Aspic
47
ready, add to it for final flavour sherry or Marsala, and
some tarragon vinegar in which a faggot of ravigote herbs
have boiled. Test the strength of the jelly, clarify it
with white of egg, and strain it through a jelly bag.
And now it may be asked, Why is it called aspic? There
is upon this point the most curious ignorance, although the
explanation lies upon the surface. Most Englishmen think
it must have to do with the asp, and the more readily since
they remember the question of Cleopatra, bitten by the
snake—“ Have I the aspic in my lips ? ” Even French-
men, who ought to be better informed, make a similar
mistake. The great lexicographer, M. Littré, who has pro-
duced the standard dictionary of the French language—a
monument of learning-says that aspic is so called because
it is cold as a snake, which is proverbially cold! The
absurdity of this must be evident if it is remembered
that aspic is sometimes served hot; and yet one way
or another all the dictionaries connect it with the asp. It
has in truth nothing to do with anything so venomous. It
means lavender—in old French, espic or spic ; in good old
English, spike, lavender-spike, and spikenard. Lavender-
spike is to be found in the sauces of Roman cookery; it is
mentioned among the pot-herbs used in France five hun-
dred years ago ; one of the spikes—the spikenard of Spain
-is in English books of the same period mentioned as
a flavouring ingredient of Hippocras; and a couple of
centuries ago Parkinson, the botanist, describes a decoction
of lavender, horehound, fennel, and asparagus, which was
considered a wonderful tonic—a stomachic, a cure for the
toothache, for epilepsy, for faintness, but most of all potent
in the maladies of women. To come down still later, at
the time of the French Revolution the great master in the
art of distillation was Dejean, who wrote a book on the
subject. His thirty-second chapter is devoted to the
preparation of waters, spirits, and extracts of aspic, thyme,
basil, and sage. Later still, Grimod de la Reynière, in one


48
Ass
of the volumes of his Almanach des Gourmands, has a
chapter on sauces and their names. He comes to the
sauces named from vegetables--à la ciboule, à l'aspic, à la
ravigote, au fenouil. He, the most learned authority of
his time on cookery, has no notion that aspic is other than
the well-known plant. Lavender, however, is not a good
seasoning, and it dropped out of account while still the
name remained. In the present day the French cooks,
when they propose to aspiquer a sauce, mean only to put
lemon-juice or reduced vinegar into it. And so in the
course of time it has come about that aspic belongs to the
long list of things which, like houses dispossessed of their
first owners, retain names no longer their own-cervelas
without brains,orgeate without barley, blancmanger without
fowl, galantine without galingale, cheesecakes without curd,
pomatum without apple, Julienne without wood-sorrel,
bisque without wood-pigeon, marmalade without quince,
vinegar without wine. Many times in the following pages
it will be necessary to refer to this curious list.
Ass.-Few persons are aware that this excellent animal
contributes of its flesh to the sausages of Bologna and of
Lyons, which they enjoy so much. Such unobtrusive
merit ought to raise him high in the opinion of mankind.
It is said that Lyonnese and Bolognese, coming to London,
have been known to rush to the City, to Ironmonger Lane,
to extend their acquaintance with the good little beast.
They read the name of the street Irons manger l'âne.
The lower classes of the French are so assured of the
excellent qualities of the ass, that, knowing the marvellous
properties of laudanum for soothing and setting to sleep,
they ask the chemists for it under the name of “l'eau
d'ânon.”
AURORA sauce appears in many books, and must
mentioned here because it will be looked for; but it
useless and has no meaning beyond its name.


Badminton
Like a lobster boiled the morn
From black to red begins to turn.
The coral of lobster added to English sauce makes Aurora
-something pretty to look at; but what is it to taste ? The
taste of coral is so insipid that it must be helped out with
essence of shrimps or of anchovies : in which case, however,
the sauce were much better called after the shrimp or the
anchovy.
ABA, or Polish Cake. Use paste No. 9, mixed
with two glasses of rum instead of water and
tinted with saffron.
Bacon, to be boiled, must be put into plenty of cold
water and brought slowly to the boiling point. It is then
to be simmered, and it takes a long time-say an hour
and a half for a couple of pounds. Remove the rind when
it is cooked and sprinkle it with bread-raspings. Those
who dislike to eat this when cold can have it cut into
rashers, sprinkled with bread-crumb, and toasted in a
Dutch-oven, or by means of a wire toaster. Raw bacon
can be either grilled or toasted in rashers—it is best
toasted. To fry good bacon is to show ingratitude to the
generous animal that lived and died for your benefit in the
hope that feeding on his flitch you might one day become
another Lope de Vega. See further on about Lope and
his devotion to the flitch.
BADMINTON must have a word here, because the name
is exceptional. There are crowds of French dishes named
after the titles and country houses of the French nobility.
In England the Earl of Sandwich in the last century gave
his name to a well-known article of food—and that is all,


50
Bain Marie
if we except Badminton, the seat of the Duke of Beaufort,
which calls up a vision not of food but of drink-claret cup
without the sugar and the curaçoa. Attempts no doubt have
been made to immortalise great English names in the prepa-
rations of the table ; but not one has achieved a universal
renown except the Sandwich and possibly Badminton. If
any English peer in this century could have had his name
written in comestibles, we should have expected it might
have been the late Duke of Beaufort, who gloried in a
Neapolitan cook named Raffaelle. This great artist went
one night to hear the opera of L'Elisir d'Amore. In the
middle of the night the Duke was roused from sleep by a
knock at his bedroom door. “Who's there?” he cried.
“It's only me, Signor Duc,” said Raffaelle, opening the
door. “I have been to the opera ; I have been dreaming
of the music; and I have an idea. I have invented a
sorbet,I have named it the sorbet à la Donizetti ; and I
could not resist coming to tell your Grace.” Surely the
Duke who showed his appreciation of a cook so enthusiastic
deserved to have his good taste recorded in the breast of a
partridge or on a neck of venison.
BAIN MARIE (Mary's bath).—This Mary was a Jewess
who lived in the fourth century of our era, and was devoted
to alchemy. She required a bath that would retain heat
long at an equable temperature for the metals and vessels
upon which she made her experiments. To this end she
heated sand and plunged her vessels into it. The modern
Wary-bath is an imitation in hot water, which is not so
good as sand, since it has no special aptitude for retaining
heat, but has the advantage of being easily kept hot by
connection with the boiler—and kept thus hot at a tem-
perature which can never exceed 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
Transferred with this change of sand into water from the
laboratory to the kitchen, the Mary-bath is exceedingly


Bake
51
useful as a means of keeping things hot with no danger of
their being too hot. Practically, however, this heat is a
good way below the boiling point; and it is a mistake to
suppose that the same bain marie will at once do for cook-
ing and for keeping things hot. In the language of the
French kitchen, to cook au bain marie means simply to
cook in a double saucepan—the water in the outer saucepan
being kept continuously at boiling point. This should be
remembered by English people, who are disappointed when
they find that the grand new bain marie they have ordered
for their kitchens, though good for keeping things hot after
they are cooked, will not at the same time cook like a double
saucepan. The fault is probably with the French, who give
a more extended use to the name of Mary's bath than that
ingenious Jewess thought of. A bain marie in her view,
and as commonly understood, is but a means of retaining
heat. To cook au bain marie is to create a heat by means
of a double saucepan which, rising to 212 degrees of
Fahrenheit, shall have no chance of getting beyond that
temperature. Let there be no mistake, therefore, as to a
fact so elementary. A bain marie cannot have water in
it which is both at boiling point for cooking purposes and
· below boiling point for keeping things hot.
BAKE.—The chemist who will tell us what is the precise
difference between baking and roasting will confer a benefit
on mankind. We all see, or fancy that we see, a difference
in the results ; but what it is nobody has yet been able to
define. The difference in the process is clear enough. In
roasting, the meat is swinging or turning in free air before
a bright fire. In baking, the meat is motionless in a con-
fined space, and whatever heat comes to it is dark. The
degrees of heat as marked by the thermometer may be the
same in either case. Is there any difference in taste due
to the fact that in the one case the rays of heat are bright
and act in a free current of air, while in the other the rays


52
Bakeweli Pudding
of heat are dark and act upon a surface from which cur-
rents of air are excluded ? If chemists were practical, they
would work out this problem, which is of more interest to
mankind than all their researches into the nature of ele-
mentary nothings with names longer than the titles of a
Spanish grandee.
It will be observed that baking is here understood in a
peculiar sense. By rights, we can speak of baking in the
sun, or of baking anything before a clear fire. In common
parlance, however, to bake meat is to put it on a baking-
dish into a closed oven. A good oven can be made out of
a common saucepan. This is an important point for those
who are interested in impromptu cookery—for the cam-
paigner who wishes to roast his game at a doubtful fire-
for the kitchenmaid who is suddenly called upon for a nice
hot supper when the fire has gone down. Rub your bird
with butter, and put it with more butter into a good copper-
pan on the doubtful fire. The pan becomes, when tight
closed, a small oven, which can be occasionally opened to
give the bird a turn and a baste. Such a pan has many
and many a time baked a partridge in twenty minutes, a
woodcock in fifteen ; and no one has guessed that it has
not been roasted before a brilliant fire.
BAKEWELL PUDDING is the glory of Derbyshire. One
might have expected some miracle of excellence for the
palate from the ducal residence of Chatsworth, with all its
fame and its splendour, and the highest fountain jet in the
world. But, although a Duchess of Devonshire once kissed
a butcher, the great house of Cavendish has done nothing
for our tables which can compare with the humble achieve-
ment of some unknown genius in the small town of Bake-
well, nigh to the prodigious Chatsworth.
Line a pie-dish with a light paste. Place on this a
thickish layer of any preserved fruit from the most common
to the most refined—let us say peaches or apricots. The


Banting
. 53
Bakewellians are in the habit of intermingling this with
candied citron or orange-peel cut into thin stripes—a part
of the ceremony which inay be safely omitted. Make a
custard of six yolks and three whites of eggs, from four to
five ounces of clarified butter, six ounces of sifted sugar,
and three spoonfuls of what the Bakewellians call lemon-
brandy—that is, brandy which has been flavoured by long
maceration with the zest of lemons. A little of the zest of
a lemon may be used instead, or any other flavour that
may be preferred. Pour the custard over and among the
apricot jam, and bake the pudding in a moderate oven for
three-quarters of an hour.
BANTING.—The following is the diet of Mr. Banting, by
which in a year—fifty-two weeks—he reduced himself in
weight 52 lbs., to his great advantage. He began with
202 lbs., and to his joy and comfort he came down to
150 lbs. “For breakfast,” he says, “at nine a.m., I take
five or six ounces of either beef, mutton, kidneys, broiled
fish or cold meat of any kind excepting pork or veal ; a
large cup of tea or coffee without milk or sugar ; a little
biscuit or one ounce of dry toast, making together six
ounces of solid and nine of liquid. For dinner, at two p.m.,
five or six ounces of any fish except salmon, herrings, or
eels; any meat except pork or veal ; any vegetable except
potato, parsnip, beet-root, turnip, or carrot; one ounce of
dry toast; fruit out of a pudding, not sweetened ; any kind
of poultry or game; and two or three glasses of good
claret, sherry, or Madeira-champagne, port, and beer for-
bidden ; making together ten or twelve ounces solid and ten
liquid. For tea, at six p.m., two or three ounces of cooked
fruit, a rusk or two, and a cup of tea without milk or
sugar; making together two to four ounces solid and nine
liquid. For supper, at nine p.m., three or four ounces of
meat or fish, similar to dinner, with a glass or two of claret
or sherry and water ; making together four ounces solid


54.
Barbel
and seven liquid. For nightcap, if required, a tumbler of
grog (gin, whisky, brandy, without sugar), or a glass or
two of claret or sherry.”
BARBEL is hardly ever eaten in England. Our anglers
either throw it away, or keep it for the cat. This is pro-
bably because its roe is pernicious. But the French speak
well of the little carp, and have a special admiration for its
head and its tongue, or the sort of palate which is called
the tongue in carps. They sometimes admit, however,
that the body of the fish is insipid, and requires a good
'sauce.
BARD is an old English as well as an old French word,
of origin uncertain, for horse-armour. It was also used
for armour in general. Thus the chronicler Stowe speaks
of 1500 men “barded and richly trapped.” Noun or
verb, the word is not now used save in the language of
the kitchen, where it refers to the thin slices of bacon in
which any kind of flesh likely to dry up in cooking, but
more especially in roasting, is swathed. The metaphor has
been as far as this particular word is concerned borrowed
from the French kitchen. In England in the time of
Chaucer, and in the kitchen of Richard II., a bird coated
in this way with bacon was said to be armed or enarmed.
The learned and reverend editors of the cookery-books
which remain to us from that time seem to be not a little
puzzled when they read of cranes and herons being “armed
or enarmed with lards of swyne,” and fancy it must mean
larded in the modern acceptation. It means barded; and
if one could recover the old MS. of The Forme of Cury,
the receipt-book of Richard's court, it would probably be
found that in many instances in which the editor, Dr.
Pegge, read lard, the scribe wrote bard.
BARLEY BROTH.— Any soup with barley in it may be
called barley broth. The French make it by simply boiling


· Batter
55
barley and adding it to a clear gravy soup, or to any of the
vegetable soups. The name in this country is almost
always confined to what is otherwise called Scotch broth
or mutton broth, the principle of which is in England
but half understood. One of the most important and
practical questions in cookery turns upon it, and it will be
found explained under the head of Scotch Broth.
Barley Cream.-- The soup which the French call Crême
d'orge. Wash and blanch half a pound of pearl barley,
and boil it either with water or with broth—about a
quart. When thoroughly well done, rub it through a sieve
and add it to chicken broth. Sometimes there may be
added also a purée of chicken or of veal. Sometimes
chickens newly roasted are cut to pieces and served in
this soup.
Basil, or sweet Basil, is a plant belonging to the
labiate family, which abounds in pot-herbs~mint, mar-
joram, savory, and the rest. Its leaves have a strong
flavour of cloves, and are sometimes used in salads as well
as in the pot. Basil is an annual which grows in English
gardens, but we have nearly always to send to Italy for
the seeds.
Bath BUN.-Use paste No. 9.
BATTER, for fritters and for frying meat and vegetables.
Take equal quantities of flour and of liquid. Say there
are ten ounces of flour—the liquid will be represented by
two ounces of melted butter and half a pint (eight ounces)
of lukewarm water. Mix these well together with a little
salt, which will be increased in quantity if the batter is
to be used for meat or vegetables. According to the
purpose to be served, some part of the water may be
replaced by milk, by wine, by brandy, or by beer. In the
German batter there is beer. Whether yolks of eggs should
be added is a moot point. For a rich cream add two yolks,


56
Bavarois
but also in this case add somewhat to the quantity of water,
and indeed it must be remembered as modifying the above
measurements that some kinds of flour require more water
than others. Work the mixture perfectly smooth. When
wanted for the fire add to it two or three whites of eggs
which have been whisked into a firm froth.
Italian Batter.—The peculiarity of this is that there is
no water in it and no butter. The liquid part is formed of
oil, of yolks of eggs, and of milk. Those who are disposed
to play pranks may leave out the milk and put white wine
or cider instead. The batter is finished as usual with
frothed whites of eggs.
Batter Pudding. There are several varieties of it—as
the Batter Pudding, the Hasty Pudding, and the York-
shire Pudding ; but none is to be commended except the
last.
BAVAROIS—Bavarian cheese. Boil as much of the
best milk as will half fill the mould or moulds to be used.
Sugar it, and add whatever flavour may be chosen—coffee,
vanilla, fruit syrups, or aught else. Mix in (say for a
quart of milk) eight yolks of eggs; and let the mixture
thicken with a low heat on the corner of the stove, stirring
it well. Add an ounce of dissolved isinglass ; then pass
it through a tammy and let it cool. Being cool, it is to
be mixed well with some whipt cream, poured as swiftly
as possible into a mould which has been rubbed with oil of
sweet almonds, and given over to the ice-box. Above all
things let there be no delay between the mixing in of the
whipt cream and the chilling with ice. It will take an
hour and a half for the cheese to set well, and then it can
be turned out.
BAY LEAF.—This is indeed poetry in the pot-Daphne
at our lips. There is scarcely a savoury dish made which
is not perfumed with a faggot of herbs and one of these


Béarnaise
herbs is a bay leaf. It is the only use to which we now
put our laurels. The Greeks had their crowns of laurel
and of parsley. We with all humility cast our crowns of
laurel and of parsley into the pot. What a glorious thing
it would be if the bays we have given over to our cooks
would bring them the inspiration of great Apollo and
ensure to us dinners worthy of the gods!
Beans are more than beans, good for food and pleasant
to the taste : they are a moral lesson. The priests of
Egypt held it a crime even to look at beans—the very sight
of them unclean. Lucian introduces a philosopher in hell
declaring that it would be difficult to say which were the
greater crime—to eat beans, or to eat one's father's head.
Pythagoras forbade his disciples to eat beans, because they
are formed of the rotten ooze out of which man was created.
The Romans ate beans at funerals with awe, from the idea
that the souls of the dead were in them. Two thousand
years pass by, and here are we now eating beans with the
most thorough enjoyment and the most perfect unconcern.
Moral—Get rid of prejudice and call nothing unclean.
Windsor beans are the best—so called because this variety
was first cultivated at Windsor by Dutch gardeners. There
is still a garden near Eton called the Dutchman's Garden.
Whether for a garnish or for a dish by themselves, they are
to be simply boiled with salt and served with a Maître
d'Hôtel or a Poulette sauce. It is a question whether in
being sent to table they are to be skinned or not. The
skins are troublesome-therefore skin them. The skins,
although not swallowed, have an agreeable bitter—therefore
leave them on. Each one must choose for himself.
The kidney or French bean is of a different species, and
it is in every way most convenient to call it by the well-
known name of haricot, accepted throughout Europe.
BÉARNAISE–Filet à la Béarnaise. This is not a local
dish, as the name seems to indicate. It is a mode of


58
Beauvilliers
serving the fillet steak invented by the great chef who left
the service of the Duchess of Berri to preside over the
Hôtel Henri Quatre at St. Germains, which is to Paris
what the Star and Garter at Richmond is to London. In
honour of Henri IV. be named the sauce for his
steak (equally good for a mutton chop)–Béarnaise. It
is a butter-sauce, and may be described shortly as a hot
mayonnaise. Many cooks make a fuss about this sauce,
and pretend that it requires a long preparation. It is very
simple, as will be seen from the receipt, and can be pro-
duced perfectly in a quarter of an hour. The only diffi-
culty about it is, that it requires the addition of chopped
tarragon, which is not always in season.
Béarnaise Sauce is made with yolks of eggs and
ounces of butter in equal numbers-say four—as follows.
Put the yolks of eggs with one ounce of butter and a little
salt and pepper on the fire, and stir them till they begin
to thicken. Take them off the fire, add a second ounce of
butter, and stir them over the fire for two minutes more.
Take them off again for the third ounce, and yet again for
the fourth ounce, and proceed as before. Lastly, add a
tablespoonful of chopped tarragon, or one of ravigote and a
teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar.
BEAUVILLIERS, starting in 1782, was for many years the
most famous restaurateur in Paris. He was the first to
make the restaurant perfect in every detail as we have it
now, with an elegant dining-room, with well-appointed
tables, with waiters properly attired, in addition to a first-
rate cellar and a perfect kitchen. He made and lost his
fortune several times over, so that his success was variable ;
but when he was at his best no one ever surpassed him
in his profession. As he spoke many languages, he was in
special favour with foreigners, and he had a rare tact in
entertaining his guests. In the latter part of his career
(1814) he published in two volumes L'Art du Cuisinier.


· Becafico
59
of the hilin: The be was assi
It was the best cookery book that had ever been pub-
lished—simple, methodical, and exact. It is now out of
date, but it may still be consulted with advantage. Carême
was very jealous of the book, and he and his follow-
ing were fond of pointing out that its author was no
great cook. Beauvilliers, though an admirable manager,
may not have been a great cook, but still his work is of
immense authority. Nestor Roqueplan has asserted, but I,
know not on what grounds, that he was assisted in its pre-
paration by Brillat-Savarin. The book is a great landmark
in the history of the kitchen. Its receipts are classical,
and show precisely the position of the art on the fall of the
French Empire. Beauvilliers and Carême may be taken
as representative men at the head of two opposite schools
of cookery, which have been playfully described by Mr.
Hayward as the classical and the romantic. “Having
spoken,” says Mr. Hayward, “of Beauvilliers and Carême
as chiefs of two rival schools of art, we may naturally be
expected to distinguish them. We should say that
Beauvilliers was more remarkable for judgment and
Carême for invention—that Beauvilliers exhausted the old
world of art and Carême discovered a new one-that
Beauvilliers rigidly adhered to the unities and Carême
snatched a grace beyond them—that there was more aplomb
in the touch of Beauvilliers, more curious felicity in
Carême's—that Beauvilliers was great in an entrée and
Carême sublime in an entremet—that we would bet Beau-
villiers against the world for a rôt; but should wish
Carême to prepare the sauce were we under the necessity
of eating up an elephant or our grandfather.”
BECAFICO.—The fig-pecker, a small bird something like 1
a nightingale which feeds on figs and grapes, that give to
its flesh in the autumn a peculiar delicacy. It has been
said that if the becafico were only as big as a pheasant it
would be worth an acre of land. As it is rarely to be seen


60
Béchamel
at an English table, it belongs to the category of pleasures
to be dreamt of. Bacon said that some books are to be
read thoroughly, some are to be tasted only, and others
may be read by deputy. Unfortunately for us, the beca-
fico has to be eaten by deputy and enjoyed in a reverie.
BÉCHAMEL is a sauce which takes its name from Louis
de Béchameil or Béchamel, Marquis de Nointel, who is
described as a financier, but is chiefly known as Maître
d'Hôtel (Lord Steward of the Household) of Louis XIV.
He died in Paris in 1703, and must have been a poor sort
of creature if the story which St. Simon tells of him be
true. He fancied that he resembled the Comte de Gram-
mont, and being too proud of it, did all he could by dress
and manner to nurse the illusion. One day Grammont
saw him walking in the Tuileries, and determined to make
sport of him. He asked the bystanders what they would
bet against his giving a kick to the Marquis de Nointel in
what is commonly considered the most honourable part of
the body, and against the kick being received as a compli-
ment. Bets were made and the kick was given. Béchamel
turned round astonished. Grammont hastened to explain
that the kick was intended for his nephew-he really
fancied that it was his nephew he saw before him. Bécha-
mel was instantly appeased, and strolled away arm-in-arm
with Grammont, to his own great delight, and amid the
laughter of the court. A prodigy of meanness, a gigantic
parasite, an inspired idiot, this Béchamel invented a sauce
which will shed a halo round his name through endless
ageș. Nothing can be more simple. When once it is
described we wonder that it was never thought of before.
The white sauce known as Velvet-down is mixed with an
equal quantity of cream—that is all, and there is Béchamel.
The learnedest of men and the cunningest of cooks had
been compassing heaven and earth to find out a new and
perfect sauce. It was left for the most fortunate of ninnies


Béchamel
61
and the most superfluous of puppies to hit upon a com-
bination which has every day since then, for one hour
out of the twenty-four, contributed more to the peace and v
satisfaction of mankind than any other relish in the range
of cookery. In presence of such a fact as this one half
understands and sympathises with those races of men who
worship their idiots. It is difficult to venerate fools, but
at least henceforth let us not despise them. One is always
inclined to kick a sublime puppy, forgetting that to him
also, as to another Béchamel, may be revealed in vision
secrets of art which are concealed from the wise and good.
Béchamel, as above mentioned, is composed of Velvet-
down and cream in equal proportions. Cream, however,
is a wide word, and may mean almost anything from milk
to the richest double cream. There are some dairies whose
milk is as good as the cream of others. This accounts for
the fact that in some of the receipts for Béchamel we are
told to take cream, to reduce it to half its volume by rapid
boiling, and then to mix it in equal quantities with Velvet-
down.
Cold Béchamel—for cold chicken, turbot, and other
viands. Mix with the Béchamel, so as to stiffen it when
cold, a few spoonfuls of any clear white stock that has
turned to jelly—as the jelly of chicken broth, veal broth,
or calves' feet.
Mock Béchamel.-Put into a saucepan four ounces of
butter, with a sliced onion, a sliced carrot, a faggot of
parsley, a little nutmeg, pepper and salt. Let them stew
slowly for twenty minutes or half an hour. Then stir in
about four ounces of flour and a pint of new milk, a little
at a time. Boil this gently for half an hour till the milk
is well reduced, taking every care to avoid burning. Lastly
pass it through a strainer. Some cooks when they find the
sauce too thin, through the thinness of the milk, choose to


62
Beef
thicken it with yolks of egg. This may be very nice, but
it destroys the character of the Béchamel.
BEEF.—The influence of the ox on human society, and
more especially on the temperament of Mr. John Bull,
deserves a chapter to itself. There is room for but a word.
No animal has been so often taken for a god as the bull,
or for a goddess as the cow ; and though we may not
allow them so much honour, it cannot be denied that those
races of men who own the best of them and partake the
most of them have attained the highest civilization. From
the age of myth to these ages of doubt, Europa in her
most perfect form has been borne on the back of Jupiter
Bos.
Roast Beef.-The French and the English kitchens have
long been at variance as to the best mode of utilising beef.
The French, afa loud in their praises of beef broth, and
stick with wonderful devotion to boiled beef. In England
the value of beef broth is fully admitted ; but boiled beef
is a byword ; and “The Roast Beef of Old England” is
known' all over the world. It is served with the simplest
of meat gravies, nothing like what the French call by that
name, which is a thick cullis—a strong and extravagant
decoction of beef, veal and ham, boiled down to a glaze.
The only other sauce which is much used with it is horse-
radish sauce ; but it is excellent also with a Béarnaise
sauce, or with Robert. It is nearly always accompanied
by Yorkshire pudding, and potatoes in some form or other;
but it would be well to popularise also, as an attendant, the
white haricot bean, either plain or worked up in the Breton
way.
There is an odd disagreement about the fillet of beef.
Many people seem to regard it as the best part of the
sirloin. Perhaps they do so because of its tenderness;
but its taste is such that when the French roast a whole
fillet, as they often do by itself, they lard it with bacon,


Beef
63
bible English Club-combere is mo
they steep it for twenty-four hours in wine, oil, salt,
pepper and onions, to give it a flavour; they anoint it
with thick meat gravy, and they serve it with sharp sauce.
This is not saying much for the fillet, which the French,
however, delight to honour in the form of steaks.
Beefsteak is even more popular in England than roast
beef, and there is a common saying that the dinner which
the Englishman most enjoys is just such a dinner as the
Beefsteak Club—composed of very choice feeders—was
started to ensure. There is more variety, too, in a beef-
steak than many people imagine. The favourite in this
country appears to be a rump-steak. What the French
understand by a bifteck is cut from the sirloin. Besides
which there is the rib-steak or entrecôte, cut from the ribs
of beef; and also that which is perhaps most prized of all
-certainly it commands the highest price—the fillet-steak.
Needless to say that the steak which has attained pre-
eminence in England is always grilled (see Grill), is
served as hot as possible, with the taste of the fire on it,
and is eaten for the most part plain, in the juice that oozes
from it, or with a pat of fresh butter upon it.
Beefsteak with Oyster Sauce.—When an Englishman
takes a sauce with his steak, this is what he first thinks
of. But there is a particular way of making the sauce
for broiled meat, which is not the same as for fish.
Beefsteak à la Maître d'Hôtel. This is the best known
of the French steaks. It is cut usually from the sirloin,
and is served with a piece of maître d'hôtel butter melting
upon it in the dish.
Beefsteak with Anchovy Butter.-Served with a piece of
anchovy butter melting upon it, as it is taken from the
fire.
Beefsteak aux Fines Herbes.—A steak with some ravi-
gote butter melting upon it,


67
Beef
Beefsteak of Bordeaux (Entrecôte à la Bordelaise).—A
rib-steak with a piece of maître d'hôtel butter, into which
has been worked a chopped shalot. See Bordeaux.
Beefsteak à la Béarnaise.—A fillet-steak with a Béar-
naise sauce poured over it.
Beefsteak à la Châteaubriand. See Châteaubriand. It
is twice the thickness of ordinary steaks.
For a garnish to any of these steaks potatoes hold the
first place—cooked in various ways. Sometimes fried
onions are in request, but in this case it would be much
better to order potatoes done up with onions in the Lyon-
nese way. Grilled mushrooms or tomatos are among
the best garnishes for beefsteak; after which may rank
cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, haricot pods, and haricot
beans.
Beefsteak Pie.—Take two or three pounds of rump-
steak, clear it of fat, and cut it into collops two or three
inches in diameter. Put them into a pie-dish, layer upon
layer, dredged with a little flour, and duly seasoned with
pepper, salt, and chopped onion or shalot. Pour over
them some good gravy or broth-good enough when the
pie is cold to turn to jelly. Most cooks are content with
water, but as the pie is very often eaten cold, the result is
an odious watery sauce. Cover the pie up in the usual
way, and let it bake for an hour or so. The pie is mightily
improved by the addition of a dozen oysters and their
liquor for every pound of beef.
Beefsteak Pudding contains either the same ingredients
as the foregoing, or the same as kidney pudding.
Beefsteak Tossed-in French, sauté. These are steaks
either of the usual size, or cut up into thin collops about
two or three inches in diameter. English cooks frequently
do their steaks in the frying-pan when they have not got
a fire good enough to broil them. In that case they should


Beef
65
do so frankly, and not make a pretence of broiling. Put
the steak or the collops with a piece of butter into the pan,
and fry them briskly on each side, but take care not to
burn the butter. When the meat is done take it out.
Then dredge in a little flour into the pan, and add a ladle-
ful of gravy or broth, which after being stirred on the fire
for a minute or two may be strained into a saucepan;
into which also put a quantity of olives, or of mushrooms,
or of oysters, which have been previously prepared, and heat
them up in the sauce. A glass of sherry or Marsala may
go with them, or may take their place. This is not a very
brilliant substitute for a good grilled steak; but the French
take to it—in the form of the Filet sauté aux olives, aux
champignons, aux truffes, au vin de Madère.
Beefsteak Stewed.—Have a large and thick rump-steak,
-even more than may be necessary, for this is a dish which,
if the sauce be good and plentiful, seems to surpass itself
when cold, and comes in graciously at breakfast and at
supper. Put the steak with butter into an oblong pan
that will hold it nicely laid out at length ; brown it on
both sides, dredging it lightly with flour; and when it has
taken colour pour over it broth enough to cover it and
more than cover it. Sometimes water is used; but this
is a mistake, as it is important that the sauce when cold
should be almost a jelly. Set the steak to boil, skim it,
add to it a Mirepoix of red wine, and let it simmer gently
for two or even three hours. A quarter of an hour before
it ought to be ready, see how the sauce is in consistence
and in taste. This is especially necessary for those cooks
who moisten the steak with water or with broth which is
too thin. The sauce chould be a cullis, and if it is not so
it may be well to stir into it a little corn-flour. As for
taste it is perilous to attempt to improve upon a good
Mirepoix ; but mushroom ketchup sometimes comes in
well if used with discretion ; pepper may be needed ; and


66
Beef
all mention of salt has been hitherto omitted because of the
bacon and the ham in the Mirepoix.
Beef à la mode.—Take some of the veiny piece, the thick
flank or the rump, and let it be five inches thick. Cut
some bacon fat for larding, and let the lardoons be of
considerable size—say half an inch thick. Dip them first
into vinegar, and then into a mixed powder made up of
pepper, salt, thyme, bayleaf and parsley, very finely
chopped. Lard the beef with them through and through.
Melt some fat in a large brazier or stewpan ; put the beef
into it and fry it for a quarter of an hour. Next add to it
two calf's feet, half a pint of white wine, half a pint of
broth and half a pint of water, together with salt. Let
it boil and skim it. Then add two or three carrots, two
or three onions, two or three cloves, and a faggot of sweet
Wherbs. Cover up the brazier or the stewpan tight, so that
there may be no evaporation, and let it stew very gently
for five or six hours. The beef is to be served with the
calf's feet cut up and the carrots. The gravy is to be
strained, freed from fat, reduced to half, and poured over
the beef. In addition to the pieces of calf's feet and the
carrots for a garnish, it is usual to provide a quantity of
small onions browned and cooked apart.
Salted and Spiced Beef.—The salting and spicing may
for the most part be left to the butcher who provides the
meat-round, edgebone, silverside, brisket, or whatever it
be. The following, however, are the usual quantities :-
For salting-reduce to a fine powder one ounce of salt-
petre with three of sugar, and rub this well into the meat.
Then rub in three-quarters of a pound of salt, also pow-
dered. Rubbing and turning every day, a piece of beef-
say sixteen pounds—should be ready in nine or ten days.
Observe that there are sixteen ounces of pickle for sixteen
pounds of meat.
For spicing—say a good-sized Round. Rub into the


Beetroot
67
beef half a pound of brown sugar, and leave it for two
days. Then make a powder consisting of one pound of
salt, two ounces of saltpetre, two ounces of black pepper,
two ounces of allspice, two ounces of juniper berries—well
mixed together. Rub this into the beef and turn it daily;
it will be ready in three weeks.
For cooking—the usual way is to wash off the salt V
and spice ; to boil the ordinary salt beef in water,
and to serve it with some of its liquor ; also with a
garnish of greens, carrots, and sometimes dumplings. But
if people take for three weeks the trouble to get up a
Round of beef-one of the boasts of English cookery—they
may as well cook it in the best way, which is to place it,
with a very little water—a cupful will do--in a pot of its V
own size, metal or earthen, to surround it and cover it
with beef-fat chopped, and to bake it in the oven for five
or six hours. The difference is incredible between the
tenderness and succulence of a Round boiled in water, at
a temperature below 212°, and one baked in beef-fat at
300° or 400°. The Miniature round of beef—that is, ribs
of beef, boned and rolled—may be done in the same way
with admirable effect, though of course the measurements
must vary. The larger round of beef may be reckoned
at twenty-five pounds. What is called Pressed Beef is v
nothing but the brisket, pickled as above with salt, sugar,
saltpetre and mixed spices—left in this pickle for a week,
boiled till tender, and pressed under a heavy weight until
cold.
BEETROOT.—The Greeks held the beet in such esteeni v
that they used to offer it to Apollo at Delphi on silver, and
they preferred its leaves to lettuce. The leaves are hardly
ever used now unless they may be so in Brabant, where in
Flemish cookery—and these Flemings were good judges-
they took the place of spinach, which belongs to the
same family. We make use only of the root now, and that


68
Beignet
but little save for the manufacture of sugar. After the
potato it is the most nourishing of all the roots, but its
taste is mawkish when cooked, and it is not valued except
for salads. Beetroot and Spanish onion make a capital
winter salad ; so also beetroot and celery or beetroot and
celeriac. Even to green salads, as the cabbage lettuce,
a slice or two is a welcome addition.
V BEIGNET is one of those words-abounding in the French
kitchen, and more there than in the kitchen of any other
country—which seem to defy explanation. All we can say
of it is that it means a fritter.
BENTLEY, Richard, one of the greatest scholars of
modern times, and certainly the most learned man of his
day. He made this incisive observation to one of his
pupils,—“Sir, if you drink ale you will think ale," which
Brillat-Savarin has refined and generalised into the apho-
rism : “ Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es."
BETSY PRIG helped herself too often from the teapot
which contained not tea but rum. It was more than
Mrs. Gamp could bear. She stopped the hand of Mrs. Prig
with her own and said with great feeling,—“No, Betsy.
Drink fair, whatever you do!” And this supreme rule has
therefore in history been associated indissolubly with the
name of the forgetful Betsy.
BIGARADE SAUCE.—Bigarade is the French name for a
Seville orange, and the sauce is described under its English
name of Orange Gravy Sauce.
BISQUE is one of those words which when he has the
clue to them become the delight of a philologer. It presents
as pretty a puzzle as exists in any language. The French
lexicographers have given it up as insoluble. Brachet and
Littré say frankly that its origin is unknown ; the German
Scheler follows suit. And, after all, a very little research
the delight any language. Bra


Bisque
69
might have led the learned Frenchmen to the true meaning
of the word. They have been put off the scent by trusting
to modern usage. Littré defines a bisque as a soup of cray-
fish, and that is what it usually means in our day. He has
failed however to observe that purists in France never call
the soup of crayfish a bisque—they always say a bisque
d'écrevisses, implying that there may be a bisque of some-
thing else. In some of the old French cookery books the
crayfish soup is described perfectly as Potage aux écrivisses
en façon de bisque. The word is now employed exactly as we
employ such words as marmalade, wine, pomatum, orgeat,
saveloy. Marmalade is a conserve of quinces—we give
the name to a conserve of oranges. Wine is the juice of
the grape ; but we speak of cowslip and gooseberry wine.
Pomatum is a cosmetic of apples, and never now does an
apple enter into it. Orgeat ought to be no other than
barley-water--it is now made of almonds without a grain
of barley. Saveloy, from the French cervelas, formerly
cervelat, is a sausage made of brains, and now there are no
brains in it. Precisely in the same way, bisque was a soup
of wood-pigeons, and it is now never made of wood-
pigeons, but nearly always of crayfish.
y such We The worectly as P
Piscium et summa genus hæsit ulmo
Nota quæ sedes fuerat columbis.
Any one who will go back to the French cookery books
of the seventeenth century will find invariably that the
bisque is made of pigeons, or else of small birds such as
quails or partridges, which may be supposed superior to
them. It was not merely a soup : one of the books de-
scribes it accurately as a soup with a ragout in it; and for
the precise meaning of Ragout in French turn to the word.
La Varenne, the greatest cook of the seventeenth century
before Vatel, gives two receipts for pigeon soup, neither of
which he denotes by the name of bisque ; but he also gives
two, and only two, receipts for bisque, and they are both.


70
Bisque
soups of pigeon with a ragout or rich garniture added
something between the Financial and the Turtle Relish.
If the reader goes on turning the pages of La Varenne's
book he will come to a receipt for roasting wood-pigeons ;
he will find that they are called bisets; and he will there at
once detect the origin of the bisque or wood-pigeon broth.
The bisque was a soup of the biset—with the biset added
to it in the tureen together with a ragout or relish.
Having reached this point, the discussion might fairly
come to an end. The explanation of the bisque is there, even
if we can go no further. There is a detail, however, which
it would be well to account for. How are we to account
for the fourth letter in bisque, which does not appear in
biset? This involves the further question, How does the
wood-pigeon come to be called biset? And here, if we go
to the Frenchmen for assistance, we find that they are all
wrong-or if not absolutely wrong, helpless. They say that
biset comes from the adjective of colour, bis—brown or
whitey-brown; and they candidly confess that they know
not whence bis in this sense comes. It is impossible to
mention the name of Littré without respect for his extra-
ordinary merits as a lexicographer, and yet he too seems to
be infected with the Frenchman's wildness in etymology.
The real root of biset is to be found in bois, and the root of
bois is the Low Latin boscus, which in English survives in
bosk, busk, and bush, and which turns up in French as
bisque, bois, buis, and buisson. Just as the Latin discus
dropt the k sound and was transformed into daïs, while at
the same time there survived a doublet retaining it—disque ;
so the Latin boscus has survived with the k sound in
bisque, and without it in bois and biset. I find in my notes
a statement which I am unable for the moment to verify-
that Humboldt has derived the name of Basque, or Biscay,
from Basoa, a forest, and Baso-coa, belonging to a forest.
It would be curious if this should turn out to be the same
word, but it is immaterial to the argument. Enough has


Bisque
71
been stated to show that a consonant has dropped out of
biset, and that the word is by rights bisquet. It does not ·
follow from this that the French etymologists are absolutely
wrong in connecting biset with the colour bis—light-brown;
but if there is any justification for them, it is not because
the wood-pigeon is of a light-brown colour, but because
light-brown is the colour of wood, and it is not impossible
that the colour as well as the pigeon may be named from the
wood. Neither, again, does it follow that, taken literally
and by themselves, bisque and biset mean anything more
than wood or belonging to a wood. Just as tree came to
signify the cross, and irons fetters, the name of the wood
might easily pass to the pigeon, and the name of the pigeon
to the soup. It is still in the French idiom to add the
word pigeon to biset,-saying pigeon biset.
The reader will probably expect to find here the old receipt
for Bisque, and I give him with pleasure the receipt of La
Varenne, which runs as follows :—“Bisque of Young
Pigeons. Take young pigeons, cleanse them well and
truss them up, which you shall do in making a hole with a
knife below the stomach, and thrusting the legs through
it. Whiten them; then put them in the pot with a small
faggot of fine herbs, and fill the pot with the best broth
you have, and have a special care that it may not become
black.” The grand object was to make it red—to produce
a bisque rouge ; and in fact it was to develop redness that
the crayfish came into play and in the end displaced the
pigeon. " Then dry your bread and stew it (mitonnez) in
the pigeon broth. Then take it up (dressez), after it is well
seasoned with salt, pepper and cloves, garnish it (that is
the bisque) with the young pigeons, cockscombs, sweet-
breads, mushrooms, mutton-juice, pistachios. Serve, and
garnish the rims of the dish with slices of lemon.”
This, it will be observed, is a soup of pigeons with
the pigeons and a Ragout (see Ragout) in it. What
is now called Bisque is neither a soup of pigeons, nor is it


72
Black Cock
a soup of any kind with what is properly called a Ragout
in it. For the crayfish soup of fame we must go to the
pages allotted to the crayfish, and not seek for it in the
nest of the wood-pigeon.
BLACK BUTTER.—See Butter.
Black Cock is a kind of Grouse and to be treated as
such.
BLACK PUDDINGS (Boudins Noirs) are made of pig's
blood. This sounds gross enough, not to say offensive and
horrible. Nevertheless, with the gore of the unclean beast
there is mingled an adorable onion flavour which redeems
it from odium, and seduces mortals like another Circe.
The human beings who have been able to resist the san-
guinolent puddings of the hog are few indeed. In France,
among the middle classes, it is considered a sacred duty to
eat them on Christmas eve, after returning from the mid-
night mass. The English do not make much of Christmas
eve, but these black puddings are a fair excuse for making
more of it. Only it is best to eat them not in the French
but in the Flemish style. The French eat them as they
are; the Flemings with a companion dish of baked apples.
It corresponds to the English plan of taking apple sauce
with pork or goose.
BLANC.—See the Faggot of Pot-herbs.
BLANCH. -To scald vegetables (but sometimes also meat)
by placing them for a few minutes with salt in boiling
water, after which they are passed into cold water. This,
in the case of vegetables, is to tone down too strong a
taste, and in the case of meat (as calf's head and feet) to
soften it. . .
BLANCMANGER.— It is needless to give the old receipt for
this, because nobody would eat it. In the days of the
English king Richard II. it was a fowl first roasted, then


Blancmanger
73
cut to pieces and served in syrup which was whitened
with milk, rice, and almond paste. As late as the days
of Madame de Maintenon—that is, at the end of the
reign of Louis XIV.- the court physician, Fagon, ordered
it to be prepared of the breasts of fowls and almond milk
for consumptive patients; and later on, when we come to
the article Gallimawfrey, it will be seen that the title of the
dish implies a fowl.
For the modern receipt, the best and simplest is that of
Carême, and depend upon it when Carême is simple he has
right upon his side. He is loud in his praise of it, and
hazards the prophecy that Blancmanger prepared in his
simple way will always be preferred to other creams, and
even to the most beautiful jellies, because of the pleasant,
nourishing, and soothing qualities of the almond. Unhap-
pily for his renown as a prophet, Blancmanger is losing its
popularity, because although the almonds may be as good
and as loved as ever, the world has ceased to believe in
isinglass, and laughs to scorn the gelatine which is too often
used instead of it.
Blanch a pound of sweet almonds and twenty bitter ones.
Pound them in a mortar, moistening them from time to
time with half a spoonful of water to keep them from turn-
ing to oil. When they are pounded quite smooth, pass them
into a bowl, and mix them with five wineglassfuls of filtered
water. Then arrange a napkin over an oval dish, so that
the almond milk may be poured into it and strained through
it by twisting it at either end. Add twelve ounces of sifted
sugar, and when this is dissolved pass the Blancmanger a
second time through the napkin. Next mix into it, some-
what more than warm, an ounce of clarified isinglass. Last
of all pour it into a mould which has been rubbed with
sweet oil of almonds, and which has been settled on ice.
The Blancmanger thus prepared will be delightful in itself,
but any flavour wished for may be added to it-as rum,
lemon, vanilla, coffee, chocolate, strawberry.


74
Blanquette
BLANQUETTE is as good a name as one could get for a
white sauce, and it is a name which might well be adopted
in England, where it would be thoroughly understood.
There is absolutely no difference between a Blanquette
sauce and the so-called Allemande or German sauce,
unless it be this—that occasionally there is chopped parsley
put into the former. A Blanquette of fowls, of sweet-
breads, or of veal, means simply the serving of these
things in the white Allemande. The white parsley and
butter sauce which is so common in England with boiled
chickens is but a rough and ready Blanquette. The
Poulette sauce is the same thing, with sometimes chopped
mushrooms added and with a squeeze of lemon.
BLEU (au bleu).—A phrase of the French kitchen for
the simplest method of cooking fish. It means cooking
it either in plain salt and water, or in white wine with
parsley and onions. Originally the wine was red; and
hence the name blue—the common red wine about Paris
being called small blue (petit bleu), as we say small beer
in England. What with the old style and the new,
however, there is an odd medley of colours—white, red,
and blue.
BLONDE DE VEAU is described at length in the article on
Soup. It is a double veal broth, which is much in request
for mixing with soups and sauces for its smooth gelatinous
texture, and also for its fine colour and flavour, which are
brought out by making it fall to a glaze at an early stage
of its preparation. Perhaps it is overrated ; it certainly
was at one time. Early in the last century it became all
the rage in France. There is a letter of Voltaire's in which
he invites St. Lambert to visit him at Cirey. “ Come to
Cirey," he says. “There Madame du Châtelet will not
poison you. There is not a spoonful of beef gravy (jus) in
her kitchen ; everything is done with blonde de veau : we
shall live a hundred years, and you will never die.”
the las
Cirepotes St. L..ce; Then


Boarshead
75
BOARSHEAD, even as a Christmas dish, has gone so com-
pletely out of use, that it is needless to give any receipt
for its preparation. But one thing about it deserves to
be remembered. We all more or less, while the edge v
of hunger is upon us, look forward to our food with
some eagerness. But what approach can we make to the
lusty feeling of our forefathers, who when they brought
on the boarshead honoured it with a procession from the
kitchen, and made merry before and after with a song ?
Imagine the frankness of the feeling which breathes in
the following stanzas; and let us ask ourselves—Are
we better than our fathers because we should be rather
ashamed to lead a procession of the boarshead and to give
utterance to their jolly anticipations of the coming feast?
Caput apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino.
The boar's head in hand bring I,
With garlands gay and rosemary ;
I pray you all sing merrily
Qui estis in convivio.
The boar's head, I understand,
Is the chief service in this land ;
Look wherever it be found,
Servite cum cantico.
Be glad, both more and less,
For this hath ordained our steward,
To cheer you all this Christmas-
The boar's head and mustard !
Caput apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino.
Do not let us deceive ourselves. There is more glut-
tony now in the world than ever there was, and none the
less because we are quiet over it—and pretend to think
a great deal more of the ewigkeit. Perhaps our dinners
would agree with us better and we should have less of that
dyspepsia which distresses modern civilization if we could


76
Boiling
go to our food with singing like our ancestors, and if we
could render thanks for it to God with a sense of enjoy-
ment as lusty as theirs.
BOILING.-If one might judge by the use of the word,
there is no mode of cookery so common as boiling. As
a matter of fact, however, true boiling is extremely rare,
and is nearly always of short duration. Boiling in the
strict sense is a word of the widest and vaguest meaning.
Milk will boil at a comparatively low temperature ; so will
spirits; on the other hand, fats and oils have their boiling
point at a prodigious heat; but in common parlance, and
in the language of the kitchen, to boil means to produce
the temperature of boiling water---that is, 212° Fahrenheit.
Now, we may speak of boiling as much as we like ; but in
point of fact there is very little cooking performed at this
heat of 212°. Nearly all cooking is done either a little
below this degree or very much above it. The cooking
which is done above the boiling point (as broiling, baking,
frying, roasting) develops the peculiar roast flavours at a
temperature of 400° and upwards. The cooking which is
done below the boiling point, and is known as stewing,
simmering, seething, slow-boiling, works itself out often
as low as 170°, but always below 212°. If all cookery is
performed either a little below the boiling point of water
or very high above it, the question may be asked—Is there
any good in boiling proper, and what is the object of it?
Boiling heat is required almost solely for two purposes, and
no more. 1. In the first place, for rapid reduction. One
wants to evaporate the water from a sauce, an infusion, or
a decoction, from vinegar, from wine, from milk. For this
purpose of reduction, the cook resorts to the most brisk
and violent ebullition within his means. 2. Violent boiling
has also its use as a preliminary step in the cooking of
meat and of most vegetables. Let us say that a leg of
mutton is to be boiled : it will not really be boiled except
boiling
boiling, 120. It


Boiling
77
mmered or slov zadually beatedhe meat is
for the first few minutes. All depends on the question
whether a piece of meat is going to be eaten or not. If
it is not to be eaten, and we only want to get all the good-
ness out of it in the form of a broth or stock, the meat is
put into cold water which is gradually heated, and then
only seethed or simmered or slow-boiled considerably below
the degree of 212. If the meat is to be eaten, however,
it is a great and most important object to keep the juices
within it. The leg of mutton is therefore at once plunged
into the hottest boiling water, which coagulates the albumen
on the surface, and produces a thin but perfect coat of mail
all round the meat, through which the juices cannot escape.
Five minutes of quick boiling at the outset, or even less,
having produced this coat of mail, there is no further need
of so great a heat. The quick boiling is, by the addition
of cold water, brought down to slow boiling or simmering;
and though we still speak of the leg of mutton as boiled,
it is really not boiled at all, but only simmered, save in
the first five minutes.
It will thus be seen that boiling, as distinct from slow-
boiling, simmering or seething, is an operation of very
limited scope in cookery. It may be described as the
middle, not to say neutral point of culinary heat. It is
notorious that the kitchen produces two kinds of cookery
-the brown and the white, or, as the French sometimes
express it, the brunette beauty and the blonde. The one
comes of intense heat, far above the boiling point, pro-
ducing the roast savours and the brown appearance ; the
other comes of gentle heat, a little below the boiling point,
producing mild decoctions, pale of tint and with natural
flavours. But genuine boiling at a temperature of 212°
yields no such characteristic results. It is a temporary
process, of short duration and of limited use, being chiefly
available, as above mentioned, for two things to coagulate
and harden the surfaces of food, and to reduce liquids by
evaporation.


78
Boiling
When meat begins to boil a scum rises to the surface
of the water and continues to do so for some little time.
This must be carefully removed as fast as it rises, for
it soon sinks again, rendering it difficult afterwards to :
clarify the liquor. Salt helps the scum to rise.
TIME-TABLE FOR BOILING.
It must be clearly understood that in the following table
boiling means, for the most part, under-boiling or simmer-
ing. In some cases also, chiefly in vegetables, now and
then also in fish, any time-table is insufficient, and it is
possible to ascertain whether the cooking is enough only
by probing. The following figures therefore are to be
taken with a certain latitude :-
Hours.
Minutes.
Round of beef, 20 lbs. ...... Greens, quick boiling ...... 25
Edgebone, 14 lbs. ............ Cabbage -
......... 25
Brisket, 10 lbs.
Asparagus ...................... 25
Ham, 12 lbs. ..
Artichokes .....................
Leg of pork, 8 lbs. .....
Green peas. ............ 15 to 20
Hand, 6 lbs.
Carrots .................. 15 to 50
Bacon, 2 lbs.
Turnips .................. 15 to 50
Pig's cheek
French beans .................. 30
Pig's feet......
Brocoli ................... 15 to 20
Ox tongues, fresh
Cauliflower ............. 15 to 20
Leg of mutton, 9 lbs. ... 2 to 3 Brussels sprouts.........10 to 15
Neck, 7 lbs. .................. Beetroot.......................... 150
Breast of veal, 7 lbs. ........ Parsnips ........................
Neck of veal, 5 lbs. ....... Spinach ......... .......
Knuckle, 7 lbs. ................ Girasole artichokes ......... 30
Calf's head.
Onions, whole.......
Calves' feet.............
Turbot, 15 lbs. ......
Tripe ........
Cod's head and shoulders...
Turkey, small.
Salmon......... ..............
Ditto, large ..................... Slices of cod or salmon ......
Fowl, large ............... 1 to 1} Soles..
........................... 6 to 12
..................... } to į Skate ..................... 12 to 20
Partridge ........................
Herrings ........................ 10
Pigeon
Mackerel ............... 15 to 20
Rabbits ...........
* | Lobsters or Crabs ... 20 to 30
............
LOCS 9 # ca am co v co as an as a co do com o
.........


Borage
79
BOLOGNA has given birth to eight Popes, to Francia, v
Domenichino, the Caracci, Guido, Albani, and to the most
magnificent and renowned of all the sausages. Who shall
say that, among these mighty ones, the sausage is the
least?
BONNE FEMME.—The name given to a remarkable soup
in which an attempt has been made to paint the character
of a good woman. Why not? Beethoven in his Pas-
toral Symphony has by music alone set before us a land-
scape ; and why should not a cook be able in a soup to
symbolise womanhood ? The two most important symbols
which he selects are the acidity of sorrel and the softness
of cream. There is a gracious sauvity in the soup, with
a subacid flavour to remind one pleasantly of the little
gleams of temper without which this exquisite creation
could not be a woman. There is an addition of fowl or
chicken broth in memory of Dame Partlet and her sisters,
who love, honour, and obey the sultan of the hen-roost.
And there is a good allowance of butter, to symbolize the
adulation of courtship and the praises which the poet says
are the wages of the sex.
Take a pound of sorrel and cut it first into narrow V
ribbons ; then slantwise into diamonds. Put it into a
stewpan and stir it on the fire, with 3lb. of butter,
with salt, and it may be with one ounce of flour. Then
add five or six pints of fowl or chicken broth, and
let it simmer gently for half an hour. Take it off the fire,
and add a leason of six yolks of eggs and a tumblerful
of good cream. Finish it with a bit of butter and serve it
with crusts.
Bonne Femme Maigre.—Omit the flour, put water for
broth, and use cream of rice instead of cream.
BORAGE.—There is an old rhyme, Ego borago gaudia
semper ago, which has been freely translated—“I borage
bring courage.” It had a wonderful repute for cheering


80
Bordeaux
the heart of man, and was accordingly ranked among the
four cordial flowers—that is, flowers which acted upon the
heart and made it merry. The four flowers were alkanet,
borage, roses and violets. This is what Lord Bacon says
of it: “The leaf of the borage hath an excellent spirit to
repress the fuliginous vapours of dusky melancholy and
so to cure madness. . . . . It will make a sovereign drink
for melancholy passions.” The juice of the leaves abounds
in nitre, and the withered stalks have been seen to burn
like matchpaper. The young leaves and tender tops used
to be taken in salad. Now the plant is scarcely ever used
except for flavouring claret-cup. It resembles, in this
respect, burnet and cucumber.
BORDEAUX, Bordelese.—The famous capital of the Gascon
country has given its name to a sauce, to a method of
serving the entrecôte or ribsteak, and to the cooking of
crayfish.
Sauce Bordelaise. ----Properly speaking, there is no such
sauce, and very few of the books care to describe it. What
is so called is a variety of the Genevese Sauce, and got its
name probably because of the Bordeaux wine in it. Take
a good brown sauce, Spanish if possible, boil it down with
a tumblerful of red Bordeaux, with one or two shalots
chopped small, and by rights also with a clove of garlic
crushed.
Entrecôte à la Bordelaise.—One would imagine that this
must be a ribsteak with Bordelese sauce. It is nothing of
the kind—for, as we have said, there is, strictly speaking,
no such sauce. It is a ribsteak grilled in the ordinary way
and served with (either upon it or under it) a piece of cold
maître d'hôtel butter, into which has been wrought some
chopped shalot. To those who love onion flavours the idea
seems good, but many persons regret the order they have
given for the Entrecôte à la Bordelaise, from not taking
into account that the shalot is raw.


Bouchées
81
Crayfish à la Bordelaise are a passion with some people,
especially in the season when game fails. They take the
place of game towards the end of dinner. Chop a faggot
of Mirepoix fine, pass it in butter, and add a tumblerful
of white wine to it. Boil it up, put the crayfish into it
alive ; they are soon dead and red, although to be
thoroughly cooked they must be tossed for at least twenty
minutes. When done, pile them in a noble monument on
the dish ; take the sauce, finish it with a little fresh butter,
and pour it fondly on the monument you have raised.
Given the crayfish, there comes a terrible question,-
How are they to be got at? how are they to be eaten ?
Prigs and foolish virgins are aghast to find that knives and
forks are of no use. Then comes a moment of great trial
to weak nerves. What becomes of our boasted civilisation
when it is known that the crayfish are to be boldly eaten
with the fingers, and that when the dish is consumed
finger-glasses go round?
BOTARGO—Roe of the Grey Mullet.
BOUCHÉES—Morsels. These are small Vol-au-vents, and
the way to make them is described under that heading.
They are filled with a salpicon of chicken, game or fish,
well moistened with a white sauce–Béchamel or Alle-
mande.
Bouchées à la Reine.-Filled with a salpicon of chicken,
—that is, a fine mince of chicken with tongue, mushrooms
and truffles. The queen after whom they are named was
Marie Lesczinska, the wife of Louis XV., who gave the ✓
French cooks their idea of the Baba or Polish cake and
the Kromeski or Polish croquette.
Bouchées of game in the same way.
Bouchées of lobsters or of shrimps are filled with either
of these cut small, but not mixed with anything else save
the white sauce.


Brains
83
the fish and put them on a dish apart, making, spite of
Thackeray, a pretty good clearance of herbs and spices.
Strain the soup by itself into a tureen, with it may be
sippets of toast in it. It is more common, but not. so
good, to serve soup and fish together.
BOUILLON.—Why should we be expected to say Bouillon
when we have the good English word broth ?-for every-
thing pertaining to which see Soup.
BOURGEOIS, À LA BOURGEOISE.—It has always been
difficult to translate these phrases into English, and the
attempt to do so now would be absurd. They belonged
to an order of things when there was a more marked
gastronomical distinction between the nobleman and the
townsman than we can now find. The nobleman had
a fine way of cooking, the burgess had a less refined
way. It is better in the present day to contrast the
set dinner or the dinner of state with the family dinner.
We make greater preparation for invited guests than for
every-day home use. Throughout these pages, therefore,
what the French call a Bourgeois dish—or one prepared
à la Bourgeoise will be described as a family dish or one
prepared in a familiar way.
BOUQUET.—The technical name for this in English is a
Faggot of parsley—a little bunch of parsley and spring
onions. See Faggot.
Bouquet garni.—A faggot of herbs—thát is, a faggot of
parsley wtih the addition of thyme and bayleaf.
BRAINS.—Hath a calf, which is the emblem of stupidity, v
brains? It is one of the glories of cookery that it recog-
nises good in everything good even in a calf's organ of
intelligence. It is only the cerebral matter of calves that
is deemed worthy of being shaped into lordly dishes. They
are first picked clean, then cooled for at least an hour.


84
Brandade
They are then either to be boiled or fried. If boiled (this
is the favourite way), they are to be simmered for thirty
minutes in water with salt and vinegar, then drained, and
they are to be served with Maître d'Hôtel sauce, with
black butter, or with Montpellier butter. If fried, they are
to be first parboiled for ten minutes in water, salt and
vinegar, and they are to be served with Ravigote butter.
BRANDADE.—The first receipt for a brandade which
appeared in print was written by Grimod de la Reynière,
and is as follows :—“Among the provincial ragouts in
most distinguished favour in Paris are the brandades of
salt fish. A restaurateur of the Palais Royal is well
known to have made his fortune by his method of preparing
them. We give the receipt as it was communicated to us
in a village of Languedoc which enjoys a reputation for
this very article at once brilliant and merited. The
singular name of brandade, though not found in any
dictionary, is derived doubtless from the old French verb
brandir, which means to shake ; and this action, almost
continual, is in fact indispensable to render the ragout
what it ought to be. Soak for twenty-four hours a fine
piece of salt fish. Put it on the fire in sufficient water,
carefully taking it off when it begins to boil. Put butter,
oil, parsley and garlic into a stewpan upon a gentle fire.
In the meantime skin the fish and divide it into small bits.
Put the pieces into the stewpan, and add from time to time
more oil, butter or milk, as the whole is perceived to
thicken. Shake the stewpan for a long time over the fire,
so as to reduce the salt fish to a kind of cream. The
receipt is very simple, but we do not cease to repeat that
the success of the brandade depends on shaking the
stewpan for a very long time. This alone can effect the
extreme division or disunion of all the parts of the naturally
tough fish and metamorphose it into a sort of cream.”
It may be a dreadful heresy, but it is difficult not to add


Braze
85
that there is an effective instrument called a spoon which
is not once mentioned in the foregoing sentences, and
which if properly stirred would save a good deal of
shaking. Let it be furthermore added, that though
Grimod dwells in his usual emphatic way on the creamy
nature of a brandade, it is by no means to be classed with
spoon meat—it is a very thick cream to be heaped on the
dish with fried crusts round it.
BRAWN.—One word about brawn, not for itself so
much as for its connection with galantine. It is, in fact,
a galantine of pig's head. In the oldest English receipts
we are told how to make a galantine with the brawn or
flesh of fowls, as well as with that of swine ; but in the
course of ages it has come about that the galantine of pig
is especially called brawn, and it is scarcely ever made in
private houses. We buy it as we buy sausages, in the
shops. It would save a great deal of trouble if galantine
were treated in the same way. The wholesale dealers can
make it better and cheaper than any private family.
Brawn Sauce.—Brawn has a sauce all to itself. Add
mustard and sugar to oil and vinegar in proportions which
must be left to individual taste. Some insist that the sugar
must be brown. This is not necessary ; but if white sugar
be chosen, then the juice of a sweet orange, together with
a few gratings of the zest, may be worked in with great
effect. Say two tablespoonfuls of oil, one of vinegar, two
mustardspoonfuls of mustard, a dessertspoonful of sifted
sugar, the juice of one and the rind of half a sweet
orange.
BRAZE—to braze.—Brazing is a combination of stewing
and baking. The meat, which is nearly always boned, is
put into a copper stewpan with broth and vegetables, and
set upon embers or upon the corner of the stove, to simmer
very gently. Thus far it is the easiest-going stew that can


86
Braze
be imagined. It is at the same time on its upper surface
subjected to another process of heat. The lid is tightly
closed upon it, sometimes with clay or dough, and is in a
form to hold burning embers which ought to generate upon
the surface of the stew a heat that if applied below and in
contact with the metal bottom might burn it. Below, there
is a slow stew going on; above, the meat is in a sort of
miniature oven, baking and browning. It is a favourite
mode of cooking with the French, and is supposed to create
unusual flavour-combining the advantages of roasting and
boiling. Whether it does so is another question. Brazed
meat is no doubt an improvement upon boiled; but it
never reaches the flavour of roast. This, however, is a
matter of opinion ; and French cooks often put paper over
delicate meat which is to be brazed—say a fowl or turkey
—to make sure that the heat of the brazier above will not
give it too much of a taste.
Braze is a common name for the ingredients which are
put into the brazing-pan to stew with the meat and to give
it a flavour. Obviously in this sense the braze may be as
variable as the viands which are to be stewed and as the
tastes which have to be consulted. The Mirepoix, men-
tioned later, will be found a very good braze indeed, and
it does not differ much from what is commonly called a
braze—that is, a few slices of bacon, some carrots, four or
five onions, one of which is made a pincushion for cloves,
two bayleaves, a little thyme, and a bunch of parsley.
Indeed, the multiplication of names is one of the greatest
follies of the kitchen ; and mention is made here of braze
not with approval, but only to prevent disappointment.
To judge by the current receipts, it would be extremely
difficult to make out a clear difference between Braze,
Blanc, Poêle, and Mirepoix. Each and all are a confusion
of well-favoured vegetables and herbs, one heaped upon
another, with little regard to quantity and none to com.
bination. See more upon this point under Faggot.


Bread
87
BREAD.—When Dr. Lister, the physician of Queen
Anne, went to Paris in the beginning of last century,
he declared that the French bread made in London was
better than that made in Paris. It is the same now.
English bread itself is not good. Even baker's bread is
poor stuff ; and home-made bread realizes pretty well the
image of a son asking his father for bread and receiving a
stone. Nevertheless, observe two things : the best bread
for cooking purposes is known in the French kitchen as
pain Anglais-it is the English pan loaf; and the best
bread in the world is made in London-but it is made by
French bakers from Hungarian flour. The chemists tell
us that this bread is not so nourishing as the coarser kinds;
but what is the worth of their analysis we have already seen
at page 15. We may take the navvy as a good practical
judge. He knows what suits him best, and he will always
be found eating the finest bread he can get.
The English bread, as a rule, is so bad that at our dinner-
tables it has been displaced by the potato. The English-
man wants a potato with every dish that comes before him
-he cannot do without it, no matter what other vegetables
are provided. The Frenchman, on the other hand, eats
bread throughout dinner; and many have been heard to
complain that at an English dinner they are quite ashamed
of the number of times they have to ask for bread—they
can never get enough. The bread or potato thus eaten
throughout a meal serves two ends : it supplies the farina-
ceous element of food, and it acts upon the palate as a
sponge to prepare it for a new experience. Which for the
latter purpose is the more serviceable—the French or the
English style—the bread or the potato ? Suppose one were
tasting wines : will the English wine-taster ever come to
eating potatoes between his sips of the different vintages ?
He eats bread, which is the best thing possible for the
renovation of his taste. Here is a marked point in which
the French are ahead of the English in understanding the


Bread
VO,
laws of gustation. They leave the potato to Englishmen;
they choose bread for themselves, and they take care to
have their bread of the best.
Bread and Butter with Fruit—a favourite sweet entremet
described under the name of Charlotte.
Breadcrumbs, Raspings, Crusts—much used in cookery,
but scarcely needing explanation. The bread for crumbs
should be stale and well sifted. A more common kind is
made by baking any pieces of bread until hard, braying
them in a mortar, and passing them through a sieve.
Bread Pudding.- When one is in the humour to eat bread-
pudding one wants it very simple—therefore the simplest
receipt is the best, and the less we say of currants and
candied citron the better. The rule is to pour upon fine
breadcrumbs about three times the quantity of liquid-in
the form of rich milk and butter. Say there are six ounces
of bread,—on this put two ounces of fresh butter, and then
pour boiling hot a pint (sixteen ounces) of the creamiest
milk to be obtained. Cover this over, and let it stand
until the bread is well soaked—which will take about half
an hour. Then mix in three ounces of sugar, the yolks of
five eggs, the whites of three, and a little nutmeg. Pour
it into a dish, and bake it for half an hour.
Bread Sauce. This is a serious matter, and is rarely
turned out well. Many cooks think it enough to serve up
mere milk-sop, and there are very few of the receipts which
allow for it more than ten minutes' preparation. The sauce
is very simple, but it is worth some care. The following
receipt is borrowed from Miss Acton : “ Put into a sauce-
pan nearly half a pint of fine breadcrumbs, the white part
of a large but mild onion cut into quarters, three-quarters
of a pint of new milk; and boil them very gently, keeping
them often stirred until the onion is perfectly tender, which
will be in from forty minutes to an hour. Press the whole


Brill
89
through a hair sieve ; reduce the sauce by quick boiling
should it be too thin; add salt, nutmeg, an ounce of butter,
and four spoonfuls of cream : and when it is of proper
thickness, dish and send it quickly to table.” Let it be
added, however, that if the onion is chopped instead of being
cut into quarters, the sauce will take much less time.
BRETON.—The Celts of Brittany have immortalised them-
selves and their mutton by means of a few onions and
haricot beans. In the first place they have invented the
Breton sauce. It is the counterpart of Soubise, only that
the one is brown, the other white. When these noble
Bretons eat roast mutton they make a quantity of their
lovely brown sauce, they boil about an equal quantity of
white haricot beans, they mix the two together for a
garnish, and there is the Gigot à la Bretonne. To be
exact, let us say that there are two pints of garnish :-one
pint should be the brown purée of onions, the other pint
white haricots nestling in the brown.
Breton Sauce is to Soubise what brown is to white. Peel,
trim, and mince a good quantity of onions-no stint.
Pass them in butter with a little salt, perhaps also some
sugar, till they are of a rich red colour, and then set
them to stew in their own juice with a faggot of sweet
herbs. When they are done, take out the faggot and add a
brown sauce to them—the best is not too good. The books
direct that after this the onions and the sauce together
should be reduced to a glaze, which is quite unnecessary.
The object is to develop the roast flavour of the onions,
which is developed enough if they have been fried enough
at first. Pass all through a tammy, and finish it with a
piece of butter and a squeeze of lemon.
BRILL.–Of all good fish, brill is the most odious, because
it is used, either ignorantly or maliciously, to do duty for
turbot. No doubt this is proof of its goodness ; it would


90
Brillat-Savarin
be impossible to pass off a bad fish for turbot. But a brill
in reality is to turbot as lead is to silver, and as cider to
champagne. It may seem incredible, but it is a fact that
there are heathens who do not know what a turbot is, who
despise its fin and its skin, who think the thick fleshy part
of it the best, and who naturally, therefore, can see no great
difference between brill and turbot. A brill is to them as
good as a turbot, for it only wants what in their view is
well wanting—the gelatinous fins and the skin. The fish-
monger finds it easy to impose upon these innocents ;
and they in turn do not see the enormity of imposing
brill upon guests who are entitled to turbot. The fish
too readily lends itself to this frightful system of impos-
ture, and has caused such cruel disappointments to those
who hold the turbot in regard that it is naturally in bad
odour.
There is not a word, however, to be said against brill in
its own place—a very fair middle-class fish. Like a large
sole, it may be fried whole or in fillets. It may be served
au gratin, in a matelote of the ordinary kind, or a Nor-
mandy matelote. Also it may be boiled in slices, in fillets
or whole, and served with Holland sauce, caper sauce,
nut-brown butter, or indeed with any of the butter sauces.
BRILLAT-SAVABIN. — A French magistrate, born at
Belley in 1775, dying at St. Denis in 1826. He is the
most delightful and seductive of all the writers on gastro-
nomy, though he might never have written if Grimod
de la Reynière had not led the way. His work entitled
Physiologie du Goût is a masterpiece. It was published
anonymously the year before his death, so that he had
not the happiness of reaping his reward and seeing his
renown. He gave to the pleasures of the table a poetry
little thought of before, and though his works are in
prose he is to be ranked as one of the most original of
poets. He has himself reported what one of his friends


Brown Betty
91
said to him,“You have but one fault: you eat too
quickly.” That, however, is a great fault in a gourmet,
and it is a fault which is much too common in England.
Napoleon lost the two great battles of Borodino and Leipsic
through indigestion brought on by his habit of eating too
fast. Let the frivolous pause and think of this—the chance
of losing an empire through unseemly disregard of the
dinner-table.
BRIOCHE.—Nobody knows the origin of this name. It
is made of paste No. 9 in any shape which may be chosen,
and baked in the oven for half an hour. It forms a most
estimable cake, but is still more delicious as fritters. See
Fritters, No. 6 ; also Dauphiness.
BROCOLI.—The same directions as for cauliflower.
BROIL._See Grill. Whichever the word, to both the
rule of Macbeth applies :
If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.
BROTH.—The French appear to make some distinction
between a soup and a potage, but I have never been able
to define it. In England it is assumed that there must be
some distinction between soup and broth, but again I have
never been able to make out what is meant. This is the
worst of culinary terms. They might be used with pre-
cision ; but for one cook who treats his business as a
science, there are a myriad who know nothing and turn
everything into confusion. Although the usage in England
is not certain, the tendency is to restrict the name of broth
to the juice of meats more or less highly wrought before
they take special form as soup. Broth, in short, is to soup
what cloth is to dress.
BROWN BETTY is the English cousin of the Continental
Charlotte. Like Charlotte, she has a taste for bread and


92
Browning
butter and bakes it with fruit, chiefly apples. How
Charlotte makes the combination may be seen under her
name. The English receipt for Brown Betty is as follows :-
Pare and slice a number of apples, and prepare a quantity
of breadcrumbs. Put a layer of breadcrumbs in a pie-dish;
then a layer of apples ; then over the apples brown sugar
and pieces of butter. Put on more layers of crumbs,
apples, sugar and butter, until the dish is full. Pour over
all a small teacupful of water, and then cover the whole
with thin slices of bread and butter, forming a good solid
roof for the pie. Bake it slowly, sprinkle it with sugar,
and serve it either with or without cream. The apples will
not be the worse for having a clove or two among them.
Brown Betty admits of many variations. One is known
in this country as Swiss pudding-pounded rusks, soaked
in milk, being used for the breadcrumbs. Cover it with
pounded rusks, and pour melted butter over it.
BROWNING.—On all occasions the best is caramel—it is
the least apt to create an unlooked-for flavour. Roux and
burnt onions are often enough in use, however. These
brownings are admirable in soup as Robert Browning
in poesy—but they are apt to be harsh.
BRUNOISE, CHIFFONNADE, CROÛTE AU POT, JARDINIÈRE,
JULIENNE, PAYSANNE, SPRING SOUP.—The basis of all these
soups is a brown clear broth or double broth. Vegetables
are added according to the season, and they are usually cut
into small fancy shapes. They may be carrots, turnips,
leeks, onions, celery, peas, kidney beans, lettuce, cabbage,
Brussels sprouts, cauliflowers, asparagus, tarragon, chervil,
parsley, sorrel, and woodsorrel. Do not overload the soup,
but make a good selection ; and when carrots, turnips,
celery, leeks, or onions are used, prepare them first by
frying them in a stewpan with two ounces of butter, a
sprinkling of salt, and a teaspoonful of pounded sugar.
The other vegetables may be simply blanched. Crusts of


Bumper
93
bread may be added, large or small, according to taste.
When this soup has an abundance of vegetables and crusts
in it—thus becoming almost a garbure—it is sometimes
convenient to serve it in two separate tureens, one contain-
ing nothing but the clear broth, the other the vegetables
and crusts, with just enough broth to float them. It is
easier in this way to apportion the soup and the vegetables
on each successive soup-plate.
For more about this soup and its varieties, the reader
may turn to the Introductory Chapter and to the article on
Julienne. As for the name Brunoise, although extremely
common, it has not been adopted by any of the classical
French dictionaries. Some of the cookery books call the
soup Potage à la Brunoy.
BRUSSELS SPROUTS. — To be boiled like cabbages in
abundance of water and a little salt for fifteen minutes, to
be drained and dried, to be tossed in butter, with pepper
and nutmeg. For garnish a little butter will do. For an
entremet use more butter, and it may be also a veal gravy
or white cullis. There is a superfluity which was once in
favour—buttered toast beneath the sprouts when served as
an entremet, or else sippets of toast around them.
BUBBLE AND SQUEAK.—Chop some boiled white cabbage, V
season it with pepper and salt, and toss it in butter. Pepper
and broil some slices of cold salted beef—if underdone,
so much the better. Put the cabbage into a dish, lay
round it the slices of beef, garnish it if you will with slices
of carrot, and serve it very hot.
BUMPER.-- There is a fine distinction between a bumper
and a brimmer which ought not to drop out of sight. A
brimmer is a glass so full of wine that it touches the brim.
But this may happen by force of attraction—the wine climb-
ing up to the brim, and leaving a slight hollow in the central
surface. Add a few more drops of wine, and this central


94
Burnet
depression will not only be filled up, but a bump of wine
will rise like a hill in the centre of the glass, which may
then be described as a bumper. The difference between a
brimmer and a bumper may be tested with a small piece of
cork. In a brimmer it will float to the edge of the glass ;
in a bumper it will remain in the centre,
BURNET, called also Salad Burnet and Garden Burnet,
to distinguish it from the Great Burnet, and by the French
called pimpernel,-a plant quite distinct from the English
pimpernel, which is poison,—had a great reputation in the
olden time. It was used chiefly, as borage now, to improve
the taste of claret cup. It was also used as now in salads,
to give them a finer relish. It was supposed to quicken
the spirits, to lighten the heart and to make it merry. Its
modern use is confined to salads and sauces. It is one of
the four herbs— tarragon, burnet, chives, and chervil-
which form what the French call ravigote or “pick me up."
It is blanched and chopped with these herbs to be strewn
on the salad ; to be mingled with butter so as to form ravi-
gote butter ; or to be added to a mayonnaise to make green
mayonnaise. There is one great advantage in burnet—it
continues green through the winter, when most of the
other salad plants are useless.
BUTTER.—On the whole it must be admitted that the
English do not with all their rich pastures make good butter.
All the best butter with the rich creamy taste supplied to
the clubs of London comes from Ostend, from Normandy,
or from Brittany. No such butter is to be got in the
British Isles save in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where
somehow they have learned the art of producing butter
which vies with that of Ostend and Normandy. Cambridge
butter, too, has this fine creamy flavour ; but it is notorious
that what has been called Cambridge butter is a mixture
of foreign butters. The French export, chiefly to England


Butter
95
and Brazil, about 50,000 tons of butter a year, the produce
of nearly 500,000 cows.
Most Englishmen would be appalled if they entered
a French kitchen and saw the quantity of butter which
the cook uses. We digest a French dinner with ease;
but let people see the butter absorbed in it—all their pre-
judices rise, and they have a fit of dyspepsia. Butter and
oil are the most delicate forms of fat, and the Englishman
who fancies they are ruinous to his digestion will notwith-
standing partake abundantly of the coarser fats. Beef fat
and mutton fat he will eat to any extent ; greasy pork
with nice crackling is a great joy to him ; and as for the
streaky fat of bacon, he thinks it peculiarly wholesome.
The French and the English consume about the same
quantities of fatty matter : the chief difference between
them is that the French prefer the more delicate fats and
the English are content with the coarser.
Nominally and theoretically, the grand sauces of V
French cookery are made from reduced essences of meat.
But really and truly the most popular, the most useful,
and the most admired of all the sauces are the butter
sauces—chief among which are the Dutch sauce and the
English sauce commonly called melted butter. (See
Dutch and English.) The butter sauces are the most
simple of all, and require little or no preparation ; yet they
are very palatable, and many persons enjoy them more
than the finest gravies and the most elaborate creams.
They generally figure in the books under the name of
Small Sauces ; but they are the grand unfailing resources
of cottage kitchens and impromptu cookery. They are of
infinite variety, and when once the simple principles on V
which they are formed have been mastered, the cook, like a
pianist who presents a well-known air with many varia-
tions, may show his or her ingenuity in ringing the
changes upon them.
There are various preparations of butter used for sauce,


96
Butter
as Maître d'Hôtel butter, Ravigote butter, Anchovy butter,
Montpellier butter, which will be found described under
their proper names. Here it must be enough to enume-
rate the three simplest preparations of butter for sauce.
1. Oiled Butter.-Anybody can make this; and if other
sauces fail, it can be got ready in a minute. It is plain
fresh butter melted, but not allowed to brown. There is
sometimes a milky sediment in the butter which has to be
got rid of in the strainer. Add salt in serving the oiled
butter.
2. Nut-brown Butter, the French Beurre à la Noisette.
This is fresh butter melted in a small saucepan and allowed
not to brown, but to begin to brown. A delicious and
very delicate flavour is developed if the butter is whipt off
the fire the moment it begins to roast. The moment the
light hazel tinge shows itself, the operation is complete,
and you have, especially for fish, one of the most perfect
of sauces, to which in serving may be added a squeeze
of lemon-juice and a dash of salt.
3. Black Butter—the French Beurre noir, much used
for skate, for calf's brains, and the like. This is a sharp
sauce. Proceed as for nut-brown butter, but let the
browning go further till the butter becomes dark-brown,
though without being burnt. Take the butter from the
fire, and next proceed to reduce some vinegar rapidly to
about two-thirds of its volume. Mix the butter and the
vinegar together, add a little salt and pepper, and pass all
through the pointed strainer. It is not necessary to use the
best butter for this sauce. Its peculiar flavour would be
destroyed in the cooking.


