Fisherman’s Sauce.
This is a rather rich mixture, adapted for fresh-water fish. After a decent day’s sport with the tricksome Mayfly, the quarter of an hour just before dinner may profitably be employed in concocting it. Half a pint of cream, or milk, but cream is better, two tablespoons of walnut ketchup, home made for choice, and one tablespoon of anchovy sauce. Boil these up for five minutes, and just before serving add a small walnut of butter, a teaspoon of flour, a squeeze of lemon, and a pinch of cayenne. Stir up all together, and serve very hot. It is the best fresh-water fish-sauce going.
Bigarade Sauce.
This is essentially the wild-duck sauce, and is a welcome and agreeable variant on the stereotyped port-wine sauce. Pare the rind of two oranges, shred the rind thinly, and boil up for five minutes in as little water as possible. Set the rind aside. Melt a walnut of butter in the Dish, mix it with half a tablespoon of flour, and stir it till it begins to burn; add a cupful of bouillon, pepper and salt, the squeezed juice of both oranges, and a teaspoon of soft white sugar. Now put in the shredded rinds, boil up for two minutes, and serve with the duck. If you have not time to make this sauce, mix a glass of port wine, a dash of cayenne, and a squeeze of lemon. Slice the breast of the duck and pour this mixture over it. A very useful adjunct to wild duck is a simple orange salad. Divide two or three oranges into sections, dress them with oil, vinegar, pepper and salt, and eat it as you would any ordinary salad.
Périgueux Sauce.
This is simply Truffle Sauce, and appeals mainly to the vulgar-minded. It is made thus: Chop up two truffles very finely. Put them in the Chafing Dish with a glass of sherry and a walnut of butter, and boil for five minutes; add pepper and salt and a squeeze of lemon. I am of opinion that truffles (which the ancients thought were the product of thunder) should only be eaten in one way, and that is en serviette, cooked in hot wood ashes and eaten with praise and thanksgiving. The flavour of truffles I take to be one of the most perfect in the whole category of food-stuffs. Their indiscriminate use in shreds, choppings, patterns, and for ornament, I consider to be a capital sin. The charcutier is mostly to blame for this; any old thing dressed up aux truffes he considers a delicacy. One day a band of knowledgeable eaters will slay all charcutiers.
Truffles suggest pigs; pigs suggest, to me, Berkshire; and Berkshire a certain witty lady who, speaking of a local magnate, a self-made man, and a very wealthy one too, but who retained his awfully uncouth manners, described him as a wild boar whom civilisation had turned into a pig. I fear me there are many such.
One of the English Kings died of a surfeit of lampreys, and one of the French Ministers of a surfeit of truffles, which were also alleged to have mainly contributed to the demise of the famous gourmand Béquet, who was the predecessor of Jules Janin on the Débats, and on whom Roger de Beauvoir wrote this epitaph:
“Cy-gît Béquet, le franc glouton
Qui but tout ce qu’il eut de rente;