We approach with all due reverence and respect the discussion of the important and mysterious changes effected by the chemical action of that most potent of all galvanic agencies, whose resistless influence is acknowledged by sages, philosophers, and statesmen, and whose sympathetic vibrations finds response in every breast—the batterie de cuisine. ‘The Gastronomic Regenerator; a New System of Cookery.’ We have given both the titles, because in so deeply interesting a race, all parties from the Royal duke, whose gracious condescension sanctions the dedication in the title-page, to the humble artisan who sniffs the fragrant perfume as he passes the area of the Reform Club, are entitled to start fair; and to the uninitiated the pronomen would require a greater amount of consideration than accords with good digestion. For ourselves, we can only say, with the cockney lady in the play, “How delightfully unintelligible! how far-fetched! how French!” But we have a shrewd guess that the impracticable title was designed, like some of his sauces piquantes, as a cabalistic whet or provocative to the teeming fancies and gustatory glories of the interior, and that pronounced with due emphasis and discretion before a meal, it would “create an appetite under the very ribs of death.” The importance of a good dinner is become almost an axiom in morals and philosophy; with ourselves it has been elevated to the rank of an article of faith. We cannot, therefore, too highly appreciate the labours of distinguished men who, like M. Soyer, sacrifice themselves to a sense of public duty, and present to an admiring and hungry world those treasures of gastronomie which are the very triumph of artistic skill. The ancient proverb has it that “any one can dine,” to which modern political economy has added, “if he have the means,”—happily for the present generation they live in the third era of progressive advancement, when dining has become a science, and the good things which Providence has abundantly supplied to us are rendered subservient at once to health and refined enjoyment. M. Soyer tells us that nothing better disposes the human mind to amiable feelings than a dinner, bien conçu et artistement préparé. How deeply grateful, then, should our countrymen feel who make dining the great business of life, and with whom a dinner forms the grand rallying point for every striking demonstration of pleasure, or business, or friendship, or charity, to one who in the proud humility of his unrivalled genius is content to rank a good cook only on the same footing as a wise counsellor! We have been accustomed to vaunt of our liberty, our independence, and our unbounded wealth, but to our eternal disgrace be it recorded that, while we enjoy the fruits of their labours, we are silent on the subject of our obligations to the accomplished cuisinier. The talent and research of a Vatel, a Carême, and a Bechamel have done much to place us on an equality with our more fastidious and artistic neighbours, the French—it remained for a Soyer to consummate the good work, and place the golden atelette upon the croustade of the dindonneau à la Nelson. M. Soyer has evidently a just appreciation of the dignity of the science of which he is so distinguished a professor; with a mind comprehensive enough to grasp all the most intricate and difficult combinations of the culinary art, he is above the littleness of discarding his guests because they may add salt to their soup, contenting himself with the sage maxim that “it is the duty of the cook to season for the guests, and not the guests for the cook.” And verily, if all our cooks were such “top” Soyers, it would be downright heresy to “paint the lily or add a perfume to the violet.” Since we read the work we have been tempted more than once to renounce our honest convictions, and sell our party for a mess of potage—à la Julienne. We had no idea that so much good could emanate from the Reform Club, and lived in the belief that their dinners were as dull as their dogmas, and their pâtés as indifferent as their principles. But political discussions are interdicted over the dinner table, and with M. Soyer as caterer we honestly confess that we could dine in all love and amity with a Radical or a Repealer, and get “jolly” with a Chartist or an Owenite. We shall entertain a better opinion all our lives of a party so well served in the culinary department. Our readers will be naturally anxious to learn the moving cause of the thousand gastronomic reflections that crowd the volume—what powerful agency impelled him tot adire labores; and but for the habit of discursiveness which has marred our fortunes to the present hour we should have given it the prominence it deservedly obtains in the preface. Honour then to whom honour is due,—place aux dames—it is “at the request of several persons of distinction, particularly the ladies, to whom I have always made it a rule never to refuse anything in my power.” Never was there so touching a tribute of homage; never was the proverbial gallantry of his countrymen so strikingly or so gracefully exemplified. But we have all this time withheld our readers from a peep into the interior, and here our difficulties begin. We have rambled through the greater portion of the 700 or 800 pages of the book, and find every recipe an epic, every dish a picture, and every sauce a study. We are perplexed between the glories of the dîner Lucullusian, the most recherché dinner ever dressed, the pagodatique entrée, the gateau Britannique à l’amiral, the ortolaned truffles which Soyer devised, but the fates forbid, and the more unpretending but not less valuable details of “My Kitchen at Home,” redolent of savoury and appetitizing streams, which are within the reach of the middle and humbler classes. All are exquisite in their way; and had the Abyssinian prince, who roamed over half the globe in search of happiness, but lighted on this volume he would have sat down contentedly, ordered a new dish for every day in the year, and abandoned all thought of returning to the happy valley. Mais revenons à nos moutons, the approach to which is stopped by the cheveux de frise of a carving-knife and fork. Now carving, being, the coup de grâce to cookery, rather unaccountably, but probably artistically, occupies the first chapter; and our author, after referring to the tribulation of carving “for appetites more or less colossal, and when all eyes are fixed upon you with anxious avidity,” opens his instructions with the following curious historic anecdote (see p. xii).
And then follow some very sage reflections upon the necessity of dining “more or less once a day,” and a pathetic appeal to the “manglers” not to tear to atoms the remains of our benefactors; and with this flourish of the knife enter “directions for carving,” which are extremely brief and simple, and which are wound up with the hint, seldom attended to by even experienced carvers, that nothing is more creditable to a carver than leaving a piece of meat, game, or poultry fit to reappear at table in an inviting state.