Cabbage
97
ABBAGE is the general name for a vegetable
that presents itself in several varieties, which,
putting the coleworts or wild sort out of
account, may be ranged in three classes.
1. That with loose, open leaves—known as greens, kale,
and borecole. 2. That which is closed up—the white,
sometimes called the Milan cabbage, the red cabbage, the
Savoy (distinguished from the other closed ones by its
wrinkled leaves), and Brussels sprouts, which are generally
ranked as a variety of the Savoy. 3. The flowering sort,
namely, cauliflower and brocoli, white and purple.
In a loose way, the name of cabbage is given to all of
these, except to Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and brocoli;
which shall therefore be noticed under their own special
names. The other varieties of cabbage do not call for
much remark. Though used in soups and for garnish,
they are hardly ever served as entremets, unless we make
an exception in favour of sauerkraut, which however nearly
always implies the accompaniment of sausages or bacon.
Another apparent exception is the Chartreuse. This looks
like a dish of cabbage to be eaten by itself and for itself.
But the sly monks of the Grande Chartreuse taught our
cooks to hide dainty morsels of partridge within the cabbage
leaves.
Cabbage for Garnish.—The English way is simple enough,
and applies equally to Brussels sprouts, turnip-tops, endive,
and lettuce. After being carefully trimmed and washed,
the cabbage—halved and quartered—is thrown into boiling
water, which has not only salt in it but often a little car-
bonate of soda to keep it green. A large quantity of water
is used, especially in the case of turnip-tops, which are to
be treated as a kind of greens or open cabbage ; or else
several waters are used to carry off bitterness of taste and
rankness of odour. The cabbage is boiled for thirty-five or


98
Cabbage
forty minutes, and being drained, it is supposed to have
finished its education and to be fit for table. In this state,
however, it is dry and insipid. Be it cabbage, greens,
Brussels sprouts, turnip-tops, endive, or lettuce, it should
be tossed with butter, pepper, and perhaps nutmeg, before
ascending to the dignity of the table.
The French way of dressing cabbage is indicated in the
English practice of boiling greens to take with boiled beef.
These are not boiled with the beef, lest they should impart
too much of their flavour to it; but they are boiled with
some of the liquor of the beef and with its top fat. The
French take cabbages—white ones by preference—cut them
into quarters, wash them well, cast them with salt into
boiling water, boil them for ten minutes, steep them for
half an hour in cold water, press them and dry them well,
tie them up, put them into a stewpan with a piece of bacon
previously blanched, a faggot of sweet herbs, an onion stuck
with two cloves, and pepper, cover them with broth, and so
et them cook, till they are tender and thoroughly impreg-
nated with the surrounding juices.
Cabbage Soup is much the same as the foregoing ; but
put into the stewpan, say for each cabbage half a pound
of bacon, and half a pound of gravy beef, with half a gallon
of water, or even three-quarters ; bring it to the boiling
point, skim it, and then simmer it for three hours. Finally,
cut up the cabbage and serve it in its broth, keeping back
the beef, the bacon, and the faggot.
CALF's FEET are for the most part boiled in salt and
water alone, for the purpose of making sweet Jelly (which
see); or with a faggot of pot-herbs for the purpose of
making Aspic (which also see). In either case, after hours
of boiling, the feet, which have parted with much of their
gelatine, still remain good enough to make a very nice
little dish. The best way is to heat them up in a Poulette
Relish.


Calipash
99
CALF's HEAD. Plain boiled.—The English way. Take
a whole or half a head. Scald it well, and let it soak for
an hour or two in cold water. Then simmer it for an hour
and a half in water enough to make it swim, and with a
faggot of pot-herbs. Serve it with maître d'hôtel sauce
(parsley and butter) poured over it; and let it be garnished
with bacon or pig's cheek, with the tongue nicely trimmed,
and with the brains which have been cooked apart.
The French way. The head or half-head is first boned,
then blanched as above, then cut in pieces, keeping the ear
apart with a good base to it, then simmered for an hour
and a half with the faggot of pot-herbs. The pieces of calf's
head are next drained, the tongue is trimmed, and all are
served in naked simplicity on an oval dish ; the ear-pieces,
which are considered the tit-bits, being made conspicuous
in the arrangement. It is eaten either hot or cold with a
cruet sauce. As many people like to make this sauce in
proportions selected by themselves, it is usual to serve
with it, on a plate and in separate heaps, capers, chives
and parsley—the last two chopped.
Calf's Head en Tortue.—Prepared as above in the French
way, but heated up and served in a Turtle Relish.
Calf's Head à la Financière.—As before, but with the
Financial Relish.
Calf's Head Soup (better known as Mock Turtle).-See
Turtle.
CALIPASH AND CALIPEE.—Calipash is a corruption of
carapace, the upper shell of the turtle ; but it is used to
signify only the green fat or gelatinous matter which
adheres to the upper shell, while calipee is the name given
to the yellow. fat or gelatine which is attached to the under
shell. The Green Fat is never to be approached in a frivo-
lous spirit—always with profound obeisance and thoughts
that do lie too deep for words. “Sir,” said an alderman at
a city dinner to a loquacious companion, “let us be silent


100
Cambridge
are swab. Pray you s
for a moment. In listening to your discourse, and trying
to answer you, I have swallowed two pieces of Green Fat
without doing them justice. Pray let me enjoy my present
happiness, and when it is ended you shall discourse as
much as you please.”
CAMBRIDGE.—The rivalry of the twin universities has
extended to the table. Oxford has its sausage and its
punch. Cambridge has its sausage and its punch too.
But there is an originality in the Oxford preparations to
which Cambridge can make no approach. The Oxford
sausage is a crêpinette, can be made at home, and affords
infinite scope for variety of flavour. The Cambridge
sausage is always put into skins, and that is a business of
itself which had better be left to the pork-butcher. There
is therefore a uniformity about it which is a little too
suggestive of mathematics.
The Cambridge milk punch also is scarcely worthy of
the great university. It is punch made without water, but
with hot milk instead, and with the addition of one or two
beaten eggs.
CANTERBURY.—Celebrated for its archbishops and its
brawn, Primates of England and prime of pig-cheek.
CAPERS are the buds of a plant which were at one time
a good deal cultivated in England—and which might well
be wgron in chalk pits, on cliffs and on walls. We get
our chief supplies from Italy, and our sauces are so much
indebted to them that it is difficult to explain why the
plant is now rarely to be seen in England. Perhaps if
the history of the plant were known, a greater interest
would be felt in it. Dr. Royle has proved that-it is the
hyssop of Scripture, “which springeth out of the wall.”
It has long trailing branches like the bramble, and it was
on one of these that the sponge filled with vinegar was
offered to our Saviour on the cross. “They filled a sponge


Carbonade
ΙΟΙ
with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop.” It was with a
branch of the same that the Israelites sprinkled their
doorposts with blood when they ate the passover.
Caper Sauce.- English butter sauce with a tablespoon-
ful of capers added, not forgetting a little of their vinegar.
Let some of the capers be minced, so as to flavour the
sauce more effectually.
CARAMEL is to soup and sauce what rice powder is to the v
face—it gives a complexion. It is difficult to find a sub-
stance which will colour soup and yet not alter its flavour.
Burnt onions are sometimes used, but they are as rouge to
the countenance—not to be trusted. The most innocuous
substance is caramel, or burnt sugar, which is prepared as
follows : Put a pound of sifted sugar into a brass skillet or v
preserving pan, and melt it on a slow fire, stirring it with
a wooden spoon. ' After it has melted let it remain on the
fire till it becomes the colour of mahogany, stirring it from
time to time to make the tint uniform. This may be dark
or light at pleasure ; but care must be taken to avoid a
quick fire, which will burn the sugar and make it black.
When the proper tint is gained add three tumblers of
water. Then stir up the fire and reduce the caramel to a
syrup. Pour it out, cool it, and bottle it for use.
CARBONADE.—If cookery is ever to be a science it must
be exact in its nomenclature, and cooks must not be allowed
to confuse common-sense with their ignorant use of terms.
The carbonade has degenerated in France into a stew,
having meant originally a grill ; and attempts are made
to introduce the word into England as corrupted by the
French cooks. So long as Shakespeare and the Elizabethan
dramatists are prized in England this new style will not
be tolerated. The carbonade was “a rasher on the coals”;
and the rasher was first of all slashed or scored, to increase
the broiling surface and to permit the penetration of pepper
and salt. It was in fact a devil. “He scotcht him and


102
Carême
notcht him like a carbonado,” we read in Shakespeare ;
and in Beaumont and Fletcher-
Has he bespoke ? what, will he have a brace,
Or but one partridge, or a short-legged hen
Daintily carbonadoed ?
What has this to do with stewing? In England a car-
bonade will always mean something which is first scored
and then grilled. Only nowadays it is not usual—except
for devilling—to score meat which is to be grilled, since
to do so would let out the juices too freely and dry it.
For further remarks turn to the Shoulder of Mutton,
which is the principal piece of meat submitted to the
carbonade ; and to do justice to the French cooks, let
us explain how it is that the carbonade of mutton has
with them come to be a stew. It was because it was
thought good to parboil the shoulder before sending it to
the grill.
The only carbonade of beef which is much in favour is
better known as broiled or grilled bones.
CARÊME is certainly the most celebrated cook of the
present century. He had a great genius ; he had rare
opportunities; and he has done more than any other one
man that can be named to determine the arrangements
and the provisions of the dinner-table as we have it now.
Mr. Hayward has done honour to his genius in a passage
remarkable for its epigrammatic point, which will be found
quoted in our notice of Beauvilliers. But he was a fearful
egotist and coxcomb, and his national vanity is pitiful ; so
that it is sometimes a labour to go through his works. It
is strange also to see that though he could be very simple
when it pleased him, he had a perfect mania for elaboration
and show ; and he paid such excessive attention to the
architecture of the table and the outward adorning of his
dishes, that he has left an example which has perhaps done
V more harm than good. To succeed as he succeeded, a cook


- Carps
103
must not only be a cook—he must be a draughtsman, a
sculptor, and a colourist ; and the time and taste which a
cook spends on the arts of design, to prepare food for the
eye, are so much time and taste diverted from the more
important business of preparing food for the mouth.
CARPs are a great family, and include, besides the carp V
proper, tench, barbel, gudgeon, gold-fish, loach, bream,
chub, roach, dace, minnow, and bleak. The carp has a v
remarkable tenacity of life. He not only lives to a great
age—some say 200 years : he survives terrible afflictions.
He has been found alive in the muddy bottoms of empty
ponds ; he may be taken out of the water, packed in moist
moss, and with a mouthful of bread steeped in brandy, to
be repeated from stage to stage, may be transported to
almost any distance ; both himself and his wives have been
cut open for their roes, they have been sewn up again and
returned to the pond, where they have afterwards, like
capons and oxen, fattened amazingly and improved in
flavour. Nature has provided not only that the carp shal
live long, but also that he shall increase and multiply
prodigiously. He abounds in roe, and one of his wives
alone will produce 700,000 young in a year. The soft roe
of the carp is one of the most prized of fishy delicacies, and
is served by itself sometimes as an entrée or as a soup.
(See Roe.) His tongue or false tongue is likewise con-
sidered a rare morsel, and for the sake of it some people
will buy only carps' heads and make a dish of them.
As for the body of the carp, it is not superb, and requires
all the rhetoric of the saucepan. If people choose to boil,
fry, or grill him, they must take the consequences, and do
the best they can with caper sauce, Holland sauce, or black
butter. He should be either stewed or brazed ; and how-
ever he is cooked, it is important first of all to extract from
his head the gallstone, which else would impart a bitter
flavour to the flesh.


104
Carp
But the granand is known in this royal
For a stew, dress him either in a matelote or à la poulette.
In this case he can be served either whole or in pieces, and
in company with his friends—the eel, the tench, the perch,
and the gudgeon. But the grand style of announcing the
fish was invented at Chambord, and is known as
Carp à la Chambord.—There is a great lake in this royal
demesne where carp abound. The fish is best in running
water ; in still water it partakes too much of mud, and
needs an extraordinary effort on the part of the cook to
prepare it for human association. At Chambord it was
deemed necessary to make this effort, and the result was so
successful that it has sometimes been applied to fish like
the salmon, which it is quite impossible for art to improve
upon. A great idea struck one of the cooks at Chambord
-to lard the carp. It is lamentable that in our degenerate
days cooks who pretend to serve a fish in the Chambord
manner neglect the most important point of all—the lard-
ing, and are content to bard him with slices of bacon
in the cooking. This is not enough : the larding is essen-
tial ; and if a cook does not dare to lard a salmon-(where
is the cook who could be guilty of such profanation ?)—he
must not call it saumon à la Chambord.
First of all, after being duly cleaned, the carp is to be
stuffed with ordinary veal stuffing or with quenelle of
whiting. The skin is then to be removed from head to tail
wherever the larding needle is to be applied. This simply
means that the skin may be left on his shirtfront for the
better preservation of his stuffing. He is next to be larded
with bacon in geometrical lines, but if the day should
happen to be Friday, the strips of bacon may be replaced
by strips of eel or of cooked truffles, in which case he must
at least in the brazier be enfolded in slices of bacon. He
is, thus attired, to be laid in state-that is, not on his side,
but in the position of life on the drainer of a fishkettle, and
to be somewhat more than half immersed in a Mirepoix of
white wine. He is to be covered over with buttered paper


Carving
105
and brazed gently. In an hour he will be fit for the dinner
of a king. Fiat.
Needless to say that the carp to be treated in this royal
fashion is a large one : obtain, if possible, a large Rhine
carp. He can be served in his own sauce, or if this is not
deemed enough, it can be finished off with Allemande.
But it is always a point of honour to make the dish look
well, and to give the carp à la Chambord a glorious retinue
of good things. Glaze his head ; diaper him with slices of
truffle ; and surround him in ordered masses with truffles,
with crayfish and cravfish tails, with quenelles of whiting,
and with regiments of soft roes furnished by himself and
brethren of his tribe.
CARROTS were first introduced into England by Flemish
gardeners in the time of Elizabeth; and in the reign of
James I. they were still so uncommon that ladies wore
branches of them on their hats and on their sleeves instead
of feathers. They are now, next to the onion, the most
important vegetable in all soups and sauces ; but—though
they are also used to garnish various dishes, especially salt
beef—they are rarely presented at table as an entremet by
themselves. The only important entremet in which they
appear is called after the Flemings, who first grew them
for the English in Kent.
Carrots in the Flemish way. The carrots must be young.
Blanch them, slice them or turn them, and simmer them
for half an hour in an ounce of butter, a wineglassful of
water, and a little salt and pepper. Finish them with a
leason of two yolks of eggs, a little milk or cream, a pinch
of sugar, and a dash of chopped parsley.
Carrot Soup is known under the name of Crécy.
CARVING.–Wynkyn de Worde printed in the year 1508
“ The Booke of Kervinge.” Some of the words are
curious, and throw light on the names of dishes which


106
Cassis
have been corrupted by process of time. Where the
meaning is quite plain the spelling is modernised, but not
otherwise.
“The terms of a carver be as here followeth. Break
that deer-lesche (leach) that brawn-rear that goose-
lift that swan—sauce that capon-spoil that hen-frusche
(fruss) that chicken—unbrace that mallard-unlace that
coney—dismember that heron_display that crane—dis-
figure that peacock-unjoint that bittern-untache that
curlew—alaye that felande—wing that partridge—wing
that quail—mine that plover-thigh that pigeon-border
that pasty—thigh that woodcock-thigh all manner small
birds_timber that fire-tire that egg—chine that salmon
-string that lamprey—splat that pike-sauce that plaice
-sauce that tench-splay that bream—side that haddock
-tusk that barbel—culpon that trout-fin that chevin-
trassene that eel-tranch that sturgeon—undertranch that
porpoise—tame that crab—barb that lobster. Here endeth
the goodly terms of Carving.”
birds
that lampres lay that breast-fin the
CASSIS—the French name for black currants and for
the syrup made from them. The cassis of Dijon has a
great reputation throughout France as a cooling drink.
There is nothing in England made from the same fruit
that can approach it; but that stiff-necked generation—.
the Commissioners of Customs—have put a prohibitive
duty upon it, so that it is impossible to import it. This is
because there is a drop or two of alcohol in it. The alcohol
is infinitesimal, not enough to upset the equilibrium of a
fly, very much less than there is in the cheap clarets which
are charged only a duty of 2d. a bottle ; yet the custom-
house levies a duty on it of 2s. 4d. a bottle—that is, even
more than on neat brandy, the duty on which is but 1s. 9d.
a bottle. It is amazing that the English manufacturers,
being thus protected, are unable to do anything to rival
the French in the preparation of this delicious and most


· Caviare
107
innocent liqueur, which Sir Wilfrid Lawson himself might
drink without a suspicion of the still.
CAULIFLOWER is to be had nearly all the year round,
and it is at its best in England. The Dutch send to
England for their cauliflower seeds, and there was at one
time, if there is not still, a considerable export to France of
the cauliflowers themselves.
They are to be carefully trimmed and (to eject the
insects) soaked for some time in cold water and salt.
They are then to be boiled in abundance of water with
enough of salt for twenty minutes—more or less. The
time must be ascertained by pressure. Drain them well,
and send them to table with English sauce acidulated with
lemon-juice or vinegar. It can be thus served either for a
garnish' or for an entremet. If for a garnish, the acid
should be scarcely perceptible, and the cauliflower may be
a little less cooked than for an entremet.
Cauliflower au Gratin.—Entremet. In this case all the
green leaves are to be removed, and the cauliflowers to be
boiled as above, but rather underdone. No harm if they
are cut into quarters to shorten the time of boiling. Pre-
pare an English sauce according to the receipt, only that
less butter may be used, and instead of it two ounces of
grated cheese-half Gruyère, half Parmesan being best.
Break up some of the cauliflower, arrange it on a dish,
and pour over it some of the sauce. On this bed heap up
the rest of the cauliflower unbroken ; pour over it the
remainder of the sauce ; powder it with the finest bread-
crumbs or raspings, and with more grated cheese ; lastly,
bedew it with a spoonful of oiled butter. Put this into
a hot oven till it takes a golden colour—say from ten
to fifteen minutes. If the colour is imperfect, use the
salamander. Serve it in the dish in which it has been
cooked.
CAVIARE.—If it were not a pleasure it would be an V


108
Cayenne Pepper.
imperative duty to eat caviare, for reasons which will be
given when we come to sturgeon, of which it is the roe.
It is to be spread on toast, with a squeeze of lemon.
CAYENNE PEPPER would be much better called Red
pepper, for it does not come exclusively from Cayenne.
It is the powder of the dried pods and seeds of the cap-
sicum. The name of Chillies is a Mexican name for the
pods.
centuring thaction, 14 ju celera in Enging red
CELERY AND CELERIAC are cultivated varieties of a wild
plant common enough in England-smallage. It was the
Italian gardeners who educated smallage into celery, and
brought it into European notice towards the middle of the
seventeenth century. Celeriac came about the same time
-its distinction being that whereas in celery the gardeners
brought the stalks to perfection, in celeriac they spent their
skill upon the root. Unfortunately celeriac, though on the
Continent much in favour, is little known in England ; yet
in some respects it is more useful than celery, being reared
with greater ease and at less expense, being also fit for use
during eight months of the year. The name of celery is
derived from the Greek for parsley ; and it is curious that
celeri-ac contains the Latin name (apium) added to the
Greek. Ac is to be identified with the French ache,
and with the final syllable of smallage ; and all three are
transmutable into apium on the same principle that the
Scottish Mac and the Welsh Ap are dialectical varieties
of one and the same word.
Celery is most seen at table in England raw, to be eaten
with cheese or sometimes in salad ; but its presence at
table is felt in other ways, for like parsley it is in constant
demand for pot and pan to heighten soup and sauce. Also
it makes a soup of itself ; it makes a sauce of itself ; it is
excellent plain boiled, as sea-kale ; it will stew to perfection ;
and it makes a salad which is not only good in itself, but


Chambord
109
also doubly good because it may be had when other salads
fail.
Celery Soup.—To be made on the same principle as
asparagus soup.
Celery Sauce.—For poultry or game. Slice very thin
four or five heads of celery, and put it into a saucepan
with pepper, salt, a pinch of sugar, a sliced onion, and for
every head of celery an ounce of butter. Let it stew very
slowly till the celery is melted ; only take care not to
brown it. Then add four ounces of flour, with about a
pint of milk ; let it cook for twenty minutes more, and
rub it through a sieve.
Purée of Celery is the same as the foregoing, but thicker.
Use more celery and less milk. Finish it with a pat of
butter, and serve it as a garnish for cutlets.
Celery for Garnish.—Plain boiled the same as sea-kale.
Another way is to work it like endive or spinach.
Celery in Salad is excellent by itself, and may be eaten
every whit as the French eat it—that is, root, branch, and
leaf. For additions to it try any or all of these in slices :
beet-root, Spanish onion, kidney potato.
· CHAMBORD.—The name of a royal castle near Blois, built
in the most florid style of the renascence by Francis I.
(1526) on his return from captivity in Madrid. It was here
that he wrote with a diamond on a pane of glass the
couplet-
Toute femme varie-
Bien fol est qui s'y fie,
which his descendant, Lous XIV., put away to please
Mademoiselle de la Vallière. The castle is remarkable in
many ways. it is a splendid specimen of architecture, and
some of the most famous scenes in French history were
enacted in its precincts. But, after all, it is most widely


IIO
Chantilly Basket
known throughout the world for one little detail of
cookery which was first practised in its kitchen. Before
the time of Francis there was no special merit in French
cookery. It was no better than English or Flemish.
The French, with all their strength, were barbarians as
compared with the Italians. It was in the Italian cities
that the arts revived, and that all the refinements of wealth
and commerce were best cultivated. Francis the First
married his son to Catherine of Medici, who brought with
her to Paris and to Chambord all the graces and muses of
Florence. Through her the Italians taught the French
manners, enlightened them in criticism, schooled them in
art, showed them how to cook. They brought the frican-
deau with them from Italy, and when they were installed
in the kitchen at Chambord they applied the principle of
the fricandeau to the fish which abounds in the neighbour-
hood. The commune of Chambord has more than a dozen
considerable ponds, all abounding in carp, a fish which is
sometimes poor in flavour. But veal also is apt to be
insipid, though it adopts and appropriates extraneous
flavours with rare docility and with beautiful results. The
Italian artists determined to lard the carp as they larded
the cushion of veal to make a fricandeau. The effect was
so good that the method of dressing carp à la Chambord
spread over France, thoroughly established itself in the
French kitchen, and is celebrated over the world as among
the triumphs of French art. Unhappily the later French
cooks make the most dreadful blunders in the application of
the Chambord method. Some are quite ignorant of what
the method really is ; and those who seem to be aware of
it are weak enough to apply it to fish wbich are not of the
same character as the carp and do not need to be larded.
See Carp.
and is celep. Unhappi on the app
CHANTILLY BASKET.—The original Chantilly basket was
a Savoy cake scooped out and filled with whipt cream.


Char
III
The idea thus started has been elaborated into a toy.
First of all, a dish or mould has to be chosen, shaped like
a basket. Next a syrup of sugar is boiled to crackling
point. Then the mould is lined with delicate little cakes-
ratafias the best, which are made to stick together edge to
edge by being dipt in the sugar. The bottom of the dish
may be lined in like manner with sponge cakes or maca-
roons, to absorb any liquid from the frothed cream. A
basket is in this way formed which may easily be removed
from the mould to a proper dish, and then filled with whipt
cream.
CHANTILLY CREAM—the French name for whipt cream ;
but it is very absurd to give local names to a simple prepa-
ration known to all the world. When the great ones of
the earth invent a good dish let them have the credit of it;
but it is mere usurpation to describe whipt cream in an
epithet which represents it as the peculiar property of the
House of Condé.
CHANTILLY SOUP.—Look for Esau's Pottage of lentils.
CHAR is, like trout, a fish of the salmon tribe, about nine
inches or a foot long. Very few come to London ; but it
is worth a visit to the English, the Welsh, or the Scotch
lakes to enjoy them. With a char on the table and with
Windermere and Rydal Mount in view, we are truly in the
heart of the Lake Poetry. The char is to be treated like
trout, but it is generally understood, and Francatelli insists,
that this fine laker-worthy associate of Wordsworth and
Southey—is the best of all fish for waterzootje. This was
to be expected. We all know that the Lake school of
poetry is not to be surpassed in its simplicity.
The name of the fish means red—from the redness of the
belly. St. Evremond, in one of his poems—an epistle-
recommends his correspondent to make a trial of a certain
poisson rouge—meaning the char, which is peculiar to


II2
Charlotte
England. The char is known in Scotland as the Lochleven
trout-also as the cardhui, the red-black.
CHARLOTTE.—The grateful heart will always inquire-
Who was this Charlotte in whose name the apple and other
fruits are endowed with a new charm, and become as it
were the enchanted apples of story? I have seen English
books which aver that she was Queen Charlotte, the wife of
Farmer George. There is only so much truth in this that
Charlotte was a German. She was at one time the most
famous of her name in Europe. Napoleon read Goethe's
romance of Werther no less than six times, and Charlotte
was the heroine of the romance.
Werther had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter.
Would you know how first he met her ?
She was cutting bread and butter.
Her name has been given to the combination of bread
and butter with apples, which can be prepared either with
or without a mould. If without a mould, the Charlotte is
simply a quantity of buttered apples (which see), piled upon
a dish, and hedged round with sippets of bread fried in
butter. If with a mould, it is the same thing reached by a
different process. The Charlotte mould is a perfectly plain
cylinder about five inches deep. This is lined with thin
slices of bread which have been dipped in clarified butter.
The great art of the composition consists in the arrangement
of the lining, cutting the bread into shape, like the pieces
of a wooden pail, so as either to fit exactly into the mould,
or to make the staves overlap one another. When the
little bread pail is formed within the mould, it is filled with
buttered apples already prepared; it is covered with a
round lid of bread dipped in butter; the mould is put into
the oven ; and it is left there for five or ten minutes, so
that the bread and butter may take a fine golden tint.
Then turn the Charlotte out of the mould into a dish, and


Chartreuse
113
pour round it some diluted apricot jam. The same receipt
applies to pears, apricots, and other fruits.
Charlotte Russe.—The Russian Charlotte is something of
a libertine. At least she has much freedom of choice. She
began by using finger biscuits for bread, and by choosing
to have them with their contents cold, which at once put
butter out of the question. A pail of finger biscuits was
formed in a round mould, and filled in alternate layers with
a cold marmalade of apples and of apricots alone. After-
wards cream was considered a desirable addition, and it
was added. The Charlotte was filled with whipt cream, or
with a Bavarian cheese flavoured with fruit, or with a fruit
jelly and cream such as that described at page 40. Some-
times the finger biscuits of the Charlotte concealed a
blancmanger or some other simple jelly. But it is always
expected that the Charlotte Russe shall be well chilled upon
the ice.
CHARTREUSE.—The monks of the Grande Chartreuse are
very proud of this liqueur, and jealous of their exclusive
right to sell it—a right which brings them in a gross
return of 2,000,000 francs a year. It is curious to re-
member that the monastic order to which they belong was
founded by Saint Bruno in order to surpass the Benedictine
rule in austerity of life. The Benedictine friars chose
pleasant places for their abode, in fertile valleys, amid lovely
gardens, and by clear streams abounding in fish. Saint
Bruno went into the desert and chose for the site of his
monastery the most desolate and barren spot he could find
in the mountains of Dauphiné. But these unhappy, self-
denying Carthusians,who live on vegetables and are strictly
forbidden the flesh of bird or beast, have made up for the
misery which they have accepted as their own lot in life by
the delights which they have imagined for their fellow-men.
They have invented the Chartreuse of Partridge for days of
fasting. The wing of a partridge is disguised in an enve-


114
Chartreuse
lope of cabbage. We satisfy our consciences in apparently
taking nothing but cabbage upon our plates, when-lo!
a wonder—we find partridge in our mouths, the reward
of merit. A still greater feat is the invention of the
liqueur known as Chartreuse, the fame of which has spread
to the ends of the world. It is made chiefly from a plant
having the beatific name of Angelica Archangelica ;
gathered with an Ave, concocted nigh the fumes of burning
censers, distilled amid spiritual songs, bottled by dedicated
hands, corked with fervid ejaculations, labelled with the
holy sign of the cross on the trade mark, packed in straw
and hammered in cases to the tune of vesper-bells and
matin-bells, and charged with a blessing for the entrails of
the faithful, to help digestion, to spur the kidneys, and to
make the soul happy after dinner. Benedicite.
It is the most precious of all the liqueurs made in
France, and raises the Carthusians above every monastic
order, for the benefits which in these modern times they
have conferred upon Christendom. The yellow Chartreuse
is the best. The green is fiery. There is a third kind
white—the mildest of all.
Chartreuse of Partridges has perhaps been sufficiently
described in the foregoing paragraph. It is simply Perdrix
aux choux-partridge and cabbage done up in a fanciful
manner. The French think it so good a jest against the
holy friars to conceal a carved partridge in cabbage, that
they have constructed several elaborate ways of making
the concealment, calling in the aid of carrots and turnips
- not so much for their taste as for the contrast of colour
which they afford, red against white, in fashioning orna-
mental vegetable moulds.
CHÂTEAUBRIAND.-It is not necessary to add to the
account of this given in the introduction, and I am not ·
anxious to repeat the story. The peculiarity of the steak
is in its thickness, and in the way of broiling it; but


Cherry
115
sometimes also it is served with a peculiar sauce, namely, v
Spanish sauce diluted with white wine, then considerably
reduced and at the moment of serving enriched with a pat
of maître d'hôtel butter.
CHEESECAKES.—There is a curious mistake going about
- that the incomparable cheesecakes of Benreddin Hassan,
which only he and his mother could make, were strewn
with pepper. Sir Walter Scott, among others, makes this
mistake in the “Heart of Midlothian.” It is an error of
precisely the same kind as one committed in regard to
himself in the great encyclopædia of Larousse, where it is
stated that as a boy he could not repeat his lessons unless
his fingers were twirling one of the buttons of his waistcoat.
The cheesecakes were strewn with grains of pomegranate
and sugar; and Benreddin was beaten for a pretended
fault—that he ought to have put pepper upon them, and
did not.
Cheesecakes are now made with almost any kind of V
custard ; but the following is the old orthodox method :-
Take half a pound of dry curd, six ounces of sugar, six
yolks of eggs, two ounces of butter, some nutmeg, salt, and
the zest of two lemons. Pound all into a soft paste; dis-
tribute it into tartlet pans which have been lined with
puff-paste ; put citron-peel, currants, or sultanas on the
top of each ; and bake them in a moderate oven.
CHERRY.—There has long been wanted a good classifica-
tion of cherries. The least confusing is one lately made by
Dr. Robert Hogg. He first of all divides them into Geans
and Griottes. In the Geans, the fruit is heart-shaped, or
nearly so, and the juice is sweet : in the Griottes, it is
round or oblate, though sometimes, as in the Morella,
inclining a little to the heart shape, and the juice is acid
or sub-acid. There is a marked difference also in the
form of the trees. The Geans again are divided into
those which have the flesh tender and melting, and those


116
Chestnuts
which have the flesh only half tender, firm, and crackling.
The first of these are called Geans proper, and are sub-
divided into Black Geans and Red Geans; the second are
called Black Hearts and White Hearts. The Griottes are
likewise divided into two kinds, according to the shapes of
the trees; and these are again subdivided into Black
Dukes and Red Dukes, according to the colour of the
skin, Black Morellos and Red Morellos—the last being the
Kentish cherry. Thus there are eight kinds : 1. Black
Geans ; 2. Red Geans ; 3. Black Hearts ; 4. White
Hearts (where it is to be observed that the word heart
refers to the shape); 5. Black Dukes ; 6. Red Dukes ;
7. Black Morellos ; 8. Red Morellos.
Cherry Brandy.—Take Black Geans or Black Morellos-
but remember that the former are sweet, the latter acid
and bitter, and there will be a great difference in the
results. They must not be over-ripe. Take off the stalks,
and if you choose prick them with a pin. Fill a bottle
with them three-quarters, pour in brandy to the neck,
cork it up. It will be ready in a month.
Compõte of Cherries.—White Hearts boiled in syrup for
three minutes. Sometimes a little noyau is put into the
syrup when ready to serve.
CHESTNUTS.— If the truth were known, many persons
would confess that chestnuts never look so tempting as
when they are seen at the corner of a street on the rude
baking contrivance of a vagabond roaster. If they only
had the courage to do so in the face of day, they would
gladly stop to buy a pennyworth and consent to pay a
shilling. Nobody has been known to feel in the same way
to boiled chestnuts, unless it be the Portuguese and those
who have learnt their style, which is to top them (that is,
nip off their points) and to boil them with anise-seed-half
an ounce to fifty chestnuts.


Chicken
117
Purée of Chestnuts.—The outer and the inner skins
being removed, put fifty chestnuts in a stewpan with a
pint of milk, and boil them slowly over the fire till they
are quite done. Next drain away the milk and rub them
hot through a wire sieve. Put the purée thus obtained
into a stewpan with a pat of butter, a little sugar, a wine-
glassful of cream, pepper and salt. Make it hot without
boiling it, and serve it with cutlets, goose, duck, or
turkey.
Chestnut Soup.—Make the purée as above, using brothy
instead of milk. Add to it three or four pints of broth,
double broth, or good brown gravy.
Chestnut Forcemeat will be found under Forcemeat.
Chestnut Pudding.—The only very good one is the
Nesselrode; but that is superb, and is described under its
name.
CHICKEN.—There are many fine but rather useless dis-
tinctions made among fowls, according to their age and
quality. There is the infant--the spring chicken, or
poulet à la Reine ; the boy pullet, or poulet de grain ; the
young gentleman, or coq vierge ; the young lady, or
poularde ; the capon, the hen, and the old cock. Among
these the poulette, or girl chick, is rarely, if ever, men-
tioned ; but her name is given to the Poulette sauce, which
is always much favoured with boiled fowls of every descrip-
tion, with many other kinds of white meat, and with fish.
Her brother the pullet, or poulet, gives his name to most
of the preparations of fowl, young or old, male or female.
It was to give honour to the pullet that Napoleon fought
the battle of Marengo ; it is the pullet that is always sup-
posed to be immolated in a fricassée ; and the name of
chicken broth is given by courtesy to the dissolution of the
toughest old cock, whose crow has many a year been heard
from farm to farm, and almost from shire to shire.


118
Chicken
Chicken Broth will be found described as Fowl Broth
in the article on Soup. Add to it rice and finely chopped
parsley.
The Queen's Chicken Broth (Potage à la Reine)—the
queen being Marguerite of Valois. This was in the old
receipt, and in the style of the sixteenth century—a fowl
or fowls half-roasted first, then boiled, then boned, the
flesh hacked to pieces, brayed in a mortar with rice, and
diluted with milk or cream of almonds. It was a sort of
blancmanger as then made, but without sugar. Modern
taste will hardly now tolerate the almond milk in soup-
not because it is in any way bad, but because the palate is
curiously dependent on habit and association, and almonds
are associated with luscious preparations overpowered with
sugar, which are not to be thought of at the beginning of
dinner. But whoever wishes for the true chicken broth
of Queen Margaret can always add to it almond milk or
cream. As for half-roasting the fowls first, that was very
common in the olden time, and the roast flavour thus pro-
duced was deemed essential to fowl in almost all its forms.
In modern cookery it is a principle that white soup should
be white, and that it loses its character, ceasing to be white,
when the roast flavour proper to brown cookery is, however
slightly, added to it. In the present day, the Queen's
chicken soup is to be made with a couple of chickens boiled
for an hour in a gallon of beef broth, veal broth, or in
simple water, with a sparing supply of vegetables—two
carrots and two onions. The broth is then to be strained
and freed from fat; the chickens are to be skinned, boned,
their flesh (picked clear of fat) to be chopped and brayed
in a mortar with half a pound of boiled rice ; after which
the mash of chicken and rice is to be added to the strained
broth, and all passed through a tammy. Warm it up, and
add to it nearly a pint of hot cream, which, according to
the old receipt, should partly at least be almond cream.


Chicken
119
Spatchcock is the name for a broiled chicken. It is pre-
cisely the same word as “spitchcock," the name for a broiled
eel ; and both are a corruption of “ spitstuck,” referring to
the fact that the chicken or the eel to be broiled must, like
a kidney, be stuck on a little spit or skewer, to spread it
out. (See the word itself further on.) The chicken is to be
split open at the back, spread upon a skewer, sprinkled
with salt and pepper, rubbed with butter, and then grilled
the inside surface first of all taking the fire.
Roast Chicken.-See that when the fowl is trussed the
nefarious habit of keeping back the liver is departed from.
The liver wing is always the best part of a roast fowl.
Very young chickens being dry in flesh, are often barded ;
but full-sized and well-fed fowls do not require it. Let
them be dusted with flour, and basted frequently with
butter. A large capon takes an hour, or even more, to
roast; a chicken about half the time. They are usually
served with a garnish of cresses which have been sprinkled
with salt and vinegar. The garnish, however, would be
more welcome if it were less frequent.
Boiled Chicken or Fowl.-In the English way the fowl is
boiled, or rather stewed, in plain salt and water. In the
French way it is rubbed with lemon-juice, slices of lemon
are laid upon its breast, slices of bacon are tied over all, it
is put into the pot surrounded with carrots, onions, and a
faggot of sweet-herbs, and it is boiled or stewed or brazed
in broth or double broth. With boiled fowl the livers and
gizzards are not served ; but the English mode of boiling
the fowl is so simple that it is always insipid unless accom-
panied with some salt meat-tongue or bacon—to create a
contrast. The sauce that goes with it and is poured over
it is a blanquette or white sauce. It may be the maître
d'hôtel sauce known in England as parsley and butter
sauce; it may be the poulette sauce, which is a kind of
mock Allemande ; or it may be Béchamel. To one and all


Chicken
I 21
be contised, as the French cooks say—that is, inlaid with
truffles or with tongue. They are to be lightly tossed in
butter, taking care not to colour them. The butter is to
be poured off, and Supreme sauce put in lieu of it, in which
the fillets are to be tossed, but not allowed to boil. At the
same time have as many slices of tongue as there are fillets;
stamp them with a round cutter to range in size with the
fillets, and heat them in some double broth. Then prepare
a dish with button mushrooms heaped in the centre, with
truffles, or with any other garnish which may be desired.
Arrange round it alternately the fillets and the slices of
tongue. On the top array the minion fillets. Pour some
Supreme sauce round the dish, taking care not to mask the
pieces of tongue.
Friteau of Chicken.—Cut up two fowls, and marinade
them for a couple of hours in oil, lemon-juice, chopped
parsley and onion, pepper and salt. Then take out the
pieces, wipe them dry, dip them in milk, flour them well,
fry them in hot fat to a golden colour, drain them, dish
them on a napkin, garnish them with fried parsley, and
serve them with tomato sauce.
Fricassée of Chicken is but a boiled chicken cut to pieces
and heated up in a Poulette sauce, to which the Poulette
Relish of mushrooms, and sometimes parsley, sometimes
shalots or button onions, has been added. (See Poulette
Sauce.) This is all that is essential to the receipt, but the
dish is a favourite, and may be enriched to any extent, both
in the way of taste and of ornament.
Chicken à la Marengo—the chicken after battle—the
warrior's chicken. The chicken of the battle betrays
hastiness of preparation, and turns the fault into victory.
It is fried in oil, and this oil is afterwards worked into
sauce. But whereas all other sauces must be carefully
freed from the appearance of oils and fats which have not
incorporated with them—and this is often a tedious process


I 22
Chiffonnade
- the chicken of the battle is sent to table with the super-
fluous oil floating loose about the dish and on the surface
of the sauce. It is not every one who can stand this, but
those who have their appetites and digestions prepared for
it by a great field day, declare that the battle of Marengo
was well fought as a preliminary to the chicken of the
name. This chicken is cut up as for fricassée, and is fried
for twenty minutes or thereabouts, until it takes a good
colour, in half a tumblerful of oil seasoned with pepper and
salt. Those who object to oil may use clarified butter in-
stead. When the chickens are nearly cooked, add to them
a clove of garlic, a couple of shalots, and a faggot of sweet-
herbs. At the end of twenty or twenty-five minutes, take
out the pieces of chicken and keep them hot. Add to the
sauce a tablespoonful of tomato purée, a ladleful of Spanish
sauce or good gravy, and a very small pinch of sugar. Stir
it boiling over the fire for a few minutes, pass it through
the pointed strainer, and finish it with a little lemon-juice.
Arrange the chicken in a dish, pour the sauce over it, and
add a garnish of fried bread and of eggs fried in oil.
Chicken Sauté or Tossed is in principle the same as the
foregoing. Cut up the chicken, and fry it in butter, pepper,
and salt for twenty or twenty-five minutes, till it becomes
of a golden tint. The legs may be cooked for a few minutes
before the other pieces are put into the pan, as they take
longer time. Add at the last, as for the chicken à la
Marengo, a clove of garlic, two shalots, and a faggot of
sweet-herbs. Then stir into the pan a spoonful of flour,
together with a glass of Marsala and a little broth, and toss
it on the fire till it boils. Arrange the chicken on a dish,
strain the sauce over it, and add to it a garnish of mush-
rooms with a sprinkling of lemon-juice.
CHICORY.-See under Endive and Salad.
CHIFFONNADE.—The word is scarcely classical, and, mean-
ing Odds and Ends, is not too exalted for so refined a soup
V


Cibol
123
as that which we know better under the name of Spring
Soup. In what is perhaps the most popular cookery book
in France—that of Viard—it is set down as Potage Prin-
tanier ou Chiffonnade. In the present work it is described
under the name of Brunoise. It usually means a selection
of vegetables, nicely cut, served in a good consommé ; but
sometimes, instead of the consommé, the French serve
them in a green-pea soup.
CHIVES (anciently cive, but in modern French ciboulette
and civette), the smallest and finest of the onion tribe-
Allium schoenoprasum. It is a very hardy perennial plant,
and said to be a native of the British soil. The Spaniards
call it cibollino de Inglaterra—the little wee onion of
England. Its bulbs are slender and not worth speaking
of ; it is the leaves and young tops of the plant that are
used as a pot-herb and for salads. When the leaves are
gathered for use and cut close, others will grow in succes-
sion, and a bed will thus last three or four years. It is the
chive or cive that gives its name to what the French call
civet of hare or of roebuck.
Cibol, in French ciboule, in Latin cepulla, a little onion.-
There will come a time when, under the fostering care of
Sir Henry Cole, who succeeds in all that he undertakes,
and under the tutorship of Mr. Buckmaster, who has carved
out a great place for himself as in point of time the first
Professor of Cookery, those who aspire to a name as cooks
will have to pass through an examination and receive a
diploma ; and one of the foremost questions to be put to
the candidates for a degree will be-What is a cibol ?
what do the French cooks mean by the ciboule which they
so often prescribe ? It is a simple thing to answer that
it is the Allium fistulosum—best known in England as the
Welsh onion-a hardy perennial of strong flavour, with
no bulbs, and used only in the stalks, like leeks. That
answer is correct ; but it is apt to be confused by the fact


I 24
Cider
that the cibol or Welsh onion is often called by country
people Scallion—a name which is also given to all sorts of
onions that do not produce bulbs. The word scallion comes
from Ascalon, and belongs of right to the shalot or onion
of Ascalon. The name was afterwards given to a hollow
leek grown in South Wales, with roots in clusters like those
of shalots. It was then transferred by mistake to the Welsh
onion or cibol ; then again to all spring onions, as they
are called—that is, the strong green tops of onions which
do not bulb, or the shoots from bulbs of the preceding
year.
CIDER.—White wine is much used in French cookery,
but especially in the cooking of fish. Cider is an excellent
substitute for it in English kitchens ; and indeed the white
wine in which a French cook boils his fish is often so thin
and acid that it may well cost less than a bottle of good
cider and also be less wholesome. Pray remember that
good cider is better than vile wine.
· CINNAMON is about the oldest known spice in the world,
and comes from the bark of a species of laurel. In America
and on the continent of Europe it is often confounded with
cassia, which goes by the name of Chinese cinnamon. The
true cinnamon is the cinnamon of Ceylon ; but it also comes
from Madras, Bombay, and Java, though of inferior quality.
The Cassia or Cassia lignea, which comes chiefly from China,
has the appearance and the qualities of cinnamon ; but it is
coarser in flavour and not so sweet. It is in great request,
however, in Turkey, in Russia, and in Germany, where the
true cinnamon is not deemed strong enough. Pereira
speaks of a merchant who sent cinnamon worth 3s. 6d. a
pound to Constantinople, and found it unsaleable, while
his cassia at 6d. a pound was in great request. The chief
consumers of cinnamon are the chocolate makers of Spain,
Italy, and France, and they are not to be put off with
cassia when they can get the true bark. When the Dutch


Cinnamon
125
held possession of Ceylon, they were known at times to
burn the cinnamon, in order to limit the supply and to
keep up the price. But the supply is limited in any case,
for though the bark grows again upon the cinnamon trees,
it takes three years to do so ; and a crop which comes but
once in three years cannot be considered abundant. More-
over the tree is otherwise exhausted, for the Cingalese
express from the root a juice that hardens into camphor.
the medical virtues of which are nearly as famous as those
of the cinnamon bark.
There are points of interest about cinnamon in connec-
tion with old cookery ; and three of these may be noted.
The first is that when we hear of sweet powder, or
poudre douce, in the dainty dishes of our ancestors, this
means a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Some recent
writers have seen this powder mentioned as pulvis dulcis,
have misread it pulvis ducis, and have rendered it Poudre
de Duc, and Duke's powder.
The second. There was a Cameline sauce used in the
middle ages the name of which is a terrible puzzle to the
French. According to French accounts, the sauce was
composed of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, paradise grains
(that is, cardamums), bread, and vinegar. According to
old English receipts, dating from the time of Chaucer, it
was made of currants, kernels of nuts, crusts of bread,
ginger, cloves, flour of cinnamon, and salt brayed well and
mixed with vinegar. Littré says that the sauce must have
been called Cameline because of some supposed resemblance
to camelot or camlet—a tunic made originally of camel's
hair! It is true that we have a modern sauce called Velvet-
down from its smoothness; but to derive cameline from
camelot is too big a camel to swallow. The origin of the
term is not far to seek. It was usual in those days to name
a dish from one of its many ingredients, and we are surprised
to find that the ingredient selected for the name is often by
no means the most prominent. There was a mustard soup,


126
Cinnamon
in which the mustard was a very small part. There was a
galantine in which the galingale was as modest as the
pistachio is now. And so here the sauce is named from the
cinnamon, which the French named canelle. It will be
asked, How came the n to be transformed into m? It is
especially noted in the English receipt that the canelle-
spelt canel—is to be in flour, and the old French name for
this must have been canelmine. Large salt, what we call
rock salt, was salgrenu or saugrenu (hence our word corned
beef); small, fine salt was salmenu or salmine. On the
same principle they must have said for fine flour of cin-
namon canelmine, which was no doubttr ansposed and
corrupted into cameline.
The third. There was another sauce known at the
English court of Richard II. as Cyne, Cynee, Syne, Synee,
and Sené. If this was not mustard (sinapis), which was
formerly called senvy, the name most probably had to do
with cinnamon, which appears sometimes, though not
always, in the sauce. Note, however, that in this case
thə name would be derived not from the first syllable of
cinnamon, but from China or Sina. To this day the
French know cassia as the Chinese cinnamon; and the
name of China in connection with cinnamon goes so far
back that three hundred years ago we find Scaliger sneer-
ing at those learned men who seemed to confound the
name of cinnamon or kinnamon with China or Sina. It is
possible, therefore, that here we have the origin of the
Cynee or Synee which has so much puzzled antiquarians ;
and if this conjecture should prove to be correct, then
Cynee and Cameline are but varieties of one and the same
sauce. The chief objection to the explanation is that
cinnamon is not always present in Cynee. On the other
hand, the readers of this dictionary will have evidence
enough before them of names being retained when that
which they signified is no more. There is cervelas with-
out brains, orgeat without barley, bisque without pigeons,


Cleanliness
127
galantine without galingale, cheesecakes without curd,
pomatum without apple, vinegar without wine, blanc-
manger without fowl, marmalade without quince, capillaire
without maidenhair, and vinegar without wine. And why
not cynee now and then without cinnamon ?
CIVET (civet de lièvre) is one of the last remains of a
very old way of naming dishes. The literal English of it
is chives of hare ; the meaning is hare stewed with chives
or tiny onions. It is a variation of jugged hare : which see.
CLARIFY, To-is to render a liquid transparent, be it
juice of meat, dissolved isinglass, dissolved gelatine, syrup,
or melted butter. The juices of meat are clarified with
white of egg and by use of the tammy; isinglass or gela-
tine with white of egg and lemon-juice ; sugar also with
egg; and melted butter by passing it through a cloth.
CLAUDE, the great landscape painter. It is sad to think
that he failed as a cook, though his very name was Jelly
-in French, Gelée. The pastry-cook to whom he was
apprenticed turned him away for his stupidity. One
cannot excel in all arts alike, and I feel as I contemplate
the mellow landscapes of this master that he lacked but
little to have reached a still greater position in creating
the serene enjoyments for which a Laguipierre and a
Carême were afterwards renowned.
CLEANLINESS.— There are few satires on modern civiliza-
tion which bite deeper than the incessant inculcation of
cleanliness in the cookery books. It appears not to be
enough to insist in general terms on this virtue, and to take
for granted that it will be observed. It would be possible
to quote hundreds of receipts in which the writers cannot
mention a single utensil of the kitchen without on each
occasion stipulating in an adjective that it shall be clean.
This is to be put into a clean saucepan, that shall be passed
through a clean napkin. Here care must be taken that the


I 28
Cleopatra's Supper
spoon shall be perfectly clean ; there it is necessary that
the mortar shall be free from all impurity. There are
some books in which the word clean is repeated so often
with a severe injunction, that if all these phrases were cut
out and collected together into an appendix, they might
make up a chapter of thirty or forty pages. What a
satire on our ways of living if these reiterated injunctions
are really needed! Let it be enough here to repeat once
for all the fine old saying that Cleanliness is next to good-
liness. This has been exaggerated into Cleanliness is
next to godliness; and if it includes a clean heart as well
as clean hands it is no exaggeration at all.
CLEOPATRA'S SUPPER.—“ Two only pearles there were
together, the fairest and richest that ever have been known
in the world ; and those possessed at one time by Cleo-
patra, the last Queen of Egypt, which came into her
hands by the means of the great kings of the East, and
were left unto her by descent. This princesse, when M.
Anthony had strained himself to doo her all the pleasure he
possibly could, and had feasted her day by day most sump-
tuously, and spared for no cost, in the height of her pride
and wanton travesie (as being a noble curtesan and queene
withal), began to debase the expense and provision of
Anthony, and make no reckoning of his costly fare. When
he demanded again how it was possible to go beyond this
magnificence of his, she answered again that she should
spend upon him in one supper 100 hundred thousand
sestertii (10 millions).* Anthony, who would needs know
how that might be (for he thought it was impossible), laid a
great wager with her about it, and she bound it again and
made it good. The morrow after, when this was to be
tried, and the wager to be either won or lost, Cleopatra
made Anthony a supper (because she could not make
default and let the day appointed to passe) which was
* Ten million sestertii are equal to twenty million pence.


Clove
I 29
sumptuous and royal enough; howbeit there was no
extraordinary service seen upon the board : whereat
Anthony laughed her to scorne, and by way of mockerie,
required to see a bill with the account of the particulars.
She againe said, that whatsoever had been served up
already, was but the overplus above the rate and propor-
tion in question, affirming still that shee would yet in that
supper make up the full summe that she was seezed at ;
yea, herself alone would eat above that reckoning, and her
own supper should cost 600 hundred thousand sestertii (60
millions), and with that commanded the second service to
be brought in. The servitours that waited at her trencher
(as they had in charge before) set before her one only cruet
of sharpe vinegar, the strength whereof is able to dissolve
pearles. Now she had at her eares hanging those two most
precious pearles, the singular and onely jewels of the world,
and even nature's wonder. As Anthony looked wistfully
upon and expected what shee would do, shee took one of
them from her eare, steeped it in vinegar, and so soon as it
was liquefied, dranke it off. And as she was about to do
the like by the other, L. Plancus, the judge of that wager,
laid fast hold upon it with his hand, and pronounced withal
that Anthony had lost the wager. Whereat the man feli
into a passion of anger. There was an end of one pearle ;
but the fame of the fellow thereof may go with it; for
after that this brave Queene, the winner of so great a
wager, was taken prisoner, and deprived of her royal
estate, that other pearle was cut in twaine, that in memo-
rial of that one half supper of theirs it should remaine unto
posteritie, hanging at both eares of Venus at Rome in the
temple Pantheon.”
CLOVE.—There is little to be said of the clove which is
not perfectly well known. Suffice it to say that, belonging
to the order of myrtles, and best cultivated in the Moluccas,
the clove tree is singular in its thirstiness. It so absorbs


Cockle
131
the pot with the remaining half of the leeks, with pepper
and salt, and with prunes and raisins free from stones. In
another half-hour or so it ought to be ready.
The name of the soup takes its rise in Scotland from an
idea which was once prevalent that there was nothing so
good for soup as an old cock. This ancient bird has given
way to a capon, and soinetimes it never appears in the
soup. It will also be observed that extraordinary stress is
laid upon the leeks—too great a stress, indeed, for most
tastes. It is due to a misreading of the name, which was
at first malachi, or maleachi—meaning fowl sliced. Sawney
failed to catch the true meaning, thought it had something
to do with leeks, and forth with magnified leeks beyond
everything in the soup. Latterly the Scotch cooks have
been inclined to dispense with the prunes. Talleyrand
greatly enjoyed the soup, and recommended that the
prunes should be stewed in it but not served. Soyer
writes :-“With all due respect to Scotch cookery, I will
always give the preference in the way of soup to their
cock-a-leekie, even before their inimitable hotch-potch.”
COCKLE is the same as the French coquille, a little shell;
so that the phrase “cockleshell” is a pleonasm. The name
is given to a well-known shell which pilgrims were in the
habit of wearing in their hats to show that they were going
to sea or had been seafaring. The sign of trayel ensured
them consideration; and moreover the shell, as having
often a rude drawing of the Virgin or the Crucifixion on
it, or as having been blessed by the priest, was supposed to
protect them like a charm. Were it for these associations
alone, the cockle ought not to be allowed to pass out of
public regard. In point of fact, it makes an excellent
fish sauce, which may agreeably take the place of oyster,
mussel or shrimp sauce at any time, but more especially in
those months when oysters and mussels are unseasonable ;
or it may be used with great effect in the garniture of mate-


132
Cod
lotes and other fish stews. What is it to Europe if some of
the pompous French names which are used to glorify cer-
tain dishes should be utterly forgotten? We might well
afford to forget many of them; but it is something to re-
member the Crusades and all the interesting details of
modern civilization which are bound up with the pilgrim-
ages of holy palmers. Why should we forget that these
holy palmers brought the shalot from Ascalon, and that
the cockle must ever live in history as the badge they wore
after they had devoured its inmate ?
How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
It is to Francatelli's credit that he alone of the grea
cooks in our day has a word to say in favour of cockles.
He recommends them scolloped like oysters. They are
very good with a Poulette sauce.
✓ Cod.—Of all the fish we eat, the cod is perhaps the most
voracious. It has been calculated that the cod which come
to market eat as many millions of herring as all the people
of these islands manage to consume in a year. They not
only devour herrings ; they will digest crabs. A cod
has been caught with no less than thirty-five crabs in his
stomach, none less than a half-crown piece. If a haddock
be left on a line for a tide over a codbank, it will disappear,
and a cod be found to occupy its place on the hook. Its
gastric juice is so potent that it will turn a lobster red as
if boiled in the stomach of the cod. Gifted with so good
an appetite, it sublimes inferior fish into a very delicate
edible of the most easy digestion: at least, this is the case
from October to Christmas—the whole of the family, from
the ling to the whiting, being at their best in the colder
months. London, too, is fortunate in being well supplied
with this dainty. On the Continent it is scarce. The cod


Cod
133
the dish. By the time. It is well that the house choose
-caught chiefly on the Doggerbank—are brought alive to
the Thames in well-boats, so that there is no excuse for stale
fish at the fishmongers'. These well-boats were first built
at Harwich in 1712, so that the system is of long standing ;
the fish are kept in store at Gravesend, where the Thames
water is sufficiently salt; and they are brought up to
Billingsgate as occasion requires.
Boiled Cod.-If the fish is perfectly fresh, there is no way
of preparing it so good as boiling. It is seldom that a
whole cod has to be boiled, and it is almost impossible to do
it successfully without dividing the tail part from the shoul-
ders, and afterwards making a pretence of joining them on
the dish. By the time the tail part is cooked, the upper
part will be underdone. It is well that the fish submits
nobly to the operation of being sliced. In this case choose
the slices for boiling as near the shoulder as possible. The
tail part is best fried. The boiling takes place in plain salt
and water-nothing else. A whole cod will take half an
hour to boil-slices from ten to fifteen minutes. When
the cod is served it should be garnished with some of the
liver; but this should be boiled separately, for the super-
fluous oil escapes and would affect the flavour of the cod.
The sauces that may be served with it are oyster sauce,
plain English sauce, egg sauce, mustard sauce, or simply
oiled butter. Boiled cod is one of the few fish with which
potatoes may be served as a garnish.
Cod's Head and Shoulders.—The Scotch way, described
by Meg Dods :-“This was a great affair in its day. It is
still a formidable, nay, even a respectable-looking dish,
with a kind of bulky magnificence, which, at Christmas-
tide, appears imposing at the head of a long board. Have
a quart of good stock ready for the sauce, made of beef or
veal, seasoned with onion, carrot, and turnip. Rub the fish
(a deep-sea or rock cod) with salt over night, taking off
the scales, but do not wash it. When to be dressed, wash


134
Cod
it clean, then quickly dash hot water over the upper side,
and with a blunt knife remove the slime which will ooze
out, taking great care not to break the skin. Do the same
to the other side of the fish ; then place it on the drainer,
wipe it clean, and plunge it into a fish-kettle of boiling
water, with a handful of salt and a half-pint of vinegar. It
must be entirely covered, and will take from thirty to forty
minutes' slow boiling. Set it to drain, slide it carefully on
a deep dish, and glaze with beaten eggs, over which strew
fine breadcrumbs, grated lemon-peel, pepper and salt.
Stick numerous bits of butter over the fish, and place it
before a clear fire, strewing more crumbs, grated lemon-
peel, and minced parsley over it, and basting with the
butter. In the meanwhile thicken the stock with butter
kneaded in flour, and strain it, adding to it half a hundred
oysters nicely picked and bearded, and a glassful of their
liquor, two glasses of Madeira or sherry, the juice of a
lemon, the hard meat of a boiled lobster cut down, and the
soft part pounded. Simmer this sauce for five minutes,
and skim it well ; wipe clean the edges of the dish in which
the fish is crisping, and pour the half of the sauce around
it, serving the rest in a tureen.” It will be found, however,
that French white wine is better for a fish sauce than sherry
or Madeira. And the lobster added to the oysters is a
superfluity.
Baked Cod.—This in reality is but a variation of the
foregoing, and is known in France as Cabillaud à la
St. Ménehould. In the first place, the cod is stuffed with
Forcemeat No. 5, commonly called veal stuffing, and sewed
up; the fish in its thick part being at the same time scored
and slashed with a sharp knife. It is then placed on a
baking dish ; half a pound of oiled butter is poured over
it; pepper and salt are sprinkled on it; and it is put
into the oven with some oyster liquor, which mingling with
the oiled butter is to be used for frequent basting. It will


-
135
Cod
take an hour and a half to cook in this way in a moderate
oven ; but when it is about half done it is to be dredged
several times at intervals with fine raspings of breadcrust
alternated with basting. The same sauce as for the fore-
going, omitting the lobster.
Fried Cod.—The middle or tail part cut in slices may be
best done in this way. When the French fry fish they
dip it in milk and dredge it with flour. The English way
is to smear it with egg and roll it in fine breadcrumbs
mixed with a seasoning of pepper and salt—sometimes also
of minced herbs. Either way is good.
Fried Cod à la Dieppoise.Dieppe is one of the chief
fishing towns of Normandy, and gives its name to fried cod
served with the relish of the Normandy matelote all round
it. See Relish No. 7.
Grilled Cod.—This was a favourite dish of the Duke of
Wellington's. Slices of cod half an inch thick, dipped in
oil or oiled butter, dredged with flour, pepper and salt, and
broiled over a clear fire. Serve them with a piece of maître
d'hôtel butter under each slice, and perhaps—with some
maître d'hôtel sauce in a boat apart.
Cod à la Religieuse. —Take a small piece of cod and boil
it, or use some cold cod. Break it into flakes and toss it
in a stew pan with Béchamel, oyster or egg sauce. Garnish
it when served with boiled parsnips.
Cod with Cream au gratin.The remains of turbot are
most commonly served in this way, and the receipt will be
found under the name of that fish.
Salt Cod.-To be soaked for twelve hours at least ; to
be put into the fish-kettle with plenty of cold water; to be
heated very slowly ; to be simmered but never boiled for
close upon an hour ; to be skimmed very carefully from
time to time; to be garnished with parsnips, and to be
served with egg sauce.


136
Colbert's Sole
in which ation of hut has been force
Brandade of Cod.—This is a more elaborate method of
dressing salt fish. It is a Provençal dish, and is described
under the name of Brandade.
COLBERT'S SOLE.—The great French minister who
organised the financial system under which, to a very
large extent, France still exists, would seem to have a
surer title to fame in the soup and the fish which he ad-
mired than in all his toils of office. So it has been from
time immemorial, to the frustration of human effort. A
man's greatest works, in which he took pride, perish, and
he lives by some trifle of which he thought nothing ; for
the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.
What is great indeed and what is little we know not ;
and time makes wonderful havoc in our estimate of magni-
tudes. The sole of Colbert is now of a surety more to
mankind than all his statesmanship.
It is a fried sole, which after being cooked is boned and
then filled with maître d'hôtel butter and with lemon-
juice. Trim the sole well, removing the head, a good part
of the tail, and the black skin. On the side from which the
skin has been removed make a slit down the backbone ;
slide the knife in so as to sever as much as possible the
flesh from the ribs, and with the handle of the knife break
the backbone in several places, so as to render it easy of
removal after the fish is cooked. The sole is then to be
fried in the ordinary way; when fried and drained the
bones will come away without trouble ; the inside of the
fish is to be filled with maître d'hôtel butter into which
lemon-juice has been worked; and it is to be sent to table
with slices of lemon and fried parsley. The sole of Colbert
typified his taxes. He ate his fish without bones, and the
Government devoured his taxes without a thought of the
groans which had been wrung out of them.
COLBERT'S SOUP.-A clear broth or double broth with
poached eggs in it. Sometimes a few of the more delicate
✓


· Condé
137
vegetables are added—as peas or asparagus points. The
soup is named in honour of the same great French minister
of finance who gave his name to the Sole à la Colbert, just
described.
COLIGNY.—The great Admiral. There truly was a man
with an appetite. He ate his toothpicks : we are not told,
however, what bis toothpicks were composed of. There
was a time when they were made of fennel root and ap-
peared at table making porcupines of the preserved fruits.
To eat fennel root was said to be good for the sight.
COLLOP.—This word is too plain and too simple for
cooks to use. They have transformed it into scollop. Let
them read the Bible : it will do them good in many
ways. Last and least, it will enlighten them as to the nature
of a collop. (Job xv. 27.)
COLUMBUS.—To him the modern table owes more than
to any other that can be named. The discovery of
America has enriched our tables with the turkey, the
canvas-backed duck, the potato, the tomato, cocoa,
vanilla, the, Jerusalem artichoke, the sugar-cane, red
pepper, and a host of good things. Yet the master-cooks
of Europe, who lavish their honours on nobodies and con-
fuse their cookery books with a mob of ridiculous names,
have not thought it worth their while to consecrate a single
dish to his memory--not even the humble egg which he
taught his friends to set on end.
CONDÉ. It is only necessary to note here that this is ✓
the fanciful name given to a soup and to a sweet. The
soup is a purée of red haricot beans. The sweet is the
combination of apricots with rice, more or less elaborated.
There is no particular reason why we should cherish the
name of Condé. The name of Condé's castle, Chantilly,
is given to Esau's pottage of lentils. It would be much
better to call it Esau's soup.


138
Consommé
CONSOMMÉ.—This is a fine word, and worthy to rank
with the “mobled queen” in Hamlet. “That's good,"
says Polonius ; "mobled queen is good.” So is consommé.
To the innocent English mind it suggests something con-
summate. It really means broth, which by boiling has
been consumed away till it has become very strong. The
best English rendering of it is Double Broth. It will be
found further on, in the article on Soup, that though there
might be many kinds of consommé, there are in fact but
two-namely, Consommé and Blonde de Veau. What is
called Consommé de Volaille is not distinctive enough to
justify the new name.
CONTISE. —There are words in the French kitchen
which have a precarious existence in the dictionary, and
this is one of them. Contiser means to inlay with truffles
or tongue cut into nice shapes any kind of viands, but
chiefly white meat, as the fillets of fowl. It comes from
an old Provençal verb, cointir, to adorn. From this came
a noun, cointise, adornment, which has budded forth into
a second verb, cointiser, or as we have it now, contiser.
The root of the word exists in English as quaint, nice and
neat, with a prim sort of elegance. So that contiser is in
English to make quaint or neat looking. Carême appears
not to have liked the word, and fancying that it had
something to do with conte, a tale, invented historier
in place of it, which is very quaint indeed. A dish
adorned with geometrical or other figures worked into
or upon it by means of truffles, tongue, jelly, sugar, or
anything else, was in his language—historied.
Cook.—The truest alchymist and the best physician.
M. Henrion de Pensey, formerly President of the Court
of Cassation, made an observation worthy of a great
judge: he made it to Laplace, the great astronomer. “I
regard the discovery of a new dish as a far more interest-
ing event than the discovery of a star, for we have always


Court-Bouillon
139
stars enough. I shall not regard the sciences as suffi-
ciently honoured nor appropriately represented among
us, so long as I do not see a cook in the first class of
the Institute.”
Cool.—The French say Rafraîchir. To cool is to put
vegetables in cold water after blanching them, in order to
preserve their colour. One cools calf's head in the same
way and for the same purpose, though without first scalding
it.
· CORNED BEEF.—Many people ask, What is corned as ✓
distinct from salt beef ? It is the same thing. Salt is
either coarse or fine. The small salt was said to be in
powder—the French salmenu or salmine. The large salt
with which beef was pickled was said to be in grains
or corns—the French saugrenu. And hence the term
corned.
CORNWALL.—It is said that the devil never goes to
Cornwall, because they put everything into a pie there,
and he is afraid of being put into one too. For the great
Cornish pie see Irish Stew.
COURT-BOUILLON. — This is a favourite term of the
French kitchen for which we have no corresponding term
in English. More than two hundred years ago an English
cook tried to translate it, and he rendered it short broth !
(See a translation of La Varenne's “French Cook," 1653.)
It would be better English after the analogy of small beer
to say “small broth.” But anyway the phrase has an odd
sound. It really means the thin liquor in which fish is
boiled, made up of water, vinegar or white wine, which
has been seasoned with pepper, salt, onions, carrots, and a
faggot of herbs. But the term is by no means exact.
There is a Court-Bouillon called after the town of Nantes--
à la Nantaise—which is half water, half milk, with pepper
and salt. And often to cook fish in a Court-Bouillon means
to say "sme better English senne’s “Frenc


140
Crab
no more than to cook it au bleu. If the reader will turn to
see what is meant by cooking fish in the blue, he will find
that it may mean nothing but vinegar and water. For a
fair example of Court-Bouillon, see the Sole au Vin Blanc.
CRAB.— It is a wise provision of nature that crabs and
lobsters should come into season when oysters and mussels
go out. They are in perfection from April to October.
There is a difference between the male and the female crab.
The female has smaller claws and a wider flap of tail.
Those who like the claws best, therefore, give their prefer-
ence to the male. But the female makes up for the small-
ness of her claws by the largeness of her liver and the
creamy fat which surrounds it. The liver is the soft yellow
substance which fills the body of the crab. Those who
enjoy liver, therefore, prefer the female.
Cold Crab.—Pick out all the meat from the claws and
the breastplate, and shred it. Reserve a little of this, but
mix the chief part of it with the liver and cream of the
back, with vinegar, mustard, cayenne and salt. Put it
back in the shell—the substance of two crabs may indeed
be heaped on one shell—and strew over it the meat of the
claws which has been reserved.
Hot Crab.—The same as the foregoing, only that bread-
crumbs are added (one-fourth to three-fourths of crab) and
with them little pieces of butter or else some oil. To be
thoroughly heated in the oven.
CRAYFISH.—There are two kinds so called : one huge,
belonging to the sea; the other small, belonging to rivers.
The former, sometimes also called crawfish, and in French
langouste, are larger and coarser than lobsters; they are
not prized in England ; but the French seem to cherish
them and to prefer them, even to lobsters, though they
lack the large claws which glorify the last. No one ever


Crayfish
141
sees a salt-water crayfish at a first-class London table; but
in Paris enter a shop like Chevet's or a restaurant like
Bignon's, and the horrible monster will be seen in the
windows of the one or on the tables of the other, offered
among the most tempting delicacies of the season. There
is much more to be said for the French love of the river
crayfish, which it would be much more accurate to call
the river lobster. The crayfish of English rivers are
not very abundant, and being rather small, are more for
ornament than food. The best crayfish in London come
in a curious roundabout way from Berlin. They are
not to be found in London shops—and one has to send to
Paris express for a hamper of two or three hundred, which
will be delivered all alive. The French rivers are not equal
to the demands of the Paris market. The German rivers
are therefore laid under contribution, and 10,000 at a
time are sent from Berlin. An immense number of the
smaller crayfish are used in Paris for the mere decoration
of dishes; but apart from this use of them the crayfish are
chiefly consumed in two ways. They are eaten bodily with
a rich sauce which is described under the name of Bordeaux,
the dish being known as Ecrevisses à la Bordelaise ; and
they are worked into a soup which is commonly called
Bisque (see that word), and which shall here be called more
simply-
Crayfish Soup.—Heat up to boiling point a plentiful
Mirepoix of white wine, and cook two dozen crayfish in it
for from twenty to twenty-five minutes, tossing them from
time to time. When they are perfectly red take them off
the fire and let them cool. Then shell them, all but the
claws. The shells and the claws go into the mortar to
make crayfish butter ; the flesh of the tails is reserved to
be put into the soup at the last; the body part goes back
into the Mirepoix, to which two quarts of water (or broth)
may now be added, together with four ounces of blanched
rice. In the meantime it is necessary to prepare th, cray-


142
Cream
fish butter. Remove the black eyes, and pound shells and
claws in a mortar with about an ounce of butter. When
thoroughly pounded they are to be added to the Mirepoix,
and all is to be simmered for an hour and a half, after which
it is to be passed through a sieve, heated up, and finished
with a piece of butter. Add now the crayfish tails nicely
trimmed and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Add also, it may
be, quenelles of whiting prepared with some of the crayfish
butter.
CREAM.—There are so many things called cream that it
is difficult to know what we are talking about when the
name is mentioned. Almost anything with the consistence,
even without the colour, of cream, is called by its name ;
and nobody seems to remember the rightful name of cullis.
Putting genuine cream, however, out of account, the chief
thing known in the French kitchen by that name is
what in England is known as a custard. The most com-
mon name in France for a custard is English cream ; and
it was so called almost universally until Carême put a stop
to it. He was indignant that England should get the
credit of the custard ; and now it is known by his followers
simply as Crème au bain-marie. Carême, however, who
refused petulantly to give the name of Crème Anglaise to
the custard, put a little bit of isinglass into it and then
insisted that it should be called Crème Française ! A bit
of stiffening makes all the difference between French and
English. There are dozens of these creams all with a
separate name according to the flavour-vanilla, coffee,
orange, maraschino, apricot; and if whipt cream should
be added, that makes another long series, each with a
separate name. The receipt for Custards will be found in
alphabetical order.
CRÉCY—is the name which the French have given to
their best carrot soup, because the most famous of their


Cress
143
The Fre carrots of
e as five;
carrots are grown there ; and the English accept the name
because they like to remember the great battle of the 26th
August, 1346, when they watered the carrots of Crécy
with the best French blood. The French were to the
English in the battle as five to one ; and it was on this
occasion that the Black Prince, a boy of sixteen, won
his spurs. To commemorate the event he took the crest of
the slain Bohemian king—three ostrich feathers with the
motto of Ich Dien—which has ever since been the crest
and the motto of the Princes of Wales. It follows that on
the 26th of August the Prince of Wales and all his friends
invariably eat two platefuls of Crécy.
Take a plentiful Mirepoix, and after it has passed, put
a quantity of carrots cut slanting on the top of it. Moisten
it with broth, and keep it moist and simmering till the
carrots are done. The length of time will depend on the
size to which the carrots have been cut. Then take all,
pound it in a mortar, and pass it through a tammy or fine
sieve. It ought to be at this stage a thick purée. Thin it
down with broth ; sugar it—the proportion is generally a
tablespoonful of sugar to two gallons ; put it on the fire to
heat ; finish it with some fresh butter ; and in serving it
add either crusts or rice.
CRÊPE.—The French for pancake, at root the same as
crape and crisp. In the English of Chaucer's time a
pancake was called a crisp or a cresp.
CRÊPINETTE.--A flat sausage enveloped in pig's caul.
Buy it ready made at Dumas', 55, Prince's Street,
Leicester Square.
CRESS.—It is ungrateful to say a word against cresses,
but it may be as well to remember that in England at
least they have come to mean curses. “I don't care a
curse” really means, " I don't care a cress.” Perhaps we
· have too much of them. They are (putting asparagus out


144
Croquettes
of account, which has a short season and a dear price)
the one vegetable eaten by rich and poor in England, for
health even more than for food. The Greeks had a proverb
—“Eat cress and gain wit.” If this were only true, how
clever must those good people be who are always eating
cresses for breakfast! On the contrary, their lives are a
stupid routine. In a stupid routine also live those French
cooks who insist upon sending to table a bunch of cresses
with roast fowl-even when there is a salad besides.
To those who have a passion for watercresses, the
Flemish soup of them will not be unpleasing. It is
usually reserved for meagre days. Take a large bunch
of cresses, wash them, cut them up, and set them to boil
with water, salt, and it may be a thought of vinegar. Add
to them a quantity of peeled potatoes of the mealy sort.
When these have broken into a mash, the soup is ready,
and may be finished with butter.
CROQUETTES are made of chicken, game, sweetbreads, fat
livers, oysters, shrimps—and generally the lighter kinds of
meat. The meat (most commonly chicken) is finely minced ;
it is mixed with a seasoning of minced truffles, mushrooms,
shalots or chives, as also of nutmeg, pepper and salt ; it is
bound together with a stiff Allemande sauce ; it is turned
into shapes of cork or ball; it is dipped into egg and rolled
in breadcrumbs ; it is fried crisp of a golden hue ; it is
sprinkled with salt, and served on a napkin with a garnish
of fried parsley. It is also served in a dish with a sur-
rounding of tomato sauce. When the croquette is finished
differently—that is, when, instead of being dipped in egg
and rolled in breadcrumb, it is wrapped in a thin puff paste,
--it is called a Rissole; and when it is wrapped in a thin
sheet of veal udder or of bacon fat, it is called a Kromeski.
Milanese Croquettes.- A mince of chicken, tongue,
truffles, and macaroni, with a seasoning of grated Par-
mesan. All the rest as before.


