RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN INFLUENCES.
In Paris as in New York one can make a gastronomic tour of the world. While the French, in return for all the culinary terms they have lent their neighbors seem to have adopted only one Teutonic word ("Bock," for beer), they amiably tolerate the presence within their walls of German and Austrian restaurants, some of which are excellent, though thoroughly exotic from the French point of view. In one of them the host is so much of an epicure himself that in his delight with the Viennese menu he sketches for you, he will blow a kiss at the enjoyments it calls up in his imagination.
Most Germans and Austrians, however, are glad to frequent the French restaurants while in Paris, and the same, as Col. Newnham-Davis informs us, is true of the English visitor, though if he desires a chop or a steak, he can have one made to order in one of the many grill rooms in foreign style that have come into existence, and in one of which the joints of beef and mutton are wheeled to the tables and carved there to order, as in some London eating houses. The Italians are more apt to cling to their own style of cookery, and they have plenty of places adorned with Chianti bottles where they can have their spaghetti, their risotto, their fritto misto, and their other excellent fries. The Spanish also have places where they can indulge their appetite for home dishes; and so have many other nations, including Greeks, as well as the Turks and other Orientals.
Of all the foreigners only two, the Russians and the Americans, have had a definite influence on the French cuisine and menu—and not to their advantage, it must be confessed.
From the Russians the Paris restaurateurs borrowed the custom of beginning a meal with hors d'œuvres, or appetizers. I remember the time when the hors d'œuvres in France simply meant radishes, butter, and a few thin slices of sausage which were placed on the table at once and against indulging in which the guide books warned tourists unless they were prepared to face a substantial addition to their bill. To-day, the price of the appetizers is usually noted on the bill of fare, and it is not at all high, even at the aristocratic restaurants. Cold smoked salmon, tunny fish, sardines, baby artichokes in oil, various vegetable, fish, and lobster salads, cold eggs, sliced sausages, and sundry other delicacies are offered, with bread and butter.
These things undoubtedly are good, and they are appetizers; but they are also appetite destroyers—quite too substantial to preface an elaborate dinner. In Russia and Scandinavia, where the extreme cold creates a ravenous appetite and a great capacity for stowing away things, they may be all right; but in temperate climes, and for dwellers in cities who get little exercise, they are too heavy. When I see one of these displays of cold dishes I always think what a tempting lunch they would make all by themselves; but if I eat them before dinner I certainly cannot enjoy what follows as much as I would without them; and that, I believe, is the experience of most diners who are not neighbors of the Eskimos.
It is different with caviare and oysters. These are merely appetizers, containing little nourishment; but caviare is not for everybody, and as for oysters, since they must be served ice-cold, it is unwise to chill the stomach by beginning with them. Let them follow the soup, which is, because of its warmth and its stimulating effect on the digestive glands, the best thing to begin a meal with. Muskmelons and grapefruit may be allowed to precede it if served without ice, which certainly impairs their flavor.
While adopting the Russian hors d'œuvre habit, the Parisians have had too much taste and moderation to indulge in its Gargantuan extremes. The performances of Russians and Swedes border on the miraculous.
If Russians in Paris cannot everywhere indulge in the riotous profusion of hors d'œuvre they have at home, they can do so at La Rue's, which has a full line of them and also of diverse other "mets Russes nationaux."
Americans who wish to eat ham and eggs, or hash, or corn muffins, griddle cakes, breakfast cereals and that sort of thing, may find them in hotels and in not a few of the restaurants. American lobsters, at Eiffel Tower prices, are on every menu, and there are places where oysters from across the Atlantic, as well as native, can be ordered raw, scalloped, fried, broiled, or in diverse stews, tout comme chez nous. The numerous grill rooms are also accommodating, though they do not open early enough to offer an American breakfast, while the hotels seldom venture on anything beyond bacon and eggs before lunch time.
It would be well if the Parisians ate an American breakfast and followed it up with a lighter lunch; but it would require another revolution to bring about such a reform.
Paris has become considerably Americanized. One can hardly wonder at having our cotton seed oil served instead of the noble juice of the olive at the cheap restaurants; but when I found that it was used unblushingly at some of the more expensive places I was shocked at this sign of decadence—or effrontery—and visions of cold storage poultry, salted butter, and doughy bread with inedible crust—but no! such things no one would ever dare to place before Parisians!
The fact that their own olive oil is not as a rule equal to the best Italian may have made them for the moment tolerant of the American invader. The health authorities speak of diverse other substitutions and adulterants as being in use; but these are not necessarily American, though we lead the world in our tolerance of them.
What the Parisians chiefly complain about in reference to American influence is that it has introduced our national vice of hurry into the kitchen and the dining-room. When so many of the wealthiest patrons of the restaurants expect to get dishes served at a moment's notice, to be gulped down and hastily followed by others, the very strongholds of gastronomic France—slow cooking and leisurely eating—are assailed.
The chief danger to the French cuisine lies in the fact that, as Mr. Paderewski put it in a talk I had with him on this subject, "it is so much easier to prepare a meal the American way."
South Americans, though they have little to boast of at home in the way of pleasures of the table, adapt themselves more easily to French ways, and as they are rapidly increasing in numbers in Paris and spend even more money than the North Americans, their influence will perhaps counteract that of the impatient visitors from the United States, who usually know so much more about making dollars than about spending them rationally.
Every American has attended banquets at which there was more to feast the eyes than the palate. In the Figaro Marcel Prévost complained (1910) that this sort of thing was gaining in Paris. "Mangeront-ils?" he asked—will Parisians of the future eat? Judging by the present tendency, they will not, he answers—they will feed. They will take nourishment, but gastronomy, the art of dining with intelligence and pleasure, will have ceased to exist. In the house the cause of this change is what Prévost calls the "progrès de la coquetterie féminine." Women, to be sure, were never the greatest of the culinary artists, but they used to pay some attention to food and its preparation, whereas at present their chief thought is of the appearance of the dining-room and the table. The linen, the porcelain, the glassware, must be of the finest, the flowers of the costliest, but the food and wine are provided by a paid caterer, who seldom knows his business. As for eating in restaurants or hotels, that is no better. The famous "maisons" have disappeared, to be replaced by huge palaces, in which everything is showy and sumptuous but the food everywhere the same, without distinction or individuality. What is worse, the younger generation does not seem to regret this. French youth even drink American cocktails and are not ashamed!
While there is no doubt some truth in these allegations they are absurdly exaggerated. Complaints as to the decadence of French cookery have been made at regular intervals—like the complaints about the disappearance of great singers. I once amused myself by writing an article covering three centuries, in which I quoted the laments of each generation over the decline of the art of song as compared with the brilliant achievements of the preceding generation of singers. Were it worth while I might compile equally amusing evidence on the subject of the French cuisine. Thackeray complained of a similarity of dinners. Charles Monselet in 1879, looked "in vain for the tables that are praised or the hosts that are renowned." In 1866 Nestor Roqueplan complained that the French "no longer find places devoted to the Flemish kitchen, others to the Normandy, Lyonnaise, Toulousian, Bordelaise, or Provençal kitchens." But he had the good sense to add that "France nevertheless is still the country where eating is found at its best."
So it is at the present day, and is likely to be for years to come. No matter how many of the best chefs are taken away by American millionaires or Russian Grand Dukes, Paris remains the world's high school of culinary art.