One extract more, and we shall terminate our pleasing labours, premising that our selection has been made more with a view to novelty than from any want of more recherché and attractive materials. The fanfare is with reference to the French pot-au-feu (see p. 649).
But here we must pause, for we are almost cloyed with sweets and dainties. With the best appetite and inclination in the world, we are reluctantly compelled to subscribe to our artist’s doctrine, that a man can dine but once a day, and our literary banquet has been already a most seductive and profuse one. We purposed giving the recipe of the far-famed pot-au-feu, but we presume it is already, or shortly will be, in the hands of all the world, and if any of our readers have not yet made up their minds, we advise them to send without loss of time to Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.
THE MORNING ADVERTISER.
“The fame of the Reform Club and its matchless cuisine, under the direction of that great master of his art, Alexis Soyer, have gone to the uttermost ends of the earth. To render that fame imperishable, Soyer has composed his ‘Gastronomic Regenerator,’ a work which is destined to throw all others, from the time-honoured Mrs. Glass to the learned Eustache Ude, into the shade. The former, most loveable in her way, will henceforth only be remembered for her one receipt, “first catch your hare,” &c.; the piquancy, the utile et dulce characteristics of Soyer, like one of his own chyle-begetting and renowned sauces, entirely neutralises, absorbs, swallows up the greatest effort of Ude. Tempus edax rerum! Soyer is a wit and a wag of the first water; hence a perusal of the introduction to the goodly volume before us acts as a whet. “Laugh and grow fat” is an old and a true adage; read Soyer’s introduction, and the veriest valetudinarian will afterwards sit down and eat like a man! Soyer’s experience has been vast—magnifique! hear, on the important head, what he tells his readers:—“During the last ten months I had to furnish 25,000 dinners for the gentlemen of the Reform Club, and 38 dinner parties of importance, comprising above 70,000 dishes, and to provide daily for 60 servants of the establishment, independent of about 15,000 visitors who have seen the kitchen department in that lapse of time.” Authors frequently assign a reason for writing; Soyer, in this respect, is not behindhand; in his preface he says;—“At the request of several persons of distinction who have visited the Reform Club, particularly ladies, to whom I have always made it a rule never to refuse anything in my power, for, indeed, it must have been the fair sex who have had the majority in this domestic argument to gain this gastronomical election. 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, and 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 Oxtail 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.” That section of the work entitled “Soyer’s new mode of carving” (worthy of the deepest attention) is thus ushered in:—“You are all aware, honorable readers, of the continual tribulation in carving at table, for appetites more or less colossal, and when all eyes are fixed upon you with anxious avidity. Very few persons are perfect in this art, which requires not only grace, but a great deal of skill. Others become very nervous; many complain of the knife which has not the least objection to be found fault with; or else they say, this capon, pheasant, or poulard is not young, and consequently not of the best quality. You may sometimes be right, but it certainly often happens that the greatest gourmand is the worst carver, and complains sadly during that very long process, saying to himself “I am last to be served, my dinner will be cold.” Soyer’s motto is, “cleanliness is the soul of the kitchen;” the cuisine of the Reform Club is a perfect embodiment of this healthful axiom. That portion of the work before us devoted to “The Kitchen at Home,” deserves the attentive perusal of every housewife who wishes to enjoy comfort herself and be the cause of it to others; the author is almost as earnest and enthusiastic in his directions for the production of a good rump-steak pudding for the stomach of common life as he is for that of the most aristocratic and indulged. The work is, in short, one suited to the palace of the prince, and the cottage of the peasant. The two thousand practical receipts it contains, adapted to the incomes of all parties, have been eaten by a “committee of taste,” who have pronounced a verdict in their favour. It is appropriately dedicated to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, and the volume is rendered more valuable by its numerous well-executed illustrations. The frontispiece is a fine portrait of the author, after a painting by the once-accomplished and now lamented Madame Soyer. It is a most truthful portrait; each feature indicates the man—the play of the eloquent lip in there, at once the portal of wit and the minister of intense palatic sensibility. Vive le Soyer!
THE GLOBE
The Impression grows on us that the man of his age is neither Sir Robert Peel, nor Lord John Russell, nor even Ibrahim Pacha, but Alexis Soyer.
Hazlitt has said that, if literary men directed the world, they would leave nothing standing but printing presses. We know that parliamentary leaders imagine parliamentary tactics, and talk the primum mobile of mankind. Eastern despots think it is the sword; but Alexis Soyer knows it is the saucepan. When Napoleon first started the distinction of the “Legion of Honour,” Moreau ridiculed it by proposing to confer a casserole d’honneur on his cook. But we beg to propose some “Soyer testimonial,” without any joke at all. Have we not had a “Hudson testimonial?”—are we not threatened with a “Lambert Jones testimonial?”—to recompense, amongst other things, the laying that heavy load upon mother earth, called the Royal Exchange. What then shall be done unto the man who reared that light fabric of a Pyramid à l’Ibrahim Pacha, on which twenty centuries doubtless looked down last Friday evening, as they had very good reason to do,—since they might have seen Pyramids any day these two or three thousand years, but it is not every day they could see a Pyramid with “an elegant cream à l’ananas” on the top of it, and on the top of that again “a highly-finished portrait of the Illustrious stranger (Ibrahim Pacha’s) father, Mehemet Ali, carefully drawn on a round shape of satin carton.”
The veracious chronicler to whom we are now indebted for some particulars, which the world would not willingly let die, of that dinner at the Reform Club which has frighted some of our Paris contemporaries from their propriety, proceeds as follows: