The soup plates were removed by one waiter: he disappeared with them behind the curtain, and re-appeared with the dinner-set in about the time the other waiter had placed the second course upon the table. It might have been remarked that our soup plates were rather shallow, and our dinner plates, by contrast, rather deep; but the eyes of our guests were too dazzled to perceive such slight peculiarities. We knew that it was a wise maneuvre to show great profusion at the beginning of a dinner. The guests then have their anxiety allayed, and carry with them an overpowering idea of plenty, which of itself allays the appetite. Accordingly we double shotted this gun. At the head of the table appeared a dish not generally known or appreciated. Sweet potatoes and beef entered largely into its composition. A hungry naval officer had introduced it into the mess, and he called it scouse. Yet it served a certain purpose well, and was skilfully slipped in at this point to attract the attention of gentlemen with vigorous appetites. At the other end appeared a broiled spare-rib, and the lines of communication between these right and left wings were kept open by detachments of squash, turnips, boiled potatoes, and cranberry sauce. With secret pleasure we saw our friends lay in heavily of the scouse, and deceive themselves into the foolish belief that we had thrown two courses together, and that this was the dinner.
But the next course came on, with clean plates, in the imposing form and substance of a Chicken Pie. A magnificent chicken pie it was, filling an immense pan, and richly crowned with brown crust heaving up above the brim. It had no accompaniments save baked potatoes, and constituted of itself an entire army corps. No one associated with it the idea of anything little, or niggardly, or economical. On the contrary, all applauded it enthusiastically, and declared that it alone would have made a dinner.
From the gravity of this heavy dish we passed to the gayety of mince and pumpkin pies. These were the only common-place things in the dinner. They were followed by a course of tarts—small, refined-looking tarts, elegantly covered with currant jelly and beautiful pear preserves. This course was surprisingly showy and genteel, impressing beholders with the idea that there must be a pastry-cook shop concealed somewhere in the camp. Our grand climax was one of those efforts of genius sometimes called “jelly-cake,” sometimes “Lafayette cake,” sometimes “Washington pie.” It was some eighteen inches in diameter, and four or five inches thick, (the exact size of our dodger pot), a beautiful brown on the outside, and a rich golden yellow within, and when cut was seen to be divided by strata of tempting jelly. Finally, we closed with coffee (not corn, but Java) and tea (not Thea Chinensis, but Thea Texana), and tobacco inhaled through pipes, instead of through the original leaf. We broke up, after the usual four hours’ sitting of a respectable party, with the usual courtesies and ceremonies. One of two late men stayed, as they always do, to tell their best stories; and one or two early men slipped off, as they always do, on the plea of domestic engagements. There was one or two small mishaps, such as a slight infusion of red pepper in the coffee (occasioned by one of the cooks grinding the pepper first), and the house getting a-fire (caused by the stoker piling the wood as high as the log mantel), but the affair, as a whole, was a grand, noble, philanthropic success.
For the benefit of those persons who (allured by the brightness of this report) desire to become prisoners, I will minutely narrate how this wonderful result was obtained.
The soup was real, and probably the strongest thing of the kind ever made, for a choice assortment of beef-bones were boiled for thirty-six hours. The turnips and spare-rib were a present from the Confederate Commissary, Lieutenant Ross, and came in the very nick of time. That solitary fowl we had discussed for a mile or two of our walk back, and had finally determined to put him in a pie. But the only pie-dish we could procure was a large tin milk-pan. To have a dish half full of pie would never do. It was necessary both to have pie enough and to fill the dish. From Confederate beef we selected pieces free from fat and grizzle, and then took the fowl and chopped him up bones and all. The beef was also chopped, and the two mixed thoroughly together. The fragments of bone, to which some prejudiced housewives would have objected, were of great value to us in establishing the authenticity of the pie; for a man who, with every mouthful he took, pricked his tongue on a splinter of chicken bone, could not doubt (if he were a reasoning creature) that he was eating chicken pie.
