From Spain to Bonnie Scotland! This is how to cook Howtowdie. Cut up a young fowl into handy joints. Put them into the Chafing Dish with two walnuts of butter, a cupful of bouillon, three sprigs of parsley, three small onions, salt and pepper. Simmer continuously until the bird is tender. When half cooked add another cupful of bouillon to make up for evaporation. When quite cooked put the fowl on to a hot dish, surround it with poached eggs, then thicken the gravy in the pan with a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of Worcester sauce; give it a smart boil up and pour it over the fowl. This Howtowdie is adapted from an excellent recipe in “The Scottish Cookery Book containing guid plain rules for makin’ guid plain meats suitable for sma’ purses, big families, and Scotch stomachs.”
Roman Fowl.
The preparation of Roman Fowl is simplicity itself. Pour four tablespoons of olive oil into the Chafing Dish with a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of Paprika, three cloves, and herbs to taste, but do not overdo the herbs. When the oil is sizzling put in all the limbs of a lightly boiled chicken, cut up. Cook it slowly, turning the meat so that all the flesh is equally cooked all over. When done it should be a delicate brown. Add half a cupful of tomato sauce and the same of bouillon, also three shredded onions. Simmer for eight minutes, then serve.
Creamed Chicken.
This is an American recipe, copied verbatim from an American Chafing-Dish cookery book. Two cups cold chicken cut into small pieces, one cup chicken stock, one cup milk or cream, two tablespoonfuls of butter, one heaping tablespoonful of flour, salt and pepper. Cook the butter and the flour together in the Chafing Dish; add the stock and milk and stir until smooth; put in the chicken, salt and pepper, and cook three minutes longer.
Other times, other manners. Contrast with the severe simplicity of the above the sort of thing that gratified the palates of our forebears. In the fourteenth century, Sacchetti says, a baked goose stuffed with garlic and quinces was esteemed an excellent dish in Italy, and when the Gonfalonier of Florence entertained a famous doctor he gave him the stomach of a calf, boiled partridges, and pickled sardines.
Old Samuel Pepys, too, had a nice taste in food as in music, and other things. His idea of “a fine dinner” was to this effect: “A dish of marrowbones, a leg of mutton, a loin of veal, a dish of fowl; three pullets and a dozen of larks, all in a dish; a great tart, a neat’s tongue, a dish of anchovies, a dish of prawns, and cheese.”
For those who are curious in such things it is easy to find quaint recipes in old books. For instance, if you want to know how to bake a hedgehog in clay—and very good it is too—you have only to read Albert Smith’s “Christopher Tadpole” and you will know all about it. It is truly said that comparatively few people read Disraeli’s novels nowadays, but those who are culinarily inclined would do well to turn to the opening chapter of “Tancred,” where there is a delightful conversation between a grand old maître de bouche, “Papa Prevost,” and his pupil, the eminent chef, Leander. The pompous spirit of the culinary artist is delightfully caught and the gastronomic jargon wonderfully reproduced.
But gastronomy has never lacked its historians. Great painters have come to its aid, as witness the glowing canvases of Snyders, Teniers, Jordaens, Ruysdael, Jan Weenix, Melchior de Hondecoeter and Jan Fyt. Their pictures of still life, the poulterers’ shops, the heaped baskets of good cheer, the brilliant lobster, the callow lemon, the russet hare, and the lustrous plumage of the pheasant, have inspired the hand of the Masters, who must have appreciated all such culinary delicacies in order to have painted them with such loving-kindness.
Yesterday’s Pheasant.