This does not sound as palatable as a sole au gratin or en matelote Normande, or even whitebait—that "little means of obtaining a great deal of pleasure"; but one can scarcely forget Thackeray's sentence, even if his appreciation may have been heightened by the surroundings of the Ship Tavern and congenial companionship.
Nearly ten years after Walker's day we find Thackeray also condemning many similar evils:
"I would have" [he urges, and the advice is still pertinent]—"a great deal more hospitality and less show. Everybody has the same dinner in London, and the same soup, and the same saddle of mutton, boiled fowls and tongue, entrées, champagne, and so forth. Who does not know those made dishes with the universal sauce to each: fricandeau, sweetbreads, damp dumpy cutlets, etc., seasoned with the compound of grease, onions, bad port wine, cayenne pepper, and curry-powder, the poor wiry Moselle and sparkling Burgundy in the ice-coolers, and the old story of white and brown soup, turbot, little smelts, boiled turkey, and saddle of mutton?... What I would recommend with all my power is that dinners should be more simple, more frequent, and should contain fewer persons. Ten is the utmost number that a man of moderate means should ever invite to his table; although in a great house managed by a great establishment the case may be different. A man and a woman may look as if they were glad to see ten people; but in a great dinner they abdicate their position as host and hostess,—are mere creatures in the hands of the sham butlers, sham footmen, and tall confectioners' emissaries who crowd the room,—and are guests at their own table, where they are helped last, and of which they occupy the top and bottom."
Thackeray has written frequently on the pleasures of the table, and his name may well figure in the annals of gastronomy as one of its shining lights, if only for his delicious essays "Memorials of Gormandising" and "On Some Dinners at Paris," to which in their entirety the reader is referred.
Still later, Charles Dickens keenly satirises the existing pomp and the lack of simplicity of the English table, notably among the higher classes, where he finds so much Powder in waiting that it flavours the repast, pulverous particles getting into the dishes, and Society's meats having a seasoning of first-rate footmen—society having everything it could want, and could not want, for dinner.
Perhaps in no connection with the art of which the "Original" treats is the advice more practical than in the remarks on variety, with which the reference to Walker may be terminated:
"Although I like, as a rule, to abstain from much variety at the same meal, I think it both wholesome and agreeable to vary the food on different days, both as to the materials and mode of dressing them. The palate is better pleased and the digestion more active, and the food, I believe, assimilates in a greater degree with the system. The productions of the different seasons and of different climates point out to us unerringly that it is proper to vary our food; and one good general rule I take to be, to select those things which are most in season, and to abandon them as soon as they begin to deteriorate in quality. Most people mistake the doctrine of variety in their mode of living; they have great variety at the same meals, and great sameness at different meals. These agreeable varieties are never met with, or even thought of, in the formal routine of society, though they contribute much, when appropriately devised, to the enjoyment of a party. With respect to variety of vegetables, I think the same rule applies as to other dishes. I would not have many sorts on the same occasion, but would study appropriateness and particular excellence. One of the greatest luxuries, to my mind, in dining is to be able to command plenty of good vegetables, well served up. Excellent potatoes, smoking hot, and accompanied by melted butter of the first quality, would alone stamp merit on any dinner; but they are as rare on state occasions, so served, as if they were of the cost of pearls."
It may be subjoined to the many pertinent observations respecting the duties of the entertainer, that so far as it is within his power he should consider his guests individually, weighing their personal likes and dislikes to such extent as may comport with the general welfare. The first thing he should recognise as his imperative duty is to please. Yet while a surprise in the components of the dinner is to be desired, the choice of dishes should nevertheless be made with reference to the taste of the majority, in distinction to one's own preference or the predilections of the few. With the stiff and formal dinner, or with large dinner-parties, fine discrimination is less practicable, these functions being necessarily a burden to all concerned. Les dîners fins se font en petits comités; and, equally, in informal gatherings. The deft hand and nice judgment may be thoroughly manifested only among intimate friends, where the personality of the master may guide and direct, free from the trammels of conventionality. Then that false etiquette which prescribes that the entertainer should never rise from the table may be waived; and where he may enhance the pleasure of his friends by an impromptu visit to the wine-cellar in pursuit of some special vintage that the moment calls for, or carry out a happy thought that the occasion may create, it is his bounden duty to perform for himself what others may not perform as well, or perform not at all. With the absence of formality, the wit may rise to the full height of his genius, the humorist may shine, and the accomplished and graceful liar draw a treble measure of delight from the font of a genial and exuberant fancy.
LA TABLE