“Workhouse Cookery.—The disclosures in the Andover Union have thrown quite a new light on the science of cookery, which not even the inspiration of a Soyer could have hit upon. That ingenious chef de cuisine has blended together pastry and politics; with considerable skill he has invented a Crême d’Angleterre, consisting of charms borrowed from the female aristocracy; but those ingredients, imaginary and unsubstantial as they are, must be considered as solids when compared with the materials used for constituting the dishes served up to the paupers in the Andover Union. Butter, according to the new poor law cookery, is made from the skimmings of grease pots, and parochial tea is made from boiling old leaves which have already had their strength drawn out of them.
“A new cookery book, edited by M’Dougal, the master of the Andover Union, is evidently a desideratum in culinary literature, which even Soyer’s universal genius has hitherto left unsupplied.”—Punch.
THE GASTRONOMIC REGENERATOR.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
THE TIMES.
The Gastronomic Regenerator.—The Modern Cook.—“Any body can dine,” says the clever and profound author of the ‘Original,’ “but very few know how to dine so as to ensure the greatest quantity of health and enjoyment.” The pith and truth of this remark are unquestionable; and, indeed, we know nothing more painful than that utter disregard of the very first principles of gastronomic science evinced by so many unprincipled and reckless individuals of the present day, who eat as though the sole object of eating were to sustain life. Not that they take the best means for accomplishing even that ignoble end. The rules, whose observance renders eating a luxury and an art, also conduce in the highest degree to health. Sacrifices to Ceres and Bacchus, in the very act of the offering, should have a sweet fragrance in the nostrils of Hygeia.
Who shall affix a boundary to the possible progress of an art? Let the vulgar do so, who, struck by apparent perfection, conclude at once that the force of genius “can no further go.” We assert fearlessly that the limits of human creation and improvement are yet unknown. Least of all are they to be defined with reference to that great art which has been styled “the standard and gauge of human civilization,” and which Montaigne, with less respect, denominated the science de la gueule. Sceptics were they who, revelling at the table of Louis XIV in the sauces of a Bechamel, or lingering at the board of the great Condé over the chefs d’œuvre of a Vatel—that illustrious martyr to a point of culinary honour!—or inhaling gently and delicately, and degustating slowly, and with marvellous discrimination, the exquisite and quintessential results of the vigils of an Ude, who refused, in their turns, to believe that the science professed by these great men could be capable of improvement, or was susceptible of higher elevation. Alas! have we not lived to vote the resources of all perruque and rococo, and to behold the precious laurels that wreathed the temples of the culinary demigods of the 18th century, transferred by acclamation in the 19th to the mighty brows of a Carême and a Beauvilliers, a Soyer and a Francatelli—great names every one—poetizers of the spit, philosophers of the larder, sublime fire-worshippers, high priests of a kitchen fuller than Druidical groves of deep and sacred mysteries?
The two bulky and important volumes before us are characteristic of the distinguished artists to whom we own them. Written, the one by a Frenchman, the other by an Englishman (for Mr. Francatelli, in spite of his name, boasts of an Anglican origin), they differ greatly in form, although in substance, as far as the uninitiated may judge, they are equally excellent. The Modern Cook enters upon his task in a grave and business-like fashion, never tempted into digression, never moved into metaphor, ever keeping in view his main object, which, we an proud to say, is eminently patriotic, for he seeks to elevate the character and position of the English Cook, and to produce a work creditable to the gastronomic knowledge of the nation. “The Gastronomic Regenerator” is a different personage. He can afford to garnish his prose with the flowers of fancy, as his material dishes are crowned with croustades and atelettes; he handles with equal ability the quill of Pegasus and the larding-needle, and records with the former the achievements of the latter, in a strain of enthusiasm and heroic sensibility that are not to be surpassed even in the odes of a poet laureate. We confess at the outset that there is much to marvel at in the recondite pages of the Regenerator, but there is nothing to admire more than his matchless modesty, his courteous urbanity, his devotion to the fair sex, and his occasional touching and highly imaginative digressions.
“Why do you not write and publish a Cookery-book? was a question continually put to me. For a considerable time this scientific word caused a thrill of horror to pervade my frame, and brought back to my mind that one day, being in a most superb library in the midst of a splendid baronial hall, by chance I met with one of Milton’s allegorical works, the profound ideas of Locke, the several chefs d’œuvre of one of the noblest champions of literature, Shakspeare; when all at once my attention was attracted by the nineteenth edition of a voluminous work: such an immense success of publication caused me to say, ‘Oh! you celebrated man, posterity counts every hour of fame upon your regretted ashes!’ Opening this work with intense curiosity, to my great disappointment what did I see,—a receipt for Ox-tail Soup! The terrifying effect produced upon me by this succulent volume made me determine that my few ideas, whether culinary or domestic, should never encumber a sanctuary which should be entirely devoted to works worthy of a place in the Temple of the Muses.”