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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

THE GASTRONOMY COLLECTION OF

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LIBRARY

DELICATE FEASTING

DELICATE FEASTING

BY

THEODORE CHILD

AUTHOR OF "SUMMER HOLIDAYS" ETC.

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1890

TO

MY DEAR FRIEND
AND INSEPARABLE DINING COMPANION

P. Z. DIDSBURY

THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS

ZDctifcateti

IN SOUVENIR OF

MANY GASTRONOMIC TRIUMPHS ENJOYED
IN HIS COMPANY

CSS

AGRIC.

LIBRARY

INTRODUCTION.

A LETTER FROM P. Z. DIDSBURY TO THE
AUTHOR.

My DEAR A UTffOR

1 have read your savory little volume with
interest, amusement, and satisfaction. So far
as concerns myself I cannot but feel flattered
by your respectful quotation of my aphorisms,
and by your very appreciative and useful com-
ments upon them. You knoiv that these apho-
risms are the result of the experience of the
many years which I have passed in the ardent
study of delicate feasting that art which, as
Victor Hugo says in his Titanic way, consists

" de faire aboutir,
La mamelle du monde a la bouche d'un homme."

You dwell with laudable persistency upon
the necessity of criticism in gastronomic mat-
ters, and the usefulness of your book will con-

viii INTRODUCTION.

sist largely in awakening a spirit of criticism
and in calling attention to the roles of intellect
and sentiment in the art of cooking. There is
no severer and more conclusive test of a coun-
try's state of civilization than the way its in-
habitants dine.

How often we hear cultivated European
travellers say that America is a country where
there is the greatest variety of primary ali-
mentary substances of the finest quality, but,
unfortunately, the cooking and serving of them
leaves much to be desired. Certainly there is
no lack of cook-books. Indeed, this special
branch of literature is more flourishing in the
United States and in Great Britain than it is
in the country where good cookery is not yet
entirely a souvenir of the past. These books,
however, are often merely compilations of reci-
pes, and few of them are based on careful
observation or on truly scientific and artistic
principles. The writers of these works, too,
are often led away by the mere love of novelty,
as if the caprices of fashion were to be allowed
to perturb the immutable theories of scientific
dining! Moreover, the neglect or ignorance
of the kitchen and table is partly the fault of

INTRODUCTION. ix

some of the ideas that were brought over to us
in the ''Mayflower''

My more recent visits to my native land
have, I must confess with joy, caused me to
recognize the pleasing fact that the culinary
art has made great progress in America dur-
ing the past twenty years. It is now possible
{generally with the aid of French cooks, it is
true) to obtain at one or two restaurants in
each of the principal cities, and in many of
the clubs, a dinner fairly well prepared and
passably served. In private houses, it seems
to me, the advance beyond the old state of
things is not so perceptible. Generally speak-
ing, there is always a great abundance of food,
but it is not well cooked or attractively pre-
sented on the table ; and it is only in certain
families, whose members have travelled, and
whose tastes and opportunities have led them
specially to observe the arrangement of a din-
ner in a first - class French restaurant or
private house, that we yet find the matchless
cookery and perfection in all the details of
table-service without which a dinner is a fail-
ure. Much, therefore, remains to be done, and
I am sure that your dainty volume which is

X INTRODUCTION.

a sort of higher hand-book of the kitchen and
dining-room, if I may so express myself (and
I think I may) will greatly help to increase
in America a knowledge of the true principles
of delicate feasting.

If, after reading your pages, so full of ideas
so suggestive, as the French modernists
would say my countrymen do not become con-
vinced, with that charming poet and gastron-
omist, Theodore de Banville, that the hygiene
of the stomach is also the hygiene of the mind
and soul, and that delicate cookery develops
the intelligence and the moral sensibility, the
fault will not be yours. I approve you heart-
ily and wholly, even in your paradoxes, which
always contain a kernel of logical observation
and judicious criticism.

Adieu, my dear author ; macte virtu te, by
which I mean, continue in your efforts to win a
glorious pair of gouty crutches, and believe me
always your devoted and inseparable compan-
ion in gastronomy,

P. Z. DlDSBURY.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION vii

I. THE GASTRONOMIC ART i

II. THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKING ... 14

III. METHODS OF PREPARING MEATS . . 18

IV. CONDITIONS REQUISITE FOR HEALTHY

DIGESTION 28

V. ON VEGETABLES 35

VI. ON RELISH AND SEASONING .... 52

VII. ACETARIA, OR CONCERNING THE DRESS-
ING OF SALADS 65

VIII. THE THEORY OF SOUPS 83

IX. PRACTICAL SOUP-MAKING 91

X. ABOUT SAUCES 97

XI. MENUS, HORS D'CEUVRES, ENTRIES . 112
XII. ON PARATRIPTICS AND THE MAKING

OF TEA AND COFFEE 120

XIII. THE DINING-ROOM AND ITS DECORA-

TION 132

XIV. ON DlNING-TABLES 140

x ii CONTENTS.

PAGE

XV. ON TABLE-SERVICE 157

XVI. ON SERVING WINES 172

XVII. THE ART OF EATING AT TABLE. . 180
XVIII. ON BEING INVITED TO DINE ... 196

INDEX 209

DELICATE FEASTING.

I.

THE GASTRONOMIC ART.

HERE are some points which ought always
to be borne in mind, both by those who cook
and by those who eat. I quote them in the
form of aphorisms, proverbs, epigrams, or
dicta, accompanying each with the name of
the author.

I. A m?n can dine only once a day. P. Z.

Didsbury.

This profound sentence should be written
in flame-colored letters on the walls of every
kitchen, so that the cook may never forget
the terrible responsibility of his functions.
If the dinner is defective the misfortune is
irreparable ; when the long-expected dinner-
hour arrives, one eats but does not dine ;
the dinner-hour passes, and the diner is sad,
i

2 DELICATE FEASTING.

for, as the philosopher has said, a man can
dine only once a day.

II. Bad cooking diminishes happiness and

shortens life. Wisdom of ages.

III. The art of cooking, like the art of dining,
is exempt from the caprices of fashion.
The principles of both these arts are
eternal and immutable. P. Z. Didsbury.

In this pithy dictum the author prophet-
ically and implicitly condemned such barbar-
ous inventions as " progressive dinner-par-
ties."

IV. The pleasures of the table may be en-
joyed every day, in every climate, at all
ages, and by all conditions of men.
Brillat-Savarin.

The author of the " Physiology of Taste "
was a vigorous rather than a delicate eater,
and a speculative rather than a practical gas-
tronomer. We will not accept all he says
as being gospel, but will listen gratefully to
such liberal and broadly human maxims as
the above. The arts of cooking and of din-
ing interest all sorts and conditions of men ;
they are not merely the privilege of the rich ;
they are philanthropic and democratic arts.

THE GASTRONOMIC ART. 3

V. Those who get indigestion, or who be-

come intoxicated, know neither how to
eat nor how to drink. Brillat-Savarin.

The same author has said, " Animals feed ;
man eats ; the intelligent man alone knows
how to eat." Strange to say, the stomach is
the basis of our whole existence ; it is the
source of strength and of weakness, of health
and of disease, of gayety and of melancholy ;
we do everything for, by, or through the
stomach ; and yet the two series of opera-
tions which most closely concern the stom-
ach I mean the operations of cooking and
eating food are those to which most people
devote the least reasoning.

VI. A well-cooked and a well-served dinner
implies, on the part of the host, a sense
of the respect he owes to his guests,
whose happiness he controls while they
are under his roof. On the part of the
cook, it implies, not only a thorough
knowledge of his art, but also a sense
of dignity and self-respect and a certain
emotion. Good cooking comes from the
heart as well as from the brain, and,
therefore, it is not a science, but an art.
The cook who is a real artist, and whose

4 DELICATE FEASTING.

dishes are works of art, will experience
over his saucepans emotion as poignant
as that which Benvenuto Cellini felt when
he was casting one of his immortal bronze
statues. P. Z. Didsbury.

VII. If there is anything sadder than unrec-
ognized genius, it is the misunderstood
stomach. The heart whose love is re-
jected this much-abused drama rests
upon a fictitious want. But the stom-
ach ! Nothing can be compared to its
sufferings, for we must have life before
everything. Honor de Balzac.

VIII. The gastronomer loves order and har-
mony of service, as the painter loves har-
mony of colors. Excellent food served
in a coarse dish will seem less succulent
than poorer food served on fine porcelain
or gold-plate. Nevertheless the charm
of glass-ware, lordly dishes, and delicate
napery must not be exaggerated. No
splendor of service can compensate for
inferior and badly cooked viands. P. Z.
Didsbury.

IX. A good restaurant is like a more or less
epic poem it cannot be improvised in a

THE GASTRONOMIC ART. 5

day. Tradition, knowledge, experience,
and even genius, are necessary. A good
cellar alone can only be formed with the
aid of length of time and prodigious fac-
ulties of taste. Magny.

The author of this aphorism is the famous
cook who founded the Restaurant Magny in
the Rue Contrescarpe at Paris, and made a
fortune by selling good food and real wine.
George Sand, the great novelist, was one of
Magny 's most faithful admirers ; and as, in
her quality of poet, she had the privilege of
omniscience, she knew, as I have been told
by the sweet poet Theodore de Banville,
that wines and food are the best, and per-
haps the only, medicines. And so, during a
long and cruel malady, which nearly carried
off her son, she insisted that Maurice Sand
should drink only wines chosen by Magny,
and eat only food prepared by Magny's own
hands. The excellent restaurateur yielded
to the mother's desire, and made for Maurice
those consommes, or quintessences of nutri-
ment, which are infinitely rarer than a good
poem or a faultless sonnet. Thus Magny,
impeccable doctor and perfect cook, saved
George Sand the terrible grief of losing her

6 DELICATE FEASTING.

son, and preserved for our pleasure an in-
genious writer, the author of " Masques et
Bouffons."

X. In a restaurant when a waiter offers you
turbot, ask for salmon, and when he
offers you a sole, order a mackerel ; as
language to man, so fish has been given
to the waiter to disguise his thoughts.
P. Z. Didsbury.

The philosopher, I imagine, wrote this
maxim after a varied and disastrous expe-
rience in European restaurants. The deca-
dence of the restaurants in the Old World
largely justifies the severity of the above
warning. There are, however, exceptions, and
in certain first-class restaurants in Paris six,
at the outside it is well not to be too ready
to choose for yourself, without listening to
the voice of the head-waiter. As a rule, in a
restaurant, maintain your free will, but do
not try to impose it. In matters of cookery,
as in love, much confidence is needed.

On the other hand, if you become a habitue
of a first-class Paris restaurant, it is preferable
not to be on speaking terms with the maitre
cT hotel, but to transmit your orders directly
through the intelligent waiter, whom your

THE GASTRONOMIC ART. /

experienced eye will have detected the very
first day that you set foot in the establish-
ment. The maitre d'hdtel important, fat,
fussy, and often disdainful in his manner
serves mainly to create confusion ; he receives
your orders with deference, but rarely trans-
mits them to the waiter with exactitude ;
and, as it is the waiter who communicates
immediately with the cook, it is preferable
to suppress, as far as possible, the useless in-
tervention of the maitre d'hotel. For my
own part, in the restaurants where I am in
the habit of dining, I refuse to hold any
communication with the maitres d'Adte/ until,
perhaps, at the end of the dinner, when I
graciously allow a favored one to descend
into the cellar in person and select for me,
with his own podgy fingers, a creamy camem-
bert cheese, the ripest and the richest of the
lot. This concession I make, not because I
admit for a moment that the maitre d'hdtel
is an infallible judge of camembert, but mere-
ly because, after dinner, I am more charita-
bly disposed than before dinner, and, conse-
quently, I desire to show to the maitre d'hdtel
that I cherish no ill-feeling against him in my
heart of hearts, although I maintain that his
functions, as they are generally fulfilled, have
no raison d'etre.

8 DELICATE FEASTING.

XI. Cooking is generally bad because people
fall into routine ; habit dulls their appre-
ciation, and they do not think about what
they are eating.

They fall into routine because they do not
criticise.

They do not criticise because they have no
ideal.

They have no ideal because they do not
know, theoretically and practically,
what cooking means, whatsis its object,
and what are the conditions necessary
for success.

The ideal is unattainable, but the aim of
the cook should always be to reduce the
interval which separates practical from
ideal excellence. P. Z. Didsbury.

XII. There is no perfect cook-book. Ex-
perientia.

XIII. The art of cooking cannot be learned
out of a book any more than the art of
swimming or the art of painting. The
best teacher is practice ; the best guide
is sentiment. Louis XV., King of
France.

Louis XV. was an amateur cook, and
amused himself, in company with the Prince

THE GASTRONOMIC ART. 9

de Dombes, by making quintessential stews
in silver pans. See Goncourt, " La Duchesse
de Chateauroux."

XIV. There are innumerable books of reci-
pes for cooking, but unless the cook is
master of the principles of his art, and
unless he knows the why and the where-
fore of its processes, he cannot choose a
recipe intelligently and execute it suc-
cessfully. Richard Estcourt, Providore
of y e original " Beefsteak Club."

XV. The distinction of classical cookery and
household cookery is a vain one. There
are but too sorts of cookery, namely,
bad cookery and good cookery. P. Z.
Didsbury.

XVI. The most artistic and the most whole-
some ways of preparing food are the
simplest. P. Z. Didsbury.

XVII. The perfect cook is single-minded and
disguises nothing. Gamaliel Stubbs,
Clerk of the Kitchen to Oliver Cromwell.

XVIII. Even in Mr. D'Urfey's presence this
I would be bound to say, that a good
dinner is brother to a good poem ; only

10 DELICATE FEASTING.

it is something more substantial, and
between two and three o'clock more
agreeable. Dr. William King.

Dr. King, the English bard, born in 1663,
died 1712, wrote a poem on the "Art of
Cookery," in imitation of Horace's " Art of
Poetry," having remarked that,

" Tho' cooks are often men of pregnant wit,
Thro' niceness of their subject few have writ."

In the days of the learned and ingenious
doctor, who, by the way, sided with Dr. Sache-
verell, and had a hand in some of the po-
litical kites which flew about at that time,
people rose earlier and dined earlier than
they do nowadays. But whatever the hour
at which a good dinner is eaten, it is, as the
worthy doctor says, brother to a good poem ;
nay, more than that, it is a poem itself,

XIX. It is convenient to dine late, because
you can then concentrate all your
thoughts on your plate, think only of
what you are eating, and go to bed af-
terwards. Grimod de la Reyniere.

