Host and Guest

by A. V. Kirwan

Dinner is unquestionably the most important and substantial meal of the two, three, or four, in which civilized man indulges, and it is a meal which any healthful and laborious person (whether his labour be of mind or body) enjoys zestfully. Man is distinguished from the beasts of the field in being a conversing and a dining animal. Jules Janin says somewhere, with more of truth and less of exaggeration than he usually employs, that beasts feed, but man dines; that lower animals hunger, but man something more than hungers, for he has a discriminating appetite.

Dinner is an important consideration to those who study health, temper, and the best method of getting through business. Our great moralist, Johnson, would never have accomplished a tithe of what he has done for his generation and posterity, had he not sensibly given much more attention to what suited his palate and his appetite than the great mass of mankind. The Doctor laughed at those who affected not to care for dinner, and asserted that from having long thought on the subject, he could write a better cookery book than had ever appeared in his day, because it would be written on philosophical principles. The late Sydney Smith, too, one of the ablest and wittiest men of our own generation, laid great stress on the importance of dinner to the proper performance of our most serious duties and functions; and there can be no doubt that the Canon of St. Paul’s had reason on his side. Every sensible and thoughtful man is, in truth, aware how much better he is able to speak, or to write, or take his part in conversation and debate after a satisfactory meal, which pleased his palate, and suited and satisfied his appetite, than after a cold, a comfortless, or an unrelished dinner. The result can be explained on purely medical and physiological grounds, and need not be further laboured in a work of this kind. Suffice it to say, however, that in ancient, mediæval, and modern times, some of the most scientific and learned men have not disdained to write on dinners. I need but mention the treatise of Apicius, who lived in the time of Augustus, “De Re Culinaria;”[10] the treatise of Nonius, a learned Antwerp physician of the sixteenth century, “De Re Cibariâ;” and the more modern treatise of Lemery, physician of Louis XIV., and thirty-three years the physician to the Hôtel Dieu at Paris. Lemery published his “Traité des Alimens,” in 1702. Contemporaneously with him, flourished Dr. Lister, Physician to our own Queen Anne, who wrote a cookery book in 1705, and gave a paraphrastic translation of the work of Apicius, under the title, “De Obsoniis et Condimentis sive de Arte Coquinaria.” In the reign of George IV., Dr. Kitchener and half a dozen of his brethren of the faculty in Paris, wrote disquisitionally upon cookery; and, in our own day, Drs. Pereira and Lankester have written valuable treatises on food, with a view that we should employ such a diet and regimen as is most conducive to health. The truth is that we must all dine, tant bien que mal, every day in the three hundred and sixty-five; and, as many of us give dinners every seven, fourteen, twenty-eight or thirty days, or every quarter of a year, to our friends and acquaintances, it behoves us to know what to order for ourselves, when dining en famille, as well as for the guests who honour us with their company.

Each country and capital has its mode and season for giving dinners, but there can be no doubt whatever that the best dinners in the world are given in Paris and in London. Probably if the dinners of London were to be judged by the specimens afforded in the most refined houses of the highest aristocracy in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, and Belgravia, in the season between April and July, we should bear off the bell against the world; but the general cookery of a great capital containing nearly three millions of souls cannot be properly judged by the superior cookery of about three hundred first-rate houses, in all of which accomplished French or French-trained men cooks officiate. The dinners given at such houses present the substantial solidity, as well as the gracefulness, lightness, and science of French cookery, and display a combination as rare as nutritious, as desirable as delightful. But if we descend in England beyond the upper ten thousand, though the fried and roast are generally excellent, the attendance good, and the display of glass, crystal and plate much greater and better kept, than in any other country and capital in the world, yet the cookery is not to be compared to the finer cuisine bourgeoise of Paris. The professional and learned classes at Paris, as well as the class of superior traders, all feast at a cuisine, which, for its science, its relishing and appetizing qualities, greatly surpasses ours. In moderate houses in Paris there is far less pretension than there is among us. For instance, an eminent lawyer, doctor, or publisher, will give you at a small friendly dinner of four or six, a good soup, a good fish plain or dressed, a good roti, and a couple of side dishes, all of which are excellent in their way, with a salmi of game and a couple of entremets quite perfect of their kind, and this at an expense of little more than one half of what an English dinner costs. There is on the table plenty for every guest; but the beauty of such dinners is, that nearly every morsel is eaten up. There are a few good dishes well cooked, and everybody relishes his portion. The wines, liqueurs, and coffee are all good.

