DISHES OF HISTORY
“Only a pomegranate is he who, when he gapes his mouth, displays the contents of his heart.”
Japanese Proverb.
History and cookery are linked together so closely that a study of the one science implies, or should imply, a study of the other. For the best part of a century and a half the notable names of contemporary history are allied to dishes which perpetuated their glory and have come down to us as ornaments alike of the monarchy and the menu.
The period is of course that of the fourteenth and fifteenth Louis of France, and for several (mainly esoteric) reasons that brilliant and fascinating age produced most of the classic dishes of high cookery, dishes which have become, so to say, standardized, and which every chef who respects the traditions of his art serves, or ought to serve, in precisely the same manner in which they were designed by their original inventors.
The average diner, when he sees on the menu of his Masonic banquet, his annual Mansion House dinner, or his City Company feast, the name of some historic celebrity tacked on to the roast, the entrée or the sweet, recks little of its origin and inner meaning. To him it is just something to be eaten, nothing more or less. And yet, if the chef be competent, properly trained, and alive to his educational responsibilities, these dishes have each their own story, their own interest, and their own special and peculiar virtue.
Take as an instance Côtelettes de Mouton à la Maintenon. These succulent dainties perpetuate for all time the memory of a lady, who, whatsoever her faults, was at least charming, interesting, and something more than passing fair. When the Grand Monarque became queasy and past his prime, Madame invented, out of her own powdered head, these cutlets, which in their envelopes of paper (en papillotes) guarded the royal digestion against the evils of too much grease. Again, Cailles à la Mirepoix owe their origin to the Marshal of that name; Poulardes à la Montmorency were actually first cooked by the Duke de Montmorency; Petites Bouchées à la Reine are called after Maria Leczinska, wife of Louis Quinze; and filets de Volaille à la Bellevue were evolved for the King by the Pompadour, who excelled in the dainty manipulation of her silver batterie de cuisine.
The Regent Orleans is responsible for pain à la d’Orléans, a very light and digestible form of bread; and his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, first conceived and executed those delightful morsels filets de lapereau à la Berri. The Duchess de Villeroy, afterwards Maréchale de Luxembourg, a brilliant light of the Court of the fifteenth Louis, thought out, cooked, and christened the poulets à la Villeroy, which remain, and deservedly so, a toothsome and delightful dish, even unto this day. The Chartreuse à la Mauconseil is called after the Marquise of that name; and the Vol-au-Vent à la Nesle, which is still often met with, though not always classically cooked, derives its name from the Marquis de Nesle (not he of the Tower), who refused a peerage “to remain premier marquis of France.”
In rather earlier days the Marquis de Béchamel invented a cream sauce for turbot and cod which still, if somewhat perverted, perpetuates his name. Gigot à la Mailly was the result of profound study on the part of the first mistress of Louis XV, who by her culinary art attempted, and succeeded, in alienating the royal affection from her own sister, who was an undesirable rival. Soupe à la Condé was, in later years, called after the famous cousin of Louis XVIII; and the Prince de Soubise, notorious under Louis XV for giving great dinners, and paying nobody but his cooks and the young ladies of the opera, lent his name, through his cook, Bertrand, to the onion sauce which we still hold dear.
French cooks of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who did honour to their employers by christening magnificent creations after them only copied previous Apician artists, who, according to the “De Opsoniis,” named their inventions after Varro, Julius Matius, Julius Fronto, Celsinius, Vitellius, Commodus, and Didius Julianus. But the chefs of the golden age of cookery also delighted to honour men of comparatively humble station who took a keen and semi-professional interest in the art of la gueule, as Montaigne calls it.