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Cakes & Ale, A Dissertation on Banquets Interspersed with Various Recipes, More or Less Original, and anecdotes, mainly veracious

<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> <h3>DINNER (continued)</h3> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="stanza"> “The strong table groans Beneath the smoking sirloin stretched immense.” </div> </div> <blockquote> A merry Christmas—Bin F—A Noel banquet—Water-cress—How Royalty fares—The Tsar—Bouillabaisse—Tournedos—Bisque—Vol-au-vent—Prè salé—Chinese banquets—A fixed bayonet—Bernardin salmi—The duck-squeezer—American cookery—“Borston” beans—He couldn’t eat beef. </blockquote> A Christmas dinner in the early Victorian era! Quelle fête magnifique! The man who did not keep Christmas in a fitting manner in those days was not thought much of. “Dines by himself at the club on Christmas day!” was the way the late Mr. George Payne of sporting memory, summed up a certain middle-aged recluse, with heaps of money, who, although he had two estates in the country, preferred to live in two small rooms in St. James’s Place, S.W., and to take his meals at “Arthur’s.” And how we boys (not to mention the little lasses in white frocks and black mittens) used to overeat ourselves, on such occasions, with no fear[Pg 83] of pill, draught, or “staying in,” before our eyes! The writer has in his mind’s eye a good specimen of such an old-fashioned dinner, as served in the fifties. It was pretty much the same feast every Christmas. We commenced with some sort of clear soup, with meat in it. Then came a codfish, crimped—the head of that household would have as soon thought of eating a sôle au vin blanc as of putting before his family an uncrimped cod—with plenty of liver, oyster sauce, and pickled walnuts; and at the other end of the table was a dish of fried smelts. Entrées? Had any of the diners asked for an entrée, his or her exit from the room would have been a somewhat rapid one. A noble sirloin of Scotch beef faced a boiled turkey anointed with celery sauce; and then appeared the blazing pudding, and the mince-pies. For the next course, a dish of toasted (or rather stewed) cheese, home-made and full of richness, was handed round, with dry toast, the bearer of which was closely pursued by a varlet carrying a huge double-handed vessel of hot spiced-ale, bobbing or floating about in the which were roasted crab-apples and sippets of toast; and it was de rigueur for each of those who sat at meat to extract a sippet, to eat with the cheese. How the old retainer, grey and plethoric with service, loved us boys, and how he would manœuvre to obtain for us the tit-bits! A favoured servitor was “Joseph”; and though my revered progenitor was ostensibly the head of the house, he would, on occasion, “run a bad second” to[Pg 84] “Joseph.” Memory is still keen of a certain chilly evening in September, when the ladies had retired to the drawing-room, and the male guests were invited to be seated at the small table which had been wheeled close to the replenished fire. “Joseph,” said the dear old man, “bring us a bottle or two of the yellow seal—you know—Bin F.” The servitor drew near to his master, and in a stage whisper exclaimed: “You can’t afford it, sir!” “What’s that?” roared the indignant old man. “You can’t afford it, sir—Hawthornden’s won th’ Leger!” “Good Gad!” A pause—and then, “Well, never mind, Joseph, we’ll have up the yellow seal, all the same.” One of the writer’s last Christmas dinners was partaken of in a sweet little house in Mayfair; and affords somewhat of a contrast with the meal quoted above. We took our appetites away with a salad composed of anchovies, capers, truffles, and other things, a Russian sardine or two, and rolls and butter. Thence, we drifted into Bouillabaisse (a tasty but bile-provoking broth), toyed with some filets de sôle à la Parisienne (good but greasy), and disposed of a tournedos, with a nice fat oyster atop, apiece (et parlez-moi d’ça!). Then came some dickey-birds sur canapé—alleged to be snipe, but destitute of flavour, save that of the tin they had been spoiled in, and of the “canopy.” An alien cook[Pg 85] can not cook game, whatever choice confections he may turn out—at least that is the experience of the writer. We had cressons, of course, with the birds; though how water-cress can possibly assimilate with the flesh of a snipe is questionable. “Water-creases” are all very well at tea in the arbour, but don’t go smoothly with any sort of fowl; and to put such rank stuff into a salad—as my hostess’s cook did—is absolutely criminal. To continue the Mayfair banquet, the salad was followed by a soufflée à la Noel (which reminded some of the more imaginative of our party of the festive season), some cheese straws, and the customary ices, coffee, and liqueurs. On the whole, not a bad meal; but what would old