“Do you not recall,” he replied, “the Autocrat’s remark that literary reputations are largely a matter of administering oysters in the form of suppers, to gentlemen connected with criticism? Veuillot similarly claimed that men were elected to the French Academy chiefly because they gave good dinners. Sydney Smith applied the principle to religion when he said, ‘The way to deal with fanatics is not to reason with them, but to ask them to dinner.’ On the other hand, Swift used deliberately to test men’s tempers by offering them bad wine.”
“And did Plato like olives?” I continued.
“He often made a meal of nothing else,” was the reply.
“And what was Vergil’s salad?” It arrived at that moment.
“It is made of cheese and parsley, with a bit of garlic, rue, and coriander, salt, oil, and vinegar. A little of it is, I think, very pleasing. I much prefer it to Sydney Smith’s. I never understood how he could write ‘Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day’ about a salad made of potatoes. For the truly esoteric doctrine you must read John Evelyn’s ‘Discourse of Sallets.’
“Indeed, I am inclined, on the whole, to think that Sydney Smith was what Carlyle called ‘a blethering blellum,’ when he wrote about food, as he so often did. It was perfectly proper for him to express a desire to experience American canvasbacks, and to be glad that he was not born before tea; but to say that roast pheasant and bread sauce was the source of the most elevated pleasure in life, and that his idea of heaven was eating pâté de fois gras to the sound of trumpets—that was both posing and trifling with serious subjects. Charles Lamb’s comments on roast pig and frogs’ legs, and his kindred table talk, are much more genuine, and, of course, charming; but even they scarcely touch the deeper aspects of the subject.
“Thackeray had all of Lamb’s appreciation of food and, I think, something more. He enjoyed his own and accepted others’ idiosyncrasies of taste,—witness his treating boys to apricot omelet, which he hated,—but his plea for simpler and more varied dinners, for more hospitality and less ostentation, indicates, I think, that he realized at least something of the profound moral and social significance of food.
“This, as you know, is one of my hobbies, and I unconsciously add it to my other criteria of judgment in my reading. That Scott invented a venison pasty, Dickens a sandwich, Webster a clam chowder, and Henry Clay a stew is interesting; just as it is that Buckle was discriminate and Heine indiscriminate in choosing tea. But it is far more significant that Dr. Johnson considered writing a cook-book, and that Dumas’ last work actually was such a volume of more than a thousand pages.
“That is the kind of thing we need: sound doctrine from influential writers, but it is not easy to get. The intemperate use of food, which is always with us, causes many to turn with prejudice from the whole subject. Here, as elsewhere, conservatism often opposes the good. You know, for example, how long the clergy decried the use of forks; and I never cease to regret that the man who was opened-minded enough to introduce umbrellas into England should have been furiously opposed to tea.
“Many writers, too, treat the subject fancifully, without regard to its inherent truths—witness the conventional praise of the indigestible turtle. Often those who intend well lack knowledge: Pythagoras made it a principle of morality to abstain from beans, an almost perfect food; the ideal diet of Plato’s republic, barley pudding and bread, does not contain the elements necessary to sustain life properly. Democritus inaugurated the still repeated heresy that any food that is pleasant is wholesome; and even Dr. Johnson defended his doubtful practice of eating whenever he was hungry, without regard to regularity. For all these reasons and many others I hold it, in this enlightened age, doubly the responsibility of intelligent men, and particularly of those who influence popular opinion, to acquire a sound knowledge of such matters and to do all that they can to disseminate it.”