Host and Guest

by A. V. Kirwan

To return, however, to the “Almanach des Gourmands.” Each volume contained an almanac for the year in which it was published, and a species of nutritive itinerary of the different traiteurs, rotisseurs, restaurateurs, pork-men, poulterers, butchers, bakers, provision, sauce, and spice shops, milkmen, oilmen, &c. Nor were the cafés, limonadiers, glaciers, nor wine and liqueur merchants neglected; for ample and amusing accounts of almost all the principal magasins de comestibles are given. The volumes are generally written in a playful, humorous style, and occasionally indicate originality and research. The first four numbers are by far the best, though there are passages in the seventh, eighth, and ninth equal to anything which appeared in the preceding numbers. The author and editor was Grimod de la Reyniere. His father, a fermier général was choked, in 1754, by attempting to swallow rather too voraciously a slice of a pâté de foies gras. The son inherited the hereditary passion for the pleasures of the table, joined to a sprightly yet quaint humour, which rendered him a general favourite. It must be admitted, that while he inspired a taste for cookery, he ennobled its language.

As a specimen of his manner, take a short extract from the second volume, under the head of the health of cooks. “The finger of a good cook should alternate perpetually between the stewpan and his mouth, and it is only thus in tasting every moment his ragouts, that he can hit upon the precise medium. His palate should therefore have an extreme delicacy, and be in some sort virgin, in order that the slightest trifle may stimulate it, and thus forewarn him of its faults. But the continual odour of ovens—the necessity under which a cook lies to drink often, and sometimes of bad wine, the vapour of charcoal, the accumulation of bile, and many other things, each and all contribute to interfere with his organs of sense, and most quickly to derange and alter his sense of taste. His palate becomes indurated; he has no longer that tact, that finesse, that exquisite sensibility, on which depends susceptibility of taste. His palate at length becomes case-hardened. The only means of restoring to him that flower which he has lost (cette fleur qu’il a perdue), and recruiting his strength, his suppleness, and his delicatesse, is to purge him, despite of any resistance he may be induced to make; for there are cooks deaf to the voice of glory, who see no need to take physic when they are in health. Oh, ye then who wish to enjoy at your daily board delicate and recherché fare, cause your cooks to be purged frequently (faites purger souvent vos cuisiniers), for there is no other means to accomplish your wishes.”

In another volume, published in 1806, the author says that in Riom, in Auvergne, there was an innkeeper named Simon, who had a special talent for dressing frogs. The process of feeding and dressing them is given in detail, admirably and graphically told, but at far too great a length to extract. “What proves the goodness of the dish, and the impossibility of counterfeiting it,” says Grimod, “is, that the author has gained 200,000 francs at this art, though he gives you for 24 sous a dish containing three dozen of frogs.”

The three “Frères Provenceaux,” we learn in the same volume, were even thus early renowned for Provençal ragouts, and, above all, for their Brandades de Merluche; and the veal of Pontoise was then, as now, fed on cream and biscuits, and carried to Paris in carriages made expressly for the purpose. It is in this year’s almanac also that the author speaks of the death of a celebrated gourmand and friend of his, Doctor Gastaldy, physician to the late Duke of Cumberland. The last dinner which he partook of was on Wednesday, the 20th December, at Cardinal Belloy’s, Archbishop of Paris, where, having eaten three times of the belly part of the salmon, he died of the effects of this invincible gluttony. The doctor would have gone to the salmon a fourth time, but that the prelate “tenderly upbraided him for his imprudence, and ordered the desired dish to be removed” (le reprit tendrement de son imprudence, et fit enlever ce sujet de convoitise). But alas, it was too late—the gulosity of Gastaldy caused his death, and he was hastily buried the day after his demise. Let this be a warning to priests in high places, whether Protestant, Popish, or Presbyterian, as to helping their guests too often to the richest part of a salmon.

In one of the volumes there is a long chapter on the opening of oysters, from which the concluding portion is extracted.

“It is not until the oyster is detached from the under shell that it ceases to live. The real lovers of oysters (such, for example, as the late M. Grimod de Verneuil), won’t allow the oyster-women to open their fish, reserving to themselves the important privilege of performing this operation on their own plate, in order that they may have the pleasure of swallowing this interesting fish alive.”

It is in this volume that the important secret is disclosed that the flesh of beasts, fowls, and game killed by electricity, is much more tender than if killed in the usual manner. “The discoverer of this important truth,” says Grimod, “was a Dr. Beyer, of the Rue de Clichy, who deserves to be ranked with the Rechaud, the Morillon, and the Robert, who had so worthily illustrated the culinary art, towards the end of the last century; and who, like the Raphaels, the Michael Angelos, and the Rubens, have been the founders of the three great schools of good living.”

Here also is a dissertation on asses’ flesh, wherein the author states that, during the blockade of Malta by the English and Neapolitans, the inhabitants, having had recourse to horseflesh, dogflesh, cats, rats, &c., at length tried asses’ flesh, and found it so excellent, that the gourmands of Valetta preferred this strange diet to the best beef and veal. When an ass was killed, there was great competition for the prime bits. “Your ass,” says Isouard, father of the musical composer of that name, “should not be more than three or four years old, and fat.”

There is also an account of a seasoning used by the gourmands of Terra Nova, a small town situated on the southern coast of Sicily, between Gergali and Scoglietti, on the sea-shore. This is a white grease, extracted from the fig-pecker, much sought after by the gourmands of Sicily and Naples. At Malta all respectable families use it in lieu of oil and butter. An immense number of birds, taken in nets, are necessary to produce so much grease. When killed they are thrown, in immense heaps, into an enormous oven, and the fat is thus melted out. It is bottled, and the carcasses of the birds thrown away.

The “Manuel des Amphytrions,” by the author of the almanac, is as curious and amusing, and a more succinct work than the “Almanach des Gourmands.”