The seven-o'clock theatre dinner, while less obnoxious than the Sunday evil, is nevertheless a positive discomfort and a direct incentive to flatulence and dyspepsia. It should likewise receive the stigma of public disapproval, and either be entirely abolished, out of comfort both to hosts and guests, or set at a sufficiently early hour to ensure their well-being and that of the audience it invariably disturbs. In any event, a formal repast of this nature can scarcely be partaken of with a sense of comfort, and it were better for all concerned if a supper after the performance were substituted.
To be regretted also is the growing tendency of adjourning the evening dinner-hour. Six o'clock, the hygienist will maintain, is the latest period in the day at which those who set a proper value on their health should begin to dine. It will be claimed, notwithstanding, by many who may be directly concerned, that this is too early for invited guests to assemble at table—that the toiler in the business mart may not always call his time his own. Let the hours of the business man and the professionalist be shortened, so that life may contain a broader margin. There still remain but twenty-four hours in the day, and the existing hours of business are too long and do not enable the majority to regulate the conditions of life properly. Let us not be ever hastening on, as though the goal were to be attained only by whip and spur!—"the wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure, and he that hath little business shall become wise."
The ideal hour for dining would be half-past six, with fifteen minutes' grace at the utmost, when one need neither sit down in a half-famished condition nor be sent to bed with an overcharged stomach. Seven o'clock certainly is as late as one may dine with comfort. A deferred dinner means either a too substantial luncheon or a distressing feeling of "goneness," which frequently makes itself unpleasantly audible long before the announcement that dinner is served; while lateness in dining implies additionally an insufficient interim between the dessert and the night's repose. No period of the day begins to be as tedious as that which is often mistakenly extended for the benefit and encouragement of the unpunctual. Would that the laggard who thus mars the comfort of others might feel the true force of Boileau's stricture: "I have always been punctual at the hour of dinner, for I knew that all those whom I kept waiting at that provoking interval would employ those unpleasant moments to sum up all my faults." To wait for tardy guests, it cannot be emphasised too strongly, is to try unwarrantably the temper of the remainder of the company and jeopardise the excellence of the repast. All such stumbling-blocks to the perfect advance of gastronomy, however, will doubtless be removed in time, and the pleasures of the table eventually be realised to their fullest extent in America.
Again, turning from the state of cookery in this country to that in England, it must be admitted that advancement has been far less manifest. "In general," a French writer remarks, "the English are little inclined to epicurism; it is apparent that their palate is not apt to appreciate the finish, the delicacy of a dish artistically prepared." It cannot be said that this stricture is entirely just, despite existent conditions. Neither may it be charged that the general state of English cookery is entirely the result of supineness on the part of a considerable portion of those whose interests are most affected; for the travelled Briton is the first to complain of the sameness and lack of progress which characterise his native kitchen. With abundant material and the best of meats and fish, there is little variety and a conspicuous want of daintiness in the English bill of fare; while even in the capital the English restaurants, with few exceptions, are scarcely to be commended. One must perforce suppose that these conditions are more the outcome of the national conservatism—the tendency to "let well enough alone"—than that they are not realised by a certain portion of the community. The Englishman is the last one, however, to stint at his table, whereon the ample roast invariably figures, and whatever may chance to be served appears in generous profusion.
Nor can one imagine a more delightsome host than the cultured Briton, who was first to proclaim the virtues of old-vintage champagnes, and who is still willing to undergo the martyrdom of gout for the sake of an after-glass of port which may not be equalled elsewhere. And if the English table be designated as "heavy" compared with that of the United States, it must be considered that climate has much to do with the form of a nation's alimentation. The national roast beef and ale are a fuel for the body in a land where fogs and mists prevail, and where the heating of dwellings and buildings is often inadequate. The chop-house is essentially English, and so far as its bill of fare extends its merits are unquestionable. The Englishman will also say, and his claim cannot be disputed, Is there a better substantial soup than turtle, or even ox-tail and mulligatawny? is any friture equal in delicacy to that of whitebait? and is not the English beefsteak incomparably superior to the larded filet of the French?