Cucumber
145
CROÛTE-AU-POT.-A clear soup which may have nothing
but crusts in it, but generally has an assortment of the
more homely vegetables. See Brunoise.
Cruet is a better word than the French vinaigrette, to v
express what the French mean by that term—a vinegar
and oil sauce, in which the oil predominates. Cruet is a
little cruise-it may be for oil or vinegar or anything else ;
but to most English ears the word cruise will instantly
suggest the widow's cruise of oil which was always full-
and that is the sort of cruise most needed for the sauce
which the French name Vinaigrette. Mix well in a bowl ~
or saucer three tablespoonfuls of oil, not more than one of
vinegar—perhaps less, a pinch of salt, and a little pepper,
black or white. We call this the French salad mixture,
but it is much better known in connection with the Spanish
proverb which says that we ought to be spendthrifts of the
oil, misers of the vinegar, counsellors in regard to salt-and
which is silent as to pepper. The Italians are so chary of
salt in this mixture that they have a proverb—“insalata
ben salata.” The worth of the sauce turns chiefly on the
proportion of oil to vinegar, and this must 'depend a good
deal on the nature of the vinegar selected—whether of
malt, of wine or of tarragon.
Judiciously made, the cruet sauce is delicious without
any further addition, and goes magnificently with salmon
hot or cold, turbot, calf's head, and other viands, as well as
with salads. But it is usual to add a garniture. For salads
the garniture is a chopped ravigote, or else spring onions
and parsley chopped. For calf's head add mustard with
a garniture of chopped parsley, capers, and shalots. For
fish, chopped parsley.
CUCUMBER—Raw.—The cucumber is peeled, sliced, and
served in a cruet sauce. But on the Continent it is usual,
before the sauce is poured on the slices, to sprinkle them
well with salt, and to let them lie in this pickle for two
10


146
Cullis
or three hours. This is supposed to render them more
digestible ; and one rarely sees abroad the crisp, fresh-cut
cucumber common enough in England. .
Brown Cucumber Garnish or Entremet.—The French call
this the English fashion. The cucumbers are peeled, split
into quarters, and freed from their pips ; they are next
floured, peppered, and fried lightly in butter ; some broth
or gravy is then added, and they are stewed slowly for
twenty minutes. The sauce, thickened with flour and
butter, and seasoned with salt, pepper and vinegar or
lemon-juice, is to be poured over the pieces of cucumber
when they are dished.
White Cucumber Garnish or Entremet. — This is the
French fashion—the cucumber being boiled till tender in
salt and water, and served in a Béchamel or a plain
English sauce.
CULLis is a word which at root means something
smoothly gliding. Thus the sliding scenes of a theatre,
that slip along in grooves, are called coulisses; and a liquid
which is thick enough and smooth enough to slide is called
coulis in French, cullis in English. Spanish sauce is often
described as a brown cullis ; and Velvet-down as a white
one. The French also give the name of coulis to what
they call otherwise English cream—that is, a custard. In
England a cullis generally means a white cullis ; and a
white cullis is any rich juice of meat which has been re-
duced to a certain thickness without being in any way
browned. A dissolved jelly is a cullis. Unhappily the
word is going out of use now, being replaced very much by
the word cream, which has quite enough duty to perform
in its own proper sense. We speak of a crême d'orge or
barley cream, meaning a cullis of barley.
CURAÇOA, as made at Amsterdam by Wynand Fockink,
is certainly a liqueur of the first class. It is so perfect and


148
Currants
this is a mistake which is the more provoking because it
has led to a theory that these currants, having a foreign.
name, cannot be natives of the British soil. It is quite
well known that they are indigenous in these islands; and
we must therefore look out for an indigenous name. Now,
it is remarkable that most of the old writers, and good ones
too, when they speak of currants, write currans. English
custom evidently taught them to drop the t when speaking
of the familiar currant-bush. We are confirmed in this
view when we discover that in our provincial dialects the
name for a gooseberry is carberry; we are settled in this
view if we remember that belonging to a different family
✓ there is the cranberry, and if we know why it is so called.
The dictionaries declare that it is called after the crane,
“because its slender stalk has been compared to the long
legs and neck of a crane.” It is really so called because
cran means red, and it has nothing whatever to do with
the crane, unless that bird is so called from its red eyes.
There is a flower called cranesbill, which has just as much
to do with the crane, though we are told that it has an
appendage to the seed-vessel which resembles the beak of
a crane or stork. The word is really a corruption of cran-
bell—a red bell as distinct from a blue bell. Those who
take an interest in the herring fishery may have read of
boats catching so many crans of fish. These are baskets
of the red osier. We find the root car, red, spreading
far away through many European languages—in Greek,
in Latin and its later dialects, in Gaelic, in Welsh, in Old
German, and in Old English. We have it in the first
syllables of carnation (flesh colour), carmine, crimson,
· cramoisie, carrot—which in Gaelic is curran, cargoose—an
old name for the grebe which has a chestnut-red kind of
head, a brown-red back and red eyes-carbon, carbuncle,
char (the verb—to burn), char, the fish which has a red
belly, and I will add cherry, in spite of the etymologists,
who go to some long-forgotten place, Kerasos in Asia


Curry
149
Minor, for the name of this ruddy fruit. The list might
be multiplied—I have said nothing of coral or crocus
but examples enough have been given. to enable the
reader to return with his eyes open to the spelling of the
currant-curran, and to the provincial English name of
the gooseberry—the carberry. It ought to be clear that
in the olden time the currant and the cranberry were
both called by the same name or names, as similar as
dialectical varieties permit—the red berry, and that the
term red curran is a reduplication—the red red.
All this about words—in order to prove that the British
currant has a British name, however much it may be
twisted about. As for the currant itself there is little to
be said. Its praise is in all our mouths. The gooseberry
or carberry shall have a paragraph to itself. The black
currant has little to do with cookery, except as the faithful
attendant of Roly Poly, but its grandest title to fame is
trumpeted forth under the name of Cassis. For the red
currant let the roast mutton, hare, and venison, prove how
much it is in demand.
CURRY.—There are few dishes which it is so difficult to:
get well done as a curry. In France, under the name of
Kari, it is always bad. In England the vulgar theory is
that, with the addition of some curry-powder, any good stew
becomes a good curry. It is a great mistake. First of
all, a curry differs from other stews in being always eaten
with a dessert-spoon and fork—-never, when rightly under.
stood, with a knife and fork. This implies that it is exceed-
ingly well done, and is cut or shred small. Secondly, it
has no other accompaniment than the rice. Curry is never
to be eaten at a house where the host offers you a potato
with the rice. It is a sign that there is no garnish in his
curry—no onions, no apples, no cocoanut : else he would
not overlay all these with potatoes in addition to rice. On
the difficulty of procuring a good curry-powder it is useless


150
Curry
to insist–indeed, few people see the difficulty. There are
good curry-powders at the shops, and that is enough for
them. They have not grasped the fact that curry-powder
is like salad dressing—a compound ; and that as in the
salad dressing some people like plenty of vinegar and little
oil, while others wish for plenty of oil and very little vinegar,
iso in the curry-powder there are ingredients which should
be increased or decreased to suit different tastes, and to
combine with the different meats which are to be curried.
All over India there is a curry for almost every province :
at Madras one kind of curry; in Bengal another. In
Ceylon they would never dream of taking curry-powder
✓ out of a bottle. The curry mixture is there made fresh on
the day it is to be used in cooking; and it consists of a
piece of green ginger, a few coriander and cumin seeds,
two cloves of garlic, six small onions, one chili, eight
peppercorns, a small piece of turmeric, a teaspoonful of
butter, half a cocoanut, and 'half a lime. In England, the
ginger of this receipt, the coriander and cumin seeds, the
chili and the turmeric, are powdered, and sold in bottles
under the name of curry-powder ; and this is supposed to
be all that is wanted—the English cook, for the most part,
ignoring the garlic and onion, the cocoanut and the lime ;
and expecting that, if any other flavour is needed, it will
be supplied at table from the bottle of Bengal Chutney.
Supposing a good powder is at hand—say Halford's—it is
to be used in the following manner, which is a modification
of a well-known receipt.
Take the white heart of a cabbage or a lettuce peeled
down to the size of an egg ; chop it fine, and add to it two
apples in thin slices, the juice of a lemon, a saltspoonful of
black pepper, and a tablespoonful of curry-powder--to be all
well mixed together. Then take six onions that have been
chopped fine and fried brown, a clove of garlic minced
small, two ounces of fresh butter, two of flour, and one pint
of beef gravy; boil them up, and when boiling add to them
,


Custards
151
the other set of ingredients containing the acids and spices.
Let all be well stewed, and then add to it-cut or shroll-
the fish, flesh, or fowl for which this savoury mess has been
prepared. Serve it with abundance of rice—every grain
of which should be separate. It is the rice in this combina-
tion that is the great attraction for many people. But in
following this receipt the cook must use some discretion;
first in regard to the acids, second in regard to the onions.
One apple may contain as much acid as two ; and onions
are of all sizes. So that here the receipt is very indefinite,
and the cook has to be cautious.
CUSTARDS.—These have been known for some time on
the Continent as English creams ; but latterly simply as
creams — vanilla cream, lemon cream, chocolate cream,
according to the flavour. One receipt will be enough.
Lemon Custard.—Beat up the yolks of eight eggs to
a strong white cream. Mix into this very slowly a pint of
boiling hot cream, together with the zest and juice of two
lemons, and sugar to taste. Stir this on the fire till it
thickens—but do not boil it. Add also, when nearly ready,
a wineglassful of sherry and a tablespoonful of brandy.
Keep stirring it till it cools, and serve it in cups with grated
nutmeg.
A wonderful flavour is given to these creams or custards
by boiling in the cream or milk with which they are made
a laurel-leaf—that is, not a bayleaf, but a leaf of the
cherry laurel. Great care, however, must be used ; for
the cherry laurel is poisonous.


152
Dab
M
A B.—Who ever heard of dab at a fashionable
dinner or in a fine bill of fare? Nevertheless
a dab—the French limande--is better than
any flounder ; and as Mr. Bugg changed his
name to Norfolk Howard, the poor little dab aspires to
fame under the name of a Thames flounder, which is.
the best of all flounders. Let us give dab his due. His
name is as plebeian as Snooks or Blogg ; but he is an
honest fish, with a good taste and a faculty of making
himself agreeable in society which his friends with great
names might well envy. .
Damson, the small plum of Damascus, to be used in
the ordinary way for fruit pies, with no end of sugar.
Take it for praise, or take it for blame, the damson has
a tart resemblance to “ the perfect woman” described by
the poet as-
not too good
For human nature's daily food.
DANTZIC.—Not much of a town for beauty, but it has
one great title to fame in the world of art: it has pro-
duced the liqueur which is the most beautiful of all to look
at-gold-water, a bright colourless liquid like water, with
chips of gold-leaf floating in it. Unfortunately, as made
in Dantzic this beautiful drink is somewhat fiery, and
ladies, who in general love the liqueurs, rarely touch it,
preferring the sweeter and softer imitations made in
Amsterdam and elsewhere. The fact is, that though the
liqueur is nearly always to-day associated with the name of
Dantzic, it is of Italian origin, and is perhaps the oldest
extant liqueur in Europe. The Italians brought it into
France in the time of Catherine de Medici. See Acqua
d'Oro.
DARIOLE is one of the most interesting words in the


Dariole
153
English lauguage, and it is a pity to see it going out
of use because it is not understood. It is much more
used in France than in England, but the French authori-
ties declare that it is a perfect mystery to them—its origin
utterly unknown. In England it seems to be regarded as
a new-fangled French name for a cheesecake, and too
foreign as well as too new for common use. It is in fact
one of the oldest words in the English language, and is
frequently to be found in the cookery books of Chaucer's
time. It means as nearly as possible a maid of honour ;
and it is curious to imagine how the word dariole should
survive for more than five centuries in a kind of lost,
language, its meaning unknown, and how it should turn
up on Richmond Hill correctly translated into maid of
honour. The clue to the meaning of the word is given by
Junius under the word dairy, the first syllable of which he
declares to be identical with the first syllable of Dariole.
Now we get puzzled, and have to ask, What is the first
syllable, and how do we account for the succeeding ones ?
All the information given by Junius is that a dairy means
a milk-house, and that a dariole means something made of
milk. There we are left hanging in the air, and have to
find solid earth for ourselves..
It is well known that in the West of England a dairy
is or was till lately called a dey-house ; and it has been
supposed that dey must mean milk. Even those who see
in the word a different meaning—namely, maid-confess
that through some links which have not clearly been
traced out it may have some connection with Swedish
and Danish words which mean suckling, as well as with
the English dug which yields the milk. That however
is obscure, and we may dismiss it to dwell upon what is
clear.
We are dealing with one of the most venerable words
in human speech, which has been singularly preserved in
languages far apart. The English child born in India has


Darioie
155
There is a curious fact about this word which has yet
to be explained, and which raises it into something like a
literary landmark. The French have a word Dariolette,
the name for a lady's maid, and they profess to derive it
from the lady's maid of the Princess Elisene in the
romance of Amadis of Gaul, who was called Dariolette.
Now this romance, which was spared from the flames by
the licentiate in Don Quixote, is generally considered as of
either Spanish or Portuguese origin. Southey insists on the
Portuguese knight Vasco Lobeira, who died 1403, being
its author. How came from the pen of a Portuguese
writer the Anglo-Norman word Dariolette ? A French
writer, the Comte de Tressan, has attempted to prove that
the romance was originally written in French, that it was
translated from the French into Portuguese, and thence
into Castilian, in which language we bave the oldest
version that remains to us. He has not proved his point,
and Southey ridicules his theory. It is quite certain that
the Comte de Tressan attempted to prove too much; but,
on the other hand, permit us to quote from what we have
written elsewhere. “Southey has not allowed weight
enough to the fact that the Amadis of Gaul is the first
work of romance which appeared in the Portuguese and
Castilian languages; that it was preceded for more than
a century by other romances of Anglo-Norman origin ;
and that in its idea, in the character of its incidents, and in
much of its geography, it belongs to the world of Anglo-
Norman romance. What though we cannot lay our hands
on the French original from which Lobeira translated, any
more than we can lay our hands on Lobeira's own work
from which the Castilian version has been made? We still
know that all the ideas and materials, all the design, all
the machinery of Amadis of Gaul, belong to the Anglo-
Norman cycle of romance which was in vogue before
Lobeira was born.” To this it is now to be added, that
here is the name Darioleta of the Castilian or Portuguese


156
Dauphiness
romance, borrowed directly from the Anglo-Norman dialect
to be the proper name for the Princess. Elisene's maid of
honour.
The old receipt for the Dariole is as follows. It bears
the date of 1381. All the words are given here in
modern spelling. “Take cream of almonds or of cow-
milk, and beat them well together; and make small
coffins (that is, cases of pastry], and do it [put it] therein ;
and do [put] thereto sugar and good powders. Or take
good fat cheese and eggs and make them of divers colours,
green, red or yellow, and bake them or serve them forth."
Modern receipt.-Put into a spouted basin two table-
spoonfuls of flour, two of sifted sugar, one-and-a-half of
melted butter, one whole egg, three yolks of eggs, a pinch
of salt, and whatever flavouring, of almonds or lemons,
orange, vanilla or coffee, may be liked best. Mix these
well together and then add to them a tumblerful of cream.
When the batter is ready pour it into pattypans which
have been lined with light puff paste, and top them with
candied orange-flowers ; place the pattypans upon a
baking-sheet and set them in a quiet oven. When the
darioles are ready they are lightly strewed with sugar and
served hot.
There is an immense consumption of these in Paris. In
1856 there were 128 darioleurs and darioleuses—that is,
makers of darioles, who hawked them about, using up
annually 3,000,000 lbs. of flour.
DAUPHINESS—Beignets à la Dauphine. This is a French
name given to a German invention,—the Dauphiness being
Marie Antoinette. Throughout Germany they are known
as Berliner Pfannkuchen; throughout Austria as Wiener
Krapfen. In plain English they are Brioche Fritters, and
will be found among the Fritters, No. 6.
DEVONSHIRE-famous for its butter, its cream, its cider,
and its pie. The butter is the best English butter that comes


Devils
157
into London; but it is not so good as that of Brittany,
Normandy, and Ostend. The clubs are chiefly supplied with
Ostend butter. The cream, called clotted cream, is the
richest cream there is, short of butter. New milk is strained
into shallow metal pans, which after standing for twelve
hours are passed on to a hot plate with a fire below, to heat
the milk to scalding without boiling or even simmering it.
The pans are then carried back to the dairy, allowed to
stand for another twelve hours, and the cream is drained
off. This is Devonshire or clotted cream. Devonshire
cider is simply the finest in the world. Devonshire pie,
called also Squab pie, is made of Devonshire apples and of
Devonshire (that is Dartmoor) mutton, or else of pork,
See Irish Stew.
DEVILS.— It is the great fault of all devilry that it knows
no bounds. A moderate devil is almost a contradiction
in terms; and yet it is quite certain that if a devil is not
moderate he destroys the palate, and ought to have no
place in cookery, the business of which is to tickle, not
to annihilate, the sense of taste. Devils are of two kinds
—the dry and the wet. The dry devil is a Carbonade,
scored, peppered, salted, mustarded or otherwise spiced ;
the wet devil is a Bernardine Salmi. See Salmi.
Sauce à la Diable.—The French cooks' idea of the devil
is that he has a passion for shalots. Mr. Masson has
written an essay on the Three Devils — namely, Luther's,
Milton's, and Goethe's. There is room for yet another
essay, yea, a volume, on the Frenchman's idea of the devil,
much given to the onions of Ascalon. Take three or four
shalots, and mince them well with a clove of garlic, a faggot
of sweet-herbs, and as much pepper as may be dared ;
simmer all for half an hour in brown sauce and red wine,
pass it through a tammy, and know of a surety that this
will much rejoice all French devils.


158
Dili
Dill is a plant which, like anise, caraway and coriander,
was supposed to be a good stomachic. Dill-water is still
to be found among the bottles of the apothecary. It was
also, like fennel, a good deal used in soups and sauces.
That we should now make very little use of it in the
kitchen is probably no great loss to us; but it is certainly
a mystery. It is impossible to tell many'a time how repu-
tations grow and how they pass away. By all the rules of
human conduct dill ought to be the most prized herb in
the English kitchen garden ; and yet it is of the smallest
V account. William the Conqueror had a cook named
Tezelin, who one day served him with a white soup called
dillegrout. The monarch was so pleased with its exquisite
flavour that he sent for the cook and made him for his
dill soup Lord of the Manor of Addington. When a great
work of art is thus rewarded we might expect that the
fame of it would live for ever, that all the cooks of England
would bear it in mind, and that it would still be fashion-
able. But such is the caprice of fame and fortune, there
is probably not a living creature in England who has ever
tasted dill broth, and the name of Tezelin is known but to
a very few. There are monuments in Westminster Abbey
to heroes who have achieved less than the Lord of the
Manor of Addington.
DINNER.—There are two theories as to what this means.
The first maintains that dinner is to déjeûner what priest is
to presbyter; and we all know by this time that presbyter
is but priest writ large. Dinner, therefore, according to
this view is breakfast.
The other theory is that it is a contraction for dixième
heure, ten o'clock, the ancient time of dining. There is
an old French rhyme to this effect :-
Lever à six, diner à dix,
Souper à six, coucher à dix,
Vous feront vivre dix fois dix.
It is evident that we are fast returning to the ancient


Dory
159
.
.
dinner-hour. A fashionable dinner is at full tide not far
from ten o'clock—only it is now ten at night instead of, as
formerly, ten in the morning.
DORY.—This is a fish regarded by many as the most
delicious of all. The ancients named him after the king of
gods—Zeus. The moderns have honoured him with the
patronage of no less than three saints-Peter, Christo-
pher and Martin. St. Peter found the tribute-money in a
dory, and left thumb-marks upon him for ever afterwards;
so that he is known to be the fish of St. Peter, who as the
gate-keeper of heaven—in Italian janitore—provided for
him the name which has been corrupted into John Dory.
Other learned authorities deny that the dory exists in the
fresh-water lake of Galilee, and maintain that the marks
upon his body came from the fingers of St. Christopher,
who took hold of the fish in order to amuse the infant
Jesus when he was carrying Him upon his shoulders
across the sea. And others yet again declare that the
dory is best appropriated to St. Martin, because although
he is good at all seasons he is most perfect at Martinmas.
Anyhow, we have a good excuse for making acquaintance
with the fish on the days of all three saints. His name
comes really from the colour of his skin, which is dorée or
gilded ; and we may be grateful in the knowledge that
the best dorys in the world are caught upon our southern
shores, off Plymouth and off Brighton.
Clear away his excessive finery of fins ; fill him with
veal stuffing or oyster stuffing, boil him in salt and
water, and serve him with nut-brown butter, English
sauce or Holland sauce. Quin, the actor, was a great
lover of this fish, and would travel to Devonshire expressly
to eat him. He insisted that the fish should be boiled in
sea-water and that the best sauce was one which brought
Miss Ann Chovy into union with Mr. John Dory. John
is at his best from September to January.


160
Duck
DUCK.—The French notion of the tame duck is perfectly
given by Grimod de la Reynière. “He appears rarely
in a roast at refined tables. His modesty adapts itself
better to a couch of turnips after he has been cooked in
a succulent braze.” The general order is, that the wild
duck is to be roasted ; the tame duck or duckling either
stewed or brazed. If ever the latter is allowed the honours
of the spit, he must be barded. In England the duck
brazed in turnips is rarely seen, and the roast duck or
duckling is in great favour.
Roast Duck or Duckling.–A duck should always be
stuffed ; a duckling may, or may not. The stuffing is the
same as for geese, and will be found among the force-
meats. Also duck or duckling should be well done. Per-
haps one of the reasons for the dissatisfaction which the roast
duck gives in France is that it is roasted, if roasted at all,
like the wild duck- very much underdone. Gouffé allows
only sixteen minutes for roasting a duck. A duckling will
take at least half an hour of a brisk fire ; a duck perhaps
an hour. When the time comes for serving these birds, let
them have a good brown gravy not upon them but around
them, and in a boat apart ;, or else one made from their
necks, gizzards and livers stewed down with some browned
onions, sweet-herbs and spice. The most common vegetable
garnish is green peas or sometimes cresses; but try also
cooked endive or celery, turnips browned in butter, and
almost any kind of salad. As for potatoes with duck-never.
Brazed Duck.— The name is given not merely to duck
brazed in the ordinary way, but to any arrangement by
which it may be both stewed and roasted, which is the
object of brazing. Let the duck be half roasted and
then stewed ; or let it be baked slowly in a stewpan and
two or three ounces of butter till it is well browned, and
then let it be stewed. This last is the simplest of the
methods. Between the baking and the stewing, dredge
in two tablespoonfuls of flour, and stir it until well mixed


Dutch
161
with the butter. Then pour in with salt, pepper, and
a faggot of pot-herbs, stock enough to cover the duck; let
it boil up, let it be skimmed, and let it simmer slowly
for three-quarters of an hour. Twenty or twenty-five
minutes before the duck is ready, turnips are to be put
in with it, which have been cut to shapes and browned in
butter. At last strain the sauce, remove the grease, see that
the seasoning is right, and if the sauce should be too thin,
boil it down. Send the duck to table with the turnips.
This combination of duck and turnip is supposed in France
to belong as surely to the eternal fitness of things as in v
England it is held that the pre-established harmonies of the
universe reach their acme in roast duck and green peas.
There is an immense deal of nonsense talked, chiefly
in France, about the superlative qualities of the Rouen
duck—as if Rouen meant the place. It is a corruption
of roan; and the Roan duck is simply the tame duck
which has preserved the ruddy plumage of the wild one.
The French in a fine burst of patriotism vow that all
the ducks of empurpled hue come from Rouen.
DUMPLINGS.-Half a pound of beef fat finely chopped ;
half a pound of flour ; half a pound of breadcrumbs, three
eggs, a tumblerful of milk, with salt and pimento are to be
mixed well together, divided into balls the size of a turkey's
egg, tied in cloths, and boiled three-quarters of an hour.
Norfolk Dumplings.-A tumbler of milk, three eggs, ✓
salt, and as much flour as will make a stiff batter. Drop
the batter in spoonfuls into boiling water, and let them
boil for ten minutes.
Fruit Dumplings.-Fruit enveloped in paste No. 4. Line
a basin with the paste, put in the fruit, cover it over, tie
it in a cloth, and boil it for a couple of hours.
Dutch schools of painting and of cookery have been
fond of the sea and of fish. Their fish sauce is pre-eminent
11


162
Duxelles
in Europe, producing so much goodness of result by such
simplicity of means, that it is perhaps the most useful
of all the sauces. Pray always bear in mind the precise
difference between the Dutch or Holland and the English
sauce. Whereas the English use flour to make the vehicle
of their melted butter, the Dutch use yolk of egg ; in the
one no egg, in the other no flour.
Dutch or Holland Sauce-Sauce Hollandaise.—Heat
to the boiling point two tablespoonfuls of water with
pepper, nutmeg and salt. Stir well into this two yolks
of eggs, but do not let it boil again. Melt gradually
into it four ounces of fresh butter with a whisk. It ought
to be a smooth, thick cream, and should be finished with
lemon-juice. It is an admirable sauce for fish, but when
served with vegetables (as asparagus, artichoke, cauli-
flower), it is usual to increase the quantity of acid.
An easier way for beginners.—Put all the above-named
ingredients together into a saucepan, which is to be placed
in a second saucepan half filled with cold water. Put it on
a moderate fire, stirring the inner saucepan continually. As
soon as the water in the outer one boils the sauce is ready.
DUXELLES is the name given to a combination of mush-
rooms, parsley, and shalots, which are chopped together
finely and used for flavouring. It is convenient to have
a short name by which to refer to such combinations.
Others of the same order will be found, along with Duxelles,
in the artiele on Faggots. But as Duxelles is to most
persons a wurd perfectly unintelligible--Beauvilliers wrote
it Ducelle, Viard Durcelle—it has been proposed by the
later authorities, Dubois, Bernard and Gouffé, to change
the name to that of Fine Herbs, which is even more
objectionable, as expressing too much. The mushroom is,
strictly speaking, a herb, but it would not obviously be
understood as such ; and the mushroom is the central
figure of the Duxelles. Then, again, the epithet of fine,


Duxelles
163
which has reference not to flavour, but to the mincing, can
scarcely be claimed for the Duxelles as against other
faggots—the Ravigote, for example. The name of Duxelles
will probably hold, because it commemorates, though
indirectly, the name of the artist who first brought the
combination into prominence. La Varenne was the first
great French cook of modern times ; and his cookery
book, published in Paris about 1650, may be described as,
on paper at least, the starting-point of modern cookery.
He was lord of the kitchen of the Marquis d’Uxelles ; and
he describes himself on the title-page of his book as
“Escuyer de Cuisine de M. le Marquis d'Uxelles.” It
was not he, however, who gave the name of Duxelles to
his mushrooms : he called them Champignons à l'olivier.
What is the meaning of this name is not quite clear, but
the successors of La Varenne brushed it aside, and adopted
Duxelles instead, which did at least this much honour to
La Varenne—that it connected the mushroom alliance
which he favoured with the kitchen where it originated.
The original receipt for the Mushrooms à l'olivier is
worth quoting, for it will serve to show how the more
recent Duxelles differs from it. “Cut them (that is, the
mushrooms) in quarters, and wash them in several waters.
Place them between two plates, with an onion and salt,
and then upon the chafing-dish that they may get rid of
their moisture. Press them between two plates. Then
take fresh butter with parsley and cibol, and fry (fricassez)
them. After that, set them to stew, and when they are
well done, you may add cream to them or blancmanger.”
In the course of time this receipt became developed
into what is now known as Duxelles—which is composed
of equal weights of mushrooms, parsley and shalots.
These are chopped very fine, and fried for five minutes in
a saucepan, with rasped bacon, pepper and salt. That
is the receipt of Beauvilliers, and it has been followed ever
since, though one may have leave to doubt whether it


164
Eel
on if an ded. It * Varen
is altogether satisfactory. The parsley and the shalots,
being each of equal weight with the mushrooms, overlay
them and rob them of the importance which La Varenne
gave to them. The mushrooms become still further dwarfed
in the composition if an equal weight of truffles or truffle
trimmings should be added. It would be much better in
V taste, and more respectful to La Varenne, to reduce the
quantity of parsley and shalots.
Duxelles Sauce is made by adding Duxelles to about
six times as much of Brown or Spanish sauce, and letting
it simmer for a little. In the receipt of Beauvilliers the
siuce is finished with yolks of eggs well beaten, but not
allowed to boil, and with lemon. These additions are not
necessary, and tend to load the sauce.
EL.—“The eel,” says Badham, “is found in the
SOUDY
East and West Indies, wriggling under the ice
of Greenland, and winding his way without let
or hindrance through the very heart of the
Celestial Empire : enjoying every temperate latitude, and
ubiquitous over the globe as man himself. The all but
universal spread of this species makes its absence from
some waters the more remarkable and difficult to ex-
plain. Sometimes physical obstructions seem sufficient
to account for this,-as for instance for its absence
from the lake of Geneva, there being no inlet hither-
ward up the Rhine : but neither is it found in the
Danube, where no such difficulty occurs, and into which,
had eels the will, they might easily like other fish find a
way.” But eels are mysterious in their ways; and how
little we know of them may be gathered from a single
fact—that far and wide as they are spread, and long as they
have been loved by the races of mankind, we know next
to nothing of their matrimonial rrangements and their


Eel
165
have a si May, and Juneen observed towards in autur
manner of birth. If there are births and marriages among
them, they certainly take care not to announce it in the
newspapers. No male, no female has ever been found
in roe. All we know is that there happens to be an
everlasting supply of infant eels; that the full-grown eels
have a suspicious way of not being very well in the months
of April, May, and June; and that ever since the time of
Aristotle they have been observed to be pushing their
snouts up the rivers in spring and downwards in autumn.
Never has a secret been so well kept ; never have clandestine
marriages been so successful.
The London market is chiefly supplied with eels from
Holland ; but there are none so good as those caught in
the Thames, which are the most silvery of all. There are
four kinds : the snig, the grig, the broad-nosed and the
sharp-nosed. The broad-nosed are the darkest and least
valued ; the sharp-nosed are the brightest and best ; and
those caught in the Thames, besides being remarkable for
their silvery appearance, surpass the Dutch eels in sweetness
of taste.
Skinning eels alive is a needless barbarity. Kill the
eel by piercing the spinal marrow just behind the head
with a skewer ; but take care not to cut off the head, or
the eel will wriggle as if it were alive.
When a fish is naturally rich the simplest way of cooking
it ought always to be the best. There are excellent judges
who prefer the eel plain-boiled in salt and water, sprinkled
in the dish with parsley and sage, and served with English
butter-sauce, sharpened with lemon-juice. Some, indeed,
enjoy it waterzootje. Strange to say, however, this very
rich fish is most appreciated when it is most disguised.
Take for example
Collared Eels.- This is the most approved method of
boiling the eel, if he is to be boiled at all. Skin, split
and bone a large Thames eel. Season it well, by rubbing
it with chopped parsley, sage, a sprig of lemon-thyme, and


166
Eel
mixed spices finely pounded. Roll it up, collar it with
tape, and boil it in salt and water. Serve it with a sharp
sauce—or say English sauce with plenty of lemon-juice.
Spitchcock.—The name for a broiled eel; though it
might be applied to anything else done in the same way.
The word is so corrupt that it has come to be used
ignorantly. It is a corruption of spitstuck, and is equi-
valent to the French en brochette. Anything done en
brochette, or on a skewer, might be called spitstuck or
spitchcock. It is really broiled; and the following is the
receipt for broiled eels. Slit up the eel and bone it ; wash
and dry it ; cut it in pieces about three or four inches
long; dredge these with flour, which is to be wiped off so
as to leave all dry. Dip the pieces in a thick batter made
of melted butter, yolk of eggs, minced parsley, sage,
shalot (very little shalot), pepper and salt. Roll them
next in fine breadcrumbs or in pounded biscuit. Dip
them in the batter again, and roll them again on the bread-
crumbs. The pieces may now, to justify the name of
spitchcock, be impaled on small spits, or as the French
say, en brochette. But whether thus impaled or not, they
are to be broiled on or before a clear fire to a light-brown
tint. Eels may thus, too, be broiled whole, or they may
be roasted in a Dutch oven. Let them be sent to table
garnished with parsley fried crisp, and with a sauceboat
of English butter-sauce sharpened with lemon-juice.
Fried Eels, or Eels à la Tartare.—Cut the eel in pieces
three or four inches long, and let them cook for twenty
minutes in a Mirepoix of red wine ; let them also cool
in the liquor, which ought to be nearly a jelly when
cold. Take out the pieces, and roll them in fine bread-
crumbs, dip them in two or three yolks of eggs which
have been beaten up in the liquor. Roll them again in
the breadcrumbs, and fry them. Serve them with Tartar
sauce. The English way is much more simple. If they
and roll pounde dalt Reisage


Eel
167
are to be boiled at all beforehand, it is enough to do so in
water, salt and vinegar. But this preliminary process is
often dispensed with. The eels are cut in pieces and
boned, rubbed with salt, pepper, and mixed spices,
brushed with egg, and rolled in crumbs. They are then
fried, and sent to table with fried parsley and Tartar
sauce. Fried eels come to be expensive inasmuch as the
fat in which they are fried will not serve for other fish.
Stewed Eels.-Chop small two shalots and pass them
in a little butter for five or six minutes. Add some red
wine and a faggot of parsley, together with a spoonful
of vinegar, nutmeg, pepper and salt. Put the pieces of
eel into this, and let them stew for twenty-five or thirty
minutes. Take the eel out and keep it hot till its sauce is
ready, which sauce will be made in the following manner :
-Add butter and flour to the liquor in which the eel has
stewed, together with a little essence of anchovies. Cook
this for about ten minutes. Then dish the eel and strain
the sauce over it. Stewed eels may also take the form of
a matelote with any amount of garniture ; or they may be
served in a poulette sauce.
Eel Pie.—This used to be a famous pie, but we hear
little of it now. The following is the Richmond receipt:-
Skin, cleanse, and bone two Thames eels. Cut them in
pieces and chop two small shalots. Pass the shalots in
a little butter for five or six minutes, and then add to
them a small faggot of parsley chopped, with nutmeg,
pepper, salt, and two glasses of sherry. In the midst
of this deposit the eels, add enough water to cover them,
and set them on the fire to boil. When the boiling point
is reached, take out the pieces of eel and arrange them
in a pie-dish. In the meantime add to the sauce two
ounces of butter kneaded with two ounces of flour, and
let them incorporate by stirring over the fire. Finish
the sauce with the juice of a whole lemon, and. pour it


168
Eggs
among and over the pieces of eel in the pie-dish. Some
slices of hard-boiled egg may be cunningly arranged on
the top and in among the lower strata. Roof the whole
with puff-paste ; bake it for an hour; and lo! a pie
worthy of Eel-pie Island. It is a great question, debated
for ages on Richmond Hill, whether this pie is best hot or
cold. It is perfect either way.
Eggs.—There is an old philosophic question—Which was
produced first, the egg or the hen? Theologians might
perhaps decide for the egg, on the ground that all birds'
eggs are innocent and good for food, but all the birds them-
selves are not. It is difficult, however, to imagine how
the world got on before the barndoor fowl was tamed and
taught to lay regularly. The culture of the egg is one of
the great events of civilisation, and has yielded an aliment
of the rarest delicacy, of unfailing resource, and of magical
variety. Nothing in the way of food more simple than an
egg, and nothing so quick and marvellous in its manifold
uses and transformations. There are said to be about 600
ways of serving an egg, over and above the uses to which
it may be put in creams, custards, leasons, sauces, and
cakes. Here it is possible to enumerate only a few of the
most popular receipts, omitting the pancake and the
omelette, which will be described under their proper names.
In general, it will be found that the simpler preparations
are the most in favour. The egg may be said to come
ready cooked from the hand of nature—a masterpiece not
easily to be improved by mortal cooks.
Boiled Eggs.— These are, like the egg of Columbus,
simplicity itself. But a word may be useful on the way
to cook eggs at table in a bowl. Pour boiling water over
a couple of them in a bowl, and cover them with a plate.
In from twelve to fifteen minutes they are ready. The
delicious little eggs of the guinea-fowl are ready in ten
minutes.


Eggs
169
Poached Eggs.—Have water with a little salt and a dash
of vinegar in it simmering in a shallow saucepan. Break
each egg into a teacup, and quickly turn the cup over into
the saucepan, so as to stand bottom upwards in the water
with the egg inside. In a few seconds the egg will be set,
and the cup can be removed. Proceed in like manner with
the other eggs, and let them simmer till done enough.
Serve the eggs when done on buttered toast, on spinach, ✓
in soup, or on the top of minced meat.
Fried Eggs, according to the English way, are not to
be thought of: they are a villainy. The egg is fried with
a very little butter or bacon fat, in a large frying-pan-
spreads out, and becomes on its edges thin and hard as
parchment. There are but two ways of frying an egg
properly. One is the Provençal method of poaching it in
hot oil or fat; the other is known by the odd name of
Eggs on the Dish, or Buttered Eggs—because they are
generally served on the dish in which they are cooked.
This dish is a small flat saucer, which used to be of tinned
iron, but is now made of earthenware to stand the fire. It
may be of any size—to hold a single egg or any number
—the wall of the dish hemming the egg or eggs round so
as to prevent too much spreading. Melt a little butter in
the dish, sprinkle it with salt, break into it the required
number of eggs, fry them for a couple of minutes on a
spirit-lamp or on the top of the stove, shake salt and pepper
over them, and they are ready.
Eggs in Black Butter.--Use somewhat more butter than
for the foregoing, and before putting the eggs in let the
butter become a rich brown. Put in the eggs; let them
fry for a couple of minutes ; and at the last pour over
them a small spoonful of hot vinegar.
Eggs in sunshine (Eufs au soleil)—called by the Italiansly
Eggs in purgatory. Take some eggs on the dish, and when
they are finished pour over them some tomato sauce.


170
Egg's
Eggs in moonshine take their name from the well-known
fact that the moon is made of green cheese. Prepare some
eggs on the dish as above, and sprinkle them with grated
cheese-Parmesan or Gruyère. Also some cheese may be
melted with the butter in the bottom of the dish before it
receives the eggs.
Scrambled Eggs (@ufs brouillés).—Six eggs, two ounces
of butter, a wineglassful of milk, with pepper, salt, and, if
liked, a little nutmeg. Whip these in a saucepan over the
fire with a wire whisk till the eggs begin to set: then take
the saucepan off, but keep on stirring for a couple of
minutes more. Serve it with fried crusts or with buttered
toast. Variety is given to these eggs by mixing them with
asparagus points, or chopped parsley, or truffles, or mush-
rooms, or bacon, according to taste.
Fondue is a name given to scrambled eggs intermingled
with grated Gruyère—but there is a difference in the
proportion used. Weigh the eggs—an egg is supposed to
weigh from one-and-a-half to two ounces. Take one-third
of their weight of grated Gruyère, and one-sixth of their
weight of butter. Stir all in a saucepan on the fire, and
then off the fire, as directed for scrambled eggs, and add
pepper. Why the name of Fondue (melted) -and Fondue
in the feminine, too_should be reserved for this, and this
alone, is not quite clear.
Eggs and Onions—sometimes called Eggs à la tripe.-
Cut some onions in slices, blanch them, drain them, pass
them in butter, add a spoonful of flour with pepper and
salt, and moisten them with a tumblerful of milk or of
broth. Stew them slowly in this for half an hour. Then
take six hard-boiled eggs, cut the white in slices, mix them
with the onion, and serve them, placing the hard yolks on
the top uncut.
· The Monster Egg.-. Break a dozen or two of eggs,
separating the whites from the yolks. Tie up the yolks in


Endive
171
a pig's bladder, boil them hard, and take them out again.
In a still larger bladder place the whites ; into the midst
of this put the yolk; tie up the bladder tight; and boil
the whole till the white hardens. Uncover the monster
egg, and serve it on a bed of spinach or other vegetable.
This is a French jest in imitation of the great Madagascar
eggs of the Epiornis Maximus, which would contain about
twelve dozen hens' eggs.
Egg Sauce.—Boil three or four eggs for a quarter of an
hour, chill them in cold water, remove the shells, cut them
into dice, stir all into a boatful of English sauce, and
serve hot. The best egg sauce is made with turkeys' eggs;
and perhaps a better way of presenting the eggs is to cut
only the whites into dice, but to press the yolks through a
wire sieve, in which case they will come out like vermicelli.
ENDIVE, as known at our tables, is of three kinds, one of
which may be dismissed with a word. It is the wild endive
or succory, called in France Barbe de Capucin, and ex-
cellent as a salad in the winter time. The other two kinds
are the curly-leaved endive, often called chicory, and the
broad-leaved or Batavian endive, always known in France
as the escarole. Many persons in England when they eat
this last never know that it is endive—it looks so like a
cabbage-lettuce.
Endive for garnish.—Boil it like cabbage for twenty-five ✓
minutes ; cool it, drain it, and press out the water. Then
chop it very fine, salt it, and toss it in a stewpan with an
ounce of butter and one of flour. Add to it gradually
about half a pint of broth, still tossing and stirring. Last
of all, finish it with another ounce of butter and some
grated nutmeg.
Endive Salad.—When the French prepare this salad,
they always like to have with it, as what they call fourniture,
giving an accessory flavour, a chapon. This is the name


172
English Sauce
by which a crust of bread rubbed with garlic is known.
The chapon, thrown into the salad and mixed with it
vigorously, imparts its garlic flavour to the endive. Many
people may not enjoy this garlic. Let them try instead
slices of a raw tomato intermingled with the endive.
ENGLISH SAUCE-—the so-called melted butter, said to be
the one English sauce. We might expect the one English
sauce to be always made in perfection, and especially as
nothing can be more simple. On the contrary, it is pro-
verbial for its villainy and its resemblance to bill-stickers'
paste, which is the result not only of carelessness but very
often of stinginess. People who will go to great expense
for fish will, to save twopence-halfpenny, stint the quantity
of butter necessary for a good sauce. The sauce is the
result of two processes which are quite distinct; and all
the many failures of it are due, even where there is no
stint of butter, to the fact that as commonly made it is the
result of but one process.
Act First. Knead an ounce of fresh butter into a paşte
with an equal quantity of sifted flour, some salt, nutmeg
and mignonette pepper ; dilute it with a gill, or even a
gill and a half, of warm water ; stir it on the fire till it
boils ; let it boil for three minutes—that is, till the flour
is cooked—and then pass it through the pointed strainer.
This is what many people call melted butter : they think
that with the first act there is an end of the business. But
even if four times the quantity of butter were used it would
not produce a good sauce, for butter cooked in this way
loses much of its flavour. The first act makes no melted
butter; it only makes a vehicle for the melted butter which
is to come.
Act Second. The vehicle being boiling hot, mix in at
the last, when the sauce is to be served, three more ounces
of butter, stirring it quickly with a wire whisk. This
butter is not to be cooked-only melted, as its name indi-


Entrées
173
cates ; and in order to melt it quickly without cooking it,
the butter, which should be of the best, is often divided
into small pieces before being thrown in. Take it off the
fire in the moment of melting, add to it a few drops of
lemon-juice, and serve it at once. Act First may be per-
formed at any time, hours before the sauce, which may be
kept hot in the bain marie, is wanted. Act Second is to be
deferred till the last moment.
When this sauce is served with asparagus or cauliflower :
add a tablespoonful of cream to it, and either increase the
lemon-juice or use a teaspoonful of white-wine vinegar.
ENTRECÔTE.—A rib-steak. This is prized in France as
next to the fillet-steak. There are good judges in England
who declare that the rib-steak of English or Scotch beef is
the best of all steaks.
ENTRÉES and ENTREMETS.-Few English people have a
clear idea what is the difference between entrées and entre-
mets, and yet upon this hangs the whole significance of
the French arrangement of dinner, which has certainly
been thought out with great care and with the finest
artistic feeling. The same cannot be said of the English
dinner : good as it is, the arrangement is not good, and
comes down as an evil legacy from ancestors who were
undoubtedly giants in their powers of mastication and
digestion. It is one of the rules of English life that, after
the soup, a dinner must always begin with fish, which is
never to appear later on, unless perhaps in the form of
crab pie or lobster salad when game fails. The rule, in
its first part of ancient standing, belonged also to the old
French service of the table ; and Carême, when he under-
took to rearrange the order of the dinner, did not dare to
put it aside for great occasions, though for small dinner
parties of six or nine he invariably rejected it. The
aphorism of Brillat-Savarin is not to be disputed, that
the progression of dishes should be from the more sub-


174
Entrées
stantial to the light and delicate. Fish is usually con-
sidered more delicate and less substantial than meat ;
but always in an English dinner it is attacked first,
when the appetite is most robust, and it would be an
appalling breach of good manners to ask for it in the later
stages of the repast, when the appetite is satisfied, declines
all serious business, and will only play with food. The
theory of the English dinner is that we are to work up by
slow degrees to the grand event of the dinner—the Joint.
The fish and the side-dishes are but the walk and the canter
before the race. This is all very well as a metaphor, but
metaphors are misleading. There are two great objections
to the system. The first is that it makes no provision
for persons of weak digestion, who come faint to a late
dinner, who resolve to content themselves with the joint,
and who have to wait for it an hour or more while the
side-dishes are being devoured. The second is that whereas
the order of dishes leads up to the joint, this joint is nearly
always a roast, and immediately afterwards the second
course begins with another roast-- namely of game. These
two roasts, one upon the heels of another, are surely a
mistake, and extremely inartistic.
The French service of the table, as remodelled by Carême,
is better devised, and proceeds upon the principle already
mentioned of a progression from the more solid and plain
dishes to the lighter and more curious. The dinner has two
courses and two only, which are signalised by the two names
of entrées and entremets. The first course consists of
entrées with a joint to begin with. The second course
consists of entremets with a roast to begin with.
First course.—The soup is served with the first course,
but it is, properly speaking, no part of it, and is rather a
natural preface to the whole dinner. We sit down tired,
and want a few mouthfuls of something to set us up. We
imbibe the soup, our spirits are restored, and we are then
ready to begin the dinner in its first course, the entrées.


Entrées
· 175
These are of two kinds, the great and the small. The small
ones we all know ; the large ones are not always reckoned
as such, because they are known by other names—Relevés in
French, Removes in English, so called simply because they
take the place of the soup tureens. And here the English-
man begins to get confused. These removes or large entrées
do not seem to him to have the character of entrées at all.
Perhaps one of them is a fish ; probably the other is what
the French call an entrée de broche—what he would call a
a joint. One of the removes being a fish, he is willing to
discuss it at once, though he would be gravely scandalised
at the notion of calling it an entrée—a name which he
always associates with made dishes ; but the other being a
joint, and probably a roasted or brazed one, he thinks it
ought to be postponed to the place in the dinner which is
especially allotted to the roast, so that he may eat all his
roasts together. In the French, or at least in the original
idea, the removes are entrées not less than the little dishes
which are commonly so called, though it must be allowed
that in later practice it is usual to class them as something
distinct from entrées. But be the name what it may, if
people must have a joint, or remove, or pièce de resistance
to fall upon, then the proper place for it, in the French
idea, is at the beginning of the first course and not at the
end. There are only two limitations as to the nature of
these joints, removes or large entrées, and neither of these
is very strict. The first is that to give them the character
of an entrée they should be accompanied by a good sauce
or dainty vegetable garnish ; the second that they should
not include fowl or vinged game, which åre best reserved
for the roast proper.
Second course.—As the first course began with substantial
and rather plain dishes, the removes, tapering off into the
more delicate entrées, it is assumed that the diner is now
prepared to run a second race of entremets, beginning with
something plain and substantial in the form of a little roast.


176
Entrées
But in France, the word Roast has a wider signification
than in England-it includes a Friture. Frying is indeed
but a mode of roasting, and it would be orthodox in France,
though not too common, to begin the second course with
a fried fish. If a choice of several roasts were offered, one
of them might well be a fried fish, and the list of roasts
in France would include a baked haddock, an eеl from
the spit, and all manner of pies. Try and imagine the
countenance of an Englishman aghast at the sight of fried
gudgeons offered to him for a roast at the commencement
of the second course. And yet—for all depends on the
previous selection—fried gudgeons may at this point of the
dinner be perfectly artistic. There is truly no reason in the
Englishman's hard-and-fast rule of eating fried gudgeons
only at the beginning of dinner. It is to be presumed
that when the second course has come most persons want
only to nibble : and the French service of the dinner keeps
this wish clearly in view and ministers to it. The roast
to begin with is not too solid, and the entremets in succes-
sion are as light as possible, confined for the most part to
vegetable dishes, delicate pastry, eggs, cakes, creams, tarts,
and sweets. By way of example, take the minutes of two
of Carême's dinners—the first for February, the second
for November.
FEVRIER: Menu de six à neuf couverts.
Un potage . . . Le potage au céleri.
I.
Une grosse pièce. La pièce de boeuf à la Flamande.
Deux entrées .. Les papillotes de filets de carpe à la Duxelles.
Les perdreaux à la Périgord.
II.
Un plat de rôt . Le chapon au cresson.
Deux entremets. Les oeufs à la Dauphine.
La gelée de fraises (conserve).
Pour extra .. Les darioles à l'orange.


Epicure
177
Here it is to be observed that the dinner begins with the
joint, and that the fish is among the entrées—the game also.
NOVEMBRE : Menu de six à neuf couverts.
Un potage ..Le potage de semoule au consommé.
1.
Une grosse pièce. La pièce de boeuf à la Maréchale.
Deux entrées .. Les perdreaux à la Périgueux.
Les poulets dépecés à l’Italienne.
II.
Un plat de rôt . Les merlans frits panés à l'Anglaise.
Deux entremets Les épinards au velouté.
La gelée au vin de Madère.
Pour extra . .. Les manons d'abricots.
Here, again, it will be seen that the grosse pièce, or joint,
comes first; and see what the roast is—fried whitings with
their tails in their mouths and breadcrumbed after the
English fashion.
In 1856 Dubois and Bernard published their great work,
La Cuisine Classique, and laid down clearly the law of
the French table as regards roasts and joints: and there
has been no change since then. They give a list of forty-
five roasts—of which nine are different sorts of fish-
whitings, cod, smelts, carp, mullets, trout, etc.—to be fried
or grilled ; all the rest being fowl or game. They point out
that in some countries lamb appears among the roasts, but
insist that this is an infraction of the good rule that joints
of butcher's meat should be eaten at the beginning of
dinner-an infraction which would never be tolerated
except in a repast without ceremony, what the French
call a bourgeois and the English a family dinner. .
EPICURE.— The name of Epicurus is a standing proof of V
the irony and bitterness of life. A philosopher who mag-
nified the pleasures of the mind, his name is appropriated
to those who cultivate the pleasures of the body. Happi-
12


178
Epigram
ness for him lay in calm, in content, in contemplation ;
happiness for all those who take his name lies in the
restless titillation of appetite and the ceaseless ministering
to insatiable desire. No doubt the philosopher went too
far in the exaltation of spirit ; but that is no reason why
those who usurp his name should go still further in the
exaltation of the senses. We are not all mind, neither are
we all body ; but the master was much nearer the truth than
his so-called disciples who reverse his doctrines. Appetite
is a mean thing by itself alone, and though we cannot get
rid of it, the less we say of it the better. Call it hunger
or thirst or lust, there is in it by itself something mean and
unlovely ; it is not until it rises out of itself, inspired with
wit and imagination, with romance and remembrance,
with kindness of heart and all the tenderness, it may some-
times be folly, which link us to each other and make up
the delight of life and the courtesies of society, that love
turns to poetry, and hunger and thirst, as at a banquet
of the gods, compel the feast of reason and the flow of
soul.
EPIGRAM.—“I have been dining,” said a French noble-
man to one of those wealthy but often ignorant tax-farmers
who used to be called financiers in France—“I have been
dining with a poet who regaled us at dessert with a choice
epigram.” The financier went home to his cook, and asked
him, “How comes it that you never send any epigrams to
my table ?” The next day the cook sent to table an
Epigram of Lamb.—Poetical epigrams are generally
written in alternate verse ; and epigrams of lamb consist
of alternate cutlets. One set of cutlets are of the ordinary
kind, cut from the neck, and fried plain in clarified butter:
the other kind are made out of the breast of lamb, which
is brazed, boned, pressed between two dishes, and when
cold carved into cutlet shapes, with a bit of bone stuck into
each at one end to complete the likeness. These cutlets


Essence
179
are breadcrumbed before they are fried. To serve them,
pile in the centre of the dish a garnish of asparagus points,
of peas, or of Macedon ; arrange round it alternately the
plain cutlets and the breadcrumbed ones, and let them be
convoyed to table by a boatful of Béchamel.
Epigram of Fowl.—Here the fillets of fowl supply the
place of the plain cutlets ; the legs, boned and brazed, are
made into breadcrumbed ones, and the sauce is Supreme,
with the same garnish as for lamb; or else the Toulouse
relish supplies the place of garnish and sauce.
Esau's POTTAGE.—The soup of lentils—commonly called V
Chantilly. The same process as for pea soup.
ESCALOPES.—English cooks are bad enough in their
corruptions, but the French ones beat them hollow, and
then the English ones, to show off their learning, take up
the absurd French names and flourish them as titles of
nobility. The sandwich has gone over to France, and has
been transformed into a Snit mich ; the veal cutlet has
passed into a Wil cotelette ; the mince-pies are Miss Paës :
and whisky, or rather usquebagh, has become Scubac. I
expect every day to see the Snit mich, the Wil cotelette,
the Scubac, and Miss Paës come back to England. So
there are many cooks here who now begin to speak of
escalopes of veal and of other meat. The man who says
escalope when he means collop deserves a whipping. I am
reminded of two lines in Shakespeare-
God knows thou art a collop of my flesh,
And for thy sake I have shed many a tear.
ESPAGNOLE.—See Spanish.
ESSENCE.—There is something of humbug in this. We
have essence of ham, essence of truffles, essence of chicken,
essence of game. These are decoctions or purées contain-
ing as much as possible of the flavours which the cook, by


180
Faggots
his processes, can concentrate into a little space—and that
much is very little indeed. It is the old story of Bertrand,
cook to the Prince of Soubise, pretending to put a whole
ham into a scent-bottle. It is the jest which Charles Lamb
imagined when, in describing the manner of Munden the
actor, he said that it seemed as if he could see a leg of
mutton in its quiddity.

AGGOTS are to the kitchen garden what
bouquets or nosegays are to the flower
garden, and the French indeed use the word
bouquet to designate some of the combina-
tions which are here called faggots in extension of a well-
known phrase. It is useful to be able by a word to name
at once a constantly recurring assortment of vegetables or
herbs used for seasoning. When we speak of a faggot
of parsley, a faggot of herbs, a faggot of ravigote, it
is at once known what sort of posy we want to
make up. The term, however, is here extended to any
other known and useful collection of pot-herbs—such
as the Duxelles and the Mirepoix. But it is im-
portant in fixing upon a name to be sure that it is
distinctive. Any inexperienced person looking through
the cookery books will be sorely puzzled to make out the
difference between the faggots peculiar to Braze, White
Braze, Blanc, Poële, and Mirepoix. Where one cook
makes a difference, another makes none. All the highly-
flavoured vegetables, herbs and spices seem to be amassed
in every combination, as if it would be improper to leave
any of them out. There is not only seldom a marked
difference between one and another—there is never any
general agreement as to what the difference shall be. The
reader must accept the following enumeration not as


Faggots
181
perfect nor as universally received, but as an attempt
to make out a list which shall be at once clear and free
from useless repetition :-
1. Faggot of Parsley.--This is a little bunch of parsley
tied up with cibols or spring onions. It is in French
called a bouquet.
2. Faggot of Sweet-herbs.—What the French call a
bouquet garni. This used to be described as a faggot of
parsley with the addition of a bayleaf and a sprig of thyme.
As in practice, however, when this faggot is used, there are
onions or shalots besides, the cibols or spring onions of the
parsley faggot come to be of small account. It is better,
therefore, to leave out the cibols, and to describe it as made
up of parsley, bayleaf and thyme.
3. Faggot of Ravigote.—Tarragon, chervil, burnet, and
chives. Sometimes there is parsley, but it is quite un-
necessary beside the tarragon and the chervil; and it is a
good illustration of the indiscriminate fashion in which
cooks throw in one good thing after another. It is the
old story of the artist who could paint a cypress and
therefore put a cypress into all his pictures, no matter
what the subject. Parsley is a good thing, and therefore
cooks will strew it everywhere. See the article on Ravi.
gote—only here note that for the most part this faggot is
got together to be chopped.
4. Faggot of Duxelles.—Dubois and Bernard have called
this Fine Herbs ; and Gouffé, without adopting the name,
has given his opinion in favour of it. There are reasons
why we should still keep to the old French name of
Duxelles——which see. Ever since Beauvilliers laid down
the law, the faggot of Duxelles has consisted of equal
weights of mushrooms, parsley, and shalots, minced finely
together and fried for five minutes with rasped bacon,
pepper and salt. In later times, those who can get it add
an equal weight of truffles. It is a question, however,


182
Feast
whether the quantity of parsley and of shalots is not
excessive. In the mind of the inventor the mushrooms
were intended to predominate. But if to half a pound of
mushrooms you put half a pound of parsley, and on the
top of that half a pound of shalots, it scarcely stands to
reason that the mushrooms should have much the best
of it.
5. Faggot of Mirepoix.—Two carrots, two onions, two
shalots, two bayleaves, a sprig of thyme, a clove of garlic,
half a pound of fat bacon, and possibly half a pound of
ham. Chop these finely and pass them in butter for five
minutes, with pepper and salt. For further explanation
see Mirepoix.
6. Faggot of Pot-herbs.—The following receipt is nearly
identical with what the French cooks call Poële, only that
it wants veal and ham for reasons which will be found
in the article Mirepoix. Take two carrots, two onions,
two cloves, and a faggot of sweet-herbs ; mince all finely
with half a pound of beef fat, and melt it on a slow fire
with a little broth and salt, and the juice of at least one
lemon. It will be observed that the chief difference between
this and the Mirepoix is that it has less of the onion tribe in
it, that it has a quantity of lemon-juice, and that fresh fat is
substituted for the smoky bacon fat. If this faggot be put
into a saucepan with no broth, but plenty of water (say three
quarts), together with some flour, and if it be then boiled
for half an hour and strained, the resulting liquor is what
the French cooks call Blanc.
Fawn—to be stuffed and roasted like a hare, barded
with bacon.
FEAST.—“The Great Feast at the enthronisation of the
Reverend Father in God, George Neville, Archbishop of
York and Chancellor of England, in the sixth year of the


Finance
183
·
·
.
· ·
·
.
.
.
.
200
·
·
.
·
·
.
·
·
.
·
. .
·
·
·
400
·
· ·
. .
reign of King Edward IV. (1466). And first, the goodly
provision made for the same :-
Wheat . . . qrs. 300 | Pigeons
4000
Ale . . . tuns 300 Coneys
. . . 4000
Wine . . . tuns 100 | In bitterns . . . 204
Hippocras ,
. pipe
pipe 1 1 Heronshaws . . ..
400
Oxen
. . 104
Pheasants
Wild Bulls
.
6
Partridges . . . 500
Muttons
1000 Woodcocks . . . 400
Veals . .
304 Curlews . . . 100
Porks.
304 Egrettes :
· 1000
Swans .
Stags, bucks and roes 500 & more
Geese .
2000
Pasties of venison cold . 4000
Capons.
1000 “Parted” dishes of jelly 1000
Pigs
2000 Plain dishes of jelly : 3000
Plovers . . .
400 Cold tarts baked . . 4000
Quails . .
1200 Hot pasties of venison . 1500
Of the fowls called Reeves 2400 Hot custards . . . 2000
In peacocks . . . 104 Pikes and breams. . 608
Mallards and teals , 4000 Porpoises and seals . 12
In cranes . . . 204 | Spices, sugared delicates
In kids ,
204 and wafers . Plenty."
In chickens . . . 2000!
• FENNEL SAUCE.-Fennel blanched, chopped, and added
to English butter sauce. Generally reserved for boiled
mackerel.
FEUILLETAGE.–Puff.paste.
.
· ·
FINANCE, to which French cookery paid homage, meant
taxes; and the FINANCIERS were tax-farmers, who filled
the coffers of the state, and made their own fortunes too,
amid the groans and execrations of the people. The words
have a larger meaning now ; but still financing has from
age to age the same characteristics, and the money-making
class the same tastes and foibles. Newly rolling in wealth,
the financiers are apt to be gaudy in their tastes and
luxurious in their lives. The cooks have done them the
honour to invent for their especial behoof the Financiers'


184
Fine Herbs
Ragout or Relish. The receipt for it is given among the
Relishes (No. 1). It abounds in mushrooms to remind them
of their upstart origin; in truffles to signify by the fragrant
fruits of earth-grubbing the precious results of money-
grubbing; in cocks' combs emblematic of conceit; in
quenelles, a delicate transformation of chicken, hinting at
the transfiguring influence of wealth ; and in collops of
sweetbread to melt in the mouth, and make the financier,
though his heart be hard, feel the softness of life. These
and other dainties are bathed in the
Financiers' Sauce, which is the finest Spanish sauce
mingled with essences of mushrooms, truffles, and chicken,
exhilarated with Madeira wine and reduced to a cullis.
FINE-HERBS.—Dubois, Bernard, and Gouffé, the chief
recent authorities in France, have proposed to give this
name 'to a Duxelles—that is, a mince of mushrooms,
parsley, and shalots. Have they any right to disturb the
more ancient meaning of the phrase ? Everybody has
heard of the omelet with fine-herbs. Are we to understand
this henceforth as an omelet with minced mushrooms in it
as well as minced parsley and onions? If not, what is the
use of confusing terms? Fine-herbs are indefinite: in the
omelet they mean one combination ; in the beefsteak they
may mean another, for they often include tarragon; and
there is something arbitrary in proposing to confine them
to the Duxelles assortment.
Fish is one of the greatest luxuries of the table, and is
so abundant, at least near the seaboard, that it ought to be
within reach of the poorest. Unfortunately it is, after
game, the dea rest of all food, and it is not easy to under-
stand why. The Irish died of starvation in their famine
of potatoes ; they had an inexhaustible supply of fine fish
about their coasts, which were of little or no use to them.
No one can say that fish is undervalued in London : we


Fish
185
are all eager for it; but it is excessively dear, whereas it
ought to be excessively cheap. If it were the fishermen
who demanded the big price, we could sympathise with
them; they risk their lives for our good, and they should
be well paid. But a first-class trawler considers himself
well paid if he can get 3d. a pound for the best of his fish.
Why are we to pay in London and all over England
1s. and 1s. 6d. a pound for fish which the trawlers deliver
on the shore to the salesmen at 2}d. and 3d. a pound ?
There is no great trade in the world which is allowed to
make such profit as that of the fish salesmen ; and there is
no trade with which co-operative societies could interfere
more advantageously for the benefit of families.
For cooking fish—one thing is clear : if it is of the first
order and perfectly fresh, do not give too much heed to
French directions. The only safe guides are the English
and the Dutch. The French, when they settled their
methods of cooking fish, did not get it so fresh as it was to
be had in England and in Holland—it was generally a day
older. When a noble fish-a salmon or a turbot-is quite
fresh, the simplest way of cooking it is the best, and it is
impossible to improve upon the English and Dutch methods.
On the other hand, when the fish is poor, or a day older
than need be, the French cooks can give many a good hint,
and their rich sauces and garnishings, their marinades and
matelotes have a magical effect. There are few dishes more
worthy of honour than a carp à la Chambord, a sole in a
Normandy matelote, the remains of a turbot in a cream au
gratin, or the tasteless little river crayfish done up à la
Bordelaise.
With regard to the freshness of fish, however, there is a
remarkable difference to be noted. Some fish will keep
perfectly sweet and fresh longer than others; and we can
even detect a law in this distinction Divide fish into
those which keep to the surface of the water and those
which hold to the ground. It may be presumed that the


186
Fiounder
former require more air than the latter, and that when
they cease to breathe freely they deteriorate. As a matter
of fact we find that those fish which disport near the
surface of the water-mackerel, salmon, trout, herring-
die and decay soon. They cannot be cooked too fresh. On
the other hand, fish that haunt the bottom of the sea or of
rivers—carp, eels, skate, and all the flat fish-are tenacious
of life, and may be kept quite fresh for some time after
they have left the water.
Fish Broth.—There are the most elaborate soups of fish.
Gouffé gives one which he calls a consommé, and which
requires among other ingredients a kilogramme of turbot-
heads. Where is one to get a kilogramme of the heads of
a fish which singly costs in the season from 15s. to 30s. ?
In general a fish broth is very simple. Take almost any
kind of fish, removing the skin from those which may be
too fishy, and stew them down with vegetables in the same
way as for beef broth. Some people choose to add white
French wine ; some add beef broth; and one of the charms
of a fish soup is to have pieces of fish served in it. The grand
point is first of all to get the fish broth good, clear, and free
from fat. In France and the Channel Islands the conger
eel-skinned and sliced-is much used for boiling down to
broth, which when clarified is served with rice and minced
parsley, together with flakes of cod, haddock or salmon,
fillets of sole, whiting or flounder, pieces of crab or lobster,
or with oysters, mussels, prawns, shrimps.
FLOUNDER.—The best of all the flounders is not a
flounder, but a dab. As, however, it would be impossible
for any respectable person to eat a fish with the name of
dab, it has been agreed that the dab shall be called a
Thames flounder. These flounders are the fish most
favoured at Greenwich for waterzootje, and when they
are small and plump, they are sweet and melt in the
mouth. If a flounder is to be fried, it is best to fry it in
is not
å fish uld be


Forcemeat
187
fillets. The true flounder may be distinguished from all
other flat fish by having on his upper side a row of sharp
little spines along the junction of his fins with his body.
FONTENELLE must always be remembered at table
because he said a very stupid thing which he fancied was
wise—“Let men,” he said, “reason from this and from v
that about my present existence : I am only a stomach :
it is very little, but I am content with it.” Magnify the
pleasures of the table as we may, he is a poor wretch who
is content with his stomach, and thinks it all in all.
Fontenelle also said that the secret of happiness is to have
the heart cold and the stomach warm. This is not well
said ; neither is it what one should expect from a gourmet.
The nature of the gourmet is to be genial, not cynical.
The stomach and the heart are the Damon and the Pythias ✓
of the human frame, and when the heart is wretched the
stomach will often console it. Henry Beauclerc was never
known to smile after the death of his son, but he found
solace in lampreys, and died from a surfeit of them. The
Marshal de Mouchy discovered that pigeons were con-
solatory. When a friend or relative died, he would say to
his cook—“Roast pigeons to-day. I notice that when I
have eaten two pigeons, I rise from table comforted.”
FORCEMEAT.—The French name for it is farce, and their
use of it tends to farcema display of the prowess of Jack-
pudding. They swell out their viands, and surround them
with farce, quenelles of whiting, quenelles of chicken,
godiveau plain, godiveau with herbs, boudin, gratin, force-
meat shaped into balls, shaped into eggs, shaped into
corks, farce inside the meat, farce coating it and masking
it, farce swimming around it; so that often the dish pro-
fessing to be solid meat proves to be mainly farce. When
a French cook stuffs a carp, he takes every morsel of the
fish except the head and the tail, he pounds it with other
ingredients into stuffing, which he moulds into the likeness


188
Forcemeat
of the dear departed, putting the head at one end and the
tail at the other to look like nature. Certainly the French
make excellent farce; but a little of it goes a long way,
especially with people who are not dependent upon pap,
and who have not yet come to substitute the action of
pestle and mortar for that of their own good grinders.
We, therefore, who are in good health, and have not lost
our powers of mastication, must entreat the cooks to be
moderate in their farces, and to spare their stuffing.
1. Quenelle.—This is the finest of the French forcemeats,
and will be described under its own name, both on account
of its pre-eminence, and because it involves a little critical
discussion.
2. Godiveau.—Take veal and ox-kidney fat in propor-
tions which vary according to taste and the season of the
year. The fat is never less than the veal ; sometimes it is
double the quantity ; most commonly it is between the two
-namely, half as much again as the veal : let us say,
eight ounces of veal to twelve of beef fat. They are both
to be picked perfectly free of skin and thready fibres, and
to be chopped very small. Season them with pepper, salt,
nutmeg ; and, still chopping, add two whole eggs--one at
a time-until they are well mixed. Then transfer all to a
mortar, along with a spoonful or two of very cold water in
winter, or an ounce or two of ice in summer ; and it is in
summer, by the way, that the quantity of fat must be a
minimum, for fear of its turning. Keeping all as chilly as
possible, pound it briskly until it is mixed into a smooth
paste. If there is any sign of melting, use more ice, or
take the godiveau out upon a plate and chill it in the ice-
box. When the godiveau has become soft and smooth, it
is to be rolled on a marble slab with flour, and divided into
balls or sticks lightly powdered over with flour, which are
finally to be poached in water or broth, and used for a
garnish of various dishes.


Forcemeat
189
3. Godiveau with herbs.— When shalots, chives and parsley
are chopped and pounded with the above, we have the
Godiveau aux fines herbes, useful in various ways, but
especially as an addition to pies.
4. Oyster Forcemeat.-—Beard a dozen oysters, mince them,
and mix them with four ounces of fine breadcrumbs. Add
an ounce and a half of butter, the zest of half a lemon, a
teaspoonful of parsley, some nutmeg, cayenne and salt; and
mix all well with the yolk of an egg and a little of the oyster
liquor. Divide it into balls and poach them ; or put it
whole in the breast of a turkey. It is also excellent as a
stuffing for fish, such as John Dory. And it is mightily
improved by being pounded to a smooth paste with another
half-ounce of butter.
5. Fat Forcemeat, often called Veal Stuffing—not because
made of veal, but because used for stuffing veal, turkey,
and fish,-is made of equal quantities of fat and fine bread-
crumbs. The fat is generally ox-kidney fat, but the udder
of veal is to be preferred, or else butter. Take, however,
six ounces of the suet which is most commonly in use,
mince it finely, mix it with the breadcrumbs, add to it
chopped parsley, thyme and shalot (the two latter
sparingly), nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Work all up with
two yolks of eggs and a spoonful of milk, and pound it
smooth in a mortar.
6. Hare Stuffing is the same as the foregoing, with the
addition of the hare's liver parboiled and chopped.
7. Sage and Onion Stuffing—for ducks, geese, pork. -
Chop (but not together) four large onions and a dozen sage-
leaves. Scald them for two or three minutes, drain them,
put them into a stewpan with breadcrumbs (six ounces),
butter (two ounces), pepper and salt, let them simmer
very slowly for ten or fifteen minutes, and then the stuffing
is ready. With more cooking and with the addition of ă


190
Fowl
little brown gravy, this stuffing may be used as a sage
and onion sauce, served in a boat.
8. Chestnut Forcemeat-chiefly used for stuffing turkeys.
-Roast slowly and peel two or three dozen chestnuts,
according to the size of the bird. Mix them up whole
with fat forcemeat (No. 6), and stuff the turkey.
Fowl.–From times very far back there has been a
controversy in France as to the comparative merits of old
fowls and young chickens. The argument on either side
will be found in the article on the soup called Restaurant.
In these modern times the chicken seems to get the best
of it; and what is to be said of older fowls in the way of
culinary preparation is little else than a repetition of the
directions already given for dealing with chickens.
FRICANDEAU is a Provençal word meaning something
nice. Fricandela is a nice girl ; Fric, or Frique (allied
to the English freak), meant brisk ; Fricaud, dainty ;
Fricot, a dainty dish ; and here is Fricandeau belonging
to the same series, and applied especially to a dainty dish
of veal, which was invented by one of the cooks of Pope
Leo X. The neatest receipt for it is that of Gouffé, who
is peculiar, however, in selecting for the dish a piece of
the fillet of veal instead of the part most commonly
employed—the cushion. “Take three pounds," he says,
6 bone, trim and lard the outside with thin strips of bacon.
Put in the glazing stewpan the trimmings of the meat,
with two ounces of sliced carrot, two of onion, pepper and
salt. Then lay the fricandeau on the top ; add half a pint
of broth ; boil the broth till it is reduced and becomes thick
and yellow; add a pint and a half more broth, and simmer
for an hour and a quarter—the stewpan half covered ; then
close the stewpan and put live coals on the top ; baste the
fricandeau with the gravy every four minutes till it is
sufficiently glazed ; take out the fricandeau and put it on


Fritters
191
a dish. Strain the gravy through the pointed strainer,
skim the fat from it, and pour it over the meat.” The
fricandeau may be served either thus simply, or with a
garnish of sorrel, endive, or spinach.
FRICASSÉE. (See Chicken.)—The root of the word is
supposed to be akin to that of the English freak. For
etymology see previous article.
FRITTERS.—1. Simple Fritters.—Take some batter, for
which see the receipt. Add a little sugar to it, and pro-
foundly weigh whether yolks of eggs should enter into it
or not. Better say yes, although the use of yolks tells
with more distinct effect in the custard fritter. Drop
this in spoonfuls into the frying-kettle, and serve them
with sprinkled sugar.
2. Custard Fritters.—Make a good custard, and steam it
in a pudding-dish which has been first rubbed with butter.
When it is done, let it cool, cut it into squares, dip them in
the batter, and fry them. They are excellent by them-
selves, but they may be served in a dish with jam or fruit
syrup round them.
3. Pudding Fritters. The remains of any kind of pud-V
ding, not forgetting plum-pudding, may be served in the
same way with excellent effect.
4. Fruit Fritters.—For these the chief fruits used are
apples, oranges, peaches, or pineapples. The apples and
oranges are usually steeped in a little brandy and sugar
for an hour beforehand. The peaches and pineapples may
go into Kirschenwasser and sugar. Needless to say
anything about peeling, trimming, and cutting. Dip the
fruit into the batter (in which, however, there should not
be any yolks), and fry it as before, dropping spoonfuls of
combined fruit and batter into the kettle.
5. Balloon Fritters (Beignets Soufflés).—For this there
is a little difference in the way of preparing the batter.


192
Fritters
Take as for ordinary batter equal quantities of solid and
liquid-say, half a pound of flour as against half a pint of
water; and take three eggs and an ounce of sugar as
against four ounces of butter. Put the water, butter,
sugar, and a pinch of salt in a saucepan on the fire, and as
soon as it boils dredge in the flour and stir it over the
fire for four or five minutes. When it is removed from the
fire put in a few drops of flavouring essence—as orange or
almond, lemon or vanilla-or do without flavouring alto-
gether. The three eggs are next to be broken into it and
carefully mixed—one at a time. The paste should be stiff
enough now to hold together; but if too stiff, break another
egg into it, or half one. Make round balls the size of
small walnuts, and put them on strips of buttered paper.
Dip them into the frying-kettle, holding on by the strip of
paper, from which the balls will soon detach themselves. As
the balls are frying move them about in the kettle till they
reach a fine colour and puff well out. Then drain them,
sprinkle them with sugar, and serve them on a napkin.
6. Brioche Fritters.—Take paste No. 9, using half the
quantity of butter, and milk instead of water. Cool it on
ice, and then roll it out thin. With a paste-cutter make
circles about two inches in diameter. Put a small spoonful
of apricot or other jam upon each; purse it up like a little
dumpling, and drop it for ten minutes into hot fat. This
is the German fashion—the dainty being of German origin.
Always on New Year's Eve, or St. Silvester's night as it
is called, these fritters are eaten throughout Deutschland.
Marie Antoinette brought the remembrance of them with
her from Vienna to Paris, and instructed the French cooks to:
make them for her, she being then the Dauphiness. They cut
the paste as follows :— With an inch-and-a-half cutter they
made circles, upon which they dropped the apricot jam-not
much—the size of a cobnut. With a two-inch cutter they
made larger circles, which they placed above the jam. They


Frying
193
pinched round the edges, and then set them to swim for
five or six minutes on the one side, then for five or six
minutes on the other in the hot fat. They were afterwards
drained, sprinkled with sugar, piled on a napkin, and
dubbed Beignets à la Dauphine. The German names are
-at Vienna, Wiener Krapfen ; and at Berlin, Berliner
Pfannkuchen.
FROGS are at their best in the spring, and therefore it is
only in Lent that they are to be seen at Parisian tables.
The hind-legs alone are eaten. They are skinned, they
are blanched, they are boiled, and they are served either
with a poulette sauce or fried in butter. The French
have a theory that frogs, having a mighty power of
croaking, are good for the chest and sovereign over a
cough. Their final cause in fact is the cure of the con-
sumptive.
FRYING.—Because fat, oil or butter is essential to fry- N
ing, the common idea is that the food cooked in this way
must be rich and greasy. There cannot be a greater
mistake. The fats are essential to it, not because of their
richness, but because of the great heat which they can
transmit. If water could be heated up to 300° or 400°, it
would produce all the effect of frying. In the article on
boiling it has been explained how meat plunged into
boiling water (212°) has the albumen coagulated on the
surface in the first five minutes—which is as it were a coat-
of-mail through which the water cannot penetrate and the
juices cannot escape. Much more is this coat-of-mail rapidly
and decidedly formed if the food is plunged into a fluid at
the temperature of 300° or 400°. That fluid is fat, and it
neither penetrates into fish, flesh or vegetable, nor does it
allow their juices to exude. It has not only this preserva-
tive effect on the interior of the food—it also developes the
roast appearance and flavour on the exterior. The differ-
ence between roasting and boiling is not a difference
13


194
Frying
between the mediums, be it water, fat, air, or steam, which
may surround the food in the process of cooking : it is a
difference entirely of temperature ; and frying, which by
means of the fats conveys heat to the food at a tempera-
ture varying from the boiling point of water upwards to
300°, 400°, 500°, and even higher, is in fact a species of
roasting. Any one who likes may try this experiment,
which ought to enlighten him as to the nature of frying.
If he wishes to be very accurate, he can send to E. Cetti
and Co., 11, Brooke Street, Holborn, London, who will
provide him with a thermometer registering up to 500°
Fahrenheit for three shillings. Negretti and Zambra will
charge double and four times the sum. Put a leg of
mutton into a kettle of fat at the frying temperature of
400°. In 17 or 11 hour (it depends on the size)—that is,
in half the ordinary time—it will come out a perfectly roasted
gigot, and nobody at the table who is not warned of a
difference will discover any between it and a leg of mutton
roasted in the ordinary way. This is a little secret for
those who have to study the arts of impromptu cookery ;
and here it is let out only to illustrate the nature of frying,
and to show that it is but a manner of roasting—the most
certain and expeditious manner of safely transmitting the
roasting heat.
If the reader has grasped this explanation and will
superintend this experiment, he will be prepared to appre-
ciate clearly the distinction between frying proper and the
half-frying which is so often in England supposed to be
the same thing as whole-frying+the distinction, in short,
between a frying-kettle and a frying-pan. In the kettle
the thing to be fried is completely immersed in the liquid
fat, the heat is transmitted to every part alike, above and
below, and a crisp unbroken surface is on every side
created which excludes grease ; so that whatever is thus
fried will when drained appear at table without any
oiliness. In the flat frying-pan, which is best known in


Frying
195
England, it is not so. There is so little butter, fat or oil
in it, that the food—say a sole,—which is on its lower
surface subjected to a very high temperature, is on its
upper surface open to the air at a much lower temperature.
The cooking is thus unequal ; and worse than this, the sole
is .knocked about in the flat frying-pan, to prevent burn-
ing; the skin breaks ; and while the fish is being cooked on
its under side the bubbling fat splutters on to the broken
upper surface, which being at a lower temperature, incapa-
ble of resistance, absorbs these splutterings, so that when
presented at table it is decidedly greasy. If the sole be
cooked whole in a frying-kettle, instead of being half-fried
in a frying-pan—that is, half at a time--there will be no
such complaint of greasiness. It must not be supposed
that the frying-kettle is expensive because of the large
quantity of fat required for it. The fat lasts, and can be
used over and over again with little waste, whereas there
is great waste of fat in the frying-pan.
One of the reasons why frying is supposed to be a
greasy mode of cooking is because lard is so much used
for it. Lard is the very worst of the fats which could be
selected for frying, and invariably makes the food look
greasy. Probably there is nothing so good as oil ; but it
is not in general suited to English tastes, it is expensive,
and it requires extraordinary care—for it must be heated
very slowly, and is always apt to boil over. Butter also
is expensive, and requires much care and slowness of
heating. The best of all the fats for frying is the cook's
perquisite—the clarified dripping of roast meat and the
top fat of the stockpot ; but in small households there is
never quite enough of it. Practically the fat which is
found to be most available is beef fat. Break it to pieces,
melt it slowly, and then strain it for use—taking care,
however, that it is not so hot as to melt the solder of the
strainer. When the strained fat is to be used, let it reach
the proper heat before anything is put into it. The proper


196
Galantine
V heat is usually ascertained by throwing a small bit of bread
into it. If the fat is hot enough, the bread will fizz, and
give out airbells.
N.B.—There must be no salt in the fat nor in the food
fried in it. The salting takes place afterwards.

.
ALANTINE.—About this curious word the
French philologers, Littré and Brachet at
their head, are in a thick fog. Everybody
knows that galantine is not gelatine. These
are two words for two things which are as different as
possible. Nobody dreams that a fowl or anything else in
a galantine means the same thing as one in a jelly or gela-
tine. But the French etymologists, without a shadow of
misgiving, insist that because in old writings they cannot
find mention of galantine, whereas they do find mention
of galatine, they must both mean the same thing (which
indeed they do), and that this same thing must be gelatine,
—which it is not. Oddly enough, M. Brachet winds up
his proofs that galantine must be gelatine by quoting from
a MS. account-book of the thirteenth century this item,
“De duodecim lampredis portatis in galatina,” which he
does not actually translate, but which he assumes with the
most perfect assurance to mean—Twelve lampreys served
in a jelly or gelatine. Now it so happens that in England
we can lay our hands upon the receipt for doing the lam-
preys in a galantine, and the moment it is explained it will
be seen that it has nothing whatever to do with relatine.
It means, or rather it meant, a preparation flavoured with
the powdered root of the sedge called galingale, or galan-
gale, to which Tennyson refers when he speaks of " meadows
set with slender galingale."