Father Christmas have said thereto? What would my revered progenitor have remarked, had he been allowed to revisit the glimpses of the moon? He did not love our lively neighbours; and, upon the only occasion on which he was inveigled across the Channel, took especial care to recross it the very next day, lest, through circumstances not under his own control, he might come to be “buried amongst these d——d French!” The following menu may give some idea as to how <h4>Royalty</h4> entertains its guests. Said menu, as will be seen, is comparatively simple, and many of the dishes are French only in name:— [Pg 86] Huîtres —— Consommé aux œufs pochés Bisque d’écrevisses —— Turbot, sauce d’homard Fillets de saumon à l’Indienne —— Vol-au-vent Financière Mauviettes sur le Nid —— Selle de mouton de Galles rotie Poulardes à l’Estragon —— Faisans Bécassines sur croûte —— Chouxfleur au gratin —— Plum Pudding Bavarois aux abricots —— Glace à la Mocha Truly a pattern dinner, this; and ’twould be sheer impertinence to comment thereon, beyond remarking that English dishes should, in common fairness, be called by English names. Her Imperial Majesty the Tsaritza, on the night of her arrival at Darmstadt, in October 1896, sat down, together with her august husband, to the following simple meal:— [Pg 87] Consommé de Volaille Cronstades d’écrevisses —— Filet de Turbot à la Joinville —— Cimier de Chevreuil [A haunch of Roebuck is far to be desired above the same quarter of the red deer]. —— Terrine de Perdreaux —— Ponche Royale —— Poularde de Metz —— Choux de Bruxelles —— Bavarois aux Abricots —— Glaces Panachées The partiality of crowned heads towards “Bavarois aux Abricots”—“Bavarois” is simply Bavarian cheese, a superior sort of blanc mange—is proverbial. And the above repast was served on priceless Meissen china and silver. The only remarks I will make upon the above menu are that it is quite possible that the capon may have come from Metz, though not very probable. French cooks name their meat and poultry in the most reckless fashion. For instance, owing to this reckless nomenclature the belief has grown that the best ducks come from Rouen. Nothing of the sort. There are just as good ducks raised at West Hartlepool as at Rouen. “Rouen” in the bill-of-fare is simply a corruption[Pg 88] of “roan”; and a “roan duck” is a quacker who has assumed (through crossing) the reddish plumage of the wild bird. As for (alleged) Surrey fowls, most of them come from Heathfield in Sussex, whence £142,000 worth were sent in 1896. Let us enquire into the composition of some of the high-sounding plats, served up by the average chef. Bouillabaisse.—Of it Thackeray sang— <div style="margin-left:20%"> <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> “This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is— A sort of soup, or broth, or brew, Or hotch-potch of all sorts of fishes That Greenwich never could outdo: Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace; All these you eat at Terré’s tavern, In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.” </div> </div></div> Avoid eels and herrings in this concoction as too oily. Soles, mullet, John Dory, whiting, flounders, perch, roach, and mussels will blend well, and allow half a pound of fish for each person. For every pound of fish put in the stewpan a pint of water, a quarter of a pint of white wine, and a tablespoonful of salad oil. If there be four partakers, add two sliced onions, two cloves, two bay-leaves, two leeks (the white part only, chopped), four cloves of garlic, a tablespoonful chopped parsley, a good squeeze of lemon juice, half an ounce of chopped capsicums, a teaspoonful (or more ad lib.) of saffron, with pepper and salt. Mix the chopped fish in all this, and boil for half an hour. Let the[Pg 89] mixture “gallop” and strain into a tureen with sippets, and the fish served separately. Tournedos.—No relation to tornado, and you won’t find the word in any Gallic dictionary. A tournedos is a thin collop of beef, steeped in a marinade for twenty-four hours (personally I prefer it without the aid of the marine) and fried lightly. Turn it but once. The oyster atop is simply scalded. Try this dish. Bisque.—In the seventeenth century this was made from pigeons by the poor barbarians who knew not the gentle lobster, nor the confiding crayfish. Heat up to boiling-point a Mirepoix of white wine. You don’t know what a <h4>Mirepoix</h4> is? Simply a faggot of vegetables, named after a notorious cuckold of noble birth in the time of Louis XV. Two carrots, two onions, two shalots, two bay-leaves, a sprig of thyme and a clove of garlic. Mince very small, with half a pound of fat bacon, half a pound of raw ham, pepper and salt, and a little butter. Add a sufficiency of white wine. In this mixture cook two dozen crayfish for twenty minutes, continually tossing them about till red, when take them out to cool. Shell them, all but the claws, which should be pounded in a mortar and mixed with butter. The flesh of the tails is reserved to be put in the soup at the last minute; the body-flesh goes back into the mirepoix, to which two quarts of broth are now added. Add the pounded shells to the soup, simmer for an hour and a half, strain, heat up, add a piece of[Pg 90] butter, the tails, a seasoning of cayenne, and a few quenelles of whiting. Vol-au-vent Financière.