The author of this sage maxim, Balthazar
Grimod de la Reyniere, born in 1758, was
one of the fathers of the modern art of cook-

THE GASTRONOMIC ART. II

ery, and a most enlightened and philosophical
gourmand, having thoroughly orthodox ideas
on the subject of dining. The reason he
gives above for dining late is the true one.
Dinner is a matter of such importance that
it cannot be treated lightly; it is at once a
source of health and a source of joy, and it
is impossible to take joy hurriedly, or to dine
hastily. A real gourmand would sooner fast
than be obliged to eat a good dinner in a
hurry. The mortal enemy of dinner is every
meal taken before it in the course of the
working day. Eat lightly during the day,
and reserve your forces for the crowning meal
of dinner. Remember, also, that a dinner
without ceremony is as much to be dreaded
as an amateur concert.

XX. The man who pays no attention to the
food that he consumes is comparable
only to the pig, in whose trough the
trotters of his own son, a pair of old
braces, a newspaper, and a set of domi-
noes are equally welcome. Charles Mon-
selet.

By this selection of maxims and summings
up of experience, I have sought to impress
upon the reader's mind the high importance

12 DELICATE FEASTING.

of the arts of cooking and of eating, and of
all the operations connected with them. I
have been careful to choose only general
maxims, from which the thoughtful reader
will deduce for himself particular conse-
quences. Until recently, the cook-book has
been too often merely a collection of recipes
printed pell-mell in bewildering abundance,
and classified in the least methodical man-
ner. Of such cook-books there are hundreds,
and many of them are admirable in their
way, but a cook must be already very learned
in his art in order to know how to use them
with advantage, and to adapt each recipe to
a case in point. The consequence is, that
many cook-books are bought, and few are
read either by mistress or maids, by masters
or by head-cooks. The philosopher P. Z.
Didsbury has told us that, nowadays, people
fall into routine in matters of cookery, be-
cause they do not criticise ; but how can they
criticise if they do not know the principles
of the art of cooking? It is not a question
of having at one's finger's ends the compo-
sition of a hundred dishes, or the recipes for
making ninety-nine soups. The knowledge
indispensable to critic and practitioner alike
is the why and the wherefore of each opera-

THE GASTRONOMIC ART. 13

tion employed in the art of cooking ; the con-
ditions of success in each operation ; the
means of preserving, developing, and com-
bining flavors. Now these operations may
all be reduced to a few main processes, the
thorough comprehension of which is the first
step in the art of cooking. All the subtle-
ties and delicacies of the art depend on the
perfection of these main and elementary proc-
esses ; and, to go even further, we may say
that no one who is not master of these proc-
esses can use with advantage a book of rec-
ipes. Furthermore, both the cook and the
critic will increase the lucidity of their rea-
soning, and the completeness of their com-
prehension of things, by acquiring a few
elementary notions about the chemistry of
cooking. Let me insist once more upon the
necessity of the application of logic and rea-
son to these questions of gastronomy ; upon
the importance of knowing the "why" and
the "wherefore," if not the "how;" and,
above all, upon the desirableness of culti-
vating the critical faculty as applied to the
arts of cooking, of dining, and of serving
food. The destiny of nations, it has been
said, depends upon the manner in which
they eat.

II.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKING.

ANIMAL chemistry is in a very backward
condition, as compared with vegetable and
mineral chemistry. Prof. Bloxam, for in-
stance, tells us that the chemical formulae of
a great many animal substances are perfectly
unintelligible, conveying not the least infor-
mation as to the position in which the com-
pound stands with respect to other sub-
stances, or the changes which it might un-
dergo under given circumstances. Certain re-
sults, however, have been obtained, and will
be here cited so far as they have significance
in the operations of cooking, no pretension
being made to originality, and the authori-
ties being cited in each case.

For the general guidance of the cook, meat
may be said to be composed of four elements,
namely: muscular fibre, albumen, fat, and
juice the latter being, chemically speaking,
a very complicated substance containing a
number of proximate elements.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKING. 15

" In the juice of flesh," says Prof. Bloxam
(" Chemistry Inorganic and Organic," Lon-
don, 1883), " which may be squeezed out of
chopped flesh, there are certain substances
which appear to play a very important part
in nutrition. The liquid is distinctly acid,
which is remarkable when the alkaline char-
acter of the blood is considered, and contains
phosphoric, lactic, and butyric acid, together
with kreatine, inosite, and saline matters."

These names will convey little to simple
minds, but the essential point to be remem-
bered is that the juice of flesh contains a va-
riety of nutritive substances.

Flint, in his " Physiology of Man " (N. Y.,
1875), says: " Food contains many substances
having an important influence on nutrition
which have never been isolated and analyzed,
but which render it agreeable, and give to the
diet that variety which the system impera-
tively demands.

" Many of these principles are developed in
the process of cooking."

The same authority tells us that the effect
of cooking on muscular tissue is to disinte-
grate, to a certain extent, the intermuscular
alveolar or connective tissue, and so to facili-
tate the action of the digestive fluids.

16 DELICATE FEASTING.

" The savors developed in this process have
a decidedly favorable influence on the secretion
of the gastric juice"

To present the same fact in another light :
"All methods of preparation," says Payen
(" Substances Alimentaires "), " which tend to
render meat easier to divide or more tender,
and often more agreeable to the taste, concur
to increase its digestibility, or, in other words,
its easy assimilation, and often annihilate cer-
tain causes of unhealthiness existing in raw
meat"

Fat and fatty substances are not digested
in the stomach, inasmuch as the gastric juice
has no action on them, further than setting
them free from the albuminoid substances
with which they may be entangled. This
variety of food, together with the starch, is
digested below the stomach, through the ac-
tion of the pancreatic and intestinal juices.
This explains why the saturation of food in
general by fat during the process of cooking
should be avoided, as the fat in this case acts
as a varnish to the albuminous substances
and prevents free access to the latter of the
gastric juices, by which alone this class of
food can be digested.

Albumen is a substance which becomes

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKING. I/

more indigestible the longer it is cooked ; it
is most easily digested in the raw state. The
most familiar form of albumen is white of
egg, which contains of albumen about 12 per
per cent., of water about 86 per cent., and
about 2 per cent, of soluble salts.
2

III.

METHODS OF PREPARING MEATS.

THE usual methods of cooking are roast-
ing, broiling, boiling, frying, stewing, and
decocting. We will consider each process
briefly, from the point of view of practical
chemistry.

In roasting, the exterior of the piece of
meat is submitted brusquely to a tempera-
ture considerably above 212 degrees Fahren-
heit or boiling-point, or at any rate not be-
low boiling-point. The result is that the al-
bumen of the surface is coagulated, and in this
state acts as a barrier against the escape of
the juice inside, and against the infiltration of
liquid from without. After a few minutes
close exposure to a brisk, clear fire, the joint
may be drawn back a little and roasted slow-
ly. Thus the interior mass of the meat, en-
closed in an impervious jacket, cooks literal-
ly in its juice, getting heated in the inside
only to a temperature between 120 and 150

METHODS OF PREPARING MEATS. 19

degrees Fahrenheit, which is not sufficient to
coagulate and harden the interior albumen.
By this outer dried layer the meat inside is
protected from evaporation and desiccation,
and, being acted on by the liquid juice, it un-
dergoes a maceration and a temperature suf-
ficient to disintegrate the muscular fibre, to
gelatinize and render soluble the connective
tissue that binds the fibres together, and to
develop the aroma enough to make the meat
agreeable to the taste. What the aroma is
remains a mystery. All we know is that it
comes from the brown sapid substance pro-
duced on the outer layer of the flesh by the
operation of roasting. In this part of the
meat, according to Bloxam, " some of the
constituents of the juice suffer a change
which gives rise to the peculiar flavor of roast
meat."

Broiling requires a brisk fire, free from
smoke, the combustible being either charcoal
or coke. The fire should extend somewhat
beyond the edges of the gridiron, in order
that the sides of the meat may be acted
upon by the heat at the same time as that
portion which is in more immediate contact
with the fire.

The albumen over the entire surface of the

20 DELICATE FEASTING.

piece of meat, whether cutlets, chops, steak,
kidneys, or what not, should be rapidly co-
agulated, so as to prevent the escape of the
juice.

Always take care to have your fire brisk
and clear at the beginning of the operation,
so that you may be sure of rapidly setting
the whole surface of your meat glazing it, so
to speak for the coagulation of the surface
albumen forms an impervious jacket for the
grilled meat, just as it does for the roast and
the boiled meat, as already described.

Let your gridiron be hot before you put
your meat on it, otherwise the cold bars,
conducting away the heat and preventing
rapid coagulation of the surface albumen,
will cause an escape of juice into the fire.

In order to prevent sticking, the gridiron,
before the meat is put on it, should be rubbed
over with suet. For grilling fish the grid-
iron may be rubbed with chalk.

The gridiron is made to incline gently tow-
ards the cook, who, being intelligent, and
having comprehended all that we have said
about the necessity of carefully imprisoning
the juice of meat and never piercing the out-
side coating of coagulated albumen, will, of
course, never dream of turning his chops or

METHODS OF PREPARING MEATS. 21

steaks with a fork he will grasp them with
a pair of special tongs, or even with his fin-
gers. In practical kitchen-work one is con-
stantly reminded of the truth of the familiar
saying that fingers were made before forks,
and also before tongs.

The operations of stewing invariably begin
by browning the meat in a little butter or
dripping in a saucepan or a frying-pan. The
object is precisely the same as in the opera-
tions of roasting, boiling, and broiling: name-
ly, to coagulate the surface albumen of the
meat, and so case-harden it and develop its
flavor in accordance with the chemical prin-
ciples already set forth.

Frying is the process of subjecting food to
a high temperature in a bath of hot fat,
which, at the moment of beginning the op-
eration, should be about 400 degrees Fah-
renheit. During the operation the temper-
ature of the bath should rise two or three
degrees.

The best frying-bath is one composed of
beef suet and veal fat in equal proportions,
melted down ; the grease of the dripping-pan
and of the pot-au-feu is also good ; lard, too,
may be used, although it leaves the surface
of the fried food less pure ; a special oil is

22 DELICATE FEASTING.

also sold for frying purposes, and butter may
be employed for light frying only. Ordinary
olive oil, when heated to a high temperature,
contracts a strong taste, probably due to
the charring of particles of the flesh of the
olive that remain imperceptibly mixed with
the oil.

Note that cook-books generally recom-
mend the use of a beaten egg to make the
flour, bread-crumbs, or chapelure adhere to a
sole, for instance, which is to be fried. A
simpler method is to dip the sole in milk
and then roll it in your flour. Thus you
avoid the thick lumps and patches of crust
which are almost inevitable when an egg is
used. This is a small detail, but small de-
tails all " make for " perfection, as Matthew
Arnold would have said.

Experience will teach the cook to discover
when the frying -bath has reached the re-
quired temperature by the peculiar hissing
sound produced by allowing a drop of water
to fall into it.

Decoction is the name that may be given
to the process of extracting the juice from
meat and separating it from the fibre and
tissues ; it is the reverse of roasting or broil-
ing and their derivative processes. In order

METHODS OF PREPARING MEATS. 23

to extract the juice of meat we place the
flesh in cold water, the temperature of which
is very slowly raised to the boiling-point : thus
all the juice of the flesh is dissolved out and
completely separated from the muscular fibre.

Bloxam says : " The object to be attained
in the preparation of beef-tea is the extrac-
tion of the whole of the soluble matters from
the flesh, to effect which the meat should be
minced as finely as possible, soaked for a
short time in an equal weight of cold water,
and slowly raised to the boiling-point, at
which it is maintained for a few minutes. The
liquid strained from the residual fibrine con-
tains all the constituents of the juice except
the albumen, which has been coagulated."

The economical French, in making their
pot-au-feu and bouillon, do not mince the
meat, but leave it in a solid mass, the only
reason being that thus the meat may be pre-
sented at table, although there is very little
nourishment left in it after the process of
decoction is over.

In boiling, the meat is exposed to a high
temperature in water. You wait until the
water has reached the boiling-point before
you immerse the meat in it, and leave it to
cook for about five minutes at that tempera-

24 DELICATE FEASTING.

ture. The heat of the water, 212 degrees
Fahrenheit, at once coagulates the albumen
in the external layer of flesh, which becomes
thus a waterproof case in which the meat
cooks, safe from the infiltration of water and
from the escape of its juice. After the first
five minutes the cooking should proceed
more gently, at a temperature of 162 degrees
Fahrenheit.

Both in roasting and in boiling, the result
is similar, and is thus noted by Dalton on the
preparation of meat for food :

" Firstly, the albumen which is present in
the muscular tissue is coagulated, and the mus-
cular fibres, therefore, become rather firmer and
more consistent than they are in fresh meat.

" Secondly, the cellular tissue between the
muscular fibres is softened and gelatinized,
so that the fibres are more easily separated
from one another, and the whole mass becomes
more tender and easily digestible.

" Thirdly, the high temperature develops
in the albuminous ingredients of the meat a
peculiar and attractive flavor, which they did
not possess before, and which excites in a
healthy manner the digestive secretion, thus
serving not only to please the taste, but also to
assist in the digestion of the food.

METHODS OF PREPARING MEATS. 2$

" Raw meat," adds Dalton, " is usually in-
sipid and unattractive. It is only after it has
been subjected to a certain amount of cook-
ing that the desired flavor makes its appear-
ance, by which the appetite is stimulated,
and the nutritive qualities of the food conse-
quently improved.

" The preparation of meat in cooking
should be carefully managed so as to accom-
plish the results above described. For if the
heat be insufficient the proper flavor will not
be developed ; and if the heat be excessive,
the meat, instead of being cooked, will be
burned and decomposed, and thus rendered
useless for the purpose of nutrition."

Notice how constantly science recurs to
the physiological advantages of delicate cook-
ing, in that it stimulates the appetite, pleases
the taste, assists in the digestion, and actually
improves the nutritious qualities of food.

Before cooking meat, a sufficient time must
have elapsed since the slaughtering to have
allowed the cadaveric rigidity to pass and the
spontaneous reaction to set in which deter-
mines a primary disintegration of the tissues.
The time which meat has to be kept varies
according to the temperature. If cooked
while in a state of cadaveric rigidity, that is

26 . DELICATE FEASTING.

to say, too fresh, meat is hard and indiges-
tible.