Galantine
197
About the end of the fourteenth century-say 1390—
the master-cooks of King Richard II., after taking counsel
with the physicians and philosophers of the court, made a
collection of their most approved receipts, which they put
together under the name of the Forme of Cury, and which
gives valuable information as to the dishes most in request
among the courtiers of that time. The MS. has unfortu-
nately been lost, but it has been twice reprinted by learned
doctors of the Church-first the Reverend Doctor Pegge,
then the Reverend Doctor Warner, who may be relied on
for the accuracy of the text, though they have not been too
successful in its elucidation. In this collection of 198
receipts, the galantine, or galyntyne as it was spelt, is
mentioned not once but many times, and always in con-
nection with galyngale. Here is the receipt for making
galyntyne—Number 138. “Take crusts of bread and
grind them small. Do [add] thereto powder of galyngale,
of canel (cinnamon], gyngynes [ginger], and salt it.
Temper it with vinegar and draw it up through a strainer
and mess [dish] it forth.” There are other receipts for
making sippets of galyntine, fillets of pork in galyntine,
lampreys in galyntine, lamperns in galantyne. They are
all in the same strain, and always imply the powder of
galyngale, generally but not always mixed with bread-
crumb. The word has passed out of the modern French
dictionaries, which acknowledge the plant referred to only
under the name of Souchet. But that the name existed
in old French as it still exists in English may be ascer-
tained by referring to an authority which all Frenchmen
respect-Cotgrave. In this Englishman's dictionary of
the French language, published in 1640, he gives as the
French equivalent of galingale-galange, galangue,
galingal. And for the plant itself, which belongs to the
family of the sedges, and is technically known as Cyperus,
this is what. Sowerby says of it : “The root is perennial,
long, creeping, twisted, astringent, chiefly remarkable for


198
Galantine
an agreeable spicy odour, in which it resembles the roots
of some East Indian grasses that, when moistened, are
used by the English to perfume their houses.” In Parkin-
son's time—that is, about 1650—it was still used in con-
fectionery and cookery ; but he says that the use of it was
then dying out, and that it was chiefly employed for the
perfume of houses. He describes also the extraordinary
virtues which the plant was supposed to possess for the
internal organs of men and women, while for a wonder he
ventures to cast a doubt on their efficacy.
Although it is perfectly clear that the galantine of old
times (which, by the way, was not a solid as it is now, but
a sauce with a garniture in it—what in the language of
the modern kitchen is known as a ragoût) was a prepara-
tion of the galingale or galangale, it is not so clear how
the word galantine came to be formed ; and it is important
to explain this, because it has a curious bearing on a sub-
sequent discussion. It is the key to a whole class of words
beginning with gallimawfrey. The first step is to deter-
mine the meaning of galingale. The final syllable is a
generic term indicating the nature of the plant; we have
something parallel in sea kale. The first two syllables
(which find their kindred in gala and regale) declare
that the gale in question is a galing or regaling gale,
and their meaning has survived in the modern English
name for the plant—the sweet Cyperus, in the sense in
which we speak of sweet herbs, as sweet Basil and sweet
Marjoram. And what then is galantine? At first sight
one is staggered by the termination, which suggests a Latin
origin—but it is a good English word. Tine is a generic
term which here takes the place of gale. As we bave an
old English mistle-tine as well as mistletoe, so there was
galintine as well as galingale. In the old receipts they
said indifferently-powder of galingale or powder of galin-
tine. In dictionaries of provincial and obsolete English
anybody will find the root tine preserved in various words


Galantine
199
that refer to brushwood, hedges and hedging, thorns, and
figuratively sorrow.
Galantine, as we now know it, is quite a recent inven-
tion. There was a certain Marquis de Brancas, who kept
a great kitchen in the end of the last century, at the head
of which was a cook named Prévost. The Revolution
made an end of the Marquis, extinguished his kitchen fire,
and threw Prévost out of work. What was the great
artist to do? Fortunately the Revolution, though it hated
kings and nobles, had a great respect for cooks and loved
good cheer. Prévost set his wits to work, and created the
galantine of modern times—a new preparation with an old
name. He took into partnership with himself Philippe,
who afterwards became celebrated for his restaurant in the
Rue Montorgueil. For fifteen years they made galantines
together, and sold them to the Parisians under the Republic,
the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire. About 1805,
when Nelson was sweeping the seas and culminating in
Trafalgar, when Napoleon was traversing Europe and cul-
minating on the field of Austerlitz—the fame of the galantine
rose to its height, and Paris was informed that it had changed
its domicile. The possession of the galantine was sold to
M. Perrier-a pastrycook in the Rue Montorgueil. Prévost
went out of the business altogether, but it was arranged
that Philippe should continue to construct the galantines
which Perrier was to sell. Between them they brought
the galantine into fashion, and achieved for it a great
position—indeed, the very highest position among cold
viands.
The reader who expects a receipt for making galantine
in this place will be disappointed. One might as well give
a receipt for making a Bologna sausage, a Strasbourg pie,
or turtle soup. These are dainties which belong to spe-
cialists, and are not fit for ordinary kitchens. To make a
galantine well, you must make a business of it, and it is
much the best way to go to M. Dumas, of 55, Prince's


200
Gallimaw frey
Street, Leicester Square, and buy it. The terrines which
are sold in the shops under the name of Yorkshire pies
are not Yorkshire pies, but galantines in pots. Buy them
if you have not near you—worthy namesake and rival of
the great Alexander—a Dumas who can make a romance
out of the breast of a turkey, and a scene out of the merry-
thought of a chicken, raise a pheasant into a personage,
put wit into a pistachio, and endue a truffle with the soul
of poetry.
ally that they am hardy for any
But the fact i
GALLIMAWFREY or GALIMAFRÉ, and GALIMATIAS.—For
several hundred years these words have defied the learning
of Europe, and so completely that not only has every
etymologist, great and small, given them up in despair,
but furthermore—the last theory concerning them, uttered
by a competent scholar, Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, is
virtually that they are nothing but gabble to signify gabble.
It may therefore seem hardy for any one to pretend at this
time of day to have solved the riddle. But the fact is that
the solution has hitherto been withheld, for the simple
reason that the literary world has not deemed cookery
books worthy of much notice.
Perhaps the unsafest of all guides to take in searching
for an etymon would be Ménage ; yet he was quite right,
and most persons have felt that he was right, in asserting
that there is a connection between Galimafré and Gali-
matias. They have the same meaning. It is known that
Galimafré or Gallimawfrey was originally a fricassee of
fowl, though we hear of it afterwards as a mess of mutton
and even of sheep's head. Galimatias, on the other hand,
as far back as we can trace it, has always passed for a
jumble of nonsense ; but it has also been connected with
fowls through the explanation of it contained in the cock-
and-bull story of the lawyer who, having to argue his case
of the stolen cock in Latin, blundered it by waxing eloquent
over Galli Matthias instead of Gallus Matthiæ.


Gallimaw frey
201
The key to both words is to be found in the Forme of
Cury, and in the other Rolls of Cookery edited successively
by the Reverend Doctors Pegge and Warner. These are
a mine of wealth to the philologer, and have not received
half the attention they deserve. The Forme of Cury is
especially valuable. It was compiled by the master-cooks
of Richard II., assisted by all the doctors of philosophy
and men of taste who took an interest in the elaborate
gastrology of that court. Let it be remembered that
Richard II. stands out in the history of the world as one
of the most lavish and luxurious princes that ever lived.
Known throughout Europe as Richard of Bordeaux because,
the English dominion then including Gascony, he was born
there, and his father the Black Prince there held the seat
of English government in France, we are told by his cooks
and the doctors who worked with them that he was
accounted the best and ryallest viander of all Christian
kings.” It is to the early part of his reign, and all the
luxury of it as described in the chronicles, that the poet
Gray refers in the lines which have almost passed into
proverbs :
Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows
While, proudly riding on the azure realm,
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth on the prow and pleasure at the helm.
The common tradition is that Richard died of hunger ; but v
while he reigned he had in his kitchen a staff of several
hundred cooks ; he entertained at his table 10,000 courtiers
and followers, for whom were killed every day 28 oxen
and 300 sheep, besides innumerable quantities of fowl
and game. All the care and skill which the wealth and
knowledge of the time could command were expended on
the preparation of the viands. The cleverest cooks, the
learnedest doctors, and the daintiest courtiers, put their
heads together to range the earth for curious food, to invent
new dishes, and to treasure up the most approved receipts


202
Gallimawfrey
of old ones. The result was the Forme of Cury—which
was the old English way of spelling Queuerie—the business
of a Queux or Cook. It was a cookery book in which the
most cursory reader will detect the work of many hands,
repetitions, varieties, here a new receipt in the language of
the period, there an old one in a corrupt or forgotten
language, further on a recently-worded explanation under
an antique heading, and there again another set off with
foreign phrases. M. Wallon has devoted two considerable
volumes to the life of Richard II.: he has not said a word
in it about this book and the gastronomic rage of the court.
English scholars have given it the most superficial atten-
tion, and have strangely neglected its hints. The language
has puzzled them sorely, and they have put it aside as
beneath them.
Nevertheless this cookery book, and the contemporary
Rolls of Cookery, some of which have been published, while
others still remain in MS., chiefly among the Sloane MSS.
in the British Museum, is to those who care to read it a
mine of wealth. We can see in our own time how there
still remain in the kitchen the relics of an antiquated
speech unknown to books; and 500 years ago in the
kitchen of the English king it was the same. There
remained fragments of a language which was not only
unknown to books, but was also scarcely understood by
those who employed it, words which had passed out of
general acceptance, which had become unrecognisable, and
which are now to the philologist what an oyster-shell on a
hillside is to the student of geology, and the bones of bear,
byæna and lion in the London clay to a palæontologist.
We light upon words which do not belong to the current
language, and which are foreign to it, but which must at
one time have been current somewhere in an antecedent
speech ; and we are driven back to the conception of an
extremely remote language—not Sanscrit, but perhaps a
brother or a cousin to it, from which the European dialects


Gallimawfrey
203
have sprung. We have resembling, indeed identical, frag-
ments of words scattered more or less throughout the
European languages—classical, romantic, Celtic, Teutonic,
Scandinavian—which are not to be accounted for except
on the theory of a lost antecedent language, their progenitor,
transmitting through many centuries tiny details of like-
ness that here get broken into pieces, and there get
mixed and crossed with new features. No need now,
however, to lose ourselves in the contemplation of this
shadowy language of far-distant ancestors ; it is enough
that receding only five centuries, to the days of the
Canterbury Tales, and listening to the discourse of the
cooks—not forgetting Chaucer's cook, who
could roast and seethe and broil and fry,
Maken mortrewës and well bake a pie,
ed away, it behind to and that,
who could make blancmanger with the best, and who
travelled with the pilgrims to boil their chickens and look
after the galingale—we come upon traces of a language
which had passed away, but which yet retained life enough
in the rotting leaves it left behind to account for forms of
speech that endure to this very day, and that, without the
assistance of King Richard's cooks, might have remained
for ever an impenetrable mystery.
In all previous inquiries into the nature of Gallimawfrey
and Galimatias, the searcher has been thrown off the scent
by not knowing the meaning of the first two syllables.
He knew that the words referred to something about a
fowl, and he looked for mention of the fowl in these early
syllables. We now know, from proofs drawn out in the
article on Galantine, that these two syllables, if they do not
actually refer to the powdered root of the galingale which
was used in flavouring the fowl, which was in great request
among King Richard's cooks, which is mentioned as promi-
nent in two or three dozen English receipts belonging to
that time, and which Chaucer in the description of his cook


201
Gallimawfrey
singles out alone among plants as belonging to his craft,
must have the same force as the first two syllables of that
word—the n in Galinmawfrey being elided before m.
Having arrived at this point, we can go further ; for it has
been ascertained that the Galingale means the sweet gale,
an epithet which survives in the more modern name of sweet
Cyperus, and which as applied to herbs—sweet basil, sweet
marjoram, and the rest—means not saccharine, but savoury.
We are not unprepared, therefore, to hear of the dish-
whatever it be—having a different savour, to be more fitly
expressed by Sal and Sauce, which is short for Salsa. It
will on this view be evident that the same explanation which
will account for Gali-ma-fré and
Gali-ma-tias
will also account for Sal -ma-gundi, the old English form,
Sal -mi-gondis, the French form, and
. Sal -mi.
There are other words to follow; but in the meantime we
confine our attention to this group of four ; to a fifth word
which contains their solution, appearing as it does many
times in the old English rolls of cookery, Mawmene, or
Mawmenny; and to a sixth-Malachi—which is of the same
order, although not so common, and which has a still more
modern interest if it should ultimately prove to be related
to Cock-a-leekie, Miching Malicho, and Mullagatawny.
In all these words the ma, maw, or mi, means a fowl.
In proof of this point, let it be observed, to begin with, that
we have the English word mew, the Scotch maw, to
signify a gull ; and that at the same time we have to this
day preserved the usage of seamew and seamaw, implying
that there are other mews besides those of the sea. Next
note, that though by itself mew or maw in English and
the kindred languages means always a gull, it may some-
times either in a compound or a derivative be applied to
other birds. In German we come upon a pigeon—the


Gallimawfrey
205
turbit variety—which is called möwchen. In Icelandic,
the name of a gull is már (plural mavar) ; but a crow is
ben-már and blód-mar ; a raven Iggjar-már, Odin's mar.
In French there is mauviette, which is supposed to mean
a lark ; but it has no such meaning in literary language.
No French poet could by any possibility speak of a
mauviette instead of an alouette singing in the sky;
and M. Génin has shown that it is an old kitchen term for
any little bird. It is the remains of a lost language which
has survived among the pots. Again, see the number of
names of birds, besides those mentioned, which begin with
this syllable or a similar one: Mallard, marrot (the great
auk), mavis, macreuse, machette (French for an owl),
merle, merlin, martin, missel, merganser. I do not give
every word in this list as coming certainly from an ante-
cedent root-maw, ma, or mi; but at least they demand
a note of interrogation, and the received account of them
cannot be accepted as final. It is not at all clear that
mallard, for example, means, as the French etymologists
will have it, a male ; that the mavis is a bird bad (mal) for
the vines ; and that merganser is a merging or diving
anser. I am not bound to explain what all these words
really mean : a full and correct account of them would
take too much space and time. It is enough for present
purposes to make out a primá-facie case for the interpreta-
tion of ma or maw as the generic name for a bird or fowl
in the lost language from which the European languages
have descended. That lost language might go further
back even than Sanscrit, which has mayara and maruka as
the name for a peacock, marala and marula for a duck, and
mallika for a goose ; but still, as far as we know, does not
yield ma or maw as a generic name to include all three.
The nearest hold we have of maw or mav as a generic
word for bird or fowl is in the Latin language, if we may
accept a conclusion to which all the evidence points, though
it has not yet been absolutely proved—that avis may origi.


206
Galiimawfrey
sappears beforfinal. How to get ri
nally have been mavis, which survives in English as the
name of a thrush. Let it be remembered that in Latin
there was a curious tendency to get rid of the m sound,
whether initial or final. How in Latin prosody the final
m disappears before a vowel is one of the first metrical
facts whipped into a schoolboy. As for the disappearance
of the initial m, we are familiar enough with it in this
country, where it is notorious that the ap of the Welshman
is no other than the mac of the Caledonian. That this
tendency to drop the initial m existed in Latin may be
shown by two marked words. The Greek monos appears
in Latin as unus ; and the English milk, the Anglo-Saxon
miluc, appears in Latin as lac. It is therefore strictly
within the rules to suggest that the Latin avis may origi-
nally have been mavis, and was identical with the maw, ma,
or mi, which has the meaning of a fowl in the language of
the old English kitchen. It would be out of place here to
follow up this suggestion by turning it to the elucidation
of the names of birds. Still I venture upon three predic-
tions : first, that the old name of marrot for the great auk
will be found to be an exact translation of the great auk,
which means a great bird (auca, avica, avis) ; second, that
the martin, otherwise known as martelet or marrelet, will
be found to derive its name, not from March, the time of its
arrival, nor from Martinmas, the time of its departure,
but from its being a ma with a habitation either in the
sand or in the house-roof; and thirdly, that mallard,
which is also spelt in old English maulard and maudelard,
has no reference whatever to gender, but implies the bird
or maw which has been decoyed.
Scanty though our knowledge of the word be, there is
evidence enough to show with absolute certainty that the
ma or maw of mawfrey, matias, magundi, mawmene, and
malachi, is a fowl. There are at least a dozen receipts for
mawmene or mawmenny, and every one of them has to do
with fowl minced, teased, pulled, frayed, pounded, brayed,


Gallimawfrey
207
ground, bruised, carved, hacked to pieces, smitten to
gobbets, hewed small. It is odd to see the variety and
quaintness of the terms which, in the numerous receipts
for mawmene, and in others of the same character not
yet mentioned, are used to enjoin first the roasting or
half-roasting of the fowl, and then the shredding and
mincing of it. The receipts vary in their names, and have
a crowd of varying ingredients, bui they agree in this-
that they are all such a confused and nonsensical jumble of
innumerable incongruous elements, solid and liquid, animal
and vegetable, sour and sweet, hot and bitter, growing at
home and fetched from over the seas, as we still understand
by gallimawfrey and galimatias ; that it is exceedingly
difficult to distinguish one from another—this one with a
score of flavours and garnitures, but wanting perhaps the
galingale or the vinegar, from that other with nearly the
same score, but wanting the milk or the sugar ; and that
in one and all the fowl is pulled to pieces to be either
chopped or brayed in a mortar. The constant refrain is
this : “Take brawn [that is, flesh) of capons y-teased, or of
pheasant teased small ;” “Take the chese [that is, the
chopper, from which we have the diminutive chisel] and
of flesh of capons or of hens hack small in a mortar ;”
“ Take brawn of hens or of capon and hew them as small
as thou may ;” “Take the thighs or the flesh of capons,
skin them and carve them small.”
This invariable rule has found expression in the final
syllables of mawmene, mawfrey, matias, magundi, and mala-
chi. Mawmene or mawmenny is a fowl minced-menu.
Mawfrey, or mafré as the French write it, is a fowl frayed
:—what we still call pulled chicken. Matias is a corrupt
rendering of the order given in one of the above extracts
to tease the fowl. Magundi, or, as the French spell it,
migondis, is to the like effect, though not expressed in a
form which will so readily catch the modern ear. The
earliest known form of the word is in the Sanscrit khand,


208
Gallimawfrey
to break, whence khanda-sugar which is broken, lump
sugar, and the modern candy. But with loss of the n the
same word still exists in French as coter, to break or bruise ;
it has relations with the first syllable of the English
cudgel; and it also exists in a curious word which the French
authorities profess themselves unable to explain,—Godi-
veau—that is, veal minced and pounded to a soft forcemeat.
As for malachi, it will be intelligible to any one who will turn
back to read Wynkyn de Worde's inventory of terms for
carving. He says that to carve brawn is to lesche it. The
word is otherwise written leach, and it is to be identified at
root with lash, slash, and (in the beating sense) lick. In
provincial English to malahawk is to carve awkwardly
and cut to pieces. This malachi (fowl leached or licked)
has had a fate different from that of mawfrey, matias,
magundi, and mawmene. It survives to the present day,
though in an altered form. For the name of a fowl-ma-
substitute cock, and there is the Scottish dish of cock-
a-leekie. They fancy in Scotland that the latter part of
the word refers to the leeks which are used to flavour the
pottage. This is a mistake : it refers to the fact that the
cock is to be leached—as the French said, alachi.
But now we can go still further. If the foregoing ex-
planation of Gallimawfrey, Galimatias, Salmagundi, Salmi,
Mawmene, and Malachi be sound, it throws a new light
upon certain other words, in some of which no difficulty
has hitherto been suspected—Sauce Madame, Miching Ma-
licho, Blancmanger, and Mullagatawny. Of these in their
order.
Any one who will examine the old receipts, amounting
to several hundreds, collected together in Dr. Warner's
Antiquitates Culinaric, will feel that even five centuries
ago, when the cookery books were compiled, maw in the
sense of fowl was altogether obsolete as a simple word,
and as part of a compound was archaic, scarcely if at all
understood, and easily corruptible. It was then as now


Gallimaw frey
209
in the receipts of the kitchen : there were new-fangled
names for old receipts, and there were old, unintelligible,
corrupt names for receipts couched in the current language.
Thus we have Douce Ame as the name for a dish of
minced fowl exactly like those already described. Re-
membering that in those days the mute e had a decided
pronunciation almost like an o, it is difficult to escape the
suggestion that Douce Ame was a courtly attempt to put
a pretty meaning into a phrase which, as involving the
word ma or maw_let us, to be definite, say Galima—had
become unintelligible and perhaps vulgar. This becomes all
the more probable when we look into the Sauce Madame.
Sauce Madame was a goose. Let no one be misled
by the word sauce. It was not then, as now, strictly a
noun ; it was hovering between a noun and an adjective,
being used in the sense of its original salsa, and like the
first syllables of salmagundi, salmi, salpicon, saugrenu,
saupiquet, etc. The word, therefore, had the force of
sauced Madame, and Madame was a goose. The name
was evidently invented to endue with a new and pleasant
meaning some word on a par with mawfrey, matias, ma-
gundi, mawmene, and malachi, which had become stale
and obscure. Probably that word was malachi, mispro-
nounced maladi, confounded with my lady and translated
madame. The following is the receipt for Sauce Madame :
“ Take sage, parsley, hyssop, and savory, quinces and
pears, garlic and grapes, and fill the geese therewith, and
sew the hole that no grease come out; and roast them
well, and keep the grease that falleth thereof. Take
galintine and grease and do in a posnet (porringer].
When the geese be roasted enough take and smite them in
pieces. And take that that is within and do it in a posnet,
and put therein wine if it be too thick. Do thereto powder
of galingale, powder douce and salt, and boil the sauce
and dress the geese in dishes and lay the sowe (sauce)
onward.” This is all fairly expressed in the language of
14


210
Gallimawfrey
the time, and when we expect to read for the title of it
Hashed Goose, or something equivalent, we find the enigma
of Sauce Madame. Why this meaningless French title?
The title first appears in a French cookery book—that of
Taillevent, which was written twenty or thirty years before
the cooks of Richard of Bordeaux set to work; and we
may therefore conclude that it was the attempt of a
Frenchman to give some appearance of sense to an older
English title-Malachi—which had become dark to the
English, and to Frenchmen wholly unmeaning. The same
thing occurred in the case of the Sauce Robert. The
English cooks had their Roebroth or Roebrewit—that is,
a stew of roebuck with a peculiar sauce. The French
cook Taillevent did not understand the word, determined
to put a meaning into it, and made it Robert. So we
have now the Sauce Robert as something distinct from
Roebuck Sauce.
We have next to deal with Miching Malicho. It will be
remembered that before the mimic play begins in Hamlet,
there is a dumb show in which the spectators are treated to
a revelation of the murder which had been committed and
of the love which the murderer made to the dead man's
wife. There occurs the following dialogue :-
Ophelia.—What means this, my lord ?
Hamlet.—Marry, this is miching malicho : it means mischief.
Ophelia.—Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
Ophelia answers, and answers truly, her own question : but
what is the meaning of Hamlet's answer? The explanation
of the commentators is far from satisfactory. They say
that mich is an old English verb meaning to lurk, and that
there is a Spanish word malheco meaning a crime. Ham-
let's reply therefore would come to the truism—“Marry,
this is hidden crime, and crime means mischief.” The
explanation is not so satisfactory that we are bound to
accept it, and I venture to suggest another—“Marry, this
is cooking the goose: it means mischief.” The difficulty


Gallimawfrey
211
in the way of this interpretation lies not with malicho,
which, after the account above rendered of Malachi and
Madame, ought to be plain enough, but with miching.
To mich means to lie hid and to muffle up : what has this
to do with cooking? It has this to do with it—that the
French have a verb mijoter (old form, migeoter), which
means to muffle up and to simmer or stew, and to this day
it is the common French term for slow-boiling. A similar
double meaning will be found in the English word coddle,
which in the codling apple means an apple for stewing.
But the word mijoter is evidently derived from a shorter
one, which the French are at their wits' end to discover,
and which for want of a better they take to be mie or mige,
a crumb of bread. Now here is a much more likely root,
the English mich or miche, which has been long known in
one of the senses of the French mijoter—to lie hid, to
nurse up, but which has not hitherto been found in the
inore common sense of stewing or simmering. Is it un-
reasonable to suggest that it had this sense ? that we have
indications of it in other English words, as mishmash and
mess, as well as in the German meischen, to stir the malt
in hot water? and that we have it in full bloom in Hamlet's
phrase of miching malicho—cooking the goose and settling
the hash ?
And now for Blancmanger, a word which is as different
from what it must have been originally as the thing we thus
name—a jelly of isinglass, almonds, water and sugar, is
from the original mess, a fowl pounded in milk, rice and
syrup, or in almonds, rice, broth and sugar. It is indiffe-
rent whether we take for analysis the word as we now
write it-Blancmanger, or as it was more anciently
written-Blanc Mangier or Blanc Mengier ; but at least it
will be useful to bear in mind the older spelling. And this
being premised, I proceed to show that the word is resolv-
able into Blanc Ma-en-sire, and means white fowl-in-syrup
—the whiteness referring not to the fowl by itself, but to


212
Gallimaw frey
the fowl-in-the-syrup. There will be no difficulty in making
this good ; but before going into the proof of it, observe
that Ma-en-sire, if this be indeed the original expression,
would naturally become slurred into mangier, through
contraction of the vowels and through the nasal n joining
with the sh sound of sire to form g. Independently of the
fact that the first syllable of syrup is connected with the
first syllable of sherbet, we know that in a number of old
French words there was a tendency in the sibilant to
become in England and Northern France thickened into
sh and ch: thus cive became chive, and we have such words
as sure and sugar pronounced shure and shugar. Ma-en-
sire would therefore very easily run into mangier and
mengier.
But was the word really Blanc Ma-en-sire ? It is not to
be found in this particular form, which must have been
very ancient ; but there is a considerable number of other
words and phrases for the same thing perfectly parallel to
it, and making it as unreasonable to doubt that it (that is,
Blanc Ma-en-sire) is identical with Blanc Mangier as it
would be to doubt that daisy is day's eye and foxglove is
folk's glove. Here follow two receipts in succession ; and
though they show differences of detail, I defy the reader to
discover any essential difference between them.
Number one :-
“Put rice in water all a night, and at morrow wash
them clean. Afterwards put them to the fires fort [strong]
that they burst, and not too much. Then take brawn of
capons or of hens sodden and draw it small. After take
milk of almonds and put it to the rice and boil it, and when
it is yboiled put in the brawn and alloy it therewith, that
it be well chargeant (stiff], and mingle it [stir it] finely
well that it sit not to the pot. And when it is enough and
chargeant do thereto sugar good part; put therein almonds
fried in white grease and dress it forth.”
Number two :-


Gallimaw frey
213
“ Take brawn of hens or of capons sodden without the
skin, and hew them as small as thou may. And grind
them in a mortar. After take good milk of almonds and
put the brawn therein, and stir it well together and do
them to seethe ; and take flour of rice and amidon (starch]
and alloy it, so that it be chargeant ; and do thereto sugar
a good plenty, and a plenty of white grease. And when
it is put in dishes strew upon it blanch powder.”
Now the title of number one is “For to make Blanc
Manger,” and the title of number two is “For to make
Blanc Desire.” This Blanc Desire is but a variety of Blanc
Manger-a fowl served in a syrup whitened with almonds,
with rice and sometimes with milk. It is to be presumed
that the original word Blanc de Sire had become doubtful
and dim, and had to be touched up into Blanc Desire to
give it a pretty meaning, just as in the same way Blanc
Ma-en-sire had been worked up into Blanc Manger. There
had been other forms of the word which still survived, and
which perhaps were equally unintelligible—as Blanc desorre,
Blanc desurre, Blanc de Sorry, Blanc de Surry, and Blanc
Surry-all for a fowl in syrup. Surry was one of the old
names for Syria-
They drew up sail of brighte hew,
The wind them soon to Surry blew,-
and syrup was at one time known as the Syrian juice.
The name Blanc Desire, therefore, which is so common,
meant white of sire or syrup, and though strictly speaking
it belonged not to the fowl, but to the sauce in which it was
served, it was used to signify a preparation which is not
distinguishable from Blanc Manger or Blanc Mangier. In
all the receipts for Blancmanger there is syrup, and here
we have a parallel series of receipts for the same thing in
which the syrup distinctly enters into the title.
Further : although we have not yet found the precise
words ma-en-sire save only in the contracted and corrupted


214
Gallimawfrey
form mangier, they were in a manner translated in the
title of another parallel receipt—Capons in Confy (that is,
confit), where, however, the confection was made without
confit), Where is the receipt de capons and the spit and
“ Capons in Confy.—Take capons and roast them till
they be nigh enough : then take them off the spit and chop
them in gobbets with broth of beef, temper them and do
them in a pot with almond milk; and do thereto flour of
rice or bread steeped in the same broth, and draw it through
a strainer and powder of cloves and of canel (cinnamon)
and of maces. And take hard eggs seethed, and take out
the yolk all whole, and cut the white small, and do it in
the pot and colour it with saffron, and let it boil, and dress
it up on dishes, and lay the yolks whole upon and cloves
therewith.”
If syrup had been used here, the title would have been
Capons in Sire or in Surry, a more modern rendering of
the archaic ma-en-sire. And the title of Blanc is excluded
from it because it is made Tawny with saffron. These
illustrations make it probable that the final syllable of
Blanc Mangier stands for sire or syrup ; and it is quite
certain that to the end of the reign of Louis XIV. the
central fact of the blancmanger was a fowl, and that
without a fowl it was impossible. May we not therefore
fairly conclude that the indispensable fowl flaps its wings
immortalized in the ma syllable of Blancmanger ?
After all the facts marshalled in the foregoing pages,
Mullagatawny does not look like a word that could present
much difficulty. It looks—word and thing like a modern
version of one of the old receipts. It is a soup made of a
fowl which has been “chopped to gobbets,” which is
mingled with rice, and which is made Tawny, if not with
saffron at least with curry. It looks like our old friend
malachi, simplified to suit modern tastes, and spiced and
coloured with the curry which has superseded the older
spices and colourings. But great authorities assure us,


Garlic
215
though without giving any reasons, that it is not an English
word at all, that it is not even an Aryan word, that it
comes from a language outside the Aryan group—Tamil,
and that it means pepper water. It may be so ; I do not
dispute the point ; and only note that the coincidence is
remarkable of a Tamil name and a Tamil receipt for fowl
broth which exactly corresponds, save in the substitution of
curry for saffron, with an old English name and an old
English receipt.
GARBURE is a name in the south of France for a soup V
which is to be eaten with a fork. In heraldic English a
sheaf of corn is called a Garb. The wheatsheuves which
appear in the Grosvenor arms are garbs ; and those who
are curious in etymology will see in the term the first
syllable of harvest. Metaphorically, a soup with garbs.
in it, and requiring the use of a fork, took the name of
Garbure. The later French cooks, who do not understand
the meaning of the word, insist that a Garbure should
always have crusts in it ; but this is arbitrary. A garbure
may have anything in it that, like a sheaf, needs the use of
a fork.
GARLIC is so little used in England that it seems of little
use to refer to it. A recent traveller (see Monteire's
“Angola and the River Congo," vol. ii., p. 240) writes :
“Garlic I consider a most valuable article of food in a
hot climate, especially eaten raw. I never travelled with-
out a supply of garlic, and I found its beneficial effects
on the stomach and system most marked. When very
hungry and fatigued, I have found nothing to equal a
few pieces of raw garlic, eaten with a crust of bread or
a biscuit, for producing a few minutes after a delightful
sensation of repose, and that feeling of the stomach
being ready to receive food, generally absent when
excessive emptiness or exhaustion is the case." Yet it is
against this same garlic that Horace exclaims, when he


216
Gelatine
calls to mind the tough digestion of the mowers—“O
dura messorum ilia!” The oddest contradictions arise.
Henry of Navarre (Henry IV. of France) had his lips
rubbed the moment he was born with a clove of garlic-a
time-honoured custom in his native place. On the other
hand, garlic was forbidden by statute of Alonzo XI. to his
knights of La Banda ; and Don Quixote cautions Sancho
Panza to be chary of it, as unseemly in the Governor of
Barataria. Honest Sancho must beware of the garlic which
the king of France had rubbed the first thing upon his
infant gums. To English taste the pronounced flavour of
garlic is insupportable ; but many people do not know that
some of the most successful compounds owe their excellence
to an unsuspected undertone of garlic.
GELATINE.—This is what Liebig says in his Letters on
Chemistry:—“It had been long observed that soup made
by boiling meat, when concentrated to a certain point,
gelatinises or forms a jelly ; and people without any
sufficient reason adopted the opinion that the substance
(gelatine) was the most important, indeed the chief, con-
stituent of good soup. Thus it came to pass by degrees
that people took to the gelatinising matter for the true
soup ; and as manufacturers found that the best meat did
not yield the finest jelly tablets, but that tendons, feet,
cartilage, bones, ivory and hartshorn yielded the most
beautiful and transparent jelly tablets, which were cheaply
obtained and sold at a high price, ignorance and the love
of gain exchanged the valuable constituents of Aesh for
gelatine which was only to be distinguished from common
joiners' glue by its high price. It has now been proved
by the most convincing experiments, that gelatine, which
by itself is tasteless and when eaten excites nausea, pos-
sesses no nutritive value ; that it is not capable of support-
ing the vital process; and that when added to the usual
diet it diminishes the nutritive value of the food. Its use


Geneva
217
has been shown to be hurtful rather than beneficial. ...
We now know that the active ingredients of soup are found
ready formed in the aqueous infusion of flesh, and are not
products of the culinary operations. The gelatine of soup
is formed by long boiling of the flesh from the cellular
membrane of the muscular tissue. Since these things have
been ascertained, the use of gelatine as a nutritive and
invigorating substance has been entirely given up; and it
only retains a place in the domain of unscientific cookery.
The gelatinous soups made in China from the air-bladder
of fishes, and in England from the flesh of turtle, are a
fertile source of disturbance in the digestive process.”
Other experiments prove that though gelatine by itself
may have no nutritive value, it serves a good purpose
which is not yet understood. There is no gelatine in the v
blood of animals; there is no gelatine in the milk on
which an infant thrives. But there is a curious experi-
ment which has yet to be worked out, and which shows
that gelatine has its ‘use in food. Bischoff and Voit
took a dog weighing 80 lbs.—and that is a good-sized dog.
They fed it on very nearly 18 ounces of meat a day, and
at the end of four days the dog lost a pound weight. They
then fed it for three days on the same quantity of meat, to
which they added daily seven ounces of gelatine. At the
end of the time, not merely had the doy lost nothing in
weight, but also it gained four-and-a-half-ounces.
GENEVA.—This town seems doomed to misrepresentation.
It gains credit which does not belong to it, and loses credit
which it has nobly won. Because its name resembles that
of juniper in Dutch-genever—it is given by many people
to gin, with which it has nothing to do. Because it re-
sembles that of Genoa it is in danger of losing the credit
of an excellent fish sauce which is all its own. Also
because in this sauce there is red wine, some cooks using
Bordeaux make a variation of it, which they call Sauce


218
Genevese Sauce
Bordelaise, and other cooks using Burgundy make another
variation, which they call Sauce Bourguignonne. What
between the names of Genoa, Bordeaux, and Burgundy,
there has arisen a confusion, in the midst of which the
claims of Geneva stand a good chance of being superseded.
The sauce was invented at Geneva, for the especial behoof
and benefit of the trout which populate the lake. The
fame of Geneva for its trout is of old standing. “It is
well known,” said Izaak Walton, two centuries ago, “ that
in the Lake Leman—the Lake of Geneva—there are trouts
taken of three cubits long (4feet). And Mercator says the
trouts that are taken in the Lake of Geneva are a great
part of the merchandise of that famous city.”
Genevese Sauce.—Take half a bottle of red wine, (the
Genevese generally stuck to Burgundy), a chopped onion,
two chopped shalots, a clove of garlic crushed (they prefer
two in the South), two cloves of spice and a faglgot of
sweet-herbs. Put them into a saucepan, and let them
simmer till the onions are done. Then add a ladleful of
Spanish or good brown sauce. Reduce all to the thickness
of a cullis, skim it, and pass it through a tammy. Lastly,
boil it up again, add a pinch of sugar and (partly for salt)
a good lump of anchovy butter.
Variation First. There is a feebler way, which may be
mentioned for the sake of economy, but it has the dis-
advantage of requiring the fish to be cooked first before
beginning the sauce, and it is possible only when the
fish has been cooked in a court bouillon of wine with
flavouring herbs and spices. Take two ladlefuls of the
court bouillon, add to it a ladleful of Spanish sauce, pass
it through the tammy, add a pinch of sugar, and finish it
with anchovy butter.
Variation Second is the so-called Bordelese Sauce, made
with Bordeaux wine, with no onion, nor sweet-herbs, nor
anchovy butter, and not strained.


Glaze
219
Variation Third. The Burgundian Sauce is not distinct
enough to be noted.
GENOA has given its name to a cake, and runs a race
with Naples in the production of Italian pastes. Is not
that glory enough? What do the Genoese know of
salmon and trout, that they should be credited with the
sauce for which Geneva is famous ?
GERMAN SAUCE.—See Allemande.
GIRASOL (commonly called Jerusalem) ARTICHOKES.—
Put them for a quarter of an hour in water, with a pat of
butter and a little salt. Drain them, dish them, and pour
over them some English sauce.
Girasol Soup—commonly called Palestine.—Peel and
slice about a peck of them. Slice also four onions and a
head of celery. Simmer them in a stewpan for an hour,
with two ounces of butter, three pints of veal stock, nutmeg,
pepper, salt, and an ounce of sugar. Pass it through a
sieve, heat it over the fire, add a pint of hot cream, and
serve it with fried crusts.
GLAZE has three distinct meanings. 1. To glaze a
sauce, or boil it down to a glaze, is really to roast it. The
sauce is reduced by boiling till it catches the pan and
browns. Further explanation of the identity of glazing
and roasting will be found in the article on Sauces. The
process of reducing to glaze is the chief distinction in all
the brown preparations of food as distinct from the white;
and it is not only every day performed in soups, sauces,
and gravies, but the cook gets ready and keeps by him a
quantity of glaze, which he uses for finishing his sauces
and anointing his meats. To make this glaze, it is found
that the best substance is veal—the juices of which, being
very gelatinous, take a fine colour and yield a rich odour.
Take knuckle of veal and gravy beef together, but twice ✓


220
Goose
as much of the one as of the other ; and make a good broth
of this in the ordinary way, by adding vegetables and
using balf a gallon of water for every three pounds of
meat. The broth is then to be strained through a napkin,
freed from fat, and put on the fire again for reduction to
a cullis. When the cullis roasts, it forms glaze, and care
must be taken that it does not burn. The glaze, if well
made, is the concentrated extract of meat, and better than
Liebig. '
2. To glaze meat is to paint it before sending it to table
with a brush which has been dipped in glaze.
3. To glaze cakes or other sweets is to coat them in like
manner with sugar.
GODIVEAU.—See Forcemeats Nos. 2 and 3; also the
article on Gallimawfrey.
GOOSE.—To be stuffed with sage and onions, or with
chestnuts. (See Forcemeats Nos. 6 and 7.) To be served
with apple sauce or gooseberry sauce. A green goose is
rarely stuffed, but his inside is pretty well seasoned with
pepper and salt. Sauerkraut is considered a good garnish.
GOOSEBERRY comes under the name of Currant or Curran,
but may here obtain a word or two for itself. It is known
in some of the English shires under the name of Carberry,
because it is red, or was known chiefly as red ; of Fea-
berry, because it was deemed good for fevers ; and of
Wineberry, because of the wine it made : 'why it has been
called Gooseberry is not so clear. The older herbalists
always insisted that it was so called because it was used
as a sauce for goose ; and the analogy of wineberry and
feaberry would seem to bear them out. If this should
not be satisfactory, we have to fall back upon the old
English gorst, in modern English gorse, in Shakespeare,
gos3 ; an etymology which will at the same time account
for the Scottish name of the berry, which varies between
groset and grosart. The Scotch, it must be remembered,


222
Gourmand
but add no nutmeg or other spice. Mix in at the last
moment some rich cream, and it is ready. The young
folks of Northamptonshire, after eating as much as they
possibly can of this gooseberry fool, are said frequently
to roll down a hill and begin eating again.”
Gooseberry Sauce.—Boil half a pint of unripe goose-
berries, and having poured off the water, rub them through
a hair sieve. Mix the pulp thus obtained with a pat of
butter, make it hot, and serve it for mackerel. This is
enough; but a little ginger may be added, and taste may
be consulted for sugar and for salt. The greening of
spinach juice, which French cooks add, is very doubtful.
GOURMAND, GOURMET.—Gourmand is a word of foreign
origin, but it is perfectly naturalised among us, for we
understand and accept its meaning. Gourmet, on the other
hand, is a good English word in its origin, but it is doubt-
ful whether it will ever pass current among us in the
sense which the French have put upon it. The word is
really a diminutive of groom-a young man, a lad. In its
broadest sense it survives in bridegroom. It is peculiarly
applied to the young man who looks after horses; and
gromet or grummet is an old sailor's word for a cabin-
boy. In French the word was transposed to gourme, the
diminutive being gourmet, a lad in general, then the wine-
merchant's lad, then a wine-taster, next a good judge of
wine whether professional or not, and lastly any one with a
fine taste and delicate in his feeding.
There is such an obvious difference between the gour-
mand and the gourmet, and it is so clearly possible to be
the one without the other, that some people wonder at the
difficulty of bringing the name for the latter into popular
use. The fact is, that the words are too nearly alike in
sound. To this it may be replied that they are alike in
French as well as in English, and that therefore we should
expect the distinction to be as easy in English as in French.


Gourmand
223
There is a difference, however. In French the words gour-
mand and güurmandise do not express the same amount of
gluttony as do the corresponding words in English. Kings
and queens of France, princes of the blood, and the most
beautiful ladies of the court, thought it no shame to be
gourmands. They took a pride and pleasure in cookery ;
they invented and suggested dishes ; and their names are
handed down to posterity in connection with the triumphs
of the kitchen. The most delicate lady in France does
not proclaim herself a glutton and need not blush because
she enrols herself among those to whom the Almanach des
Gourmands is addressed. But gormandising in the English
idea is sheer gluttony-and no one dare own to it, however
much he may indulge in it. To an English ear, accordingly,
the word gourmet is too suggestive of the gourmand, the
gourmand is too suggestive of the glutton, and the sound
is altogether unpleasant. Therefore, in spite of all ex-
planations, it is doubtful whether the word gourmet will
survive in the English language, much as we need some
such term to indicate a fine taste as distinct from voracity.
English is singularly weak in this way. “Some people,"
said Dr. Johnson to Boswell,“ have a foolish way of not
minding or pretending not to mind what they eat. For
my part, I mind my belly very studiously and very care-
fully; for I look upon it that he who does not mind his
belly will hardly mind anything else.” Here, by the use
of a strong word which is identified in our minds with
belly-gods and gluttony, the great moralist appears to give
a gross meaning to what is perfectly innocent. For belly
say food or eating, which is all he meant, and no one need
be offended. As some people can make love passionately,
but cannot do it lightly and gracefully, so others cannot
show that they are particular as to their eating without
showing eagerness and greed.
It would be a good thing if some English poet would
invent a phrase to denote nicety of taste at table without


224
Grace before Meat
implying the rage of appetite. It is certainly odd that
Englishmen should have such an exalted idea of the sense
of taste that they bestow its name upon the faculty of
estimating all that is most sublime and beautiful in nature
and art, while they have no name left for the fine appre-
ciation of food, for the enjoyments of the table, for the
divine art of banqueting, which does not confuse dining
with gorging and the gratification of the palate with the
repletion of a sot.
GRACE BEFORE MEAT.-
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we can eat and we hae meat ;
And sae the Lord be thankit. — Robert Burns.
GRAPE.—Strange that the grape is of no use in cookery,
save in the form of raisins, wine, vinegar, and verjuice.
In its natural condition it is nothing, save when an
occasional grape appears in a Macedon or medley of
fruits.
Gratin, au Gratin, is something toasted or baked so
as to produce a surface that grates. A sole or a cauli-
flower au gratin is a sole or cauliflower strewed with
breadcrumbs or raspings, and baked in the oven to a golden
tint. In strict reason, the phrase ought to apply equally
to a sole fried with breadcrumbs. But language is not
obedient to reason, and custom has ordained that what is
called a Gratin shall be baked.
Gravy.—The claims of Gravy are discussed in the article
on Sauces. But a word may here be necessary by way of
protest against gravy—which, even when it is goud, is not
always desirable. French cooks have a diabolical habit of
masking all their viands, painting them with glaze, and
anointing them with the royal sauces of which they are
so proud. They will cover a slice of hot ham with a thick


Gravy
225
sauce. Some one has said that hot ham should never be
eaten at all; but certainly, if eaten, or if worth eating, it
needs no sauce—unless on rare occasions it may be a spoon-
ful, of champagne. But to have the slice of good ham
covered with a thick sauce, which is partly made from ham,
is atrocious. Also, as a rule, it is wickedness to drench
roast game with sauce. Sydney Smith says, in describing
a dinner at which he was present : “I heard a lady who
sat next me say in a low, sweet voice—No gravy, sir!'
I had never seen her before, but I turned suddenly round
and said, “Madam, I have been looking for a person who
disliked gravy all my life ; let us swear eternal friend-
ship.' She looked astonished, but took the oath, and
what is better, kept it.”
Its own Gravy.The gravy which is served in England
with roast meat is too often a mockery. While the sirloin
is turning before the fire, the cook takes a boatful of boil-
ing water, which she colours with caramel and seasons
with salt. She pours this gradually over the sirloin, she
catches it again in a dish below, takes off the fat ; and
that is what she calls “its own gravy.” There is none of
the juice of meat in it save what may afterwards ooze out
from the beef when it is placed on the dish and begins to
contract by cooling. It is not merely in small and stingy
households that this is done. It is common enough in very
good houses; and there is probably not a regimental mess
in the kingdom that is not served to gravy with the
roast joint in the saine way. I have seen the cook of a
crack regiment take about a gallon of boiling water, and
with it water several magnificent roasts, to provide gravy
for the most brilliant set of officers in the British service.
Beef Gravy—the French Jus de boeuf.—Gravy is the
result of two processes of cooking-roasting and boiling.
1. Line the bottom of the saucepan with slices of onion ;
spread over them a little beef fat; on the top of this lay
15


Grill
227
involve the addition of more water for the second or sim-
mering process—say a pint; as well as longer simmering.
GREENING.—This is nearly always produced by means of
spinach. Either a handful of spinach is boiled in the
soup ; or as much as may be needed is passed through
a sieve, or brayed in a mortar.
GREENS.—See Cabbage.
GREY MULLET.— It is a sore point with the red mullets
that an inferior race with whom they have no relations
whatever should swim the sea, and be known to fame as
grey mullets. Grey they may be, but mullets they are
not. They are prepared for table as red mullets are, but
have not the same distinction. As the glory of the red
mullet is the liver, that of the grey is the roe, hard
and soft, which is dried, salted and preserved on the
Mediterranean coast in the form of a sausage, called botargo,
much admired by topers for the thirst which it produces.
So the fish, if it cannot create much appetite for itself,
creates a great appetite for something else, and is useful
in its generation.
GRILL.—It is curious that the most ancient and the
most simple mode of cookery should be in some respects
the most perfect, and in England certainly the most
esteemed. The first cooked food that man ate was a broil; ✓
and in England the steak or chop from the gridiron is
more in request than any other form of food. Though it
is the simplest mode of cooking, and does not need much
skill, it needs more care than any other method of applying
heat to food. The cook can turn his back on his pots and
pans, his oven and his spit—but sure as fate if he turns his
back upon the grill it will play him a trick. He has con-
stantly to be watching the fire to see that it is clear—and
the meat to see that it does not get burnt, dried or smoked.
First for the meat: the English seldom give it any pre-
cooking, and of food. smidiron is


228
Grog
paration for the grill except when it is to be breadcrumbed.
The French sprinkle it with pepper and salt, and brush it
with oil or butter ; and they are right. For breadcrumbing,
the French plan is to dip the cutlet into oil or butter and
then to roll it in crumbs. The English smear it first with
egg-yolk, and then roll it in crumbs; but when this is
broiled it forms too dry a crust round the cutlet; and
therefore it is always best after rolling it in the crumbs to
sprinkle it with clarified butter.
For the grill, it should be placed with a slant over a very
bright fire. The slant is to ensure that any fat as it melts
shall run away, and not drop under the meat so as to raise
a smoky flame. The surface of the steak should have a
certain degree of firmness when it leaves the grill; and the
great artof grilling is to reach this degree—avoiding equally
the flabbiness of a bad French steak and the hardness of a
bad English one. The French rarely get this firm surface
on their steaks, because they do not put them near enough
to the fire ; and they do not put them near enough to the
fire because they have laid down a law which is never to
be infringed on any account—that a steak upon the grill is
never to be turned more than once. In the English manner
of grilling, the steak is turned many times (with a tongs
let it be noted, never with a fork), and it can be brought
nearer to the fire than a French steak and to a fiercer fire
than the French allow to act briskly on the surface, which
can be quickly turned so as to prevent burning.
GROG. It would be scarcely necessary to say anything
about this, but that the French have seized upon the word,
and given it a currency which it was fast losing in England.
The French seem to use the word quite seriously ; in
England the word has almost always carried with it a
humorous under-meaning—a disparagement of the drink.
There was an Admiral Vernon who was called Old Grog
by the sailors because in rough weather he used to pace


Gurnard
229
the quarterdeck encased in a grogram or grogran cloak,-
in French gros grain, a coarse stuff made of silk and
mohair. He it was who first served out rum on board
ship mixed with water. The sailors after him called the
mixture Grog.
GROUSE—the finest of all winged game: nothing to
approach it. We cannot have everything ; and when we
lament the lack of ortolans and becaficos let us remember
that we have something still better in England—the grouse.
To be roasted like the partridge, and served on bread
toasted and buttered.
GUDGEON. —
What gudgeons are we men:
Every woman's easy prey !
Though we've felt the hook-again
We bite and they betray,-
sings the poet Gay. But this is scarcely fair, for it appears
that gudgeons are mostly of the weaker sex—there being
about six females to one male. The fish has long been noted
as a dainty for invalids. It is a carp by race but a smelt by
character, and is fried like the smelt, to be served with fried
parsley. A house of great renown, the Pavillon Henri IV.,
at St. Germain, used to be, and still is famous for its fried
gudgeon ; and the fish is so relished in France that it is
sometimes served at the end of dinner among the entremets.
GUINEA Fowl, to be roasted, must either be larded or
barded. Serve it with gravy apart, and bread-sauce.
Time to roast, nearly an hour. As the Guinea fowl is in
season from February to June, when game is scarce, it
makes a good substitute. The eggs of this bird are very
delicate.
GURNARD or GURNET is neither common enough nor
interesting enough to deserve much notice. His name
means-grunter, from the noise he makes. He is some-


230
Haddock
Cantection of Apollo. .e for the flying fis
times called cuckoo for the same reason. The ancients
called him a lyre, and supposed him to be under the special
protection of Apollo. Those who eat him can make a guess
what flying fish is like—for the flying fish, beloved of
poets, is a gurnard. So also are the sticklebacks, which
engaged the philosophical mind of Mr. Pickwick.
Stuff him with veal stuffing, and boil him or bake him.
But first banish his fins.
k s, which

ADDOCK is called by the French aigrefin-
a sharper, an impostor. It is a very good
fish notwithstanding. It has two black spots,
one on each shoulder, which are said to be
the mark of St. Peter's finger and thumb when he took
the tribute-money out of its mouth. People do not adorn a
bad fish with these fine legends. Some of the best haddocks
come to London from Devonshire and Cornwall ; and the
Dublin Bay ones are famous. They are very good boiled
with plain English butter-sauce ; but still better baked,
having first been stuffed with oyster forcemeat or with
veal stuffing. Also a haddock makes one of the best of
curries. But the Scotch are the greatest masters of the
haddock. It is their fish par excellence. They have their
Loch Fyne herring, it is true—but it has rivals in the Yar-
mouth bloater and the Dutch herring. There is nothing,
however, in the way of haddock that can approach the
Rizzared haddock and the Finnan haddock of the Scotch.
Nobody who has not been to Scotland in the winter time,
or who has not deeply studied the Scotch books, can imagine
to what heights of glory a simple haddock can leap up.
There will always be doubts about the haggis or a singed
sheep's head, but the Scottish treatment of haddock is
incontrovertible.


Haddock
231
The Rizzared Haddock of the Waverley Novels.—The
haddocks (similarly also whitings) are to be skinned and
rubbed inside and out with salt. In this courtly powder
they are to hang for twenty-four hours; but less time will
do. Next morning, for breakfast, take off their heads, rub
them with butter, dredge them with a little flour, broil
them, and serve them with pats of fresh butter. There
are Scotchmen who eat this for breakfast every day of their
lives, and it goes far to account for the great reputation of
Scotch breakfasts. When an English cook broils a had-
dock, she neither salts it nor skins it. The last of these
faults is fatal. The object of a broil is to get the taste of
fire upon the food which is to be eaten—the toasted flavour.
The broiled flesh of a haddock is delicious ; the broiled
skin is worthless, and nobody eats it.
Finnan Haddock.—Finnan is a hamlet about six miles
from Aberdeen—and the humble fishermen of this little
straggling hamlet have perhaps done more for the happi-
ness of mankind than all the fast clippers of the port of
Aberdeen that scour the seas for a first cargo of tea, or
than all the learned professors of King's College and
Marischal College. It is kindly ordered that happiness
should be the result of very simple arrangements, and not
of gigantic efforts. What joyous breakfasts among Scot-
tish hills, what jovial suppers at untimely hours in London
streets, have been the result of the Finnan haddock! Well
may Sir Walter Scott describe it as incomparable ! But
see that it be cooked in the Scotch manper—that is, skinned.
The Scotch gentlemen dispense with their breeches; the
Scotch haddocks dispense with their coats. We must
have the nude simplicity of these gentle hyperboreans.
English cooks sometimes complain that it is not so easy to
skin Finnan haddocks. It is the modesty of the creatures,
and there is all the greater reason to make them unrobe.
When they have parted with their garments, they are to be


232
Haggis
rubbed with butter, broiled, and served with pats of cold
fresh butter.
St. Jamerace. Tom travel
Haggis.— The Scotch would never forgive us if their
national dish should be left out of the list of good things.
Few English cooks, however, would dare to attempt a
haggis, even with the most elaborate receipt before theni.
Therefore if anybody wishes to taste of the mighty Cale-
donian pudding which Burns calls the “Great Chieftain
of the Pudding race," he had better send to Edinburgh
or Glasgow for it. The pudding is a great traveller,
does not suffer from travelling, and heats up with a most
lordly grace. The Londoner can always order it at
St. James's Hall. Mr. Grieve, as a worthy Scot, proud
of his native heath and his Scottish mutton—from the
inward parts of which the baggis takes its rise—will be
only too pleased to make known the boast of his country
to ignorant Southerners.
Still, for the benefit of the canny Scots who are scat-
tered over the world, and who may be found eating sheep's
head and every other morsel of the mutton on the South
Seas, on the African sands, and on the Himalayan summits,
I append a grand receipt for the Haggis furnished by
Meg Dods. This receipt is historical, and is the result
of a competition of Haggises held in Edinburgh. The
Haggis herein described gained the first prize ; the second
being adjudged to one superintended by Christopher North,
of Ebony fame.
· The Edinburgh receipt.—“Clean a fat sheep's pluck
thoroughly. Make incisions in the heart and liver, to
allow the blood to flow out, and parboil the whole, letting
the windpipe lie over the side of the pot to permit the
phlegm and blood to disgorge from the lungs. The water
may be changed after ten minutes' boiling for fresh water.
The lights cannot be overboiled. A half-hour's boiling
will be sufficient for the rest ; but throw back the half of


Hake
233
oche other halince also king part
bags or a will be lost be no thin pe
the liver to boil till when cold it will grate easily. Take
the heart, the half of the liver and part of the lights, trim-
ming away all skins and black-looking parts, and mince
them together finely. Mince also a pound of good beef
suet. Grate the other half of the liver. Have four mild
large onions peeled, scalded, and minced, to mix with the
haggis-mince. Have also ready some finely ground oat-
meal toasted slowly before the fire, till it is of a light-brown
colour and perfectly nutty and dry. A large teacupful
of meal will do for this quantity of meat. Spread the
mince on a board and strew the meal lightly over it, with
a high seasoning of black pepper, salt, and a little cayenne,
first well mixed. Have a haggis-bag (that is, a sheep's
paunch) perfectly clean, and see that there be no thin part
in it, else your whole labour will be lost by its bursting.
Some cooks use two bags or a cloth as an outer case. Put
the meat in the bag with half a pint of good beef gravy or
as much strong stock. Be careful not to fill the bag too
full, but allow the meal and meat room to swell. Add the
juice of a lemon or a little good vinegar. Press out
the air and sew up the bag. Prick it with a long needle
when it first swells in the pot, to prevent bursting. Let it
boil slowly for three hours if large.
“ Observations. A haggis boiled for two hours may be
kept for a week or two, and when cold gets so firm that
haggises are often sent from Scotland to distant countries.
They must in this case be made very dry, and covered with
oatmeal ; nor will a haggis keep so well if there is onion
put to it. For some tastes the above receipt prescribes too
much onion. Haggis meat, by those who cannot admire
the natural shape, may be poured out of the bag and served
in a deep dish. No dish heats up better. A ragout of cold
haggis, heated up in a stewpan in which a little shred onion
with pepper is first fried, is better than on the first day.”
HAKE is one of the cod family—a coarse cod.
Very


234
Halibut
few come to London, but they appear not unfrequently in
Paris under the name of merluche or sea pike—which
English visitors take to mean haddock. The French name
for a haddock is not merluche, but aigrefin, sometimes
spelt aiglefin.
The hake has a peculiarity which gives him a certain
superiority over the haddock, and indeed over all fish—it
is easy to get rid of his backbone. After the fish is opened
and cleaned, as all fish of this kind are, take his backbone,
from where it begins, between the finger and thumb.
Slide finger and thumb along the edges of the bone down
the body as far as it has been opened. The bone can then
be drawn out quite free from the flesh. You have there-
fore a fish which, as the fins can easily be removed, is all
fish and no bone, and which can be manipulated in a soup,
in a stew, in cutlets, in curry, with an ease delightful to
those who are afraid of fish bones.
HALIBUT, or HOLIBUT.--The praise of this flat-fish has
been sung by a true poet—Cowper, who grew rapturous
over one sent to him by a friend, and named immortal
probably because it was large and lasted a long time. To
save the reputation of the poet, let us remember that at a
period when people made their wills before they left home
on a short journey, he lived in an inland village where
any kind of fish would naturally enough be a rare luxury.
The most fitting appellation which has been given to the
halibut is—workhouse turbot. To do the creature justice,
however, he makes a good curry.
HAM.—Good, boiled; better, baked ; best of all, roasted.
But roast ham is rare because it is difficult ; baked ham is
easier, and boiled easiest of all.
Boiled Ham.-Soak an English ham for twenty-four,
la Spanish one forty-eight hours. Scrape it and cleanse it
carefully. Boil it or braze it in liquor and seasoning enough
to cover it. For very simple tastes water alone is used,


236
Hare
HARE.—Roast Hare.—To be stuffed with Forcemeat
No. 6; to be barded ; and to be roasted on a spit for forty-
five minutes before a brisk fire ; and during the roasting
to be frequently basted with butter or dripping. Five
minutes before the hare is to be removed from the fire,
take off the bards, sprinkle it with salt and flour, and baste
it with fresh butter. When this froths up and the hare is
brown, dish it with brown gravy underneath and currant
jelly in a boat. The ears are considered a delicacy, and
care should be taken not to burn thein. They should be
scalded and freed from hair before the roasting begins.
Jugged Hare.-Old receipt. Cut the hare into pieces,
season it high, and put it in a stone jar or jug with half a
pound of ham or bacon (fat and lean cut up together), six
shalots, two onions, and some thyme, parsley, savory,
marjoram, lemon-peel, mace, cloves and nutmeg—all well
mixed with the meat. Pour over it a tumblerful of red
wine, another of broth, and the juice of a Seville orange.
Tie the mouth of the jar tight with bladder or leather and
brown paper, and place it in a pan of boiling water deep
enough to heat it well, but not to have a chance of boiling
over and into the jar. In this situation the jug or jar is
to remain three or four hours, the water boiling all the
time and more added as it boils away. Then take out the
hare, strain the liquor, skim off the fat, and add a thick-
ening of roux. If in the meantime the hare should cool,
put it back into the jug with the thickened gravy, and set
it in the pot of boiling water till it gets hot, but by no
means suffer it to boil. Serve it hot with slices of lemon
and with currant jelly.
Civet of Hare is practically the same thing—only it is
not done in a closed jug. More liquor may therefore be
used, both of wine and of broth, to make up for evapora-
tion ; and the name of the dish is to be justified by serving
up with it not indeed chives—which have very insignifi-


Hare
237
pan, add
to the stran the blood ; the of the soup,
a half. Strain nd a half-pi
cant bulbs—but other small onions in great abundance.
The pieces of hare are to be fried in butter for ten minutes
before being set to stew ; and so also the small onions are
to be browned in butter before being simmered with the
stew.
Hare Soup.—The Scotch way-with blood : after Meg
Dods. “ Skin and clean the hare thoroughly, saving the
blood. Cut a dozen or more of very small chops from the
back, shoulders, and rump. Put what remains of the hare
and the bones into a pot, with four pounds of fresh shin or
neck of beef, four quarts of water, a couple of turnips, two
carrots, six middle-sized onions, a half-ounce of black and
Jamaica peppercorns, an ounce of salt, a faggot of sweet-
herbs, and a large head of celery. Boil for three hours,
and strain. Brown the small chops nicely in a sauté-
pan, add them to the strained stock, and simmer for an
hour and a half. Strain the blood ; rub it with flour,
rice-flour, or arrowroot, and a half-pint of the soup, as
if making starch ; add more hot soup, and put the whole
into the soup, which must be kept only at the point of
boiling for ten minutes, lest the blood curdle. The soup
may be further thickened with the parboiled liver, pounded
in a mortar with the pieces of hare boiled for stock. When
enough done, skim, put in a glass of catsup, and one or
more of red wine, what more salt, pepper, and cayenne is
required, and also essence of celery. Serve with the hare-
steaks in the tureen.
“ Observations. Red wine, in the proportion of a
quarter-pint to a tureen of soup, is reckoned an improve-
ment by some gourmands; and those of the old school
still like a large spoonful of currant jelly dissolved in the
soup."
Hare Soup.—The English way—without blood : after
Miss Acton. “Cut down a hare into joints, and put into a
soup-pot or large stewpan, with about a pound of lean ham


238
Haricot
in thick slices, three moderate-sized mild onions, three blades
of mace, a faggot of thyme, sweet marjoram, and parsley,
and about three quarts of good beef stock. Let it stew
very gently for full two hours from the time of its first
beginning to boil, and more if the hare be old. Strain
the soup, and pound together very fine the slices of ham
and all the flesh of the back, legs, and shoulders of the
hare, and put this meat into a stewpan with the liquor in
which it was boiled, the crumb of two French rolls, and
half a pint of port wine. Set it on the stove to simmer
twenty minutes ; then rub it through a sieve, place it
again on the stove till very hot, but do not let it boil ;
season it with salt and cayenne, and send it to table
directly.”
Haricot is a word which in French means two dif-
ferent things—a savoury stew and a kidney-bean. The
French etymologists are much exercised to explain how
it can mean either of these things, and they are at their
wit's end to explain how it can mean both. The explana-
tion is really very simple and lies on the surface; but the
French have an old reputation for loving far-fetched
etymologies, and they would be untrue to themselves if
they did not lose themselves in endless subtleties to unravel
the mystery of the haricot. In the seventeenth century
Ménage proved clearly that the word might come from
the Latin name for a bean-faba, which might beget
fabarius, which might beget fabaricotus, which might beget
faricotus, which might beget haricotus. Unhappily there
was no authority whatever for the intermediate links of
the genealogical chain leading from faba to haricot. And,
still worse, the name of haricot as a stew was in existence
for 300 years before any one thought of giving the same
name to the bean. In presence of this fact the French
philologers of our day have been driven to a new expla-
nation. It has been invented by M. Génin, and it has


Haricot
239
been accepted by the leading French authority, M. Littré,
as well as by the German authorities, Scheler and Diez.
The oldest mention of the word is to be found in a
cookery book which is supposed to bear the date of 1393—
Le Ménagier de Paris. There is a receipt there given for
“hericot de mouton,” the first sentence of which says
that the mutton must be cut into pieces. M. Génin has
seized upon this sentence and has connected it with a very
old French word—haligote or herligote, which he derives
from the Latin aliquot! Whatever its derivation, its
meaning was a piece or morsel, and it had a corresponding
verb harigoter, to cut to pieces. That, said M. Génin, is
haricot-it means anything cut to pieces. And this word,
he continues, came to be applied from the stew to the
kidney-bean, because, no doubt, some one saw a dish of
kidney-beans cut to pieces and thought it resembled a
mutton hash! One cannot always account for the play
of fancy. A crust of bread is rubbed with garlic ; it is
thrown into a chicory salad to give it a favour; and all
the world (at least in French) agree to call it, for some
unknown reason—a capon. And so, no doubt, for some
inexplicable reason a dish of kidney-beans was called after
a mutton stew—a haricot.
It is almost incredible that men of learning and sense,
who call each other spirituel in quoting this explanation,
should allow themselves to be deceived by such follies. It
is all the more wonderful inasmuch as they cannot touch
upon the question without using words which on the very
surface contain the real explanation. They have always to
begin by pointing out that a haricot of mutton is nothing
more nor less than a ragoût of mutton ; and yet it never
seems to have occurred to them that haricot is radically
the same word as ragoût. In England, however, we are
familiar with the fact that the French do not recognise
their own words when returned to them from abroad.
Ages ago the English took the French word boeuf and
English to returned to th. do not recommare


240
Haricot
turned it into beef. When the name of roast beef came
to France the French did not recognise their own word,
and for two hundred years they have been speaking
of rosbif d'agneau and rosbif de mouton. It is not
merely the ignorant who fall into such a locution : men of
education, with a fine ear for the delicacies of language,
such as Jules Janin, will adopt the blunder with childish
simplicity. Now this is what has happened to them in a
blunder of lower depth with regard to their word ragoût.
It came back to them altered from the German frontier,
and they altogether failed to recognise it. It came back
to them pronounced as ricot. The vowel changes can
easily be explained, and will scarcely be surprising to us
who have transmuted bæuf into beef. The only change
of consonant, the hardening of g into C, is character-
istic of the pronunciation of French on the Rhine. So
far there is no difficulty. The difficulty arises when we
have to account for the initial syllable of haricot. It has
been shown by Mr. Max Müller that there are many words:
aspirated in French purely through the contagious in-
fluence of the German pronunciation. Thus the Latin
word altus ought to be in modern French aut: it is
haut through contagion of the German hoch. Again
the Latin ululare ought to be in French urler, or as in
old French uller: it was huller and it is hurler through
contagion of the German heulen. But more than this: the
word we are considering begins with r, to which the
Germans gave such a strong guttural pronunciation that
it might be represented in writing as hricot: and the
French caught this up as haricot or hericot. There is a
case in point. The French have adopted the German word
rang and have caught it up quite correctly. But they
have also caught it up wrongly. The guttural pronuncia-
tion of the German r made the word sound like hrang, and
they caught it up as harangue. So rang and harangue,
which are at root one and the same word, exist in modern


Haricot
241
French as two distinct words, all through the gutturaļ r
of the Germans, which seemed to make an additional
syllable of itself. And this is precisely what has happened
to ragoût. It went over to Germany and came back in
German pronunciation haricot or hericot, which was all
the more easily accepted as in Provence there was a
word fricot, which is still in use, which means, like haricot,
a savoury stew, and which seemed to give it a sort of
fraternal right.
So much for the stew as regards its name ; and for
more of a practical nature turn to Ragoût and Navarin.
We have now to account for the name of the bean.
And here the French have gone astray through a false
notion that the word is still the same. Haricot, the
béan, is a distinct word which has nothing whatever to
do with a ragoût. It means a snail. There has been
a peculiar tendency to designate this kind of bean in a
simile. The ancients called it Phaseolus—a little boat, and
Linnæus has fixed this for the name of the tribe. We in
England call it a kidney-bean; and the Portuguese called
one of its varieties a caracol or snail, the Italians a
caraco or caracolla. This is the word which the French
have transfigured into haricot and have allotted to the
species. They turned the l at the end into t, just as they
made apricoque into abricot and l'oriole into loriot. That
the initial should be transmuted into a simple aspirate is
quite in accordance with the possibilities of a language
which has chat forcat, and of a word which in one
form (said to be Arabic) appears as garagol. Com-
pare garb (a sheaf) with harvest. To one particular
variety of the kidney-bean Linnæus gave the name of
Phaseolus Caracalla, and the French recognise it as haricot
limaçon, which is a reduplication of the original name, the
meaning of which has been lost. Such reduplications are
common enough. Thus in English we speak of a cockle-
shell—forgetful of the fact that cockle (coquille) is itself a
16


242
Haricot
shell. Or again we speak of a dog-kennel, forgetful of the
fact that kennel (canile) is itself a dog-house, and that
therefore to say dog-kennel is in effect to say dog-dog-
house.
Unhappily, in England, the haricot is little known
except in the unripe pod. It is the only vegetable which
we eat in the pod, and the technical name for it in this
condition is green haricots, or in French haricots verts.
It would be more convenient, however, to speak of them as
haricot pods, to distinguish them from the haricot seeds
which are also green, as peas or beans are, and not merely
white and red. In England the only kinds of haricot
that come to perfection are the dwarf kidney-bean, known
as the French bean, a native of India introduced into
England three centuries ago ; and the scarlet-runner, a
native of South America, introduced in 1663, but so little
regarded as an article of food that up to the end of last
century it was chiefly used as an ornamental flower, or
petted as a curiosity among twining plants because it is
the only one which twines the opposite way of the sun.
But neither of these is brought to such perfection in
England that the seeds are cared for, and the seeds used
here are mostly imported from France. Of these there
are three chief kinds, which may be rudely described as
four—the Green, the White, the Red, and the broad
haricot of Soissons. It must be clearly understood, how- •
ever, that the first two are the same and differ only as
green peas from yellow.
1. Haricot Pods—what the French call haricots verts ;
called also French beans, and, in old French, Roman
beans.
Plain boiled. This is called the English fashion. Pick
and clear of strings about a pound of them, cut them in
pieces lengthways, and boil them in an uncovered stew-
pan with salt and much water till they are tender. Drain


Haricot
243
them well in a colander, and when serving them put a good
piece of butter among them.
Tossed. Boil as before, and having drained them
thoroughly, toss them with two ounces of butter for nearly
ten minutes on a brisk fire. Add a pinch of salt, a squeeze
of lemon, and a sprinkling of parsley chopped fine.
En Poulette. Boil and drain them as before, and serve
them in a Poulette sauce without the mushrooms, but with
a sprinkling of chopped parsley.
In Salad. Cut them in diamond shapes, blanch them
well, cook them, cool them, drain them, mix them with oil
and vinegar, and with a garnish of chopped ravigote. To
this salad may be added, in the Lyonnese fashion, slices of
onion baked in cinders, or indeed baked any way.
2. Haricot Beans.—These are the seeds ; first, the
flageolets, which are green and are to be had fresh from
July to October, or dried always ; second, the white
haricots, which are the green ones ripened ; third, the red
haricots ; fourth, the large Soissons beans.
Plain boiled. If the beans are fresh they are thrown
into boiling water ; if dry into cold. It was once the
custom to soak the latter for a long time—perhaps twenty-
four hours—in cold water before use; but this was irksome,
for it implied that we could not have haricots without a
day's notice beforehand. It has since been found that by
a particular process of boiling the previous soaking can be
dispensed with. The art is this, and it applies to dried
peas as well : Put the beans into cold water, bring them
to the boiling point and simmer them for half an hour; then
put in a gill of cold water, bring the beans to the boil-
ing point again and simmer as before ; every half-hour
repeat the cold water, the boiling and the simmering,
till the beans are tender. Salt is taken for granted, it is
needless to say.


244
Harlequin Comfits
Tossed in Butter. Toss them in two ounces of butter,
a wineglassful of the liquor they have boiled in, salt and
chopped parsley. Sometimes when tossed in this way,
these haricots are mixed with haricot pods—which are then
called haricots panachés.
À la Bretonne. Mixed half and half with Breton Sauce
and served with roast or broiled mutton. See Breton.
Purée of White Haricots for Garnish. Boil them with
an onion and a faggot of parsley, which latter is after-
wards to be put aside, and then pass the haricots and the
onion through a sieve, moistening with milk or broth to
help them through. Warm them up with butter, salt and
a little sifted sugar, and keep them warm in the bain marie
till the moment of serving, when they may be brightened
up with another piece of fresh butter. For a slightly
different treatment, see the article Purée.
Stew of Red Haricots. Let them be plain boiled, but not
for nearly the full time. Then put them into a stewpan
with about half a pound of streaky bacon in small slices,
a pinch or two or flour, the same of pepper, two glasses of
red wine, two glasses of the water they have boiled in, and
simmer them for from twenty to thirty minutes. When
all is ready add an ounce of butter and serve. This is the
French idea of beans and bacon.
Haricot Soups, white and red, are prepared like pea
soup, for which see the receipt. The red haricot soup
goes always by the name of Condé, the white by that of
Clermont.
HARLEQUIN COMFITS.—Caraway seed coated with sugar
of various colours and sprinkled as an ornament over
cakes and creams. They are not much used now, and
certainly not by pastrycooks who think of fashion. They
have, in fact, become vulgar. But a rose is sweet by
whatever name it is known, and whether it grows in a


Herbs
245
garden or a hedge; and these harlequin comfits, with their
variety of pretty tints, pleased us as children, and will
please us too as men, so long as we retain simplicity of
taste.
HARTSHORN.—How wise we can be after a folly has V
been exposed ! We now laugh at ourselves for eating
stag's horn, and imagining that because reduced to
shavings and dissolved in water it gave solidity to liquids,
it must add strength to food. It was the same with ivory
filings. We who would have laughed at the notion of
eating horn and sucking ivory, thought that water turned
into jelly by one or the other must abound in strength.
And we who have eaten horn and ivory because they are
strong are the very persons who jest at the ancients
because they ate nightingales to make them musical, and
at the French because they eat frogs by way of cure for
croaking.
HEBE-Jupiter's parlour-maid. Always, if possible,
have a Hebe to wait. It is incalculable how much a
pretty parlour-maid adds to the poetry of the table. .
HERBS.—There is a curious classification of gardeners
which I have never been able to understand. A certain
number of plants are called herbs, and they are divided
into Pot-herbs and Sweet-herbs.
Pot-herbs are-parsley, purslane, tarragon, fennel, borage, v
dill, chervil, horseradish, Indian cress, and marigold.
Sweet-herbs are—thyme, sage, savory, clary, mint, mar-V
joram, basil, rosemary, lavender, tansy, and costmary.
This list is taken from Loudon's “Encyclopædia of
Gardening," and shows the requirements of a modern
English kitchen garden, from which it is needless to say
that many plants formerly in use, and classed as pot-herbs
or sweet-herbs, are omitted. The French have something
similar in their list of potagères ; but the selection is widely


246
Herring
different. In either case the classification is not scientific
and will not bear analysis. It represents an old-world
arrangement which has passed away.
Pot-herbs from Wild Plants.—Black bryony, charlock,
oxtongue, and spotted hawkweed, to be used like turnip-
tops or greens, in spite of the fact that bryony is commonly
considered poison. Burdock and willow-herb have their
tender shoots boiled and eaten as asparagus. Fat-hen,
sea-orach, sea-beet, sow-thistle, and the stinging-nettle
may be treated like spinach. Chickweed is said to be
remarkably good, and once was common at table. Sauce-
alone, or Jack-by-the-hedge, bas a taste of garlic, and has
some repute as a pot-herb. Wild rocket is something like
mustard, and may be used either as pot-herb or salad.
HERRING.—Amsterdam is said to be built on herring-
bones ; and the herring has certainly made the fortune of
Holland. It is one of those productions, says Lacépède,
which decide the destiny of empires. It is not much to
look at, this little creature, but it is as the sea-sand for
multitude, and the poets have discovered that they mean
living men.
Ye may ca’ them caller herring,
Women ca' them-lives o' men.
They cost men's lives, it is true ; but it is also true that
whole nations live by them. The Emperor Charles V.
made a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Dutchman who is
supposed to have invented pickled herrings. He was not
really the creator of this commodity—but that is nothing ;
what is admirable is the hero-worship of a great Emperor
bending his head and casting his crown before the tomb of
a herring-salter. This is a case of hero-worship which
Carlyle has curiously omitted. We have heard of the hero
as king, as poet, as prophet; we have still to hear of bim
ás a humble but most useful herring-pickler, adding to the
wealth of the world and the happiness of his people by a


Herring
247
simple but far-reaching and wonder-working discovery in
food. Io Triumphe! cries the Frenchman Lacépède—“if it
was a citizen of Biervliet who first originated the idea of
salting and barrelling herrings, let us glory in the remem-
brance that it was a citizen of Dieppe who first taught the
world 'how to smoke them.” Herrings were salted and
smoked long before the said citizens of Biervliet and
Dieppe opened their eyes upon the fishing fleets ; but all
the same the hero-worship of the Republican Lacépède
is as interesting and honourable as that of the Imperial
Charles.
The most varied accounts are given as to the time when
herrings are in season. A great authority, Grimod de la
Reynière, announces to the Parisians in his calendar the
arrival of the herring in November. There are English
books which announce November as the very end of the
season for the herring. The fact is that there is more than
one kind of herring. The common kind comes to our
shores in April or May, and spawns in the end of October
or beginning of November, after which it is good for
nothing. There is another kind, which Yarrell calls
Leach's herring, which is heavy with roe in January
and which does not spawn till the middle of February.
In the Baltic there are three distinct species—a spring, a
summer, and an autumn herring. Practically we have
the herring in England all the year round save the spring
months.
Fresh Herrings.—The best British herring by far is the
Loch Fyne herring—and the most approved method of cook-
ing it is that which is practised on the Clyde. A fresh
herring is nearly always and everywhere broiled. The
Clyde fashion is to broil or fry it as follows :—The heads,
tails, and fins of a couple of herrings are clipped off. The
fish when thoroughly cleaned are split open by the back
and boned. They are then dusted with pepper and salt,


248
Ilolland Sauce
and enriched with a little butter. They are next placed
one on the other, the skins being outside, and skewered or
sewn together.
The English way is to broil each herring by itself, either
splitting it and boning it, which is best, or leaving it entire.
But in reference to any of these processes a question
suggests itself. Do you, or do you not, eat the skin of the
herring? If you do, there is no more to be said and no
fault to be found. If you do not, then why give the
pleasant taste of broiling or frying to the surface which
is to be rejected ? Arrange that the taste of the fire
shall go upon the flesh of the herring and not upon the
skin.
Salt Herrings.—These on the Continent are generally
eaten after the manner of the Dutch—raw. Cut off head,
tail, and fins ; remove also the backbone ; soak them for a
time in milk and water; dry them, cut them in pieces,
and arrange them in a boat or deep dish, with slices of
roasted onions and of raw apples; add oil and vinegar, and
eat. Sometimes, however, in France, these herrings, after
being soaked, are grilled and served on a purée of peas,
French beans, or lentils.
Bloaters and Kippers.—There is only one way of doing
these, and it is perfect—to grill them à la maître d'hôtel.
But mark : the French remove the skin, and there onght
to be a stringent law to this effect set up in all kitchens,
and parlous punishment inflicted for its violation.
Red Herrings.-French way: Soak them for some time
in milk, and having wiped them, place them in a marinade
of oil, pepper, parsley, shalot, and mushrooms finely
chopped. Breadcrumb them, grill them, and serve them
with bread and butter.
HOLLAND SAUCE (Sauce Hollandaise)—another name
for Dutch sauce.


Horseradish
249
HORLY—à la Horly—is a mode of describing fillets of
anything, but generally of fish, fowl, and the whiter game,
first marinaded for a couple of hours, then drained and
dried, then dipped in batter and fried, then again drained
and served with crisp parsley and a boatful of sauce. The
chief Horlys are fillets of chicken and fillets of sole, and
they are both done alike. The usual sauce to go with them
is Tomato. For the marinade take either of the uncooked
ones.
HORS D'ŒUVRE.—There was a time when these little
articles demanded a good deal of attention. They are now
of the smallest account; and are little more than the
trifles—prawns, olives, radishes, anchovies—which keep the
customer occupied in a restaurant while the dinner he has
ordered is getting ready. The hot Hors d'oeuvres-as the
Bouchées, Rissoles and Croquettes—are now classed among
the entrées.
HORSERADISH.—Old Parkinson said that it ought to
be called Clown's mustard, “ for it is too strong for any
tender stomach.” Nevertheless, there are many persons
to whom roast beef without horseradish is nearly as great
a failure as without mustard. It is scraped and served as
a garnish. Better still, it is grated and made into a sauce,
which is usually cold, though sometimes heated.
Ilorseradish Sauce.—Grate a young root finely. Add
to it a gill of cream, a dessertspoonful of sugar, a little
salt, and rather more than a tablespoonful of vinegar, and
mix all well together. Some persons add mustard.
Another receipt.—Add to the grated radish the zest and
juice of an orange, three tablespoonfuls of oil, a table-
spoonful of panada, a good tablespoonful of vinegar, a
teaspoonful of sugar, and a good pinch of salt. Mix well
together and serve in a boat. See Polish Sauce.


