The “Dons de Comus” was followed by a spruce little satire, intituled “Lettre d’un Patissier Anglais au nouveau cuisinier Français,” in which the soi-disant pastry-cook deals some hard blows to the Jesuit.
In the “Dons de Comus” there had been much dissertation about quintessences, and the giving the largest portion of nutriment in the smallest possible compass. Hereupon the “Patissier Anglais” says, “Thus the more the nourishment of the body shall be subtilised and alembicated, the more will the qualities of the mind be rarefied and quintessenced too. From these principles, demonstrated in your work, great advantage may be reaped in all educational establishments. Children lose an infinity of time in learning the dead languages, and other trash of that kind, whereas, henceforward, it will only be necessary, according to your system, to give them an alimentary education, proper for the state for which they are destined. For example: for a young lad destined to live in the atmosphere of a court, whipped cream and calves’ trotters should be procured; for a sprig of fashion, linnets’ heads, quintessences of May bugs, butterfly broth, and other light trifles. For a lawyer, destined to the chicanery of the Palais or who would shine at the bar, sauces of mustard and vinegar and other condiments of a bitter and pungent nature would be required.” Appended to the “Patissier Anglais” was “Le Cuisinier Gascon,” an excellent and valuable little work, now extremely scarce. There are many admirable receipts in this little volume, to which Mrs. Rundell was deeply indebted. She has borrowed largely from it without acknowledgment.
“La Science du Maître d’Hôtel Cuisinier” was the next published in point of chronological order. This was an attempt to render cookery the handmaid of medicine, and had great success. The plan, though not new in the conception, for the germ of it may be found in Terence, “Coquina medicinæ famulatrix est,”[4] was undoubtedly so in the execution; and the associated booksellers reaped a profitable harvest.
The cookery of France at this epoch, and indeed from the time of Louis XIV., was distinguished by luxury and sumptuousness, but, according to Carème, was wanting in “delicate sensualism.” They ate well, indeed, at the court, says the professor of the culinary art, but the rich citizens, the men of letters, the artists, “were only in the course of learning to dine, drink, and laugh with convenance. Vatel, of whom so much has been said,” says Carème, “had only a mind deeply intent on his subject, you but see in him the conscientious man of duty and etiquette. His death astonishes but does not melt you (sa mort frappe mais ne touche pas), for he had not reached the highest elevation of his art.” You cannot think, you who read these lines, that any one of our cooks of the present day, brought up by Carème, could ever fall into his faults. For whatever may happen, a cook, like a commander, and, indeed, like the great masters of the art, Laguipière and Carème, “should always have splendid and imposing reserves.”
This dictum of Carème must be taken, like many of his dishes and sauces, cum grano salis. Molière lived and wrote at this period; and though it would be unfair not to concede that he was greatly in advance of his age, and, like Shakspeare, seemed to be universally informed, and by intuition, yet on the other hand there is scarcely a better description of a gourmand than is to be found in the “Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” act iv. sc. 1. The language of the art, too, is as much superior to the jargon of professional cooks, as Paques is (the pun was inevitable) to Carème. But here is the passage in extenso, from which all may judge:—“Si Damis s’en étoit mêlé, tout seroit dans les règles; il y auroit par-tout de l’élégance et de l’érudition, et il ne manqueroit pas de vous exagérer lui-même toutes les pièces du repas qu’il vous donneroit, et de vous faire tomber d’accord de sa haute capacité dans la science des tous morceaux; de vous parler d’un pain de rive à bizeau doré, relevé de croûte par-tout, croquant tendrement sous la dent; d’un vin à seve velouté, armé d’un vert qui n’est point trop commandant; d’un carré du mouton gourmandé de persil; d’une longe de veau de rivière, longue, blanche, délicate, et qui, sous les dents, est une vraie pâte d’amande; de perdrix relevées, d’un fumet surprenant; et pour son opéra, d’une soupe á bouillon perlé, soutenue d’un jeune gros dindon, cantonnée de pigeonneaux, et couronnée d’oignons blancs, mariés avec la chicorée.”[5] It should also be observed that St. Evremond, a man of letters as well as a soldier and a gentleman, rendered himself celebrated even in 1654, for the exquisiteness of his taste in cookery, and that the coterie in which he lived were equally famous for their good cheer. The dinners of the Commandeur de Souvré, of the Comte d’Oloure, and of the Marquis de Bois Dauphin, were celebrated for equal refinement and delicacy. Lavardin, Bishop of Mans, in speaking of the clique, says, “Ils ne sauroient manger que du veau de rivière: il faut que leurs perdrix viennent d’Auverge: que leurs lapins soit de la Roche Guyon.”[6] The same thought may be found in the fifth Satire of Juvenal, though somewhat differently expressed.
“Mullus erit domino, quem misit Corsica, vel quem
Taurominitanæ rupes, quando omne peractum est,
Et jam deficit nostrum mare.”
With the qualifying restrictions previously made, it may fairly be admitted that it is not to the Grand Monarque, but to the Regent Orleans, that the French of the present day owe the exquisite cuisine of the eighteenth century. The Pain à la d’Orleans was the invention of the regent himself; the filets de lapereau à la Berri were invented by his abandoned daughter, the Duchess de Berri, who plunged into every sensual excess, and whose motto was “Courte et bonne.” Her suppers were the best, and, it must be added, the most profligate in Paris.
As the Duchess de Berri, the daughter of the regent, was gourmande as well as galante, she is deified by the race of cooks and epicures, one of whom says that the alimentary art owes to her fertile genius a great number of receipts. Nor was she the only female who distinguished herself at this era in cookery, for it became à-la-mode to be the creator of a plat. The filets de volaille à la Bellevue were invented by the Marquise de Pompadour, in the château of Bellevue, for the petits soupers of the king. The poulets à la Villeroy owe their birth to the Maréchale de Luxembourg, then Duchess of Villeroy, one of the most sensual “gourmandes” of the court of Louis XV. The Chartreuse à la Mauconseil has been transmitted to us by the Marquise de Mauconseil, celebrated alike by her taste and her gallantries. The vol au vent à la Nesle proceeded from the fertile brain of the Marquis de Nesle, who refused the peerage to remain premier marquis of France, and the poularde à la Montmorency was the production of the duke of that name. Filets de veau à la Montgolfier, are so named because they are of the shape of balloons. The petites bouchées à la reine owe their origin to Maria Leczinska, wife of Louis XV., whose devotions, however self-denying in other respects, never prevented her from relishing a good dinner. All the entrées bearing the name of Bayonnaises were invented by the Maréchal Duke de Richelieu. The perdreaux à la Montglas acknowledge as their father a worthy magistrate of Montpelier, whilst the cailles à la Mirepoix were imagined by the marechal of that name, who in gourmandise, but in gourmandise only, rivalled the Marechal de Luxembourg; and last, though not least, the cotelettes à la Maintenon were the favourite dish of that frigid piece of pompous and demure hypocrisy, Madame de Maintenon herself.