The first practical lesson to be drawn from
the above theory of roasting is that a joint
should never be spitted by thrusting an iron
rod through it. The only reasonable and sci-
entific spit is a sort of cage which clasps the
meat around without piercing it anywhere.
Thus there will be no loss of juice.

The rational way of placing the spit is in a
horizontal position, and care should be taken
to have the fire in a somewhat convex form, so
that the heat may be distributed over the ends
as well as over the middle portions of the meat.

Baked meat is an abomination.

So-called " roast " meat, cooked in ovens,
is a delusion and a snare.

Roast meat is roast meat, and in order to
roast you must have an open fire, before
which your joint is placed in such a manner
that the air circulates freely around it.

The reason why it is objectionable to cook
meat by baking it in an oven unless it be a
big bakers' oven is that it is difficult, if not
impossible, to keep an ordinary oven, in a
cooking - stove, clean and well - ventilated.
The sides, roof, and floor of the oven get be-
spattered with particles of fat and spots of

METHODS OF PREPARING MEATS. 2/

gravy during the baking process, and these
particles become charred, and thus fill the
oven with ammoniac and with a foul atmos-
phere of empyreumatic oils, by which terri-
ble word the chemists indicate the unwhole-
some vapors generated through the action of
fire.

In the process of roasting before an open
fire these empyreumatic odors are, indeed,
generated, but they pass off up the chimney,
whereas in the oven they are imprisoned,
and there penetrate the meat, destroy its fla-
vor, and render it more or less insipid.

Meat, however, may be baked in pies, be-
cause in this case its surface, being protected
by the crust, cannot be charred and impreg-
nated with the foul empyreumatic oils. The
baking of meat in a pie -crust amounts, in
reality, to a stewing operation, the paste
forming, as it were, a stew-pan with its lid.

Frequent basting is essential to successful
roasting. Otherwise, the coagulated surface
of the meat would crack and split open dur-
ing the operation, and allow an escape of the
juice. The melted fat, poured over the meat,
penetrates into every crevice, and by means of
the higher temperature of the fat the surface of
the meat is maintained in an impervious state.

IV.

CONDITIONS REQUISITE FOR
HEALTHY DIGESTION.

" THE healthy action of the digestive proc-
ess must be provided for by careful attention
to various particulars. First of all, the food
should be of good quality and properly cooked.
The best methods of preparation by cook-
ing are the simplest ; such as roasting, broil-
ing, or boiling. Articles of food which are
fried are very apt to be indigestible and hurt-
ful, because the fat used in this method of
cooking is infiltrated by the heat, and made
to penetrate through the whole mass of the
food. Now we have seen that fatty sub-
stances are not digested in the stomach, as
the gastric juice has no action upon them. In
their natural condition they are simply mixed
loosely with the albuminous matters, as but-
ter, when taken with bread or vegetables, or
the adipose tissue which is mingled with the
muscular flesh of meat ; and the solution of

CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY DIGESTION. 29

the albuminous matters in the stomach, there-
fore, easily sets them free, to pass into the
small intestines. But when imbibed, and
thoroughly infiltrated through the alimen-
tary substances, they present an obstacle to
the access of the watery gastric juice, and
not only remain undigested themselves, but
also interfere with the digestion of the al-
buminous matters. It is for this reason
that all kinds of food in which butter or
other oleaginous matters are used as ingre-
dients, so as to be absorbed into their sub-
stance in cooking, are more indigestible
than if prepared in a simple manner."
Dalton ("Treatise on Physiology," N. Y.,
1878).

None of the immediate principles, taken
separately, in the animal or vegetable king-
dom, suffices for complete nutrition, even
during a short time, and even with the addi-
tion of water to drink.

Payen (" Substances Alimentaires ") con-
siders that we can realize the most favorable
chances of preserving for a long time health
and strength, especially by maintaining a
fair balance in the consumption of nutritive
substances of an animal and of a vegetable
nature, by varying our alimentary regime, and

30 DELICATE FEASTING.

by avoiding both insufficiency and excess of
nourishment.

The flesh of the ox, according to all the
authorities on alimentation, of all the kinds
of muscular tissue, is that which possesses
the greatest nutritive power, which repre-
sents the most renovating plastic aliment,
which furnishes the most tasty and appetiz-
ing broth, and which can be used more con-
stantly with profit than any other article of
food of its class.

Incidentally let it be noted that salted
meat is much less nutritious than fresh. It
has been ascertained chemically that brine
extracts from the muscular tissue much of
its nutritive principle.

Dalton places next after beef, as being most
valuable as nutriment, mutton and venison ;
then the flesh of fowls, the various kinds of
game-birds, and, lastly, fish.

The opinion of modern French scientists,
as presented in the article on Food in the
" Nouveau Dictionnaire de Medicine," may
be noted and read with interest. According
to this authority, " Fish is only slightly nu-
tritive, but easily digestible. Its exclusive
use would soon produce a diminution of
muscular force, paleness of the tissues, and

CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY DIGESTION. 31

all the signs of an alimentation insufficient
in quality.

" Fish is more digestible than the white
meat of fowl.

" The flesh of shell-fish crustaceans is hard
of digestion.

" Roast meat is more digestible than
boiled.

" Eggs very slightly cooked and daiiy prod-
uce are more digestible than white meats.

" Of vegetables, the feculents are the most
digestible.

" New wheat bread is heavier than stale
bread.

" The aliments to which the cook's art
gives a liquid or semi-liquid form are, in gen-
eral, more digestible.

" The more readily an aliment is dissolved
by the juices of the stomach the easier its
digestion."

Add to these facts the remark of Dalton :
" Cheese contains the nutritious elements of
the milk in a condensed, but somewhat indi-
gestible, form."

Nevertheless you will eat a little cheese
after your dinner, for, as Brillat-Savarin hath
it, " A dessert without cheese is like a beau-
tiful woman with only one eye."

32 DELICATE FEASTING.

Of the vegetable tribe, lentils, beans, and
peas are the most nourishing.

Fruit, when perfectly ripe, is most easy of
digestion, because the juice of fruit consists
of pure grape-sugar (glucose) and water, and
it is in the form of grape-sugar that all starchy
food is finally absorbed into the system. It
may be said that the starch of the fruit, hav-
ing been already changed into glucose by the
process of ripening, requires no digestion after
it is eaten by man, inasmuch as it is already
in the state in which this element of nutri-
tion is immediately absorbed into the system.

Special qualities of meats from the point of
view of their digestibility.

According to Payen, without there being
anything absolute in these qualities, which
depend on the particular state of the diges-
tive organs of different individuals or on their
idiosyncrasies, we may say, in general, that
meats are more easily digestible the less
strong their cohesion and the less their
hardness. We might thus establish between
them the following order, beginning with the
lightest :

Sea and river fish, fowl, game, crustaceans,
lamb, veal, beef, mutton, wild boar, pork.

CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY DIGESTION. 33

In these categories are generally consid-
ered heavy and hard to digest : salmon, eels,
geese, ducks, and some other water-birds, as
well as strongly smoked and salted meat.

On the time required for the digestion of dif-
ferent kinds of food.

Hrs. Min.

Roasted pork 5 15

Salt beef, boiled 4 15

Veal, broiled 4

Boiled hens 4

Roasted mutton 3 15

beef 3

Boiled " 3 30

Raw oysters 2 45

Roasted turkey 2 30

Boiled milk 2

" codfish 2

Venison steak I 35

Trout, broiled I 30

Tripe i

Pigs' feet i

Eggs, hard boiled \ 3 3 to

1 5 30
soft " 3

The above is taken from Beaumont's " Ex-
periments on Digestion." Dalton comments
on these observations as follows : " These re-
sults would not always be precisely the same
3

34 DELICATE FEASTING.

for different persons, since there are varia-
tions in this respect according to age and
temperament. Thus, in most instances, mut-
ton would probably be equally digestible
with beef, or perhaps more so ; and milk,
which in some persons is easily digested, in
others is disposed of with considerable diffi-
culty. But, as a general rule, the compara-
tive digestibility of different substances is, no
doubt, correctly expressed by the above list."

V.

ON VEGETABLES.

IN order to have good dishes of cooked
vegetables you must first obtain good vege-
tables grown rapidly and cleanly and gath-
ered young. Unless the market-gardener has
studied his business, and produced his wares
in the best possible condition, the cook will
always be handicapped in preparing those
wares.

Each vegetable has its good and bad sea-
sons, and must be employed in consequence.
In taste and quality spring carrots, for in-
stance, differ widely from autumn carrots.

By the art of the gardener the seasons may
be to a certain extent suppressed. At Paris,
for instance, the fruits and vegetables of each
season are anticipated to a great extent by
forced culture, which is practised on a large
scale in the outskirts of the capital. The
Parisian primeurs, or first-fruits, are exquisite
in quality and taste, and quite different from

36 DELICATE FEASTING.

the early fruits and vegetables sent to Paris
from the south of France, Spain, Portugal,
Algeria, and even Egypt, which supplies fresh
tomatoes to the Paris and London markets
in January. Lately the Belgians have taken
to grape culture, and supply the Paris mar-
ket with fruit from January to May ; from
July to October the grape supply comes from
Algeria; from September to January the
finest grapes are produced by the growers of
Thomery, near Fontainebleau. Thus there
are only two months out of the twelve when
you cannot have fresh grapes at Paris. In
all kinds of vegetables and salads the Paris
market is unrivalled. The methods of cult-
ure employed by the gardeners who supply
this market are worthy of careful study.

As a general rule, all dry vegetables are
cooked by putting them into cold water, the
temperature of which is gradually raised to
boiling-point, while all fresh and green veg-
etables are cooked by plunging them into
salted water already boiling.

The reason is that, as in the cooking of
meat, so in the cooking of vegetables, it is
desirable to protect them against the infiltra-
tion of water.

Starch is as constant a constituent of veg-

ON VEGETABLES. 37

etables as albumen is of meat. Raw starch
is practically not digestible by man, so that it
is absolutely necessary that vegetables should
be thoroughly cooked. In boiling, the starch
granules absorb water, swell up, and burst,
thus undergoing the first necessary step to
their subsequent transformation into glucose
through the action of the digestive fluids.
Also, when starch, in the dry state, is heated
to 302 degrees Fahrenheit, it is changed into
dextrine, in which state it is thoroughly di-
gestible. The potato is composed almost en-
tirely of starch, and the necessary transfor-
mation in cooking is comparatively easy to
effect. But in the case of dried beans and
peas, prolonged cooking is necessary in order
to soften and disintegrate the woody fibre
with which this class of food is more or less
entangled. The development of flavor by
cooking is much less marked in vegetables
than in meat. In boiling dried vegetables
a method is adopted which is the reverse of
that in cooking meat. The vegetables are
immersed in cold water, which is afterwards
brought to the boiling-point, and then the
cooking proceeds at a temperature somewhat
below 212 degrees Fahrenheit, so as not to
destroy the form of the vegetables.

38 DELICATE FEASTING.

Starch in the digestive tube is changed
first into dextrine, then into glucose.

Much has been written about the ways of
preserving the green color in cooked vege-
tables.

The French cooks, I have read in English
cook-books, generally put a pinch of carbo-
nate of ammonia into the water.

Dubois- Bernard and Souchay use a red
copper pan to boil their vegetables in. The
red copper, during the process of boiling,
gives off a little oxychloride of copper, which
is the same product that is used for giving
a green patine to bronze statues.

In reality the great secret is simply to have
abundance of water in the pot.

It will be found that string-beans, for in-
stance, plunged into well-salted boiling water,
in a pot of any material, provided it be large
enough to allow the beans to float freely, each
one careering round on its own account in the
stream of ebullition, will retain their green
color perfectly.

The pot should not be covered.

It is needless to add that the same holds
good of other green vegetables.

Another idea which is found in many cook-

ON VEGETABLES. 39

books, and which is indiscriminately practised
by non-reasoning cooks that is to say, by
the majority is a process of cooling or chill-
ing, termed by the French cooks rafraichir.
This process consists in plunging the vegeta-
bles into boiling water for a few minutes ;
then taking them out and throwing cold wa-
ter on to them to cool them ; then, after they
are cooled and drained, continuing the cook-
ing in boiling water. This process is employed
to prevent the vegetables turning yellow.

Experience in my own kitchen, confirmed
by the experience and practice of many in-
telligent chefs whom I have consulted, has
convinced me that this cooling process is a
mistake, except when the supplementary cook-
ing operations justify it, and also when the
vegetables have to be served cold, as for in-
stance in the case of a macedoine or salad of
vegetables.

As a general rule green vegetables should
be boiled in an abundance of well-salted boil-
ing water, in a roomy pot and without a lid.
As soon as the vegetables are cooked serve
them rapidly. Let as short a time as possible
elapse between the cooking of vegetables and
the eating of them.

In cooking cauliflower, asparagus, string-

40 DELICATE FEASTING.

beans, and any other vegetable which may
sometimes have a slightly bitter taste, due to
accidents of culture or what not, it is well al-
ways to put a lump of loaf sugar into the wa-
ter. This precaution will effectually counter-
act the bitterness, if there be any.

To cook a cauliflower proceed thus : wash
it carefully ; cut it into four if it is large ; pass
each portion through a bowl of water with a
dash of vinegar in it to drive the grubs out if
there are any ; drain and plunge into a gallon
of boiling water containing about one half an
ounce of salt and a lump of sugar.

Take the cauliflower out of the pot as soon
as it begins to feel tender to the touch.
Pinch it with your fingers to feel whether it
is tender or not. The cooking of the cauli-
flower will continue for some minutes after
it has been taken out of the water, thanks to
the heat stored in it.

Cauliflower thus cooked may be served
with white sauce, or au gratin.

To make cauliflower au gratin take one
ounce of butter and a little more than one
ounce of flour ; hold them in a saucepan over
the fire for two minutes ; then add one and
a half pints of water, two pinches salt, three
pinches pepper ; put on the fire and boil for

ON VEGETABLES. 41

ten minutes, stirring all the while with a
wooden spoon. Then you add a good ounce
of grated Parmesan cheese and a good ounce
of grated Gruyere, and reduce the whole for
five minutes. (By " reducing " we mean ap-
plying very hot fire to the saucepan in order
to bring about rapid evaporation, and so re-
duce the liquidity of the mixture. " Cook-
ing," on the other hand, is produced by a
slow and continuous fire.)