250
Hospitality
HOSPITALITY.—But be not thou like the too flowery
Chinese, of whom the Abbé Huc gives the following
account—the hero of the tale, observe, being not a heathen,
but a Christian, Chinee. “During the time when we were
at our Northern Mission, we were witnesses of a most
curious fact, which was wonderfully characteristic of the
Chinese. It was one of our feast days, and we were to
celebrate the Holy Office at the house of the First Catechist,
where there was a tolerably large chapel to which the
Christians of the neighbouriny villages were in the habit
of coming in great numbers. After the ceremony the
master of the house posted himself in the middle of the
court, and began to call to the Christians who were leaving
the chapel— Don't let anybody go away. To-day I invite
every one to eat rice in my house ;' and then he ran from
one group to another urging them to stay. But every one
alleged some reason for going, and went. The courteous
host appeared quite distressed. At last he spied a cousin
of his, who had almost reached the door, and rushed
towards him saying—'What, cousin ! are you going too?
Impossible ! this is a holiday, and you really must stop.'
No,' said the other, do not press me; I have business at
home that I must attend to.' 'Business! What to-day-
a day of rest! Absolutely, you shall stop ; I won't let
you go!' And he seized the cousin's robe, and tried to
bring him back by main force, while the desired guest
struggled as well as he could, and sought to prove that his
business was too pressing to allow of his remaining. “Well,'
said the host at last, 'since you positively cannot stay to
eat rice, we must at least drink a few glasses of wine
together. I should be quite ashamed if my cousin went
away from my house without taking anything.' 'Well,'
replied the cousin, “it don't take much time to drink a
glass of wine,'—and he turned back. They re-entered the
house, and sat down in the company room. The master
then called in a loud voice, though without appearing to


Hotch Potch
251
address any one in particular, ‘Heat some wine and fry
two eggs!'
“In the meantime, till the hot wine and fried eggs should
arrive, the two lighted their pipes and began to gossip, and
then they lit and smoked again ; but the wine and eggs
did not make their appearance. The cousin, who most
likely had some real business, at last ventured to ask of
his hospitable entertainer how long he thought it would
be before the wine would be ready. “Wine!' replied the
host : 'wine! Have we got any wine here? Don't you
know very well that I never drink wine? It hurts my
stomach.' 'In that case,' said the cousin, surely you
might have let me go. Why did you press me to stay ?'
Hereupon the master of the mansion rose and assumed
an attitude of lofty indignation. Upon my word,' said
he, “anybody might know what country you come from.
What! I have the politeness to invite you to drink wine,
and you have not even the politeness to refuse! Where
in the world have you learned your rites ? Among the
Mongols, I should think. And the poor cousin, under-
standing that he had been guilty of a dreadful blunder,
stammered some words of apology, and, filling his pipe once
more, departed.
“We were ourselves present at this delightful little
scene ; and as soon as the cousin was gone, the least we
could do was to have a good laugh ; but the master of
the house did not laugh—he was indignant. He asked us
whether we had ever seen such an ignorant, stupid, absurd
man as his cousin ; and he returned always to his grand
principle—that is to say, that a well-bred man will always
render politeness for politeness, and that one ought kindly
to refuse what another kindly offers; otherwise,' he cried,
what would become of us ?'”—Huc's Chinese Empire,
vol. i., chap. 7.
Hotch Potch implies confusion and variety; and as


252
Hotch Potch
neeps (turn;P The Prince sto There's peas
confusion may be infinite and variety indescribable, it is a
word of wide application. The Scotch, however, seem to
have set their hearts upon this word rhyming to their name,
and have fixed it for ever upon a magnificent dish which they
call a soup, but which looks more like a stew. It is a soup
of the class which the French call a Garbure. The principle
of it and of the other mutton broths will be explained here-
after in the article Scotch Broth. When Prince Albert paid
his first visit to the Highlands he was profoundly interested
in this great national dish—the Scotch Hotch Potch, wuich
is devoured by rich and poor alike with incredible gusto.
He made his first acquaintance with it on a hillside, where
a herd-laddie was dipping his spoon into a tin can. The
Prince asked the boy what he had for dinner, and was told
it was Hotch Potch. “And what is Hotch Potch ? " said
the Prince. “There's carrots intil't," said the boy, “there's
neeps (turnips) intil't, there's peas intil't, there's cabbage
intil't- " The Prince stopped him : “ Yes, my little man,
but what's intil't'?” “ There's peas intil't,” continued
the boy, “there's carrots intil't.” “Yes, yes,” rejoined
the Prince, “but I want to know what's 'intil't.'” “I'm
telling ye—there's carrots intil't, there's cabbage intil't,
there's peas intil't.” “Still I don't know what is ‘intil't.'”
“ Did ye ever hear the like?” said the boy ; "am n't I
telling you that there's peas intil't?”—and so forth. The
Prince was not enlightened until one of his gillies came up
and informed him that in the language of the country
“intil't” means into it or in it: “ There's peas in it, there's
carrots in it.” The following receipt is taken from the
cookery book of Mrs. Dalgairns, which I always read with
awe because the great Wizard of the North, Sir Walter
himself, is said to have contributed to its pages. Who
knows but this receipt came in all its robust simplicity
from his hands ?
“Cut in dice a good quantity of young turnips and
carrots, and boil them gently, with one or two lettuces cut


Indigestion
253
small, the tops of some cauliflower, and a pint of full-grown
peas in four quarts of boiling water for two hours. Cut in
neat chops a loin or the best end of a neck of mutton ; add
them to the vegetables with salt, pepper, and some onions
cut small, and let them boil an hour and a half. Lastly,
add three pints of green peas and boil half an hour longer,
when it is ready to serve.” In all two hours and a la f-
the mutton being put in half an hour after the vegetables.
Distrust the English imitations of this receipt, which all
miss the chief point of it—a superabundance of peas, a
portion of them being put in from the first, and after 27
hours' boiling being reduced to a mash. Compare with
this the Flemish dish of peas and lettuce, which will be
found under the heading Paysanne.
N.B.—No barley. In England it is supposed that there
must be barley in all Scotch broth. It is a mistake. Hotch
Potch will accept almost any addition except barley.
HUMBLE PIE.If ever you should be told to eat humble
pie, beg that you may be permitted to do so—for it is very
good. It is made of the humble or numbles of a deer-
that is, the inward parts. The Scotch make a wonderful
pudding out of the inward parts of a sheep-the haggis.
NDIGESTION.—There is no such cure for
indigestion as that prescribed by Harry the
Eighth and recorded as follows by Thomas
Fuller in his Church History :-
“ King Henry VIII., as he was hunting in Windsor
Forest, either casually lost or (more probably) wilfully
losing himself, struck down about dinner-time to the Abbey
of Reading, where, disguising himself (much for delight,
more for discovery, to see unseen), he was invited to the
abbot's table, and passed for one of the King's guard—a


254
Inn
place to which the proportion of his person might properly
entitle him A sir-loin of beef was set before him (so
knighted, saith tradition, by this King Henry), on which
the King laid on lustily, not disgracing one of that place
for whom he was mistaken. “Well fare thy heart,' quoth
the abbot,' and here in a cup of sack I remember the health
of his grace your master. I would give an hundred
pounds on the condition I could feed so heartily on beef as
you do. Alas! my weak and queasy stomach will hardly
digest the wing of a smail rabbit or chicken.' The King
pleasantly pledged him, and heartily thanked him for his
good cheer ; after dinner departed as undiscovered as he
came thither. Some weeks after, the abbot was sent for by
a pursuivant, brought up to London, clapt in the Tower,
kept close prisoner, fed for a short time on bread and water;
yet not so empty his body of food, as his mind was filled
with fears, creating many suspicions to himself, when and
how he had incurred the King's displeasure. At last a sir-
loin of beef was set before him, on which the abbot fed as
the farmer of his grange, and verified the proverb that two
hungry meals make the third a glutton. In springs King
Henry out of a private lobby, where he had placed himself,
the invisible spectator of the abbot's behaviour. “My lord,'
quoth the King, presently deposit your £100 in gold, or
else no going hence all the days of your life. I have been
your physician to cure you of your queasy stomach, and
here, as I deserve, I demand my fee for the same.' The
abbot down with his dust ; and glad he had escaped so,
returned to Reading, as somewhat lighter in his purse, so
much more merrier in heart than when he came thence.”
INN.—.
Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his changes may have been,
Will sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.-Shenstone.


Irish Stew
255
Irish STEW.— There are two possible reasons for the
name of this dish. The first is Hibernian—it is unknown in v
Ireland ; the second is that the stuff of which Irishmen are
made is redundant in it-potatoes. The Irish are not cooks.
They are the most agreeable of companions at table, but
they have done nothing to furnish the table except in the
way of Usquebagh-water of life-which, however, it must
be admitted is an immense achievement, worthy of the
magicians, and proving beyond a doubt that in the olden
time Ireland was the abode of giants.
Irish stew is a white ragout of mutton with potatoes
for the chief garnish. Most ragouts are brown-it being
always easier to heighten the flavour of a sauce by
browning it than by trusting to mere decoction. What is
called the haricot of mutton, for example, is browned.
The beautiful simplicity of the Irish stew would be lost if
it were allowed in any way to brown. The potatoes are so
important in it that they are always double the weight of
the meat, and the only other vegetable that they go with is
the onion—which may be much or little according to taste.
In the true Irish stew, too, both potatoes and onions are
exceedingly well done, so that they are half reduced to a
mash.
Take the neck of mutton and divide it into cutlets,
well trimmed of the fat. No objection to some of the
breast divided into squares. Season the pieces plentifully
with pepper and slightly with salt. Place the meat in a
deep stewpan with six or eight onions : cover it with water,
and let it simmer for half an hour. As Irish stew must
not be greasy, the liquor is then poured off, and poured
back again after the grease has been removed. In the
meantime potatoes have been got ready, parboiled and
peeled. They should amount after peeling to twice the
weight of the meat. They are added to the stew with a
pint of broth or else a like quantity of water; and the
whole is left to simmer for an hour and a half. See in


256
Isinglass
serving it that it has salt enough and a decided flavour of
the pepper pot.
In Scotland they produce exactly such a stew, cover it
over with a crust, and call it Shepherd's pie. In Devon-
shire and Cornwall they make this pie, put apples into it
instead of potatoes, and announce it as Devonshire, Cornish,
or Squab pie. The Shepherd's pie of Scotland is evidently
too farinaceous—potatoes within and paste without. The
housewives of Devonshire and Cornwall are much more
artistic in keeping to one kind of farina—the paste, and
putting inside the pie only apples and onions. As the
combination of apples and onions in the way of garniture
has been long dedicated in England to pork, the Devonians
and Cornishmen have also decided that their pie shall do
honour to pork as often as to mutton-perhaps oftener.
ISINGLASS.—The remarks of Liebig upon gelatine apply
equally to isinglass, which must henceforth be regarded
rather as a vehicle of ornament than as an article of
nourishment. At least there is this in its favour—it is more
delicate than gelatine. It is the best simple means at our
command for giving firmness to liquids. It is made from
the sound or swim-bladder of various fishes, but chiefly the
sturgeon, which yields the best ; and the mode of drying
it has given rise to a number of confusing names—as purse,
pipe and lump isinglass, leaf, honeycomb, staple and book
isinglass. All depends on whether the sound is opened or
unopened before being dried, and whether, being opened, it
is folded again, left unfolded, or rolled out.
ITALIAN SAUCE.—Most of the cookery books are curi-
ously uncertain about this sauce. Some make it white,
some make it brown, and others make it both white and
brown. It is a white sauce. People may say that they
have a right to reproduce it in brown if they please. So
they have; but the result in that case is so nearly allied to


Jam
257
some other brown sauces that it seems absurd to make a
confusion of names for a trifling difference.
Put into a saucepan a tablespoonful of parsley, half one
of shalot, and another of mushroom—all finely chopped ;
half a bottle of white wine ; and butter about the size of
an egg. Put it on the fire to boil and reduce it well, but
without browning it. Then add two ladlefuls of Velvet-
down and one of double broth. Set it on the fire to boil
and to throw up its scum. Remove scum and grease, and
it is ready
T AM-one of the most unfortunate words ever
introduced into the English language. Of
foreign, probably Oriental origin, it has
been only too easy to confound it in meaning
with the English word to jam or crush together. The
English make their conserves of fruit into a jam—some-
thing pressed hard together; which they sometimes also
most appropriately call—a cheese. They have no notion,
for example, in making strawberry jam, of keeping the
berries separate. They do not understand a medium
between smashing the fruit and jamming it together into
a solid cheese on the one hand, and on the other preserving
it like bottled fruits in a thin syrup. In the one case the
flavour of the conserve is overdone—in the other under-
done ; and no justice is done to the fruit. There might
be some excuse for such a treatment of raspberries, which
easily break and run together. Nobody who has eaten
the Scotch or the French conserve of strawberries, where
the fruit is kept whole, will care to look at the English
jam.
Every rule has its exception. There is a good straw-
berry jam to be found in London. The maker's name is
oddly spelt-Buszard. There is a curious indecision which
17


258
Jardinière
.
interests the philosophic mind in that s which fears to
duplicate, itself, and that = which refuses to vanish alto-
gether. Tuhere is no indecision in the jam, however—and
I hand down tu, the admiration of posterity the immortal
name of W. Buszoward, 350, Oxford Street—the only place
in London where stil..awberries are decently preserved.
JARDINIÈRE. It is an amusing idea, this of the
gardener's wife, who is supposeeod to go into the garden to
see her husband, who filches here a un carrot or two, there a
turnip, now an onion or a few pods or if peas, and who
returns home with a medley of small vegetassables in her
apron. A soup with her little collection throwia into it is
called a soup à la Jardinière (see Brunoise); and a steak,
a cutlet or a ragout served with a similar medley is said to
be a cutlet, a steak or a ragout after the fashion of the
gardener's wife. As the word Macedon is used in the
same way to express a medley of vegetables, and as we do
not always want the same combination of garden stuff, it
is a pity that one of these words is not used for one sori
of medley and the other for another. But here we have
two words for one and the same thing—any conceivable
medley of vegetables.
JELLY.--No doubt the counterblast of Baron Liebig
against gelatine and jelly was much needed. The world
had an exaggerated notion of the value of jelly as nutri-
ment. The counterblast of the chemist was aided by the
discovery that gelatine is often derived from obnoxious
sources—such as horses' hoofs. The consequence is that
jelly has gone very much out of fashion. This is a pity ;
for whatever the chemists may say—and their results, as
may be seen under the head of Gelatine, are by no means
clear—the palate enjoys a good calf's-foot jelly, and we
are not yet so corrupted by civilisation that we cannot
afford to be ruled by the promptings of nature. A sick
man will often swallow with enjoyment a calf's-foot jelly


Jelly
259
when he can take nothing else. “It cannot do you any
good,” says the chemist, “because I cannot find it a place
in my scale of diet.” All the sick man can say is—“I like
it—my stomach will tolerate this jelly when it can tolerate
nothing else. No chemist has ever yet been able to express
in figures the good that coffee does, or tea ; and when I
can take a good jelly with pleasure, why should I refuse
it merely because the chemist is at fault with his weights
and measures, cannot find gelatine in the blood, and cannot
tell what part it plays in the body, where nevertheless for
some useful purpose it abounds ? ”.
Calf”s-foot Jelly.—Jelly can be made from bones, from
hartshorn, from isinglass, from prepared gelatine, from
moss. The best, however, is made from meat, and the
most expeditious from calves' feet. Calves' feet are
extremely useful in this way, and may as opportunity
serves be helped out with knuckle of veal, pig's skin,
or any other gelatinous substance at hand. Under the
head of Aspic will be found a receipt for calf's-foot jelly
flavoured with vegetables, to be eaten with cold meat.
The same receipt, barring the vegetables, holds for what is
commonly called calf's-foot jelly—a sweetened jelly which
belongs to the entremets. When the calf's feet have been
boiled down, and the liquor has been passed through a
sieve as well as freed from grease, sugar is added, and
· spices such as cinnamon and coriander seeds. All this is
dissolved over the fire, together with half a bottle of sherry
(but some prefer rum, punch, or noyau), the juice of six
and zest of two lemons. The liquor is then clarified with
whites of eggs, and it is tested for strength. If it is not
strong enough some isinglass is added, or else some per-
fectly trustworthy gelatine ; it is then passed through a
jelly-bag and left to set in a mould.
English cooks boast of calf's-foot jelly as their own
peculiar invention, and the French freely accord this glory


260
Artichoke
Jerusalem
to the English kitchen. But here is a refinement which
must be left to the learned to decide upon. There is a sect
of philosophers who declare that jelly in a mould is not
nearly so nice as the same jelly broken up and served in
fragments.
Another refinement. It makes a very pretty combina-
tion with good cream, and perhaps it may be well and of
good omen to give rest to the shade of Baron Liebig by
adding the nourishment of cream to the no nourishment of
jelly.
Again a refinement—but this is more for the eye than
for the taste. Carême introduced the practice of serving
this jelly when flavoured with oranges in the orange skins,
divided in half. But in orange jelly there is no wine, and
very often no calves' feet. It is made mostly with isinglass,
dissolved in a great deal of the juice and a little of the zest
of oranges.
Meat Jelly is chiefly made from veal, because it is most
gelatinous. To every pound of veal add a calf's foot, half
a pound of the leg of beef, and half a pound of the rind of
fresh pork—in short, pigskin. Make a broth of this in the
ordinary way, using the smallest quantity of water which
is considered allowable—say a pint to a pound ; add vege-
tables and salt; see that it has been well skimmed ; siminer
it for three hours ; and strain it through a napkin. If
there is any doubt as to its strength for jelly, test it on ice,
and if it is not stiff enough, reduce it. Lastly, clarify it.
Here is a clear white jelly for use in all the white prepara-
tions of food; as glaze and the gravies are used in the
brown preparations.
JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE.—See Girasol Artichoke.
JESUITS.—There is a strong feeling against these learned
fathers, but whenever we feel inclined to denounce them
let us pause-let us remember that they introduced into
Europe and propagated the turkey : and let us reflect-


Julienne
261
what would Europe, what would civilisation now be with-
out this excellent creature? What would become of our
Christmas dinner? The English name of the turkey is
wrong, and comes from an error as to the origin of the
bird. The French name of dinde—that is, coq d'Inde, is
right in that the name of Indies was applied formerly to
America. We speak in England of the cinchona bark as
Jesuits' bark. The turkey is in like manner the Jesuits
bird.
JOINT.—The Grosse-pièce of the French, or the Pièce de
resistance, is too well known in England to call for any
remark in and by itself; but there is a controversy be-
tween the French and the English as to its proper place
in a dinner. The French place it at the beginning after
the soup; the English place it at the end before the
entremets. The question has already been discussed in the
article on Entrées and Entremets.
JULIENNE.—The history of the soup called Julienne is
remarkable, though it is lost in the darkness of the past.
It is the most popular soup in Christendom, and yet the
meaning of its name is utterly unknown. For a time it
was supposed to be named after some cook who invented
it; but it was in existence long before the time when any
cook was in a position to give his name to a dish ; and all
the best French etymologists have given up the word as a
hopeless puzzle, I think that in the sequel I can give a
clear explanation of the name ; but before doing so it is
necessary first of all to note down certain traditions which
have been preserved from immemorial date, though not
always concurrently, in regard to this soup.
1. There is a curious tradition about Julienne soup,
which has been most carefully preserved, and which is
so incomprehensible until we get the clue to it that it
looks like a superstition. It is ordered that the carrots,
turnips, and other vegetables in the soup shall be cut into
in the sefore doing is which


262
Julienne
long strips or straws. There are cookery books which
make absolutely no distinction whatever between Julienne
and other spring soups but this—that whereas in the other
soups the roots may be cut into dice or shaped into peas,
or may have any convenient form whatever, in Julienne
they must be cut into little straws. The tradition is not
invariably observed, and plenty of receipts (especially in
England) may be found in which there is no mention of the
vegetable straws as an essential characteristic of the soup.
There were cooks who naturally argued that the shape of
the vegetables could not affect the quality of the soup, and
refused to bow to the superstition which compelled them to
be cut into strips. Reason or no reason, the usage is almost
invariable in France, where a master-cook would consider
himself disgraced if it could be said of him that he had put
carrots into his Julienne without cutting them into straws.
And the usage is so well understood that in prescribing the
arrangement of other dishes, it is always enough to say-cut
the vegetables as for Julienne.
2. There is another tradition—that Julienne must always
have sorrel in it. Some cooks neglect this, and fail to
put sorrel in the Julienne; or they forget the peculiarity
of Julienne, and put sorrel into all the soups of similar
character. Francatelli is an excellent cook, but he has
not the historical instincts of a Frenchman, and he will
tell his pupils to put sorrel alike into Brunoise and into
Julienne, but not into spring soup. Frenchmen like
Dubois and Bernard will allow to Brunoise the same vege-
tables as to Julienne, but always except the sorrel, which is
peculiar to the latter. A Parisian physician, Dr. Roques,
who had a great authority as a gastronomer, gave a warn-
ing to the French cooks of the last generation not to forget
sorrel in the Julienne. “ Certes,” he said, “ votre Julienne
serait manquée, si l'on y avait oublié l'oseille.”
But even with these traditions ringing in our ears,
how are we nearer to a solution of the question as to the


Julienne
263
meaning of Julienne ? We are no nearer to this goal
until we make an assumption-namely, that the sorrel
proper to Julienne is not the common sorrel but wood-
sorrel. It is an assumption suggested by the earliest
known receipt for making the soup. We are told to take
each sorrel leaf and give it two cuts of the knife. Why
two cuts, and only two? Two cuts administered to each
sorrel leaf will divide it into three and suggest the trefoil
of the woodsorrel. The common sorrel which is used in
our kitchens is a sort of dock. The woodsorrel has a more
delicate acid, is said to be more wholesome, and belongs to
a different family. It is not much used in cookery, but it is
still classed among pot-herbs both by the French and by
the English. Now this woodsorrel has many names. Iu
France it is known as la petite oseille, l'oseille à trois
feuilles, trèfle aigre, surelle, herbe de beuf, and pain de
coucou. In England it is known as woodsorrel, stubwort,
sour trefoil, and cuckoo's meat. But over and above these
names there is another, common to both countries and
belonging also to Italy and to Spain—Alleluia or Allelujah.
There is a tradition that the woodsorrel is the true and
original shamrock, and that when St. Patrick beheld this
emblem of the Trinity in his favoured island he fell to
praising God. It is no doubt from a sentiment of this
kind that the name of Allelujah for the woodsorrel arose in
the south of Europe, in Italy and in Spain, and spread
northward to France and to England. But the name was
subject to corruption. All persons have not the strong
religious sentiment which would lead them to cry Allelujah
at the sight of a sour trefoil. In England and also on the
Continent the word was corrupted into Lujula. This cor-
ruption got such hold of the men of science that they
insisted upon its being the true word, and the Pharmacopæia
of the London College gave directions for a conserve of
woodsorrel to be made under the scientific name of Conserva
Lujulæ. In the south of Italy another corruption was


264
Julienne
produced : Juliola— little Julia. In France it was natural
that there should be a corruption too, but apart from the
name of the soup which we are considering we know not
what it was. Is it incredible that the word which in
England and in some parts of the Continent passed authori-
tatively into Lujula, and which was transformed in Calabria
into Juliola, became in France fashionable as Julienne ?
The French philologists may on this hint be able to trace
in greater detail the ccrruption of Alleluia into Julienne;
but for the present there is only this much further to be
said of it: that the process of corruption which ended in
Julienne probably began in Italy and was foreign to
France. It is one of the traditions of Julienne that it
is distinct from the ordinary French soups ; and probably
the name as well as the receipt for it came into France
with the Italian cooks of Catherine de Medici, who first
taught the French the refined and scientific cookery of
modern times. They would bring with them from Italy
Juliola, or some such corruption, which the French with
their wonderful habit of Frenchifying foreign names would
transform into Julienne.
Let it be observed, too, that in the above statement of
the case the argument is put with extreme caution and
needless moderation, for it assumes that Juliola is a cor-
ruption and that Allelujah is the true name. Now the
existence of the name Juliola is known only through
Scaliger in his commentary on Theophrastus De Causis
Plantarum; and his assertion is that the Calabrian name
Juliola is the true word, Alleluia being a barbarous and
ridiculous corruption. His very decided statement is
entitled to the more weight inasmuch as, being himself
named Julius, he may be supposed to have inquired into
the name of the plant with a special interest. If, then,
Juliolа be the true and original word, and not a chance or
local corruption, it is all the more natural that it should
reappear in French as Julienne.


Julienne
265
And now comes a curious point in confirmation of this
view. Woodsorrel is a small low-lying plant in which
the trefoil grows at the end of a slender threadlike stalk.
Take a handful of these stalks, boil them in water, and
this result will ensue : The leaves will nearly disappear,
dissolved in the liquid, and the stalks will remain. The
slender stalks in the soup became a characteristic of it,
and people learned to see that Julienne was not Julienne
unless the fine straws of the woodsorrel remained in it.
The cooks recognised this, and when instead of woodsorrel
they took to the use of common sorrel, they deemed it a
point of honour to put threads of carrots and turnips and
celery into their Julienne to represent the stalks which
would be missed. There are receipts for making Julienne
without any carrots, turnips, or celery whatever. These
were introduced cut into threads or straws by cooks who
felt bound to save appearances and to make up for the
want of woodsorrel stalks.
With this explanation in his hands the reader can now
understand what Julienne soup according to the original
idea ought to be. It is a clear broth or consommé with a
large bunch of woodsorrel melted in it, leaving the stalks
to be chewed. It was probably found in process of time
that these stalks were not too pleasant in the mouth, and
they were replaced by threads of carrots, turnips, celery,
lettuce, cabbage, leek, onion—whatever would cut into
strips and could be made tender by cooking ; while at the
same time common sorrel took the place of the Allelujah.
The following is the ordinary modern receipt. Cut the
red part of four carrots, four turnips, three onions, the
white of one head of celery, and of six leeks, in straws
about one inch long ; put them in a stewpan with a
quarter of a pound of butter and a pinch of pounded
sugar; fry them over the fire to a light-brown colour ;
moisten them with three quarts of clear broth or double
broth ; simmer all very slowly on the stove-corner for


266
Ketchup
three hours; and twenty minutes before serving, add a
cabbage-lettuce and a handful of sorrel cut in the same
way as the other vegetables, and previously blanched ;
skim off the fat, and serve.
If this receipt has a fault it is one which will easily be
forgiven and can be soon amended. The sorrel in it is
not sufficiently pronounced to represent the old idea of the
soup. For modern tastes, however, there is probably quite
enough of it. Still the cook must never be allowed to forget
that the distinction of Julienne consists in being a wood-
sorrel soup, and he ought to be reminded of this when he
conforms to the perfectly useless but always venerable
custom of cutting the vegetables into threads.
T RETCHUP.—No need to say much about this,
which we owe, as we do soy, to the Japanese.
It is a godsend to Englishmen, being not
only full of flavour in itself, but the founda-
tion of some of the best store-sauces—Harvey and
Worcester—to which they fly when their cooks fail. It
is the refuge from bad cookery. Pity that nobody
seems to know how to spell it. Some write ketchup,
others catsup, and I am told that the true Japanese word
is kitjap. Here is indeed a puzzle for the spelling bees !

KICKSHAWS or QUELQUE CHOSE is a name now given
to any dish prepared with extraordinary nicety. People
should be careful, and the name may be allowed to drop.
It was a name originally given not to any preparation of
the kitchen, but to the substance prepared. It was some-
thing not to be named. And now that this kickshaws or


Kidneys
267
quelque chose is never eaten except by the poorest of the
population, it might be as well to give up referring to it as
a delicacy enjoyed by the rich and luxurious.
KiD.—There are stories of kid being sold for house-
lamb. It is sad to think what the flesh of this little
creature will grow to when it becomes a goat, or when
old enough to be weaned. Too soon it turns to wicked-
ness and folly. While it is still a suckling, however, it is
very good, and may be roasted either as lamb or as hare
clothed with bacon.
· KIDNEYS nearly always mean sheep's kidneys or lamb's,
and these alone are of much account.
Broiled.—Skin them, split them, and fix them on skewers.
Dip them in oil or in butter, sprinkle them with a little
pepper and salt, and broil them first within and then with-
out. They should be underdone ; and when served a piece
of maître d'hôtel butter should be placed in the hollow of
each. It is essential that the cut surface of the kidney
should be first presented to the fire. When it is after-
wards turned away from the fire it forms a little cup with
its own gravy in it.
Tossed.—Split the kidneys, slice them, and toss them
in two or three ounces of butter, with pepper and salt.
Five minutes should be enough. Then shake a little flour
over them, add a glass of sherry, another of good gravy, a
shalot chopped fine, and mushrooms either whole, which
is most pleasant (only in this case they have to be passed
in butter beforehand), or sliced, which is least troublesome.
Let them cook for ten minutes. Another way is to leave
out the mushrooms and serve the kidneys with a border of
mashed potatoes.
Kidney Pudding.–Line a basin with puff paste No. 4.
Cut up some kidneys and put them into it with steak,
pepper and salt. If further seasoning be wanted take a


"268
Kirschenwasser
·
hint from the faggot of Duxelles. Cover and pinch it up,
tie it in a cloth, and steam it or boil it for an hour and a
half.
KIRSCHENWASSER.—This cherry-water is an excellent
· and wholesome liqueur made in the Black Forest from
geans. It is sometimes fiery, and many persons are
afraid of it who have no fear of maraschino, which is
also made from geans. The flavour of the Black Forest
cherry-water is, however, much more simple than that of
the Dalmatian liqueur, and pleases the palate longer; only
to put the two liqueurs on a level for fair comparison
it is necessary to manipulate the Kirschenwasser. Put
some into a strong glass, or better, into a saucer. Take a
lump of sugar, dip it into the liquid, set fire to it, and
replace it in the saucer, so that the whole may take flame.
When the flame expires and the sugar is dissolved, taste
the cherry-water, and see if it be not superior to any
Maraschino. It whiles away ten minutes after dinner in a
pretty little blue-flamed game to burn the cherry-water
and bring it to the perfection fit for my lady's taste.
KIT-KAT.—Truly the name of this gentleman deserves
to live, though it has had an evil influence on the mutton-
pies in which he excelled. Mr. Christopher Katt-
familiarly known as Kit-kat—was an admirable pastry-
cook. A celebrated club used to meet at his house-
Addison and Steele among the number--and took the
name of the Kit-kat Club. Their portraits were painted
by Sir Godfrey Kneller of three-quarter size—hence any
portrait of the same size is called a Kit-kat. But the
mutton-pies of Mr. Katt were so good that they have
raised an unhappy prejudice against all succeeding ones.
People always asked for the mutton-pies of Katt. The
sound of the name lived when its meaning was forgotten,
and no one now ever sees a mutton-pie without wondering
whether it comes of cat.


Kümmel
269
KROMESKI is a Polish word, which means no more than
the French croquette, and which in its first syllable might
find a fair equivalent in the English crumb. If it were
lawful to invent a word, it might be translated crumbikins.
The kromeski or Polish croquette is made in the usual
way with an addition. It is any croquette formed into a
little roll and wrapped round with a thin slice of the udder
of veal, or failing that with thin bacon. The veal udder
(which is always best) or the bacon is boiled beforehand,
is then sliced and wrapt round the croquette, which is
finally dipped into batter and consigned to the frying-pan,
from which it should come out crisp. This is the most
seductive of all the forms of croquette.
KÜMMEL.—There is a class of umbel flowers, including
anise, caraway or carvy, cumin, dill and coriander, which
have long had a reputation for their pungent flavour and
for their medicinal virtues—the chief of these virtues
being to correct flatulence. Dill-water was famous at one
time in England ; anise-seed is not unknown in English
nurseries, and the Anisette of Bordeaux has a good name
as an after-dinner liqueur on the Continent. Three hun-
dred years ago caraways at English tables always came on
with dessert, and were supposed to be carminative and
digestive. Caraways in palpable form have now disap-
peared from our tables, but only to return in the spirit
-in Russian bottles labelled Kümmel. Of all the liqueurs
of this class, it is the only one which seems likely to hold
its ground. It has a pleasant stimulating taste, and it is
supposed to be wholesome. When Russian kümmel is old
it forms crystals at the bottom of the bottle. The name,
which is German, is probably derived from a confusion of
the caraway or carvy with its neighbour cumin.


270
Ladies' Delight
JADIES' DELIGHT_Put eight ounces of apples,
eight of onions, and two of chilies, all chopped,
into a pickle bottle. Pour over them a pint of
white-wine vinegar which has been boiled with
a dessertspoonful of salt. In a couple of days it is ready
for use, and forms an agreeable pickle, to which oil may
sometimes be added on the plate. Lady Harriet St. Clair
gives this receipt as Gunner's Delight. Why Gunner's ?

LADY.—If thou be indeed a lady, remember thou art by
name a cook, or at least a baker. La- means a loaf of
bread ; -dy means a maid ; and lady means the breadmaid.
LAMB.—There is no serious difference—none whatever
of principle—in the treatment of lamb and of mutton.
One takes, however, more deliberately to cold lamb than
to cold mutton. And with lamb goes the mint sauce.
v Mint was a sweet but saucy girl transformed by Proser-
pine into a fragrant plant, and the pretty girl goes always
now with the tender lamb. The cooks are generally playful
on the subject of lamb. See the Epigram of lamb. Also
when lamb cutlets are sautées it is most frequent to surround
them with a border of truffles—which is called demi-deuil
-a kind of half-mourning for the gentle creature.
LAMPREY. — Considering the ancient renown of the
lamprey, one might expect to hear a good deal more of it
than we do at modern tables. Dr. Badham maintains that
the name is English, and that the English have imposed
their name on the rest of Europe. One of the English
names for a small river lamprey is pride, which has the
meaning of prick ; and the word lamprey means a lang
prey or pride.
This peculiar fish, which killed an English king by its
attraction, is found in the Thames, but it is best in the


Larks
271
Severn, which it ascends in April and May in order to
deposit its spawn. They are so rare at Christmas that
they are said to be worth a guinea apiece. The question
will be asked—Who in England eats lampreys at a guinea
apiece? It is an old custom for the city of Gloucester in
token of its loyalty to present a lamprey pie at Christmas
to the English sovereign, and the fish must be got at any
price. One would imagine that the kings and queens of
England would prefer to have the lampreys when they are
best—in April and May.
The lamprey should always have the gristle which sup-
plies the place of a backbone extracted, and he may be
cooked in any of the ways proper to eel; but in memory
of the orchards of Worcestershire and the whole Severn
country it is usual in those cases wherein wine might be
required to substitute cider—which is indeed often used for
white wine with other fish.
LARKS.—What is the use of laughing at the French
because they eat redbreasts, blackbirds, thrushes, the
humble chaffinch, and the familiar sparrow ? Do we not
eat skylarks, fieldfares, and wheatears in plenty? A great
number of larks are sent to London from Cambridge ; but
the chief supply for now 200 years appears to come from
Dunstable. Why Dunstable? Is there any mysterious
connection between larks and straw hats? Why must we
go to Bedfordshire for a lark? Is it there and there only
that the sky falls ? Wherever the sky falls and these birds
are caught, the physician of Queen Anne, Dr. Lister, like
his royal mistress a great gastronomer, judged of their
goodness by their weight. He laid down the rule, which
has ever since been held sound, that twelve larks should
weigh thirteen ounces, and that if below that weight they
are not good.
Roast Larks.— There is a difference between the French
and the English way—but both agree in taking out only


272
Laver
with oil of egg, og pepper
m run them
the gizzard. · The French put the larks on a little larkspit,
which, running from side to side, pins on them at the same
time bards of bacon. The larks are then roasted briskly
for eight or ten minutes, and served upon toast. The
English season the larks with chopped parsley, pepper,
salt, and nutmeg, rub them with yolk of egg, roll them in
breadcrumbs, sprinkle them with oiled butter, roll them
in crumbs again, run them on a larkspit, roast them for
fifteen minutes before a bright fire, basting them with
butter, and serve them with plenty of fried breadcrumbs.
Lark Pudding or Pie.For the perfection of a lark
pudding, go to the Cheshire Cheese, in Fleet Street, and
and ask for one. The contents of either pudding or pie
are the same. Take the gizzards out of two dozen larks,
and fry them lightly. Then put them into the pie dish or
the pudding bowl, with a pound of veal and another pound
of ham cut into small collops, seasoned with chopped parsley,
shalot, mushrooms, pepper, and salt—which are first, how-
ever, to be boiled for a minute or two in a tumberful of
broth and with a tablespoonful of flour. Bake the pie or
boil the pudding for an hour and a quarter.
LAVER. — Many an old-fashioned English gentleman
will be glad to see laver mentioned here and to be re-
minded of its excellence with roast mutton. It used to be
common enough in London; now it is scarce, though
there are clubs in Pall Mall and private families that never
fail of it. That it should fall into neglect is one of the
unfortunate results of modern civilisation, which produces
uniformity of fashion—the same cookery and the same
dishes all over the world. It is a great boast for the
French cooks that they have spread their system every-
where, and no doubt they deserve their success ; but it has
been one of the misfortunes attending upon this success
that it has cast into the shade and sometimes into utter
oblivion good things which happen to be unknown to the


Leason
273
French system. This laver is an example. The French
know it not—and for that matter indeed they are far behind
England and Holland in their knowledge of all marine
products. When French cookery took form there were no
railways, and the great metropolis of cooks was too far
away from the seaboard to enable them to do justice to
sea-fish. England, being nearly all seaboard, was in a
much better position to pronounce upon the way in which
salt-water fish should be cooked. And here upon their sea-
board the English can get any quantity of laver ; on the
coast of Scotland there is delicious dulse ; in Ireland there
is the carrageen or Irish moss. These and other seaweeds
that might be named are wonderfully nutritious, are
full of fine flavour, and are to be had for the gathering.
If the French cooks had made their mark in England,
would they have let the laver fall into disuse? They
would have made it as famous as the truffles of Périgord.
There is a charm about the weed which ought to have
kept it in the front as one of the distinctions of English
cookery.
• To prepare the laver, steep it in water to reduce the
salt. Sometimes a little carbonate of soda is added, to take
away bitterness. It is then stewed in water till it becomes
tender, and can be worked like spinach with broth or with
milk or with a pat of butter and a squeeze or two of
lemon-juice.
one of theed which ou of Périgord
LEASON—the French liaison—is a name given to any-
thing employed in sauces to give them body : such as
flour, cream, yolk of egg, cullis, caramel and glaze. It is
sometimes also in English called Thickening. Grimod de
la Reynière quotes with approbation the saying of a cook
he knew, that the immoderate use of these leasons had been
for more than a century the charlatanism of the French
kitchen. Calcined hones, burnt sugar, and torrefied juices
-the wildest extravagances—had been pitched upon to bind
18


274
Leek
sauces and give them character. Still these leasons have
their appointed place, and Grimod had a right to add, “The
art of leasons is one of the great secrets of the kitchen; for
the grand point is not to make the sauces thick, but
unctuous, and to bind together all the parts of a ragout so
that no one shall dominate.”
1. Leason of Flour.—This may be dredged into the sauce
by itself; but sometimes, to make sure of escaping knots,
the flour may be mixed with water, milk, or broth, and
passed through a strainer. Arrowroot is sometimes better
than flour.
2. Leason of Roux is made of butter and flour—twice
as much flour as butter. Mix them well and let them sim-
mer on a slow fire till they turn a bright red—but beware
of burning. The French have also their White Roux and
their Blonde Roux.
3. Leason of Butter.—The name is enough. But observe
that it should be added at the last moment ; for the less
it is cooked, and the more it conveys of its fresh natural
taste, the better.
4. Leason of Butter and Cream.—This also explains itself,
and should be left to the very last. It is used chiefly in
soups.
5. Leason of Eggs is made by beating the yolks and by
mising them in a basin with some of the sauce. This pre-
caution of a separate basin is to prevent the curdling which
might ensue if the yolks were poured directly into boiling
sauce.
Leasons of caramel, cullis, and glaze need no explanation.
The leason of blood once common has gone almost wholly
out of use, save with game—as in hare soup.
LEEK.—This was at one time so much cultivated in
England that the very name for a garden was leac-tun,
and the very name for a gardener was leac-ward. Still,
however, the plant holds a respectable place in the


Lettuce
275
flavouring of soups. The Scotch have a soup—Cock-a-
leekie—which makes much of the leek; and in the French
or rather Flemish kitchen the Leek soup and the Potato-
and-leek soup (that is, leeks added to potato soup) are in
considerable repute.
LEMON SAUCE.—Put the thin rind of a lemon with three
tablespoonfuls of sugar to simmer for twenty minutes in a
tumblerful of water. Some persons think it enough to
grate the lemon with lumps of sugar—but this detracts
from the clearness of the sauce. When the simmering is
ended take out the lemon-peel and add the strained juice
of the lemon. This is extremely simple, but it is nicer than
many a much more laboured sauce. Perhaps it is not
quite fair to add that it is sometimes supplemented with
gin. To be used with sweet entremets.
LENTILS.—For a garnish or as an entremet to be cooked
as haricots. For soup' it is made as pea-soup and called ✓
Chantilly, but by rights it should be called after Esau, who
loved it well and sold his birthright for it.
LETTUCE is not much cooked in England, and when
cooked is not much better than a cabbage ; but when raw,
and eaten in salad, it has a peculiarly pleasant taste, and
has a sedative action upon the nervous system which makes
one return to it eagerly, as one returns to tobacco and to
opium. The chemists obtain from the lettuce an inspissated
juice-called sometimes lactucarium, sometimes lettuce-
opium-wbich is said to allay pain, to slacken the pulse,
to reduce animal heat, and to conduce to sleep. When
Adonis died, it is reported that Venus threw herself on a
lettuce-bed to lull her grief and cool her desires.
The lettuce is known at our tables in two leading
varieties—the cabbage and the Cos lettuce. What Cos
means is not very clear : it is supposed to be equivalent to
the first syllables of gooseberry and horseradish, which are
to be identified with gross, and mean big. The French


276
Ling
know this lettuce as the Roman, and there are two accounts
of its introduction into France. One is that it came with
the Pope to Avignon ; the other that Rabelais admired it
mightily on his visit to Rome, and brought it back with
him to his native land. When the French make a salad
of either lettuce, they usually add to it, by way of garniture,
a chopped ravigote.
For the mode of cooking lettuce, see the French way of
cooking cabbage; or under the name of Peasant, see the
Flemish way of preparing it with peas.
LING.—James I. said that were he to invite the devil to
dinner he would give him a ling's head, a pig, mustard, and
a pipe of tobacco. His Britannic Majesty meant that all
these were horrible punishments which might righteously
be inflicted on his Satanic Majesty. If the Prince of Dark-
ness be a gourmet as well as a gentleman, it is probable
that he would have enjoyed his dinner. Many English-
men would no doubt agree with the king in disparaging
the ling ; but they are in error. Ling is the largest
species of cod, and we generally find that the largest cod
are the best. This great cod is certainly not to be despised.
His head, his tongue, his swimbladder or sound, his roe
and his liver are as good as in any cod. It is the liver of
the ling which makes most of the cod-liver oil prescribed
by physicians. Welcome the giant in the kitchen, and treat
him in every way as the more familiar cod.
LIVER.—Tell it not in Gath—but yet it is notorious that
there are three dishes which, if put upon the bill of fare in
a club, are devoured before all else ; so that at seven or
eight o'clock, when most members dine, there is nothing
left of them but the tempting words on the dinner-bill.
These dishes are, Irish stew, tripe and onions, liver and
bacon. What a tribute this to the homely cookery of
England! We shall speak of this calf's liver directly,
but it must give place to that of the goose, which in the


Liver
277
nimal. "Cramis necessary ise livers,” says
pies of Strasbourg and Périgord has a surpassing renown
as the most delicate meat in the world.
Goose Liver— Foie Gras.—“To obtain these livers,” says
Grimod de la Reynière, “it is necessary to sacrifice the
person of the animal. Crammed with food, deprived of
drink, and fixed near a great fire, before which it is nailed
by its feet on a plank, this goose passes, it must be owned,
an uncomfortable life. The torment would indeed be almost
intolerable, if the idea of the lot which awaits him did not
serve as a consolation. But this perspective makes him
endure his sufferings with courage ; and when he reflects
that his liver, bigger than himself, larded with truffles, and
lothed in a scientific pâté, will diffuse all over Europe the
glory of his name, he resigns himself to his destiny, and
suffers not a tear to flow." These liver pies come over to
England chiefly in terrines, and they keep longer in this
way; but they are nicest of all in a pâté—coming over
fresh in October and November. They also come in
tins —that is, the livers alone, without the accompanying
forcemeat—to be used in croquettes, kromeskis, and various
relishes. But, on the whole, this is a waste. The goose
liver is too good to be chopped up and thrown away upon
other foods; also it ioses something when eaten hot. It is
always best cold. If it is desired for an entremet, cut it
into pieces and imbed them in the amber of aspic jelly.
Duck Liver.—The liver of the Toulouse duck is prepared
in the same way, and is by most good judges preferred
even to that of the Strasbourg goose.
Fowl Liver.—There is a little dish which one never sees in
Paris at a first-class restaurant; but it is a great favourite
at the second-class ones with sanded floors in bye-streets.
Impale the livers on a skewer or larkspit, putting a small
piece of bacon between each, and toast them before the fire.
Calf's Liver.--This is the dish which the Lord Chancellor
Eldon was so fond of, and which, when he dined with!
George the Fourth, was always prepared for him. Cut


278
Liqueur
slices of liver and thin rashers of streaky bacon. Fry the
bacon first and drain it. Then flour the slices of liver, fry
them in the fat of the bacon till well browned, and dish
them in alternate order with the rashers of bacon. Pour
over them a sauce made by adding some good meat gravy,
with a dredging of flour, salt, and pepper, to the fat in the
frying-pan. Some people like a little acid in the sauce ;
and to suit their taste sliced gherkins or pickled walnuts
may be added to it.
LIQUEUR.—There is an idle question as to whether
brandy is a liqueur or not. Is rum ? is gin? is whisky ?
We can make arbitrary distinctions whenever we like ; but
it seems absurd to say that there shall be no liqueur which
is not sweetened. There is not much sweetness in whisky,
but the French long ago took usquebagh and raised it to
the rank of a liqueur with the wonderful name of Scubac.
The oldest of the very sweet liqueurs is undoubtedly
acqua d'oro ; but long before it was produced by the
Italians and brought into France by Catherine de Medici,
the aqua vitæ was in use. There is an old receipt of 500
years ago—that is, of the time of Chaucer—in which direc-
tions are given to prepare a fowl, to serve it in syrup, and
then, as we now do plum-pudding at Christmas, to pour
aqua vitæ over it and set fire to it. In the face of such
facts it is singular to find Frenchmen repeating one after
another that liqueurs were first invented' by Frenchmen
to comfort the old age of the Grand Monarch. Long
before Louis XIV. was born, Sully in 1604 complained
that the luxuries on which the French wasted most money
were festivities and liqueurs. There were two liqueurs at
that time in the greatest favour— Populo and Rossolis, the
former made of musk, amber, anise and cinnamon ; the
latter of sundew, angelica, coriander, fennel, anise and
lemon; and both, needless to say, warmed with alcohol and
mellowed with syrup. The Great King was particularly


Lobster
2-9
fond of the Rossolis, and one of the makers gave it his
name, whence arose the myth. Lorraine was then famous
for its liqueurs, and is said to be the native place of Parfait
Amour. This is more than doubtful. The Parfait Amour
of Lorraine was in great request, but there is reason to
think that it was originally Italian.
The religious orders were great distillers, and it is
curious to see how they patronise, bless and manufacture
liqueurs. It began in the mediæval search for the quint-
essence and the elixir of life ; it has ended by the monks
of La Grande Chartreuse insisting on a monopoly of their
tipple and fighting for their trademark in the courts of
law. There are only two liqueurs, however, in the present
day which are the genuine manufacture of holy friars,–
namely Chartreuse, produced by the Carthusians of the
great monastery near Grenoble, and Trappistine, distilled
by the good fathers of the Grace of God in the Doubs.
There is another liqueur, Bénédictine, which is said to come
from the Abbey of Fécamp, and which is consecrated with
the letters A. M. D. G. (Ad majorem Dei gloriam). It
really comes from Fécamp, and from the Abbey ; but the
Abbey has now no more to do with monks than Woburn
Abbey. It is the private factory of a layman who chooses
to make use of the religious name.
Putting the purer spirits out of account, the best known
liqueurs in the present day are Chartreuse, Curaçoa,
Maraschino, Kirschenwasser, Acqua d'Oro, Parfait Amour,
Noyau, Absinthe, Vermouth, Kümmel.
LOBSTER.—Government commissioners report that lob-
sters are getting fewer and smaller every year, and we all
know that they are getting dearer. The chief reason of
this is our own folly—a stupid admiration of coral. The
coral and spawn of the lobster, though nothing to taste, is
most excellent in colour, and for the sake of it millions
upon millions of eggs are annually destroyed. And yet a


280
Lobster
colour quite as good may be obtained by pounding the
shell in a mortar, mixing it with butter, cooking it in
the bain-marie for an hour, and then passing it through
a tammy; or if this red be not bright enough, it can
easily be made perfect with cochineal.
Lobster Butter is roughly described in the last sentence.
Add here that the coral and spawn are commonly used
either with or without the pounded shell. If the former
alone are used, pound them well, mix them with twice their
weight of butter, season them with salt and pepper, and
pass them through a silk sieve—but do not in any way
cook them. If the lobster shells are used, take equal
weights of shell and butter, pound them together, and
cook them for an hour; but mark that for the sake of
the colour the cooking is to be done in the bain-marie-
that is, at a temperature much below the boiling point of
water. When the butter thus coloured has been properly
cooled in water, seasoned with cayenne pepper and salt,
and passed through silk, it may be mixed with an equal
quantity of fresh butter. The reason of dividing the butter
into two quantities in this way is that the process of
cooking destroys the natural flavour of the fresh butter.
Therefore only half is used to cook the lobster shells, and
the other half is added uncooked when the first half is got
clear of shell.
Lobster Sauce.—Split a lobster, and use the coral, the
spawn, the shell, and the pith of the body to make lobster
butter as above described. Then make English sauce - but
only Act First (that is, the vehicle); and into this vehicle,
quite hot, put the tail and the claws, cut into small dice.
For the Second Act, the completion of the sauce, add the
lobster butter, and finish with a squeeze of lemon. Most
English receipts put in a word for a little essence of
anchovies. Let the anchovies be kept in their own place,
and not suffered to interfere with the delicate flavour of the
lobster.


Lope de Vega
281
Lobster Salad and Mayonnaise of Lobster.—A cookery
book without a paragraph on the lobster salad would be
considered sadly wanting. But this is sheer stupidity. A
lobster salad is nothing but the pickings of a lobster sur-
rounded with a salad. A Mayonnaise of lobster is precisely
the same thing with a Mayonnaise sauce instead of the
ordinary cruet sauce used in mixing the salad. If there is
anything more to be said, it has only to do with the orna-
mental arrangement of the dish-which, as so much de-
pends on the juxtaposition of colour, it is impossible to
teach in a book.
LOPE DE VEGA.—To the philosophical chemist this is
one of the most interesting personages in the whole range
of history. He was a poet; he was a dramatic poet; he
was the most prolific dramatic poet on record. He
required for the composition of his dramas a diet of bacon.
Toda es cosa vil
Toda a
'A donde falta un pernil.
This is a fact most important to the dramatists of England
-let them feed on bacon. It is all the more important
when we remember that Fuseli prepared himself for his
great pictures with underdone pork-chops, and that Thurtell
committed one of the most celebrated murders of modern
times after supping on the same dainty. In all three,
Lope de Vega, Fuseli, and Thurtell, we detect the domina-
tion of melodrama.
It is a pity that we have few such facts to put together.
We know that Dryden and Byron found Epsom salts au
wonderful help to their poetical invention ; and we know
that Napoleon made his great campaigns on chicken and
coffee, not unaccompanied with rum. Newton loved
tobacco and a redstreak apple. What would we not give
to know what were the aliments that nourished the brain
of Plato and directed the pen of Shakespeare ?
Was Lord Eldon a dramatic character? He was a very


282
Love in Disguise
slow but sure old judge, who started in life with a roman-
tic marriage—running away with his bride. He was
devoted to liver and bacon, and whenever he dined with
George IV. the cook had orders to have always ready a
dish of them. Here we find that whereas a diet of bacon
made Lope de Vega a dramatist, the combination of bacon
with liver fixed Lord Eldon ever more and more firmly on
the woolsack. These little contrarieties have to be studied,
and a vast field of science opens before us.
LOVE IN DISGUISE is a calf's heart stuffed, then sur-
rounded with forcemeat, next rolled in vermicelli, lastly
deposited in a baking dish with a little butter, and sent to
the oven. Serve it in the dish with its own gravy.
DACARONI is in England a common name
LAVA 2 given to
given to many preparations of Italian paste,
as well as to that particular kind which
Theodore Hook described as “ tobacco-pipes
made easy.” We are not too well acquainted with the
technical names for the ribbons, lozenges, ruffles, straws
and strings into which this pleasant paste is formed, and
for all the nice varieties of Genoese and Neapolitan manu-
facture. Even vermicelli would be classed in an English
kitchen among the macaronis—which is the oldest known
name for the species. In Chaucer's time the English
name was macrow, and it was applied especially to little
balls or puddings of paste.
Macaroni is a form of wheat-flour—a bread, in fact,
so palatable, so cheap, and so easily managed in cookery,
that it is a wonder to see it so little used in this country.
Macaroni and cheese is the most digestible form in which
bread and cheese can be presented—the only form in which
many weak vessels can tolerate it.


Macaroni
283
Macaroni à l'Italienne. Put some macaroni into eight
times its weight of boiling water. A pound and a pint
being equivalent quantities, there should be four pints of
boiling water for half a pound of the paste. Let it simmer
with a litt'e pepper and salt for twenty minutes—more or
less, according to the quality of the macaroni, particularly
its freshness. Test a piece between the fingers to know
when it is done enough. Then drain it from the water in
a colander, and put it back in the stewpan with as much
broth or gravy as it can absorb in a further simmering of
a minute or two. Half a pound of macaroni will take
about half a pint of broth or gravy. Some cooks omit
this process altogether, and in England it is common to
use milk instead of broth ; but our business at present is
with the Italian fashion-Macaroni à l'Italienne. In the
meantime have ready (for half a pound of macaroni) four
or five ounces of grated cheese, half Parmesan, half
Gruyère, and an ounce of butter. Shake half the cheese
into the macaroni, and toss it well ; then mix in the ounce
of butter ; finally shake in the remainder of the cheese,
and when all is well mixed by tossing, and it begins to get
stringy, serve it. Some people like the cook to be liberal
with the pepper-pot in this dish.
Macaroni à la Milanaise is the same as the foregoing,
with tomato sauce sprinkled over it in the dish ; but gene-
rally in this case there is some addition of meat—say a
cutlet-served over the macaroni.
Macaroni au gratin is still prepared in the same way. It
is then heaped up on a dish which will stand the fire. It is
sprinkled with grated cheese and with fine bread-raspings ;
it is bedewed with melted butter; it is put into the oven till
it becomes of a golden hue; and if the oven is not hot
enough, it may be finished with the salamander.
Macaroni Pudding.—Simmer macaroni in boiling water


· 284
Mace
for fifteen minutes, strain away the water, add some new
milk to it, and let it cool. When cold, mix into it three
or four beaten yolks of eggs; sweeten it with sugar, and
season it with nutmeg, cinnamon, and a glass of aoyau.
Put it into a pudding-dish with a layer of orange marma-
lade or apricot jam in the centre, and bake it.
Macaroni Soup.—Some macaroni added to a clear broth
for consommé. When any of the Italian pastes are used in
this way, they should be boiled first for five minutes in
water, otherwise they may dim the clearness of the broth.
Talleyrand laid down the law that with all the soups in
which macaroni, vermicelli, and other Italian pastes are
used, grated Parmesan should be served apart, and a glass
of Madeira afterwards.
MACE is but the outer shell of the nutmeg, and resembles
it in flavour. The nutmeg has been laughed out of cookery,
and is chiefly now represented in the aromas of the kitchen
by its husk—the mace.
MACEDON, or in French MACÉDOINE, is a name which is
supposed to have been used in the first instance to signify
a medley of vegetables, but which has so pleased the
French ear that it has been applied to almost any kind
of medley. It would not be classical, but it would be
unimpeachable, to translate The Princess : a Medley, into
La Princesse : une Macédoine. The French are at a loss
to account for this locution, which they have themselves
invented, and can only suggest, one after another, that it
must have had its rise in the fact that the Macedonian
Empire was a medley of many strange nations and races,
and that its name therefore was appropriate in the first
instance to a mixture of vegetables, and afterwards to any
mixture remarkable for its variety. The explanation is
characteristic of our friends across the water, and is even
worthy of Ménage.


Macedon
285
Under the name of Alexander it has been already ex-
plained that in France, in the middle of the seventeenth
century, a Macedon was the parsley of Macedon, which
in England was known as the Alexander. At the same
time this plant was being fast displaced by the celery,
which the Italians brought to perfection ; so that early in
the last century it was of little or no account, and the
name of Macedon became disengaged. It was given to
a medley of vegetables, not because they were a medley,
but because they were, so to speak, fricasséed—that is,
cut to pieces and served with a white fricassee sauce. What
is the connection ? Alexander the Great was supposed to
have brought haricots from India, and was said to have
liked them fricasséed—at least, that is the expressive word
used by the Marquis de Cussy (L'Art Culinaire, chap. viii.),
who has preserved the tradition, though without being very
sure of his classical authorities. Add to the haricots a
variety of other vegetables ; fricassee all together in the
fashion approved by the great Alexander—and what could
be more natural than to name the dish either Légumes à
l'Alexandre, or Légumes à la Macédoine ? In point of
fact, the Macedon, as at first created, was just such a dish ;
and it still survives as the standard form of the Macedon.
In course of time, it was forgotten that the name of
Macedon was given to the vegetables on account of the
(supposed) Macedonian method of serving them, and
popular imagination fixed upon variety as the most notable
mark of the dish. The name of Macedon came thus to be
transferred from the mode of cooking the vegetables to
their great variety ; afterwards it was applied to a variety
of fruits, and now it is used as a playful synonym for
mélange.
Macedon of Vegetables.—This is the Alexandrian or
Macedonian fricassee as imagined by the French cooks,
and transferred from the haricots, which the great
commander loved, to a medley of vegetables. Choose


286
Mackerel
the most delicate vegetables—haricot pods, haricot beans,
peas, asparagus, carrots and turnips. Shape the carrots
and turnips into peas and dice ; cut the haricot pods into
little lozenges ; take the asparagus points. Whatever the
vegetables chosen, boil them separately in salt and abun-
dance of water. Then drain them well and put them to-
gether in a stewpán to stir on the fire (but not so as to
mash them), with a good piece of butter, a slight dredging
of flour, some powdered sugar, salt, and a spoonful or two
of broth. After a few minutes' simmering in this way,
finish them either with some spoonfuls of Béchamel, or
with a leason of yolks and cream.
Salad of Macedon.—Choose, cut, boil and drain the
vegetables as before. Serve them either in one heap,
indiscriminately mixed together, or arrange them orna-
mentally in separate heaps. Cruet sauce.
Macedon of Fruits.—A variety of fruits embedded in a
mould of jelly.
MACKEREL.—A great authority, Grimod de la Reynière,
says: “The mackerel has this in common with good
women,he is loved by all the world. He is welcomed by
rich and poor with the same eagerness. He is most com-
monly eaten à la maître d'hôtel. But he may be prepared
in a hundred ways; and he is as exquisite plain as in the
most elaborate dressing ” (au maigre comme au gras).
This is immense praise, and is a complete justification of
the common English method of serving him-plain boiled,
with fennel or with gooseberry sauce. Nevertheless I give
my vote to those who assert that there is but one perfect
way of cooking a mackerel—to split him by the back,
broil him, and serve him with maître d'hôtel butter. Stilí
better, take his fillets and serve them in the same way.
The name of mackerel is supposed to be a corruption of
nacarel, a possible diminutive of nacre—from the blue and


Madeira
287
mother-o'-pearl tint of the skin. In one of the dialects ✓
of the south of France he is called peis d'Avril, the April
fish—or as we should say, an April fool, both because he is
a fool coming easily to the net, and because he first comes
in April. He is not only quickly caught, but he spoils so v
quickly that the law accords him a peculiar privilege :
he is the only fish that may be hawked about the streets
on a Sunday. For the same reason he is the only fish
besides the salmon that is much soused or marinaded in
this country.
The mackerel which comes to our shores is a great
puzzle to the philosophers. He has no air-bladder, yet he
is as buoyant and lively as fish can be. What then is the
use of an air-bladder?
MADEIRA.- If one thing could more decidedly than
another prove the low estate to which cookery has de-
scended in Paris, and expose the hollowness of the grand
receipts which still figure in the cookery books, it is
Madeira. There is scarcely any wine of great repute
which it is so difficult to procure genuine, and when
genuine it commands an exorbitant price. Yet from
morning to night, and from year's end to year's end, in
every restaurant in Paris, down to the meanest cabaret,
the assembled world is invited to eat beefsteaks cooked in
Madeira. In all the world there is not Madeira enough
for a week's consumption of the filet au Madère in Paris.
Besides which, the Parisian shopman has a wonderful
fancy for imbibing Madeira by way of fillip. He goes into
any café or cabaret and asks for a Madère. It is poured
out for him—a glass at three or four sous—and he is happy
with the pernicious stuff that bears the fine name. So in
the cookery books the great chefs, with an astonishing air
of grandeur, direct that a bottle of Madeira must go into
this sauce and half a bottle into that. Where are these
bottles and half-bottles of Madeira to be found ? It is a


288
Maids of Honour
vice of the French system—this grand style. There is a
receipt for making Spanish sauce which sets out in the
most noble of strains : “ Take twelve ducks, a ham, two
bottles of good old Madeira, and six pounds of fine truffles.”
Old Madeira too! Even if the old Madeira, worth a
guinea a bottle, were forthcoming, it would be spoilt in
such a decoction, without doing it more good than the
same quantity of Marsala worth twenty-one pence a bottle.
Would it not be better at once to come down to common
sense, and to pour out frankly the humble Marsala, which
is quite good enough for cooking purposes, and is certainly
better than any Madeira that finds its way into the kitchen ?
Take this for a verity—that if any one who knows Madeira
can lay his hand upon a bottle of it, he will drink it, and
he will not leave a drop for the stewpan.
Maids OF HONOUR.—It surely redeems the act of eating
from its grossness that imagination can so work upon us as
to transform a simple cheesecake into a maid of honour.
At Richmond we are permitted to touch with our lips a
countless number of these maids—light and airy as the
“airy, fairy Lilian.” What more can the finest poetry
achieve in quickening the things of earth into tokens and
foretastes of heaven, with glimpses of higher life and ethereal
worlds ? See Dariole.
MAINTENON.—The widow Scarron, afterwards Madame
de Maintenon, was married to Louis XIV. in his old age,
nursed him well, made him say his prayers, and fed him
with mutton cutlets carefully deprived of fat, for his poor
worn stomach. The old king was in a deplorable condi-
tion : he had lost his teeth ; caries of the jawbone set in ;
and the liquid which he tried to swallow came out at his
nose. In his younger days he had been tremendous with
his knife and fork. The Duchess of Orleans tells us in her
memoirs that she often saw him eat four platefuls of soup,
a whole pheasant, a partridge, a plate of salad, mutton


Maître d'Hótel
289
hashed with garlic, two considerable slices of ham, a dish
of pastry, and afterwards fruit and sweetmeats. The
Duchess, by the way, thought herself a very delicate
feeder; and it may help to show what pigmies we are
nowadays in the way of eating, if we recall what she says
of her own diet: “I seldom breakfast, and then only on
bread-and-butter. I take neither chocolate, nor coffee, nor
tea, being unable to endure these foreign drugs. I am
German in all my habits. I eat no soup but such as I
can take with milk, wine, or beer. I cannot bear broth-
it makes me sick, and gives me the colic. When I take
broth alone I vomit even to blood, and nothing can restore
the tone of my stomach but ham and sausages.” It is not
at all surprising that princes and princesses who fed after
this fashion ruined their digestion, and that Madame de
Maintenon had to keep a sharp eye on the mutton cutlets
destined for the interior of her royal spouse—the Grand
Monarch. The cutlets of the Marquise were done up in
curl-papers ; and it is to be hoped that the old king liked
them better for their nocturnal attire, and the thoughts
they might call up in vision of the lady—the last of his
loves—in her nightcap.
Cutlets à la Maintenon. The curl-papers of Madame de
Maintenon having been found inconvenient for a broil, and
not less so the pig's caul which has been sometimes substi-
tuted for them, Gouffé has suggested the following more
simple way of preparing these cutlets :- Take a neck of
nutton and cut it into cutlets, leaving two bones to each
atlet. Remove one of them, and flatten and trim the
cutlets. Split them in two with a knife, without separating
hem at the bone. Spread some reduced Duxelles sauce
inside. Refold the cutlets, and broil them for four minutes
on each side. Put a layer of Duxelles on a dish ; lay the
cutlets on it; pour over them some Duxelles sauce ; put
the dish in a hot oven for four minutes, and then serve.
MAÎTRE D'HÔTEL—the House Steward—ought to com-
19


290
Maraschino
mand the best that is in the house; and it shows his under-
standing of good cookery that he chooses for himself the
most simple of sauces.
Maître d'Hôtel Butter.—Knead cold fresh butter on a
plate with chopped parsley, pepper, salt, and lemon-juice.
The parsley should be first washed and scalded. A pat of
this butter is served either upon or under broiled meat or
fish, and melts on the dish. When a dish is said to be à la
Maître d'Hôtel, it is almost always served with this butter,
and rarely with what is called
Maître d'Hôtel Sauce, which is but English butter sauce
with parsley (scalded and chopped) added to it.
MALLARD.— See Wild Duck.
MARASCHINO.—A bitter-sweet liqueur made at Zara from
the kernel of the Marasca cherry or gean of Dalmatia.
The word implies bitterness; but the liqueur is made so
sweet that women take to it as flies to honey and as moths
to candles. It is a curious fact in natural history that the
fair sex prefer a sweet liqueur to the finest wine ; and they
have such a tendency to Maraschino, that Mr. Hayward
has proposed that whereas the toast most honoured among
men is Wine and Women, they should adopt as their
own return toast–Men and Maraschino. The French
have produced several variations of the true Maraschino of
Zara, and notably one which they call Marasquin de pêches.
The true Maraschino of Zara is made with but a small
quantity of peach kernels. It is inade from a small black
gean, which is fermented first with honey, then with the
leaves and kernels of the fruit, and is at last distilled and
sweetened with sugar.
MARINADE is a brine, souse or pickle, used sometimes to
prepare fish, flesh or fowl for the fire ; sometimes to pre-
serve them after they have left it. A marinade is either
cooked or raw ; but it is not usual for the books to give


Matelote
291
sal.
any account of the raw ones. The two following, which
are very simple, may be mentioned because they are of
frequent use in Horlys—that is, fillets of chicken, sole, or
game, which are dipped in batter and fried after enduring
two hours of the pickle.
Raw Marinade.—No. 1. A branch of parsley and half
an onion, chopped and mixed with pepper and salt into the
juice of a lemon. No. 2. A faggot of sweet-herbs and an
onion chopped and mixed with pepper and salt into oil and
vinegar.
Cooked Marinade.--A faggot of sweet-herbs, an onion, a :
shalot, a clove of garlic, a carrot, and four ounces of bacon,
chopped together first, then fried with an ounce of butter,
then salted and peppered, and boiled for a minute or two
in a pint of liquid, half water, half vinegar.
MARMALADE is a word' which we have come to use very
much as the French say Rosbif de mouton and Rosbif
d'agneau. It means a confection of quince—from the
Portuguese marmólo, a quince. But we say apple mar-
malade and orange marmalade.
MATELOTE is a stew of fresh-water fish. Take different
kinds—carp, eel, pike, tench, perch,—and cut them up ; but
it must be remembered that some of these fish, as the eel
and the pike, may require some previous cooking to put
them on the same level with the others. Put the pieces
into a stewpan with two sliced onions, a faggot of sweet-
herbs, two cloves of garlic crushed, two cloves, pepper and
salt. Moisten all so as to be well covered with a liquor
composed of red wine two-thirds and broth one-third.
Cook it on a brisk fire for twenty minutes ; then pass
the liquor through a tammy and keep the fish hot
in the pan. In the meantime the Relish or Ragout of the
fish will have been got ready as follows. Put half a pound
of butter into a saucepan, and toss in it till they take a fine


292
Matelote
colour two dozen small onions ; take out the onions, and
put in their place two good spoonfuls of flour, which is to
be worked into a roux. Add to this the strained liquor of
the fish, the little onions, and a like quantity of mushrooms.
Let the cooking go on till onions and mushrooms are suffi-
ciently done ; and then reduce the sauce on a quick fire
and remove the grease from it. Lastly, make a pyramid
of the fish upon a dish, pour the sauce over it, and garnish
it with crayfish and fried crusts of bread. The sauce thus
prepared, with the garnish of onions, mushrooms, crayfish
and crusts, is known as the Matelote Relish or Ragout.
White Matelote.—This is commonly called in France the
Matelote Vierge ; and it must not be mistaken for the
Normandy Matelote, which is also white. It is most fre-
quently used for eel, but it is good also for other fish. Cut
the eel into lengths of two or three inches, and set them to
boil for four or five minutes in salt and water, together
with two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. This preliminary step,
though necessary for eel, is not so for other fish. Melt in a
saucepan a piece of butter with a spoonful of flour; dilute
it with half white wine (French) and half broth, and add
to it pepper, salt, and a faggot of sweet-herbs. Place the
fish in it with a number of small onions and mushrooms,
and let it cook for twenty or twenty-five minutes. When
cooked, remove the fish, onions, mushrooms and faggot,
thicken the sauce with yolk of egg, finish it with lemon-
juice, and strain it over the fish, which will also be
garnished with the onions and mushrooms and with fried
crusts of bread. In effect this sauce is but a variety of the
white-wine sauce prescribed hereafter for sole.
Normandy Matelote.—This is the grand white Matelote
-a magnificent dish, but unbappily only possible during
the months when oysters and mussels are in season. It is
excellent for a brill or a chicken turbot ; but it was first
of all invented for the benefit of a large sole, and the


Mayonnaise
293
original receipt for it will be found under the title of Sole
à la Normande.
MAYONNAISE is nothing else than the ordinary French
salad mixture of oil, vinegar, pepper and salt, with the
addition of raw yolks of eggs; but its excellence depends
on the mode of working it up, which is very elaborate.
If properly handled, a raw yolk will incorporate into a
thick cream no less than a quart of oil. To make a good
Mayonnaise it is enough that two raw yolks should incor-
porate in this way a tumblerful of olive oil and a small
wineglassful of tarragon vinegar or of lemon-juice. The
result will be that those who object to oil will, if it be
good, forget that it is there, and those who object to raw
eggs will detect no trace of their rawness. The yolks,
white pepper and salt are first worked smooth with a
wooden spoon in a bowl; a few drops of oil and a few of
vinegar are added, and the spoon goes to work again ;
again a few drops, and the spoon is plied with great
patience ; and so on till the mixture thickens and the
whole of the oil and vinegar is absorbed. It is a long,
tedious process of stirring, although as it goes on the oil
may be added in larger and larger quantities. If great
care is not taken the mixture will decompose in the very
act of working it smooth ; sometimes in the heat of
summer it is necessary to manipulate it, holding the bowl
on ice. This is the sauce in its simplicity, and so made it
ought to be perfect.
Green Mayonnaise. For ordinary purposes a simple
receipt will suffice-namely, this : Add to the Mayonnaise
after it is finished à quantity of chopped ravigote. But
a more perfect receipt is as follows :-
Take a good faggot of ravigote, and blanch it for five or
six minutes in boiling water and salt. Then take it out to
get cold, and wipe it dry. Pound it in a mortar with a
spoonful of Mayonnaise, and pass it through a tammy.


294
The Lady Mayonnaise
Mix this with the Mayonnaise already prepared, and if the
colour is too pale, add a little spinach-green.
✓ Mayonnaise of Jelly.—There are no eggs in this, but
aspic or savoury jelly instead. Melt half a tumblerful of
jelly, and when it is cold but not yet firm, add to it a
wineglassful of olive oil, a tablespoonful of tarragon
vinegar, some salt and white pepper. Place the bowl if
possible upon ice or very cold water, and whip it with a
wire whisk till the sauce thickens and whitens. A little
lemon-juice added will improve its whiteness. For many
people this is enough ; but those who rejoice in oil will
go on adding it in the full proportion required for the
Mayonnaise made with eggs. Those also who like the
ravigote will add it as in the Green Mayonnaise. The
sauce is smoothest when it is not made until the last
moment. It has a great advantage over the Mayonnaise
made with eggs—that it can be made very quickly in any
quantity, and that it does not decompose if care is taken
to keep it cold. There are some also who consider this
Mayonnaise more delicate in taste than that made with
eggs.
These three receipts for Mayonnaise, a fourth receipt for
Remoulade, which is made with hard-boiled yolks, and a
fifth for Tartar sauce, which is the bedevilment of either
Mayonnaise or Remoulade, are all that it is necessary to
know for practical purposes. But there is much more to
be said as to the history of the Mayonnaise, and I proceed
to show that La Mayonnaise was a lady.
THE LADY MAYONNAISE.-- We need lay no stress on the
fact to begin with that the word Mayonnaise is more often
used as a noun than as an adjective. Rightly or wrongly,
it is used sometimes as an adjective; for we say Sauce
Mayonnaise just as people sometimes also say Sauce
Béchamel. Rightly or wrongly, too, the word is still more
often used as a substantive, as when we say a Mayonnaise ;


296
The Lady Mayonnaise
arrogant style. He was very angry with Grimod for
daring to say that the language of the kitchen is not
remarkable for its purity. It is in the great kitchens, he
said,—“ c'est là que les puristes resident :” a very startling
statement to those who are aware that no sets of terms in
either the French or the English language are so corrupt
and obscure as those connected with food.
Be that as it may, Carême declared loudly that with
regard to this particular word it was the men of letters
squabbling over the comparative merits of Mayonnaise,
Bayonnaise, and Mahonnaise, who were corrupt and igno-
rant; that the cooks knew better-they were the true
guides to pronunciation and with them the genuine word
was Magnonnaise. He maintained that any one could
see at a glance that the name was intended to suggest
the difficult process of manipulating the sauce. It came
from the verb manier, and referred to the continual manie-
ment which is needed to produce it. Carême was not
always of this opinion, for he has in one curious passage,
in which he enumerates the list of dishes named after
French localities, mentioned Magnonnaise among them, as
if this sauce too were taken from the name of a place.
There is no such place as Magnon, however, and no one
with the instincts of a philologer could derive Magnonnaise
from the verb manier—which, to say no more, does not
account for the introduction of the n at the commencement
of the third syllable. The grammarians could only deride
Carême's attempt at etymology, and they dismissed his
theory on the spot as not worthy of notice.
These are discussions which belong to the first quarter
of the century; and now that we have come to the last
quarter it will be asked—What are the final opinions of
French philologers, after fifty years of research which have
thrown a flood of light on the sources of the French
language? The leading dictionaries of the present day
have no clear opinion to express upon the subject; they


The Lady Mayonnaise
297
کریں ۔
resort to conjecture; and their conjecture is that the ex-
planation which was least regarded in the beginning of
the century may after all be right-Mahonnaise, in honour
of the siege of Mahon. Littré and others give this now as
the probable but not certain origin of the word. There is
a great difficulty, however, in the way of accepting it-a
difficulty which the lexicographers would have seen clearly
if they had not thought it beneath them to pay much
attention to the very curious literature of the French
kitchen. The capture of Mahon was effected in 1726, and
there is no other known instance at that period, or for
long after it, of a dish or dainty being named after a
victory. Dishes were named after the places where they ✓
were invented, the races who partook of them, or the great
nobles who patronised them. It was not till the battle of
Marengo—seventy-four years after the fall of Mahon-
that the field of a great victory gave its name by a mere
accident to a dish: the chicken à la Marengo. To guess,
therefore, that Mahonnaise comes from the siege of Mahon
is to antedate enormously a modern phantasy ; and further-
more to assume an exceptional phraseology, when the
analogy of à la Marengo would lead one to expect à la
Mahon as the name for a sauce which does not properly
belong to Mahon and has only an honorary connection
with it.
• What then is the true word—Mayonnaise, Bayonnaise,
Magnonnaise, or Mahonnaise ? I am about to maintain
that the last of these spellings, now adopted by the chief
authorities, is the most correct--that is, nearest to the
original ; but to suggest a different explanation for it.
The fact is that though Carême made a great mistake in
working out his explanation, he is entitled to more atten-
tion than he has received in his statement as to the
tradition of the kitchen. He does not say absolutely, but
he leaves it to be understood, that in his culinary circle the
name of the sauce was everywhere supposed to bear special


298
The Lady Mayonnaise
reference to the mode of its manipulation. That is an
important fact, and it gives a clue to the mystery if we
follow it up. Carême, we have seen, fixes upon the verb
manier not only as indicating the meaning of the word,
but also as indicating its root. This is clearly wrong.
But may there not be some other word ?
In the old Provençal tongue, the dead language of
the Troubadours, which contains the earliest literature of
Modern Europe, which seemed at one time as if it would
be the dominant speech of France, and which though
finally displaced by the dialect of the North, by French,
the language of the Trouvères, yet contributed to it very
many words and forms of words, many that we know, but
not a few doubtless that we never suspect,-in this ancient
tongue, which spread over Southern France and gave its
name to Languedoc, there was a verb one of the forms
of which was mahonner, and one of the meanings of which
was to fatigue. The verb was spelt in many and extremely
diverse ways—not only mahonner and majhonner, but
mechaigner, mehagner, maganhar, mehenier, and others ;
it had also many and extremely diverse meanings,—to
strike, to kill, to wound, to mutilate, to box, to maltreat,
as well as to worry and fatigue. If the reader is inclined
to allow that the verb mahonner, still more majhonner from
its spelling, has a fair surface claim to be deemed the
original of Mahonnaise and Mayonnaise—he may still kick
at its meaning and ask how are we to get a salad mixture
out of a verb meaning to fatigue? The process is very
simple. One of the most common French phrases for
mixing a salad is to fatigue it; and this phrase is so odd
that in connection with it a tradition has always been
preserved, and is known to most persons of any information,
that it is of Provençal origin. The verb mahonner, as
applied to the mixing of a salad, conveyed an image of
that exaggerated and picturesque kind which we associate
with slang or cant. I do not mean anything coarse or
✓


The Lady Mayonnaise
299
vulgar--in this case quite the contrary; I mean only v
words which are lifted out of their natural sense into a
special, figurative and technical meaning, and which have
a peculiar currency on the lips of the initiated. Springing
up in the dialect of the South, it would always be strange
and sometimes incomprehensible to those who spoke the
dialect of the North. For them for the French-it would
be translated into fatiguer, and the two verbs mahonner
and fatiguer would exist concurrently in French. The
former at length dropped out of sight altogether, surviving
only in the derivative Mahonnaise or Mayonnaise, with a
vague tradition preserved in the kitchen down to the time
of Carême that the name had reference to the manner of
mixing or fatiguing the sauce.
The explanation, however, is not yet complete ; there
is a flaw in the evidence. How are we to account for
the final syllable of Mahonnaise, which usually belongs to
adjectives connected with place ? and how are we to con-
struct any likely adjective from the active verb Mahonner ?
In this case we must be prepared to accept any word
which could by licence be twisted into anything like
Mahonnaise, for the Provençal spelling is so loose and
takes so wide a range (as will have been seen above in
the second syllable of Mahonner, mechaigner, mehagner,
maganhar, mehenier), that even a distant resemblance
might satisfy us. But from an active verb mahonner
there is no such adjective possible. The nearest thing
we can create is a participial adjective mahonnant or
mahonnante, or such a word as mahonnable ; and these
are nothing like what we want. The fact is that the v
word Mahonnaise is not an adjective at all, but a feminine
substantive, applied to women. According to the laws
of modern French spelling, it ought to be Mahonneur for
the masculine, and Mahonneuse for the feminine—one
who fatigues. So we have danseuse from danser, char-
meuse from charmer, and the old word gouverneuse from


300
· The Lady Mayonnaise
gouverner. About the spelling we need not trouble be-
cause of its extreme laxity ; the Mahonneuse of modern
French spelling might very easily be Mahonnaise in the
old corrupt and diversified Provençal pronunciation ; it
will not confound anyone who catches the analogy
in Trouveur and Trouvère. The real difficulty is in the
sense. Unable to make a likely adjective from the
verb, we have made a feminine noun—and what have
we gained ? We have gained a noun which curiously
and unexpectedly fits into what is inore than a tradition
like Carême's tradition of the kitchen—it is a historical
V fact. We have gained a sudden and undesigned coinci-
dence which is one of the tests of truth. In the olden
time a salad was mixed by pretty women, and they did
it with their hands. This was so well understood that
down at least to the time of Rousseau (Littré gives a
quotation from the Nouvelle Héloise, vi. 2), the phrase
retourner la salade avec les doigts was used to describe a
woman as being still young and beautiful. “Dans le
siècle dernier,” are Littrés own words~"les jeunes femmes
retournaient la salade avec les doigts : cette locution a
disparu avec l'usage lui-même.” And this is the meaning
of the feminine noun. A feminine adjective, if such could
be found, would present no difficulties; it would neces-
sarily be Sauce Mahonnaise. But if a likely adjective
from the verb mahonner is impossible, and we have only
a noun to fall back upon, why not Mahonneur-a man who
fatigues the salad ? It is Mahonneuse or Mahonnaise-a
woman, because it was she in her youth and beauty who
fatigued the sauce ; it was she who with her fingers
fatigued the salad.
If these considerations be well founded, the proper name
for the sauce is not Sauce Mayonnaise, but Sauce à la
Mayonnaise—or still more simply, La Mayonnaise. And
we can now see why the word is more often used as a
v noun than as an adjective.


