In few of the arts has progress been more apparent during modern times. The mechanic has improved its accessories until the utmost perfection would seem to have been attained, medicine and chemistry have endeavoured to determine what elements of our daily dietary are injurious to certain individuals or to all, volume after volume has been written upon the subject, while the grand army of cooks has been busy in inventing new combinations or in resurrecting forgotten recipes.
And yet the digestive ills of humanity have continued to multiply, even though there are over six-score ways presented by a single author of serving the rabbit, and a competent priest of the range can utilise the egg in hundreds of different forms. Is it that with greater variety in our aliments, a greater number of ailments is a necessary sequence, and that as mankind increases in culinary knowledge digestion decreases in power? It is an olden adage that too many cooks spoil the broth; and it may be worthy of consideration whether a superfluity of dishes is not responsible to a considerable degree for the furtherance of various stomachic maladies. Or, on the other hand, is it that with the trebled facilities of locomotion supplied by modern science, and the closer confinement of indoor pursuits, the cause may be largely ascribed to lack of exercise and insufficient oxygenation?
A BACCHANTE
From the stipple engraving in colours by Bartolozzi, after Cipriani
However this may be, the art of cookery is far less generally understood than its great hygienic importance demands, while the art of dining is understood only by the relatively few. As M. Fayot observed to Jules Janin, "Without doubt, Monsieur, as you have often said, it is difficult to write well, but it is a hundred times more difficult to know how to dine well." Or, as Dumas has expressed it, "To eat understandingly and to drink understandingly are two arts that may not be learned from the day to the morrow." He himself was a striking example of the accomplished bon vivant, and his marked intellectual superiority over his son may be readily attributed to his greater knowledge of dining.
Where, indeed, more than at the well-appointed dinner-table may one echo the sentiment of Seneca, "When shall we live if not now?" "An empty stomach produces an empty brain," observes the author of the "Comédie Humaine"; "our mind, independent as it may appear to be, respects the laws of digestion, and we may say with as much justice as did La Rochefoucauld of the heart, that good thoughts proceed from the stomach." It is, however, a source whence our joys and sorrows both may spring. Neglect and indifference may impair its action to destruction; but, humoured kindly, it ever guides us in paths of peace. In a healthy and a hungry state, it yearns for special gifts which gustatory edicts demand, and rarely will confusion attend them when their bestowal is flavoured with prudence. It is a faithful minister and discriminating guardian, which rebels only when its functions are imposed upon; but when they are, its resentment is thorough and relentless. Worthy then, most certainly, of solicitous regard is the nourishment of an organ which may shape our ends for weal or woe.
"Cookery," said Yuan Mei, the Savarin of China and author of a scholarly cook-book during the eighteenth century, "is like matrimony—two things served together should match. Clear should go with clear, hard with hard, and soft with soft.... Into no department of life should indifference be allowed to creep—into none less than into the domain of cookery."
Concerning the art itself, it may be remarked that the French have been to cookery what the Dutch and Flemish schools have been to painting—cookery with the one and painting with the other having attained their highest excellence. Rubens, Rembrandt, Teniers, Jordaens, Ruysdael, Snyders, Berghem, and Cuyp may be paralleled in another branch of art by Carême, Vatel, Beauvilliers, Robert, Laguipière, Véry, Francatelli, and Ude. But, as in painting during its earlier stages Flanders and the Netherlands owed much to the Roman and Venetian schools, so in cookery the French are vastly indebted to their predecessors and former masters the Italians, who, if less distinguished colourists, were not to be despised as draughtsmen, and who if by instinct not as skilled in the chiaroscuro of sauces, were most dexterous in creating breadstuffs and pastry. Montaigne's reference to an Italian cook of the period will be remembered in this connection—one of the artists who had been employed by Cardinal Caraffa who discoursed upon the subject in such rich, magnificent words, well-couched phrases, oratoric figures, and pathetical metaphors as learned men use and employ in speaking of the government of an empire.
It is a long stone's throw from the first apple eaten in the Garden of Eden—and this was a wild fruit, and not a Spitzenberg or a Northern Spy—to a Chartreuse à la bellevue or that triumph of the ovens of Alsace—the pâté de foie gras. The first dish of which any record exists is the red pottage of lentils for which Esau sold his birthright—a form of food still very common in Germany and France. The first direct mention of breadstuffs in the Bible occurs in Genesis, where Abraham tenders the angel a morsel of bread, and bids Sarah make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.