Next you take a shallow dish of porcelain
or of crockery which will resist heat, the
same dish in which the cauliflower will be
served when cooked. You place a layer of
cauliflower in the bottom of the dish, and
spread over it a layer of the sauce. Then
you pile up the rest of the cauliflower, pour
over it the rest of the sauce, sprinkle another
ounce of grated Parmesan and a spoonful of
cracker-crumbs, and pour over the whole three
quarters of an ounce of melted butter. Then
you put the dish in an oven with fire above
and fire below, and in twenty minutes it will
be as brown and golden as a picture by Titian,
a joy to the eye and a delight to the palate.

N.B. If you use salt butter reduce the
quantity of salt in your first sauce.

Cauliflower boiled as above may be eaten

42 DELICATE FEASTING.

cold with oil and vinegar as a cold vegetable,
or employed as an ingredient in vegetable
salads.

Another simple way of serving it is saute
with butter. In this case you must not boil
the cauliflower quite so much. Take it out
of the water while it is still quite firm ; break
it up into small branches ; place in a saucepan
with butter; sprinkle on it some seasoning
herbs or simply finely chopped chervil and
a little pepper; cook over a brisk fire,
shaking the saucepan from time to time,
and serve.

Asparagus should be grown carefully, and
gathered when the head is violet or tinged
with violet. The stalks should be very white.
You prepare it by scraping the stalks, so as
to remove the pellicule which has been in
contact with the soil ; wash each piece ; cut
the stalks of equal length, say six or eight
inches ; tie them into bundles of eight or ten
sticks, and put them to cook in a caldron
of boiling salt water, with a lump of sugar.
The water should be salted at the rate of one
quarter of an ounce of salt per quart of water
for a quantity of asparagus varying from thirty
to forty sticks, according to the thickness of
the sticks. As soon as the asparagus begins

ON VEGETABLES. 43

to feel soft take it out of the water imme-
diately. According to the quality of the as-
paragus the time of cooking will vary from
ten to twenty minutes. If you leave the as-
paragus in the water a second after the cook-
ing is finished it will suck in the water, become
flabby, and be spoiled.

For cooking asparagus conveniently and
satisfactorily a special caldron is necessary.
The bundle of asparagus is laid on a drainer,
which fits into the caldron, and enables you
to lift the cooked vegetable out of the water
without bruising or breaking the heads. This
caldron has a lid, and may be covered. In
cooking asparagus there is no question of
preserving color.

Asparagus may be served warm not pip-
ing hot or tepid, or even cold. Warm aspar-
agus should be served with white sauce Hol-
landaise, the sauce being served apart in a
sauce boat, and not poured over the whole dish.
The asparagus, after having been well drained,
should be served in a dish on the bottom of
which is placed a napkin neatly folded. The
object of serving the asparagus on a napkin is
to insure perfect draining ; the napkin absorbs
whatever water may still cling to the stalks.
In some unenlightened districts asparagus is

44 DELICATE FEASTING.

served on a layer of toast, which fulfils the
same object as the napkin and absorbs the
water. If you do find asparagus served on
toast, do not offer to eat the toast, any
more than you would offer to eat the
napkin.

Silversmiths and crockery-makers have in-
vented various kinds of drainers and special
rustic dishes for serving asparagus, but I
have not yet seen one that approaches per-
fection. In table service, as in cookery, sim-
plicity seems always more desirable than
complexity.

Serve the asparagus on a long dish, arrang-
ing the bundle longitudinally on the napkin,
just as it came out of the caldron.

For serving asparagus, broad silver tongs
are made.

To eat asparagus, use your fingers. Grasp
the stalk boldly ; dip the head in the portion
of sauce that you have taken on your plate ;
bite off the head and as much of the stalk
as will yield to the pressure of the teeth.

Warm asparagus may also be eaten with a
simple sauce of melted butter.

Tepid and cold asparagus requires a sauce
of oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt, which must
be served in a sauce boat apart. At a dinner

ON VEGETABLES. 45

without ceremony each one can mix this
sauce for himself on his plate. But whether
a small or a large quantity is mixed, the proc-
ess is the same : you mix up the salt and
pepper in a small quantity of vinegar ; then
you add five or six times as much oil ; stir up
and use, dipping each stick of asparagus into
the sauce on your plate before conveying it
to your mouth.

Artichokes are cooked in the same way as
asparagus, and served with the same sauce
warm, with white sauce ; cold, with oil and
vinegar. N.B. You must use your fingers
to eat artichokes, and a silver knife only to
separate the flower from the heart, or fond.

In spite of cooks and cook-books I feel
convinced that neither asparagus nor arti-
chokes are so good cold as they are when
just tepid ; freshly cooked and allowed to
cool down so as to be just not cold, both
these vegetables are peculiarly delicate when
eaten with a sauce of oil and vinegar, mixed
on your plate at the moment of eating.

Artichokes & la Barigoule. Blanch your
artichokes that is to say, parboil them in
boiling salted water (one quarter of an ounce

46 DELICATE FEASTING.

of salt per quart) ; then cool them off with
cold water; drain and remove the leaves of
the heart, so that you may be able to pull
out the woolly centre, or flower. Season
with pepper and salt ; place them in a fry-
ing-pan, with a few spoonfuls of olive oil, and
fry the tips of the leaves, laying the arti-
chokes in the pan bottom upwards.

Then you take a sufficient quantity of gar-
nish, composed of mushrooms, parsley, shal-
lots the mushrooms and parsley in equal
quantities ; the shallots only half as much
and chop very finely. Place on the fire in a
saucepan with butter and salt and pepper
the shallots first of all, and stir with a spoon
for five minutes ; then add the chopped mush-
rooms and parsley, and stir over the fire an-
other five minutes. Next take for each arti-
choke the value of one ounce of bacon. We
will suppose that you are cooking four arti-
chokes ; you will need about a wineglassful
of herb garnish, to which you will add four
ounces of grated bacon, one quarter ounce of
butter, one quarter ounce of flour, and a wine-
glassful of good bouillon. Place all these
ingredients in a saucepan over a brisk fire
for five minutes, and stir with a wooden
spoon.

ON VEGETABLES. 47

Then, in the cups formed by the four arti-
chokes that you have prepared by hollowing
out the woolly centre you place a quarter of
your sauce ; tie a string round each one, to
hold the leaves together ; put a speck of ba-
con on the top of each one ; arrange them in a
dish, with two wineglassfuls of bouillon, and
cook the whole for twenty minutes, with fire
above and fire below, like a dish au gratin, or
else in an oven. Before serving squeeze over
each artichoke three drops of orange or lemon
juice.

This dish is composed of simple ingredi-
ents, but it requires to be prepared with great
care. All good cooking is the result of care,
undivided attention, and love of the art.

Green Pease a la Fran^aise. The French
call green pease, petits pois or "little pease,"
" young pease." They must be gathered
young. The English eat pease when they
have grown hard as shot that is to say,
when they are no longer " young pease," but
about seed-pease. So, then, we will take a
quart of young and tender pease, freshly
shelled ; put them in a two-quart saucepan,
with a quarter of a pound of first -quality
butter (N.B. You cannot achieve superfine

48 DELICATE FEASTING.

cooking with poor butter. So-called kitchen-
butter is an abomination. In the kitchen you
need the finest and most delicate butter) ; a
wineglassful of water ; two ounces of white,
small onions ; a little salt, or no salt if the
butter is already salt ; one ounce of powdered
sugar.

Cover your saucepan well, and stew over a
moderate fire for half an hour. When they
are cooked taste and add more sugar if need-
ful, and about a quarter of a pound more
butter mixed with half flour. Work your
pease round in the saucepan over the fire, so
that the flour and butter may get thoroughly
distributed, and then serve.

This is a dish to be served and eaten alone,
and not messed up on a plate with meat,
gravy, okra, green-corn, and half a dozen oth-
er things.

String Beans a la Frangaise. Prepare your
beans, which should be young, with the bean
just forming ; when eaten, the presence and
shape of the bean or grain itself ought
not to be felt ; what we desire to eat is the
green pod, the juicy envelope of the grain.
Gather the beans young. The preparation
consists in pinching of the ends, removing

ON VEGETABLES. 49

the stringy fibre lengthwise, and slicing the
bean slantingly into two or three sec-
tions.

For one pound of green beans you want a
pot that will hold nearly a gallon of water,
in which you will put half an ounce of salt.
When the water boils put in your beans,
cook, and drain them. In a frying-pan for
sauteing,yo\\ melt two ounces of butter ; then
you put in the beans, fry them for seven or
eight minutes on a brisk fire, add salt and
pepper to taste, and sprinkle over with finely
chopped parsley or chervil. A teaspoonful
of lemon-juice may also be added with ad-
vantage before serving.

The French make great use of lettuce as a
vegetable, and a most excellent vegetable it
is. I will give you a few recipes of applica-
tions of the cooked lettuce which have come
under my notice.

First of all, an amiable Parisian hostess,
who has published some of her secrets in the
" 100 Recettes de Mile. Francoise" (Paris: I.
Renoult), introduced me to

Laitues a la Creme. Take the hearts of
cabbage lettuces, wash them, and bleach them
for a quarter of an hour in boiling salted
4

50 DELICATE FEASTING.

water. (N.B. Do not put the lid on your
saucepan, remembering the general directions
about cooking vegetables and preserving their
green color.) Next take the lettuces out of the
boiling water, put them in a sieve, throw cold
water over them, and let them drain thor-
oughly. Then, in a dish which will stand
heat, -put some cream, some small lumps of
butter, and finally the lettuce hearts ; pour on
more cream, seasoned with salt and pepper,
and cover with a thin layer of cracker crumbs.
Cook for an hour and a quarter in a mod-
erate oven, where the whole will simmer
gently. Serve in the dish in which it has
been cooked,

Laitues aujus. Take four or six, or more,
firm cabbage lettuces ; strip off the poor outer
leaves ; wash them, and bleach them for ten
minutes in boiling salted water, without any
lid on the pan. Take them out of the pan ;
cool them by throwing cold water on them ;
drain them, and press them in a sieve until
there remains not a drop of water. Season
them with the least speck of salt on each let-
tuce ; put them in a saucepan ; cover them
with bouillon, and add some of the skimming
of the pot au feu, or some pieces of bacon,

ON VEGETABLES. 51

a savory bouquet, a pricked onion, and two
cloves. Cover the saucepan closely by tying
paper over it, and let the whole simmer for
two hours. Drain carefully, and serve with
gravy.

VI.
ON RELISH AND SEASONING.

" The fundamental principle of all
Is what ingenious cooks The Relish call ;
For when the market sends in loads of food
They all are tasteless till that makes them good."
" The Art of Cookery"

THE worthy cook who is empress of my
kitchen, queen of my stomach, and, therefore,
mistress of my humor, won my confidence
by a simple remark that she made the first
time I had friends to dinner after she had
entered upon her duties. " Monsieur," she
said, for she is of Gaulish origin ; " monsieur,
I am very pleased to see that none of the
gentlemen last night touched the salt-cellar.
I could not desire a finer compliment."

If I or my guests had found it necessary
to ruffle the smooth surface of the salt-cellar,
and add a pinch to any of the dishes, it
would have been a proof that my cook had
not succeeded in seasoning her dishes to the
point.

ON RELISH AND SEASONING. 53

A cook having any self-respect, and any
respect for his art, has a right to feel insulted
if a guest proceeds to powder his food with
salt and pepper before having even tasted it.
Such a barbarous proceeding implies disas-
trous social antecedents on the part of the
guest, unaccustomedness to delicate eating, or
a callousness and bluntness of palate which
renders him unworthy to taste any but the
rankest food and the most scarifying of spir-
ituous liquors.

For such palates as these, deadened by the
abuse of tobacco and wliiskey, special rel-
ishes have been invented of a penetrating and
fiery nature, fabricated according to recipes
bequeathed by deceased noblemen, and sold
in bottles decorated with strange labels and
under titles which I will not enumerate.

In order to facilitate the use of these dia-
bolical and dyspepsia-producing relishes the
contrivance known as a cruet-stand has been
elaborated, and now, for years and years, has
figured on Anglo-Saxon dinner- tables as a
hideous and ever-present reminder of the
wretched state into which the art of cookery
has fallen in Anglo-Saxon countries.

Let it be remembered, first of all and
above all, that seasoning is the business of

54 DELICATE FEASTING.

the cook, and that unless the relish is impart-
ed to the food during the process of cooking
it cannot be imparted afterwards. When
your meat or vegetables are served on the
table and on your plate, you will vainly
sprinkle them with salt and pepper and
sauces ; you will simply be eating meat and
vegetables and seasoning matter, but you
will not be eating seasoned meat or seasoned
vegetables.

The great superiority of French cooking over
all other cookery lies in the thorough compre-
hension of the role and methods of seasoning
in cookery.

The perfection of seasoning brings out the
peculiar savor of each article of food, and
never allows the seasoning to usurp the place
of the savor. The skill of the cook is shown
by the nicety with which he judges his pro-
portions so as to form a suave whole, in
which all the elements are harmonized and
none allowed to dominate.

It is in the seasoning that the art and sen-
timent of the cook are shown. No book can
teach how to make a sauce to perfection ; it
is almost useless, not to say impossible, to
work with scales and measures and accord-
ing to nicely figured formulae ; the true cook

ON RELISH AND SEASONING. 55

works by experience and feeling. A true
cook, be it remembered, is an artist, and not a
Johannes Factotum.

Relish in food is produced by various
means.

1. By the simple process of cooking, as in

roasting, grilling, etc., where, as already
explained, the cooking develops a pecul-
iar aroma, agreeable to the taste and
conducive to digestion, because it ex-
cites in a healthy manner the secretion
of the gastric juices.

2. By the admixture in the process of cook-

ing of aromatic condiments, spices, sa-
vory herbs, and salt.

3. By sauces properly so called.

The role of condiments is to please the taste,
to excite the physical energy of the digestive
tube, and to increase to a notable extent the
secretions of its different parts. Condiments,
if properly used, assure digestion and hasten
the absorption of food by the system.

