... Man is a carnivorous production,
And must have meals—at least one a day.
He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction;
Although his anatomical construction
Bears vegetables in a grumbling way,
Your labouring people think, beyond all question,
Beef, veal, and mutton, better for digestion.
One of the most ambitious efforts in the culinary-poetic line is, undoubtedly, “La Gastronome, ou l’homme des Champs à Table; poème didactique en quatre chants, par J. Berchoux, 1804,” wherein is set forth, at some length—firstly, the history of cooking; then the order of the services; and lastly, some fugitive pieces which allude to the gay science in choice and poetic terms. The book is enriched with some exquisite copper-plate engravings by Gravelot, Cochin, and Monsiau. The lines addressed by the author to his contemporaries warning them against the “repas monstreux des Grecs et des Romains” are full of repressed dignity and good sound common sense. One puts down the book with a sense of poetical-gastronomical repletion.
The poetic afflatus has possessed most great cooks, but none with more practical application than the immortal Alexis Soyer, the hero of the Crimea and the Reform Club, who, on the death of his wife, a clever amateur artist, wrote this simple and witty epitaph, “Soyez tranquille.” Gay’s poem on a knuckle of veal is also worthy of record, and an anonymous American poet has immortalized the duck in four pregnant verses.
A very modern poet who writes over the initials of M. T. P. has four charming verses on the propriety of ladies wearing their hats whilst dining. The second and third stanzas read as follows:—