VEGETABLES AS A SEPARATE COURSE.
The mess just referred to, which would make a Parisian gourmet shudder, is only one illustration of the Anglo-American mistaken policy of serving together foods that are preferable separately. On this point, too, France has an important lesson to teach us, particularly in the serving of vegetables.
The making of a menu requires as much taste and judgment as the arranging of a concert program. Next to variety, contrast is the most important thing to be considered. A vegetable served separately provides some of this needful contrast.
An English epicure declares that the secret of the excellence in French cookery lies in the lavish use of vegetables. "Where we use one kind, French cooks use twenty."
This point was sufficiently dwelt on in the paragraphs relating to the making of savory soups and stews. It illustrates Gallic skill in culinary orchestration. But the French know that at a dinner, as at a concert, a solo piece is desirable, and therefore they always serve one choice vegetable as a separate course.
As a matter of course the vegetable selected for this distinction—be it peas, beans, spinach, cauliflower, asparagus, artichoke, carrots, or whatnot—must be particularly fresh and succulent. It must also, like the singer's solo number, have an accompaniment, that is to say an appropriate sauce.
No French cook would spoil the delicate natural flavor of green peas with mint, as the English do. I once asked a waiter in a London restaurant why mint was put with the peas. He promptly replied: "Peas 'ave no flavor, sir!"
In France, butter (French butter) is used as the best accompaniment to a solo vegetable. It makes the string beans and whatever else it goes with more savory, without obliterating their individual flavor, as the mint does in the case of peas.