The French cooks are constantly using a
bouquet garni as a means of seasoning. This
bouquet is composed in the proportions of
one ounce of green parsley, one and a half
pennyweights of thyme, and the same quan-

56 DELICATE FEASTING.

tity of bay-laurel. Wash your parsley, roll
up your thyme and laurel into a little bun-
dle, fold the parsley around, and bind the
whole with thread or cotton into a little
packet about two inches long. Three cloves
may or may not be added to this bouquet,
according to the tastes of the company. The
same remark holds good also as regards the
addition of a young onion.

A simple bouquet is composed of chives
and parsley tied up into a little bundle.

All kinds of bouquets must be removed
from the dishes in the kitchen before serving.
Gouffe gives the following mixture of all-
spice for use especially in seasoning pasties,
galantine, and other cold dishes.
Take one quarter ounce thyme,
" one quarter ounce bay-laurel,
" one eighth ounce marjoram,
" one eighth ounce rosemary.
Dry these four herbs thoroughly by artifi-
cial heat, and when they are thoroughly dry
pound them finely in a mortar with
one half ounce nutmeg,
one half ounce cloves,
one quarter ounce white pepper-corns,
one eighth ounce cayenne pepper.
Pound the whole finely, sift, and keep for

ON RELISH AND SEASONING. 5/

use in a well-corked bottle. This allspice is
used alone or mixed with salt, the proportion
being four times as much salt as spice.

Supposing you have to season three pounds
of galantine, the dose required, according to
GoufTe, would be one ounce of salt and spice
mixed in the above proportions.

The best way of seasoning fish whose flesh
is not naturally full-flavored or extreme-
ly delicate is to cook it in seasoned wa-
ter, or, as the French call it, in a court-bouillon.

The real court-bouillon is made thus : On
the bottom of your fish-kettle lay a bed of
sliced carrots, sliced onions, green parsley,
thyme, bay-laurel, a sliced lemon or a sliced
orange, and some whole pepper, say twenty
grains (not grains in weight, but grains in the
botanical sense). On this bed lay your fish,
and cover it with half white wine and half
water (and if you have no white wine use
vinegar or verjuice, two or three wineglass-
fuls added to the water). Put your kettle on
a moderate fire, and as soon as the liquid boils
withdraw it immediately, and take out your
fish,which you will find to be perfectly cooked.

Fish must always be put into cold court-
bouillon.

58 DELICATE FEASTING.

The court-bouillon may be prepared before-
hand, and cooled down before the fish is put in ;
the court-bouillon may also be kept and used
several times, provided it be reboiled every
three or four days, a little water being added
each time to supply loss by evaporation.

Naturally a court-bouillon prepared before-
hand will savor more strongly of the aromatic
ingredients in it than a new court-bouillon.

If wine is abundant, of course it may be
substituted for water almost entirely.

Remark that in countries where wine is not
commonly used for kitchen purposes the court-
bouillon may be made quite satisfactorily with
vinegar and lemons. Even in France many
an economical housekeeper will not sacrifice
a bottle of white wine to boil a fish. With
wine, of course, the result is more delicate and
richer. But wine is not absolutely necessary
for success.

Both fresh-water and sea fish may be ad-
vantageously cooked in court-bouillon, with
the exception, of course, of such fine kinds
as the lordly turbot.

For a fish like pike, for instance, you can
heighten the flavor of the court-bouillon by
the addition of a little ginger and a few cloves ;
some cooks even add garlic, but to my mind

ON RELISH AND SEASONING. 59

garlic is too acrid a condiment to be used in
cooking any kind of fish. I do not guarantee
that pike cooked thus is equal to a pike roast-
ed according to the directions given by Izaak
Walton, which is, as he says, " a dish of meat
too. good for any but anglers or very honest
men." But Izaak Walton forbids the appli-
cation of his recipe to a pike less than three
quarters of a yard, whereas a pike of only a
quarter of a yard long may be cooked in a
court-bouillon.

Wine is of great utility to the cook ; and
by wine I mean fermented grape-juice, not
necessarily Bordeaux or Burgundy wine, but
Ohio wine or Australian wine, provided the
sweeter kinds are avoided.

Even unfermented grape-juice may often
be employed in developing flavor. A roast
partridge that has been basted with the fresh
juice of white grapes, of any but the 'muscat
kind, is a fine dish.

All game, without exception, requires the
application of some sour, in order to devel-
op the savor thoroughly. This is the theo-
retical explanation of the custom of serving
salad with this course.

For making most of the fine sauces wine

60 DELICATE FEASTING.

is as indispensable as butter, and success can
only be obtained if both articles are good.
" Kitchen "-wine and " kitchen "-butter are
fatal to good cookery. The cook requires
the best butter and good ordinary wine, but
not Chateau Yquem or Chateau Lafitte or
Tokay. Burgundy, or its American equiva-
lent, for kitchen purposes, needs to be a
strong and full-flavored wine, and Bordeaux,
or its American equivalent, a sound and dry
wine. The Madeira and Spanish wines used
in cooking need to be simply unadulterated,
but not necessarily fine and dear wines.

The matelote of fresh-water fish is a way
of cooking in wine which is much practised
in France, where at every river-side inn you
may see the sign " Matelote et Friture" And
a noble dish it is, when well made. The finest
matelotes I have eaten were made in a skillet
hung over a blazing wood-fire in a farm-house
on the banks of the Loire ; and half the secret
of success seemed to be in the fact that the
tongues of flame glided freely around the cal-
dron, and set fire to the boiling wine just at
the critical moment. Over an ordinary and
comparatively cramped kitchen-fire success is
only to be obtained by more careful manipu-
lation, and this is the way you must proceed :

ON RELISH AND SEASONING. 6 1

Take an eel and a pike, or a carp, or a
perch, or a barbel, or any combinations of
these fish which the larder may offer, even
an eel alone, or, better, an eel and a pike ;
clean them and cut them up into pie,ces about
two inches square. Suppose that you have
two good pounds of fish. First, take a sauce-
pan into which you put two ounces of butter
and twenty small onions peeled and blanched.
Let your onions get browned over the fire ;
then add one and a half ounces of flour, pep-
per and salt, and stir for five minutes, adding a
few mushrooms previously browned in butter
and a little lemon-juice, and a little water if
the mixture needs it. Then add one pint of
red wine, a bouquet garni, a clove of garlic,
pepper and salt, and a pint of good bouillon
or meat-juice. Cover your pot, and let this
mixture simmer twenty minutes.

Then put in your slices of eel and of the
less tender fish (as carp, for instance), and
cook for a quarter of an hour.

Next put in your tender fish, add a wine-
glassful of brandy, and cook five or ten min-
utes longer. Take out the bouquet and the
garlic, and serve on a dish with the onions
and sauce poured over the fish. The sauce
will be creamy, and of a bluish-brown color.

62 DELICATE FEASTING.

(N.B. Not the least essential thing in the
above recipe is the meat-juice. If you have
not meat-juice or good bouillon you must put
two pints of wine instead of one.)

Another way of making a matelote is to
put the fish in the bottom of a pan with a
bouquet garni and garlic or not, as you please ;
cover the fish with wine, and as soon as the
wine boils pour in half a glass of strong bran-
dy and fire the whole. Let the mixture blaze
and cook for a quarter of an hour, and then
serve on a dish with your ragout of small on-
ions, flour and mushrooms peppered, salted,
and prepared apart in a pan, as described in
the beginning of the above recipe.

The essence of the matelote lies in the em-
ployment of wine instead of water to stew
the fish in ; and, as already stated, complete
success can only be achieved by the happy
combination of wine and the juice of meat.
The onions, mushrooms, etc., are merely de-
tails, but indispensable details, in the season-
ing and thickening of the sauce.

(N.B. Instead of, or together with, butter,
little slices of bacon may be used to brown
the onions.) '

To the many ways of preparing oysters

ON RELISH AND SEASONING. 63

may be added the following recipes, copied
from a rare and valuable seventeenth-century
book called " Les Devices de la Campagne ;
ou est enseign a preparer pour Tusage de la
vie tout ce qui croist sur la terre et dans les
eaux. Dedie" aux Dames menageres " (Paris,
1654). In those days oysters were eaten raw,
with pepper ; fried in the half-shell, with a
speck of butter and pepper on each oyster,
and served, when cooked, with a drop of ver-
juice or vinegar and a bit of grated nutmeg ;
en etuvee, that is to say, detached from the
shell and placed in a pan with their liquor,
some butter, a little . pepper, some nutmeg,
some chives, and a few bits of orange or
lemon, and so boiled slowly, and served with
grated bread-crumbs round the dish; en fri-
cassee in a frying-pan with a roux of sliced on-
ion and butter, the oysters being put into the
roux with the liquor, and when they are al-
most cooked you add a few drops of vinegar,
with some chopped parsley, and even a lit-
tle mustard ; drained on a napkin, peppered,
dipped in batter, and fried in hot lard, then
served with fried parsley round the dish and
an orange squeezed over them. The same
precious and practical little book tells us how
to pickle oysters by taking them out of the

64 DELICATE FEASTING.

shell, placing them in layers in a jar or bar-
rel, peppering and salting each layer, and add-
ing bay-laurel, cinnamon, green fennel, and,
if you are rich enough, a little musk or am-
ber. When you take them out of the bar-
rel for use, soak them awhile if they are
too salt, and then prepare them in the ways
above described, or eat them with oil, or eat
them as they are. These pickled oysters
"may also be used for giving flavor to ra-
gouts and roast fowl of various kinds, and for
a thousand other seasonings which the cook
shall judge fit."

VII.

ACETARIA, OR CONCERNING THE
DRESSING OF SALADS.

A SALAD is a dish composed of certain
herbs or vegetables seasoned with salt and
pepper, oil and vinegar, or some other acid
element.

The term salad is also applied to certain
cold dishes composed of cold meats, fish, etc.,
seasoned like a salad, and combined with
salads.

You also speak of an orange salad when
the fruit is cut into slices and seasoned in
sweetened alcohol.

As an aliment, salads vary greatly in nutri-
tious quality, according to their composition
and constituent elements. The leaf salads,
like lettuce, endive, sorrel, etc., contain little
but water and mineral salts.

Of all the methods of seasoning a salad
proper, the simple, so-called French dressing
is the most delicate, the most worthy of the
gourmet's palate, and the most hygienic.
5

66 DELICATE FEASTING.

Let it be remarked that a salad may be
made a constant element in the alimentary
regime ; that it is an agreeable, amusing, and
healthy thing to eat ; that it is an econom-
ical and democratic dish, and not a dish
merely for the fashionable world. Incident-
ally let it be remarked that the fashionable
world enjoys no privileges in the art of cook-
ing, except so far as concerns certain quintes-
sential sauces which can only be made in
elaborately mounted kitchens and at consid-
erable expense. Indeed, as a rule the fash-
ionable world fares badly, more especially
in America, where the services of a " caterer "
are so largely used. The very name of " ca-
terer " has something gross and crude about
it which shocks the real gourmet. A man
or a woman who invites you to dine is re-
sponsible for your health and happiness as
long as the hospitality lasts and even after-
wards. But how few hosts have a right sense
of the respect which they owe to their guests.
How absolutely hard-hearted, uncharitable,
and egoistic is the host or hostess who con-
ceives a dinner-party merely as an occasion
for show and ostentation, has his or her table
set out with flowers and silver and crystal,
and orders a " caterer," a purveyor of food, to

DRESSING SALADS. 67

serve a dinner at so much a head. What a
crude state of civilization this condition of
things implies !

But, to return from this digression, let us
consider, first of all, salads of uncooked veg-
etables and herbs. Such salads are made of
lettuce either cabbage or cos lettuce, which
latter the French call Romaine, and which is
the most delicate endive, corn-salad this
is a species of valeriana or rather valerianella
locusta, called by the French Mdche chicory,
both wild and curly, sorrel, celery, garden
and water-cresses, little white radishes called
in French raiponce, beet-root, tomatoes, cu-
cumbers.

To give flavor to salads, you use the small
and fine herbs that are in season, such as
chervil, chives, tarragon, pimpernel, balm,
mint, etc. In the spring all or some of these
seasoning herbs above mentioned may be
combined and eaten as a salad by them-
selves. Such a salad bears the name of
Vendome.

The vegetables and herbs that are to be
used uncooked must have been specially cul-
tivated for the purpose ; that is to say, they
must have been grown rapidly, abundantly
watered, and properly bleached during growth.

68 DELICATE FEASTING.

These conditions are necessary to render the
leaves crisp and tender. A salad that re-
quires powerful and prolonged mastication
is a nuisance, and to eat it is waste of
time. Unless a lettuce is so tender that it
seems to melt coolly in your mouth, you may
just as well eat a cabbage salad. The culti-
vation of vegetables and herbs for salads is a
special branch of market-gardening requiring
constant care in watering, forcing, and bleach-
ing the plants, and in regulating their ripen-
ing in such succession that there may be
salads ready for market each day, neither un-
dergrown nor overgrown, but just mature,
juicy, and tender. Salads left to grow by
themselves in an ordinary kitchen-garden are
usually tough and stringy ; the watering has
been insufficient ; the sun has scorched the
epidermis of the leaves ; the rain has splashed
the soil up into the heart of the plant ; the
fibre is dry and woody. The gardener who
cultivates for the kitchen must tend his
plants with extreme care, in order to grow
them satisfactorily from the point of view of
the cook and of the gourmet.

Having obtained a fine cos lettuce, we will
say for an example, how are we to make it
into a salad ? First of all, strip off and throw

DRESSING OF SALADS. 69

away the outer leaves, which are too green
and tough, and which are often bruised and
dirty. Then take your lettuce, cut it into
four quarters, beginning at the base ; take off
the larger leaves one by one until you reach
the heart ; carefully wash each leaf and drain
the whole. A spherical wire basket is useful
for draining a salad ; you put the leaves in
the basket and swing it violently to and fro,
and so shake the water out. Get your leaves
as dry as possible ; even wipe them with a
towel after having shaken them in the wire
basket the reason being that whenever there
is any water left on the leaves the dressing
will not get distributed. The lettuce having
been well washed and dried, you arrange the
leaves loosely in the salad-bowl, which should
be large and roomy, say about one and a
half times the volume of the mass of the
salad, in order that you may have plenty of
room to turn it during the seasoning process.
On the top of the salad you lay a handful of
seasoning herbs, chervil and chives and a
sprig of tarragon. In this state the salad is
served if it is to be seasoned at table; in
any case the salad must not be seasoned un-
til a few minutes before it is eaten, with the
reserve to be made further on.

