A STUDY IN GREEN AND RED
You may search from end to end of the vast Louvre; you may wander from room to room in England's National Gallery; you may travel to the Pitti, to the Ryks Museum, to the Prado; and no richer, more stirring arrangement of colour will you find than in that corner of your kitchen garden where June's strawberries grow ripe. From under the green of broad leaves the red fruit looks out and up to the sun in splendour unsurpassed by paint upon canvas. And the country, with lavish prodigality born of great plenty, takes pity upon the drear, drab town, and, packing this glory of colour in baskets and crates, despatches it to adorn greengrocer's window and costermonger's cart. "Strawberries all ripe, sixpence a pound," is the itinerant sign which now sends a thrill through Fleet Street and brings joy to the Strand.
To modern weakling the strawberry is strong with the strength of classical approval. The Greek loved it; the Latin vied with him in the ardour of his affection. Poets sang its wonders and immortalised its charms. Its perfume was sweet in the nostrils of Virgil; its flavour enraptured the palate of Ovid; and at banquets under the shadow of the Acropolis and on sunny Pincian Hill, the strawberry, cultivated and wild, held place of honour among the dear fruits of the earth.
Nor did it disappear before the barbarian's inroads. Europe might be laid waste; beauty and learning and art might be aliens in the land that was once their home; human enjoyment might centre upon a millennium to come rather than upon delights already warm within men's grasp. But still the strawberry survived. Life grew ugly and rue and barren. But from under broad leaves the little red fruit still looked out and up to the sun; and, by loveliness of colour and form, of flavour and scent, proved one of the chief factors in reclaiming man from barbarism, in leading him gently along the high road to civilisation and the joy of life.
Respect for its exquisite perfection was ever deep and heartfelt. Gooseberries might be turned to wine and figure as fools; raspberries and currants might be imprisoned within stodgy puddings. But the strawberry, giver of health, creator of pleasure, seldom was submitted to desecration by fire. As it ripened, thus was it eaten: cool, scarlet, and adorable. At times when, according to the shifting of the seasons, its presence no longer made glad the hearts of its lovers, desire invented a substitute. As the deserted swain takes what cold comfort he can from the portrait of his mistress, so the faithful stayed themselves with the strawberry's counterfeit. And thus was it made: "Take the paste of Massepain, and roul it in your hands in form of a Strawberry, then wet it in the juice of Barberries or red Gooseberries, turn them about in this juice pretty hard, then take them out and put them into a dish and dry them before a fire, then wet them again for three or four times together in the same juice, and they will seem like perfect Strawberries." Master Cook Giles Rose is the authority, and none knew better.
If, in moment of folly, in an effort to escape monotony, however sweet, the strawberry was robbed of its freshness, it was that it might be enclosed in a tart. Then—how account for man's inconsistency?—it was so disguised, so modified by this, that, or the other companion in misery, that it seemed less a strawberry than ever Master Rose's ingenious counterfeit. And, in witness thereof, read Robert May, the Accomplished Cook, his recipe: "Wash the strawberries and put them into the tart; season them with cinnamon, ginger, and a little red wine, then put on the sugar, bake it half an hour, ice it, scrape on sugar, and serve it." A pretty mess, in truth, and yet, for sentiment's sake, worth repetition in this degenerate latter day. Queen Anne preserved the tradition of her Stuart forefathers, and in "The Queen's Royal Cooker," a little book graced by the Royal portrait, Robert May's tart reappears, cinnamon, ginger, and all. So it was handed down from generation to generation, cropping up here and there with mild persistency, and now at last, after long career of unpopularity, receiving distinction anew.
One tart in a season, as tribute to the past, will suffice. It were a shame to defile the delicate fruit in more unstinted quantities. Reserve it rather for dessert, that in fragile porcelain dish or frail glass bowl it may lose nothing of the fragrance and crispness and glow of colour that distinguished it as it lay upon the brown earth under cool green shelter. To let it retain unto the very last its little green stem is to lend to dinner or breakfast table the same stirring, splendid harmony that lit up, as with a flame, the kitchen garden's memorable corner. But if with cream the fruit is to be eaten, then comfort and elegance insist upon green stem's removal before ever the bowl be filled or the dish receive its dainty burden.
At early "little breakfast" of coffee and rolls, or tea and toast, as you will, what more delicious, what fresher beginning to the day's heat and struggles, then the plate of strawberries newly picked from their bed? Banish cream and sugar from this initiative meal. At the dawn of daily duty and pleasure, food should be light and airy and unsubstantial. Then the stem, clinging fast to the fruit's luscious flesh, is surely in place. Half the delight is in plucking the berry from the plate as if from the bush.
After midday breakfast, after evening dinner, however, it is another matter. Cream now is in order; cream, thick and sweet and pure, covering the departing strawberry with a white pall, as loving and tender as the snow that protects desolate pastures and defenceless slopes from winter's icy, inexorable fingers. Sprinkle sugar with the cream, as flowers might be strewn before the altars of Dionysius and Demeter.
