Three pounds of veal fillet, trimmed, and larded with fat bacon. Put in the glazing stewpan the trimmings, two ounces of sliced carrot, two ditto onion, with pepper and salt. Lay the fricandeau on the top; add half a pint of broth; boil the broth till it is reduced and becomes thick and yellow; add a pint and a half more broth, and simmer for an hour and a quarter—the stewpan half covered. Then close the stewpan and put live coals on the top. Baste the fricandeau with the gravy—presumably after the removal of the dead coals—every four minutes till it is sufficiently glazed; then take it out and place on a dish. Strain the gravy, skim off the fat, and pour over the meat. It may be added that a spirit lamp beneath the dish is (or should be) de rigueur.
In their clubs, those (alleged) “gilded saloons of profligacy and debauchery, favoured of the aristocracy,” men, as a rule dine wisely, and well, and, moreover, cheaply. The extravagant diner-out, with his crude views on the eternal fitness of things, selects an hotel, or restaurant, in the which, although the food may be of the worst quality, and the cookery of the greasiest, the charges are certain to be on the millionaire scale. For bad dinners, like bad lodgings, are invariably the dearest.
At the Mess-Table
of the British officer there is not much riot or extravagance nowadays, and the food is but indifferently well cooked; though there was a time when the youngest cornet would turn up his nose at anything commoner than a “special cuvée” of champagne, and would unite with his fellows in the “bear-fight” which invariably concluded a “guest night,” and during which the messman, or one of his myrmidons, was occasionally placed atop of the ante-room fire. And there was one messman who even preferred that mode of treatment to being lectured by his colonel. Said officer was starchy, punctilious, and long-winded, and upon one occasion, when the chaplain to the garrison was his guest at dinner, addressed the terrified servant somewhat after this wise:
“Mr. Messman—I have this evening bidden to our feast this eminent divine, who prayeth daily that we may receive the fruits of the earth in due season; to which I, an humble layman, am in the habit of responding: ‘We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.’ Mr. Messman, don’t let me see those d——d figs on the table again.”
At a military guest-night in India, a turkey and a “Europe” ham are—or were—de rigueur at table; and on the whole the warrior fares well, if the khansamah do not attempt luxuries. His chicken cutlets are not despicable, and we can even forgive the repetition of the vilolif but his bifisteakishtoo (stewed steak) is usually too highly-spiced for the European palate. Later in the evening, however, he will come out strong with duvlebone, and grilled sardines in curlpapers. The presence of the bagpipes, in the mess-room of a Highland regiment, when men have well drunk, is cruelly unkind—to the Saxon guest at all events. The bagpipe is doubtless a melodious instrument (to trained ears), but its melodies are apt to “hum i’ th’ head o’er muckle ye ken,” after a course of haggis washed down with sparkling wines and old port.
“Tell me what a man eats,” said Brillat Savarin, “and I’ll tell you what he is.”
Peter the Great
did not like the presence of “listening lacqueys” in the dining-room. Peter’s favourite dinner was, like himself, peculiar: “A soup, with four cabbages in it; gruel; pig, with sour cream for sauce; cold roast meat with pickled cucumbers or salad; lemons and lamprey, salt meat, ham, and Limburg cheese.”
“Lemons and lamprey” must have had a roughish seat, atop of pig and sour cream. I once tasted lampreys—only once. It was in Worcestershire, and said lampreys were stewed (I fancy) in burgundy, and served in a small tureen—en casserole, our lively neighbours would have called the production, which was grateful, but much embarrassed with richness.