Host and Guest

by A. V. Kirwan

The turbot brought to Billingsgate in large quantities from the sand-banks, on the coast of Holland and St. George’s Channel, sufficiently attest our energy and enterprise. The coast of Holland, and the sea beyond our western coast, are as open to the French as to the British, yet when has any Paris market disclosed such a supply of fish as may be seen daily at Billingsgate, even after the hundreds of thousands of retail fishmongers have been supplied. In a few soups, such as turtle, which we possess in the greatest perfection, owing to our colonial trade, and ox tail, mock turtle, giblet, hare, pea, and mutton broth, we also surpass the French—but in the making of the latter admirable broth for invalids, there is still much to desire at coffee-houses and clubs. There is scarcely known a public establishment where it may be eaten in perfection, excepting at Brooke’s in St. James’s-street. It were most desirable that we should learn how to make a French bouillon or a lait de poule, for here indeed we are ignorant and at fault. In the boiling of all plain fish we surpass our neighbours. There is nothing in Paris equal to a first-rate English turbot, cod-fish, haddock, john-dorey, or Southampton water or Severn salmon, but the sauces used for these fishes in France are infinitely preferable. It is a remark of the late Lady Holland, that no fish should be eaten with another, and, therefore, lobster sauce was excluded from her table. Dutch sauce is unquestionably more favourable to the flavour of all boiled fish.

The French certainly beat us in sturgeon cutlets, filets de sole, and béchamels of fish. The oysters of Cancale, of Etretat, of Ostend, and Marenne, are equal, if not superior, to the generality of English oysters, because they are less artificially fed, and have not their flavour washed away. But if the London tradesmen would spare their oatmeal and fresh water, the Milton native oyster would be found superior to its Gallic brother. In other shell-fish, also, we have a decided superiority. The corpulent, respectable, full-fed crab is almost unknown to the Gauls, and they have but a small quantity of lobsters and prawns, but they cultivate the smaller cray-fish in great quantities—a fish which is not common in England. Nor is there anything in French cookery equal to our barons of beef, our noble sirloins, our exquisite haunches, and saddles, and legs, and loins of Southdown mutton; our noble rounds of boiled beef, and those prime five guinea haunches of venison, which one sees from June till September, at the establishments of the Messrs. Grove, at Charing Cross and Bond Street. In cutlets of all kinds, in fricassées, in ragouts, in salmis, quenelles, purées, filets, and more especially in the dressing of vegetables, our neighbours surpass us; but we roast our game more perfectly, and can hash mutton and venison better than any one of the myriads of French cooks. In bread, cream, butter, eggs, whether with reference to size or freshness, England is not to compare with France; and a French poularde of La Bresse or du Mans is worth all the Dorking fowl hatched since the time of the deluge. Though, therefore, the French cuisine be more luxurious, more varied, more palatable, more fair and dainty to look on than our ruder, more simple, more frugal, and less luxurious kitchen, yet our aliments (with the single exception of our vegetables) are infinitely more nutritious, and to English stomachs, at least, just as easy of digestion—perhaps, indeed, easier than the more refined and recherché fare of our livelier neighbours. It were undoubtedly desirable that we should learn a little from them in the way of white and brown sauces in veloutés, in the dressing of vegetables, in the making that simple, excellent thing, an omelette, in cooking beef-steaks, veal cutlets, and mutton chops, in seasoning and flavouring with ham instead of with salt; and in a more profuse use of eggs, oil, and butter. The great objection to the more general employment of these good things hitherto has been the expense, but now that the extended operation of the tariff has rendered all kinds of provisions cheaper, a great improvement in the kitchen even of the middle classes should be expected. Within the last thirty years great improvements have been introduced into the domestic cookery of the highest nobility, and within the last twenty years, owing to frequent intercommunication, such has been the rapid progress that one may fancy oneself dining in the Rue de Bourbon, the Rue de Grenelle, or the Rue St. Florentin, instead of in Grosvenor or Belgrave-square or Park Lane; but still while anything is imperfect, something remains to be done, and with the continuation of peace, we may look forward with hopefulness, not alone to a more extended commerce, but to an improved cookery. No one desires to see Englishmen gluttons, gourmands, or refined sensualists, but only to see them adopt some few culinary improvements which would contribute to their material comfort, to their physical health, and to their mental enjoyment. “Comer à gusto y vestir al uso,” is philosophy in England as well as in Spain. Dr. Johnson declared that the subject on which a man most frequently and most earnestly thought was his dinner, and the great leviathan spoke truly in so far as he was personally concerned. “I could,” says he, “write a better book of cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book on philosophical principles; I would tell what is the best butcher’s meat, the proper seasons of different vegetables, and then how to roast and boil and to compound.”

