Eat Onyons, and you shall not smelle the leeke;
If you of Onyons would the scente expelle,
Eat Garlicke, that shall drowne the Onyon’s Smelle.”
I would not go quite as far as the poet, but I confess to a weakness for chives. A judicious touch to many salads and made dishes is very desirable. Chives are to onions as the sucking-pig is to pork, a baby scent, a fairy titillation, an echo of the great Might Be.
Charles Lamb had a friend who said that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple dumplings. In the plural, mind you, not the singular. Appetites have vastly changed since then, probably not for the better, but the test even to-day seems adequate and noteworthy. I do not propose to recommend either onions or apple dumplings as Chafing-Dish experiments, but merely adduce them as worthy examples of the toothsomeness of simplicity.
The late lamented Joseph, of the Savoy and elsewhere, once said in his wisdom, “Make the good things as plain as possible. God gave a special flavour to everything. Respect it. Do not destroy it by messing.” These are winged words, and should be inscribed (in sugar icing) above the hearthstone of every artist in pots and pans.
The Chafing Dish is a veritable Mephistopheles in the way of temptation. It is so alluringly easy to add just a taste of this or that, a few drops of sauce, a sprinkling of herbs, a suggestion of something else. But beware and perpend! Do not permit your culinary perspective to become too Japanesque in the matter of foreground. Remember your chiaroscuro, take care of the middle distance, and let the background assert its importance in the whole composition. “I can resist anything—except temptation” is the cry of the hopelessly weak in culinary morality.
Lest I should be hereafter accused of contradicting my own most cherished beliefs, let me hasten here and now to assert that condiments, esoteric and otherwise, were undoubtedly made to be used as well as to be sold; and I am no enemy of bolstering up the weak and assimilative character of—say—veal, “the chameleon of the kitchen,” with something stronger, and, generally speaking, of making discreet use of suave subtleties to give completeness to the picture. But the watchword must always be Discretion! To those who muddle their flavours I would commend the words of the Archbishop in Gil Blas: “My son, I wish you all manner of prosperity—and a little more taste!”
Sidney Smith thought Heaven must be a place where you ate pâté de foies gras to the sound of trumpets. There is a late Georgian ingenuousness about this which is refreshing. The liver of the murdered goose and the scarlet sound of brass! Nowadays a Queen’s Hall gourmet would compare the celestial regions to a continuous feast of Cailles de Vigne braisées à la Parisienne to the accompaniment of Tschaikowsky’s “Casse Noisette” suite, which is more complicated, but perchance not less indigestible.
The typical crude British cookery, if carelessly performed, is a constant menace to its disciples. If well cooked there is nothing more wholesome, save perhaps the French cuisine bourgeoise, but—“much virtue in your If.” As a matter of fact, in nine households out of ten, in the middle-middle classes (and the upper too) the fare is well-intentioned in design, but deadly in execution, with a total absence of care and taste.