Cream may, for time being, seem wholly without rivals as the strawberry's mate, the two joined together by a bond that no man would dare put asunder. But the strawberry has been proven fickle in its loves—a very Cressida among fruits. For to Kirsch it offers ecstatic welcome, while Champagne meets with no less riotous greeting. To Cognac it will dispense its favours with easy graciousness, and from the hot embrace of Maraschino it makes no endeavour to escape. Now, it may seem as simple and guileless as Chloe, and again as wily and well-versed as Egypt's far-famed Queen. But with the results of its several unions who will dare find fault? In each it reveals new, unsuspecting qualities, subtle and ravishing. On pretty, white-draped tea-table, rose-embowered, carnation-scented, the strawberry figures to fairest advantage when Champagne holds it in thrall; in this hour and bower cream would savour of undue heaviness, would reveal itself all too substantial and palpable a lover. Again, when elaborate dinner draws to an end, and dessert follows upon long procession of soup and fish and entrées and roasts and vegetables and salads and poultry and sweets and savouries, and who knows what—then the strawberry becomes most irresistible upon yielding itself, a willing victim, to the bold demands of Kirsch. A macédoine of Kirsch-drowned strawberries, iced to a point, is a dish for which gods might languish without shame.
She who loves justice never fears to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To cook the strawberry is to rob it of its sweetest bloom and freshness. But there have been others to think otherwise, as it must in fairness be added. To the American, strawberry short-cake represents one of the summits of earthly bliss. In ices, many will see the little fruit buried without a pang of regret; and the device has its merits. As syrup, distended with soda-water and ice-cream, the conservative Londoner may now drink it at Fuller's. In the flat, open, national tart, the Frenchman places it, and congratulates himself upon the work of art which is the outcome. Or, accepting Gouffé as master, he will soar, one day, to the extraordinary heights of coupe en nougat garnie de fraises, and find a flamboyant colour-print to serve as guide; the next he will descend to the mere homeliness of beignets de fraises; and, as he waxes more adventurous, he will produce bouchées de dame, or pain à la duchesse, madeleines en surprise or profiteroles, each and all with the strawberry for motive. The spirit of enterprise is to be commended, and not one of Gouffé's list but will repay the student in wealth of experience gained. The lover, however, finds it not always easy to remember the student within him, and if joy in the eating be his chief ambition, he will be constant to the fresh fruit ever.
A MESSAGE FROM THE
SOUTH
What know we of the orange in our barbarous North? To us it is an alien, a makeshift, that answers well when, our own harvests over, winter, sterile and gloomy, settles upon the land. But in the joyous South all the year round it ripens, its golden liquid a solace when heat and dust parch the throat, as when winds from the frozen North blow with unwonted cold. The tree that bears it is as eager to produce as the mothers of Israel, and, in its haste and impatience, often it whitens its branches with blossoms while still they glow with fruit, even as Beckford long since saw them in the groves of Naples.
Bright, rich colour the costermonger's barrow, piled high with oranges from distant Southern shores, gives to London's dingy streets; and not a greengrocer's window but takes on new beauty and resplendence when decorated by the brilliant heaps. But meretricious seems the loveliness of the orange here, when once it has been seen hanging from heavy-laden boughs, gleaming between cool dark leaves in its own home, whether on Guadalquivir's banks or Naples' bay, whether in western Florida or eastern Jaffa. What has a fruit that languishes in the garden of Lindajara and basks in Amalfi's sunshine, to do with London costermongers and fog-drenched shops?
Wearied and jaded by the long journey, disheartened by the injustice done to it when plucked in its young, green immaturity, it grows sour and bitter by the way, until, when it comes to the country of its exile, but a faint, feeble suggestion of its original flavour remains. With us, for instance, does not the orange of Valencia mean a little, thin-skinned, acid, miserable fruit, only endurable when smothered in sugar or drowned in Cognac? But eaten in Valencia, what is it then and there? Large and ample are its seductive proportions; its skin, deeply, gloriously golden, forswears all meagreness, though never too thick to shut out the mellowing sunshine; its juice flows in splendid streams as if to vie with the Sierra's quenchless springs; and the fruit is soft and sweet as the sweet, soft Southern maidens whose white teeth meet and gleam in its pulp of pure, uncontaminated gold. A fruit this for romance—a fruit for the Houris of Paradise; not to be peddled about in brutal barrows among feather-bearing 'Arriets.
In the South, it were a crime not to eat this fruit, created for the immortals, just as God made it. Sugar could be added but to its dishonour; the pots and pans of the sacrilegious cook would be desecration unspeakable. Feast then, upon its natural charms, and as the hot Southern breeze brings to you the scent of strange Southern blossoms, and the sky stretches blindingly blue above, and One sits at your side feasting in silent sympathy, fancy yourself, if you will, the new Adam—or Eve—for whom the flaming swords have been lowered, and the long-closed gates of the Garden of Eden thrown wide open.