In some of the very first houses in the Faubourg St. Germain, at a small party you seldom see more than two men servants, and often only one. Among professional men living in the neighbourhood of the Palais de Justice, the Chaussée d’Antin, the Faubourg St. Honoré, or the Marais, the attendance is generally by a femme de charge, aided by what would in this country be called a parlour maid, and who sometimes acts as the femme de chambre of the lady of the house, if there be one.

On the other hand, among the foreign ambassadors in Paris, and more especially at the Austrian and Russian Embassies, there are most sumptuous dinners, distinguished by great luxury and display. The great functionaries of the Court too, the Ministers, the Prefect of the Seine, and other high official dignitaries, most of whom are nouveaux riches, live expensively, keeping numerous servants, taking their cue from the Court. But it would be an error to suppose from this, that excessive expenditure is the custom of the nation. Far indeed from it; for the great majority of Frenchmen are thrifty, and spend little on hospitality. The class of bankers, however, agents de Change, speculators on the Bourse, railroad contractors, and persons connected with the Crédit Foncier and the Crédit Mobilier make much display, and live fastly, though in bad taste; many of them, poor and utterly unknown fourteen or fifteen years ago, now possess fine mansions, first-rate cooks, and live à la Lucullus.

But these men do not move in high or select society. They live among speculators and jobbers, and their tables are often presided over by some incognita of the demi-monde, some première danseuse of the opera, or some jeune première of the Variétés or the Vaudeville.

The gentry and higher middle classes in Paris enjoy an exquisite and not expensive cuisine bourgeoise, but English or foreigners are rarely met at their dinners. The truth is that few Englishmen speak the French language sufficiently well or understand French domestic life so thoroughly as to relish French society. Notwithstanding the great intercourse that has prevailed between the two nations for nearly half a century, they do not mix well together socially. Englishmen, notwithstanding the extended intercourse they have had with the Continent, still like to sit an hour or so over their wine, after the ladies have departed, whereas in Paris ladies and gentlemen leave the salle à manger, or dinner table, together, and retire to another room to coffee and conversation. The coffee and liqueurs despatched, the dinner circle is dissolved by host and guests either proceeding to the theatres, or to some cercle or réunion, where other friends are met. The result is, that after from two and a half to three hours of agreeable conviviality, the circle separate, mutually pleased with each other, and greatly exhilarated by the good cheer, the good converse, and the good coffee. The parties sit down to their repast at six or seven, and separate at half-past eight or half-past nine, when it is not too late to go to the Italian or French opera, or even to the Theatre du Palais Royal, the Vaudeville, or the Variétés. There is no torturing headache the next day from that “casse tête” wine called port, and there has been no time lost in waiting, as with us, for people arrive in France at the very moment invited—a moment which is always considered military time, so precisely is it kept.

It is a pity we do not adopt something of this system among all classes in England. People might under this condition of things, give two dinners for every one they now give, and both host and guest would be all the better in person and pocket for a more elegant and temperate style of living.

To return, however, to English dinners. Though in no capital in the world is hospitality more generally exercised than in London from January to December, yet among the higher classes the grand time for giving dinners is at the height of the season—that is to say, when both houses of Parliament are sitting. The season may generally be described as extending from the middle of April to the middle of July, a period of three months. Occasionally it begins a little earlier and ends a little later, but on an average of years it would be found that London is filled with the most distinguished visitors during these months.