THE MORNING POST.
In spite of all that we have heard for some years past about the enlightenment of the age, there are still certain vulgar errors, and errors on very vital subjects, to which the English adhere with all the constancy of martyrs.
Perhaps these errors are more abundant in relation to the preparation of food than to almost any other matter. At present, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the generality of people in England have only roast and boil, after a fashion; and there the culinary acquirements of the multitude find their extreme limits. Others, there are, indeed, who take a higher flight; they affect soups and gravies, and even aspire to put vegetables on their tables; but in all these cases nothing can be more inartificial than the system pursued. Hot water is the chief ingredient, and pepper the condiment. Thus, for soup;—fry two or three slices of coarse beef in plenty of fat, boil it in water, and saturate it with pepper and salt, and your tureen is provided for. Of mutton broth we are not so sure of the process; but the decoction has all the appearance of being composed of the eternal hot water, stirred with a tallow candle, to give the necessary number of globules of grease on the surface, and ornamented at the top with a few floating particles of parsley. A gravy in more frequent use is exceedingly simple. When a leg of mutton is roasted, the person miscalled a cook pours a teacupful of water over the joint, and the gravy is complete. Vegetables are only required to retain as much as possible of the fetid water in which they are boiled, and to be sunk as deep in melted butter as a river bound collier is in the sea, and they are considered “a dainty dish to set before a king.”
Such are a few everyday examples of the English practice of cookery—principles it evidently has none. In France they order these things differently. During a succession of revolutions, extending over a space of nearly sixty years, constitutions have been abandoned as soon as adopted; kings and nobles have been murdered; but La Cuisine has ever been held inviolate, and chefs deserving of the name have not ceased to be venerated. And what is the result?—that in France, where the raw material is, with the single exception of veal, perhaps, inferior to ours, a dinner can be produced worthy of Lucullus; in England, save under the superintendence of French artists, such a feat is plainly impossible. Surely, then, it behoves us to do what we may for availing ourselves, in their fullest extent, of the advantages we have received from nature, not perhaps by going the somewhat extreme length that we have heard suggested, of establishing professorships of gastronomy in our universities, on the broad ground that domestic is as well worthy of being encouraged as political economy, but by profiting, to the best of our abilities, under the instructions of those who really understand the art in which we are so lamentably deficient. So desirable an object has hitherto been baffled by the popular prejudice that good cookery is necessarily unwholesome. It is no such thing. An accomplished cook is an accomplished chemist; he knows the several affinities of substances for each other, and not only balances these with the utmost exactitude, but even prescribes, with the same view, the particular description of wine proper to each stage of his banquet. We all remember the celebrated answer of Carême to George IV, whose cuisine he superintended while that sovereign was regent. “Carême,” said the prince, “your cookery will be the death of me; see how I am suffering from indigestion.” “Sire,” replied the professor, “I am innocent of the charge; it is my duty to provide you with a dinner, the discretion to use it properly must originate with your royal highness.” So true is it that the evil lies in the abuse and not in the use of good things.
Another objection to elaborate cookery is the expense it is supposed to involve. Both the points have been satisfactorily met in the work before us. The many receipts furnished by M. Soyer, and they amount to nearly two thousand, afford evidence at once of careful study and of extreme delicacy. Everything gross is excluded, and the more nutritious portions of food are alone preserved, in such forms as to please the eye and the palate, without embarrassment to the digestive process. Neither of these objects is attained under the ordinary English system. Huge joints offend the sight, and half-raw meat tasks the organs of digestion beyond their power, by presenting to them masses of unbroken fibres. To save trouble to the stomach the fibre must be destroyed by the action of heat, and this can never be effected by exposing food to the fire during only half the time that is necessary.
Then, as to the expense of superior cookery, M. Soyer has taken the best means of refuting the error by showing that much improvement may be made without addition to the cost. In one portion of his book he provides materials for the dinner of an emperor; in the other, entitled, “My Kitchen at Home,” he enables the smallest private family, or even the solitary bachelor, to live well on small means.
It would be incompatible with our limits to discuss fully the two systems of the author, and to abstain from any illustration of them would be unjust to him and unsatisfactory to the reader. We will therefore give one example of each—the magnificent and the simple; and the first shall be a banquet served at the Reform Club, on the 9th of May last to a private party of ten persons (see page 609), and for a dinner party for eight persons, at home (see page 636).
Of the simple arrangement for a bachelor or a married couple, combining, as they do, elegance with economy, we cannot give a selection; because we would not offer a brick as a specimen of the house; but we strongly recommend them to all who are tired of conventional dinners composed of everlasting chops and steaks.
In short the work of M. Soyer is one that cannot fail of being extensively read. If it be worth while to spend as much time as everybody does in eating, it is surely advisable to see that our time is not thrown away—that we live like civilized beings rather than New Zealand savages. In this important point the system of M. Soyer is worthy of praise, and we feel that we only anticipate our readers in thanking him for the labour he has bestowed in elucidating a pursuit that, in despite of twaddle, is at least one of the minor amenities of life.
THE MORNING HERALD.