There is an immense consumption of turkeys at Paris, at Christmas time, and a much larger consumption in London. In the days of stages, the Norfolk coaches were stowed with turkeys from the middle of December to Twelfth-day; and in our day the goods traffic on the Norfolk Railway is more than trebled during Christmas. In the “Physiologie du Goût,” of Brillat Savarin, under the head “Influence financière du Dindon,” is the following remark:—
“I have some reason to think, that from the commencement of November to the end of February, 300 truffled turkeys are daily consumed in Paris, making a total of 36,000 turkeys. Calculate the value of these.”
The English have yet to learn the general use of the truffle with the turkey. A rich bourgeois of Paris will go to the expense of from 60 to 75 francs for a first-rate turkey for his rôti, and will afterwards disburse from 70 to 100 francs in truffles to season the bird. We have no idea of this expenditure in England, nor do our higher and better classes use or consume truffles as they ought to be used. Chaptal, who was one of Napoleon’s Ministers of the Interior in France, published a work, “Sur l’Industrie Française,” in 1819. In it he speaks of the enormous quantities of fowls in France:—
“In order to have an idea (says the Comte de Chaptal) of the enormous quantity of fowls of all species which exists in France, it will suffice to observe, that there are annually sold at the markets of Toulouse 120,000 geese, which are fattened in the neighbourhood; and M. Lavoisier has estimated the number of eggs consumed at Paris, on an average of several years, at 78,000,000, and the number of fowls at 39,000,000. Supposing the price of each to be a franc, including the cocks, this would give a capital of 41,600,000 francs. If to this be added the value of hens and cocks, of turkeys, geese, ducks, and pigeons renewed almost every year, the amount may be augmented by 10,000,000; so that the capital for fowls of all species amounts to 51,600,000 francs.”
Some exquisites and Muscadins of the second Empire maintain that there is nothing “si Chaussée d’Antin,” nothing “si lourdement bourgeois” as a dinde aux truffes, as a plat de rôt. Let these coxcombs rail on. The dinde aux truffes, as a Christmas Parisian dish, will survive them and the false gods of their idolatry. Of the turkey, Nonius says, “Egre giè alunt et bonum succum corpori suppeditant.”[17]
Some writers, such as Athenæus, Ælian, and Aristotle, would have us believe that turkeys were known to the ancients under the name of Meleagrides, but this is a mistake. It is a nice question when turkeys first appeared in France, and who first introduced them. La Mare, in his “Traité de la Police,” would have it that it was Jaques Cœur, the treasurer of Charles VII.; but this is also an error. According to Champier, who wrote his treatise “De Re Cibariâ,” in 1560, they were only introduced into France a few years before he wrote. Here are his words:—“Venere in Gallias, annos abhinc paucos, aves quædam externæ, quas gallinas indicas appellant: credo quoniam ex Insulis Indiæ nuper à Lusitanis Hispanisque palefactæ, primum invectæ fuerunt in urbem nostrum.”
In the French poets of the thirteenth century, and in authors still more ancient, there is frequent mention of capons. Madame de Sevigné speaks of the “poulardes de Cân,” and of the “bonnes poulardes de Rennes.”
In Regnard’s “Comedy du Bal,” A.D. 1696, the author speaks in praise of “les poulardes de Caux.” Long—nearly a century—antecedent to this, our own Shakespeare, had used the word “capon” again and again; and again Le Grand d’Aussy contends that the Gauls learned the art of fattening and cramming fowls from the Romans. Crammed fowls were from early times more esteemed in France than any others. Among the officers of the Royal household in France in early times, was a crammer of fowls. An ordonnance of St. Louis dated in 1261, more than six centuries ago, gives to this officer the name of poulailler.
Our neighbours on the other side of the Straits of Dover are not only very fond of fowls and capons, but of much smaller birds. They eat thrushes, blackbirds, and robin red-breasts. Dr. Roques, in his “Fragments sur les Plantes usuelles,” thus speaks of this liking for smaller birds:—
“The taste for blackbirds and thrushes has passed from the ancients to the moderns. These birds are much esteemed in Germany, and in our southern provinces. The blackbirds of Corsica and Provence are renowned, above all renowned as they feed on myrtle and juniper-berries. Cardinal Fesch, archbishop of Lyons, had a supply every year from Corsica. One dined at the house of his eminence partly because of his agreeable manners, partly for the noble and gracious reception he gave you, but, also, for his blackbirds, which were of exquisite flavour. More than one Lyonnese gourmand impatiently waited for the archiepiscopal clock to strike six. Then it was that these delicate little birds appeared upon the table, their delicious perfume charming all the guests. Their appearance, their seductive tournure, were also admired. Their backs were garnished with a small bouquet of fried sage, in some sort imitating the tail with which they were furnished when they poured forth their notes from the elm and hawthorn. ‘But what,’ the reader will exclaim, ‘you do not speak of the fine oil in which these beautiful birds were baked, nor of the agreeable rôtis, whose bitterness strengthened your stomach, while it perfumed your mouth?’ You are right, judicious reader.”