7O DELICATE FEASTING.

Now we come to the operation of sea-
soning and mixing. The tools needed are a
salad-spoon and fork, and the best are the
simplest and the cleanest, namely, a spoon
and fork of boxwood. Beware of the dread-
ful inventions of artistic silversmiths. In
table-service it often happens that the highest
luxury is the extremest simplicity. First
of all, you take up with your ringers as much
of the seasoning herbs as you think fit, and
with a knife cut them up finely over the
salad-bowl ; then you take your salad-spoon
and put into it salt and pepper in sufficient
quantity ; then you pour a little vinegar into
the spoon and stir the salt and pepper with
the fork until the salt dissolves and the pep-
per gets well mixed with the vinegar ; then
you sprinkle this mixture over your salad and
turn it with the spoon and fork in order to
distribute the seasoned vinegar and the
chopped herbs as thoroughly as possible over
every leaf ; finally, you measure out so many
spoonfuls of oil and turn your salad again
and again until the oil is fairly distributed
over every leaf. The salad is then ready to
be eaten.

As regards the quantities of salt, pepper,
oil, vinegar, and fine herbs, it is impossible to

DRESSING OF SALADS. 71

be precise, the delicacy of the human pal-
ate varies so widely, according to the climate
and according to national and individual hab-
its. It will always be best to gauge the sea-
soning by the most delicate palate at table.
In short, the quantities of salt, pepper, and
vinegar will vary greatly according to indi-
vidual tastes, and also according to the
strength of the salt, the pepper, and particu-
larly of the vinegar. To my mind, any man-
ufactured vinegar is too strong for fine let-
tuce salad, and, instead of vinegar, I use
lemon-juice. Indeed, for all uncooked salads
I prefer lemon-juice to vinegar ; and unless
one can make sure of obtaining real wine
vinegar, I should certainly use lemon-juice
for all salad dressing. Lemon -juice is the
most delicate and deliciously perfumed acid
that Nature has given the cook. As for the
pepper, never use the powdered pepper that
you buy at the grocer's, and which has gener-
ally lost its flavor before it reaches the depths
of the pepper-castor. The only pepper wor-
thy to titillate the papillae of a civilized
man is that ground out of the pepper-corn,
at the moment of use, in a little hand-mill.
Here, again, we must beware of the inven-
tions of the silversmiths, none of which are

72 DELICATE FEASTING.

so practical and handy as the simple wooden
mill.

In describing the process of dressing a let-
tuce salad I mixed the salt and pepper in
vinegar and poured the oil on last of all.
This rule is not absolute. Some mix the
pepper and salt in oil, but this, I am con-
vinced, is a mistake, because the salt does
not readily dissolve in oil, and the distribu-
tion of the condiments is less complete. But
as regards oil first or vinegar first, the choice
is difficult. In point of fact, a salad must al-
ways be a compromise : wherever a leaf is
smeared over with oil the vinegar will not
rest, and wherever the vinegar rests on a
leaf the oil will not stay. If you pour your
vinegar on first the salad will have a sharper
and more piquant taste ; if you apply the
oil first the dressing will be more deli-
cate.

In order to make a good lettuce salad you
require good lettuce, good salt, good pepper,
good vinegar or lemon-juice, and olive oil of
the best quality ; and then if you do not pay
careful attention to every detail of the prep-
aration, dressing, and mixing, your salad will
not be a success. Good materials, good meth-
ods, intelligence, and attention are as neces-

DRESSING OF SALADS. 73

sary in salad-making as in any other branch
of the cook's art.

Note also that in cookery you cannot ab-
breviate the processes; for instance, I have
read, in a cook-book written by an Anglo-
Saxon woman, that the best way to operate
is " to mix the pepper and salt, the oil, the
chopped chives, and the vinegar all togeth-
er, and when well mingled to pour the mixt-
ure over the salad, or place the salad over it
and mix all together." This is rank heresy.
The mixture thus produced would be a vis-
cous liquid, a sort of half-made mayonnaise,
utterly different in consistency and taste
from the distribution of oil and vinegar each
separately.

For convenience it may be noted that a
salad may be oiled an hour or more before
it is served. If you have plenty of hands in
the kitchen you may have each leaf oiled sep-
arately with a brush, which is a very ideal
way of proceeding. Beware, however, of put-
ting salt on the salad before it is served, or
vinegar either ; the salt would draw all the
water out of the salad and leave it limp and
flimsy, while the acid would eat into the
leaves and reduce them to a pulpy state.

A salad of Romaine lettuce is so delicate

74 DELICATE FEASTING.

that it admits of no mixtures or garnishings.
A salad of ordinary cabbage lettuce may be
garnished with hard-boiled eggs, shelled and
cut in four, also with olives.

Tarragon vinegar, that is vinegar in which
a branch of tarragon is left to soak, may be
used preferably to the fresh leaves of tar-
ragon for salad-dressing.

Vinegar for dressing salads may be pre-
pared also as follows : In the bottom of an
earthen pitcher put a handful of tarragon,
half as much garden-cress, half as much cher-
vil, some fresh pimpernel leaves, and one
clove of garlic. Over this pour one gallon
of vinegar, let it infuse a week, clarify, and
bottle for use.

In preparing a salad of curly chicory, be-
ware of allowing the leaves to stand in water,
otherwise they will become hard ; the same
remark applies to celery.

For seasoning a salad of curly chicory, pro-
ceed in the manner above described for the
usual French dressing, omitting only the
chives, but before turning the salad, put in a
chapon, a Gascony capon as it is called. This
is a small crust of bread about an inch square,
rubbed over with garlic. During the mixing,
this crust, impregnated with the perfume of

DRESSING OF SALADS. 75

garlic, but without its rankness, comes into
light contact with every leaf, and communi-
cates to the whole a slight aroma of the
onion, so dear to the Gascons, and to all Lat-
in men. You may or may not like this aro-
ma, but, in any case do not forget the chapon,
the perfumed crust, as a means of communi-
cating flavors very lightly.

In cookery we learn the eternal principles,
and each one composes according as he has
more or less imagination. I have explained
the way of preparing and dressing a lettuce
salad with oil and vinegar in the French
style. This description will serve as a type
and basis, which may be applied to various
simple and compound salads of uncooked,
and also of cooked vegetables, some of which
I briefly note.

One of the finest salads, to be eaten either
alone or with game, especially partridges or
wild duck, is a mixture of celery, beet-root,
and corn-salad if corn-salad cannot be ob-
tained, water-cress will make a poor substi-
tute, when broken into small tufts. The
beets are cut into slices one sixteenth of an
inch thick, the celery, which must be young
and tender, and thoroughly white, should be
cut into pieces an inch long, and then sliced

76 DELICATE FEASTING.

lengthwise into two or three pieces. (N.B.
Select only the slender inside branches of
celery.) This salad will require plenty of oil,
and more acid than a lettuce salad, because
of the sweetness and absorbent nature of the
beet-root. The general seasoning, too, must
be rather high, because the flavors of the
celery and of the beet are pronounced.

A potato-salad ought not to be made with
cold boiled potatoes, as the cook-books gen-
erally state, even the best of them. A po-
tato-salad ought not to be made with pota-
toes that have remained over from a previous
meal. The potatoes must be boiled in salt
water expressly for the salad ; allowed to
cool, sliced into the salad-bowl, and seasoned
in the French style with oil and vinegar,
served and eaten while still almost tepid. A
potato-salad should be abundantly garnished
with finely chopped herbs, chervil, chives,
and a suspicion of tarragon ; furthermore, as
the floury nature of the potatoes absorbs
the vinegar rapidly, in order to make up the
quantity of acid liquid needful for success,
throw in a little white wine, say three or four
times as much white wine as you have used
of vinegar or lemon-juice.

The Japanese salad invented by the

DRESSING OF SALADS. 77

younger Dumas, and celebrated in his play
of " Francillon," is a potato-salad as above
described, with the addition of some mussels
cooked in a court-bouillon flavored with cel-
ery. This salad is served with a layer of
sliced truffles on the top, and the truffles
ought to have been cooked in champagne
rather than in Madeira.

Another potato-salad worthy of respectful
attention consists of potatoes thinly sliced, a
pound of truffles cooked in white wine and
thinly sliced, two red herrings boned and
broken up into small flakes. The dressing
is a good white mayonnaise, with a dash of
mustard. This salad requires to be seasoned
and mixed some six hours before it is served.

For a salad of cooked vegetables, or, as it
is also called, a macZdoine, you need freshly
and expressly cooked vegetables: potatoes,
string-beans, lima or haricot beans, pease,
cauliflower, carrots, turnips, parsnips, beet-
root, hearts of artichokes, asparagus tops, or
as many of these ingredients as you can com-
mand. These different vegetables must, of
course, have been cooked, each separately, in
salt water ; then plunged into cold water in
order to prevent them from turning yellow ;
and then carefully drained before being ar-

78 DELICATE FEASTING.

ranged ornamentally in the salad-bowl. (N.B.
Drain carefully, for any residue of water im-
pairs the success of the salad.) Certain of
the above vegetables may be cut into dice
or lozenges before being put into boiling
water to cook.

A macedoine may be seasoned either with
oil and vinegar, with a white mayonnaise, or
with a green mayonnaise a la ravigote.

For fish and meat salads, for which recipes
abound, the mayonnaise dressing is to be
used. In America, the mayonnaise dressing
seems to be used for all kinds of salad ; in
England, too, there is a ready-made white
abomination sold in bottles under the name
of salad-dressing. I call attention to these
facts only to disapprove. The gourmet will
make a distinction between salads proper
and mixed salads containing flesh and strong
elements, and the former he will prepare
with oil and vinegar, while he will season the
more heavy and substantial compounds with
a heavier and more strongly spiced dress-
ing.

The making of mayonnaise sauce has been
frequently described in American, cook-books,
and yet in two that I have before me, one
dated 1886, and the other 1887, the recipes

DRESSING OF SALADS. 79

are either incomplete or wanting in clear-
ness, so that I repeat the directions, seri-
atim.

Take a soup-plate or shallow bowl, a
wooden or a silver fork, fine olive oil, vin-
egar, salt, pepper, mustard already mixed,
fresh eggs, and some one to help you at the
critical moment. You will fix the number
of eggs according to the quantity of sauce
you desire, the proportion being a quarter of
a pound of oil to each egg. In your soup-
plate put the yolk of one or more eggs, tak-
ing care to remove the germ and all the ivhite ;
beat your yolk well for nearly a minute by
stirring it always in the same direction ; then
add oil, drop by drop, about a teaspoonful
at a time, and never adding more oil until
the preceding quantity has become thorough-
ly amalgamated with the egg; remember
that the. stirring must go on absolutely with-
out interruption, and always in the same di-
rection ; at every eighth spoonful of oil add
a few drops of vinegar, a pinch of salt, a
pinch of pepper, a spot of mustard. The per-
son who is helping you will drop these in-
gredients into the sauce at the word of com-
mand, while you keep on turning assiduously.
You continue this process, adding vinegar,

80 DELICATE FEASTING.

condiments, and oil until you have exhausted
your quantity of oil; then you taste and
heighten the seasoning or the piquancy, as
occasion may dictate.

Some people whose palates are jaded add
cayenne pepper to the seasoning. In some
American books I have seen the addition of
sugar recommended. To this latter addition
I am absolutely opposed; it is ridiculous
and useless.

If, by ill-luck, the mayonnaise curdles while
you are making it, stop at once ; start another
egg in a clean plate, and add your curdled
sauce by degrees to the new sauce, and the
whole will come out good, yellow, and with
the consistency of very rich, thick cream.
Provided the oil and the eggs used are in
normal conditions of freshness, the curdling
or decomposition of the amalgam can only
be due to sudden excess of oil or of vinegar,
so that in remixing you must moderate the
one or the other accordingly.

Green mayonnaise is the above sauce with
the addition of three tablespoonfuls of ra-
vigote for each quarter of a pound of oil.
Ravigote is chervil, tarragon, common garden-
cress, and pimpernel, cooked for two minutes
in boiling salt-water, then plunged in cold

DRESSING OF SALADS. 8 1

water, drained, pounded in a mortar, and
strained.

A less perfect green mayonnaise may be
made by simply adding to the sauce a hand-
ful of very finely chopped chervil mixed in
a spoonful of tarragon vinegar.

To color mayonnaise green, do not use
boiled and mashed green pease, as I have
seen recommended in a cook-book which I
need not mention. The reason is, that in a
creamy sauce of the nature of mayonnaise,
we should be offended if we felt the rough-
ness of any farinaceous matter intruding itself
upon the palate. Spinach would be a less
objectionable coloring matter. But unless
you can do the thing properly, by means of
a ravigote which has its special flavor and
season, why attempt to color your mayon-
naise ? Mere coloring, by make-shift means,
will impair your sauce, instead of improving
it. To the eye, a yellow mayonnaise is just
as pleasing as a green one.

Some one may object that we have a red
mayonnaise. True, but red mayonnaise is
not a decorative fancy, it is a quintessential
compound made by pounding the coral of a
lobster, and mixing the red puree thus ob-
tained with ordinary white mayonnaise. This
6

82 DELICATE FEASTING.

red mayonnaise is intended to make the
serving of the lobster more complete, and
not for show or table decoration.

In good cooking everything has a reason.

VIII.
THE THEORY OF SOUPS.

" SOUP," says Brillat-Savarin, " rejoices the
stomach, and disposes it to receive and digest
other food."

The gourmet looks upon soup as a prepar-
atory element in a refined dinner ; he takes a
small quantity of it only, and does not ask
for a second helping; he requires it to be
served hot, and not lukewarm, and in deep
soup-plates, and not in bowls. A bowl of
soup may be welcome to a traveller or to a
simple eater, who wants merely to satisfy his
hunger by quantities of nourishment. Re-
member always that there is a difference be-
tween dining and feeding.

The great fault with the most popular Eng-
lish soups, such as ox-tail, turtle, mock-turtle,
mulligatawny, etc., is their strength and heav-
iness. To begin dinner by absorbing a large
portion of these preparations implies coarse-
ness of conception and prodigious digestive
powers.

