[CHAPTER IX]
DINNER (continued)
“The combat deepens. On ye brave,
The cordon bleu, and then the grave!
Wave, landlord! all thy menus wave,
And charge with all thy devilry!”
French soup—A regimental dinner—A city banquet—Baksheesh—Aboard ship—An ideal dinner—Cod’s liver—Sleeping in the kitchen—A fricandeau—Regimental messes—Peter the Great—Napoleon the Great—Victoria—The Iron Duke—Mushrooms—A medical opinion—A North Pole banquet—Dogs as food—Plain unvarnished fare—The Kent Road cookery—More beans than bacon.
“What’s in a name?” inquired the love-sick Juliet. “What?” echoes the bad fairy “Ala.” After all the fuss made by the French over their soups, we might expect more variety than is given us. If it be true that we English have only one sauce, it is equally true that our lively neighbours have only one soup—and that one is a broth. It is known to the frequenters of restaurants under at least eleven different names Brunoise, Jardinière, Printanier, Chiffonade, Macédoine, Julienne, Faubonne, Paysanne, Flamande, Mitonnage, Croûte au Pot, and, as Sam Weller would say, “It’s the flavouring as does it.” It is simply bouillon, plain broth, and weak at that. The addition of a cabbage, or a leek, or a common or beggar’s crust, will change a potage à la Jardinière into a Croûte au Pot, and vice versa. Great is “Ala”; and five hundred per cent is her profit!
The amount of money lavished by diners-about upon the productions of the alien chef would be ludicrous to consider, were not the extravagance absolutely criminal. The writer has partaken of about the most expensive dinner—English for the most part, with French names to the dishes—that could be put on the table, the charge being (including wines) one guinea per mouth. Another banquet, given by a gay youth who had acquired a large sum through ruining somebody else on the Stock Exchange—the meal positively reeking of Ala—was charged for by the hotel manager at the rate of sixteen pounds per head, also including wines. I was told afterwards, though I am still sceptical as to the veracity of the statement, that the flowers on the table at that banquet cost alone more than £75. And only on the previous Sunday, our host’s father—a just nobleman and a God-fearing—had delivered a lecture, at a popular institution, on “Thrift.”
Here follows the menu of the above-mentioned guinea meal,
A Regimental Dinner,