302
Meringues
not one of which is satisfactory. I therefore venture to
make a conjecture. It wants but one little fact, which
may hereafter be found, to raise the conjecture into a
demonstration.
The chief point to be observed is that a meringue is
white of egg worked into shape. It is therefore in the
first instance to be presumed that the name means white
of egg, or simply white. The fact which I have failed to
find, and which if found would be decisive, is that meringue
means white ; but there are other facts which distinctly
point that way. First of all, look at some parallels in the
English language. We have white, white of egg, whiting
the fish, and whiting the chalk. Now, in French the
name for a whiting is merlan, in old French, merlenc and
mellenc. In French, also, the name for a white clay is
marne, formerly merle and marle. Is it not a fair infer-
ence that, as in English whiting the fish and whiting
the chalk are connected with the root white, so in French
merlan the fish and marne the chalk are equally con-
nected with a root meaning white, which would also yield
meringue for the white of egg? There is something to
confirm this view in the Latin language. The French
marne (in the old form and in the English language
marle) comes from the Low Latin margila, a diminutive
of marga. But it has already been shown in these pages
(see Gallimawfrey) how easy it is in various languages to
drop the initial m. The Mac of the Gael becomes the Ap
of the Welsh. The monos of the Greeks becomes the unus
of the Latins. Seize this fact thoroughly, and it will be
understood that the Low Latin margila is a doublet of the
classical Latin argilla ; and we know that argilla must be
traced back to argos, white. If, therefore, argilla had a
dialectical variety—margila, it may reasonably be inferred
that argos had also a dialectical variety—margos, which
would have the meaning of white, and contain the germ
of meringue, as something white. There can be no more


304
Mincemeat
MINCEMEAT.-Two pounds of unsalted bullock's tongue ;
two pounds of ox-kidney fat; two pounds of stoned raisins ;
three pounds of currants ; two pounds of good apples ;
half a pound of blanched almonds, with a few bitter ones :
mince all these separately, then mix them and add to them
minced-half a pound of candied citron and orange peel;
one ounce of best cinnamon and cloves; the juice and zest
of three lemons ; half an ounce of salt; half an ounce of
allspice; one pound of sifted sugar; half a pint of sherry;
half a pint of brandy or pineapple rum; half a pint of orange-
flower water. Mix the solids well before the liquids are
added. Press all into jars, which are to be close covered
and put aside for some days before use.
MINCE PIES.—Line some pattypans with a rich puff-
paste, No. 4 or 5. Fill them with mincemeat; roof them
over, making a small hole in the centre with a fork, and
bake them for half an hour.
MINCING KNIFE.—In most English kitchens there is used
a chopper with a single blade, which does its work with a
great expenditure of labour and loss of time. Try and get
a large three-bladed knife. Imagine a semicircular blade
like the Turkish scimitar which we see in pictures and
sometimes in museums. Imagine three of these fixed
parallel together, an inch apart, with one handle for all at
each end. Imagine the ease of working such a knife by
rocking it from end to end as compared with the ham-
mering of a single-bladed chopper commonly in use.
MINT SAUCE.—Two tablespoonfuls of green mint,
chopped fine ; a tablespoonful of brown sugar (or more,
according to taste); and not far from a tumblerful of
vinegar.
MIREPOIX.—It is probable that one of these days the
V common sense of mankind will rise in 'rebellion against


Mirepoix
305
this word and abolish it. What is the Duke of Mirepoix
to us because his wife was amiable to Louis XV.?
If she be not fair to me,
What care I how fair she be ?
The Duke of Mirepoix made himself convenient to the
king, and his name is now convenient to the people—the
convenient name for the faggot of vegetables that flavours
a stew or a sauce.
Take two carrots, two onions, two shalots, two bayleaves, ,
a sprig of thyme, a clove of garlic ; mince them very small
with half a pound of fat bacon and half a pound of raw
ham, and pass them in butter with pepper and salt. The
Mirepoix is from this moment complete. It will afterwards,
according to need, be moistened and heated with wine, and
then it will be a Mirepoix of white wine or of red—to be
added to stock or to sauce, to simmer in it and give it a
flavour.
The published receipts say nothing about the mincing.
The direction is to simmer the Mirepoix for a couple of
hours in order to extract the flavour, and then to strain it.
On the other hand it will be found that to mince the
Mirepoix fine with a three-bladed mincing knife (see
Mincing Knife) will in ten minutes save a vast amount
of time in cooking. It may require two hours to cook
an onion or a carrot whole and to extract all their flavour ;
but onions, carrots, and bayleaves reduced to minute par-,
ticles yield all their excellence in a minute or two.
In another point the foregoing receipt differs from the
received authorities. They enjoin a quantity of veal and
much more ham. But the veal is waste—there is little or
no flavour in the infant beef, and its only use is to render
the Mirepoix gelatinous. There is not the same objection to
the ham ; but it is not too much to say that since Spanish
notions on cookery became fashionable in France, now nigh
two hundred years igo, the great cooks of Europe have
become demented about ham, and have made all their
20


306
Moisten
sauces run upon gammon. More about this ham infatua-
tion when we come to discuss the theory of the sauces.
MOISTEN.—A mild word to be understood in the sense
of Mrs. Gamp, who wished to have the gin-bottle near her
on the chimneypiece in order that she might moisten her
lips when so dispoged. To moisten is to put upon meat in
a stewpan as much liquid—be it water or broth—as will
stew it.
MULLAGATAWNY has been already discussed in the article
on Gallimawfrey. It may be described as a cock-a-leekie
without the leeks and the prunes, but with rice instead,
and with spices, which are of the curry class.
Cut down a fowl and boil it for half an hour in two quarts
of water, with two apples, four onions and a clove of garlic,
which have been cut to dice and fried in butter. Then
take a curry powder consisting of coriander, cassia, pepper,
and turmeric; mix it with some rice-flour ; stir it into the
fowl broth; and let all simmer till the soup is smooth and
thick as cream. Flavour it with the juice of a lemon ;
pass it through a strainer, to get rid of onion shreds; serve
the fowl and soup in a tureen—and rice either apart, which
is the better way, or in the soup.
MULLET.—See Red and Grey.
MUSHROOMS require a volume to themselves. It is not
possible here to give them more than a few lines. Their
varieties are infinite; and there is yearly an immense waste
of them, through our inability to discern between the
edible and the poisonous ones. Professor Schiff has de-
monstrated that the non-edible mushrooms have a common
poison, muscarina, and that its effects are counteracted
either by atropine or daturine. Italian apothecaries now
keep these alkaloids in the rural districts where the con-
sumption of the non-edible fungi is apt to occur. Those
mushrooms which are edible are full of nourishment and


Mussels
307
of the most exquisite flavour. I have seen people with
their eyes shut eat mushrooms—a variety which the
French call ceps—and heard them declare that they were
eating flesh. Of the enormous value of the mushroom in
sauces and ragouts the reader has seen ample proof in the
course of these pages. For the treatment of mushrooms
by themselves there are two leading receipts.
Stewed Mushrooms.—These are the Mushrooms à l'olivier
invented by La Varenne, and since developed into the
Duxelles. See Duxelles; and see also Truffes à l'Italienne,
which is but another form of the same receipt with the
substitution of truffles for mushrooms.
Grilled Mushrooms. — Peppered, salted, buttered and I
grilled. When, in addition to this, they are served with a
sauce of oil or melted butter, to which parsley, young
onions and garlic (all chopped) are added, together with
the juice of a lemon, they are called Mushrooms à la
Bordelaise.
MUSSELS are the oysters of the poor, said Grimod de la
Reynière, and they ought to be favoured also by the rich,
for there is scarcely a shell-fish which surpasses them in
flavour. Especially in these days, when oysters are dear,
mussels might occasionally take their place in sauces
and stews. The French are wise, for they still hold the
mussel in regard—it is one of the chief attractions of that
noble ragout, the Normandy Matelote. In England—be
it said with shame—the mussel is chiefly used for bait ; it
is rarely to be seen at any good English table—it is only
in houses where the French style of cookery reigns that it
is to be had. People are afraid of mussels because once
or twice they have proved to be hurtful. So have mush-
rooms; so have melons : but still mushrooms and melons
are eaten. Mussel-poisoning must be extremely raro—or
we should know more about it. Our science is not so


308
Mustard
backward that if, among the myriads of musşels which the
French consume, the cases of poisoning were numerous,
we should not be able to detect the cause. If care is taken
not to eat the mussels in those months which have no
letter R in their names there is little danger.
Mussel Sauce.—Proceed as for oyster sauce. Let there
be no lack of mussels, and remove the hard parts.
MUSTARD, in the form which at present prevails in
England, was not known before 1729. Its old English
name was senvy, from sinapis. The seeds, either whole or
coarsely pounded, were boiled in vinegar or must—whence
the name, meaning a kind of pickle. The French to this
day adhere very much to the old form ; they grind the
seeds to a fine flour, mix them with tarragon vinegar, and
v present them for use thus moistened. English mustard
as we now have it was the invention of an old lady,
Mrs. Clements of Durham. She ground the seeds in a
mill exactly like wheat, and sold it as a very fine flour.
She kept her secret and made a little fortune out of it,
trotting about from town to town on a packhorse for
orders, and contriving to secure the patronage of George I.
From her place of manufactory it came to be called Durham
mustard ; though in fact it was no longer mustard—that
is, something steeped in must.
MUTTON.— I hope it will not be found very inconveni-
ent, but there has been so much to say about mutton under
special and interesting names, that there is little left for
remark under its own proper name. The subject of mutton
broth has been discussed under the names of Scotch Broth
and Hotch Potch. The principles of boiled mutton have
been set forth in the article on Boiling. The principles of
roast mutton are set forth in the articles on Roasting, on
the Saddle of Mutton, and on the Breton way of serving
the gigot or leg. The Carbonade has an article to itself,


Navarin
309
and is further handled in the articles on the Shoulder of
Mutton and on the Prince of Soubise. The stews of mutton
will be found amply described under the various names of
Haricot of Mutton, Hotch Potch, Irish Stew, Navarin, and
Ragout of Mutton. There remain the mutton chops and
cutlets, for which directions will be found in the articles on
the Grill, on the cutlet à la Bretonne, à la Maintenon, à la
Soubise. The mutton pie, otherwise known as the Devon-
shire, the Cornish or Squab pie, is described in the article
on Irish Stew. The smaller mutton pie should have been
described in recording the merits of the celebrated Kit-
Kat. And there is more about mutton in the articles on
Kidneys, Sheep's Head, Sheep's Trotters and Epigrams.
TAVARIN is a stupid word which has arisen
from a desire to get rid of the unintelligible
and misleading name, Haricot de mouton,
without falling back on the vulgar phrase,
Ragoût de mouton. It was at first selected with a
thought of punning upon the navet or turnip, which is
so prominent in the Haricot de mouton as not exactly
to have suppressed, but to have thrown into the back-
ground and concealed in the sauce, the other vegetables
carrots and onions—which went along with it. On this
understanding the word may be allowed to pass, although
punning titles are not to be desired. Let us say, therefore,
that a navarin is a ragout of mutton in the garniture of
which the navet or turnip is supreme. When the combined
English and French fleets gained the battle of Navarino,
Lord Aberdeen, who was the English Foreign Minister
described it as “an untoward event,” and the phrase has
never been forgotten. Let it be a warning to the cooks,


310
Navarin
and never let it be said that the Navarino of the kitchen is
an untoward event.
Take the breast of mutton and cut it in pieces, which
are to be well trimmed of fat. Line the bottom of a
saucepan with slices of onion, on which lay the mutton,
and with it two sliced carrots, two bayleaves, some
thyme, and half a pint of broth, which is to be boiled
until it falls to a glaze. Then add two ladlefuls either
of broth or of water, together with salt, and let all
simmer for two hours ; at the end of which time the
sauce, all except the thyme and bayleaf, is to be pressed
through a sieve, and the meat may be boned. Now turn
some turnips nicely, and pass them in butter till they are
of a light-brown tint: dredge them with a tablespoonful
of flour, give them a shake, pour over them the sauce of
the mutton, add a pinch of sugar, and let them cook.
When they are done enough, see that the sauce is not too
thin. If too thin, reduce it, first taking out the turnips.
In any case, remove the top fat. Then add turnips and
sauce to the mutton, and let them get hot together.
A quicker way.--Cut the mutton (be it neck, shoulder
or breast) in pieces, and trim them. Make a roux of
butter and flour, in which as soon as it takes colour
the meat is to be fried for a quarter of an hour. Hot
water is then to be added, and the meat turned in it
till it boils; and the scum can be removed. In the mean-
time turnips are prepared as before, and are added to the
mutton, along with pepper, salt, a faggot of herbs, and an
onion pricked with a couple of cloves. Cook this for three-
quarters of an hour. Finally take out the onion and the
faggot of herbs ; get rid of all grease, add a pinch of sugar,
and see that the salting is right.
It must be evident that the above ragout may be made
to include other vegetables—as a Jardinière—either in
place of the turnips or in addition to them. The English
have long since made up their minds that turnips and


Nesselrode Pudding
311
mutton go well together—but they always understand by
this, boiled mutton and turnips plain boiled or mashed.
Here it will be seen that the French are so far in accord,
but they insist upon a stew in which both the mutton and
the turnips shall be browned ; and to attain this fine con-
junction pure and simple, they have gradually put out of
sight, though they have not utterly swept away from their
world-famous ragout or haricot, the other vegetables, the
onions and carrots, which used to figure in it. May I
recommend my English friends to study this simplicity.
Better take one good friend—the turnip—to your breast.
of mutton, than trouble it with a crowd of vegetables.
NEBUCHADNEZZAR, king of Babylon, a great name in
the chronology of the table. He invented salads, was v
accused of eating grass, and like most originals was said
to be mad.
NECTARINE is a smooth peach, and there are not a few
who maintain that it is the best of all peaches. It is a
curious fact that on a peach tree, not only may branches
be found bearing the nectarine perfect in every way, but
also on the same branch fruits will appear which are
peach on one side and nectarine on the other. Botanists
are unable to tell what makes the difference.
NESSELRODE PUDDING was invented many years ago by
Mony, cook to the famous Count Nesselrode. When
Carême heard of this, which is perhaps the most perfect
of the iced puddings, he almost burst with envy. He
could not but praise the pudding—but he declared that
Mony took the idea of it from the chestnut pudding
invented by himself. Moreover, he upbraided Mony for
conferring the name of a foreigner upon so good a
pudding. All the good cooks, he insisted, are French,
and therefore all the good names should be French too.
Carême, however skilful as a cook, was a blazing cox-


312
Nesselrode Pudding
comb; he gave the names of his physician and private
friends to many of his dishes, and he fancied that the
world would care enough for his decree to accept these
names for ever. Surely if Mony had a right to accept
service with Count Nesselrode, he had a perfect right to
give his patron's name to the great work of art which he
evolved under his roof. The following receipt is trans-
cribed from Gouffé, who announces that he had it direct
from his old friend Mony :-
“Peel forty chestnuts ; blanch them in boiling water for
five minutes ; peel off the second skin, and put them in
a stewpan with a quart of syrup at 16°, and a stick of
vanilla. Simmer gently till the chestnuts are done, drain
and press them through a fine hair sieve.
“Put eight yolks of egg in a stewpan with half a pound
of pounded sugar and a quart of boiled cream. Stir over
the fire without boiling till the egg begins to thicken.
Add the chestnut purée, and press the whole through a
tammy cloth into a basin, and add a gill of Maraschino.
“ Stone one quarter-pound of raisins and wash and pick
one quarter-pound of currants. Cook both together in
one half-gill of syrup at 30° and one gill of water ; drain,
and let them cool.
“Put a freezing pot in the ice ; pour in the chestnut
cream and work it with the spatula ; when it is partly
frozen, add three gills of whipt cream, and continue work-
ing with the spatula until the cream is frozen ; then add
the currants and raisins, and put the pudding into an ice-
mould ; close it, and put some butter on the opening, to
prevent any salt or water penetrating inside ; embed the
mould in ice, and let it remain there for two hours.
“Make the sauce as follows : Put three gills of boiled
cream in a stew pan, with eight yolks of egg and a quarter-
pound of pounded sugar ; stir over the fire without boiling
till the egg begins to thicken ; take off the fire, and stir
for three minutes more. Strain the custard through a


Nowell
313
tammy cloth and add half a gill of Maraschino. Put the
sauce on the ice until it is very cold, without freezing.
Turn the pudding out of the mould on to a napkin on
a dish ; and serve with the sauce in a boat.”
This is the most insidious of puddings, and it was a
matter of necessity to give it the name of some great
diplomatist. The quantities as above rendered are large,
but it is easy to take a half, a third, or a fourth.
NEWTON, SIR ISAAC, was particularly fond of red-streak
apples-his one great animal passion. A curious illustra-
tion of the fact that a love of food concentrated in some
one direction may lead to the grandest discoveries. The
interest which he took in a falling apple led to the discovery
of the solar system.
NOTTINGHAM PUDDING.—Under the heading of Apple.
NOWELL.-It would be unpardonable, in a work which
treats seriously of good cheer, to forget the name of Dean
Nowell, classed by Fuller among the worthies of England.
This excellent divine had a truly apostolical character,
being a fisher of men as well as of fishes. To him we are v
indebted for the Church Catechism, which instils into the
infant mind the elements of religious knowledge. To him
also we are indebted for the discovery of bottled beer. It
· appears, according to Fuller, that on one occasion he was
fishing in the Thames—but at the very time when he was
trying to catch perch to carry them to the gridiron, Bishop
Bonner was trying to catch him to tie him to the stake.
The reverend gentleman heard of it, and fled in haste,
leaving untasted in a safe place a bottle of beer which her
had filled in the morning. Bonner's day did not last long,
and Dean Nowell was soon able to return to his old haunts.
Fishing as usual, he went to look after his bottle of beer,
and found that it had turned to something like a gun—it v
went off like a shot. Thus Nature, which is ever kind,


Oil
315
WIL.—Pliny makes an interesting remark about
oil. “It is not with olive oil as with wine ;
for by age it acquires a bad flavour, and
at the end of a year it is already old.
This is a wise provision of nature. Wine, which tends
to drunkenness, she invites us to keep ; but she has
not willed that we should be thus sparing of oil, and
so has rendered its use common and universal by the
very necessity of using it while fresh.” The French are
wonderfully proud of their olive-trees, but the chief supply
for England comes from Italy and Spain : from Italy we
get 12,000 tuns a year, from Spain 5,000. The next lar-
gest supplies come in order from Portugal, Tripoli, Malta,
Greece; and from France we obtain no more than 300 tuns
-a tun being 252 gallons. The French pride themselves
on the fact that their olives are gathered in November
and December, while in Italy they are left on the tree all
winter, and are culled in February and March. The olive
in poetry betokens fruitfulness ; but if French accounts be
true, there is not much felicity in the emblem. An olive-
tree at twelve years of age yields on an average three kilo-
grammes of olives, making 240 grammes of oil, worth 60
centimes ; at twenty years its yield is worth 1 fr. 50 c.; at
thirty years, 2 fr. 55 c.; at forty years 3 fr. 80 c. ; and at a
hundred years 9 fr. 95 c. The whole of this fruitful tree
being at twelve years old worth only sixpence, what are
the olive-branches worth of which we hear so much ?
Good olive oil is not over abundant; and that is indeed
one of the reasons why many people in England cannot
bear it. About 1000 years ago (A.D. 817) it was so v
scarce in Europe that the council of Aix la Chapelle
authorised the priests to manufacture anointing oil from
bacon. Imagine divine right shed over kings in the
essential oil of swine ; and imagine how, as the Hindoo v


Omelet
317
beef in the centre, flanked by the bacon, chicken, and
pig's face. The sausages should be arranged around en
couronne. Pour over some of the soup of No. 1, and serve
hot.” (Abridged from Ford's Handbook of Spain.)
In spite of Ford's protest, there is nothing in this receipt
which cannot be procured in London. The garbanzos are
chick peas, which are to be procured at Francisco Figul's,
10, Woburn Buildings, Tavistock Square. But surely it
is not to be said that the Spanish Olla depends on the
garbanzos, and that no other peas will do. The Chorizos
are also to be obtained at the same Spanish shop, which
was of old recommended by Ford. In the absence of
Chorizos use Frankfort sausages. As for the necessity
of an earthen pot—that is a delusion, if the true use of
earthenware is understood. See article Soup.
OMELET.—It was long supposed that an omelet derived
its name somehow from ovum, an egg, and might. mean
@ufs mêlés. That etymology has been given up as imprac-
ticable by French scholars. It has been reserved for M.
Jérôme de Pichon, in his very able edition of the Ménagier
de Paris, to declare that the word takes its rise from
lamina, a leaf or thin sheet, whence the Latin diminutive
Lamella, in English Lamel. He has not, however, clearly
traced out the steps by which we travel from Lamella to
Omelette. In the Ménagier de Paris, composed about
1390, the name for an omelet is Alumelle, corrupted
into Alumette, which yet again appears as Aumelette.
If Alumelle comes from Lamella, whence came the initial
A? It is strictly in accordance with French law that Al
should contract into Au; but we have first of all to account
for the presence of that initial A. The explanation may
come hereafter. All we can vouch for now is that 500 V
years ago the name for an omelet was written Alumelle,
Alumette, and Aumelette.
Omelet-plain.—Break six eggs into a bowl, season them


318
Omelet
with pepper and salt, and beat them with a fork. Put two
ounces of butter into an omelet pan, and as soon as it
melts pour in the eggs. Stir them lightly with a fork and
keep them from catching the pan. When half-set, toss the
omelet, and keep stirring it till it is all set. The finishing
operation is performed in one of two ways. Practised
hands slant the pan downwards from the handle—taking
care, however, that the best of the fire is beneath the upper
or handle end : they then roll the omelet downwards till it
takes the form of an elongated oval. A more simple plan
is merely to fold over the omelet on both sides to the
proper elliptical shape. In either case the operation must
be performed rapidly.
Omelet with fine-herbs.-Beat the eggs with a tablespoon-
ful of chopped parsley, and if the onion flavour is admired,
with a chopped shalot which has been first blanched.
Omelet with gravy (Omelette au jus).—The same as the
last, with a little gravy served round it.
Omelet with cheese.—Some grated Gruyère added to the
beaten eggs instead of the fine-herbs, and afterwards strewed
over the omelet in the dish.
Omelet with bacon.—Boil a quarter-pound of bacon for
five or six minutes ; cut it into small squares; fry them in
a little butter, and then add them to the beaten eggs of the
first receipt—which, however, should have a diminished
allowance of salt.
Omelet with kidneys.-Cut up a couple of kidneys into
dice or into thin slices. Put them into the omelet pan
with butter and some of the kidney fat. When the butter
and the fat are melted, and the pieces of kidney are quite
hot, pour in the beaten eggs and proceed as before.
Omelet with asparagus.--Boil the asparagus, take the
points and mix them with the beaten eggs.


Omelet
319
Omelet with tomatos.—Take the flesh of the tomatos free
from skin and pips, and mix with the beaten eggs.
Sweet Omelet.—Beat six eggs and add to them two tea-
spoonfuls of sugar, together with a few bits of butter. As
a rule the eggs for an omelet are not to be too much
beaten, but for the sweet omelet they may be beaten even
to frothing a little. Then pour them into the omelet pan,
and proceed as for the plain omelet; only, on account of the
sugar, which might burn, the fire must not be so brisk.
When the omelet is dished, it is sprinkled with sugar, and
with a red-hot iron skewer it is marked with cross-bars.
Omelet with rum.—This is a sweet omelet with a glass of
rum whipt into the eggs. It is sprinkled with sugar on
the dish, and at the moment of serving it a glass of rum
is poured over it and lighted.
Apricot Omelet.—This is the preserve which is the most
frequently used with the omelet. Proceed as for the sweet
omelet in every respect, only that before folding it up there
is to be placed in the centre of it a fitting quantity of
apricot jam.
Omelette Soufflée.—Take six eggs and break them,
dividing the whites from the yolks. All the whites are to
be used, but only half the yolks. Whip the whites to a
very firm froth. Then add to them the yolks, shake in
the best part of two ounces of sifted sugar, and sprinkle
all with orange-flower water. Make a smooth mound
with this upon an oval dish. In the centre of it put a
knife down, giving it a twist, so as to make a hole for the
heat to spread quickly into the middle of the omelet, which
may also be rudely ornamented by drawing slant lines with
the point of the knife all round its sides. Put it into a
brisk oven for seven minutes. It must be served instantly,
for the inflation rapidly subsides; but before serving
sprinkle it with what is lef of the two ounces of sugar.


Oxford
321
ORANGE SAUCE, for wild ducks and other such fowl.
Boil half a pint of brown gravy, and add a somewhat less
quantity of claret, with salt, cayenne, the strained juice of
two Seville oranges and a scraping of the zest.
ORGEATE, as its name shows, was formerly nothing but
barley water. This was flavoured sometimes with lemon,
sometimes with almonds. By degrees the almond flavour
began to predominate, and almond milk was found to be
so agreeable by itself that it displaced the barley altogether,
Orgeate now is nothing but almond milk. The old drink,
however, may still be obtained under the name of barley
water.
ORTOLAN or GARDEN BUNTING.—Treat the ortolan as a
quail or as a lark. It is useless to say more in a country
where for the most part we have to eat the ortolan, like the
becafico, in imagination. As much as a guinea apiece has
been paid for ortolans in England. Fortunately in these
days of the railway they can be obtained at a much less
price ; but the fat little monsters are still much too dear
for any but long purses and rare occasions.
OXFORD.—It is not a comforting reflection that our
two most ancient and renowned universities, with all their
scholarship, all the wisdom of the classics to command,
and all the heights of philosophy beneath their feet, have/
been able to add to the enjoyments of the table nothing
more than an humble sausage. What is learning, what
is science, if this be its farthest reach—to evolve only a
sausage from the inner consciousness ? Each University
has one ; but Oxford has certainly the best of it. Whereas
both of these great schools chop logic and pork, Oxford in
addition chops veal and the fat of beeves.
Oxford Sausage.—Mince one pound each of prime
young pork, veal, and the freshest beef fat, all cleared of
skin and sinews ; steep the crumb of a twopenny loaf in
21


322
Oxtarı
milk and water; grate a little zest of lemon, also a little
nutmeg ; chop a few sage leaves and some thyme; and
pound a small quantity of long pepper and salt. Mix all
together and press it down close in a pan for use. It
may be stuffed in skins like other sausage meat; but is
generally rolled out as wanted, and either fried in fresh
butter of a fine brown colour or broiled over a clear fire.
This is what ages of learning have taught the wise men
of the Isis to fix upon as the only preparation of food to
which the name of Oxford may worthily be linked.
Oxford Punch.— The great characteristic of this punch
is its having a quantity of calf's foot jelly dissolved in it.
The wise men of the Isis respect the name of their township,
and have decreed that the kine from which it takes its
name should not only ford their river, but should also
enter into their sausages in the form of beef fat and
youthful undergraduate veal, and should, in the frisky
form of calf's feet, gambol into their punch.
OXTAIL.—Mr. Punch not long ago gave a revised list of
the thirty-nine articles of an Englishman's faith. I have
forgotten whether the first was Oxtail soup or Shakespeare,
and whether the second was Shakespeare or Oxtail soup ;
but at all events these were the first two. This oxtail,
in which we now take a national pride, was originally
Huguenot, and we learned the taste for it from the poor
Protestant refugees who settled about Bermondsey. In
this region of the tanners there is or was a place known as
The Borgeney-Petty Burgundy. The Huguenots, when
they saw oxbides abounding about them, thought they could
make something of the tails, which were then sold with the
hides. They made an excellent soup. A philanthropist
who happened to be a lover of good cheer was in the habit
of visiting the homes of the poor Frenchmen here at Spital-
fields and there at Petty Burgundy. In Petty Burgundy


Oysters
323
he came upon the oxtail soup ; he opened his eyes, and he
made such a proclamation of the goodness of the tanners'
soup that it became at once fashionable, and now Mr.
Punch can speak of it as among the first and foremost of
an Englishman's thirty-nine articles of faith.
Oxtail Soup. Take two large or three small oxtails,
divided at the joints, and soak them well in lukewarm water.
Then put them into a stewpan with a pound of ham or
knuckle of bacon, three quarts of cold water, an ounce
and a half of salt; set them on the fire to boil, and remove
the scum. When the scum ceases to rise add three carrots,
three onions, two turnips, a head of celery, a faggot of
sweet-herbs, six cloves, and a dozen peppercorns. Stew
all gently for three hours, and then take out the oxtails.
Strain the broth, get rid of the fat, put back the tails,
thicken the soup with arrowroot or rice-flour, and finish it
to taste with cayenne, salt, a spoonful of ketchup, and it
may be a glassful of Marsala. If the oxtails are stewed
longer they will yield an extremely gelatinous soup, but
the meat will be in rags and unfit for presentation.
Stewed Oxtail.—Take an oxtail disjointed, and soak it
well in lukewarm water. Then put with it in a stewpan a
couple of onions, a couple of carrots, a faggot of sweet-
herbs, and broth enough to cover it. Or for another com-
bination put it into the stewpan with a Mirepoix of white
wine, and with broth enough, as before, to cover all.
Simmer it very gently for two or three hours. The oxtail
may then be dished, and it may be sauced and garnished in a
variety of ways. If surrounded with its gravy (strained),
and garnished with lettuce brazed in the French way and
intermingled with carrots, it is called Queue de Bauf en
hochepot. It may also be garnished with a Macedon of
vegetables, with a purée of lentils, or with either the
Soubise or the Breton purée of onions.
OYSTERS.—More than two hundred years ago Thomas


324
Oysters
Fuller said that the best in England were the fat, salt,
green-finned sort bred near Colchester. Since then,
although the green-finned oysters are prized above all
others on the Continent, they have come to be slighted in
England through a fear that the greenness may be the
effect of copper. Mr. Frank Buckland, however, has
recently written : “I am glad to inform the public that
the green-bearded oysters native to the river Roach (not
far from Southend, Essex) are about to be introduced into
the London market. For over a hundred years this kind
of British oyster has been shipped viâ Ostend to the Paris
and Continental markets, where, under the name of 'Les
huitres verts d'Ostende,' they have been and are considered
a great delicacy. The reason why oyster-eaters in England
have not hitherto availed themselves of these home-bred
oysters is that their beards (i.e., breathing gills) are in the
winter months more or less tinged with a green pigment.
This peculiar green is imparted to them by the sporules of
the seaweed called crow-silk, which grows abundantly in
the Roach river. Dr. Letheby's analysis has pronounced
this pigment to be purely vegetable, without the slightest
trace of copper or other mineral. I consider that this
vegetable pigment imparts a peculiar taste and agreeable
flavour to the meat of these plump little oysters. For
many years I have been trying to persuade the Messrs.
J. and #. Wiseman, oyster merchants, of Paglesham, Roch-
ford, Egsek, to send their natives to the home markets.
The present scarcity of oysters has now induced them to
supply the English rather than the French markets. The
shells are thin and porcelain-like, and the proportion of
meat to shell in my catalogue of oysters is one-fifth.”
The English are not only peculiar in their recent dislike
to the green-finned oyster ; they are so likewise in their
manner of opening all oysters. In Scotland and in France
oysters are always opened and left in the hollow half of the
shell which retains the brine : in England the oyster is


Oysters
325
left on the flat shell from which the liquor drains off. If,
however, one could sometimes see the dirty liquor in which
oysters lie ready for opening, and in which they are opened
behind the oyster bar of some fish shops, perhaps there
would be no desire to taste the oyster at all, and certainly
none to see it in the hollow shell bathed in discoloured
brine.
Oyster Sauce.—Boil two dozen oysters very gently in
their own liquor for five minutes, always remembering
that quick boiling will harden them ; then drain them and
beard them. Go through the first step of making English
sauce, using the liquor of the oysters (strained, of course)
instead of water, and adding an equal quantity of milk.
Put in the oysters, heat up the sauce, and lastly melt into
it—but no more than melt an ounce of butter. For a
broiled beefsteak it is preferable to use good brown gravy
instead of the milk.
Oyster Soup.—Take twenty-four oysters : remove the
fins or beards and tendons, and put all together-oysters,
fins and tendons—to simmer for ten minutes in their own
liquor, along with a small sole. The sole, the fins and the
tendons are then to be pounded in a mortar and passed
into a stewpan, with the liquor of the oysters, a quart of
water, or still better fish-stock, a faggot of sweet-herbs,
and a few peppercorns. Let it boil for fifteen or twenty
minutes, and then work into it an ounce of butter kneaded
into an ounce of flour till the flour be thoroughly cooked.
The soup can then be strained into a tureen ; thickened
with a leason composed of one yolk of egg and two table-
spoonfuls of cream ; seasoned with cayenne and salt; and
finally populated with the oysters.
Oyster Forcemeat.-See Forcemeat No. 4.
Scalloped Oysters (Huîtres en Coquille).—These are oysters
done either in scallop shells or in metal dishes made to


3:26
Oysters
imitate them. Blanch and beard the oysters—some dozens.
Then put them into a stewpan with their own liquor, a little
butter, some chopped parsley, some pepper, and a glass of
Chablis. Take out the oysters and put them into the shells;
at the same time reducing the sauce and adding to it a
leason of two yolks and some lemon-juice. Pour the sauce
over the oysters intermingled with fine breadcrumbs, heap
breadcrumbs over all, bedew them with melted butter, and
brown them before the fire in a Dutch oven, or in baking
tins in an ordinary oven.
OYSTERS-called in France les-sots-y-les-laissent—fools'
leavings. Two peculiarly succulent morsels found on the
backs of fowls. There is a story of Brillat-Savarin told
by Talleyrand and reported by Hayward. He was on his
way to Lyons, and proposed to dine at Sens. On his
arrival he sent for the cook and asked what there was for
dinner. The cook had very little to offer, and M. Savarin
determined to go to the kitchen to see for himself. In the
kitchen he found four turkeys roasting. “What is this?”
he said. “You told me you had nothing in the house.
Let me have one of these turkeys.” “Impossible,” was
the reply; "they are all bespoken for a gentleman
upstairs.” “He must have a large party to need four
turkeys.” “No,” said the cook; "he dines by himself.”
“ How I should like to see the man who orders four
turkeys for his own eating !” Brillat-Savarin went to
pay his respects to the stranger, and found his own son.
“What, you rogue, four turkeys all to yourself !” “Yes,
sir,” said the son : "you know that whenever I dine with
you, you eat up all the oysters ; I was resolved to enjoy
myself once in a way—and here I am.”


328
Parfait Amour
then it has to be turned. Serve it with pounded sugar
and sliced lemon.
Pancakes royal.—Six eggs, five spoonfuls of flour, three
ounces of butter. All the rest as before.
Pancakes ornate.—Spread with jam; apricot jam the
favourite.
PARFAIT AMOUR unhappily is a liqueur which lives by its
name and nothing else. We all like to taste that unknown
bliss which is not to be found on earth, and we hope to
find its semblance in the bottle. The liqueur is too true
as a satire. Starting with the idea that love is a bitter-
sweet, Parfait Amour is made of the bitter zest of limes,
mollified with syrup, with the spirit of roses, and with spicy
odours. It is in fact a kind of orange bitters spoilt.
Whoever drinks of Parfait Amour says in his heart, This
is a mistake. And therein lies the success of the liqueur :
it has a rosy colour, it has a fine name, and it is nought.
One trial is enough.
In England in the olden time, when oranges were more
scarce than they are now, it was the custom for a lover to
give his sweetheart on New Year's Day, as an emblem of
Perfect Love, an orange stuck all over with cloves.
PARMENTIER first introduced potatoes into France, and
the French, in gratitude, have affixed his name to their
potato soup. One might have expected a like honour,
in England at least, to the name of Sir Walter Raleigh,
who brought the potato from America in 1586. He was
in fact the discoverer of the potato, as Columbus was the
discoverer of the New World. But as the New World
has been named, not after Columbus but after his follower
Amerigo, so the potato throughout Europe is connected
with the name, not of Raleigh but of Parmentier. The
town of Metz has raised a statue to Parmentier.
V PARSLEY is the crown of cookery. It once crowned men ;


Partridge
329
it now crowns their food. We wreath our fish with sprigs
of parsley; it would be impossible to eat cold meat without
garlands of it round the dish; and the crowning grace of
many a sauce and stew comes from a shower of minute
parsley shed upon it at the last. There is no plant that is
so much used in this way for coronation.
Fried Parsley is indispensable for fried fish, croquettes,
rissoles. It should be crisp, and is only to be well done in
a wire basket dipped into the frying-kettle. If the fat be
properly hot, a minute is enough, and more than enough.
Let the parsley be first washed and thoroughly dried.
Parsley Sauce is a name that might be given to several
sauces, but is generally in England given to what in the
French kitchen is known as maître d'hôtel sauce.
PARSNIPS—dressed as carrots; but they require less
time.
PARTRIDGE.—There is an old controversy about the
partridge. There is a tract called The Debate between the
Heralds of France and England, supposed to have been
written by Charles, Duke of Orleans, between 1458 and 1461,
and published about 1500. The heralds proclaim against
each other the advantages of their several countries ;, and
the French one, when it comes to his turn, boasts that
France has great red-legged partridges, while England has
none : “ And believe me,” he cries, “these are delicious
birds, fit for the palates of kings and princes.” To this
day in France the red-legged partridge or bartavelle is
considered superior to the grey-legged sort which abounds
in England, and always in the market it commands a
higher price. When that great gastronomer, Dr. Lister,
physician to Queen Anne, went to Paris in the beginning
of last century, he made acquaintance with the red-legged
partridge, and brought back word that it far excelled the
grey kind. Englishmen generally, however, have not been


330
Partridge
of this opinion, and some have gone so far as to declare
that red-legged partridges (which, by the way, are plentiful
enough in the Eastern counties) are not worth eating. It
is well that tastes should differ, and that when Jack Sprat
can eat no fat his wife can eat no lean. Each one must
speak for himself; and I give my vote with the French, in
favour of the red-legs. Perhaps the Englishman has a
spite against the red-legged partridge, because it does not
rise to his gun like the common one, and yields him less
sport. The French authorities lay down the maxim that
whereas the English or grey-legged partridge is best young,
the French or red-legged one is best at maturity.
Roast Partridge.—In England the partridge goes nearly
always to the spit, though it sometimes also shows in a
salmi—in which case, however, it has still to be first of
all roasted. The French are mighty in stewed partridge,
and never send any but young birds to be roasted.
They have their perdrix and their perdreaux ; the former
being the full-grown birds, the latter the chicks. It is
only the perdreaux that ever figure among the roasts in
France. It does not follow that the French are right:
no Englishman will allow this who remembers that they
object to roast duck with green peas, and prefer brazed
duck with turnips. But granting that partridges, young
or old, are always best roasted, there may still be reason
with the French, who seem never to delight more in the
bird than when it appears as
Perdrix aux Choux—Partridge with cabbage, salt pork,
and sausage. Put a couple of birds into a stewpan with butter
or good dripping, and pass them over the fire till they take
colour, along with a piece of the hand of pork and a couple
of onions, nailed with a couple of cloves. Moisten them
then with broth, and add two carrots, a bayleaf, and some
saveloy. Add also, trimmed, blanched, cut into quarters,
and seasoned with pepper and salt, a Savoy cabbage; and


Pastry
331
let all simmer together for an hour and a half. Then drain
the cabbage and make a low hayrick of it upon a dish. On
the top of the rick, or (for a Chartreuse) in the middle of
it, lay the partridges, and round them the sausages and
slices of pork, and over all a gravy made of the liquor
they have stewed in, assisted, if need be, with veal gravy.
Englishmen who are asked to admire this dish, which
French cooks elaborate with extraordinary care, lavishing
immense ingenuity on the Chartreuse of partridges, have
a right to observe that the proverb Toujours Perdrix is
eminently French, and would never have been thought of
but for the Perdrix aux choux.
Pass.—This is as great a word in cookery as it is in
legerdemain. “Pass !” says the juggler, and the pigeon
vanishes. A French cook passes almost everything
through a sieve, and according to the theory of evolution,
he will himself one day pass through the sieve and become
a purée. But the grand and peculiar use of the word for
which it has a place in this dictionary implies a process of
cookery. A cook will speak of passing a fowl, or a piece
of meat, or vegetables. In the French kitchen they have
not only the verb passer, but also (which is the same thing)
faire revenir. To pass is to pass in butter over the fire;
in short, to fry lightly for a minute or two, so as to
create a rich surface on what it is intended to finish by
a different process of cooking—say by stewing. To pass
in a trifle of butter is to frying what the preface is to the
book, the prologue to the play and the overture to the
opera.
PASTRY.—It has been said that the greatest discovery of
the modern kitchen is pastry, and it would be difficult to
name any other article of food which is better entitled to
this praise. The discovery of America added much to the
resources of the table ; and we have an immense advantage
over the ancients in tea, coffee and chocolate. We owe


332
Pastry
these good things, however, to navigation ; whereas pastry
we owe to the kitchen. It was quite within reach of the
ancients to invent the modern pie, and they failed to hit
apon it.
The following are the pastes most frequently in use :-
1. Hot-water paste for raised pies—that is, pies baked
without dishes or pattypans. Melt four ounces of butter
in half a pint of hot water and work it with half an ounce of
salt into a pound of flour. This is chiefly used in England.
The French prefer the following because of the eggs.
2. Cold-water paste for raised pies. Use the same
quantities as for No. 1, but substitute three yolks of eggs
for an equal displacement of water. This also makes a
good short paste for ordinary pies.
3. Puff paste for a Vol-au-vent, the lightest and leafiest,
called by the French Feuilletage. This deserves to be
mentioned before the more common kinds because, although
it is the most diffimult of all the pastes, it best illustrates
the principle of the puff pastes, and once mastered ensures
a mastery of all the rest.
Put a pound of four on the pastry slab with about half
an ounce of salt. Make a well in it for cold water, of
which close on half a pint will be needed, and mix it into
a smooth paste. Dry it with flour until the slab is quite
cleared, but work it as little as possible, and leave it alone
for a minute or two to get cool from the heat of the hands
before the next process begins, which has to do with the
butter. Take a pound of butter, very cold, and with every
drop of milk or water squeezed out of it, and press it out
flat so as to form a square of something between nine and
ten inches. It is not essential in practice to be too par-
ticular about these numbers, which are given chiefly to
make the principle clear. Roll out the paste to something
between thirteen and fourteen inches square,—that is, such
a size that when the butter square is put upon it diagonally,
the four corners of the paste square folded over and meet-


Pastry
333
ing in the centre will completely envelope the butter. We
have here a simple sandwich of paste and butter, and this
is called the first turn, after it has been rolled out in one
direction to the extent of, say thirty inches. Give it now
a second turn—that is, fold it over in three, so as to renew
the square of ten inches, and roll it out again to thirty
inches, but this time in a cross direction. We have now a
triple sandwich in which there are four thin sheets of paste
alternated with three of butter. Give it three turns more,
-in all five turns-each time rolling it crosswise. At the
end of the fifth turn we have a sandwich which, if the
rolling were delicate and even, and if the paste and the
butter were in perfect condition, ought, in theory at least,
to consist of eighty-four thin films of paste alternated with
eighty-three of butter. In practice this is not to be hoped
for. One’s touch is not always light and even ; the paste
is apt to be sticky and the butter to melt; and many of the
films under pressure will smudge into one another. We
must be content if we can make sure of a goodly number
of films remaining perfect. And to make sure of this, there
is a step in the process which has not yet been mentioned.
This is to cool the paste between the turns. How often
and how much it should be cooled will depend on the time
of year. In warm weather, when the butter is apt to
flow and the paste to stick, it should certainly be cooled,
if not between every turn, at least twice. This is done
by transferring the paste to a floured baking-sheet, and
placing it either on ice or in a draught of air. Say that
it is left to cool for half an hour between the second and
third turns and for a quarter of an hour between the
fourth and fifth.
A piece of paste a quarter of an inch thick prepared
thus carefully will puff up to five, six, and even eight times
its original height. Dexterity is required, but the great
thing is to understand the meaning of the process. In
short paste the butter is kneaded with the flour, and


334
:
Pastry
becomes part of the paste. In puff paste the butter and
the paste are separate and there is no mixing or kneading
-only what may be called fine sandwiching. The flour is
made into a paste by itself, which by successive rollings is
divided into thinner and thinner layers separated one from
another by layers of butter, which by the same rollings
are made thinner and thinner. The process of baking
separates the films and puffs them up one above another ;
and the great art of the pastrycook is by delicacy and
rapidity of touch, also by guarding carefully the coldness
of the butter and its freedom from moisture, together with
the freedom of the paste from stickiness, to make sure that
as far as possible the thin flakes of butter and paste shall
not interpenetrate.
4. Puff paste for pies. When once the principle of the
puff paste is understood the cook can take liberties with it.
The !oregoing receipt will produce the lightest puff paste,
rising several inches and fit for a Vol-au-vent; but for
ordinary pies less care is necessary and less butter-say
ten or twelve ounces of butter to the pound of flour. Also,
though it is always best to use butter, and it is imperative
to do so if there is any chance of the pie being eaten cold,
—for a hot pie there is no objection to beef-fat pounded
with milk or sweet oil in a mortar to the consistency of
butter. Lastly, as one does not expect the crust upon a
pigeon-pie or an apple-pie to rise very much, one need
not be too anxious to multiply the films, and one can spare
a turn or two.
5. Puff paste for cheesecakes and tarts. Add about
three ounces of sifted sugar to the pound of flour. Some-
times two yolks are added, but with doubtful benefit.
6. Short paste. It has been already explained that for
short crust the intermixture of the butter with the flour is
by kneading, not rolling. For the best short crust take
equal quantities of butter and flour. But even half of
butter will make a fair crust. For meat pies the lesser


Paysanne
33.5
quantity is desirable, with a pinch of salt. (See also No. 2.)
Feather it with white of egg before putting it in the oven.
7. Short paste for tarts and fruit-pies. As much butter
as can be allowed, no salt, and three ounces of sifted
sugar.
8. Paste for dumplings and puddings. No. 4 is best,
but the following is commendable : a pound of flour, six
ounces of butter, two well-beaten eggs, a little water, and
a pinch of salt, kneaded together.
9. Brioche paste. Take a pound of sifted flour, and with
a fourth of it make a soft leaven by mixing it with a wine-
glassful of German yeast. Cover this up and set it for
twenty minutes in a warm place to rise. It ought to rise
to twice what it was. Take the remainder of the flour and
in the usual way knead it into a paste with ten ounces
of butter, six or seven eggs, and a wineglassful of water
in which a pinch of salt and a teaspoonful] of sugar have
been melted. Mix the leaven with it lightly. Put it aside
for some hours, and then knead it, roll it, fold it, break it,
toss it about, blend it thoroughly together. Roll it up in
a loose cloth dusted with flour, put it into some covered
vessel, and keep it in a fair temperature—till next day, if
possible, when it will be fit to use and can be moulded into
any shape-Brioche cakes, or Bath buns. Colour the
paste with saffron diluted in two glasses of rum, and it
makes a Baba.
PAYSANNE.—The Peasant's soup ; but really a very
good soup for peer as well as peasant. It is a clear broth
with winter vegetables in it. See Brunoise, and also the
Introductory chapter.
That French peasant was evidently a woman of great
taste, and a desirable person to know. There is another
of her nice dishes which is sometimes called Petits pois à
la Paysanne. It is one of the nicest vegetable messes that,
can be sent to table, and is described in the next article


Peach
337
cos-lettuce by preference,-either whole or cut to pieces.
Fill up with water and boil for half an hour or even
more; for, though one can eat lettuces raw, they insist
on þeing boiled a good deal if they are to be boiled at all.
At the end of half an hour put in a pint of young peas-
or any greater quantity. See that there is water and salt
enough, and let the boiling go on for another half-hour, so
that the lettuce may have at least an hour in all. There
is a delightful dish of peas, which are made to go a long
way and to suggest no idea of stint, by means of the lettuce
which eke them out.
Pea Soup.—The following receipt applies to either fresh
peas or the dried ones, whether green or yellow. If they
are dried, however, they must be soaked for twelve hours
beforehand. Put a quart of peas into a stewpan, with a
carrot, an onion, a leek, a faggot of parsley, a pound of
streaky bacon, and three quarts of water. Boil them for
two or three hours; then remove the bacon, the carrot
and the faggot, pass all else, including the onion, through
a tammy, and the soup (if sufficiently hot) is ready. When
this soup is made of fresh peas, the French call it St.
Germains, and serve it with a few whole peas floating on
the top, to show what it is.
PEACH is a corruption of the word Persia—it is the ✓
amygdalus Persica, or Persica vulgaris. It has more than
once already, in these pages, been pointed out that an
almond, a nectarine, and a peach, have a curious identity
—the same, but yet how different! All three fruits may
be found growing on the same tree, and sometimes on
the same branch. More than this: the fruit is some-
. times found to be a peach on one side, a nectarine on the
other. Both peaches and nectarines are divided into two
chief classes—the Freestones and the Clingstones. The
former are always the best, and may be easily recognised,
Take a knife, and in the line of the equator cut round
all else, innove them. Boil thound of
22


338
Pepper
them to the stone ; the upper hemisphere may then be
lifted off clean, without any difficulty. These are the
peaches for dessert. The clingstones are not so good, are
firmer of flesh, and are best reserved for stewing and for
fritters. Before using them for fritters, pare them and
steep them for an hour in Kirschenwasser and sugar.
Stewing them in syrup is a very simple matter. The
peaches may then be presented alone in the syrup, with
the addition of a few of their kernels ; or they may be
served, like apricots, with rice.
The rose-pink, which is sometimes used for colouring,
and which has been already mentioned in connection with
anchovy butter, is obtained from the peach tree.
PEPPER is the berry of a climbing Oriental shrub, bright
red when ripe and black when dried. This is black pepper.
Within the berry are seeds which, when removed from the
surrounding pulp and skin and dried separately, are called
white pepper. This is not so powerful as the whole or
black pepper, and it is called Mignonette pepper before it
is ground, as unground black pepper is known by the name
of peppercorns.
Much as we value pepper, it is difficult to think of it as
being at one time in Europe so precious and so scarce that
it was as good as money. In France, at that time, the
taxes might be paid in pepper; so also church dues and
rent. We have all heard of a peppercorn rent. Pepper
was in fact cash ; and to pay in pepper, in spice, or in
specie—all words meaning the same thing—became equi-
valent to paying in cash. In token of which to this day
specie is a common name for the hardest of hard cash-
gold and silver as distinct from paper money.
Red pepper comes from a different shrub, the capsicum,
and was unknown before the discovery of America.
V
PEPSIN.—It is no doubt all right and as it should be in


Perch
339
this best of all possible worlds. But when in that sublimated
future which is to come, which will make human nature
perfect and all the methods of food divine, the refined New
Zealander who is to write our history dilates upon the
manner of our eating, what astonishment will he not raise
when he comes to speak of pepsin! We have our own
pleasant thoughts upon the emetics which preceded a
Roman meal, and think with wonder of the great cap-
tain, Julius Cæsar, preparing himself for a fresh repast
by disgorging the undigested remains of the previous
one. But what shall be said of ourselves? “In those
days it was usual, even for people of refinement, when
they could not themselves digest the dinner they had
swallowed, to take the pig for a deputy, to avail them-
selves of his stomach, and to rejoice in the potency of his
gastric juices. They bathed their masticated food in
these juices taken at their supreme moment—a point of
time determined as follows. A young pig in the perfection
of rude health was ready. He was starved in order that
his gastric juices might be eager for work; with the edge
of hunger upon him, the most appetizing food. was placed
before him in order that the juices might flow. abundantly
from the coats of his stomach, even as the mouth waters at
the sight of food. At this supreme moment the young pig
was killed, and his gastric juice carefully collected. It
was dried, and it was found that a few grains of it
swallowed after an aldermanic feast would create the
digestive facrilties of a hog, make a heavy dinner sit light
upon the soul as an aërial banquet, and renew the appetite
as though there were a dire famine in the land. These
noble Christians of the western world ate their meat like
men, but mated with swine for its digestion.”.
PERCH.—He who has once partaken of the zander or
giant perch of the German waters—and it is worth going
all the way to Dresden to do so—will always think well of


340
Périgueux Sauce
this noble family. The zander, abundant in the Elbe, is
the most delicious of the perches ; but they are all delicious
and refined. “That perch," says Dr. Badham,“ require
clear fresh water for their very existence, accounts perhaps
for the wholesomeness of their flesh, always superior from
this circumstance to that of eel, carp, or tench, which, from
feeding everywhere, often taste of the weeds and feculence
where they dwell. The ancients have not left us any hints
as to how perch were cooked. The present practice over
the Continent is to stew them in vinegar, fresh grape,
orange-juice, or other sour sauce; but though this is certainly
the common way in some parts of Italy, at the Lago
Maggiore they are spitted in their scales, and basted
while roasting with the same acid juice ; in Holland
butter is added. Though a scaly fish, they vitiate Aris-
totle's dictum, and are best in roe.” To this add that they
make an admirable waterzootje, and that when they are
large (Yarrell says that one taken from the Serpentine in
Hyde Park weighed nine pounds) they may be fried in
fillets to the great glory of the finny tribe.
Ever since Galen, the perch has been described as
peculiarly the fresh-water fish for invalids,-it is so deli-
cate.
PÉRIGUEUX SAUCE—named from Périgord, where the
truffles abound. It is the best brown sauce, with a glass
of sherry or Marsala added to it, and a quantity of chopped
truffles.
PHEASANT if cooked fresh is not so good as a good
poularde : it requires to be kept till the fumet is fully de-
veloped, and then it is beyond any fowl. So clear is this
in the French way of thinking, that with them the verb
meaning to give the high flavour of game is faisander;
and the rule of the French kitchen is that a pheasant is
not fit to be eaten till, having been hung up by the tail, it
drops down. For most tastes this may be too much; but a
then it is ñ be kept till the good as a
the high king, that wl. 8o Cas fully de


Pickles
341
certain degree of highness in the flavour is essential to the
enjoyment of the bird.
Roast Pheasant.—The same as a roast partridge-barded
with bacon. Brillat-Savarin recommended the larding of
the breast ; but he has been furiously assailed for it.
Boiled Pheasant.—Some people stare with astonish-
ment when they hear of a pheasant being boiled. This is
all very well till they try it. Serve it with Soubise sauce,
plain onion sauce, celery sauce, or oyster sauce.
Brazed Pheasant.—This is Francatelli's receipt, and he
called it Pheasant à la Gudewife. Truss a pheasant as for
boiling, and put it in a stewpan with half a pound of ham
cut in square pieces. Fry them together over a moderate
fire, and when the pheasant is browned all over, add four
sliced Spanish onions, some pepper and salt, and a spoonful
of Chutnee. Put the lid on, and set the whole to simmer
gently for about three-quarters of an hour, by which time
the pheasant will be done and the onions reduced to a
pulp. Place the pheasant on its dish. Stir the onions on
the fire, to give the sauce some consistency by further
reduction, if needed, and then pour it over the pheasant
and serve.
PICKLES.—We should be sorry for those who have to eat
pickles. The craving for this condiment usually implies a
sickly digestion and a jaded appetite. It also implies bad
cookery—being the substitute for a sauce which the cook
ought to provide. But since pickles we must have, it is
desirable that they should be good ; and it is a sad thing
to chronicle that the craft of making good pickles is
departing from England. This country used to make
the most wonderful mixed pickles ; and the name for
them, together with the square green English bottle for
them, has gone abroad over the earth. In the deserts of
Arabia, and in the Mountains of the Moon, the forlorn
traveller has lighted on empty bottles of Day and Martin's


342
Pie
blacking and of Crosse and Blackwell's pickles, and his
heart has rejoiced at eve, as Mungo Park did over a solitary
flower in the burning wastes of Africa. But now No More,
and alas ! No More. As Mr. Tennyson says-
Oh sad No More! oh sweet No More !
Oh strange No More!
Surely all pleasant things had gone before,
Low buried 'fathom-deep beneath with thee, No More.
The best mixed pickles, even those of the great magicians
of Soho, Crosse and Blackwell, are now made with a woe-
begone compound called Piccallilli. The good old sort is
neglected ; and the best English pickles of that kind come
at present from Bordeaux (from Louis Frères et Cie.), in
bottles of English shape, and with the English name of
Mix'd Pickles. Why is this? One cause may be excess
of competition-leading to lowering of price, cheapening
of vinegar, and general deterioration. But another, and
even more powerful cause, is to be found in a transition of
English taste. East India pickles—strange, irrecognisable
compounds confused with curry, an amazing jumble of
hot, sweet, sour, and bitter things—have come into fashion.
Manufacturers—even those who, like Crosse and Blackwell,
take the highest rank-truckling to this fashion, turn their
chief skill to put an Oriental tinge on their mixed pickles ;
and when they affect to produce these in all their original
simplicity, they do so almost as if the old English receipt
were no longer worthy of respect. The favour which has
been recently shown to the Bordeaux pickles of Louis
Frères et Compagnie ought to teach them a lesson.
PIE.—We have dealt with a considerable number of
words belonging to the French table, the origin of which
is frankly stated by the French authorities to be unknown.
We have now to do with a word peculiar to the English
table, which, although the subject of many conjectures, has
never yet been satisfactorily explained. The most authori-


Pie
343
tative explanation is very curious. It was suggested by
the lexicographer Junius, more than two centuries ago;
and it holds its ground among the very valuable etymologies
in Webster's dictionary for which Dr. Mahn is responsible.
Junius put it forth only as a conjecture that pie or pye is
a corruption of pastie or pastye ; but Mahn states it as a
fact. Now, the fact is that pasty or pasté, as used in
mediæval English and French, is a later word than pie;
and therefore pie could not well be contracted from it, even
if it were a likely form of contraction. It is odd that this
explanation should still hold its ground, seeing that a very
little inquiry into the history of food would have suggested
two other etymologies, either of which might singly account
for the word pie, though I believe that both have contri-
buted to it. In Le Grand d'Aussy's work on the history
of private life in France, it is stated that the word pain V
signified a pie before the word pâté came into use. There
is a very probable etymology at once. If any Englishman
should have the audacity to call out in a French restaurant,
with a thoroughly English pronunciation, “Pie !”—as one
of Thackeray's snobs was heard to call out “ Oh!”—then
the waiter would as surely bring him bread as the snob
got water. There may be English people who cannot
dissociate in their minds the pie from the pie-dish, and
may therefore find it difficult to understand how a pie
should have ever been considered as a pain—a loaf. They
must get rid of that idea, and think of the pie as originally
made—what we now call a raised pie—all surrounded with
crust, like a pain or loaf. But the two words pain and
pie in this sense fared very differently in France and in
England. The former was ambiguous-meaning to the
French ear a loaf as well as meat baked in a crust. When,
therefore, the word pasté or pâté found its way into France
from Italy, it very quickly supplanted the word pain in the
latter sense, which completely disappeared. But the parallel
word pie in England had no such ambiguity to contend
England Pletely disanted the


344
Pig
with; it had one plain meaning, all its own; and it held
its own even after the word pasty came into fashion by the
side of it. This was due not merely to its own force, but
to the fact that there was another word pie which came to
help it out. From the beginning until now it has always
been most common for the pie to encase a bird or birds of
some sort. Now in France one of the most frequent names
for a bird to be eaten was pied—a foot. Cotgrave, whose
dictionary is of the highest authority, notes a proverbial
phrase," à l'avocat le pied en main,”—and explains it as
applying to “partridges, pheasants, capons, etc., wherewith
they (that is, the advocates) look to be now and then pre-
sented.” To this day it is common enough in France to
speak of the smaller birds intended for the table as les
petits pieds. But the English form and spelling of pied was
pie—you have it in cap-à-pie. There appears, therefore,
to have been a blending of names—two pies—the one from
pain, denoting more immediately the crust, the other from
pied, denoting more immediately the contents of the pie, and
both combining to establish the name in opposition to the
newly introduced one of pasty. To this day on the top of
a pigeon pie there is, in allusion to the name, a show made
of the feet; and in some parts of England an apple pie is
called an apple foot. If the reader asks, In what parts of
England ? I cannot answer; but I can give my authority,
—namely, Todd in his edition of Johnson's dictionary.
As for the making of pies, the receipts for the various
crusts will be found under the name of Paste; and those
for the contents--as Apple, Eel, Pigeon-under the head
of each.
Pig is a name reserved for sucking-pig. The gluttonous
creature of the sty is concealed under the name of pork.
It is difficult to wax eloquent on pork; but listen to
Charles Lamb on the sucking-pig :-
“Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis,” he


Pig
345
says, “I will maintain it to be the most delicate-princeps
obsoniorum.
“I speak not of your grown porkers—things between
pig and pork—those hobbydehoys; but a young and tender
suckling, under a moon old, guiltless as yet of the sty, with
no original speck of the amor immunditiæ, the hereditary
failing of the first parent, yet manifest—his voice as yet
not broken, but something between a childish treble and a
grumble—the mild forerunner or præludium of a grunt.
“ He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our an-
cestors ate them seethed, or boiled—but what à sacrifice of
the exterior tegument !
“There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that
of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, 'crack-
ling,' as it is well called ; the very teeth are invited to their
share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the
coy, brittle resistance, with the adhesive oleaginous–O call
it not fat! but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it,
the tender blossoming of fat-fat cropped in the bud, taken
in the shoot, in the first innocence-the cream and quin-
tessence of the child-pig's yet pure food : the lean, no
lean, but a kind of animal manna, or rather, fat and lean
(if it must be so) so blended and running into each other,
that both together make but one ambrosian result or
common substance.
“Behold him, while he is doing': it seemeth rather a
refreshing warmth than a scorching heat that he is so
passive to. How 'equably he twirleth round the string !
Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of
that tender age ! -he hath wept out his pretty eyes--
radiant jellies, shooting stars!
“See him in the dish, his second cradle: how meek he
lieth! Wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to
the grossness and indocility which too often accompany
maturer swinehood ? Ten to one he would have proved
a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal,


346
Pig
From
wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation.
these sins he is happily snatched away:
Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with timely care.
in the gran might be
is mixed
His memory is odoriferous ; no clown curseth, while his
stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon ; no coalheaver
bolteth him in reeking sausages; he hath a fair sepulchre
in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure--and for
such a tomb might be content to die.
“Unlike to mankind's mixed characters—a bundle of
virtues and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be
unravelled without hazard—he is good throughout. No
part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth,
as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the
least envious of banquets ; he is all neighbours' fare.
“ I am one of those who freely and ungrudgingly im-
part a share, of the good things of this life which fall to
their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. ....
But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not,
like Lear, ‘give everything.' I make my stand upon pig.
Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good
flavours to extra-domiciliate, or send out of the house
slightingly (under pretext of friendship, or I know not
what), a blessing so particularly adapted-predestined, I
may say, to my individual palate. It argues an insensi-
bility.
“ Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing
these tender victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with
something of a shock, as we hear of any other obsolete
custom. The age of discipline is gone by, or it would be
curious to inquire (in a philosophical light merely) what
effect this process might have towards intenerating and
dulcifying a substance naturally so mild and dulcet as the
flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet
we should be cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity,


Pigeon
347
pleasure up faring we can ched of putting
how we censure the wisdom of the practice. It might
impart a gusto.
“I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young
students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with
much learning and pleasantry on both sides, “Whether,
supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained his death
by whipping (per flagellationem extremam) superadded a
pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any
possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man
justified in using that method of putting the animal to
death ?' I forget the decision.
“His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few
breadcrumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash
of mild sage. But banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech
you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to
your palate, steep them in sbalots, stuff them out with
plantations of the rank and guilty garlic—you cannot
poison them, or make them stronger than they are : but
consider, he is a weakling—a flower.”
All honour to Charles Lamb !—but still the innocent is
to be stuffed with the ordinary sage-and-onion forcemeat
(No. 7), and is then to be sewed up and roasted before a
brisk fire; the basting to be frequent, with a brush dipped
in salad oil. He is to be served with a good brown gravy
and with apple sauce. He had better be served whole; but
those who are not confident of their carving require that
(as Grimod de la Reynière said) he should first be made a
gentleman—that is, be guillotined- and that he should be
halved down the back. In this case, let the halves be
placed on the dish, the outer or roasted sides uppermost ;
and let the head also be halved—the one cheek to repose at
the one end, and the other at the other end of the dish.
Pigeon is a very great bird in France, and is cooked in
many ways. The most elaborate of the French soups-
Bisque--was originally a pigeon soup. In England the


348
Pigeon
bird is little noticed save in the form of pigeon-pie—but
that is the most favoured of all the pies.
Roast Pigeons.-Barded with bacon; under the bacon a
vineleaf, when it is to be had. Roast them for twenty
minutes ; when nearly ready, take off the barding to dust
them with flour and to froth them ; but it will be no
disadvantage if the bacon is replaced in serving them.
Orange gravy will be found a good sauce to go with them.
Stewed Pigeons (Pigeons en compôte).—Stuff them with
a seasoning of mixed spices, salt, chopped parsley, butter,
and breadcrumbs. Half-roast them or fry them, and
then proceed to stew them gently in good broth with a
glass of wine in it. Add also an onion stuck with two
cloves, a faggot of sweet-herbs, and—some cooks say-a
white cabbage or a lettuce cut in quarters. Take out the
pigeons and dish them; remove also the vegetable ingre-
dients ; thicken the sauce with roux, and pour it over the
birds. Garnish them with the lettuce or cabbage, if that
has been selected in the preparation, but if not used, there
are other garnishes—such as peas, asparagus points, arti-
choke bottoms, mushrooms, sweetbreads, cockscombs.
Chartreuse of Pigeons is done in the same way as the
Chartreuse of partridges—and that is in principle the
same as the Perdrix aux choux or partridge with cabbage.
The only difference is, that in the Chartreuse the partridges
are concealed in the cabbage to satisfy the consciences of
the fasting friars.
Broiled Pigeons—or Pigeons en crapaudine-trussed and
flattened like a toad. The pigeons are split at the back
and spread out, after the manner of the spatchcock. They
are placed in a stewpan with a morsel of butter, a faggot
of sweet-herbs, and some sliced onions. When half-cooked
they are taken out (the faggot and onion slices also), and
two yolks of eggs are mixed into the butter in which they


Pike
349
have cooked. The pigeons are to be well smeared with
this mixture, and afterwards covered with breadcrumbs
which have been intermixed with some chopped shalot and
parsley. They can then go to the grill, and may be served
with a little clear gravy into which has been squeezed
some lemon-juice. The pigeons, it will be observed, are
split and half-cooked before being breadcrumbed and
grilled ; for otherwise the breadcrumbs would be burned
before the pigeons could be grilled enough.
Pigeon Pie.—Cover the bottom of the dish with veal
cutlets or small and tender collops of beef, quite free from
fat and bone, and season them with salt, pepper, and
nutmeg. Over these lay the birds, cut in halves, and
each half stuffed with some maître d'hôtel butter mixed
with the livers parboiled and minced. Put half a
dozen hard-boiled yolks of eggs in among them, and
if the bottom of the dish has been lined with veal, a
few thin slices of ham may be placed above the birds.
Add some bits of butter and a good moistening of veal
broth. Then cover over with paste in the usual way,
and bake it for an hour. It is usual to stick three or four
pigeons' feet in the centre of the roof. This is a custom
of great antiquity, to which many good people object,
because they can see no use in it. These feet, however,
date from the origin of the pie, and contain an allusion to
its name. See Pie.
PIKE.— The pike, jack or luce is a dry fish, which is not
to be enjoyed unless prepared in grand style, with many
rites and gorgeous ceremonies. The following wise re-
ceipt is given by Izaak Walton in his Complete Angler :
-“First open your pike at the gills, and, if need be, cut
also a little slit towards the belly. Out of these take his
guts, and keep his liver, which you are to shred very small
with thyme, sweet-marjoram, and a little winter-savory;


350
Pike
to these put some pickled oysters, and some anchovies,
two or three—both these last whole, for the anchovies will
melt, and the oysters should not ; to these you must add
also a pound of sweet butter, which you are to mix with
the herbs that are shred, and let them all be well salted.
If the pike be more than a yard long, then you may put
into these herbs more than a pound, or if he be less, then
less butter will suffice : these, being thus mixed, with a
blade or two of mace, must be put into the pike's belly :
and then his belly so sewed up as to keep all the butter in
his belly if it be possible ; if not, then as much as you
possibly can. But take not off the scales. Then you are
to thrust the spit through his mouth, out at his tail. And
then take four, or five, or six split sticks, or very thin
laths, and a convenient quantity of tape or filleting ;
these laths are to be tied round about the pike’s body
from his head to his tail, and the tape tied somewhat
thick, to prevent his breaking or falling off from the
spit. Let him be roasted very leisurely, and often basted
with claret wine, and anchovies and butter mixed together,
and also with what moisture falls from him into the pan.
When you have roasted him sufficiently, you are to hold
under him, when you unwind or cut the tape that ties
him, such a dish as you propose to eat him out of, and let
him fall into it with the sauce that is roasted in his belly,
and by this means the pike will be kept unbroken and
complete. Then, to the sauce which was within, and
also that sauce in the pan, you are to add a fit quantity of
the best butter, and to squeeze the juice of three or four
oranges. Lastly, you may either put it into the pike, with
the oysters, two cloves of garlic, and take it whole out
when the pike is cut off the spit; or, to give the sauce
a hogoo [haut goût], let the dish into which you let the
pike fall be rubbed with it; the using or not using of this
garlic is left to your discretion. This dish of meat is too
good for any but anglers or very honest men ; and I


Pilchard
351
trust you will prove both, and therefore I have trusted
you with this secret.”
One part of this receipt cannot now be permitted—the
spit. We do not apply steel to fresh fish. The pike must
be baked, and this too without neglecting the basting,
which is an important point.
There are of course other ways of doing the pike. He
may be cut in slices and fried, in which case he is to be
eaten with Dutch sauce ; or he may be cut in fillets, and
served in most of the ways in which one serves salmon,
turbot, and soles. He has even been served in water-
zootje ; but this does him too much honour. He is not
delicate enough. It is much better to go to the other
extreme, and dress him in the Chambord style.
Ankham sel and Witham pike
In all England is none like.
PILCHARD, called also the gipsy herring, is a fine fat fish
most abundant on the Devonshire and Cornwall coasts ;
but it is to be found all over the Channel, and on the
French coast it goes by the name of sardine. They are
large for sardines, but they are treated as such in Devon-
shire and Cornwall, and are now sold in tins under the
name of Cornish sardines. The result is worthy of praise,
and ought to be the beginning of a successful industry.
It is the first attempt in England to preserve fish in oil.
It would be too much to say that they are equal to the best
French sardines—that was not to be expected in a first
experiment; but still they are good, well-flavoured sardines;
and when the Cornish men-Tre, Pol and Pen-have
thoroughly mastered the art of preserving fish in oil, their
fat little pilchards should be known as the finest sardines in
the world, and the perfection of preserved herrings.
We know little of the pilchard in London, or anywhere
far from the Land's End. The fact is, that being the most
sublime of herrings, with a richness which raises him


352
Pimento
he is for in Billings and as a herring
almost to the nobleness of a salmon-trout, the pilchard,
with all his fatness, begins to spoil much too soon after he
has bidden adieu to his native element; and he is by no
means sublime—he is even rancid—when he reaches the
glorious Walhalla of fish in Billingsgate. Whenever a
pilchard is found fresh, he is to be cooked as a herring of
high degree. His season is between July and Christmas.
It is singular, considering the goodness of the pilchard,
that he is of no repute when cured, and is not to be named
beside the bloater of Yarmouth, the salt herring of the
Dutch, or the red herring of Scotland. Probably the
larger pilchards, with their salmon-trout flavour, might
make a name for themselves in the form of kipper ; and
there is now every prospect that the smaller pilchards will
spread their renown in the guise of Cornish sardines.
PIMENTO.—Jamaica pepper, the dried berry of a West
Indian tree—the Eugenia pimento. It also bears the
honorary name of Allspice, as combining within itself the
flavours of clove, cinnamon and nutmeg.
PIMPERNEL deserves a word in order to guard against a
mistake which may be serious. The flower known by this
name in England is a rank poison. It is that named in
Tennyson's famous song :-
The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake blossom fell into the lake
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea :'
that is, with closed flowers. Now Englishmen returning
from France, and loud in their praises of a French salad,
tell us that in order to make this salad in perfection it
ought to be garnished with four herbs minced : tarragon,
chervil, chives, and pimpernel. Mark well, and let the
gardener and the cook take heed that this pimpernel is not
pimpernel in England, but burnet.
PINTAIL, to be treated as widgeon or wild duck.


Plums
353
PIQUANTE.—See Sharp.
PLAICE, called on the Sussex coast diamond plaice, from
the little orange lozenges on their backs, and for the same
reason called in France carrelet, are the poorest and the
cheapest of all the flat fish. The worst cookery cannot do
them wrong, and the best cannot do them good. The
only way to eat them is in fillets prepared in any of the
ways prescribed for fillets of sole. The best plaice that
come to the London market are caught between Hastings
and Folkestone, and are named from their habitation
Dowers plaice.
PLOVERS.—The best are the golden plovers. They used
to be, and often still are, roasted without being drawn-as
were also turtledoves and larks; “for," says an ancient
author, “larks eat only pebbles and sand, doves grains o
juniper and scented herbs, and plovers feed on air.” Later
the same rule was extended to the woodcock; and the
general rule now is to dress the plover as a woodcock.
Plovers' Eggs must not be forgotten—delicious little v
things hard-boiled, exquisite in a salad, perfect in a
sandwich, most admirable of all set like large opals in the
midst of aspic jelly. The chief supply comes from Holland
The first eggs that come over are sent to the Queen, and
are worth 7s. 6d. apiece.
Plums have a wide range of meaning. I innæus in-
cluded under the name, not only plums proper, but cherries
and apricots ; and when we speak of a plum-pudding we
extend the designation to raisins. The plums best known
have each a special name: as Orleans, Greengage, Magnum
Bonum, Damson, Mirabelle, and so forth. It is a pity to
cook them when they are sweet and ripe, unless with a
view to preserve them ; but there will always be young
people in the world, and old people with youthful tastes, to
whom stewed plums and plum tarts will never come amiss
23


354
Plum Pudding
Plum Sauce.—Stone about a pint of Orleans plums, and
stir them to’a mash over a brisk fire, with a quarter-pint
of water and a quarter-pound of sugar. Then pass them
through a sieve, and use them as a sauce for pudding.
Other plums may be used in the same way-not to speak
of peaches, nectarines and apricots.
Plum PUDDING.-A pound and a half of combined flour
and breadcrumbs ; a pound, and a half of chopped suet ;
a pound and a half of combined raisins (stoned) and cur-
rants ; three-quarters of a pound of sugar ; 4hree-quarters
of a pint of combined milk and eggs (say six eggs and the
rest smilk); three wineglassfuls of brandy; a quarter of a
pound of chopped apples; a quarter of a pound of candied
peel; half a teaspoonful of salt; "half a nutmeg ; half an ounce
of mixed spice.' Mix all thoroughly, tie it up in a floured
cloth, put it into boiling water, and let it boil from five to
six hours. These proportions will' make two good-sized
puddings, each of which will require to be boiled for the
time given. Punch sauce.
POÊLE is a word much used in the French kitchen. It
means a frying-pan ; but originally it meant any small
saucepan, and afterwards it was made to signify the con-
tents of the saucepan, or at least the array of vegetables
and condiments which were put into it for seasoning. In
this sense, or indeed in any sense, the term has dropped out
of the English language, but we find it five hundred years
ago. In the Forme of Cury there is a receipt for “ Hares
in Papdele,” which has greatly puzzled antiquarians. It
is a corruption of “ Hares in Padell.” The Latin word
for a saucepan was patella, which became padell in Old
English, and paêle, afterwards poêle, in French. The
assortment of vegetables which the French now under-
stand by a poêle will be found among the Faggots—a
Faggot of Pot-herbs.


Pork
355
POIVRADE SAUCE is a peppery sauce. Put into a stew-
pan two or three sliced onions, two or three shalots, a clove
of garlic, a carrot, a parsnip, a faggot of sweet-herbs, two
cloves, some cayenne or long pepper, salt, a gill of vinegar,
a pint of broth—and possibly a glass of red wine. Simmer
it for an hour; add to it some roux made with one ounce
of butter and one of flour; simmer for another half-hour,
then strain it, skim it, and serve.
Polish SAUCE is a highly decorated horseradish sauce.
The more simple sauce is eaten with roast beef. This is
supposed to belong to roast veal. Put the scrapings of a
horseradish into some sauce Allemande, or into a Poulette
sauce, with plenty of lemon-juice, a little grated lemon-
zest, chopped parsley, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and some sifted
sugar.
Pork is so little to be seen at good tables, save in the
form of ham and bacon, that it would seem to be a work
of supererogation to refer to it. It is however eaten-
indeed, largely consumed—on the sly, and must have a word
or two.
Roast Pork is scored to make the crackling, and is in
the first instance put before the fire at a long distance,
that it may be well heated through before the skin hardens.
The reason of this is that pork takes more of the fire than
any other meat, and there is danger of the outside being
burnt before the interior is cooked. Sauces: sage-and-
onion sauce, together with apple sauce; or else sauce
Robert by itself alone.
Pork Chops and Cutlets.—To be done precisely as those of
mutton, only they must be done thoroughly. Thurtell ate
pork chops before he committed the murder of Mr. William
Weare.
POTAGE À LA REINĖ.—See Chicken.