84 DELICATE FEASTING.

When I hear the voice of the Anglo-Saxon
waiter pronouncing behind my chair the la-
conic formula, " Thick or clear, sir ?" my heart
sinks as I think of the poverty of his wit and
the grossness of the distinction he makes.
Are there, then, but two soups in the world?
What kind of thick soup? What kind of
clear soup ? Know, good Anglo-Saxon wait-
er, that although I take only a ladleful of
soup, I require it to be perfection of its kind
a poem, a dream something suave and com-
forting, exceedingly pure in flavor. I neither
want slops nor heavy messes charged with
catsup and spices and salt and pepper.
"Thick" and "clear" is, certainly, a broad
distinction that may be made, but, as we
have to borrow so much from the French
in this gastronomic art, we cannot do bet-
ter than employ their terms for extracts,
compounds, and reductions, and classify our
soups, or potages, as consommes, purees, or
cremes.

Soup, we must never forget, is intended to
prepare the stomach for the dinner that is to
follow. Heavy soups are, therefore, inadmissi-
ble, because they constitute meals in them-
selves, and encroach upon the domain of the
dinner proper, which, as we have seen in pre-

THE THEORY OF SOUPS. 85

vious pages, is the grand event in our mate-
rial daily life.

In no branch of cookery has the imagina-
tion of fanciful cooks been so industrious as
in the combination and naming of soups. As
we have over one hundred fairly distinct va-
rieties of soup, it is desirable to avoid fancy
names that convey no meaning, such as the
names of princes and statesmen, and to call
these soups by titles that give some idea of
their composition. In this matter clearness
and simplicity are desirable, and the example
of Gouffe is to be followed in mentioning al-
ways the characteristic ingredient of the soup,
thus : potage a roseille, consomme aux pdtes
d* Italie, soupe aux choux, puree d'asperge, etc.

Potage, or soup, is the generic term, though
in French soupe is reserved for such soups as
are served with bread in them, while potage
is applied to soups without bread.

Potages are divided into gras and maigres,
according as they have been prepared with
or without meat.

Potages gras are made with bouillons or
decoctions of all kinds of butchers' meat,
fowl, fish, and crustaceans. In the same way
potages maigres are made from all sorts of
vegetables.

86 DELICATE FEASTING.

The namefluree, or creme, is given to thick
soups made of alimentary substances crusted
or pounded, such as game, pease, beans, len-
tils, asparagus, etc. The soups are gener-
ally very nourishing, but not easily digest-
ible.

Consomme is the name given to the supreme
result of the decoction of animal and vegeta-
ble matter ; it is a perfect bouillon, a bouillon
consomme. In the cook-books you will find
directions for making the ordinary consomme,
composed of the juices of beef, veal, and
fowls decocted in grand bouillon, or fine stock,
and also for making consomme de volatile,
consomme de gibier, and consommes of vegeta-
bles.

Consomme is necessary for making fine
soups, but for household cookery the good
ordinary stock is sufficient. (N.B. Without
good beef-stock it is impossible to make a
dinner worthy of the name.) Stock is con-
stantly required in the most simple opera-
tions of cookery. The aversion of the An-
glo-Saxon cook to making stock is one of the
main sources of his inferiority. Extract of
meat does not take the place of stock. Extracts
of meat should be very sparingly used in a well"
regulated kitchen, and extracts of coffee never.

THE THEORY OF SOUPS. 87

As a rule, in cookery, avoid new inven-
tions, scientific improvements, and every-
thing that recommends itself in the name
of Progress. Good cooking, like good paint-
ing, is a question of genius and sentiment.

Note that stock, or bouillon, is not an ali-
ment ; the so-called potages gras, which have
a basis of bouillon, are not essentially ali-
ments ; in general, the soups that are served
at a scientific dinner are not aliments. As
we have said above, soup is, theoretically,
merely a preparation for the dinner ; it
is a consolation to the hungry stomach, and
at the same time an appetizer and a stimu-
lant.

The decoction of meat and vegetables
which, under the names of consomme or bouil-
lon, forms the basis, if not the whole sub-
stance, of meat-soups, or potages gras, is sim-
ply an aromatic and exciting liquid of agree-
able flavor, very poor in organic alimentary
matter, but very rich in mineral salts.

In the long process of cooking needed to
make bouillon the eminently nutritious prin-
ciples of the meat have been annihilated,
and deprived of all their qualities of organic
nutriment. Bouillon contains, in the way of
assimilable substances > only a small quan-

88 DELICATE FEASTING.

tity of grease, some mineral salts, and a cer-
tain quantity of gelatine.

The researches of modern chemistry have
shown that gelatine has little or no alimen-
tary virtues, but that it is certainly " peptoge-
nic," that is to say, it excites the stomach to
activity.

The stimulating power of bouillon is chiefly
due to creatine, which has almost the same
chemical composition as caffeine, and passes
through the system without being absorbed
at all.

Bouillon is also rich in salts of potash. The
chemists tell us that osmazome consists, as far
as we can find out, of creatine, inosic acid,
and mineral salts, lactates, phosphates, chlo-
rures of potassium, calcium, sodium, etc.

Bouillon restores a man immediately after
drinking it, like tea or coffee. It is thus es-
sentially an appetizer and a stimulant, but
not an aliment.

In devising a menu and in regulating one's
desires, the above-mentioned points should be
borne in mind. By the addition of all kinds
of alimentary products, and by the various
combinations to which purees and crimes lend
themselves, the soup may be made a meal in
itself. But in our "Art of Delicate Feast-

THE THEORY OF SOUPS. 89

ing" the theory of soups is that they should
play the rdle of stimulants, of appetizers, of
soothers of the impatient stomach.

At a dinner of any ceremony two soups
ought to be served, one of the liquid kind
and the other of a creamy nature. In the
meat-soups the simple bouillon or the more
quintessential consommes the qualities which
the gourmet demands are limpidity, succu-
lence, and purity of aroma, unimpaired by
violent or piquant seasoning. In the early
stages of the feast the palate is offended by
too-ardent appeals. The qualities required
in purees and cremes are smoothness and
lightness, fineness of taste, perfect material,
amalgamation of all the elements, and the
preservation and development of the dis-
tinctive savors of the different constituent
substances.

The Englishman proverbially says, " I don't
like slops;" by which he expresses a gen-
eral disapproval of soups. If his experience
has been limited to England I agree with
him heartily. With the exception of the
very heavy national soups of the turtle or
ox-tail kind, the English soups are often, if
not generally, nothing but " slops." Soups
require care, method, and intelligence on the

go DELICATE FEASTING.

part of the cook who undertakes to make
them, and also that quality which I have so
frequently insisted upon as necessary for the
highest achievements in the kitchen, namely,
sentiment.

IX.

PRACTICAL SOUP-MAKING.

THE cookery-books contain multitudes of
recipes for making soups. We need not re-
peat them. In general, a cook who has the
sentiment of his art will rarely follow pre-
cisely any recipe given in a book ; he will
content himself with seeking ideas in books
and carry them out according to his skill and
feeling. Practice, experience, and work un-
der good masters make the best cook. In
Paris the women cooks often take lessons in
the kitchens of the great clubs.

The life and soul of household cookery,
the basis of a good, plain dinner, and of a host
of stews, sauces, flurees, etc., is beef bouillon.

The first thing to learn to make is the pot-
au-feu.

The result of the pot-au-feu must be savo-
ry, clear, and free from grease.

The operations of skimming and straining
through a sieve are most important.

Q2 DELICATE FEASTING.

In winter, bouillon may be kept for three
days. In summer it must be made fresh ev-
ery morning.

Directions for composing and manipulat-
ing the pot-au-feu and various bouillons and
consommes will be found in " The Unrivalled
Cook-Book " (Harper & Brothers), and in
Mrs. Henderson's " Practical Cooking " (Har-
per & Brothers). In the same works will be
found many hints for preparing soups, to
which I beg to add the following simple
soups, which are excellent if made with good
materials and cooked with care.

Velvet Soup. Cook some tapioca in good
stock or bouillon, being careful not to make
the liquid too thick. When ready place the
yolks of eggs in the soup-tureen, one yolk for
two persons. Then pour over them the tapio-
ca, stirring the whole so that it may become
thoroughly mixed and uniformly creamy. A
grain of nutmeg improves this soup.

Velvet Soup maigre. This soup can be
made without meat. Cook the tapioca in
water, with a little pepper and salt. Put
into the tureen a lump of butter and the
yolks of eggs two for three persons. Then
pour over them the boiling tapioca. Stir up
and serve.

PRACTICAL SOUP-MAKING. 93

I recommend to amateurs a shell-fish soup
which I learned to make at Naples. The pres-
ence of garlic in its composition need alarm
only the squeamish. Garlic is a noble flavor.

Shell-fish Soup. Put into a stewpan some
olive oil (half a tablespoonful for each person)
and a little garlic finely chopped. When the
garlic is well fried add some Tomato Sauce
No. I (see Mrs. Henderson's " Practical Cook-
ing," Harper & Brothers), half a tablespoon-
ful for each person ; then put in your shell-
fish all sorts of small shell -fish, cockles,
winkles, even mussels, etc., such as the mar-
ket offers well washed and brushed before-
hand. Now add a spoonful of consomme for
each person, a few cloves, and a little nut-
meg. If your kitchen boasts no consomme
you may use good bouillon, strengthened with
a little of Liebig's extract. When the soup
has begun to tremble and throw up a few
bubbles add a little more tomato ; let it boil
awhile, and serve it clear with cubes of
bread fried in oil. In order that the bread
may still be crisp when eaten, the cubes, or
croutons, may be served apart, and some put
into each plate just before the soup is ladled
on them.
Henri Fourth's Poule-au-Pot . The homely

94 DELICATE FEASTING.

dish which Henri IV. wished each one of his
subjects to enjoy on Sunday is not a soup,
but it is one of those household dishes the
making of which gives an excellent soup.
Indeed, the poule-au-pot constitutes a meal
of several courses.

Make a pot-au-feu (see " Unrivalled Cook-
Book," p. 35, Harper & Brothers); only in-
stead of beef use a piece of brisket of mut-
ton, with the usual vegetables and savory
herbs. Take a young hen and stuff it with
the liver and a little fresh pork. When the
pot-au-feu boils put in the hen and cook it
tender. Serve the bouillon as soup ; the hen
with salt and tomato-sauce ; bread the bris-
ket of mutton, broil it on the gridiron, and
serve with piquant e sauce.

Mile. Franqoise's Poule-au-Pot. Take three
pounds of beef, a big hen, two cabbages,
pease, beans, and pot-au-feu vegetables (see
" Unrivalled Cook-Book/' p. 35), a pound of
raw ham, a Strasbourg or a Viennese saucis-
son, half a pound of bacon. Put the beef in
first, without the vegetables, start the decoc-
tion, skim, and then put in the hen. When
half-cooked take out the hen and put in all
the vegetables, having previously put the fol-
lowing farce, or stuffing, into the cabbages :

PRACTICAL SOUP-MAKING. 95

Bread-crumbs, six eggs, a quarter of a
pound of bacon, six chickens' livers, or the
equivalent in calf's liver, ham, parsley, onions,
a grain of garlic; chop all this up very fine,
stuff it into the heart of the cabbages, and
bind the leaves up with string before putting
them into the pot.

Now take a stewpan and put into it some
bacon cut up into small pieces, and then the
half-cooked hen, and then brown the whole
with butter. Make a brown sauce with but-
ter and flour (see " Unrivalled Cook-Book,'
p. 395, " Roux "), enough to just cover the
hen in the stewpan ; add a little uncooked
rice, a dozen boiled onions, and let it stew
until the rice bursts. Serve the poule-au-riz
with the addition of a little nutmeg and cay-
enne, or with the sweet Hungarian paprika,
if you have any.

The soup and the beef of this poule-au-
pot, served together with all the vegetables,
constitute the "Petite Marmite" that has be-
come so popular in Parisian restaurants of
late years. In many restaurants little earth-
en marmites, containing one or two portions,
are served on the tables, and in each marmite
is a small fragment of beef, pieces of all the
vegetables, and a portion of the clear bouillon.

96 DELICATE FEASTING.

Soup is really good only when it is eaten
hot. Its warmth is an essential part of its
excellence, and prepares the stomach for the
important functions of the digestion of the
succeeding and more substantial courses.

The soup-plates should be hot, and the
soup-tureen should be heated before the soup
is poured into it. At a truly scientific table
the spoons and ladles ought to be heated.

Now, let us suppose a dinner of nine per-
sons. If the host or hostess serves the soup,
the last guest served will begin to use his spoon
when the first served has finished, unless, out
of politeness, all wait until the last is served,
and then attack all together. If the soup is
served from the side, and one or two servants
pass the plates, the result will be the same.
In both cases, during the time required to
fill nine plates and pass them, there will be
a loss of heat, and the beginning of the din-
ner will be wanting in unison. The best way
is to serve the soup in hot plates immediately
before the dinner is announced. Then the
guests enter the dining-room, take their seats,
and begin to dine all at the same time and
in perfect unison.

X.

ABOUT SAUCES.
I. HOUSEHOLD SAUCES.

BY sauces, let it be understood that we do
not refer to the products sold in drug or
grocery stores, and corked up in bottles, but
to the sauces that are prepared simulta-
neously with the dishes that they are in-
tended to accompany and complete.

We may divide sauces into two categories,
household sauces and the classical sauces,
the latter belonging to grand cookery. There
are several household sauces, which a person
of ordinary intelligence can learn to make.
The first condition requisite is to have a
kitchen supplied with stock, and with the
usual seasonings and relishing herbs ; the
second condition is care and practice in
making the liaison, or " thickening," with
flour, butter, eggs, or cream, in their various
combinations and developments.

The household sauces are drawn butter,
7

98 DELICATE FEASTING.

sauce blanche, maitre d' hotel, beufre noir,
melted butter, sauce piquante, sauce poi-
vrade, sauce au vin blanc, sauce poulette, sauce
Tartare, green and white mayonnaise, re-
moulade, Hollandaise, and others of a deriva-
tive nature.

Fine Hollandaise sauce and fine sauce
blanche are both exceedingly simple in their
composition, and both great tests of a cook's
skill. Then why do we so rarely find them
well made? This problem is as mysterious
as the rarity of good dinners on this earth.
The two chief causes of failure, or medioc-
rity, which is just as bad, are the use of in-
ferior materials and want of attention. Cook-
ery, especially when we enter the domain of
sauces, is a very delicate art, requiring the
exercise of many qualities of delicate percep-
tion. The cook who makes a perfect sauce
blanche must take pleasure in his art, and
perform every detail of the operation with
extreme attention, vibrating over his sauce-
pans as a painter vibrates over his picture,
delicately sensitive to the changes of consist-
ency which take place as the flour and butter
become transmuted into a velvety liquid that
has to the eye an aspect as of the surface of
fine porcelain, close in texture, exquisite in

ABOUT SAUCES. 99

glaze. In the cook-books you may read how
to mix the materials of this sauce, but no
books will teach you how to mix those
materials in perfection.