—This always reminds me of the fearful threat hurled by the waiter in the “Bab Ballads” at his flighty sweetheart: <div style="margin-left:20%"> <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> “Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu oses, Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère: Je lui dirai d’quoi on compose Vol-au-vent à la Financière!” </div> </div></div> <blockquote> Make your crust—light as air, and flaky as snow, an you value your situation—and fill with button mushrooms, truffles, cock’s-combs, quenelles of chicken, and sweetbread, all chopped, seasoned, and moistened with a butter sauce. Brown gravy is objectionable. Garnish the Vol with fried parsley, which goes well with most luxuries of this sort. </blockquote> There are some words which occur frequently in French cookery which, to the ordinary perfidious Briton, are cruelly misleading. For years I was under the impression that Brillat Savarin was a species of filleted fish (brill) in a rich gravy, instead of a French magistrate, who treated gastronomy poetically, and always ate his food too fast. And only within the last decade have I discovered what a <h4>Pré Salé</h4> really means. Literally, it is “salt meadow, or marsh.” It is said that sheep fed on a salt marsh make excellent mutton; but is it not about time for Britannia, the alleged pride of the ocean, and ruler of its billows, to put her foot down and protest against a leg of “prime Down”—but[Pg 91] recently landed from the Antipodes—being described on the card as a Gigot de pré salé? The meals, like the ways, of the “Heathen Chinee” are peculiar. Some of his food, to quote poor Corney Grain, is “absolutely beastly.” <h4>Li Hung Chang</h4> was welcomed to Carlton House Terrace, London, with a dinner, in twelve courses, the following being the principal items:—Roast duck, roast pork and raspberry jam, followed by dressed cucumber. Shrimps were devoured, armour and all, with leeks, gherkins, and mushrooms. A couple of young chickens preserved in wine and vinegar, with green peas, a purée of pigeon’s legs followed by an assortment of sour jellies. The banquet concluded with sponge cakes and tea. In his own land the <h4>Chinaman’s Evening Repast</h4> is much more variegated than the above. It is almost as long as a Chinese drama, and includes melon seeds, bitter almonds, bamboo sprouts, jelly-fish, cucumber, roast duck, chicken stewed in spirit dregs,[4] peas, prawns, sausages, scallions, fish-brawn, pork chops, plum blossoms, oranges, bird’s-nest soup, pigeons’ eggs in bean curd—the eggs being “postponed” ones—fungus, shrimps, macerated fish-fins, ham in flour, ham in honey, turnip cakes, roast sucking-pig, fish maws, roast[Pg 92] mutton, wild ducks’ feet, water chestnuts, egg rolls, lily seeds, stewed mushrooms, dressed crab with jam, chrysanthemum pasties, bêche-de-mer, and pigs’ feet in honey. Can it be wondered at that this nation should have been brought to its knees by gallant little Japan? <h4>The Englishman in China</h4> has not a particularly good time of it, in the gastronomic way, and H.M. forces in Hong Kong are largely dependent on Shanghai for supplies. There is “plenty pig” all over the land; but the dairy-fed pork of old England is preferable. And the way “this little pig goes to market” savours so strongly of the most refined cruelty that a branch of the R.S.P.C.A. would have the busiest of times of it over yonder. Reverting to French cookery, here is an appetising dish, called a <h4>Bernardin Salmi.</h4> It should be prepared in the dining-room, before the eyes of the guests; and Grimod de la Reyniere (to whom the recipe was given by the prior of an abbey of Bernardin monks) recommends that the salmi should be conveyed to the mouth with a fork, for fear of devouring one’s fingers, should they touch the sauce. <blockquote> Take three woodcocks, underdone, and cut them into neat portions. On a silver dish bruise the livers and trails, squeeze over them the juice of four (?) lemons, and grate over them a little of the thin rind. Add the portions of woodcock, seasoned with salt, and—according to the prior—mixed spices[Pg 93] and two teaspoonfuls of French mustard; but the writer would substitute cayenne seul; over all half a wine-glass of sherry; and then put the dish over a spirit lamp. When the mixture is nearly boiling, add a tablespoonful of salad oil, blow out the light, and stir well. Four