CHAPTER XV.
THE DESSERT.
The Dessert, if by that word be understood the agreeable mingling together of cakes, of fruits, and sweetmeats, is an Italian invention. It was cradled in the sweet south, and is the offspring of beautiful gardens, and flourishing cities and towns, clustering with grapes and peaches. Carème used to say that the dessert had been elevated into a science with a view to retain girls, young women, and children at table, in friendly family converse. In such sort it deliciously prolongs the repast. A dessert should above all things be simple; considered as a third or fourth course, it is often a dangerous superfluity, and the fruitful cause of many an indigestion. There are some who eat of it solely and simply because it appears promotive of a light, agreeable, and sparkling conversation. But these worthy, good-natured people often deceive themselves. It is a rock, says Carème, at the end of a dinner, a serious embarrassment for the liver, which it too often harasses and obstructs. Lachappelle (port-queue of Louis XIII., and his major domo) goes further, and mentions that all persons who make a point of eating dessert after a good dinner are fools, who spoil at once their wit and their stomachs. “Reject, therefore, once for all,” says another French author, “the Macedoines glacées fruits rouge, the white cheeses à la Bavaroise, the petits pains à la duchesse, the fanchonnettes de volaille, the vol-au-vent à la violette. Experienced diners out never touch these things, not even at the end of a second course. When we speak of experienced and clever people, who know what they are about, we would speak of those gourmands so gifted, and so superior in all the affairs and business of life, such as Lorenzo de Medicis, Leo X., Raphael, Prince Talleyrand, George IV., the Emperor Alexander, Castlereagh, and Pitt himself.” M. F. Fayot, who writes biographies of Canning, and political articles in the French newspapers, ought to have known that Pitt did not care for such knick-knackeries as Pistachio nuts, and crème à la vanille.
Though the dessert was originally invented in Italy, yet the usage was early transplanted into France. In the works of St. Gelais I find some lines, in which he sends fresh cherries to a lady on the first of May. How this fruit could be thus early produced, without the aid of hot-houses, is difficult to imagine. From Champier, however, who wrote about 1560, we learn that the Poitevins sent yearly forced cherries in post to Paris. The fruit was prematurely ripened by putting lime at the root of the tree, or watering the roots with warm water. La Quintinié, the head gardener of Louis XIV., boasts that he served strawberries for the dessert of his royal master at the end of March, green peas in April, and figs in June.
It was in 1694 that preserved pine-apples, shipped from the French West India islands of St. Domingo and Gaudaloupe, were first seen at dessert in Paris. The tree had been originally transplanted from Asia to the West Indies, where the heat of the climate preserved it from degenerating. “Although the fruit of the pine be fibrous,” says Father Dutertre, “it melts into water in the mouth, and is so well flavoured, that you find the taste of the peach, of the apple, of the quince, and of the muscatel, blended together.” It is plain to perceive that Father Dutertre was friand, and that he possessed, in matters of the table at least, the science of analysis. The “pine,” says Dr. Roques, “is impregnated with a corrosive juice, which may be extracted by steeping the root for one or two hours in sugared brandy.” Lovers of pine cut it up in slices, cover it with sugar, and bathe it copiously over with sherry wine. Jellies, ices, and creams, are also made of this fruit; and the Italians prepare with it a liqueur which is called manaja, and which is really delicious.
Dates, so well known and so esteemed in ancient times, are oftener served at dessert in Spain, Italy, and the south of France, than in England. Theophrastus, Plutarch, and Pliny speak in rather extravagant terms of the date-tree, and the excellence of its fruit. Nicholas of Damascus, in Syria, one of the most distinguished members of the Peripatetic school, sent to the Emperor Augustus the famous dates that grow in the valley of Jericho. Pliny says they are so thick, that four ranged together would be the length of a cubit. This fruit is gathered in the autumn, and dried in the sun. The Tunisian dates are the best; they are pulpy, mucilaginous, saccharine, and nutritious. The expressed juice of the date yields a syrup, which serves as a substitute for butter, and is used as a seasoning. Lémery says that those who feed on dates are generally afflicted with the scurvy and lose their teeth. They have been generally considered a dry and stringent fruit. Though an incentive to wine, they are indigestible, and in Spain have generally a harsh, rough, and unpleasant taste.
There is not a more grateful or a less noxious fruit at dessert than oranges. Louis XIV. was particularly fond both of the tree and the fruit. When the monarch gave those magnificent fêtes, so vaunted both in prose and verse, the porticoes, halls, and ante-chambers of his palaces were decorated with orange-trees, and the fruit, then esteemed rare, always appeared at dessert. The Maltese oranges were, at that period, considered the finest; while the fruit of Portugal maintained a secondary rank only. But even Portuguese oranges were deemed a present worthy of being offered to the children of kings. “Monsieur me vint” (says the Duchess of Montpensier in her Memoirs); “il me donna des oranges de Portugal.” Molière, in giving a description of the comedy which formed a portion of the famous fêtes given at Versailles in 1688 by Louis XIV., remarks that there was first laid a magnificent collation of Portuguese oranges, and of all sorts of fruits, in thirty-six baskets. About this period a species of sweet citron was much in vogue. It is mentioned by Lémery in his treatise on foods, written about 1705, who says “that the ladies of the court carried about sweet citrons in their hands, which they bit from time to time to produce red lips.”
More than 270 years ago figs were common at dessert in France. There were then but four species of this delicious fruit; the red, the purple, the white, and the black. The two latter were the most common, but the black were considered in Provence the most wholesome, as well as the most agreeable. The figs of Marseilles, had then, as indeed they have now, great repute, and were renowned all over the country. Nor were those of Montpelier, Nismes, and St. Andéol, without their admirers, though inferior to the figs of Marseilles. There have been few fig-trees in the neighbourhood of Paris for some centuries, though in the time of the Emperor Julian the figs of Paris were already celebrated.
The famous gardener and horticulturist La Quintinié, to please his master, Louis XIV., who was particularly fond of figs, adopted the plan of placing the trees in wooden boxes, as had been previously adopted in reference to orange-trees. Some of the finest figs in England are grown in the neighbourhood of Worthing. Those who have spent a summer there must have often eaten them for dessert. There is a magnificent fig-tree at Hampton Court, as old as the time of Charles II. rooted in a place which shall be nameless, and the fruit of which is particularly fine flavoured. In parts of Italy, Sicily, and the Levant, they have a curious custom of acupuncturating the fig when half ripe, and introducing a drop of fine oil into the fruit; this greatly mellows the flavour, while it increases the size of the fig. The white figs at Cherbourg are very fine, as those will say who have eaten them at dessert at the excellent table d’hôte in that town. Occasionally, also, white figs, equally excellent, are to be procured in the Channel Islands.
Pomegranates are scarcely ever seen at dessert in England, and rarely in France, except in Languedoc and Provence. In the sixteenth century this fruit was much used in certain diseases, and, in localities where it was not grown, was often sold for a louis-d’or. When Clement VII. arrived at Marseilles to have an interview with Francis I., several Frenchmen, who had eaten to excess of pomegranates, became seriously ill in consequence. Pomegranates are a favourite dessert at Grenada in Spain, where they grow in great quantities.