356
Potato
POTATO.- The place of the potato in the English dinner
has been discussed when treating of bread, and the place it
holds on the French dinner-table. On account of the
badness of English bread, the potato has largely displaced
it at English tables ; and it is now to be added that, on
account of the badness of other vegetables in English
cooking, the potato has gained a further importance far
beyond its merits. (See Bread; also Vegetables.) Yet, with
all this exaggerated importance, English cooks cannot
make the potato important enough to be eaten by itself.
Go into a first-rate restaurant in Paris—say the Café
Anglais—and at the end of dinner ask, by way of entre-
met, for a simple dish of potatoes tossed in butter : it will
turn out a beautiful little dish, and it will be charged in the
bill two or two-and-a-half francs. A couple of shillings
for three potatoes! Who will pay that price in England,
where the potato is vaunted so much ? The French pay the
price freely—which shows that they set a higher value on a
good potato than we do, though they do not eat so many of
them, nor suffer them to take the place of bread and to
dominate over other vegetables.
Boiled Potatoes.—The Irish way, that is, cooked and
served in their jackets—or, as the French say, en robe de
chambre. The potatoes are to be all of a size, and to be
well washed and brushed, but they are in no way to be
touched with a knife, even to clear what are called the
eyes. Pour cold water over them, just enough to cover them,
and when it boils, add plenty of saltma large teaspoon-
ful for a quart of water. Simmer them gently with a tight
lid : the length of time will depend on the size and kind
of the potatoes,—it may be from twenty to forty-five
minutes ; but the last two or three minutes they should be
made to boil rapidly. Prick them with a fork, to see if
they are done enough. Then lift off the lid and put the
pot aside, to let all the moisture escape in steam. The Irish


Potato
357
will have them sent to table as they are—in their skins.
Ordinary mortals have them peeled before being served.
The English way. Choose them all of a size, peel them,
and remove the eyes and other specks ; cover them with
cold water (but there is to be no salt at this stage), and
simmer them very gently—the slower the better. They
have to be watched very carefully towards the last, to see
that they do not boil a minute more than is necessary,
- and this can only be ascertained by probing with a fork.
Pour off all the water, strew salt on the potatoes, and
leave the pot uncovered by the fire, shaking it from time to
time till the potatoes seem all dry and floury.
Potatoes Browned—with roast meat.-Peel them, parboil
them, drain them, flour them, and put them in an earthen
dish into the dripping pan under the meat. Baste them
freely from time to time, and when they are browned on
one side turn them.
Fried Potatoes.-Kidney potatoes are best for this pur :
pose, and a kettleful of beef fat. But in English kitchens
the fried potatoes are very uncertain, because they are cut
in too thin slices ; also because they are done in a flat
frying-pan, with a sparing supply of butter or dripping.
Instead of cutting the potatoes, like the English, into shil-
lings, French cooks cut them into square plugs, about
the length and thickness of the little finger. These are put
into a wire basket and dipped into the kettle of boiling fat,
where they remain for five minutes, and are shaken from
time to time—the kettle resting on the stove, with only its
edge on the stove fire. During these five minutes, how-
ever, the fat has been cooling, partly through the coldness
of the potatoes immersed in it, partly through the kettle
being removed from the central heat of the stove fire to its
edge. Therefore, at the end of five minutes, take out the
wire basket, and put the frying-kettle over the stove fire,
to heat up. Take it off again so as to rest as before on


358
Potato
the stove, with only its edge over the fire; put back the
wire basket into it, and in two minutes more the frying
will be complete, and the potatoes beautifully crisp, of a
rich golden colour. The whole time for frying should
be as nearly as possible seven minutes—not counting, of
course, the time required for re-heating the fat. The
salting is not to take place till the last. Shake some salt
over them in the wire basket, give a shake of the basket,
and then another shake of salt. Let all the fat drain away,
and then serve.
Potatoes Soufflées.—These are done precisely as the fried
potatoes, and the inflation depends wholly on the manner
of cutting them. Cut in square plugs, the potatoes will
not inflate ; cut in slices the eighth of an inch thick, they
will. It is best to cut them lengthwise, in slices of equal
thickness; and when putting these slices into the fat, care
must be taken that they do not adhere one to another.
Potatoes à la Maître d'Hôtel.-It is a great fault in the
preparation of these potatoes that English cooks will make
them pasty by putting flour with them—that is, they
do them with maître d'hôtel sauce instead of with maître
d'hôtel butter. French kidney potatoes are the best to use.
Boil them in the ordinary way, and cut them in slices
about the eighth of an inch thick. Put two pounds of
them into a stewpan, with two spoonfuls of broth and four
ounces of maître d'hôtel butter or its ingredients—that
is, four ounces of fresh butter, with pepper, salt, chopped
parsley, and lemon-juice. Toss all over the fire until the
butter is melted and well mixed in with the potatoes.
Potatoes tossed in butter (sautées au beurre).-1. These
are for the most part boiled potatoes, sliced, seasoned lightly
with pepper and salt, and tossed in butter to a golden tint.
The chief" difference between them and the potatoes à la


360
Potato
potatoes tossed in butter, No. 1, not forgetting the pepper
and salt.
Mashed Potatoes (Potato purée).—Mealy potatoes are
best. These, when boiled in the usual way, are generally
rubbed down by English cooks with the back of a wooden
spoon. French cooks press them through a wire sieve,
which ensures a finer grain. The mash is then put into
a stewpan, with fresh butter, cream or very good milk,
sometimes a spoonful of broth, pepper, salt, and it may be
nutmeg; and it is vigorously stirred over the fire, to make
it light.
Potato Croquettes.—Take six potatoes that have passed
through the sieve; put them into a stewpan with an ounce
of butter, two yolks of eggs, pepper, nutmeg and salt, and
stir them well for a few minutes over the fire. They should
then be put aside between two plates, to get cold. When
required for use they should be rolled into shapes—corks,
balls, and the like—dipped in beaten egg, rolled in bread-
crumbs, and fried in hot fat.
Potatoes for the Duchess.—Prepare the potatoes as for
croquettes. Shake some flour upon a pasteboard, and upon
this shape the potato purée into little oval cakes; fry them
first on one side, then on the other, in clarified butter, and
drain them on a cloth.
Potato Dumplings (Klösse in German).—Pass a pound
of cold potatoes through a sieve, mix them with two ounces
of flour, four yolks and two whites of eggs, pepper, salt,
nutmeg, and a dash of sugar. Knead all well together,
shape them like turkeys' eggs, and drop them into boiling
salt and water. In ten minutes they are ready, and make
an agreeable garnish.
Potato Salad.-Kidney potatoes boiled and cut in slices.
They may be combined with boiled celeriac, onion, beet-
root-any, or all. They may also be combined with raw


Poulette Sauce
361
celery, and with red cabbage which has boiled for fifteen
minutes in water with an extra allowance of salt, and
which has been allowed to soak afterwards in a wine-
glassful of vinegar.
Potato Soup.—Make a purée of three pounds of mealy
potatoes, and mix it with two quarts of boiling broth,
adding pepper and salt. Boil it for five minutes, removing
any scum that may rise, and finish the soup with a piece
of butter. Some people enjoy a flavour of onion in this
soup—in which case mince finely two ounces, fry them
lightly, and let them stew in the soup for ten minutes.
POT-AU-FEU.—See the chapter on Soup.
POULETTE SAUCE, in its best form, is no other than
Allemande or Almayne sauce. Most commonly it is a
mock Almayne made as follows. Stir on the fire for a
quarter of an hour three ounces of butter, three of flour,
and nearly a pint of white broth, which in the case of
fowls will be the broth in which they have boiled. Then add
a leason of two or three yolks of eggs, and finish with
lemon-juice. Mushrooms, shalots and parsley are added to
form what is called the Poulette Ragout or Relish.
It has already been explained that the Almayne, or
Allemande, is an attempt to improve upon the Dutch
sauce ; and since Poulette is now described as a mock
Almayne, it may likewise be described as a parody of the
Dutch. It is a Dutch sauce with a little less of eggs and
a good deal less of butter ; but with flour in it (which the
Dutchman never uses), and with white broth instead of
water.
Poulette means a hen chicken, and the Poulette sauce
is but the enrichment with eggs of the white parsley-and-
butter sauce so well known in England as the clothing of
boiled chicken. It is sometimes in English books named
lemon sauce, because finished with lemon-juice.


3.62
Prawn
PRAWN.—There is nothing that need be said about
cooking prawns, or in praise of them. One word, how-
ever, about the origin of the name, which seems to be
unknown. May I point out that one of the chief distinc-
tions of the prawn is a most formidable serrated prong,
jutting out between its eyes ?
Ps and Qs.—A phrase most appropriate to taverns. In
the olden time, when the keeper of an alehouse chalked
on the wall or on the door the scores of what his customers
had drunk, it was usual to put down P for pint and Q for
quart. The customer who kept an eye on his score would
admonish Boniface to “mind his Ps and Qs.”
PTARMIGAN is a kind of grouse, and to be entertained
with the ceremonies to which grouse are entitled.
PUMPKINS.—Lady Llanover says : “Few vegetables are
so little understood and consequently so much undervalued
in Great Britain as pumpkins. Perhaps Gower in South
Wales is the only part of the United Kingdom where
pumpkins are grown as an article of diet by the rural popu-
lation ; and there they are to be seen, as on the Continent,
hanging from the ceilings for winter store, and any little
spare corner in the field or garden is made use of to place
the small mound on which to sow a few pumpkin seeds.
The varieties of this plant are so numerous that it would
be beyond the limit of any cookery book to attempt an
enumeration of comparative merits, from the vegetable
marrow to the Turk's turban and the yellow pumpkin,
which grows to such a size as to fill a wheelbarrow ; but it
will not be out of place to note shortly a few of the modes
in which pumpkins are available. For white soup they can
be used alone, with merely the addition of onion, celery
and sweet-herbs for flavouring. They are excellent when
boiled, sprinkled with salt and sweet-herbs ; or fried in egg
and crumbs like soles. Also plain, boiled in slices and


Punch
363
served with brown gravy. In Gower they are added to
hashed meat, made into pies with apples, and put into soup.
Pumpkins have one peculiar quality in addition to a good
deal of natural sweetness : they will absorb and retain the
flavour of whatever they are cooked with. If stewed with
plums it tastes exactly like them in puddings and tarts;
the same with apples, rhubarb or gooseberries ; and for
savoury cookery it would be difficult to say in what dish it
· may not be used with advantage as an addition.”
PUNCH.—Dr. Kitchener was once a considerable authority
on all questions of eating or drinking; and he spread
abroad a statement which has helplessly been repeated,
and starts up unexpectedly in out-of-the-way corners, that
Punch—both the name and the drink—is of West Indian v
origin, and means Five.' He got the idea of West Indian
origin from the rum and the limes which abound in it;
but the name is clearly of East Indian growth, and may
be recognised in Punjaub—the country of the Five rivers.
It is named Punch from the five ingredients which composer
it : 1. spirit ; 2. acid ; 3. spice; 4. sugar; 5. water.
English Punch.-1. The spirit is mostly of two kinds—
brandy and rum, mixed in proportions which must be left
to taste. The rum generally predominates. 2. The acid
is nearly always lemon-juice. 3. The spice is nearly always
lemon-peel, but sometimes tealeaf, sometimes nutmeg ; and
as for 4 and 5, the sugar and the water, they explain them-
selves.
Glasgow Punch is made of the coldest spring water.
There are theorists who maintain that punch is always
made of hot water, grog of cold water ; and that Glasgow
punch, therefore, is not punch but groy. Punch is a word
which simply means five—it is a composition of five ele-
ments ; and our receipt for the liquor loved by the West
India merchants of Glasgow is classical. It comes from


364
Punch
the pen of John Gibson Lockhart, and is to be found in
Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk. “The sugar being melted
with a little cold water, the artist squeezed about a dozen
lemons through a wooden strainer, and then poured in
water enough almost to fill the bowl. In this state
the liquor goes by the name of sherbet, and a few of the
connoisseurs in his immediate neighbourhood were re-
quested to give their opinion of it--for in the mixing of
the sherbet lies, according to the Glasgow creed at least,
one-half of the whole battle. This being approved by an
audible smack from the lips of the umpires, the rum was
added to the beverage, I suppose in something about the
proportion from one to seven. Last of all, the maker cut
a few limes, and running each section rapidly round the
rim of his bowl, squeezed in enough of this more delicate
acid to flavour the whole composition. In this consists
the true tour-de-maître of the punch-maker.”
Oxford Punch could not be separated from the name of
Oxford—which see.
Cambridge Punch, in like manner, will be found under
the name of Cambridge.
Milk Punch.—Over the zest of four lemons and a
Seville orange pour a pint of rum ; cover it up, and let
it stand for twelve hours. Then strain it, and mix with it
another pint of rum, a pint of brandy, a pint of sherry,
half a pint of lemon-juice, a pineapple peeled, sliced and
pounded, a pint of green tea, a grated nutmeg, a pound of
dissolved sugar, the whites of two eggs frothed, two pints
of boiling water and two of boiling milk. Mix it well,
let it stand for a little time, strain it through a beaver
jelly-bag, and bottle it. To be served after turtle soup.
Roman Punch.—A bottle of Chablis, the same quantity
of syrup at 35°, half the quantity of strained lemon-juice.
Put it to freeze, and when pretty well frozen work into it


Purées
365
two whites of egg whipt with syrup. Put it to freeze
again, and when required for use add to it a glass of rum
and a pint of champagne. This used to be served between
the courses—that is, immediately before the roast. It now
comes oftener after the roast.
Punch Sauce.- Make lemon sauce with half the quantity
of water; thicken it with two ounces of butter and a tea-
spoonful of flour; touch it up with a glass of rum, and
serve it very hot.
PUNCTUALITY.—Of all the qualities of a cook, the most v
indispensable is punctuality. (Brillat-Savarin.)
PURÉES.—A purée meant at first peppery—its original
form being poivrée. The old meaning of the word being
lost, it is now supposed to be something purified by being
passed through a sieve or a tammy.
Purée of dried vegetables, as peas, haricots, lentils.-
Soak them over night in abundance of warm water. Next
day put them into the pot with cold water, a carrot, an
onion, a leek, a faggot of sweet-herbs and some salt, and
cook them till they are perfectly tender. If it has not
been possible to steep them beforehand, it will be enough
to proceed as follows. At the end of half an hour pour
into the pot a wineglassful of cold water, and repeat this
every half-hour till the vegetables are done. If they are
intended for soup, take out the carrot and the herbs, and,
without being too careful about draining them, pound them
in a mortar, and pass them through a hair sieve. If they
are intended for a garnish or for an entremet, they should be
well drained in order to be thick enough. After travelling
through the sieve they will take kindly to a tablespoonful
of shalot if chopped very finely and passed in a liberal supply
of butter. Mix sbalot, butter, and purée well together ;
and further, according to need, use a moistening of broth,


366
Quails
of milk, or of the liquor in which the vegetables have
boiled.
For the Purée of fresh vegetables—whether these are
peas and beans; roots such as carrots, turnips, potatoes ;
fruits such as the tomato or the gourd ; leaves like sorrel
and endive ; or bulbs like the onion—the process is practi-
cally the same : first boiling, then the mortar, then the
sieve, next the seasoning, and again, perhaps, the tammy,
if the Purée is to be very fine. There are differences,
however, of seasoning which will be found in detail under
the name of each vegetable.
One of the leading points of difference between English
and French cookery turns on the greater carefulness of
the latter in making a Purée. It is not a question of
skill ; it is wholly one of good faith. The English cook is
content with slovenly work: hence mashed potatoes full of
lumps, and spinach full of strings and coarse. The English
cook shirks the labour of the sieve. If the thing is worth
doing it is worth doing well ; and it must be repeated that
the result depends not upon skill, but upon honesty. It
is the honesty of their work, as much as anything else,
that gives the French cooks their superiority in dressed
vegetables.
DIGUAILS are a kind of dwarf partridge; and in
the summer months, when as yet the partridge
is inviolable, they are a pleasant substitute.
They come chiefly from Egypt, in con-
signments of perhaps 50,000 at a time, and they bear
travel so well that not more than seven per cent. perish on
the road. The French have many ways of dressing the
quail for table. The English have only one ; but it is the


Quenelle
367
best way of all. Let the quail be barded with bacon; under
which tie a vineleaf; roast him for ten minutes before a
brisk fire, and serve him on toast, with gravy in a boat
apart.
QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S PUDDING.—Take two oranges and
one lemon, grate the peels and mix with the juice, into
which put four ounces of sugar and the yolks of five eggs.
Then make a little paste for the bottom of the dish, into
which pour the mixture. Bake it slowly in a moderate
oven.
THE QUEEN'S CHICKEN SOUP (the queen being Margue-
rite of Valois).—See Chicken.
- QUENELLE is one of the many words of the French
kitchen which Frenchmen—learned and simple—have
given up as inscrutable. It is the name for the most deli-
cate forcemeat, which the French cooks prepare sometimes
from chickens, sometimes from whitings, sometimes from
game-but originally from young rabbits. Quenelle is a
doublet of the old French name for a young rabbit-connil,
a little cony—and it is formed from the Latin cuniculus, in
the same way as the French name for a distaff, Quenouille,
is formed from conucula, a corruption of the Latin colu-
cula. Quenelle of rabbit, therefore, is a pleonasm meaning
a little cony of rabbit ; and quenelle of chicken is an
absurdity, meaning a little cony of chicken.
Mince, pound, and pass through a sieve, say half a pound
of rabbit's flesh,-final weight after the sieve. With this mix
and pound a little more than half the quantity of boiled
udder of veal, which has been treated in the same way;
say five ounces. To this again add the same quantity of
panada as of udder. Pound all well together, seasoned
with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and softened with the
yolks of two eggs and a tablespoonful of white sauce or of
cream. Before this quenelle is put aside for use it should


368
Quince
be tested. Poach a tiny bit of it, and if it should come too
stiff, moisten the quenelle with another spoonful of white
broth or else cream. If udder of veal should fail, fresh
butter may be used instead in the same proportions-
eight ounces of pounded rabbit, five of fresh butter, and
five of panada.
Chicken, game, and fish prepared in the same way are
also called little corties or Quenelles. The Quenelles of
whiting are in great favour ; but it is to be noted that
in Quenelles of fish there is never any veal udder,—the
combination is always fish, butter, and panada, finished off
as before.
QUINCE has gone out of fashion ; and it is natural that
when the best fruits of the tropics are brought to our
shores quickly in ships, we should neglect some of those
grown at home. It is to be desired, however, that apple-pie
should never go out of fashion; and quinces have this
curious virtue : that, being of little value themselves,
not nearly so good as apples—they improve an apple-pie
beyond the power of words to describe.
Quinces for addition to apple-pie.—Peel them and cut
them in quarters. To five pounds of fruit put three of
sugar and a wineglassful of water. Put them in pint
jars, cover them, place them in boiling water, and simmer
them very gently for three hours. Put the peels in with
them, and take them out when done. What is not wanted
at once can be bottled.


Rabbits
369
JABBITS.-St. Evremond, about two hundred
years ago, praised the rabbits of England as
incomparable. Now the Ostend rabbit has
the great name. Of the wild rabbit, Gri-
mod de la Reynière says that “its flesh is whiter, more
tender, and more juicy than that of the hare, and when
young it is delicate and easily digested. Nourished on
thyme, wild thyme, and marjoram, barded with bacon, and
cooked to the proper point, it perfumes the mouth and
inundates the palate with delights. As for tame rabbits,
we insist on their proscription; for ever since Despréaux,
these game of the stableyard,
elevés dans Paris,
Sentent encore le chou dont ils furent nourris.”
The young rabbit or cony (connil) has given his name to the
most delicate of the forcemeats, the Quenelle; and there is
an excellent
Rabbit Soup made after the manner of the Queen's
Chicken broth—the Potage à la Reine.
Smothered Rabbit.—This is the name given in England
to boiled rabbit. It is smothered with a white onion sauce,
and it is served with boiled bacon.
Fricassee of Rabbit is done in the same way as fricassee
of chicken.
Gibelote of Rabbit.— Put a quarter of a pound of butter
into a stewpan with a spoonful of flour; make a white
roux of them, and pass in it for a short time the rabbit cut
into pieces, and some bacon cut into dice. Then add some
small onions, some mushrooms, a faggot of sweet-herbs,
pepper and salt, and moisten all with half broth, half white
wine (French). Let all cook slowly till it is nearly ready,
then briskly, to reduce the liquid. Remove the faggot and
the fat from the gibelote, and serve it piping hot.
24


370
Radish
.
RADISH.—Not a word against the radish. Still, it may
be lawful to record that it is not of much use in cookery,
whatever it may be in eating. May I also venture to
say that it is a mistake in a salad—an intrusion; and
that the only way to eat it is to nibble it by itself
while waiting for the feast, or in any convenient interlude.
Be it added that there are few combinations of colour so
beautiful and rich as the red and white of radishes against
the green of their leaves. In glass dishes upon a dinner-
table they are an ornament which may vie with the finest
flowers.
Ragoût.—The ordinary English use of this word for a
stew will be illustrated in the next article, which deals with
the Ragoût of Mutton. Here it is to be observed that in
French the word is most commonly used in a sense which
it hardly ever bears in English. The proper English word
for what the French understand by a ragout is a relish. A
ragout in English always takes its name from the food
which is presented in it, and means no more than a good
stew of that meat. In French a ragout takes its name
from the garnish in the sauce : it is the savoury accom-
paniment of the stew—the relish. English cooks are
puzzled when they hear of the Financial ragout, which
covers a variety of stews ; or the Turtle ragout, in which
there is no turtle. It is right, therefore, that there may
be no mistake, to discard the puzzling French name, and
to give the plain English one. The list of French ragouts
will accordingly be found under the name of Relishes.
RAGOÛT OF MUTTON.—As there is no one word in
English for all that the French mean by Friture, so there is
no one word in French for all that the English mean by
Stew. Perhaps the nearest word is ragoût—which means
something tasted again ; but the French are so little fond
of it, as the name of a stew, that they dismiss it whenever
and however they can find a substitute. Thus a stew of


Ragoût of Mutton
371
fresh-water fish is called a matelote; of salt fish, a brandade;
of winged game, a salmi; of hare, a civet; of rabbit, a gibe-
lote; of chicken, a fricassee ; of pigeons, a compôte ; of beef,
a daube ; of mutton, a haricot or a Navarin. They seem to
have been particularly pressed to find a name for the stew
of mutton. During many centuries they had been making
a stew of it, combined with turnips, carrots, and onions,
which they called a ragout. The word was twisted about
on the German frontier till it came back to France un-
recognisable-as haricot. Five centuries ago the French
adopted this odd new name for their favourite old dish,
which was still a stew of mutton with turnips, carrots, and
onions. But about two hundred years afterwards the name
of haricot was given also to a kidney bean, and stuck to it
in such a way as to produce in the French mind more
puzzle and confusion than all the mysteries of fate and
free-will—especially as they reversed the order of things,
and got a notion into their heads that the name of haricot
for the stew came after the name of the bean. Why should
a stew be called after a bean which has nothing to do with
it? What it means has been explained under the name of
Haricot. Here it is enough to say that the French, having
introduced the word haricot in place of ragoût, felt, after
many years of confusion, that they must introduce some
other word in place of haricot. They fixed upon Navarin
for this, among other reasons—that it seemed to suggest, in
a loose, punning title, the navet or turnip, which had become
all important in the famous haricot of mutton. Anciently
this ragout or haricot was adorned with three chief vege-
tables—turnips, carrots, and onions. Gradually the last
two came to be pushed into the background, and the first
alone to be prominent. The haricot of mutton settled into
a brown ragout of mutton and turnips, which the French
cooks who wished to get rid of the word haricot named
after the battle of Navarin. The receipt for this stew will
accordingly be found under the head of Navarin.


Red Mullet
373
for the English word spirits, which may include anything
from gin to maraschino.
RAVIGOTE—Pick-me-up. It comes from the French verb
ravigoter, to cheer or strengthen. We give the name of
pick-me-up to various bitter draughts taken before dinner
to create an appetite. The French give the name of Ravi-
gote to an assemblage of four herbs—tarragon, chervil,
chives, burnet—minced small or used as a faggot, and
supposed by their fine flavour to have a rare faculty of
resuscitation. Ravigote (minced) is the favourite garni-
ture for salads; and in this case is usually served on a
saucer by itself, each herb being kept apart in four little
heaps, to be used by the salad-maker at his pleasure.
Ravigote Butter.—Knead cold fresh butter on a plate,
with a chopped ravigote, pepper, salt, and lemon-juice. It
is usual to blanch the herbs before chopping them. A pat
of this butter is put cold on steaks or broiled fish, and
melts upon them.
Ravigote Sauce is simply the English butter sauce to
which a ravigote is added. Sometimes there is a little
tarragon vinegar added, to bring out the supremacy of the
tarragon in the ravigote class of herbs, but not to make
the sauce sharp.
A more expensive but hardly more effective edition of
this sauce is produced by heating and melting (observe-
not boiling) two wineglassfuls of Allemande sauce with an
ounce of ravigote butter. When the butter is melted all
is ready. Tarragon vinegar may here also be used, so
long as it does not predominate too much in sharpening.
Perhaps éditions de luxe are not of much real value.
RED MULLET is called the woodcock of the sea, because,
in theory at least, he is never gutted, and we are always
supposed to eat the trail. It is curious, however, to see


374
Red Mullet
how nearly all the books, after first laying down the rule that
it is wrong to clean this fish, at once proceed to explain how
the rule may be violated, and he is to be served with only
his liver. The fact is, that the red mullet is not a choice
feeder, and his trail is by no means the delicacy which the
rule so often violated would lead one to imagine. What,
then, is the reason of the rule? It is simply this: that the
liver of the red mullet is particularly good—so good that,
in order to preserve it intact, the epicures of ancient times
were content, cooking the fish whole, to have the other vis-
cera sent to table along with it. We know better now; and,
while careful to preserve every atom of the liver, reject the
trail without any compunction. Next to the liver in repute
stands the head. Heliogabalus had a dish made of the
barbels alone—but this was of a red mullet peculiar to the
Mediterranean.
Red mullets, on account of the tenuity of their skins,
are best cooked in paper cases. Make a paper cradle for
each fish, oiling it and baking it for a few minutes in order
to harden it. Sprinkle the cradle with pepper and salt, and
lay on it a piece of the best fresh butter. On this couch
deposit the red mullet, and put a piece of fresh butter over
him. Arrange the paper cases in a flat stewpan, or even
in a baking-tin, and put them into the oven for twenty or
thirty minutes. At the end of this time the red mullets,
bedewed with lemon-juice, will be as pleasant to taste as
lovely to look at. Only never forget, amid the blaze of
vermilion tints, that the true worth of the fish resides not
in the glitter of the skin, but in the dull brown of the
liver, which may either lie exposed to view in the paper
cradle at the side of its owner, or may be hidden from
sight, as precious virtues often are, in the bosom of the
mullet.
A more highly seasoned method is the following:- Put
into a stewpan, or into paper cases, butter, white wine,
minced shalots, pepper and salt. Arrange the mullets in


Relish
375
the pan, and put a piece of butter over each. Do them
in the oven, and when sending them to table sprinkle them
with lemon-juice and minced parsley.
Red mullets may be had all the year round, but they
are best from midsummer to Christmas. The best used
to be caught at Weymouth. Their head-quarters now
are Hastings and Jersey. Get into the confidence of any
good judge who understands the nature of John Dory, and
he will unbosom to you a great secret—that the glory
of fish is a Dory graced with the livers of red mullets.
RELISH.—It has already been explained that this is what
the French mean by a ragout. Strictly speaking, a relish
and a garnish ought to be convertible terms: they are both
accompaniments. In practice the name of Garnish is given
to any one thing-generally to a vegetable, more or less
plain, which is served with meat; and the name of Relish
to a combination—as onions, mushrooms, truffles, cocks-
combs, quenelles, crayfish, oysters, and soft roes, which
are worked into the attendant sauce.
1. Financial Relish.—Foremost among them stands the
Relish of the Financiers, who have an article to themselves
further back. Cockscombs and kernels, collops of sweet-
bread, quenelles, button mushrooms, and sliced truffles,
separately prepared, and then boiled together for a moment
in the Sauce of the Financiers.
2. Toulouse Relish.—The same as the foregoing, only
tossed for a minute or two in Allemande sauce. It is
white, whereas No. 1 is brown.
3. Turtle Relish.—Take sweetbreads in little collops, a
few cockscombs, crayfish, hard-boiled yolks of eggs, discs
of tongue or of ham, olives, green gherkins, truffles, with
a large supply of mushrooms, and set them on the fire for
a minute in a sauce made (equal parts) of Spanish and
Tomato sauces. :


376
Remoulade
4. Chipolata Relish—a great favourite for poultry.
Chipolatas are small sausages, about two inches long,
made of pork and bacon. Use instead of them either
Frankfort sausages by themselves, or if ordinary pork
sausages, add to them an equal number of little slices of
bacon made into rolls. Cook these apart, and add to
them equal quantities of carrots, turnips, mushrooms, and
chestnuts nicely turned, and also cooked apart. Set them
on the fire for a minute in Spanish sauce.
5. Poulette Relish-used with chicken, from which it
takes its name, but more frequently with calves' feet,
sheep's trotters, and some kinds of fish—notably eels. It
consists of shalots and mushrooms passed in butter, and
served with chopped parsley in a Poulette sauce.
6. Matelote Relish.—Small onions and mushrooms in a
red-wine sauce, described under the name of Matelote.
Crayfish and fried crusts of bread are prepared apart and
added to the garnish in serving.
7. Relish of the Normandy Matelote.—A quantity of
oysters, mussels and mushrooms, prepared in a white-
wine sauce, to which the liquor of the mussels contributes.
For more detail consult the article on Sole à la Normande.
8. Relish of Soft Roes.- Parboil in some boiling water
mixed with salt and two tablespoonfuls of white-wine
vinegar, the soft roes of mackerel, carp or herring; drain
them on a napkin, and then toss them in some white sauce
-Allemande or Suprême, to which may be added chopped
parsley, nutmeg and lemon-juice.
REMOULADE.—This is in fact, as near as possible, the
ordinary English salad dressing. Or it may be otherwise
described as a Mayonnaise made with hard-boiled yolks of
eggs. Some of the French receipts give directions for
making it with raw yolks ; but this is a mistake, as the
Remoulade would then become identical with a Mayon-


Restaurant
377
naise. The name comes from the verb remoudre, to grind--
and refers to grinding to a fine flour the hard yolk. By
carefully and gradually grinding together the yolks of two
hard-boiled eggs, with five tablespoonfuls of oil, one or
one and a half of tarragon. vinegar, a little salt and white
pepper, it is possible to produce a Remoulade as smooth
as a Mayonnaise, and differing in no respect from a good
English salad dressing.
The Remoulade is thus far complete, and requires no
addition to justify its name. But some people choose to
add mustard to it; others, a chopped ravigote; and others,
again, both mustard and a ravigote. It then becomes a
Tartar sauce.
RESTAURANT—the Soup. Restaurant was originally v
the name of a soup with a strange history. One of the
earliest accounts of it is to be found in a little book pub-
lished at Lyons in 1557, and supposed to be the first work
of Bernard Palissy, the potter. It is an attack upon the
ignorance and blunders of doctors—“ Déclaration des Abus
des Médecins ”; and the name of the author is given, not as
Bernard Palissy, but as Pierre Braillier. Whoever be the
author, he showed for the first time the absurdity of the
fashionable soup.
He opens his attack upon it by ridiculing a detail which
is not essential, but is curious, and of interest to this
day. The physicians of those days recommended an old
hen or capon to make a good soup for invalids. The
tradition of this remains not only in the cock-a-leekie of
the Scotch, which is always supposed to be made of an old
cock (and they are in this respect only following rules
which they learned from the cooks patronised by Mary
Stuart and Mary of Guise), but also in the French kitchen
to this day. Nearly all the great French cooks recommend
an old hen for soups. Now here is something curious. In
the year 1557 Braillier, be he Palissy or another, laughed.


378
Restaurant
to scorn the old fowl, and insisted that a young one is much
better—fuller of nourishment and of flavour. For three
hundred years his advice has been set aside, and the old
fowl has been imperative in French kitchens for a good
soup. At the end of these three hundred years Gouffé
produces his book on cookery—the best that has appeared
in France since the death of Carême. He has come to the
conclusion that the tradition of the French kitchen, the
old fowl—is a mistake ; and he insists on the superiority of
a fowl in its prime. It is difficult to decide between the
two, and impossible to lay down a fixed rule to which no
exception can be taken. There is no rule more certain
than this—that four-year-old mutton is better than the two-
year-old meat which comes to market, and that full-grown
animals are better than the very young. But exceptions
crowd upon us. If the older meat is so good, why do we
take to lamb and to veal, and pay high prices for them?
Our affections are divided between the old and the young,
and we shall never probably be constant to either. We
get tired of the old because it is apt to be strong, and of
the young because it is apt to be insipid. The Marquis de
Cussy laid down the following rule:—“ Voyez-vous, les
meilleures viandes sont celles qui sont le moins viandes,
comme les poissons exquis sont ceux qui sont le moins
poissons: soyez convaincu de ce principe.” In plain En-
glish, good fish ought not to taste fishy, nor should meat be
meaty, nor should fowls taste of the henhouse. And these
faults are more liable to the old than to the young.
The great and almost incredible fault of the Restaurant,
however, was not in the substance it used, but in the
manner of using it. A fowl was to be minced small with
butchers' meat, and was to be distilled in an alembic with
barley, roses, cinnamon, corianders, and currants. The
dew thus distilled, which was nothing but water without
substance and without flavour, was declared by the phy-
sicians of the sixteenth century to have a wonderful restora-


380
Rice
ragouts which were to be had from the traiteur. He
provided his customers with soups—and especially the
restaurant divin ; also with fowls and fresh eggs. He was
soon followed by others ; but it was not till 1782 that a
restaurant was established such as we have it now, fit to
rival and outdo the English tavern, and perfect in all its
arrangements. This was set up by Beauvilliers, who, in
his standard work on cookery, takes credit to himself for
having introduced the English style of food into Paris.
He soon made his fortune; and the fashion which he started
spread till it became quite a feature of Parisian life.
Grimod de la Reynière attributes to three chief causes the
rise and wonderful progress of the Restaurant in Paris.
First of all, to the rage for English fashions which marked
the latter years of Louis XVI.—“for the English, it is
well known, almost always take their meals in taverns.”
Next, to the sudden influx into the capital of legislators
under the new order of Government-popular deputies
without homes, who made the vogue, and drew'all Paris to
the taverns and coffee-rooms. Lastly, to the break-up of the
great houses in the Revolution. The artists to whom they
gave employment were thrown out of work, and turned
their talents to catering for the public. Whatever were
the causes at work, the French cooks bent all their efforts
to perfect the system of the restaurant ; with their rare
skill and taste they could not fail of success; and they pro-
duced a model which has been imitated all over the globe.
RICE is not too often seen at our tables. It can be made
very pleasant; it contains as much nourishment as the
potato ; and it is digested in an hour—which can be
said of very few articles of food. It combines, like the
macaronis, with broth to form a variety of soups, with
milk and egg to form puddings, and with butter alone, or
butter and grated cheese, to form an entremet which is
light without being sweet. There is no sweet entremet


Roasting
381
more simple, and at the same time more effective, than the
combination of plain boiled rice with preserved or stewed
fruit and cream. It is not easy, however, to get rice
properly boiled. This is not because there is any difficulty
in it, but because there are many people who think rice
insipid, and not worth the trouble of cooking. They
cannot understand how other people should be almost
fanatical in their enjoyment of rice, should regard a curry
as nothing without it, and should insist on having the rice
perfectly dry-every grain apart.
Boiled Rice.—Wash the rice-Carolina is the best-in
water. Throw it into plenty of boiling water. The pro-
portion is six pounds (that is, pints) of water to one of rice;
therefore, three pints of water to half a pound of rice.
Boil it for five minutes, and skim it. Add a wineglassful
of milk for half a pound of rice, and continue the boiling
for five minutes more. Then strain the rice, and return it
dry into the pot upon the corner of the stove or a slow fire;
but at the same time pour into it an ounce of butter
melted into a spoonful of the hot milk and water in which
the rice was boiled, and add salt. In five minutes the
rice, which should now and again be stirred, to swell, steam
and dry it, should be ready. Fifteen minutes in all.
RISSOLES.— Take puff paste—the lighter the better, and
roll it out to the thickness of a penny. Cut rounds in it
about three inches in diameter. Into the centre of each
place some croquette meat. Double the paste over. Fry them
in hot fat, and serve them on a napkin with fried parsley.
ROASTING.--The first lesson which the cook has to learn
is to know what roasting is, and how it differs from other
modes of firing food. In one use of the term, roasting
is something distinct from baking, broiling, and frying ;
according to another, it includes baking, broiling, and
frying. In the widest sense, to roast is to cook food by


382
Roasting
as the highest peat; and a ro
ook food with
the application to it of a roasting heat; and a roasting heat
may be described as the highest degree of heat which will
cook food without burning it up and destroying it. Roast-
ing, commonly so called, broiling, baking, and frying, are
but different modes of applying this extreme heat. The
heat of a common fire is said to be equivalent to 1145
degrees of a thermometer on Fahrenheit's scale; an
ordinary red heat is said to be 980°. How near to such a
heat can we approach so as to roast meat without burning
it? A roasting heat varies from 350° to 450°—that is,
about double the heat of boiling water; and as we have
defined roasting (which includes roasting proper, baking,
broiling, and frying) to be the cooking of food by the
application to it of the utmost degree of heat which will
cook it without destroying it, so we may define boiling
(which includes boiling proper as well as simmering
and stewing) as the cooking of food by the application
to it of the lowest degree of heat which will cook it
in a reasonable time. This lowest degree of heat ranges
between 170°, for very slow stewing, and 212°, for the
quickest boiling. The extreme heat required for roasting
evolves certain flavours which it is impossible to reach
by mere boiling; and it will be seen, by reference to the
numbers, that whereas a roasting heat is about half of what
is called red heat, a boiling heat is about the half of roast-
ing heat. It may be added, that between the two extreme
forms of cookery, roasting and boiling, with all that they
severally include, there are two modes of producing a
medium heat with a medium result. One is called brazing
—the meat being in a stewpan with live coals on the lid
above, whereby while the under part is stewing the upper
part is roasting. The other is called tossing in butter
(sauter), and is a process of frying in which the roasting
heat that would be developed if the pan were left still is
arrested by tossing its contents, so that they never reach the
browning point, which is the chief indication of roasting.


Roasting
383
So much for the theory of roasting, which applies equally
to baking, broiling, and frying, and which will be found
further illustrated throughout this volume in many dis-
cussions on the cardinal division of cookery into brown and
white. For the rule of what is specially called roasting,
Mr. Buckmaster has summed up the chief points to be
attended to in the pithy sentences which follow :-
“I believe I am regarded as a sort of heretic on the
question of roasting meat. My opinion is that the essential
condition of good roasting is constant basting, and this the
meat is not likely to have when shut up in an iron box;
and what is not easily done is easily neglected. Make up
your fire, not by shooting on a scuttle of coals, but laying
on the coals with your hands, using an old glove. Arrange
the lumps of coal so that air passes freely into the fire. By
this arrangement you may avoid stirring the fire—which
should be done as little as possible. Just before putting
down the meat (which may be suspended by a piece of
worsted, if you have no other arrangements), clear up the
fireplace, and throw to the back of the fire all the cinders
and a little small coal slightly wetted. This will prevent
waste of fuel, and throw the heat where you want it-in
the front. If you have a meat screen, place it before the ✓
fire, so as to get moderately heated before the meat is hung
to the fire. Heat reflected from bright metallic surfaces
never dries or scorches the meat. Arrange the dripping-
pan so that no ashes can fall into it, and just as far below
the meat as will enable you to baste it easily. If you have
a little dripping or stock, put about a gill into the dripping-
pan for basting. Place a newspaper on the floor; this
will keep your hearth clean. There is a right and a wrong
way of hanging a piece of meat to roast. The thickest
part should hang a trifle below the centre of the fire; and
if this can be best done by hanging the shank of a leg of
mutton downwards, do so. The time required for roasting
will be modified by circumstances; and different kinds or


384
Roasting
qualities of meat require somewhat different treatment.
The time usually allowed is from fifteen to twenty minutes
for a pound. Before removing the meat from the fire,
press the lean part with the thumb : if the meat yield
easily, or if the meat steam to the fire, it is done. Never
sprinkle salt over the meat till about a quarter of an hour
before it is ready. Pour away the dripping before using
the salt, because fat used for puddings and pies and frying
is better without salt. You may dredge a little flour over
it ; and every part should be of a nice pale brown: if any
part be scorched or blackened, you have failed in your
cooking. Pour off the dripping, leaving in the pan the
pure gravy free from fat. Have a gill or half a pint of
stock or broth, or water, ready; pour it into the dripping-
pan, rinse it round, strain it into the dish, and send it to
table as quickly as possible. Some cooks tie a piece of
buttered paper on the meat.”
TIME-TABLE FOR ROASTING.
The following figures are not exact. A great deal
depends on the quality of the meat to be roasted, its dis-
tance from the fire, and the heat of the fire. In England,
said Carême, all the women roast well; but he attributed the
success of English roasting to the constancy of a coal fire
and to the regularity of the bottle-jack, which has not, like
the turnspit machine in France, to be wound up every
quarter of an hour.
Hours.
Hours.
Beef, 15 to 20 lbs. ............. Forequarter, 8 lbs. .......
„ 7 or 8 lbs. .......... 2 1
Leg of Pork, 8 lbs.............
Veal, fillet, 10 lbs.............. 3 Loin , 6 lbs............
Neck or loin, 4 lbs. ........ Haunch of Venison ...... 4 to
Leg of Mutton, 8 to 10 lbs. 2
Hare.
..............
Shoulder , 6 lbs. ...... 11 | Turkey, 9 lbs...................
Leg of Lamb, 6 lbs. ......... 11 | Goose, 6,lbs. ................


Robert
385
Minutes.
Minutes.
Capon ............. .............. 60 Partridge ...............
15 to 20
Poularde ....................... Woodcock..
..................
Chicken .....................
Wild duck..
Duck
Widgeon ................ 9
Duckling .......
Pigeon
Pheasant...
35 | Quail ........................
ROBERT, and his sauce. Who is this Robert ? Mr. V
Hayward, who is generally accurate, and always amus-
ing, bas had the bad luck to say that it was invented
by M. Robert, one of the leading cooks under the First
Empire. These cooks never invented anything so simple
as the Sauce Robert—which is so ancient that Rabelais
describes it as necessary for “ducks, rabbits, roasts, freshy
pork, poached eggs, salt hake, and a thousand other
viands.” It is, indeed, nearly three hundred years older
than Rabelais — being mentioned by the French cook
Taillevent, in the middle of the thirteenth century. It
is older even than Taillevent, and nobody can tell how
old it is. For the fact is, that Robert is a myth. It
is the corruption of an English name which the French
did not understand. There was then a very free inter-
change of French and English. Half of France be-
longed to England; and as there were French names of
dishes in England which the English did not understand,
so there were English names of dishes in France which
the French did not understand. The French had their
brouet de chevreuil ; and the English had their Roebroth
and Roebrewet, for which there were a number of varying
receipts. One of these receipts the French picked up; and
with that glorious faculty of altering names which has never
failed them since they appear in history, they thought its
name must be the same as that of their famous Norman
duke, and they called it Robert. In its original idea
Robert was Roebrewet—that is, Roebuck sauce. In the
present day there is to be found in cookery books a receipt
her English ha d'ench had which
• 25


Roman Cookery
387
him from the spit, he is practically protected by his lone-
liness. There is not enough of him to make it worth
any one's while to put him on a dish.
RoE.—The roe of the sturgeon—caviare, the roe of the
grey mullet—botargo, and the dried, and smoked roe of
the cod, are prepared delicacies which belong to the shops.
These too are all hard roes. It is with the soft roes—the
milt, the laitance—that the cook has to do.
Ragoût of Soft Roes.—A favourite relish of the French
kitchen. See Relish No. 8..
Erasmus Soup.—The great scholar had a taste, and his ✓
name is given to a soup in which the soft roes figure.
Take ten soft roes of the herring, and cook them for ten
minutes in water, salt, and a little vinegar. Then pass
them into salt and water for a time, to get rid of the
vinegar taste. Drain them, cut them in two, and heat
them up in a sufficient quantity of clear broth or
double broth, either with a quart of young peas or with
crusts of bread and a spoonful of blanched and chopped
fennel.
Roe Toast.—Slices of buttered toast with the soft roes of
fresh bloaters arranged upon them.
ROLEY POLEY, or Rolled Jam Pudding.-Roll ou t
some puff paste (No. 4) about a quarter of an inch thick,
spread it with jam, roll it up, tie it loosely in a cloth, and
boil it.
ROMAN COOKERY is a warning. The ridicule which v
it now excites is a tribute to the more simple taste and
delicate manipulation of modern times. Mines of wealth
were spent upon it; infinite pains were wasted upon it ;
the uttermost parts of the earth were ransacked ; five
hundred peacocks were killed, to make with their brains
a single dish—and to what result? Any Picardy kitchen-
maid will turn out a better dinner for a few francs.


Saffron
389
with plum-pudding is not so good. The English burn
brandy by preference over it; and the plum-pudding is so ·
saccharine in itself, and so full of luscious flavours, that it
seems better in taste to give it for a sauce the contrast of
brandy than the comparison of rum.
Dr. Edward Smith, the chief English authority on
dietetics, declares that the most powerful restorative known
to him is the old-fashioned combination of rum and milk.
Ye who are weak drink thimblefuls of rum in tumblerfuls
of new milk!
ADDLE OF MUTTON.—There is really but
one way of doing a saddle—to roast it; but
the French have a way of sometimes boning
it, rolling it up, and brazing it. They might
as well boil it. They understand their gigot; but they are
not to be trusted with a saddle, which is in England very
properly regarded as the prime piece of the mutton.
Frenchmen would not be so ready to interfere with the
bones of the saddle if they knew of a little fact which is
quite familiar in England—that there is a distinct difference
of flavour between a roasted half-saddle and a roasted loin.
What is known as a half-saddle comes from the butcher
with a rigid backbone. The loin of mutton is precisely the
same piece of meat; but when so called, the vertebræ of
the back are disjointed, so that it can be carved in chops.
This may be a more economical way of cutting the meat,
but it injures the taste.
SAFFRON.—It is the elegiac muse that ought to write
the account of saffron, for its glory is departed. The
stigmas of this autumnal crocus (crocus sativus) were once
all important in European cookery, and were supposed to
possess the rarest virtues and attractions. Henry Stephen
said of it—“ Saffron should be put into all Lenten soups,


390
Sago
sauces and viands. Without saffron we could never have
a good purée, good peas, nor good sauce.” There was a
time when England was known as merry England; and
Lord Bacon in his History of Life and Death says : “The
English are rendered sprightly by a liberal use of saffron
in sweetmeats and broth.” Saffron is now but little used
anywhere in human food to please the eye, to tickle the
palate, or to strengthen the stomach ; and in England it
has been so completely ousted by curry that what once
rejoiced the heart of man is now only sprinkled in water
to cheer the melancholy of canaries.
Compare the saffron with the bean. At one time it was
worse than parricide to eat beans; and beans are now in
great repute. At one time it was a superstition to flavour
and colour food with saffron; and now it is a farce. So
the wheel goes round, and high becomes low and low
becomes high. Let us be thankful that one thing will last
while man lasts—the saffron-coloured morn.
SAGE AND ONION SAUCE.—See Forcemeat No. 6.
Sago.—All the starches to which sago belongs are
much overrated as articles of diet. They are easily digested
—that is the best which can be said of them; and they are
useful in giving body to soups and puddings. They do not
contain much nourishment, and sago is certainly one of the
most insipid of the series.
SALAD.*-Sydney Smith wrote a neat little poem to
describe how salad should be prepared, and he promised
that if his directions were followed
Then, though green turtle fail, though venison's tough,
And ham and turkey are not boiled enough,
Serenely full, the epicure may say,
Fate cannot harm me—I have dined to-day.
There spoke the perfect epicure; and the speech goes to
* The substance of this article has already appeared in print.


Salad
391
prove that the supremacy of enjoyment is based on sim-
plicity of taste. There may be epicures who like to titillate
their jaded appetites and acquired tastes with unheard-of
luxuries and far-fetched combinations; but the world has ✓
long since recognised that all the best and healthiest
pleasures keep well within bounds, and must never lose
sight of moderation. Every art has its monstrosities ;
gastronomy has not been behindhand; and though he must
be a bold man who will venture to blaspheme the elegancies
of French cookery, there comes a time to every English-
man who may have wandered into a mistaken admiration
of sophisticated messes, when he longs for the simple diet
of his native land, and vows that the best cookery in the
world, and that which satisfies the most refined epicure-
anism, sets up for its ideal-plainness of good food, and the
cultivation of natural tastes. Now a salad is sin plicity
itself, and here is a marvel—it is the crowning grace of a
French dinner, while, on the other hand, it is little under-
stood and villanously treated at English tables. To that
system of cookery which prides itself on its art it gives the v
charm of nature, and in the midst of the triumphs of gas-
tronomy it raises a fine protest in favour of simplicity. In
our own system of cookery, which boasts of its naturalness, ✓
and which therefore ought to hold the salad in highest
honour, it occupies but an inferior place, and is nearly
always spoilt. In respect of salads, therefore, the French
and Italians have beaten us in our own line. We swear by
plain cookery; we turn up our noses at elaborate sauces;
we profess to eschew messes, and to care only for simples;
and yet we have no idea, like the French and Italians, how
to turn to splendid account a dinner of herbs. There is
a proverb which identifies such a dinner with meanness
of fare ; but it is not mean. It is quite certain that the
majority of epicures agree with Sydney Smith that a really
good salad will glorify any dinner, and make up for the
lack of turtle and venison and the rarest dainties.


392
Salad
The fact is that a salad is more than food, and we are
attracted to it by more than hunger. I am not enough of
a chemist to go into details; but here are two facts which
explain a good deal. One is that the most important herb
used in salads, the lettuce, abounds in a juice which has not
only the effect of opium, but where opium would be hurtful
takes the place of it in pharmacy. The other is that the
plant of next importance for salads, the endiv> or chicory,
is largely used in its root as a substitute for coffee. These
and like facts point to the conclusion that salads have an
attraction for us over and above that of palatable food-
an attraction which has its parallel in a man's craving for
the tobacco-leaf, in a woman's craving for the tea-leaf, and
in the passion which drives a Chinese to the poppyhead.
✓ In other words, a salad is not merely food, but has also an
action on the nervous system, stimulating or sedative,
which is immensely agreeable and acts like a spell. What-
ever be the nature of the charm it is a powerful one, and
renders the salad a sort of prince incognito among the
assemblage of dishes. It has an undefinable rank on the
table, which makes it more important than it seems.
Without it, in the eyes of the epicure, the finest dinner
has failed of its supreme relish ; and to a very common-
place dinner it gives an ethereal grace.
Any one who dips into the works of the old herbalists will
be astonished to see how they insist upon the virtues of the
salad plants. Many of these virtues are no doubt imaginary,
but some are real enough. Thus the herbalists praised
endive as a cure for the gout. We have forgotten all about
this, and are content to find the refreshment of coffee in
the root, the refreshment of a salad in the leaves. Here
and there the old theory survives. I remember hearing a
physician say to a patient who was much too apt at blue-
pill, “ That is ruin. I will tell you what to do. Eat a
parboiled cauliflower three times a week by way of salad,
and be sure you eat the bitter stalks as well as the flower.


Salad
393
It is the best medicine in the world.” As for lettuce, it is
recommended by Galen as a soporific, and the prepared
juice, lactucarium, is to be found in every chemist's shop.
The old herbalists, however, had another theory. They v
said that the lettuce was not only soothing like opium, but
had the supreme virtue of enabling us to forget womankind.
It was the salad of all others for monks and nuns to eat,
for it has a hallowing influence that makes one oblivious of
love and all its fever. Lest the romantic lover should on
this account refuse lettuce, let me remind him that tobacco
—which is not indeed a salad, but belongs to the order of
nightshades, that has yielded several salad-plants, such as
the potato and the tomato—was supposed to have a like
effect; and there is a vulgar opinion that Sir Isaac Newton
never married because he smoked too much. According
to the same old theory, there is no love-potion so efficacious
as an onion. Would you win a woman's love-give her
onions to eat, whatever the consequences. The French,
too, have a proverb, that if a wife only knew what a loving
charm there is in celery, she would send to Rome for it v
every day to provide a salad for her husband. If one
must, however, have a love-charm, there is the tomato, the
old English name of which is love-apple. This reminds
me of an odd omission in the story of the loves of Mr.
Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell. Dickens nowhere explains
how it came to pass that when his hero ordered tomato-
sauce with his mutton-chops, the sensitive soul of Mrs.
Bardell took this for a proposal of marriage and the voice
of love. There is not a hint even in the speech of Serjeant
Buzfuz that the tomato is the love-apple, and that the sauce
which Mr. Pickwick ordered was love-apple sauce. There
is, no doubt, a great deal of fancy in all this. We expect
certain effects, and they are produced by the association of
ideas. But there is this always to go upon—that most of
the salad-plants have an exhilarating effect, a distinct action
upon the nervous system, and through the nerves upon the


Salad
395
there comes next a great question about the appropriate
mixture to go with them. There are numbers of English
who think that no mixture is necessary, and who limit their
fancy to the cos-lettuce, which they pluck leaf by leaf, and
eat with a little salt. It is no wonder that they fail to
appreciate the salad, and rob it of the importance which it
ought to attain at a well-appointed table, when they do not
know, or do not care for, the art of educing its finer
qualities, and making of the simplest dish in the world a
feast worthy of Olympus. Some people take to eating a
salad in this crude way because of a vague theory that it
is good for the blood; and others avoid it because of some
theory that so much “green meat” cannot agree with them,
The one set never acquire the true gusto for salad, and the
other have a continual suspicion of it. Now these are
the only two classes for which the English eating-house
keeper thinks it worth his while to cater. It is a matter of
hard fact that a salad-bowl is a thing unknown in 999 out
of 1000 eating-houses in England. In private houses and
in clubs of course it is to be found, because English gentle-
men of the class who belong to clubs know that a salad to
be enjoyed must be mixed, and that it cannot be properly
mixed without a good-sized bowl. But let us go into one
of Spiers and Pond's establishments—and in singling them
out I pay them a compliment. They are at the head of
their profession, they have deserved well of the public, and
if they fail in any point we may be sure that the failure
belongs not to them individually, but to the English sys-
tem. I have not been to all their establishments, but in
those I have visted this is what I find. They keep an
immense bowl on the buffet, crammed with a confusion of
salad-herbs soaking in water. You ask for a salad. The
waiter brings you a wet lettuce cut in halves upon a
flat plate, and he puts down beside it an annulated bottle,
full of the abominable compound known as salad-mixture.
You politely hint to the waiter, first of all, that you prefer


396
Salad
not to touch his prepared mixture. He takes it away,
wounded in his feelings, and assumes that you are going
to eat the lettuce with salt. You next make a demand for
oil and vinegar, and try to explain that a salad to be pro-
perly mixed must, according to the saying, be mixed by a
madman; it cannot, therefore, be mixed on a flat plate.
The waiter then brings a soup-plate ; if you are not satisfied
with that he brings a vegetable-dish, then perhaps a slop-
basin; and if you are still discontented, he tries you las
of all with a soup-tureen. As for a salad-bowl—which one
can get at once in the paltriest French restaurant-it is
not, as a rule, to be found in the splendidly furnished
establishments of Spiers and Pond. This simply means
that a salad properly prepared does not belong to the
English system of the table, and does not enter into the
calculations of those who cater for it in public. I some-
times at English inns manage to get a salad-bowl by asking mon,
for a punch-bowl. Mine host is nearly always prepared to
make punch, though he does not know what a salad is.
When the Englishman, still more the English woman,
determines that a salad is not to be eaten with salt alone,
but must be bathed in some mixture, one discovers a
curious weakness in the national taste,-a chariness of oil,
and love of vinegar. An odd proof of this is to be found
in the scientific nomenclature of the gardeners. Like all
sciolists, they are fond of inventing new names. They are
not content to call salad-plants, as of old, salad-plants,
that is, plants to be eaten with salt ; they have invented
the name of acetarious plants,—that is, plants to be eaten
with vinegar. There is the true English idea-a salad is
the infancy of mixed pickles. We have a besotted love of
pickles in England, and never seem to understand that
vinegar in a salad must be doled out with a niggardly
hand. As for oil, little of it is used, and that little is often
overwhelmed with cream, with yolk of egg, with mustard,
with sugar,-a successions of incongruous expedients to


Salad
· 397
conceal the oil or to take the place of it. All this messing
is death to the salad and to the true taste of the green
herb. About salad-oil two points are worthy of notice,
though it is necessary to insist only on one. The first is, V
that it is the most simple and digestible form in which
oleaginous matter can be presented to the stomach, and
that it has a medical value in its combination with raw
herbs. English people would not be so timid of what
they call“ green meat” if they could bring themselves to
swallow it saturated with oil. But here is the chief point:
the oil is not only good and wholesome in itself, but it
catches up and preserves in a remarkable manner the
subtle flavour of the salad. There are certain oils and
fatty substances which have a peculiar affinity for odours ;
and it is well known that those chemists who make it
their business to prepare scents from rose-leaves, jasmine,
lavender, and other flowers, make use of these oils and
fats for storing up the perfumes, with which they become
quickly impregnated. One can see what oil as a custodian
of flavour in rivalry with vinegar is if one can remember
the taste of a sardine. See how delicate the flavour is
preserved in oil, and imagine how it would be lost in brine
-or English pickle. It is the glory of the Lucca oil that
it acts in this way upon the salad, bringing out and pre-
serving its delicacy of flavour ; which, on the other hand,
is dissipated in water, and overpowered in a mess of cream
and egg, syrup and mustard. Be a counsellor with the
salt, is the old saying; be a miser with the vinegar ; but
be a spendthrift with the oil. And we English would be
happier with our salads if we could learn to put up with
the beautiful oil of Lucca and to forego the astonishing
combinations (sometimes including anchovy sauce and
mushroom ketchup) with which we disguise our green
herbs, till, in opposition to the accepted principles of
English cookery, they are irrecognisable. The best
salad mixtures will be found described in the preceding


398
Salad
pages, under the names of Cruet Sauce, Mayonnaise, and
Remoulade.
As for the herbs to be used in salad, we are in England
rather limited in our tastes. Of the infinite variety of
salads which can be made from wild plants—the salad
burnet, the ladies' smock, the stonecrop, the sea bindweed,
the sweet Cicely, the buckshorn plantain, and the ox-eyed
daisy—our people know next to nothing, and they allow
quantities of excellent food to be wasted on the cattle.
The dandelion, which is a favourite salad in France, and a
herb renowned for its virtues, we should be half ashamed
to see on our tables. Nothing will do for us in England
but the most highly-cultivated kinds. First of all, there is
the lettuce, which is of two sorts—the cabbage-lettuce,
known in France as the laitue pommée, and the cos-lettuce,
which the French term the laitue romaine. Of these—and
there are endless varieties of either—we seem in England
to prefer the latter, with its long leaves, because it can be
eaten by itself ; while the French probably care more for
the former. Then comes the endive in three classes : first,
the broad-leaved or Batavian endive, which the French call
escarole—a prime favourite ; next, the curly-leaved endive,
which the French call sometimes chicorée and sometimes
laitue frisée ; lastly, the wild endive or succory (succory
being but the old English word for chicory), which is
called by the French barbe de capucin, and whose roots are
supposed to make a very fair imitation of coffee. Perhaps
next in order of rank deserves to be mentioned celery;
but we only use the bare stalk, whereas the French will
put the whole plant into the salad-bowl, from the root at
one end to the leafage at the other. Even better than the
celery is the celeriac,—that is, a celery with turnip-like
root, which is the celeri-rave of the French and the knott-
sellerie of the Germans. The latter are especially fond of
it, and go into ecstasies with moist eyes and flowing mouth
when they talk of it. In England, although it may be


Salad
399
cultivated with greater ease and at less expense than the
common celery, it is not only slighted, but few persons
know where they can lay their hands upon it. Let it here
therefore be recorded that the celeriac roots come over to
this country from Germany in the end of October, and are
to be had in any quantity at a house which abounds in
foreign dainties of all sorts—Lingner's Delicatessen Hand-
lung, 46, Old Compton Street, Soho, with its branch at
30, Fenchurch Street, City. Another salad which is too
much neglected in England is that of tomatos. The
wonder is how any one who knows what a superb thing is
a salad of raw tomatos can care to desecrate this glorious
apple by cooking it. I should weary the reader if I went
on to sound the praises of the mustard and cress salad, the
corn salad, the beetroot salad, the potato salad, and the
salade de légumes. One word, however, about the last two.
Most persons are acquainted with Sydney Smith's receipt
for a potato salad—
Two large potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Unwonted softness to the salad give;
Of mordant mustard, add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment which bites too soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt;
Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And once with vinegar, procured from town;
True flavour needs it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs ;
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole ;
And lastly, in the flavoured compound toss
A magic teaspoon of anchovy sauce :
Then, though green turtle fail, though venison's tough,
And ham and turkey are not boiled enough,
Serenely full, the epicure may say,
Fate cannot harm me—I have dined to-day.
This appears to have been the receipt which he finally


400
Salad
sanctioned; but in his memoirs there is a different
edition, which contains four lines that ought not to be
forgotten-
Oh, green and glorious ! oh, herbaceous treat !
'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat ;
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl !
It should be noted, however, that the receipt furnished by
the witty canon is not for a salad, but for a salad dressing,
-it is for a mixture which is to give “unwonted softness
to the salad.” A true potato salad is not passed through a
sieve ; it is made of cold boiled kidney potatoes—what the
French call Vitelotte-cut in slices. Of all the cooked
salads, however, that which the French call the salade de
légumes will always have the pre-eminence. It is exceed-
ingly difficult to get in England-even at a Pall Mall club
one has to order it the day beforehand ; yet at the paltriest
French restaurant in London or in Paris it can be had at
a few minutes' notice. It is nothing but a cold Macedon,
and the best English name for it would be a salad of
Macedon.
It is not enough to provide the salad and the salad
dressing : there is one thing more to be attended to—what
the French call fourniture, what we may call garnish or
garniture. This is a sprinkling of chopped herbs which,
when cunningly selected and applied, give a gaiety and
sparkle to the composition of the salad. For a salad of
lettuce, be it round or long, the usual garniture is a
ravigote,—that is, chopped tarragon, chervil, burnet, and
chives. When the curly endive comes in, and we ask for
a salad of it in any French restaurant, the waiter, if he
knows his business, will at once ask, “ Avec ou sans ?”
which means, Will you have it with or without a chapon?
—that is, a crust of bread on which a clove of garlic has
been rubbed. This crust of bread is mixed with the endive
salad, gives it its bouquet, and forms its garniture. What


402
Sally Lunn
SALLY LUNN is an honoured name from the Land's End
to John o' Groat’s. But why should the reader be called
upon to meditate upon her virtues in these pages, in which
so little has been said about the Bath bun, the Banbury
cake, the Scotch shortbread, the Brioche, the Baba, the
Savarin, the Gauffre, and many another noble thing?
The reason is that her name has been mixed up with a
little culinary scandal ; and it is necessary to vindicate her
fair fame. The greatest cook of modern times, Carême,
came over to England to minister to the palate of the
Prince Regent. He did not stay long, but he stayed long
enough to appreciate the charms of Sally Lunn and her
ever memorable cake. He was a great cook, but a fearful
coxcomb—an immeasurable egotist. If ever he made the
slightest change in a dish, he vaunted the variation as an
original idea, and thenceforward set up as the sovereign
creator of the dainty. So it was that he dressed up Sally
Lunn a little, and presented her to the Parisian world as
his own—his Solilemne. The fact might well be forgotten,
but there are stupid asses who will not let us forget it.
They come over to England ; they send up, among the
sweets of a dinner, Sally and her teacake, rigged out in the
height of French fashion ; and like an English dancer or
singer who insists on Mademoiselle to her name, the good
honest Sally that we know is announced as the incom-
parable Solilemne.
SALMI.—As to the meaning of the word some informa-
tion will be found in the article on Gallimawfray. It
means a highly sauced preparation (sal) of some bird (mi).
Salmagundi—in French salmigondis-is the same thing,
with the additional indication that the bird, mi or ma, is
pounded, or in the language of our ancient cookery "smitten
to gobbets." The ordinary salmi admits of many varia-
tions, according to the nature of the bird, which is first
roasted, then allowed to get cold, then carved, then heated


Salmi
403
up in what our ancestors intended by the syllable sal-,-a
salmi sauce. The inside and the trimmings of the roast
game are chopped up and put into a stewpan, with a bay-
leaf and a sprig of thyme, to be fried in a tablespoonful of
salad oil. Add to them afterwards a glass of French wine
(white or red), with half a pint of brown sauce, and simmer
them for ten minutes. Skim off the grease, strain the
sauce, heat up the pieces of game in it, and serve.
The Bernardin Salmi has a little of the pungency which
in England would procure for it the name of a devil ; but
it is a mild devil, and a wet one too. The receipt takes
its name from the circumstance that it was given to Grimod
de la Reynière by the prior of an abbey of Bernardins,
who made him promise that he would never attempt to put
it into practice at any table within twenty leagues of the
Abbey of Haute-Seille. The salmi, it should be understood,
is not prepared in the kitchen, but at table, before the eyes
of the assembled guests, which proves its simplicity ; but
as this might also excite the contempt of the reader, Grimod
de la Reynière adds the wise caution that care must be
taken to serve the salmi on its passage to the mouth with
a fork, for fear of devouring one's fingers in case they
should touch the sauce. Take three woodcocks ;—the sys-
tem is applicable to other 'birds, such as ducks (wild or
tame), widgeons, teal, plovers, partridges, and even beyond
winged game to the melancholy hare; but the woodcocks
will do for an example. Let them be roasted ; let them
come to table underdone ; and let them be carved. Take
a silver dish, and on this bruise the livers and trails of the
woodcocks; squeeze on them the juice of four lemons and
grate the zest of one; add the members of the woodcocks,
seasoned with salt, with mixed spices (or with nutmeg
instead), and with two spoonfuls of French mustard ; pour
over all half a glass of very good white wine; and then
put the dish on a spirit-lamp, to become very hot, but without
boiling. When it is near to boil, add a dash of salad oil,


404
Salmon
lower the flame, and stir the salmi well until all the flavours
are harmoniously blended. It is to be noted that in this
salmi there is no gravy; and if the quantity of lemon seem
too much, it must be remembered that when woodcocks
come in, lemons are small, and their juice scanty.
SALMON.—There is a myth that salmon was once so
common that in the indentures of apprenticeship in New-
castle, Perth, and other towns, it was wont to insert a
stipulation that the apprentice should not be obliged to eat
of this fish for dinner more than thrice a week. Now
the said apprentice never sees it at table ; and to prevent
the utter extermination of the king of fresh-water fish, it has
been found necessary to establish a close time during the
spawning season, when he and his queen shall not be hunted
to death. Nevertheless, salmon is to be had in London
during a considerable portion of the closed season—but they
are salmon from the Rhine. The best salmon known in Eng-
land (and best chiefly because the freshest) is that caught
in the Severn and in the Scotch rivers. The sooner a
salmon can be cooked after it has been killed, the better ;
and there is no comparison in flavour between a salmon
cooked on the day it has been caught, and one cooked in
London three or four days afterwards. It is quite possible
to get on a London dinner-table in the evening salmon
which has been disporting in a Scotch river early in the
morniny. Apply at Groves', or any first-rate fishmonger's.
The salmon will be killed in the Tweed at three or four in
the morning; it will be instantly crimped and parboiled,
and it will be in Bond Street by five or six in the evening.
Boiled Salmon.—Whether whole, in parts, or in slices,
the salmon is to be boiled like other fish, beginning with
cold water and salt. It must be thoroughly well done,
thoroughly well drained, and served on a napkin. It is
common enough in England to take lobster sauce with it,
but this is much too heavy for so rich a fish. Better take


406
Salpicon
seasoned with spiced salt, moistened with fish broth, covered
with a paste, sent to the oven, and eaten cold.
Salmon Omelet.—Hot flakes of salmon mixed with
Allemande sauce, and put into the omelet before folding it
ир.
Aspic of Salmon.-Flakes of salmon mixed with liquid
aspic, and left to get cold and stiff.
Kippered Salmon. The kippering of salmon is a mystery
which must be left to experts. The kipper which comes to
London is so well kippered that few can afford to eat
more than a very thin slice of it grilled with exceeding
swiftness. There are few dainties for breakfast, however,
more delicious and more harmless than salmon which is
but slightly kippered—that is, salmon which, being per-
fectly fresh, has undergone the kippering for not more
than two or three days. Rub it with a little butter, and
grill it in any quantity. This is one of the glories of a
Highland breakfast, and it is to the stomach of a Scotch
baillie what turtle is to a London alderman.
Pickled or Soused Salmon.—Boil a salmon and split it.
Take a quart of the liquor in which it has boiled; add
to it half an ounce of peppercorns and pimento whole,
half a pint of vinegar, a teaspoonful of salt, a couple of
bay leaves, and a sprig of lemon-thyme; and boil them
together. When cold, pour it over the salmon and cover
it up. The fish will keep good in this for several days.
To strengthen the pickle, boil it afresh with more vinegar
· and spice.
SALPICON.--A fine mince of chicken or of game, with
tongue, mushrooms, truffles, and now and then foie gras.
SALT tells for so much at table that it has not only a
name by itself, but it reappears in the names of sauce,
sausage, salmi, and salad. What would our food be with-
out salt, sauce, sausage, salmi, and salad ? Extending the


Salt
407
use of the term beyond chloride of sodium to salts in
general, Bernard Palissy (translated by Henry Morley)
has an eloquent passage, mixed with some considerable
errors, on its importance in the economy of nature. “Il
tell you,” he says, speaking of salts, “there is so great a
number of them that it is impossible for any man to name
them all ; and tell you further, that there is nothing in this
world which has no salt in it, whether it be in man, the
beast, the trees, plants, or other vegetative things, or even
in the very metals ; and tell you yet more, that no vegeta-
tive things could grow without the action of salt which is
in seeds; what is more, if salt were taken from the body
of a man he would fall to powder in less than the winking
of an eye. If the salt were separated from the stones that
are in buildings, they would fall suddenly to powder. ...
Salt bleaches everything; salt hardens everything ; it
preserves everything ; it gives savour to everything ; it
is a mastic which binds everything ; it collects and unites
mineral matters, and of many thousand pieces makes one
mass. Salt gives sound to everything : without salt no
metal would yield a voice. Salt rejoices human beings;
it whitens the flesh, giving beauty to reasonable creatures ;
it preserves friendship between the male and female by thc
vigour given to the sexes ; it gives voice to creatures, as v
to metals.”
“The experiments of Boussingault on animals ”—to
quote Dr. Letheby—“ have shown that although salt mixed
with the fodder does not much affect the quantity of flesh,
fat, or milk obtained from them, yet it seriously affects their
appearance and general condition ; for animals deprived of
salt, other than that contained naturally in the food, soon
get heavy and dull in their temperament, and have a rough
and staring coat. Reulin states that animals which do not
find it in their food and drink become less prolific, and the
breed rapidly diminishes in number. This is confirmed by
Dr. Le Saine, who says in his prize essay on salt, that it


408
Sandwich
increases the fertility of the male and the fecundity of the
female, and it doubles the power of nourishing the fætus.
During the period of suckling, also, salt given to the
mother renders the milk more abundant and more nutri-
tious. It likewise accelerates growth, and gives a finer
condition to the skin ; and the flesh of animals fed with it
is better flavoured, and more easily digested than that of
animals which do not partake of it. In barbarous times
the most horrible of punishments, entailing certain death,
was the feeding of culprits on food without salt ; and in
the experiments of the French Academicians, flesh deprived
of its saline constituents by being washed with water lost
its nutritive power, and animals fed on it soon died of
starvation. ... There was plenty of nutritious matter in
the food, but there was no medium for its solution and
absorption, and hence it was useless."
Lastly, it would be ungrateful to forget that the
chloride of sodium is all the world over the most venerated
article of diet—the synonym of wit and of hospitality.
The saints are the salt of the earth. It is a fact, more-
over, which rests on the excellent authority of medi-
æval doctors, that the devil never takes any salt in his
meat. They gave as a reason for this that salt is an
emblem of eternity and used by the divine command in
sacrifices. They seem to have overlooked the fact that to
be obliged to forego salt is a terrible punishment.
SANDWICH.—See how a man becomes immortal by his
good taste! Who would have remembered the Earl of
Sandwich if he had not brought the sandwich into vogue
in the last century? The gratitude of mankind has for
ever, and all over the habitable globe, honoured it with his
name. Nothing can be more simple. But the sandwich
is capable of infinite variety, and we ought not to make it
monotonous by confining it to beef and ham. It may be
made of fowl, game, fish, and eggs, not forgetting plovers'


Sauce
411
this point stay to inquire how the juices of meat are
obtained so as to make the one brown and the other white :
it must be enough to say that the one is called Espagnole
or Spanish sauce, the other Velouté or Velvet-down; and
to dwell for a moment on this odd fact—that whereas in
cookery a brown sauce is used about three times as often
as a white one, the French cooks recognise only one form
of the more frequent sauce, and as many as three forms of
the less frequent. Brown sauce is always what they are
pleased to call Spanish ; and white sauce, or Velvet-down,
has two variations, which are known as Béchamel and
Allemande or German. If it is curious that of the four
parent sauces or gravies of the French kitchen there should
be but a single brown to three white ones, it is still more so,
when we consider it closely, that the one brown sauce should
be called Spanish. The fact is, that the traditions of the
French kitchen have been muddled and forgotten. Spanish
was originally but a variation of an older brown sauce
which flourished in France long before Spanish tastes
began to prevail, and which was afterwards forgotten,-
much as if, among the white sauces, Béchamel should
-survive, and Velvet-down, from which it springs, should be
heard of no more.
Let us ask-for everything turns on this—why is the
sauce called Spanish? There are people who imagine that
it means no more than brown. There is a hue which goes
by the name of Spanish brown: the great Spanish painter,
Murillo, loved it well, and made it by roasting the bones
which his countrymen boiled down in their stews. Spanish
sauces, Spanish pictures, Spanish wines, Spanish faces, all
seemed to have a tawny hue ; and was it not natural,
therefore, of the French cooks to pay a compliment to
the Spanish alliance by dubbing their chief brown sauce
a Spaniard ? It is not necessary to run away from this
view ; it is natural ; but it is not enough. People do
not change the name of an established preparation with-


412
Sauce
out at the same time making a change, however trivial,
in its character; and it is not to be supposed that the
French cooks would change the name of anything so
important as their chief brown sauce-La Grande Sauce-
without some novelty in its nature. The novelty was this.
The French brown sauce was originally worked out of the
French pot-au-feu (though not in the same manner as
bouillon); and to this day there are popular cookery books
—that of Gogué, published by Hachette, is one—which,
although calling the sauce indifferently brown or Spanish,
give a receipt for the preparation of its elementary juice
or gravy which is nothing more than the ordinary contents
of the best beef broth worked down towards a glaze.
When the Bourbons made their way to the Spanish throne
under Louis XV., and when Spanish fashions came back
to Paris, the French cooks took a hint from the Spanish
pot-au-feu—the olla podrida—and produced a variation of
their brown sauce which they called Spanish. The essen-
tial principle of the French pot-au-feu was beef; the
essential principle of the Spanish was bacon, ham, the red
Estremadura sausage—all well smoked. There is a rhyme
which says,
No hay olla sin tocino
Ni sermon sin Agustino;-
that an olla can be no more without bacon than a sermon
without a quotation from St. Augustine. The Duc de
St. Simon sent home marvellous accounts of the hams of
Montanches ; there grew up a rage for Spanish hams; and
the French were not to blame, for they have no hams of
their own which have any reputation. Great as they are
in pig's flesh, they are poor hands at bacon and ham ; and
the treasures of Montanches were a revelation to them.
They ran wild after ham. There is an amusing story
told of Bertrand, steward to the Prince of Soubise (see
Soubise), who ordered fifty hams for a little supper
which he had to prepare. Only one was to go to table ;


:. Sauce
413
the other forty-nine were to be worked into sauces and
garnitures. And so, by introducing the flavour of the
Estremadura bacon and ham into the old brown sauce of
the French, there came into being the Spanish sauce.
It was a grand hit this—the introduction of the hammy
taste. The fashion spread, and the word was passed from
cook to cook as a secret worth knowing, that to make the
brown sauce in perfection there was nothing like a slice or
two of Spanish ham. But the best Montanches porkers
are fed on vipers; and a retribution followed, as though the
vipers in the Spanish hams had warmed to life and poisoned
the wits of the French cooks. The hams of Montanches
are not too plentiful in this world of sorrow, and the cooks
came to be satisfied with any ham-even with French ham,
which is little better than salted pork. So the meaning of
the prescription was lost; the peculiarity of the Spanish
sauce passed away, and its name became a puzzle. The
French ham, which is not properly smoked, went for little
or nothing ; and there is no clear difference between the
old brown sauce and that which is now called Spanish.
Then followed this folly :—The French cooks having a
tradition, which they did not understand, that ham was a
good thing for brown sauce, thought it must be equally
good for white, and put it into their Velvet-down, where
it is altogether a mistake, as will presently be shown ;
only as it was the tasteless French ham which was thus
inserted, no result ensued except a pleasant sensation for
the cooks that they were doing their work in the grand
style and vindicating the title of their art to the utmost
ceremony. The cooks of other nations looked on with
astonishment; and seeing in the receipts that slices of ham
are always to line the bottom of the stockpot, laughed at
the useless niceties of the French chemistry. The fact is,
that the very best brown sauce can be made without an
ounce of ham or bacon ; and to make the true Spanish
sauce as understood by the old French cooks, a few


414
Sauce
Frankfort sausages, with their fine smoky favour, or some
of the Jewish smoked beef, or the Jewish beef sausages-
chorissas—are of more avail than a hundredweight of
French ham.
This analysis brings us back to our starting-point; and
three questions arise : Are we to be content with the one
brown fundamental sauce of the French books ?-and
are we to call it Spanish ?
To get at the root of the matter, we must come to a
clear understanding as to the real difference between the
brown and the white, into which all gravy sauces are
divided. The white sauces (which by the way are not
necessarily white, for they may be tinged to any colour
-yellow with the yolks of eggs or scarlet with toma-
tos—and yet preserve their character) are the result of
decoction and no other heating process. To get a full
flavour in this way, however, implies a long decoction and
a reduction of much meat. And even when the sauce has
been thus reduced to a white cullis, the flavour of the
Velvet-down may be so flat that it requires to be enriched
with nearly its own volume of cream to make a good
Béchamel, or with butter and yolks of eggs to make a
good German sauce. And how is brown sauce different ?
It may sound like a paradox to say so, but it is the simple
fact, only expressed in a novel phrase—that the essential
difference between brown and white sauce is that in
addition to the boiling and simmering processes, which
produce a white sauce, the brown one has to go through a
process of roasting; and that this roasting creates a
superlative flavour which can be obtained by very simple
means. The juices of certain meats are, at a particular
period of their decoction, roasted, and then submitted to a
further decoction. What nonsense, it may be said, to speak
of roasting a liquid! Who ever heard of roasting water?
Nobody has ever been able to roast mere water ; but we
have all heard of burning milk, of browning butter, and


Sauce
417
се
rapidly, till solid and fluid roast together—that is, fall to a
glaze ; and finally by filling the vessel with broth or with
water, and letting it simmer for hours till the decoction is
perfect. 4. It is very common to finish sauces by thicken-
ing them with roux; and roux is nothing more than flour
which has been roasted in butter. 5. One of the most
ancient methods of the French kitchen for the perfection
of a brown sauce, or a superexcellent consommé, is to
roast a fowl first, or it may be two, and then to boil them
down in the stockpot; and those cooks who are afraid
that some goodness may depart from the fowl in roasting
it before a clear fire stipulate for brazing it—which is only
another mode of roasting.
It will now be understood that a cook proficient in
sauces must have the most delicate skill in roasting; and
at the same time we reach the true meaning of the Spanish
sauce. The introduction of the Spanish ham into the
stockpot for brown sauce is but one out of many ways
of awakening that taste of the fire which ought to mark
it. Not that the ham has itself been roasted : it has only
been smoked. The roast flavour in this case is the flavour
of wood which has been roasted and burnt. The flavour
has risen in a vapour which has been identified with creo-
sote and pyroligneous acid, and which, seizing on the ham,
has incorporated with it. This incorporation may to some
extent soften and tone down the tarry flavour of charred
or roasted wood ; but essentially the roast flavour, which
through the Spanish ham is supposed to improve a brown
sauce, is a modification of the flavour of charred pinewood.
Knowing this, we can rate at its true worth the direction
of the French cooks to put ham into all sauces and soups
which are to be very good. The introduction of ham or
of anything smoked, in however faint a degree, into white
sauce, is opposed to its character. It is quite possible that
the creosote in the ham may be too feeble to do any harm:
the question is, what good does it do? It is the nature of
27


418
Sauce
V
white sauce to be produced by decoction alone, so as to
keep it quite free from any of the igneous flavours : what,
then, is the object of tampering with it by putting into it
an ingredient whose special value is that it has an igneous
taste of a certain kind ? Because two and a half cen-
turies ago a French cook discovered that a Spanish ham
mightily improved the savour of his brown sauce, we have
slices of ham put into every soup and sauce and stew
served at a grand dinner. See the far-reaching and un-
expected consequences of great events. Because early in
the last century the blood royal of France and of Spain
intermingled, a Jew cannot now feast with the Lord
Mayor on the ninth of November without trembling for
his soul, and much smiting of conscience. I picture to
myself the perplexity and despair of the greatest cook of
this century, Carême, who left the service of the Prince
Regent in England to take office in the household of Baron
Rothschild in Paris. All the traditions of his art assured
him that soups and sauces are nothing without ham—that
ham is the trumpet obligato in the symphony of a sauce
—and ham was denied to him. It was due to the genius
of Carême that the Baron’s dimer-table became the most
refined in Europe ; but it did not require the genius of
Carême to prove that the absence of ham in the sauces
made no difference.
The following is an alphabetical list of the sances
described in this volume :-
Allemande,
Cold Béchamel.
Almond cream.
Mock Béchamel.
Anchovy.
Bigarade.
Anchovy butter:
Black butter.
Apple.
Blanquette.
Arrowroot.
Bordelese.
Aspic.
Brawn.
Aurora..
Bread.
Béarnaise.
Breton.
Béchamel.
Caper.