lemons are mentioned in this recipe, as at the time it was written lemons were very small when “cocks” were “in.” Two imported lemons (or limes) will amply suffice nowadays. </blockquote> <h4>A Salmi of Wild Duck</h4> can be made almost in the same way, but here the aid of that modern instrument the Duck-Squeezer is necessary. <blockquote> Cut the best of the meat in slices, off a lightly-roasted wild-duck, after brought to table; break up the carcase and place in a species of mill (silver) called a “duck-squeezer,” which possesses a spout through which the richness of the animal escapes, after being squeezed. Make a gravy of this liquor, in a silver dish (with a spirit lamp beneath), added to a small pat of butter, the juice of a lemon, a tablespoonful of Worcester sauce, with cayenne and salt to taste, and half a wine-glassful of port wine. Warm the meat through in this gravy, which must not boil. </blockquote> Of course these two last-named dishes are only intended for bachelor-parties. Lovely woman must not be kept waiting for “duck-squeezers” or anything else. <h4>The Jesuits</h4> introduced the turkey into Europe, of which feat the Jesuits need not boast too much; for to[Pg 94] some minds there be many better edible birds; and the “gobbler” requires, when roasted or boiled, plenty of seasoning to make him palatable. The French stuff him in his roasted state, with truffles, fat force-meat, or chestnuts, and invariably “bard” the bird—“bard” is old English as well as old French—with fat bacon. The French turkey is also frequently brazed, with an abundant mirepoix made with what their cooks call “Madére,” but which is really Marsala. It is only we English who boil the “gobbler,” and stuff him (or her, for it is the hen who usually goes into the pot) with oysters, or force-meat, with celery sauce. Probably the best parts of the turkey are his legs, when grilled for breakfast, and smothered with the sauce mentioned in one of the chapters on “Breakfast”; and <h4>Pulled Turkey</h4> makes an agreeable luncheon-dish, or entrée at dinner, the breast-meat being pulled off the bone with a fork, and fricasseed, surrounded in the dish by the grilled thighs and pinions. Who introduced the turkey into America deponent sayeth not. Probably, like Topsy, it “growed” there. Anyhow the bird is so familiar a table-companion in the States, that Americans, when on tour in Europe, fight very shy of him. “Tukkey, sah, cranberry sarce,” used to be the stereotyped reply of the black waiter when interrogated on the subject of the bill of fare. <h4>Coloured Help</h4> is, however, gradually being ousted (together[Pg 95] with sulphur matches) from the big hotels in New York, where white waiting and white food are coming into, or have come into, regular use. In fact, with the occasional addition of one or other of such special dishes as terrapin, soft-shell crab, clam chowder, and the everlasting pork and beans, a dinner in New York differs very little at the time of writing (1897) from one in London. The taste for <h4>Clam Chowder</h4> is an acquired one, nor will stewed tortoise ever rank with thick turtle in British estimation, although ’tis not the same tortoise which is used in London households to break the coals with. A <h4>Canvass-back Duck,</h4> if eaten in the land of his birth, is decidedly the most delicately-flavoured of all the “Quack” family. His favourite food is said to be wild celery, and his favoured haunts the neighbourhood of Chesapeake Bay, from whose waters comes the much prized “diamond-back” terrapin, which is sold at the rate of 50$ or 60$ the dozen. The canvass-back duck, however, suffers in transportation; in fact, the tendency of the ice-house aboard ship is to rob all food of its flavour. But however good be the living in <h4>New York City</h4> —where the hotels are the best in the world, and whose Mr. Delmonico can give points to all sorts and conditions of food caterers—it is “a bit rough” in the provinces. There is a story[Pg 96] told of a young actor, on tour, who “struck” a small town out West, and put up at a small inn. In the course of time dinner was served, and the landlord waited at table. The principal cover was removed, disclosing a fine joint of coarsish, indifferently-cooked beef. Our young actor was strangely moved at the sight. “What?” he cried. “Beef again? This is horrible! I’ve seen no other food for months, and I’m sick and tired of it. I can’t eat beef.” Whereupon his host whipped out a huge “six-shooter” revolver, and covering the recalcitrant beef-eater, coolly remarked: “Guess you kin!” But I don’t believe that story, any more than I believe the anecdote of the cowboys and the daylight let through the visitor who couldn’t eat beans. <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 97] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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