But turtle and turbot and beef and ale need not necessarily preclude the lighter forms of nutrition which the British lack, or that minute attention to detail without which the cuisine must languish. It is true that the kitchens of the very wealthy are presided over by skilled foreign chefs, as is the case in most other countries, and that my lord and my lady do not lack for the most exquisite refinements that the disciples of Carême can contribute. A rich ancestral English country-seat, shaded by its immemorial elms and limes, with its splendid conservatories and gardens, its game-preserves and trout and salmon waters, is perhaps the best expression of refined and luxurious hospitality to be found; and here, assuredly, the table does not yield in bounty and munificence to any in the world. Outside of comparatively few dishes, however, there is but little to commend in general English cookery; and it would seem that what else is specially characteristic and also good consists largely in the cold pieces, such as game-, pigeon-, and rabbit-pie, spiced beef, the lordly venison pasty, and similar comestibles. That there is no such thing as fine modern English cookery the Englishman will be first to acknowledge. Broadly speaking, all which is good is old, and all which is modern is French.[33] The cooking of vegetables is notoriously poor, and variety in preparation is as limited on the ordinary table as the variety of the vegetables themselves during a major portion of the year. The seedsman and the market-gardener cannot be held accountable, for the seedsman produces excellent varieties in profusion, many of which are grown in this country, and market-gardeners abound who must raise them. And no gardener may excel, if equal, the Englishman, whether his operations extend to the kitchen-or the flower-garden. But where are his vegetables to be met with in perfection of variety and perfection of cooking?—a question that becomes almost as great a problem as was the universal absence of male birds among the chaffinches or the mysterious disappearance of the ring-ouzels to Gilbert White.
During the limited season, let us admit, there are some vegetables which may not be surpassed, like green peas and beans, cauliflower, asparagus, and many varieties of lettuce, especially Cos, which cannot be grown to equal advantage under our hot summer sun. It is unfortunate that potatoes are cooked only in about one way, for few potatoes can compare in flavour with those raised in England. All such vegetables as demand continuous midsummer heat for their perfect maturity, together with late-ripening varieties of fruits, are necessarily raised at a disadvantage in most portions of Great Britain. Yet it would seem that the frowns of Vertumnus were far less responsible for this dearth of variety than the apparent apathy of the nation itself or those who are principally responsible for its alimentation—the cook, the epicure, the restaurant, and the housewife.
Thus, in so simple a matter as the pumpkin-pie, which one occasionally meets in the southern and southwestern shires, it is hardly surprising that it is held in slight estimation when one reflects that the material is cut up in pieces, and then, with half apple and half pumpkin, a pie is made similar to the ordinary English apple-pie, and this in a climate where a pumpkin of good quality may not be grown out of doors. Contrary to general opinion, pumpkin-pie is not an American but an old English dish improved upon by the New England housewife. Three hundred years ago, when known as the "pompion," they were made into pies by cutting a hole in the side, extracting the seeds and filaments, stuffing the cavity with apples, and baking the whole.
The nectarine, peach, and apricot, as raised under glass in England or grown as espaliers in favoured localities, are always superior, while the glass-grown "pine" nowhere else reaches such perfection. Superlative, too, is the glass-grown muskmelon—netted, ribbed, and laced; spherical, oval, and globe-shaped; green-fleshed and scarlet-fleshed; and melting, juicy, and delicious. But some will ask, what can be more delectable than the scented orange-scarlet flesh of our own "Surprise," or the Hymettus sweetness that is hived beneath the wattled ribs of the little "Green Nutmeg"? The watermelon, with its great, luscious, rosy core, like corn and the sweet potato and its varieties, is not to be grown in England.
Of hardy fruits America is the chosen home, unless it be of the grape for wine-making, wherein France reigns supreme. And of all districts where soil and climate unite to second the skill of the horticulturist, there is perhaps none in which nearly all the finer species and varieties of fruit attain such superiority, combined with keeping qualities, as in the smiling garden of the Empire State—the Genesee Valley of New York. Excellent fruits are raised in France and southern Germany, but only to a limited extent compared with our own country. To the French we are indebted for many of the finest varieties of pears, though these are rarely seen in France itself. Fruit in Europe is always dear and often difficult to obtain. Yet in the noted Parisian restaurants it is a rare occurrence when one cannot obtain a couple of peaches for twenty-five francs, or revel in a melon for thirty, much the same as pineapples may be obtained in London at a guinea apiece.