Sauer Kraut
419
Celery.
Cruet.
Devil.
Dutch.
Duxelles
Egg.
English
Espagnole.
Fennel.
Financiers'.
Genevese.
German.
Gooseberry.
Gravy.
Its own gravy.
Beef gravy.
Veal.gravy.
Rich gravy.
Cold gravies.
Hollandaise.
Horseradish.
Italian.
Lemon.
Lobster.
Maître d'Hôtel
Mayonnaise.
Green Mayonnaise.
Mint.
Nut-brown butter.
Oiled butter.
Orange gravy.
Parsley.
Périgueux
Piquante.
Plum.
Poivrade.
Polish.
Poulette.
Punch.
Ravigote.
Ravigote butter
Remoulade.
Robert.
Sage and onion.
Salmi.
Shalot.
Sharp.
Shriinp.
Soubise.
Spanish.
Supreme.
Tartar.
Tomato.
Velvetdown..
Mock Velvetdown..
Venetian.
Venison.
White-wine
SAUER KRAUT.—There are few things more wholesome
than the salted cabbage which is called sauer kraut. It
will keep in good condition for a long time; but English
people do not seem to care enough about it to take the
trouble of making it, and those who delight in it are
content to buy it ready-made from the Italian ware-
house. For the best go to Lingner's, Old Compton Street,
Soho, and Fenchurch Street, City.
Take two pounds of it, and simmer it gently for three
or four hours in water. Drain off the water and toss it
over the fire in some fat broth of good flavour. Serve


420
Sauter-Sauté
propertly well in a li
it with sausages-Frankfort the best ; or serve it with
streaky bacon. It is sometimes brazed with a duck, and
makes an excellent garnish.
SAUTER, SAUTÉ.—One might suppose that the idea
which these words convey is unknown in English
kitchens, since we find English writers trying to express
it by speaking of kidneys jumped in champagne. The
proper English word is toss; and English cooks know
perfectly well what it is to toss things over the fire. It
is to fry lightly in a little oil or butter. Frying proper is
done with a large quantity of butter, oil, or other fatty
matter, and creates a heat which, being far beyond that of
boiling water, has a roasting effect. To fry lightly is to
attempt frying with a mitigated heat, and to avoid roast-
ing. This is done by using a small quantity of fatty
matter and by tossing. The object of the tossing is partly
to stir what is in the pan, to prevent it from burning,
and to cook it equally throughout ; but also to cool it
from time to time, and so to keep the heat below the
temperature which belongs to frying proper.
SAVELOY—a name curiously corrupted from cervelas,
which is itself corrupted from cervelat. It was originally an
Italian sausage into which pigs' brains entered. The brains
are no longer used, but the name remains. Sausages with
brains required to be cooked enough at the pork-butchers'.
The name, therefore, is generally given to those sausages
which require little or no further cooking, and which, being
well cured, keep for a length of time. Such are the sausages
of Bologna, Novara, Arles, Lyons, and Brunswick.
SCALLION.—The same word as shalot—the onion brought
by the Crusaders from Ascalon.
SCOLLOPS.— What do the cooks mean by always talking
of scollops--scollops of beef, scollops of veal, scollops of
the breasts of fowl? What are scollops ? They mean
little slices, and they are a corruption of collops. It is


424
Sheep's Head Broth
of vinegar. Stir this over the fire till the vinegar is
reduced—and, indeed, till the shalots absorb the whole of
it that is left, which will be indicated by the butter becoming
clear. Then add an ounce of flour, and a pint of broth,
together with pepper, and it may be salt—but this will
depend on the saltness of the broth. Let it boil for a
quarter of an hour, and let it be skimmed. Lastly, add
the parsley and gherkins. Boil it up again, and if need
be, skim again.
SHEEP's HEAD BROTH (the grand Scotch receipt).-
A sheep's head and trotters are singed, and are usually
sent for this purpose to a blacksmith's forge. They might
be singed with a red-hot iron in the kitchen, but it makes
a smell which is apt to steal through the house. After
singeing they are soaked in cold water or in several waters
for two hours; and afterwards lightly scraped and trimmed
so as to remove excess of blackness, though without de-
stroying that burnt flavour which the singeing is meant to
produce. The head is then to be split and to be rubbed
over with the brains.
Put the head and the trotters on the fire with two gallons
of cold water and half a pound of Scotch barley. Add
pepper and salt, take off the scum as it rises, and simmer it
for at least four hours. When it is about half done throw
in a pint of carrots cut into dice. An hour before it is
ready put in the same allowance of turnips, together with
some chopped onions—in summer-time a few green peas.
The soup may be served at once. The sheep's head, by
universal consent, is best cold. In every manse throughout
Scotland the minister eats sheep's head broth on Saturday
while he is preparing his sermon, and cold sheep's head
for his Sunday dinner. That is why the sermons of the
Kirk are so good. As for the trotters, though they improve
the soup, they cannot be eaten cold, and it is best to serve
them separately in a Poulette sauce.


Shoulder of Mutton
425
SHEEP'S TROTTERS in the Poulette way. Let them be
singed, well washed, blanched, and boned ; then simmered
in a faggot of pot-herbs for four or five hours-Faggot
No. 6–drained and served in the Poulette relish-Relish
No. 5.
SHOULDER OF MUTTON is a joint about which there
would be less controversy if people knew how to carve it.
Always at the butcher's ranked as a second-class joint,
many people will have nothing to say to it; while others,
again, declare that it is the Cinderella of meat-a beauty
misunderstood and fit for princes. In nine cases out of
ten, when mine host carves this joint he takes the inferior
slices and sends down the best to be enjoyed by his ser-
vants. He helps himself from the bend of the joint, where
he can cut easiest, and he sends away the bladebone,
where the most perfect morsels lie. Many cookery books
give elaborate directions how to carve ; but not one points
out that the best of the shoulder of mutton is to be found
on the upper surface of the bladebone, against the ridge,
and that after that the under part of the blade is richest in
dainty morsels.
The shoulder of mutton is usually roasted, but being flat
and comparatively thin, is easily grilled ; and a carbonade
of it, or to speak more strictly, of its blade, has for cen-
turies been a celebrated dish. But let no one be deceived
by French receipts. Let the reader go back to the word
carbonade, and understand what it really means. It is a
broil which has been first slashed and scored, as in devilled
meats, in order to be penetrated by pepper, salt, and other
condiments—but above all by the taste of the fire. This
we can understand. In this sense the bladebone of mutton
makes an admirable carbonade. But the French cooks
have determined, for the glory of the Prince of Soubise,
that in their sense a carbonade of mutton shall mean a
bladebone planted or larded all over with fat bacon and


Smelts
427
shared. It is well, therefore, to honour him with pleasant
music when he is devoured. He comes in two distinct
tribes to the English market—thornbacks and tinkers—the
former much the better. He is generally sold at the fish-
monger's crimped—that is, cut in strips and rolled round.
He is eaten in England plain boiled, with ordinary butter
sauce, to which mustard is sometimes added, or else capers;
in France with black butter. And he ought always to be
served with some of his liver, which, if this organ be the
seat of the affections in fish, cannot but be good in the
skate—the most affectionate fish in the world, a good v
father, a good mother, and fond of family life.
For triumphant occasions, take the following receipt :-
Boil the skate with a tumblerful of milk, a little butter,
two pinches of flour, two cloves, two shalots, a bayleaf,
thyme, salt, and pepper. Take him out of this, and
strain the liquor. Put him next into a pie-dish, the
bottom of which has been covered with grated Gruyère
cheese. Intermix canningly a dozen little onions, which
have been already cooked. Surround the dish with fried
crusts. Then pour upon the skate the strained sauce in
which he has been cooked ; cover him with more grated
cheese, send him to the oven till he takes a fine colour,
and rejoice over him. Improve the occasion, too, by
meditating on the domesticity of the thoruback, and the
goodness which has been the result of it.
SMELTS (in French éperlans, in Scotch sperlings).-
The most delicate and spirituel of all the fish that come to
our tables. Brillat-Savarin has named it the becafico of
the sea, as the turbot is the pheasant, and the red mullet
the woodcock. Happily we have not to enjoy the smelts,
as we do the becafico, by deputy. It is best to fry them
lightly in suet, dipping them first in flour, then in beaten
egg, lastly in fine breadcrumbs. Serve them on a napkin,
with a garnishing of fried parsley, the bitter of which is


428
Snipe
in pleasant contrast with this little exquisite of the
ocean.
For a change, bake them as follows :-Pour some clari-
fied butter into the dish in which they are to be served ;
also a glass of white wine, a few drops of anchovy
sauce, and the juice of half a lemon. Arrange them
prettily in the dish ; sprinkle them with salt, mace, and
cayenne ; cover them with fine breadcrumbs; and moisten
the whole with more clarified butter. Put the dish into the
oven, and in ten or fifteen minutes it ought to be ready-
the crumbs light brown.
Everybody knows that smelts, if fresh, ought to smell
like cucumber. I do not so well understand what Beau-
villiers means by saying that they smell like cucumbers or
violets. They are in season from October till May.
SNIPE.—The French call it bécassine—a little woodcock;
whereas the English would be rather disposed to call the
woodcock a large snipe. The generic name in England is
snipe ; but the honours bestowed upon the family at our
tables are described in connection with the head of the
family—the woodcock; of whom a French writer observes:
“On vénére tellement ce précieux oiseau qu'on lui rend
les mêmes honneurs qu'au Grand Llama. C'est dire assez
que les déjections sont non-seulement précieusement re-
cueillies sur des rôties mouillées d'un bon jus de citron,
mais mangées avec respect par les fervents amateurs.”
SNOWDON PUDDING.—It would not be surprising if a
great controversy should arise about this pudding, perilous
to the peace of England and Wales. It is a Welsh
pudding with a Welsh name, which has been altered and
consecrated into the Albert pudding. The Welsh harpers
are certain one day in their Eistedfodds to make a noise
about this tyrannous forgetfulness of their nationality.
Truth, however, must prevail, though the world and all
the Welsh hills should come to an end ; and the truth


430
Sole
the faggot; by shaking into it, on the angle of the stove,
some yolk of egg, till it slightly thickens; lastly, by
straining it over the fish. Care must be taken not to use
too much egg. For a small sole half a yolk ought to be
enough.
Sole à la Normande (the Normandy matelote).— The
following receipt, with the alteration of a word or two, is
borrowed from Gouffé, who says that he had it direct from
Langlais, the chef of the Rocher de Cancale, who invented
it. Butter a silver dish; strew it with onions chopped
fine and previously blanched ; season the sole with pepper
and salt; put it on the dish ; cover it with white French
wine, and cook it in the oven. In the meantime prepare
some mussels, oysters, mushrooms, fried smelts, and crusts
for garnish. Add the liquor of the sole and that of the
mussels to some mock Velvet-down, reduce it, and thicken
it with yolk of egg. Place the mussels, oysters, and mush-
rooms on the sole ; pour over all some sauce; return
the dish to the oven for five minutes, being careful not to
brown the sauce, which should be of a rich cream colour;
garnish the top with the fried smelts and the crusts; and
serve the remaining sauce in a boat.
Baked Sole (Sole au Gratin).—Some people speak of the
Normandy matelote as being baked because it is done in the
oven ; but an oven, like a fire, will boil as well as roast, –
and the Normandy sole has no sign of baking or roasting
upon it. It is different with the sole au gratin. Take a
silver dish, or any other which will stand the heat of the
oven. Make a cut down each side of the backbone of the
sole ; season it with salt and pepper; put it into the dish
with a lump of butter in the furrows; and strew all about
the fish two teaspoonfuls of mushrooms, one of parsley,
and one of shalot. Moisten this with a glass of white
French wine ; powder all well with bread-raspings, and
put it in the oven for fifteen or twenty minutes, to cook


Soubise
433
peck of the leaves to make a purée to go with a fricandeau
of veal or with poached eggs. We all like some acid to
go with our veal, and sorrel is a favourite accompaniment
of certain fish ; but after all there is no acid comparable to
lemon-juice for delicacy of flavour and for wholesomeness.
Let us reserve sorrel for Bonne Femme soup and woodsorrel
for Julienne.
SOUBISE. — The Prince of Soubise is immortal in a ✓
renown that has spread round the world because he had
a great cook, Bertrand, who gave the name of his master
to one of his sauces. The Prince was meritorious, for he
put infinite faith in Bertrand. On one occasion he pro-
posed a supper, and requested Bertrand to prepare a bill.
There was one little item in the bill of fifty hams.“ What
is this?” said the Prince. “You must be mad, Bertrand.
Are you going to feast all my regiment ? ” “No, Mon-
seigneur,” said the chef—“only one ham will appear at
table, but the rest are required for my sauces and gar-
nitures.” “Bertrand, you are robbing me;" cried the
Prince ; “I cannot allow this.” “Monseigneur," said the
artist, quietly, “you do not understand our resources ;
I will, if you choose, put all the fifty hams which astonish
you so much into a glass vial no bigger than my thumb."
The Prince withdrew his objection: he had faith in genius;
and that genius has immortalised him in the Soubise sauce.
Most persons will read this story, and enjoy it as a piece
of pleasantry. They are wrong. Bertrand, I have little
doubt, was perfectly serious. He lived at a period when
Spanish fashions, and with them the Spanish ham, were in
high favour. This ham has a fine smoky perfume, which
is not to be found in the half-smoked French ham. The
cooks then were trying to produce a Spanish sauce with
the flavour of the Spanish ham. It would probably
require ten French hams to produce the result of one
Spanish one; and a chemist in our own day could, out of
28


434
Soubise
✓
a log of pinewood, provide us with a small vial of odorous
pyroligneous essence which a cook in the time of Louis
XIV. could not obtain without the decoction of fifty hams.
A cook is after all a chemist, and in those days the chemis-
try of the kitchen was very cumbrous and expensive.
The Soubise sauce intended for mutton will be found
below; but it may be doubted whether one Englishman
in a million who enjoys his mutton cutlet à la Soubise
dreams of what it ought to be as imagined by the
great chef Bertrand, and as accepted by the Prince of
Soubise. It has already been said that Bertrand was
an enthusiastic believer in ham and bacon. The chief
article of his worship was fumigated pig, and his notion
of mutton was that it should always be intersected
with bacon. Take a neck of mutton, trim it, parboil it,
cut it into thick cutlets, lard them well with plugs of
bacon, broil them, and serve them with a white purée of
onions. Ditto for the shoulder of mutton. Englishmen
are of course scandalised at the idea of larding good
mutton ; and accordingly they discard everything from
Bertrand's receipt but the Soubise sauce. They are quite
right; but at the same time it is not difficult to guess at
the explanation of Bertrand's proceedings. They probably
grew out of the carbonade. A carbonade of mutton is
cold underdone mutton, scored and slashed and sent to
the grill. Bertrand had to do a carbonade one day, and
felt that the mutton already cooked would be dried up on
the grill. He tried to prevent this by interlacing it with
bacon ; and the result of the broil was so satisfactory to
him and to his master that henceforth he took to parboiling
his mutton for the express purpose of larding it first and
then carbonading it.
Soubise Sauce.—Peel, blanch, and mince an abundance
of onions. Simmer them gently in white broth till they
are done. Then add some Béchamel, or in default of


Soup
435
Béchamel a tumbler of cream with two spoonfuls of flour
and two pinches of sugar. Reduce this quickly, but
always taking care that it does not catch the pan and
lose colour. Pass it through the tammy and finish it
with fresh butter. See that it comes out decidedly
thick.
SOUP.—There has been a good deal of needless con-
troversy about soup—some people finding in it a dinner
of itself, and some refusing it as a weak wash fit only for
babes and invalids. Grimod de la Reynière said that soup V
is to dinner what a portico is to a palace, or an overture to
an opera ; it is not only the commencement of the feast,
but should give an idea of what is to follow. On the other
hand, the Marquis de Cussy described soup as the preface
of dinner, and said that a good work can do without a
preface. Carême, on his death-bed, groaned over this
heresy : and among his last words he said, “Why should
the Marquis de Cussy wage war on soup? I cannot under-
stand a dinner without it. I hold soup to be the well-
beloved of the stomach.” What the Marquis de Cussy
contended for was little more than this : that it is folly to
load the stomach at the beginning of a long banquet with
an elaborate essence—let the soup be light in quality, and
let a few spoonfuls suffice. People often sit down to a
late dinner faint and irritable; and those who have observed
how quickly a little liquid nourishment acts as a restora-
tive will never consent to dispense with soup as the best of
all preliminaries at dinner. It is quite true, however, that
to serve such a purpose we do not require much weight of
matter; and the plain rule to follow is : For a great dinner
the soups should be as light as possible--just enough to
give a fillip ; for a little dinner, with one or two dishes,
they may be as rich and satisfying as you please. De
Cussy is quite in accord here with Thomas Walker (of
the Original), who maintained that if he gave turtle soup


Soup
437
give another and another to cover a different set of par-
ticulars not included in the first. I might quote receipts
furnished by the great masters—Beauvilliers, Carême, ✓
Dubois, Gouffé—from which a logician could easily prove,
setting one against another, that there is no distinction
between beef broth and consommé, broth and double broth;
and even that veal stock and fowl broth are in substance
(though not in process of cooking) the same thing. Take
Gouffé, for example, who is the greatest living authority,
and rarely makes a mistake. According to him the animal
ingredients of the best veal stock are : 4 lbs. of veal, 2 lbs.
of gravy beef, 2 hens, and 51 quarts of beef broth, which
ought to represent 7 or 8 lbs. of beef; and those of the
best fowl broth are 6 lbs. of veal, 2 hens, and 5 quarts of
similar beef broth. Compare the two. There is more
veal in the fowl broth than in the veal stock; and the
name of veal is given to that which contains least of it for
this only reason—that before it is set to simmer in the five
quarts of beef broth, it is first reduced to a glaze with
an extra pint of that broth. Further, taking liquid and
solid together, there is in the veal stock more of beef than
anything else—not far from ten ponnds; and in the fowl
broth it is the same, though in less degree.
There is a remarkable difference of opinion as to the
quantity of cold water to be added to beef and beef-bone
in order to make broth or bouillon. A pound of water is
exactly a pint; and whereas some authorities (Liebig,
Dubois and Bernard the latest) declare that a good broth
requires equal quantities of solid and liquid-a pound of
the one to a pint of the other—the most recent authority of
all, and a very great one too (Jules Gouffé), recommends in
one receipt 2pints, in another 31, in a third no less than 4,
pints or pounds of water to the pound of beef. Here is
an immense range; and between these extremes there is
endless variety of opinion. The difference is incalculable
between a broth made by adding a pint of water, and one


438
Soup
made by adding four pints, to every pound of beef. And
observe that the difference goes further than the simple
broth or bouillon ; it affects the character of the double or
consumed broth which ensues. The first point of distinc-
tion between broth and double broth is simply in strength
—the liquid used for the first being cold water, the liquid
used for the second being the resultant broth of the first.
But it can easily be understood that simple broth or
bouillon made from equal quantities of beef and water
is stronger and better than double broth or consommé
which has been made from bouillon that has been diluted
with four times its weight of water. All this shows the
danger of being over precise. A good deal must be left
to the judgment of the cook, who has to take into account
the result which he or she desires to obtain. A middle
rule was laid down by the French chemist Parmentier in
the last century : let the water be double the meat-a
quart for every pound. This is the ordinary practice of
French kitchens. If the bouillon is wanted very light,
redouble the water; if strong, reduce it.
Another detail, and one not less important. The dif-
ference between bouillon and consommé, broth and double
broth, is not merely in strength-it is also in character.
The bouillon is a beef broth ; the consommé is a beef
broth which has been doubled with veal and fowl—the
former to give it gelatine, the latter to give it flavour.
But read the receipts for making up the stockpot or
pot-au-feu, and for producing its broth or bouillon. In all
of them it is stated that while beef is the essential con-
sideration, we are free to add to it whatever else we have
at command ; veal, calves' feet, the remains of fowl, a
trussed fowl if we want one for table, a leg of mutton,
any trimmings of meat, pigskin, a ham-bone, or even a
whole ham if that should be in the way ; and some of the
great cooks (like Dubois and Bernard) insist that the
grand bouillon, to be properly made, must never be com-


440
Soup
secret of making soup is to begin with cold water, to bring
it slowly to the boiling-point, a mere ripple on the surface,
to let it simmer gently and continuously for hours-never
boiling up and never ceasing to simmer. On these three
points—the gradual production of the heat, the moderation
of the boiling, and keeping it up to the end—the flavour
and the clarification of the broth largely depend; and it is
easy to manage this in an earthen vessel. But it is just as
possible with an iron or copper stockpot. It may not be
so easy upon an open fire, but there is no difficulty what-
ever on the closed ranges which are now so common. We
can regulate the heat perfectly by choosing any position for
the stockpot, from the corner of the stove to the centre.
There is another needless direction. Soup should never
be greasy. Every particle of fat should be removed. It
is tedious to do so, however, by the ordinary process of
skimming ; and so we are sometimes advised to make the
broth beforehand, and to make a supply for two days.
When the broth cools the fat will cake on the surface, and
may then be easily removed. The advice is good up to a
certain point. It saves labour to make a good supply of
broth at a time : it loses nothing in two days, even in hot .
weather, if kept in clean fresh vessels. But there is a
simple mechanical contrivance to get rid of grease which
ought for ever henceforth to render the little eyes which
appear on the surface of soup an impossibility. All the
fat rises to the top of the stockpot; if there is a tap at
the bottom of it the broth will flow out without a particle
of grease.
Common sense will tell the cook to beware of salt.
It is well to put it into the stockpot from the beginning,
because it helps to make the scum rise ; but what is barely
enough for a full stockpot may be a great deal too much
when the liquid boils down to half. The liquid flies off in
steam, but the salt remains.
The advantage of sugar is not so well known. It is


Soup
441
as much for the saccharine matter which they contain as
for anything else that onions, carrots, and turnips are so
necessary to the stockpot. A little pinch of sugar at
table is often a wonderful improvement to a tasteless
soup. But a soup too sweet is sickly; and the cook must
be very careful in applying it to the stockpot. She must
take into account not only the sweetness of the vegetables
in the pot, but also the sweetness of the caramel with
which she will probably have to give the finishing touch of
colour to the soup before sending it to table.
1. Beef Broth, Bouillon, or Stock.—Bone the beef first
and what other meat is to be used along with it. Beef
alone is enough, but almost any other meat may be added,
or trimmings or remains. Put the bones in first, then the
meat, then twice as much water as bone and meat com-
bined—a quart to a pound. Add a little salt, bring it
slowly to the boiling-point, and skim it. When skimmed
enough, add the vegetables—carrots, turnips, parsnips,
celery, onions, leeks, a faggot of parsley, two or three
cloves, twice as many peppercorns, and a scrape or two of
nutmeg. After simmering for five hours it ought to be
ready. Strain it, clear away the fat, adjust the salt, colour
it if need be with caramel, and with the addition of toasted
sippets it is quite fit for table.” Without the final salt, the
caramel and the sippets, it can be put aside as stock for
the preparation of other soups and for sauces.
2. Double Broth or Consommé.—The receipt for this
depends a good deal on what beef broth the first consists of.
• It may have been made with much or with little water ; it
may be composed of beef alone, or of a little beef heightened
with veal, fowl, mutton, ham, and all that is meant by "pot
luck.” The great thing now is to produce a good stock,
strong with beef ; smooth and gelatinous with veal, with
calves' feet, or with pigskin ; and perfumed with fowl or
wild rabbits. It is impossible to state the exact propor-


442
Soup
tions, and chiefly because broth No. 1 is uncertain—it iš
"pot luck.” Some cooks add no beef whatever, calcu-
lating that when the bouillon or beef broth which liquefies
the consommé is further reduced by five hours' boiling,
there is quite enough beef in it already. If the first
beef broth has a good supply of beef in it, they are
quite right in adding none to the second. Assuming that
when boiled down it will be sufficiently strong in beef,
the next object is to make it smooth upon the tongue and
sapid. To this end add a knuckle of veal and a fowl, from
which the fillets have been removed. Instead of the veal
calf's feet will do, or some pigskin—both rich in gelatine,
and giving the broth a velvety smoothness. Instead of
the fowl a wild rabbit will suffice. Pour on this meat
double the quantity of broth--that is, a quart for every
pound. Bring it gradually to the boiling-point, and skim
it. When the skimming is at an end, the usual order is
to garnish it with carrots, onions, leeks, and a little mace ;
but this is because cooks so seldom know when they have
enough of a good thing ; they forget that the broth which
goes into the pot is already charged with vegetables.
Let the whole simmer for five hours, at the end of which
time strain it, keep clear of the fat, look to the salt and
the caramel ; and there ought to be a fine soup ready for use.
Some of the French cooks recommend that the veal, but
more especially the fowl used as above, shall first be
roasted, baked or brazed—partly for the sake of the
colour so produced, partly for the flavour which it de-
velopes. This is too troublesome for every day, but it is
worth while to take the trouble on special occasions.
3. Veal Stock, or Blonde de Veau.—This is, although not
so called, another consommé or double broth, but prepared
in a peculiar way. Butter a deep stewpan, and line the
bottom of it half an inch thick with slices of onion.
Upon this cushion put a slice of ham, quite free from
fat, and a knuckle of veal which has been boned ; put in


Soup
443
also the bone, with any fresh trimmings of poultry, or a
whole fowl if there is one, and with nearly a pint of broth.
Put it on the stove fire, and boil it briskly until it is well
reduced. Then prick the veal with a sharp knife, to let the
juices flow out, and turning it frequently to prevent burn-
ing, boil it slowly, very slowly, till the glaze darkens to a
deep red. Next fill up the pan (a pint for a pound) with
boiling beef broth (No. 1), or simply with boiling water if
it is not wanted very strong, and let the pan remain off
the fire for a few minutes, to detach and melt the glaze.
Put it on the fire again, boil it, skim it—and if the pot has
been filled with water, not with broth, garnish it with
carrots, turnips, celery, a faggot of parsley, some pepper-
corns, a blade of mace, and perhaps a pinch of sugar. It
should simmer on the angle of the stove for three or four
hours; and when strained through a napkin and clarified,
it should have a rich amber tint, as it is much used for
colouring the clear soups and for finishing sauces.
4. Fowl Broth.—This broth, as now ordered to be made
by some of the greatest authorities, differs in no essential
from ordinary consommé or double broth. Consommé is,
according to them, made of beef, veal, and fowl boiled in
beef broth ; consommé of fowl is made of fowl, veal, and
beef boiled in broth; and we have already seen that blonde
de veau is composed of the same materials—veal, fowl, and
becf boiled in broth. This is mere thimble-rigging. The
fact is, that there is no such broth as consommé of fowl
distinct from ordinary consommé. A little more or a little
less fowl cannot constitute a difference of kind ; and the
difference of name only perplexes cooks, who, if they work
out a consommé in the proper way, are fairly entitled to
some freedom in the choice of quantities. It is a farce to
suppose that the addition of a second fowl to a consommé
alters its character, and entitles it to a new name; for the
name of consommé has a special meaning, which does not
apply to the following receipts.


444
Soup
Let one or more fowls be half-roasted before a brisk
fire. Then put them in the pot with a pint or a pint and
a half of water for every pound. When the pot boils,
skim it, add vegetables and seasoning-carrot, onion, leek,
celery, turnip, clove, salt, pepper--and let it simmer for
three hours, at the end of which time strain the broth
through a napkin, and remove the fat..
White Fowl Broth, for use in white soups and sauces, is
made in the same way, but without the roasting.
The following is an alphabetical list of the soups
described in this volume :
Asparagus.
Haricot Red.
Barley broth.
Haricot White.
Barley cream.
Hotch Potch.
Bisque.
Julienne..
Blonde de Veau.
Leek.
Bonne Femme.
Leek and potato.
Bouillabaisse.
Lentil.
Broth.
Macaroni.
Brunoise.
Mutton.
Cabbage.
Palestine.
Carrot.
Paysanne.
Celery.
Pea.
Chantilly.
Potato:
Chestnut.
Pot-au-feu.
Chicken.
Pumpkin.
Queen’s Chicken.
Restaurant.
Chiffonnade.
St. Germain.
Cock-a-leekie.
Scotch Broth.
Colbert.
Sheep’s head.
Condé.
Soup in general.
Consommé.
Spring.
Crayfish.
Stock.
Tomato.
Cresses.
Turtle.
Croûte-au-pot.
Mock Turtle..
Esau's.
Veal.
Fish broth.
Vegetable Marrow.
Girasol.
Vermicelli.
Hare.
Crécy.


446
Spinach
had two slices of ham ; and grew into such favour that it
seemed to eclipse all the other brown sauces, and to be
worthy of the most lavish adornment. In later days, when
this system of adornment was at its height, one of the
receipts for it already quoted begins with the direction,
“ Take twelve ducks, a ham, two bottles of old Madeira, and
six pounds of fine truffles.” While the ham was the chief
thing in the sauce, there was a reason for calling it Spanish,
which will be found in the general article on Sauces. But
gradually the influence of the ham has been diminishing.
The share of it allowed to Spanish sauce is allowed to
other sauces, and the quantity has been so much reduced
in proportion to beef and veal, that it is doubtful whether
it has any effect worth aiming at. Spanish sauce has no
longer a Spanish characteristic—save its brownness; and
at last a great cook (Gouffé) has been bold enough to strike
the ham wholly out of the sauce, which is in his receipt but
a good gravy of beef and veal finished with roux.
Follow the receipt (pp. 225, 226) for making beef or
veal gravy, but use beef and veal together in the pro-
portion of one to three, and moisten them with broth
instead of water, in both the small quantity required for
producing the glaze in the first part of the process, and
the larger quantity for simmering in the second. When
the juice is fairly extracted from the meat, it is to be
strained ; it is to be thickened with roux ; it is to be raised
to boiling point and reduced to a cullis by simmering on
the angle of the stove ; it is to be skimmed well and freed
from grease ; and it is last of all to be strained again
through a tanımy.
SPINACH requires to be well washed and picked. If
young and tender, it requires but little water to boil it-
little more than the moisture which adheres to it after
washing. If ripe and strong of leaf, more water is needed
-but still not much. The water should be boiling, some


448
Sprats
-namely, spit—which survives with a diversity of meaning
in spud, and spade, and so accounts for the alteration of
vowel. In Somersetshire to spit is to dig—to use the
spade ; and in Northamptonshire a spitch is a spadeful.
But what is the last syllable? Anybody will find it out
who considers the meaning of the word. A spitchcock or
a spatchcock is something—be it eel or chicken—spread
out upon small spits or skewers, as kidneys are en brochette,
for the purpose of being broiled. In modern, though not
classical English, we should say that they are spitted.
Our ancestors, however, had not this past participle;
for having the verb to spit in another sense, they had
not yet invented the culinary verb to spit. They fell
back upon a circumlocution which still survives in the
Dutch idiom. To spit or put on a spit is in Dutch aan een
spit steken ; and spitted is spit gesteken. The old English
parallel must have been to stick on a spit, and to be spit-
stucken or spitstocken. In process of time the final syllable
dropped off, and eels and chickens were said to be broiled,
spitstuck or spitstock. Corrupt the t of the second syllable
into c, which is very frequent, and there is spitscock or
spitchcock all alive.
SPRATS and their euthanasia. The following receipt
for turning sprats into roses--the sublime of cookery-
is borrowed from a private letter :-“ Some time since
- went to visit a friend in the country who had most
marvellous roses in full bloom. Every one exclaimed at
their beauty, and asked “How can you get such ?' The
gentleman who owned them was a man of few words, and
only said — Sprats.' It seems that he manured them with
loads of stinking sprats. Not long afterwards a man called
at my house with sprats. “Are they stinking ?' said I,
eagerly. "No,' said the man—quite fresh.' Then bring
me the first stinking ones you have.' In a few days he
came with a heavy heart, and offered me a large quantity


Strawberries
449
which had turned putrid on his hands. The result was that
on a very small bush I had thirty-six blossoms all at once
of magnificent Marshal Niels.”
SPRING SOUP.-A clear broth or double broth with
early vegetables in it. See Brunoise and the introductory
chapter.
STEWING is the easiest form of cooking, for it is cooking
at the lowest temperature possible. Easy though it be, it
is difficult enough on ordinary kitchen fires, because of the
great heat which they give out. The boiling point being
212°, the stewing point is often as low as 170°; and this
can only be well managed on the corner of the stove, or
on cinders. There ought to be no difficulty with the im-
proved ranges which are now in use.
St. GERMAIN-a name for green-pea soup. It differs
from ordinary pea soup, or purée de pois, in being made of
fresh peas, in token of which a few whole peas are gene-
rally strewn on the surface.
· Stock is but another name for beef broth before it is
finished into soups and sauces.
STRAWBERRIES. — Nothing can surpass the method of
eating strawberries with cream. The combination is not
only delicious in itself, but carries with it the happiest
remembrances of rural life and childish innocence. But
cream is not always to be had, and some people are afraid
of it. The Spaniards have another noble combination-
moistening the strawberries with the juice of a sweet V
orange. There are gastrologers who go further, and say
that an addition of orange-peel (by grating the zest with
a lump of sugar) is an immense improvement ; and that
it must have been in this fashion the fruit was served
in the banquets of Mount Ida.
“Physicians concur in placing strawberries in their small
29


450
Sturgeon
catalogue of pleasant remedies. They dissolve the tar-
tareous incrustations of the teeth. They promote per-
spiration. Persons afflicted with the gout have found
relief from using them; so have patients in cases of the
stone; and Hoffman states that he has known consumptive
people cured by them.”—Abercrombie, quoted by Loudon.
Strawberry Pudding.–Mash a quart of strawberries
with sugar to taste-probably three-quarters of a pound.
Melt an ounce and a half of gelatine in rather less than a
tumblerful of hot water, which, when cold, is to be mixed
with the strawberries. Put it into a mould, surround it
with ice till it sets and gets as cold as may be. Turn it
out, and serve it with cream.
STUFFING.—See Forcemeat.
STURGEON.—It is some consolation to Englishmen, who
seldom see the sturgeon at their tables, that this royal,
although sharklike fish, has a wonderful resemblance to
veal. It is therefore to be larded, like veal, in the Cham-
bord style, either with bacon, or with truffles and anchovies.
It is then to be either roasted, baked or brazed, and served,
like veal, with a purée of sorrel or of endive. It may also
be stewed with excellent effect in a Mirepoix of white
wine. It, of course, means not the sturgeon (which some-
times weighs more than a ton), but such a manageable
portion of him as it may be possible to obtain. A slice
from the back, with its taste of veal, has the preference.
The belly part tastes of pork.
It is said that when sturgeon are in season, no less than
two-thirds of the female consists of roe. It is certainly
odd to think of a fish weighing perhaps 1,000 pounds,
being two-thirds made up of eggs. Here is life rushing
into reproduction with a vengeance. At such a rate of
reproduction the world would soon become the abode of
sturgeons alone, were it not that the roe is exceedingly


452
Sweat
SWEAT, To, is not a pretty phrase ; but it expresses
clearly enough the act of making meat yield its juices by
being heated in a pan with little or no water. Necessarily
the heat applied must be low and slow.
SWEETBREADS have to go through a certain dressing
before being cooked. They are to be soaked for an hour
or more in lukewarm water, then blanched in cold water,
then passed into boiling water—where they are to simmer
until they become firm and fit for the larding needle, then
cooled and dried, then pressed between baking-sheets into
the proper rounded shape, then larded with strips of bacon
about one-eighth of an inch thick. Put them next in a
stewpan, with a pint of broth and a pinch of salt. Thicken
the broth by reduction, then add another half-pint to it,
and cover it up with live coals on the lid. From time to
time baste the sweetbreads with the gravy, to glaze them.
When they have taken a dark-brown tint, serve them on
the dish, with the sauce poured over them, For garnish,
choose between endive, sorrel, peas, and a Macedon.
Roasted Sweetbreads.—This is what the French set down
as the Ris de veau à l'Anglaise. The sweetbreads being
prepared as before, but not necessarily larded, are egged,
then breadcrumbed, then sprinkled with oiled butter, then
breadcrumbed again, then put into a flat tossing-pan, with
two ounces of oiled butter, then baked in a quick oven for
half an hour, with frequent basting from the butter in
the pan. When of a golden-brown, dish them with a plain
gravy or a tomato sauce, and garnish of vegetables as
before.
SYRUP.—Only a word to explain that it is necessary to
be accurate in the use of it—there are so many possible
degrees of sweetness. There is a simple little instrument
to measure these degrees known by the name of its in-
ventor, Beaume. It is a sort of glass buoy with a measured


454
Tart, Tartlet
their minds with the adjective tart, imagine that it must
have something to do with the tartness of fruit, and there-
fore identify it with a fruit pie. Under this hallucination
they cease to speak of an apple pie—they insist on calling
it an apple tart. A pie in their view is always for meat ;
a tart is for fruit ; and some of the most popular cookery
books have caught the delusion and done their best to
spread it. A tart has nothing to do with tartness; it is
identical with the French tourte and tarte, the old name
for a kind of loaf, and with tartine, which still exists as
a name for a slice of loaf. It is the Latin torta (from
torqueo), which answers nearly enough to our Roll of
bread. Now, our fathers were in the middle ages rather
deficient in plates, and it is curious to read of the little
odd contrivances by which at grand feasts they tried to
supply the want, and to make one plate do for two or three
guests. Some genius discovered that the undercrust of
bread would serve for a plate, and for a long period in
France the undercrust of the tourte or tarte was the most
common of dinner-plates—at which period a family were
wont, after eating their dinner, to eat their dinner-plates.
These dinner-plates, made of dinner rolls, were in course of
time specially prepared, were made more cakelike, were
filled with dainty food, and were called, according to their
size, tarts or tartlets. The strict meaning of a tart, there-
fore, is an open crust of the nature of a plate ; and it is to
be hoped that after this explanation we shall not very often
hear anybody call an apple pie an apple tart.
A tart or tartlet being a flat cake or crust, in form of a
plate or dish, or little saucer, the question is how to make
it. It can be made of any of the pastes described in the
article on pastry ; but in England it is generally made of
the lighter pastes, in France of the more solid. This is
because in England, save in the case of tartlets, the cake
is for the most part served with the dish on which it has
been moulded, whereas in France the tourte is independ.


Taste
455
ent of its mould, and is in effect but the under part of a
raised pie. It is best in most cases to bake the tart by
itself, and to fill it afterwards. Thus a Vol-au-vent, but
for its loose cover, would be a tart in the proper meaning
of the word, and it is always prepared apart from its
contents. At least it is essential that if the tart and its
contents are to be baked together, the latter should have
been to some extent cooked beforehand, otherwise they
may be underdone while the former is overdone,
With regard to the contents, it is an unheard-of thirg
in England to put anything into a tart which is not sweet.
The French tourte will take any delicate stew—savoury
as well as sweet, animal as well as vegetable. If English
people would come to understand that tart, the noun, has
nothing to do with tart, the adjective, they would then
discover that a tart may be as various as a pie, and that
there is no difference between the one and the other, save
that which arises from the one being open and the other
covered. A tart, in short, is but a kind of dinner-plate
fit to receive almost any kind of food; but with this
distinction—that it is a dinner-plate which may be eaten.
TARTAR SAUCE.—This, whether it refers to catching a
Tartar, or descending into Tartarus, is in effect the French
ideal of a devilled sauce. A French devil is never hot
like an English one-only a little pungent. Either a
Mayonnaise or a Remoulade may be taken as the basis of a
Tartar sauce—the former being made of raw yolks, the
latter of hard-boiled ones. The devilling comes of French
mustard, or else English mustard with some addition of
tarragon vinegar. The amount of bedevilment must
depend on taste. It is usual, but not essential, to add a
chopped ravigote.
TASTE is separated from the other senses by a curious
difference. The others flourish by themselves alone, and


456
Taste
often attain their highest perfection when deprived of
companionship. Hearing will become more acute with
loss of sight, and touch more sensitive with deafness.
But taste is made for marriage, and smell is its better half.
It loses all its delicacy when it cannot mate with a fine
olfactory nerve. Though thus deficient, it is by common
consent chosen as the type of all that is most refined in
human enjoyment—the worship of the beautiful. This is
a feather in the cook's cap. It is the business of his life to
minister to the sense of taste—and taste is at once so fine
and so potent that it is selected from all the senses to
designate the standard of art and the power of detecting
all that is loveliest in heaven and earth. We have one and
the same name for the faculty which comprehends a sucking-
pig and for that which delights in Beethoven-for the appre-
ciation alike of a Strasbourg pie and of the Elgin marbles.
The Greeks gave one and the same name to the palate and
to heaven-Uranus. It is very odd, however, to see how
tastes differ in small things as well as in great, and how
fierce are the controversies waged round a dinner-plate.
He is an outer barbarian who does not agree with us about
a leek or a peppercorn, a bit of pig's grease or a little
oatmeal. If there were no religious wars to waste us, there
would certainly be gastronomical ones ; and who knows
V but there is some hidden law which connects our creed
with our food ? It has indeed been observed that in the
great schism of the Reformation the people who held to the
Coil-jar and the wine-butt remained faithful to the Pope ;
while those who drank good ale, and found in the keg of
butter a sufficient feast of fatness, nearly all turned
Protestant. Philosophers have never adequately ex-
plained, and it will probably remain a mystery to the end
of time, how it comes that as in religion the wider differ-
ences of dogma seldom excite wrath, while the earth is
devastated by controversies about the smallest details—the
spelling of a diphthong or the lighting of a taper,--so in


458
Teal
prayers and his blessings—but only for the shocking act
of eating fondue with a spoon !
TEAL is surely the most delicate of all the wild water-
fowl. For the way to dress him, see the Widgeon and the
Wild Duck.
Tench is of the carp clan, and is a doubtful fish to eat-
very good and very bad. He likes to lose himself in mud
and impurity, and then he is nasty to the taste. So it
happens that the Italians malign him. When he has lived
in good circumstances, in clear streams, he is quite another
creature. He is done in all the ways prescribed for carp,
but he has nearly always to be marinaded before cooking,
and after the fire to be overpowered with a decided sauce.
Try him as a matelote, or à la poulette. If he is to be
grilled, fill him with anchovy butter and fine herbs, and
serve him either with a purée of tomatos or with Sauce
Robert.
Dr. Badham in his Fishtattle makes a curious remark.
“The skin (which from its thickness has procured for the
tench in Holland the name of shoemaker) is a first-rate
delicacy, and quite equal to turtle.” Is this what the
learned physician means by tattle ?
THUNNY is the most illustrious of the Mediterranean fish,
as salmon is the most illustrious of those which haunt our
Northern waters. No one who has partaken of both can
doubt the superiority of the salmon, not only to the thunny,
but to all fish whatsoever. Yet note this as a tribute to the
worth of the Mediterranean method of preserving fish in
oil : that the tinned thunny which comes to London is much
better than the tinned salmon which is preserved in vinegar
and brine. The best part of the thunny, and much the best
for pickling, is the belly.
Probably, of all the fish in the sea, the thunny grows
V with the greatest rapidity. In four months from his birth


Tomatos
459
he will weigh more than two pounds ; and he would be very
much more abundant than he is, but that his mother has
such an admiration for her eggs that she eats them the
moment they become fertilized. Were it not for this
infanticide, the basin of the Mediterranean would be too
small for the thunny population.
I had almost forgotten to say that the thunny is a
British fish-haunting the Cornish coast; but the Cornish
fishermen are not clever enough to catch it except by the
merest chance. They have not hit upon a bait which will
tempt this fish.
TIPSY CAKE is a Savoy Cake, with sherry poured over
it, into which the juice of half a lemon has been mixed.
TOMATOS.—Tomato Sauce.—Take a pint of the purée of
tomatos, either out of a tin or made from fresh tomatos,
and put them in a stewpan with pepper, salt, a good pinch
of sugar, a quarter of a pint of Mirepoix, a pint of gravy
or broth, an ounce of flour, and one of butter. Let them
simmer for three-quarters of an hour, then pass all through
a sieve.
Tomato Soup—is tomato sauce with three pints of
gravy or broth in it instead of one. Add at the last some
rice.
Roast Tomatos.--Roast them well in a Dutch oven, and
turn them often. Or bake them in a casserole, the bottom
of which has been buttered. They ought to be ready in
from ten to fifteen minutes, and to be served with roast
mutton, or mutton chops and cutlets.
Stuffed Tomatos.—Choose six or seven large and well-i
shaped ones ; cut open the tops and scoop out the insides
carefully. Pass the pulp through a sieve to get rid of the
pips, and mix with it about two ounces of butter (the
French say oil), a chopped shalot, a chopped clove of
Ps and end to beght to


466
Turtle
spring onions, and two blades of mace. Add a quart of
good stock, and set the stewpan over the fire to boil
sharply, until the liquid is reduced to a glaze. Next fill up
the stewpan either with stock or water, and when it boils
again skim it carefully, keeping it gently boiling by the
side of the fire until the calf's head is nearly done. The
head must now be carefully lifted out of the stock with a
skimmer, and after being washed in a large pan of cold
water, and well drained upon a sieve or cloth, placed in
press, between two large dishes in the larder to become
cold. The calf's head stock is now to be strained into a clean
stewpan through a sieve, and the grease being entirely re-
moved from its surface, to be clarified by mixing into it three
whites of eggs previously whipt with a pint of cold water.
Set the stock on the fire, whisk it until it boils, and then
lift it to the side of the stove, there to boil gently until it
has become bright, which will take about twenty minutes.
The stock must now be strained through a napkin into a
soup-pot; the calf's head cut into pieces an inch square,
and placed in the mock turtle stock, to which add half a
pint of white wine (Marsala), a pinch of cayenne, and then
allow the soup to boil gently by the side of the fire until
the pieces of meat are thoroughly done. When about to
send to table add some very small quenelles or egg balls and
a little lemon-juice.
Mock Turtle Soup.—Thick Prepare this as in the fore-
going receipt up to the point when the head has been
placed in press, and the stock has been strained into a fresh
stewpan. To the stock add about a pound and a half
of roux, and stir it over the fire until it boils ; then set it
on the side of the stove to simmer gently, and to throw up
all grease, etc., which must be skimmed off. Strain the
stock next through the pointed strainer, into a soup-pot, add
the calf's head in pieces, and proceed as before.


Vanilla
467
TDDER is not over-abundant in the market;
for heifers are too valuable to be killed, and
cow-beef is not greatly prized at the butcher's.
When the udder of veal can be obtained it
is mostly used for kromeskis. It is to be plain-boiled
with salt, allowed to cool, and then cut into slices to wrap
round the croquette, which thus becomes a kromeski.
It is also used instead of butter for the more delicate
forcemeats—as quenelles. In days of old, however, it
appears that cow-udder had a recognised position in French
cookery. It was well washed ; it was soaked in water for
hours, to clear it of blood ; it was then blanched ; then
trimmed ; then boiled with a good seasoning of vegetables;
then allowed to get cool ; lastly, cut up and prepared for
table in any of the ways applicable to tripe.
ANILLA, when discovered by the Spaniards,
had an unpronounceable name—tlilxochitl.
XV:
The Spaniards, in despair, called it vainilla
or baynilla—a little pod (vaina or bayna).
It is an orchid—and being the only orchid of direct
use to the human race, it takes rank as the most impor-
tant of all. It is a parasitical plant, twining upon trees
to their topmost branches, like ivy. The best is to be
found in Mexico ; but it also grows in Honduras, Guiana,
Brazil, Peru. It is also cultivated in Ceylon. The fruit
has a powerful odour, which is said to intoxicate the
labourers who climb the trees to gather it. This odour,
which belongs to the cinnameine series, and which it shares
with a variety of vegetables, is said to be derived from the
benzoic acid, which is so abundant in the fruit as when


468
Vatel
dried to effloresce upon it in fine needles; but Pereira
declares that the precise nature of the odorous principle
has not been satisfactorily made out. Be that as it may, it
is doubtful whether vanilla would have for its mere odour,
which can easily be imitated, the extraordinary acceptance
which it now enjoys. It is supposed to have extraordinary
virtues, to promote digestion, to exhilarate the mind, to
increase muscular energy, and, in a large dose, to be one
of the most powerful aphrodisiacs. Very little, however,
of the best kind comes to Europe. When ripe the fruit
yields from two to six drops of a liquid with an exquisite
odour, which is said to possess the above-named virtues
in perfection ; but not a drop of it comes to this side of
the Atlantic. Four sorts of vanilla come to the English
market, in packets of from fifty to one hundred pods.
The best comes from Mexico ; but the consignment is not
more than five or six hundredweight, and it is so precious
that a pound weight of it is worth £5 or £6. It may be
imagined that so rare a commodity is not used for
flavouring penny ices. The other three sorts come from
Honduras, La Guayra, and Brazil. They are at once more
feeble and less delicate ; and the balsam of Peru is also
used to simulate the true odour of vanilla.
VATEL was a great cook ; but he did more for his art by
his death than ever he did in his life. He was the house-
steward (maître d'hôtel) of the Prince of Condé; and all
that we know of his touch in cookery is based on guess.
But Vatel's death is the greatest event in the whole history
of cookery since Prometheus stole fire from heaven. When
the mythic hero stole that fire from the gods, he made
cookery possible; when Vatel stabbed himself in the royal
castle of Chantilly, he at once and for ever vindicated for
cookery its position among the noble arts. The Prince of
Condé was entertaining Louis XIV. and his court at
Chantilly ; and Vatel had to superintend all the prepa-


470
Veal
the happiness of mankind with his bâton than Vatel of
the turbot with his glorious ladle? Turenne's name is
in all the histories of France and in all the biographical
dictionaries. It is only a few years since that the great
name of Vatel was for the first time admitted into any
biographical dictionary.
VEAL.–When Dr. Lister, who was one of Queen Anne's
physicians, went to Paris in the beginning of last century,
he declared that the French might have beef and mutton
equal to ours—but we have far the best veal in Europe.
The judgment now must be reversed. There is no beef
or mutton that will take the prize from that produced in
England ; but the English veal is not great, and has no
pretension to be compared with that of France. This is
the fault, not of the calf but of the butcher, who bleeds the
animal a little at a time for days before it is slaughtered,
and tortures it by hanging its head downwards to drain
the blood more perfectly. The result is that the veal comes
to table very white, like the wing of a chicken-but it is
also too often tasteless and stringy. The truth is that the
treatment of veal is not well understood in England, and
it is only in England that people have turned it into a
byword. Macaulay hated Croker with a mortal hatred.
His detestation expressed itself in the phrase—“I hate him
worse than cold boiled veal.” There is another well-known
saying, but it is not his—that to eat veal is as insipid as
kissing one's sister.
Veal Broth.—See Soup and Blonde de Veau.
Veal Gravy.--See Gravy.
Boiled Veal.-A nation that refuses to eat boiled beef
(that is, fresh boiled beef), which after bread is the staple
food of France and Germany, can yet bring itself to set
down among its dainty dishes boiled veal. Well might
Macaulay exclaim against it! Veal is not fit to eat unless


Veal
471
a roasting heat in some form or other is brought to bear
upon it; and no receipt shall here be given for boiled veal.
The same interdict applies to stewed veal, except in those
cases when, as in brazing, the process of stewing can be
combined with that of roasting. In the list of stews
which follow, the veal is part baked, fried, or in some way
roasted.
Brazed Veal.—By rights this should be done in a
brazing-pan, with live coals on the lid, so that the meat
may be baked on the upper side while being stewed under-
neath. The same effect may be produced more simply by
taking three or four pounds of veal—be it loin, fillet, or
breast-freeing it from bone, tying it up, and frying it in
a stewpan with an ounce of butter until it has a golden
tint all over. After that, stew it for an hour and a half
in a quart of broth, with a carrot, an onion, a faggot of
sweet-herbs, pepper and salt. Then serve it, straining the
gravy, skimming off the fat, and adding some lemon-juice.
Garnish it with sorrel, endive, or spinach.
Veal in its own gravy (Veau à la Bourgeoise, ou dans
son jus).—This is another form of brazed veal, and must
be done very slowly. Take the cushion of veal and pass it
in butter till it colours well. Then put with it a tumblerful
of water, two or three onions, two or three carrots, a faggot
of sweet-herbs, pepper and salt. Put a tight lid on, and
live embers on the lid. Let it simmer as slowly as possible
for three hours on the corner of the stove. Skim away the
fat, and serve it with lemons.
Spring Stew of Veal.— Miss Acton's receipt. “Cut two
pounds of veal free from fat into small collops half an
inch thick ; flour them well, and fry them in butter, with
two small cucumbers sliced, peppered, and floured, one
moderate-sized lettuce, and twenty-four green gooseberries
divided lengthwise and seeded. When the whole is nicely
browned, lift it into a thick saucepan, and pour gradually


472
Vial
into the frying-pan from which it has been taken half a
pint or rather more of boiling water, broth, or gravy. Add
pepper and salt. Give it a minute's simmering, and then
pour it over the meat in the saucepan. Let the veal stew
gently for from three-quarters of an hour to an hour. A
bunch of green onions cut small may be added to the other
vegetables.”
Veal in a Mirepoix.—Take a cushion of veal, and lard
it or not at pleasure. Put it in a glazing stewpan with
half a pint of Mirepoix of white wine, which is to be
well reduced. Moisten it again with a pint of the
like Mirepoix and three gills of veal stock. Cook it for
two hours, basting the meat frequently, and glaze it a
quarter of an hour before it is done. Prepare a garnish
of endive ; put it on a dish with the veal upon it. Skim
· the fat off the gravy, pass it through a sieve into a sauce-
boat, and serve it with the meat.
Veal à la Marengo.—See Chicken.
Fricandeau of Veal.-See Fricandeau.
Roast Veal.—The most usual pieces for this purpose are
the fillet, the loin, the neck, and the breast; and it is always
best to stuff them (using Forcemeat No. 5), though some-
times the loin is made an exception to this rule. As veal
takes long to roast—a fillet requiring from three-and-a-half
to four-and-a-half hours, it is often, either in whole or in
part, enveloped in buttered paper, lest the fat should all
melt away and the outer surface be too much done. In
this case the paper must be removed a little while before
the roasting is complete, and the joint must be dredged
with flour, basted with fresh butter, and frothed, before it
is dished up. Serve round it for a sauce some English
butter sauce which has been coloured with browning and
acidulated with lemon-juice. Serve at the same time in a
dish apart some boiled bacon or Bath chap, with greens.
For a variety, instead of the melted butter or English


Veal
473
sauce, garnish the roast with the Financier's or the
Toulouse Ragout. (See Relishes Nos. 1 and 2.)
Roast Veal à la Crème.—When, as described in the
fore-going receipt, the buttered paper is to be removed
from the joint about twenty minutes before it is completely
roasted, it is no more to be basted with butter, but either
with a pint of rich cream, or of Béchamel, which is half
cream. This will form upon the roast a delicate golden
crust, which must be carefully handled in transferring the
veal from the spit to its dish. For a sauce, take some
Béchamel, mix with it the brown which has fallen from
the roast in basting it with cream, and some stewed button
mushrooms, together with their juice.
Veal Cutlets.—In England the most common way of
cooking them is called the French way. In France it is
called the English way. It is also called à la Zingara.
The cutlets are taken from the back ribs or loin; or some-
times they are simply small collops from the fillet. But
there is not a word to be said against the small cutlets
from the neck. Let them be nicely trimmed and freed
from fat, egged, breadcrumbed and fried. It is the egging
and breadcrumbing that is supposed to be peculiarly
English. Let there be slices of bacon or else of tongue to
correspond in number with the cutlets—the bacon "to be
grilled or fried, the tongue to be heated in stock. For a
sauce, take the butter in which the cutlets have fried,
dredge it with flour, and add to it a little broth and juice
of mushrooms, together with lemon-juice and salt. In the
French way of doing these cutlets—à la Zingara—they
are fried without being egged and breadcrumbed.
Veal Cutlets broiled.—This is the true French way—the
most simple of all. Take a cutlet from the neck ; trim it
well of bone, gristle, and skin, and flatten it with a cutlet
bat. Sprinkle it with pepper and salt, brush it with oil
or melted butter, and send it to the grill. If this cutlet


474
Veal
should have to be breadcrumbed, it is rolled in crumbs
after being smeared with oil or melted butter ; and in
France no eggs are used for this purpose. With the
cutlet-thus broiled—may be served a piece of maître
d'hôtel butter, some tomato sauce, or a sharp sauce.
Veal Cutlets of Dreux. It is not very much to the credit
of veal that it has to be in most cases combined carefully
with savoury adjuncts—forcemeat, bacon, tongue. The
cutlets of Dreux are larded with bacon, tongue, and
truffles ; fried for two or three minutes in butter ; then
stewed in a Mirepoix of white wine further diluted with
an equal quantity of veal broth. Serve the cutlets on a
purée of sorrel or of turnips, or on French beans; then
skim the gravy, and strain it over all.
Veal Cutlets à la Milanaise are generally breadcrumbed
-either in the French way without, or in the English
way with, eggs. They are then fried or tossed in butter.
In being served they are garnished with slices of truffle
and of tongue (the latter punched into rounds), and—most
important of all—with macaroni which has been tossed for
a moment with grated cheese ; and a little tomato sauce
plays round the dish.
Veal Pie.—Take the back ribs or neck, get rid of all
bone—which should never enter into a pie—and trim the
meat into small collops. At the same time cut some
streaky bacon into thin slices. Fry the veal and the bacon
with a faggot of Duxelles in about an ounce of butter.
Then lay them in order in a' pie-dish intermixed with
forcemeat balls and hard-boiled yolks of egg-it may be
also with a scalded sweetbread cut into pieces. Let all be
seasoned with pepper and salt, and moistened with half a
pint of gravy, to which the juice of half a lemon may be
added. Cover it with paste ; bake it for an hour or an
hour and a quarter ; and when the pie is done, lift the
top ornament and pour in some good gravy.


476 .
Vegetables
of food unless accompanied with a potato ever try to
imagine what dinners were two centuries ago, when potatoes
image mare as truffles?
f the English treatme
The great sin, however, of the English treatment of
vegetables goes much deeper than Walker indicates ; and
it is a moral fault, as well as one of taste—a great social
wrong, as well as a gastronomical blunder. Take the
general run of English tables, putting out of account the
very poor and the highly refined : from year's end to
year's end one will probably never on a single day see
there a vegetable dish to be eaten by itself alone. This is
a political error ; for there is many a poor man obliged
most days to dine on vegetables with nothing else;
and our sleek middle-classes protest every day of their
lives against this fare for themselves—they will never con-
descend to eat a vegetable by itself. A fine example for
their servants, who are taken from the poorer classes ; and
a fine thought for the peasantry to know that not only will
their masters refuse a vegetable dinner—but also they will
never look at a vegetable as a thing to be eaten by itself !
Scorn of the peasants' food is all the more remarkable inas-
much as a vegetable dish may be the greatest delicacy of
the table. This is one of the advantages which the Catholic
religion has contrived for the French : it has compelled
them to make the best of Lenten fare. In England this
is flat popery; but it is a species of popery to which
the poor man is obliged to submit, and to which we ought
all to be converted. At a French table the vegetable dish
at the end of dinner is as much coveted and counted on as
the pudding and the tarts are by children at an English
table. Almost the only vegetable which Englishmen eat
by itself is the artichoke, and this entirely because it cannot
be put on their plates with meat and eaten with a fork-
they have to strip it with their fingers. There is something
in asparagus, too, which conduces to the same arrangement;
but if, by possibility, an Englishman can get the asparagus


478
Velvet-down
Shah en Shah—king of kings. Take some clear broth ;
mix with it a mash of the vegetable marrow ; strew upon
it fried crusts, with a few peas or asparagus points, to
represent the emeralds and topazes which the Persians
love : and there is a soup fit for the Shah himself.
VELVET-DOWN. (Gouffé's receipt, slightly altered.)—
Take six pounds of veal and two hens with the fillets cut
off. Put them into a stewpan with a quart of stock for
every pound of veal and fowl combined. Boil it; skim it;
add to it two sliced onions, two carrots, a faggot of sweet-
herbs, a little salt, mignonette pepper and sugar; and
simmer all till the meat is cooked, when the stock should
be strained through a napkin and freed from fat. Mix,
without browning, three-quarters of a pound of clarified
butter with the same quantity of flour ; add the stock to
it; stir it on the fire till it boils ; then simmer it on the
stove corner for two hours to reduce it to a cullis; get rid
of all grease, and pass it through a tammy.
Mock Velvet-down.—Practically, this is a variation of
what is called white-wine sauce, used with fish. One
way of making it has been already described in treating
of the Sole au vin blanc and the white Matelote, in
both of which the thickening is produced by yolk of
egg. In this case the thickening is made with white
roux, and the result more nearly approaches in cha-
racter to velvet-down ; while at the same time the white
wine in it gives it a special distinction. Mix together on
the fire, without browning, four ounces of butter and four
of flour. Moisten it with half a pint of plain white broth
or of fish broth, and with another half-pint of French
white wine. Add to it a chopped shalot, an onion, a faggot
of sweet-herbs, some salt, and a little nutmeg. Boil it
rapidly for fifteen minutes, so as to reduce it well, but
taking care not to brown it in the least. Pass it through
a tammy, and it is ready.


Vermicelli
481
signs of rottenness. Then mash the fruit and express the
juice. Strain it, leave it to ferment, and in a month it
will be ready for bottling.
VERMICELLI.—There are but three well-known instances
in Western Europe of disrespectful names being given to
the dainties of the table. The English call one of their
preparations of beef“ toad in the hole.” The French try to
give the appearance of a toad to their pigeons. And the
Italians issue some of their best paste in the form and
with the name of little worms. The poet Cowper tells, in
one of his letters, how his servant gave some vermicelli
soup to a poor beggar, who refused it with disgust, saying,
“I am very poor and hungry; but I am not able to eat
maggots.” Spite of its name, and because of its form,
this vermicelli is one of the most pleasant preparations of
Italian paste. The fineness of form proves the fineness
of paste, and makes it melt in the mouth. Vermicelli
soup has accordingly, for many generations, been one of
the most popular, as well as refined, soups in Europe ;
and has done honour to that Italian genius which has
produced so many masterpieces in sculpture, painting,
and music. Its preparation is of the simplest. From a
quarter to half a pound of vermicelli is broken gradually
into hot water, and boiled in it for a few minutes. It is
then added to and boiled for a few minutes more in a
clear gravy, broth, or double broth. The same principle
applies to macaroni and the other Italian pastes. If they
are not boiled in water first before being added to the
soup, they destroy its clearness. The French cooks some-
times add asparagus points, or green peas, or sorrel leaves,
or celery cut in the Julienne fashion. But these additions
are of doubtful value. If the vermicelli is good, it
ought to be enough of itself. The most fashionable
addition to it is one upon which Talleyrand insisted as
essential to all the macaroni soups. Serve it with grated
31


482
Vermouth
Parmesan cheese in a dish apart, and after it quaff a
glass of Madeira or Solera sherry.
Vermicelli Pudding, which holds a place in English
cookery, is a mistake. The perfection of vermicelli is to
be limp and moist, slipping on the tongue like a liquid.
In a pudding it becomes too firm and dry, and its liquid
melody is lost.
VERMOUTH is a wormwood wine, and so far differs from
Absinthe—which is an infusion of wormwood and allied
plants in spirits. In Vermouth the wormwood is com-
monly supposed to be infused in a white Hungarian wine
-St. George. Some of the Italian white wines—as White
Capri, or White Lachryma Christi—would do as well.
See Wormwood.
VINAIGRETTE.-See Cruet.
VINEGAR.—Said the prophet Mahomet, “ If there is no
vinegar in a house it is a sin : there is no blessing neither.”
To the cook vinegar is far more than wine, though wine
also is much. Nearly all fresh fish will take a dash of
vinegar with advantage, either in the sauce which accom-
panies it, or in the liquor in which it is boiled. Most vege-
tables are improved with acid, not only when they are
eaten raw, as in salads, but when—like asparagus, cauli-
flowers, artichokes—they are prepared with a butter sauce
for entremets. It is to be remembered, however, that there
is a great difference in vinegars, so that it is difficult to be
precise in naming quantities. White-wine vinegar is often
very sharp; red-wine less so ; malt vinegar is often mild
enough ; and there is sometimes in like manner a difference
between lemons, according to the tree or according to the
ripeness, which is nearly as well marked as the difference
between oranges.
“Malt vinegar," says Pereira, “consists of water, acetic
acid, acetic ether, colouring matter, a peculiar organic


Waterzootje
485
marriage have reference to the walnut. The nut was also
supposed to be precious for its uses. Its oil was good for
bald heads, for the painter's palette, for lamps, and for
worms. I conclude that our ancestors must have been
much troubled with worms—for the number of plants
which they cultivated with a view to repelling the inroads
of worms was extraordinary. The walnut not only cured
worms; it cured hydrophobia; and was such an antidote to v
poison that it was the chief ingredient of the remedy on
which Mithridates relied. Then the timber of the tree
was extremely valuable. This we can see still in house-
hold furniture ; but the wood was especially set apart for
gunstocks. The tree also has some peculiar influence for
good or for bad on the vegetation around it. A walnut
tree will kill the strawberry beds in its neighbourhood.
On the other hand, it is said to be of some great benefit to
field crops. Long ago, around Frankfort, a young farmer
was never allowed to marry till he could prove that he had
planted a certain number of walnut trees. It may be
added that between the 45th and 48th degree of latitude in
France walnuts are more abundant than anywhere else in
Europe. It is fit that in the chief wine country of the
world the walnuts should increase and multiply. The
French are, however, backward in one respect : they do not
so much as the English appreciate the cooked, that is the
pickled, walnut—the most simple of condiments and one of
the most distinguished.
WATERZOOTJE—a term of Dutch origin for the most
simple way of dressing fish. It is used either for the
smaller fish, as slips and Thames flounders; or for the
larger fish, as salmon cut into small pieces. The fish must
have a delicate flavour of their own to come well out of
this process, which consists of boiling them in some small
stock or court bouillon, and of serving them up in this
liquor, to which a few sprigs and sometimes roots of


486
Welsh Rabbit
parsley may be added. Boiled fish are usually eaten with
a sauce of some character. In this case the fish are eaten
with a dessert-spoon and a fork in their own liquor. The
favourite fish eaten at Greenwich in this way are Thames
flounders. Francatelli will have it that the best of all fish
for waterzootje is the char.
The zootje is always eaten with thin slices of brown
bread and butter.
Welsh RABBIT.—Let the Welsh tell their own tale in
the words of Lady Llanover :-“Welsh toasted cheese and
the melted cheese of England are as different in the mode
of preparation as is the cheese itself ; the one being only
adapted to strong digestions, and the other being so easily
digested that the Hermit frequently gave it to his invalid
patients when they were recovering from illness. Cut a
slice of the real Welsh cheese, made of sheep and cow's
milk; toast it at the fire on both sides, but not so much
as to drop ; toast a piece of bread less than a quarter of
an inch thick, to be quite crisp, and spread it very thinly
with fresh cold butter on one side (it must not be saturated
with butter) ; then lay the toasted cheese upon the bread,
and serve immediately on a very hot plate. The butter on
the toast can of course be omitted if not liked, and it is
more frequently eaten without butter.”
It is quite intelligible that one cheese should be more
wholesome than another ; but that there is any marked
difference in digestibility between cheese toasted and cheese
melted or stewed, it is difficult to believe.
In case the wandering Englishman should suddenly feel
in his travels a sort of home-sickness, and desire to partake
of Welsh rabbit, let it be known that in Viard's cookery
book, which has a great reputation, the receipt is quite
correctly given ; and that on this authority the said
Englishman may safely call either for Wouelche Rabette,
or for Lapin Gallois.


Wheatears, or Fallowchat
487
WESTPHALIA HAMS are exceedingly good—perhaps
better than ever they were ; but yet, and but yet—they are
not what they were. They made a name for themselves in
Europe, being hams of the wild boar. They were among
hams what game is among other flesh. They are so no
longer. They have lost their distinctive quality. It does
not follow that they are less to be desired : they are indeed
still so good that the Germans eat them raw, and think it a
desecration to cook them. This of course implies that they
are well smoked, and that they are cooked enough by
fumigation.
WHEATEARS, OR FALLOWCHAT, is a pleasant little bird
which is found to be very satisfactory at the end of the
Lordon season, while we are still waiting for the grouse and
the partridges. It winters on the shores of the Mediterra-
nean, but comes over to England to breed in mid-March.
Alighting on our southern coasts, it spreads itself over the
British Islands, even to Orkney and Shetland. When the
breeding season is over, then is the time to catch it with
advantage. This is not only because we are disposed to
give all birds their freedom while they have families depend-
ent on them; but also, and chiefly, it is on their return
south that the wheatears can be caught in sufficient num-
bers to make it worth while to pursue them. Towards the
end of July old birds and young ones, fat and plump, begin
to collect on the Sussex downs, meaning to cross the Channel
in search of their winter homes. On St. James's day, the
25th of July, the shepherds of the South Downs begin to
set nooses and lay traps for them. All the traps and
nooses are ready by the 1st of August. One shepherd has
been known to catch a thousand birds in a day. He can
easily catch five hundred. And this system of ensnaring
goes on till the third week in September, when the birds
have nearly all left. Each bird is supposed to be worth a
penny to the shepherd. At least, Southey tells the story


488
Whey
of one of the amiable minor poets, Hurdis, who used to let
the birds out of the traps which he found in his walks, but
always left a penny in place of each, to soothe the disap-
pointment of the shepherds. A penny is not much to give
for a bird which has been honoured with the name of the
English ortolan. It is needless to say that in Leadenhall
Market, and in the hotels of the Sussex watering places,
the little birds, generally sold by the dozen, are charged
a good deal more than a penny apiece. They are mightily
prized in the end of summer, when winged fowl, with the
exception of the heroes and heroines of the barn-door,
are scarce at our tables; and they are to be treated as
larks.
As to the name of the bird, which is not wheatear, but
wheatears,-it must be enough to say that it has nothing
to do with wheat, nor with any kind of ear, whether of
corn or of bird. In a very old cookery book—that of
La Varenne—the name of the bird is given as Thiastias.
What does it mean?
WHEY.—“ The whey of milk is the opalescent liquor
from which the curd has been removed in making cheese.
Although not highly nutritious, it still holds a little caseine
in solution, as well as the sugar and saline matter of the
milk. It is rarely used as food even by the poor, but it is
given to pigs. In Switzerland, however, it is considered
to have medicinal virtues, especially for the cure of chronic
disorders of the abdominal organs ; and the treatment
which is sometimes fashionable goes by the name of cure de
petit lait. There is a popular notion that the whey of milk
is sudorific; and hence we have our wine whey, cream-of-
tartar whey, alum whey, tamarind whey, etc., when the
milk has been curdled by these several substances.”—
Dr. Henry Letheby.
WHITE.—The use of this word is so frequent in cookery


490
· Whitebait
2. Take the whitebait out of the water with your
hands, and drain them through your fingers. Some of the
receipts warn you not to handle them. This is nonsense.
The object of the warning is to prevent the hands from
warming the fish ; but they need not be held long enough
in the hand to do so.
3. When they are drained throw them on the flour in
the cloth.
4. Let them roll in the flour, by shaking the corners of
the cloth successively. They will not stick together if they
are fresh.
5. Pass them on to a large wooden sieve, to get rid of
superfluous flour.
6. Put them into a wire frying-basket.
7. Dip the basket into a frying-kettle of very hot beef-
fat. This point is important. Many of the receipts say
lard—which is a mistake. Nothing so good as ox-kidney
fat.
8. There let them rest for three minutes upon the fire
motionless. At the end of that time give them a light
shake, though without taking them out of the fat. In half
a minute more perhaps another shake.
9. Four minutes—at most five-of the hot fat ought
be enough for them, for they must not be allowed to
to brown.
10. Take them out of the frying-kettle, and while they
are still in the basket sprinkle salt over them. Give them
a shake and then another sprinkle.
11. They are now ready for table, they ought to be
slightly crisp, and they are to be served with brown
bread and butter and quarters of lemon.
To devil whitebait.—The proper process is at No. 10,
to sprinkle it either with red or black pepper—whichever
is preferred-along with the salt. But it is one of the
tricks of the trade to take whitebait which has been already


492
Widgeon
takes his tail in his mouth to symbolize eternity, and then,
after a dainty roll in egg, fine breadcrumb and flour,
disports himself in the frying-pan. For broiling him there
are two good ways of arranging his toilet. Leave him in
his skin, split him down the back, and after dusting him
well with flour, put him on the grill. The worst of this
method is that he is apt to fall in pieces, and especially if
any attempt is made to get rid of his backbone. Much
the best way of grilling him is in the Scotch fashion of
rizzared haddock. (See Haddock.) A rizzared whiting is
so good, that those who have been initiated into its mystery
have been known to be content with nothing else for break-
fast all the rest of their lives thereafter.
Fillets of Whiting au gratin.—A delicate little dish,
done in the same way as the sole, or rather the fillets of
sole au gratin.
A Whiting Pudding is served at Greenwich dinners; but
beware of it-touch it not: it is only a sponge intended
to wipe from the palate the impressions produced by one
dish of fish in order to prepare for another.
A Quenelle of Whiting is a different thing, and is often
used with great effect in the embellishment of other fish.
(See Quenelle.)
WIDGEON.— It will not do to inquire too curiously into
the food of all the animals we eat. It may be painful to
reflect that the hogs of Montanches which yield the most
superb hams are fed on vipers ; that ducks dabble in the
gutter; that woodcocks live on earthworms ; that a whole
family of snipes nourish themselves on Father long-legs ;
and that red mullets are caught where they find their
victuals, beneath the mackerel shoals. But there is no fear
of our being shocked by the diet of the widgeon. It is a
nice little bird, which feeds wholly on the short sweet


Woodcock
495
The first dainty bit to begin with is the head, which is a
glory in itself, and well-nigh worthy of a nimbus. Then
for the rest of the bird,—the wing is something too good,
and this is excellence in the positive degree ; comparative,
the thigh is finer ; superlative, nothing can surpass the
trail. What a tribute is this to the woodcock's diet of
worms! He will eat in a day double his own weight of
worms,and when we enjoy a woodcock even to his trail,
we ought always to give some of our love and gratitude to
those worms to which we must all come at last-to eat or to
be eaten. The woodcock comes all the way from Norway
to eat them in the end of autumn ; and he goes on eating
them here till he departs in March—though a few of his
kind stay on and breed among us...
It has been above stated that the woodcock is never
drawn. This is quite true in theory ; but in practice one
of two things occurs. The usual way of roasting the bird is
to wrap him in a slice of bacon, which is to be tied round
him with a thread ; to place under him some toast, and to
hang him tail downwards before the fire. As he revolves,
and is basted, and enjoys the heat, the trail will drop out
upon the toast beneath, and is to be spread equally over it
when served. It is sometimes, however, found convenient
to roast the bird in a different way—resting in a Dutch-
oven, or even in a casserole. In this case he is to be half-
done, and then the trail is to be taken out of him and to be
used as follows, all except the gizzard :—Pound it in a
mortar with about half its volume of bacon-fat, a little
chopped shalot, some crumb of bread, salt and pepper.
Spread this upon toast ; let it roast or bake by the side
of the woodcock for the remainder of his time, which is
from twenty to thirty minutes; and let it be served under
him with a lemon in quarters at his side. For sauce,
mix a little good beef gravy with the butter which has
basted him, and serve it apart ; or take an orange gravy.
Furthermore, it is to be remembered that the woodcock


496
Woodsorrel
is supposed to be the best of birds for the Bernardin
Salmi.
WOODSORREL.—That this trefoil is the shamrock which
excited the devotional feelings of St. Patrick when he
landed in Ireland, is shown by the fact that one of the
names for it throughout the west of Europe, in Italy, Spain,
France, as well as England, is Allelujah. This name was
corrupted in Italy and in England into Lujula ; in the
south of Italy it was corrupted either from or into Giuliola,
and in France it appears as Julienne, whence the name of
the well-known soup. The woodsorrel (oxalis acetosella), is
now little used in cookery-being replaced by the more
abundant, but also less delicate dock or common sorrel,
which as a Rumex belongs to a different family. See the
chapter on Julienne.
WORMWOOD was a good deal used in England to flavour
and to preserve beer, before hops were known. Hops were
introduced in 1524, and encountered much opposition—a
petition having been presented to Parliament, in 1528, in
which they are called "a wicked weed.” They prevailed,
however; and wormwood went gradually out of use in this
country, notwithstanding the supposed virtue which its
name indicates. There are three related shrubs—wormwood,
southernwood, and tarragon (Artemisia Absinthium, Arte-
inisia Abrotanum, and Artemisia Dracunculus)—all more
or less narcotic. Now, here is an odd thing : that whereas
tarragon is still much used in diet, though it has never
pretended to any remarkable virtues beyond its fine
flavour, its friends of greater pretensions—wormwood,
renowned as a vermifuge, and southernwood, which in the
form of southern wood tea was much drunk by women to
prevent hysteria and other feminine maladies—in England,
at least, passed almost entirely out of common account, and
are cared for only by herbalists and druggists. On the


500
Zootje
-
---
ZOOTJE—a Dutch word as near as possible in root and
in meaning to the English Seethed. All honour to the
inhabitants of sea and river that can afford to make our
acquaintance not dressed in the royal robes of curious
sauces, but in the naked simplicity of the bath in which
they have swum over the fire! Their advent at our
tables in a vehicle of water is so creditable to them, and
so unusual, that it is always signalised in the name of
Waterzootje.
FINIS
Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury.


Notes








OCT 2 4 1929