36. Sautéd Sausages.—If your fire smokes, it is preferable to sauté them; put some butter in the pan, with four sausages; after you have pricked them as before-mentioned, sauté gently, a few minutes will do them, turn them often; in many instances a thin slice of bread sautéd in the fat they have produced is a great improvement; save the fat, as it is always useful in a kitchen. In case you are in a hurry to do them, throw them into hot water for one minute previously to their being broiled or sautéd; they will then be the sooner cooked, and even eat rather more relishing to a delicate stomach, having extracted the oil from the skin; they may also be fried in the frying-pan.
37. Black Puddings, broiled.—Make about six or eight incisions through the skin with a knife, in a slanting way, on each side of the pudding; put it on the gridiron for about eight minutes, on rather a brisk fire, turn it four times in that space of time, and serve it broiling hot.
I should recommend those who are fond of black puddings to partake of no other beverage than tea or coffee, as cocoa or chocolate would be a clog to the stomach. In France they partake of white wine for breakfast, which accounts for the great consumption of black pudding. Now really this is a very favorite dish with epicures, but I never should recommend it to a delicate stomach.
ON COFFEE.—Coffee, which has now come so generally into use, originally came from Arabia, where it has been known from time immemorial, but was brought into use in England in the year 1653; as it is not generally known how it was introduced, I will give you the account of it from “Houghton’s Collection,” 1698. “It appears that a Mr. Daniel Edwards, an English Merchant of Smyrna, brought with him to this country a Greek of the name of Pasqua, in 1652, who made his coffee; this Mr. Edwards married one Alderman Hodges’s daughter, who lived in Walbrook, and set up Pasqua for a coffee-man in a shed in the churchyard in St. Michael, Cornhill, which is now a scrivener’s brave-house, when, having great custom, the ale-sellers petitioned the Lord Mayor against him, as being no freeman. This made Alderman Hodges join his coachman, Bowman, who was free, as Pasqua’s partner; but Pasqua, for some misdemeanor, was forced to run the country, and Bowman, by his trade and a contribution of 1000 sixpences, turned the shed to a house. Bowman’s apprentices were first, John Painter, then Humphrey, from whose wife I had this account.” Having examined the renter churchwarden’s book of St. Michael, Cornhill, I find that the house or shed Bowman built is now part of the Jamaica Coffee-House; it was rebuilt by Bowman, after the fire, in 1667.
It is a very remarkable fact that but few persons in England know how to make good coffee, although so well supplied with the first quality of that delicious berry; but, by way of contrast, I must say that the middle classes of France are quite as ignorant of the method of making tea.
I remember, upon one occasion, whilst staying at Havre with Mr. B., where we were upon a visit at the house of one of his agents, who invited a few of his friends to meet us at a tea-party à l’Anglaise, as they used to call it, about an hour previous to tea, and previous to the arrival of the guests, I was walking upon the lawn before the house, when my attention was attracted by a cloud of steam issuing from the kitchen-window, smelling most powerfully of tea: my curiosity led me to the kitchen, where I found the cook busily engaged making cocoa and most delicious coffee, but preparing the tea in a ridiculous fashion, the leaves of which were in an awful state of agitation, attempting as it were to escape from an earthen pot at the side of the fire, in which the delicious soup we had for dinner was made a few hours previously. (See Pot-au-Feu.)
“My dear girl,” said I (in French), “what process do you call that of making tea? it never ought to be boiled.”
“I beg your pardon, Madame,” says she, “master and mistress like it well done, and it will be another short half-hour before it is properly cooked (ce sera alors copieux).”
“You are decidedly wrong,” said I, “and I shall be most happy to show you the way we make it in England.”