L’hypocras rouge on bien un puissant vin,
La truffe noir avec le fruit du pain.”
There is no more pleasant dessert in the month of September than young filberts and walnuts, in which former fruit England certainly surpasses the world. In walnuts we are equalled, if not surpassed, by Switzerland and France.
The truth is, however, that the dessert after a good London or Parisian dinner is a superfluity, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred does more harm than good. This was the opinion of Brillat Savarin in his “Physiologie du Goût.” A little bit of cheese, says this great epicure, may be permitted, and some preserve or a sweetmeat. “Un beau diner,” he adds, “sans vieux fromage, est un joli femme à qui il manque un œil.”
The word dessert was introduced into the French language at the end of the sixteenth century. In an ordonnance of the 21st January, 1563, the word occurs. “En quelques noces festins ou tables particulières que ce puisse être, il n’y aurait dorénavant que trois services au plus savoir, les entrées de table, la viande ou le poisson, et le dessert.” The following is the regulation of the ordonnance concerning the dessert:—Au dessert, soit fruit, pâtisserie, fromage, ou autre chose quelconque, il ne pourroit non plus, être servi que six plats, le tout sous peine de 200 livres d’amende pour la première fois, et 400 cent pour la seconde. Speaking of desserts, a French authoress says, “Le choix et l’arrangement des fruits ou des fleurs dont est parée la table, l’elegance des edifices sucrés, la symmetric des assiettes, ne sont pas des soins tout à fait étranges aux arts. L’appetit satisfait, les yeux et l’odorat sont flattés à la fois par la beauté du fruit élégamment élevé en pyramides; par les formes varies des sucreries, dont la saveur parfumée réveille encore la satieté, enfin par la fumée des vins pétillants ou liquoreux dont les esprits volatils excitent la verve et animent la gaité. Carème says the dessert ought to be the special labour of the lady of the house. Medical men in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more especially in France, ordered some fruits at the commencement of dinner. Champier recommended that cherries, raspberries, peaches, and apricots should be so eaten; and that after dinner medlars, pistachio nuts, filberts, chestnuts, apples, quinces, and pears should be produced. Melon, in the time of Henry IV., and to this day, is eaten in France with the boulli, just after the soup. Sully tells that one day when Henry IV. was at dinner, his Maître d’Hôtel entered with a golden basin filled with melons. “Right glad am I,” said the jovial king, “for I wish to-day to have a surfeit. They never injure me when I eat them on an empty stomach and before meat, as the doctors direct.” In Madame Sévigné’s time the same opinion existed touching melons. “Je ne vous deffends point les melons (she wrote to her daughter), puisque vous avez si bon vin pour les cuire.” The author of “La Nouvelle Instruction pour la Culture du Figuies,” written in 1692, writes that figs should be eaten on an empty stomach and before dinner, for it is an axiom, he says, in medicine, to commence at supper or dinner by the things most easily digested.
CHAPTER XVI.
ON ICES.
At regular set dinners ices are always served. For a party of ten or fourteen there is generally a cream and water ice, with biscuits, &c. The French generally serve a greater number of ices than we do. The ices most in vogue in London are pine, lemon, orange, ginger, strawberry, and cherry ices. In Paris, apricot, peach, chocolate, coffee, and four fruit ices are more common than with us.