But in the North, banish romance, banish imagination; bring to the study of the orange the prose of necessity, and realism of the earnest student. And sometimes, from prose—who knows?—poetry may spring; from realism will be evolved wild dreaming.
If the orange be from Jaffa, or "hail" from Florida, and care bestowed upon it during its long voyaging, then will it need no Northern artifice to enhance the pleasure in its power to give. True that something—much, indeed—it will have lost; but something of its Southern, spicy, subtle sweetness still survives—of the Orient's glamour, of the mystery of the Western wilderness of flower and fruit. Eat it, therefore, as it is, unadorned, unspoiled. Tear away tenderly the covering that cleaves to it so closely; tear the fruit apart with intelligent fingers; to cut it is to sacrifice its cooling juice to inanimate china, and to deprive yourself of the first freshness of its charms.
When, however, as generally—to our sorrow, be it said—the orange arrives a parody of itself, it were better to join it to one of its several dearest affinities. In well-selected company, it may recover the shadow, and more, of the splendour it elsewhere enjoys in solitary state. Thus disguised, it may wander from dessert to the course of sweets, and by so wandering save the resourceless from the monotony of rice and rizine, batter and bread-and-butter puddings, whose fitting realm is the nursery, and from an eternity of tarts which do not, like a good design, gain by repetition. In cocoanut, the orange recognises a fellow exile, and the two, coming together, yield a new flavour, a new delight. For this purpose, the orange must be cut that the juice may flow, and if in symmetrical rounds, the effect will be more satisfying to the critical. Let the slices be laid at once in the bowl destined to hold them at the moment of serving, that not a drop of juice may escape, and arrange them so that over every layer of orange reposes a layer of sugar. Then taking the cocoanut that has been well drained, grate it as fine as patience will allow; under it bury the orange until the gold is all concealed, and the dish looks white and light and soft as the driven snow. No harm will be done, but, on the contrary, much good, by preparing some hours before dinner. It is a pretty conceit; half unwillingly the spoon disturbs this summery snow-field. But well that it does, for the combination pleases the palate no less than the eye. The orange summons forth the most excellent qualities of the cocoanut; the cocoanut suppresses the acidity and crudeness of the expatriated orange.
With sugar alone, the orange—of this secondary order be it remembered—comes not amiss, when the soul yearns for placidness and peace. If more stirring sensations be craved, baste the cut-up oranges and sugar with Cognac, and eat to your own edification. Again prepare some hours before serving, and be not stingy with the Cognac: keep basting constantly; and be certain that if the result please you not, the fault lies not with the fruit and spirits, both exultant in the unexpected union.
The conservative, unused to such devices, envelop oranges in soulless fritters and imprison them in stodgy puddings. Beware their example! One followed, there is no telling the depths of plodding imbecility to which you may be plunged. Not for the frying-pan or the pudding-bowl was the golden fruit predestined. Better eat no sweets whatever than thus degrade the orange and reveal our own shortcomings.
Who will deny that in the world's great drinks the orange has played its part with much distinction? In bitters it is supreme, if gin in due proportions be added. And where would mankind be by now, had the orange-evolved liqueurs remained undiscovered? How many happy after-dinner hours would never have been! How insipid the flavour of Claret and Champagne-cup! Even temperance drinks may be endured when orange is their basis. Go to Madrid or Granada, drink bebida helada de naranja, and confess that in Spain the teetotallers, if any such exist, have their compensation. A purée neigeuse, une espèce de glace liquide, Gautier described it in a moment of expansion; and, when art is in question, what Gautier has praised who would revile? With the Spanish bebida de naranja, the American orange water ice may dispute the palm.
In humbler incarnation it appears as marmalade, without which the well-regulated household can do as little as without sapolio or Reckitt's blue. Who throughout the British Isles does not know the name of Keiller? Bread and butter might better go than this most British of British institutions, the country's stay and support in time of peace, its bulwark when war drives Tommy Atkins into action. Thus has the North turned the South to its own everyday uses, and the fruit of poets passes into the food of millions.
In fruit salad, orange should be given a leading and conspicuous rôle, the aromatic little Tangerine competing gaily and guilelessly with the ordinary orange of commerce. There is scarce another fruit that grows with which it does not assimilate, with which it does not mingle, to the infinite advantage of the ardent gourmet. This, none knows better than the Spaniard, slandered sorely when reported a barbarian at table. If some of his refinements we could but imitate, artists truly we might be considered. He it is who first thought to pour upon his strawberries, not thick cream, but the delicate juice of the orange freshly cut. Here is a combination beyond compare; and is there not many another that might be tested as profitably? Orange and apricot, orange and plum, orange and peach. Experiment; for even where failure follows, will not a new sensation have been secured? The failure need never be repeated. But to each new success will be awarded life eternal.