Once more, in all questions concerning
sauces, we cannot insist too much upon the
necessity of using fine materials, and, more
especially, butter of the finest and freshest.
Let all the pans be scrupulously clean, and
always use wooden spoons for the manipula-
tion and stirring of sauces. Metal spoons
may spoil a sauce by giving it a chill. Metal,
also, is liable to be attacked by the acids
used in preparing sauces.

In addition to the many sauces for the
preparation of which directions are given in
easily accessible cook-books, I would call at-
tention to the following, which are appar-
ently less known on American tables.

Sauce Bearnaise. A delicate piquant sauce
to be served with roast fillet of beef, with
the small, marinated steaks called by the
French tournedos, with a simple grilled steak
of small dimensions, with roast fowl or fish,
is the sort of warm mayonnaise called by the
French Bearnaise.

In the first place, get some fine butter, and

100 DELICATE FEASTING.

set it to melt over a gentle fire. When the
butter is just tepid, beat into it, with a fork,
yolks of eggs; add aromatic herbs, finely
chopped, a dash of garlic, and a spoonful of
good vinegar or lemon-juice, turning regu-
larly with a wooden spoon until the mixture
is of the consistency of a mayonnaise.

Mile. Franqoise's Bearnaise Sauce. Put
in a stewpan a dozen shalots, a seasoning
bouquet, a little muscade, and a teaspoonful
of freshly ground pepper, the whole moist-
ened with a glassful of vinegar. Boil down,
and then strain through a sieve. Now take
a small saucepan, and put in it a big lump
of butter of the best quality, three yolks of
very fresh eggs ; add two tablespoonfuls of
the liquid already prepared as above, and
put the whole over a very gentle fire ; turn
it briskly with a wooden spoon, until the
sauce gets thick, and take it off the fire very
sharply, before it turns oily.

Gouffe's Bearnaise. Take five yolks of
eggs, one ounce of butter, a pinch of salt, a
pinch of pepper. Put the above in a pan,
and turn it over the fire with a spoon. As
soon as the yolks begin to set, take off the

ABOUT SAUCES. IOI

fire, and add another ounce of butter. Then
stir again over the fire, and add another ounce
of butter. Take off the fire, and add yet an-
other ounce. Then stir again over the fire.
Now taste to see if the seasoning is sufficient,
and add a teaspoonful of chopped tarragon
and a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar.

The finest and purest Bearnaise has a dom-
inant perfume of tarragon. Of the above three
recipes, the most correct is Gouff's, but the
others are good for convenience and variety.

A green sauce for use with all kinds of
cold fish and meat. Take a handful of cher-
vil, tarragon, chives, pimpernel, and garden
cress ; wash in cold water ; blanch by put-
ting the herbs in hot water for a while, to de-
prive them of rankness or bitterness of taste ;
refresh them by plunging them in cold wa-
ter. Now add four yolks of hard-boiled eggs
and two anchovies, and pound the whole well
in a mortar. Strain the result through a fine
wire sieve, and turn the compound with ol-
ive oil, adding from time to time drops of
lemon-juice, as in making a mayonnaise. Turn
the sauce always in the same direction. Sea-
son with pepper, salt, even a little mustard,
and a teaspoonful of anisette.

102 DELICATE FEASTING.

The above is a first-rate and delicate sauce,
and requires none of the complicated bases
employed by the grand cooks.

Maitre d' Hotel. Take butter of the size
of an egg; chop parsley, chives, and even a
sprig of tarragon, very finely; add freshly
ground pepper and salt ; knead the whole
well together, and spread it over the broiled
meat or fish the moment before serving on a
hot dish.

N.B. Never put your dish into an oven
" to allow the butter to penetrate the meat,"
as some recommend. As soon as the meat
is off the gridiron it wants to get to table
with the least possible delay.

In hot weather a few drops of lemon-juice
may be added to the maitre d ' hotel, and even
a tinge of nutmeg.

Chateaubriand a la Maitre d' Hot el. As an
instance of the use of maitre d' hotel sauce,
here is the way to serve a Chateaubriand:

The Chateaubriand is a beefsteak, a piece
of fillet one and a half and even two inches
thick, grilled and served with souffle pota-
toes and maitre d'hdtel sauce; that is to
say, you put on the dish in which you intend

ABOUT SAUCES. 103

to serve your Chdteaubriand a good lump of
sweet butter kneaded with some very finely
chopped parsley, salt, pepper, a speck of nut-
meg, a suspicion of chives, and a drop or two
of lemon-juice ; melt the whole by warming
the dish, mix, and then set your Chdteaubri-
and in the middle of the dish, all hot from
the gridiron ; heap round it the souffle pota-
toes, using your fingers, and send up to table
as quickly as possible.

A really triumphant Chdteaubriand is two
inches thick after it is cooked, and it is cooked
rose right through ; the outside is neither
burned nor dry ; and when you cut it with
the knife the red juice flows out and mixes
with 'the maitre cThdtel, and makes it, as it
were, something living and animated.

The inventor and baptizer of the Chdteau-
briand, I have been told, was Magny, and the
name was given to it by mistake, for, accord-
ing to Magny, it was christened, not after
Chateaubriand, the author of the " Ge"nie du
Christianisme," but after a M. de Chabrillan,
who is not otherwise famous.

II. THE CLASSICAL SAUCES.

The classical sauces are the innumerable
derivatives of the primary sauces known as

IO4 DELICATE FEASTING.

grande, Espagnole, Allemande, veloute, various
essences, and various fumets, or flavors. All
these primary sauces, or sauces meres, are sub-
limated decoctions or quintessences of the
most savory and succulent meats, whether
of quadrupeds, fowl, or fish. In a modest
household it is impossible to make them ;
they require professional skill, expensive
materials, and extensive apparatus. People
who have princely establishments may pre-
pare the finest sauces in their own kitch-
ens, but the vast majority of mankind must
depend upon the first-class restaurateurs for
their preparation.

The great authority Dubois - Bernard,
speaking of this branch of his art, says :
" Sauces, by the care and labor they require,
by the costly sacrifices which they necessa-
rily involve, ought to be considered as the
essential basis of good cookery. The gour-
met would not think much of an elegant and
sumptuously served dinner of which the
sauces are wanting in that fineness of taste,
that succulency, and that purity which are
indispensable.

" A man is never a great cook if he does
not possess a perfect knowledge of sauces,
and if he has not made a special study of the

ABOUT SAUCES. 10$

methodical principles on which their perfec-
tion depends.

" Two causes contribute to the imperfec-
tion of sauces defective knowledge or de-
fective materials. An incompetent man, dis-
posing of the finest resources, only obtains a
mediocre and doubtful result ; but a clever
practitioner, if he has not the necessary ma-
terials, or if those materials are insufficient
or of bad quality, does not attain the desired
end. Experience, practice, knowledge, be-
come powerless in such circumstances; the
cleverest cook can correct and attenuate, but
he cannot struggle against the impossible,
nor make prodigies out of nothing.

" Consequently, in order to make perfect
sauces, the cook must not only know how to
go to work, but he must know how to make
the sacrifices that are required. These con-
siderations, which we cannot too strongly im-
press both upon amphitryons and upon cooks,
have already struck more than one observer.
True gourmets are not accustomed to make
parsimonious calculations ; they know that
good cooking is incompatible with insuffi-
cient means."

We must, therefore, conclude that the fin-
est sauces are inaccessible to modest purses,

106 DELICATE FEASTING.

because the cost of establishing the primary
bases is too great to be undertaken in modest
households. The same remark applies to the
grands bouillons of flesh, fish, and fowl. The
production of these quintessences can only
be successfully achieved by sacrificing large
quantities of primary and often costly mate-
rial.

The fine sauces referred to are the out-
come of the high French cookery, the so-
called cuisine classique of the first quarter of
this century, a cuisine which could only op-
erate with a profusion of ingredients. The
secret of this cuisine consisted in quintessenc-
ing the taste, whether of meat, fish, or fowl,
by means of similar comestibles sacrificed for
purposes of decoction or distillation, and the
perfumes and flavors obtained by this process
were added as condiments to the piece of
meat, fish, or fowl served on the table. Fish,
flesh, or fowl, heightened by the addition of
its savory quintessence, such is the theory of
the grand, or, as we may call them, the clas-
sical, sauces.

The era of fine cookery began in the reign
of Louis XIV., when Vatel lived, and left a
name as famous as that of Boileau, and when
the grand seigneurs immortalized themselves

ABOUT SAUCES. TO?

by combining delicate dishes. Such was the
Marquis de Bechamel, who has given his
name to a fundamental sauce ; such the re-
gent who invented pain a la d' Orleans ;
such the Marshal de Richelieu, who invented
mahonnaises, or mayonnaises, and attached his
name to a score of noble recipes ; such the
smiling and imaginative Madame de Pompa-
dour, who created the filets de volatile a la
Bellevue, the palais de bceuf a la Pompadour,
and the tendons d 'agneau au soleil ; such were
the grand ladies who invented quails a la
Mirepoix, Chartreuses a la Mauconseil, poulets
a la Villeroy. The name of Montmorency
has received additional lustre from a dish of
fat pullets. The dukes of La Valliere and
Duras, the Prince de Gueme'ne'e, the Marquis
de Brancas, even the princes of the royal
family, the Comte d'Artois and the Prince
de Conde", did their best to cherish the sacred
fire of culinary art ; and whatever satirical
writers may have found to say against the
financiers and farmers general, none of them,
whether hungry or gorged, dared to write a
single word against the cooks and the tables
of these heroes of incommensurable appetite.
However, the idea of quintessential cook-
ery, be it remembered, is due primarily to

IO8 DELICATE FEASTING.

the cooks of the latter part of the eighteenth
century who provided for the delicately vo-
luptuous stomachs of the grand seigneurs of
the reign of Louis XV. dishes of a subli-
mated chemistry, or, as a writer of the time
says, dishes which consisted only of "quint-
essences raisonnes, dgage"es de toute terre-
streite."

This ethereal cookery, these fine suppers
whose menus suggest the repasts of the
princes in the "Arabian Nights," lasted even
during the early years of the Revolution,
when the cooks of the ruined nobles, nota-
bly M6ot, Robert, Roze, Ve"ry, Leda, Le-
gacque, Beauvilliers, Naudet, Edon, became
restaurateurs and sellers of good cheer to
all who could pay the price. Beauvilliers,
who established his restaurant about 1782,
was for fifteen years the most famous restau-
rateur of Paris, and provided literally such
delicate and sublimated dishes as those which
had hitherto been found only on the tables of
the king, of the nobles, and of the farmers-
general. The great restaurateurs of modern
Paris are nearly all direct successors of one
or other of the famous cooks above men-
tioned. And it is only in such establish-
ments, much as they have degenerated, or

ABOUT SAUCES. 109

at the tables of the Croesuses of the world,
that one can hope to taste in almost satis-
factory conditions the finest products of the
cook's art.

Duck & la Portugaise. This recipe is due
to the eminent poet, critic, historian, and
journalist, Charles Monselet, who is the au-
thor of divers succulent volumes on the gas-
tronomic art, and of a famous sonnet on that
encyclopaedic animal, the pig.

The present dish is worthy of attention on
account of the simplicity of the elements of
which it is composed and of the short time
needed to prepare it. Take either a wild
duck or an ordinary duck ; if the latter, wring
its neck smartly, so that there may be as lit-
tle blood lost as possible ; dip it in hot wa-
ter, so that you may feather it the more
easily; then draw and clean it. Take the
heart, the liver, and the gizzard, and chop
them up fine with three shalots ; pepper
and salt liberally; add a lump of fresh
butter; knead the whole well with a fork
and stuff it into the carcase. Cut the
duck's neck, reserving a piece of skin to
sew up the aperture; pack in the pope's
nose, and sew up likewise; then roll the

110 DELICATE FEASTING.

duck in a cloth and tie it round and round
with a string; then plunge it into boiling
salt water, and cook thirty-five minutes, or
thirty minutes for a wild duck. Remove
the cloth, and serve on a hot dish garnished
with slices of lemon.

Lamb or Mutton Cutlets breaded with
Cheese. Trim your cutlets neatly, remove
superfluous fat, and make them dainty in
shape. Dip each cutlet in melted butter, and
then roll it in bread-crumbs and very finely
grated Parmesan cheese, the crumbs and the
cheese being in equal parts. Cook over a
clear fire, and see that the cutlets do not get
burned or blackened.

" The gourmet is not a voracious eater ;
he chews his food more than another because
this function is a true pleasure to him, and
because a long stay of the aliments in the
palate is the first principle of happiness."
Grimod de la Reyniere.

The real gourmet eats by candle-light be-
cause, as Roqueplan said, " nothing is more
ugly than a sauce seen in sunlight." For
this and other reasons the true gourmet

ABOUT SAUCES. Ill

avoids breakfast-parties, lunches, high-teas,
pic-nics, and analogous solecisms.

In these days of progress, science, gas-
stoves, sophistication, and democracy, the
gourmet's dream is to taste real meat cooked
with real fire, and to drink wine made with
real grapes.

XI.

MENUS. HORS &CEUVRES. EN-
TREES.

HOWEVER modest the dinner and how-
ever few the guests, it is always desirable to
have a menu giving the detail of the repast.
Let there be at least one menu for every two
guests, so that all may know what joy or dis-
appointment is held in store for them, and so
that each one may reserve or indulge his ap-
petite as his tastes and his digestive interests
may dictate. Nothing is more irritating at
table than a surprise of a too material nature.
For instance, it is unpleasant to find that you
have devoted to a simple fillet of beef the at-
tention which you would have preferred to
reserve for quails, had you known that
quails were in prospect. The presentation
of the menu is a pretext for a variety of ta-
ble bibelots, porte-menus of ornamental sil-
ver or of porcelain, engraved cards, or cards
decorated with etchings or water-colors. The

HORS D'CEUVRES. 113

designing of menu cards de