Would that the doctor had lived to complete the task. The work would have been as useful as popular, and as well executed as the dictionary; and there can scarcely be a doubt that it would be comprehensive and cosmopolitan in its character, and lucid and well-arranged in its details. Such a work yet remains to be written, and the only wonder is, that it has not been long since attempted and accomplished. When it is considered that no body of men in this our country, from a parish vestry to the Imperial Parliament, can meet on any public occasion without dining together—that the Whigs dine with Lord John Russell, the Conservatives with Lord Derby, and the Radicals with any leader of theirs, if any such there be, with a good house and cellar and a good cook—it must be considered that the art of dining (“l’art de la gueule,” as Montaigne says) is one of the most important bases of representative government, and it should not be without its professors, historians, and exponents. The subject is nevertheless of a neutral character, and I have endeavoured to show the respective merits of French and English cookery. Substantial solidity and simplicity are the distinctive marks of the one; variety, delicacy, and harmonious combination is the character of the other. Both are excellent in their way, but a fusion of the two kitchens, rejecting what is coarse and barbarous in the English, and too gross, Gascon, and Provençal in the French, would be the perfection of good living. Though personally no admirer of French manners or French morals—though I put no faith in French equality, abhor French centralization, loathe from the very bottom of my heart French tyranny, and think French military glory—which is but a velvety euphemism for French brigandage and French invasion—should be put down by the comity of nations, and the strong will and strong arm of all mankind—yet I am of opinion that there is much in the French kitchen which might be advantageously transplanted and successfully imitated in this country. But as nations cling with constancy to their old culinary customs, and as systems of cookery often survive systems of polity, I am not very hopeful as to any immediate change. A new cookery book, however, pointing out the respective merits of the French and English culinary art, is a work greatly and urgently wanted. The Peel Tariff, or free trade, will never have a fair trial till such a publication sees the light.

CHAPTER II.
ON MODERN COOKERY AND COOKERY BOOKS.

I am, in the matters of the kitchen, as will be learned from the previous chapter, no admirer of the wisdom of our ancestors. Cookery is eminently an experimental and a practical art. Each day, while it adds to our experience, should also increase our knowledge. And now that intercommunication between distant nations has become facile and frequent; now that we may make an early breakfast in London and a late dinner in Paris, it cannot be permitted that cookery should remain stationary. Far am I from saying that a dinner should be a subject of morning or mid-day meditation or of luxurious desire; but in the present advanced state of civilization, and of medical and chemical knowledge, something more than kneading, baking, stewing, and boiling are necessary in any nation pretending to civilization. The metropolis of England exceeds Paris in extent and population; it commands a greater supply of all articles of consumption, and contains a greater number and variety of markets, which are better supplied. We greatly surpass the French in mutton, we produce better beef, lamb, and pork, and are immeasurably superior both in the quantity and quality of our fish, our venison, and our game, yet we cannot compare, as a nation, with the higher, the middle, or the lower classes in France, in the science of preparing our daily food. The only articles of food in the quality of which the French surpass us are veal and fowl, but such is the skill and science of their cooks that with worse mutton, worse beef, and worse lamb than ours, they produce better chops, cutlets, steaks, and better made dishes of every nature and kind whatsoever. In fricassées, ragouts, salmis, quenelles, purées, filets, and more especially in the dressing of vegetables, our neighbours surpass us. No good reason can be alleged why we should not imitate them in a matter in which they are perfect, or why their more luxurious, more varied, more palatable, and more dainty cookery, should not be introduced more generally among the higher and middle classes.

The object of sensible people should be to adopt all that is good in the cookery of both nations. While English soups, such as ox tail, mock turtle, giblet, hare, pea soup, and mutton broth have their merits, the French potages à la reine, à la Condé, à la Julienne, and the various purées should not be forgotten. While, also, the practical cook may find copious receipts in English cookery books for the boiling of turbot, cod-fish, john-dorey, and salmon, in the English and Dutch fashion, the sturgeon cutlets of the French, and their filets and béchamels of fish should be also introduced to English favour and attention from French cookery books. Our barons of beef, our noble sirloins, our exquisite haunches, saddles, legs, and loins of Southdown mutton, our noble rounds of boiled beef, and those haunches of British venison, the envy and admiration of the world, are worthy of the highest praise. But, on the other hand, the gigot à l’ail aux haricots blancs ought to be made more favourably known to the Englishman, as well as the filet de bœuf, an excellent every-day dish in the good city of Paris. In any new cookery book, while no English receipt of approved excellence should be cancelled, yet there should also be given within a reasonable compass a short system of French, and a compendium of foreign, cookery. It is desirable that we should learn much from our neighbours, as I have said in a former chapter, in white and brown sauces, in veloutés, in the dressing of vegetables, in the seasoning and flavouring with ham instead of with salt, and in a more profuse use of eggs, oil, and butter.

A new cookery book, pointing out the distinctive merits of the French and English kitchens, is a work urgently needed. In such a manual of the art the readers should be presented with all that is best in the substantial solidity and simplicity of the English kitchen, and all that is most varied, delicate, and harmoniously combined in the kitchen of the French. Both are excellent in their way, and there are already many separate treatises on each; but a fusion or combination of the two systems ought now to be attempted. If any professed cook or amateur succeeds in causing an abandonment of all that is coarse and unwholesome in the English kitchen, and in introducing all that is light, elegant, and varied in the French, he will have accomplished a great object, and have done the health of diners-out and dinner-givers equal service. It is the greatest mistake, in a medical point of view, to suppose that an unvaried uniformity of food contributes either to health or to comfort. Variety is as necessary to the stomach as change of scene, or change of study to the mind, and that variety should be placed in our day within the reach of as many as possible.