The next, and perhaps the greatest achievement of our art, was in the currant and cranberry line. We made, after many experiments, a strong decoction of sumach. Into this we stirred flour, slightly browned to reduce its color and take off the raw taste. When this mixture was properly sweetened and cooled it made a dark, pasty substance, looking and tasting precisely like poor currant jelly. The cranberry sauce was more difficult, and involved repeated experiments. Finally a handful of dried peaches was chopped up, so that when cooked the pieces would appear about the size of cranberries. To get rid of their peach flavor, we soaked them and boiled them and drained the water off, and then cooked them slightly in a decoction of sumach, and added sugar in the usual way. Although every one must have known that there were no cranberries in Texas, yet no one dared to question the reality of this dish. It was not cranberry, but it was so like cranberry that they could not imagine what else it could be, and feared to betray their ignorance.
A shrewd observer will have noticed the fact that our invaluable peaches nowhere appeared on the bill of fare. Indeed they were very carefully kept out of sight, and did duty in the secret service. Those mince pies! They were made of peaches—of peaches and mince-meat, well flavored, and moistened with cider-vinegar. I cannot assert that they were poor, for we had no other mincepies wherewith to compare them; I cannot deny that they were good, because they were all eaten up. The proof was in their favor.
The big pumpkin that we carried under one arm till benumbed, and on one shoulder till a stiff neck for life threatened us, was a very useful vegetable. In one course it appeared as squash; in another as pumpkin, and in a third as pear. The chief cook recollected having seen or heard of pumpkin preserves, and our early experiments pointed to ultimate success. To succeed, however, the simplest common sense told us we must have a name for our invention. To call it pumpkin sweatmeats would ruin it. We knew that guava jelly and preserved ginger must become bankrupt under such a label. Accordingly we cut the pumpkin in pieces, like those of a quartered pear; we stewed it till it was not quite done (a little tough where the core ought to be); we spiced it with sassafras, prickly-ash, a few cloves, and the last half of a nutmeg, and we called it pear-preserve.
It will be remembered that I alluded to a gigantic cake, beautifully brown without and richly yellow within. This magnificent work of art, truth compels me to say, was a failure. Its golden richness was not due to eggs but to corn-meal. We mixed a dodger with some flour, to give consistence, and some sugar, to give sweetness. We baked it at the right time and in the right manner. We sliced it up, and daubed the slices over with artificial currant jelly. We went a step farther, and called it cake. We even varied the name of the cake, to meet the prejudice or fancy of the particular guest about to be helped. But vulgarly speaking, “it was not a go.” We could cheat our guests through the medium of their eyes and ears in many things, but we couldn’t cheat them on dodger. When they tasted dodger, they recognized dodger. Dodger for breakfast, dodger for dinner, and dodger for supper, in the course of half a year, makes a deep impression on the human mind. A little sugar and jelly were wholly inadequate to smooth it away. Here, then, in the very flush of victory, we were in danger of suffering a shameful defeat. Earlier in the dinner we could have brought up fresh forces, but now, in the hope of making the affair overwhelming, we had thrown our last reserve into action. A retreat was ruin, and an instant of hesitation would have acknowledged a defeat. In less than an instant we turned the retreat into a flank movement. Captain Dillingham, with naval effrontery, gave the cake a new name, and called it a Joke!
Thus ended this great dinner. Our guests retired from it wiser and better men. A profound sensation was followed by a healthy excitement. Manufactures sprang up and trade began. Some gentlemen made caps from rags, and hats from straw. Others built a gymnasium for amusement, and others engaged in gardening for recreation. A few musicians manufactured banjoes, tanning the parchment and preparing the strings in camp. One officer, possessed of a worn-out file, a large screw, and a couple of old horse-shoes, ground the file into a chisel, and turned the screw and worn-out horse-shoes into a good turning lathe. Another changed this lathe from half-action to full-action. A third made for it a crank and foot-treadle. A fourth built an entirely new lathe, better than the first. And thus affairs went on until we numbered more than forty articles of camp manufacture made, chiefly, like our dinner, out of nothing.[[2]]