The first work of any note, published in 1814, after the Restoration, was that of Beauvilliers. The author had been cook to the Count de Provence (Louis XVIII.), but at this period followed the business of a restaurateur in the Rue de Richelieu. Any eulogium on such a work would be supererogatory. The artist, who had been many years cook to the inventor of the soupe à la Xavier, that consummate and gouty gourmand, Louis XVIII., and who had often served and satisfied the Count d’Artois, afterwards Charles X., the inventor of the ris de veau à la d’Artois, must have been a cook of surpassing merit.
The “Physiologie du Goût” appeared in 1828. The author was M. Brillat Savarin, Conseillier en la Cour de Cassation. He had been bred to the bar, and was already in practice when the Revolution broke out. By the suffrages of his townsmen he was sent as a deputy to the Constituent Assembly. But in 1793, having resisted the progress of anarchy, he was forced to emigrate. He embarked for the United States, and established himself at New York, where he remained for two years, giving lessons in the French language, and filling nightly one of the first places in the orchestra of the theatre; for, among his other accomplishments, he was distinguished as a musician. During the Directory he returned, and the last twenty-five years of his life were spent in the Court of Cassation. It was in the leisure which this honourable retreat afforded him that he composed this work. It is, however, more a scientific essay, or a book of aphorisms, in the short and sententious style of the ancients, than a practical work on cookery.
Some of the statistics of this book are curious. It appears that, from the 1st of November to the end of February, there is a daily consumption of 300 turkeys, making, in all, but 36,000 turkeys. The work also contains a number of witty and curious anecdotes, from which I venture to extract one.
M. de Sanzai, Archbishop of Bordeaux, was an agreeable man and a respected prelate. He had won from one of his grand vicars a truffled turkey, which the loser seemed in no haste to pay. Towards the close of the carnival, the archbishop reminded his subordinate of the lost wager. “Monseigneur,” said the vicar, “the truffles are good for nothing this year.” “Bah, bah!” replied the archbishop, “that’s a report spread by the turkeys,” (c’est un bruit que les dindons font courir).
A vast number of editions of the “Cuisinière Bourgeoise” have appeared both in France and Switzerland, and, to speak truly, there is no more useful work. A greater number of copies have been sold, for the last seventy years, than even of the “Fables” of La Fontaine. The receipts are by no means expensive, and there is no better cookery for the middle classes of all countries. Even in England the dishes might be adopted among the better classes, occasionally abridging any undue portion of garlic or onion. This work was pirated at Neufchatel, in 1798, by the celebrated Fauche Borel, employed in many delicate negotiations by the emigrants, and he made a large sum by the piracy.
The “Cuisinier Royal,” published by Barba, is also a good work. It is of a more ostentatious character than the “Cuisinière Bourgeoise,” but the receipts are very numerous and varied, and there are no learned disquisitions on the art, which many would consider an advantage.
I have now gone through the chief culinary works of France, and it remains for me to speak of English cookery and cookery books. And first of the former. The traditions of English cookery are faint, few, and far between. In the earlier comedies there are few allusions to the art, and even in Shakespeare himself, though we find mention of barley-broth, of calf’s head and capon, of collops, cod’s head, soused gurnet, and salmon tail, of roasted pig and rashers, of beef and mustard, and “thick Tewkesbury mustard,” of hot venison pasty and hodge pudding, and lastly (in ridicule of foreign cookery), of “adders’ heads and toads carbonadoed;” yet still from these names no other inference can be drawn than that such dishes were in vogue. From the reign of Elizabeth to the Revolution, the style of cookery was undoubtedly heavy and substantial. Chines of beef and pork smoked on the early dinner tables, and the remains were eaten cold, and washed down with foaming tankards of ale on the following morning.
The age of Anne was distinguished by an extraordinary burst of intellectual vigour and great progress in the culinary art. Though the comedies of Congreve, Wycherly, and Vanbrugh, are fair specimens of the society of that day, still they throw little light on the social habits of the people. From the manner in which Lady Wishfort drinks, in the “Way of the World,” and the exhibition of Sir Wilful Witwold’s drunkenness, in the same piece, one would infer that immoderate inebriety was the characteristic of the time. Valentine, in “Love for Love,” calls for a bottle of sack and a toast; and Careless, in “The Double Dealer,” exclaims “I’m weary of guzzling.”
The pages of Pope throw an important light on the cookery of his time. His imitation of the second satire of the second book of Horace has a value which cannot always be affixed to his more important pieces. A light is not only thrown on the personal habits of the man, but on the social characteristics of the epoch.
“Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men