"A lady!" said Joseph, in rather a startled tone; but I assured him that the good angel who was to be my guest knew as much of good cooking as any male gourmet, and was aware that there are some culinary works of art in the presence of which conversation is an impertinence.
"I will give you soup, fish, roast—nothing more," said Joseph; and misinterpreting my silence, he went on: "In England you taste your dinners, you do not eat them. An artist who is confident of his art only puts a small dinner before his clients. It is a bad workman who slurs over his failures by giving many dishes." This is exactly what I have been preaching on the housetops for years, and, being thoroughly in accord on that subject, we settled down on a sofa in the corridor for a chat.
I am the worst interviewer in the world. I had been told that Joseph was born in Birmingham of French parents, that he is an adept at la savate, and that the one amusement of his life is pigeon-flying; and when I accused him of all this he pleaded guilty to each count. Directly we began to talk cookery I had no cause to ask leading questions. It is the absorbing passion of Joseph's life. "If I had the choice," he said, with conviction, "between going to the theatre to see Coquelin or Mme. Bernhardt and watching the faces of six gourmets eating a well-cooked dinner, I should choose the latter." When I referred to the dinner at which some of the great lights of the theatrical world were present, and he cooked a considerable portion of the dinner in their presence, Joseph replied that as it is the art of actors and actresses to make an effect on the public, he wished to show them that there could be something to strike the imagination in his art also.
Since '67, when Joseph entered the kitchen at Brébant's as a marmiton, he has given all his mind to cookery. He has been in every position that goes to the making of a real artist, and even when he walks the streets "looking at my boots" he is waiting for some flash of inspiration. "I cannot sit down in my office and create a new dish to command. An idea comes to me, and when I am free I try it in my own kitchen at home. I never experiment on the public." Many other things he told me, of how as a schoolboy he used to peep into the kitchens of the Anglais and other big restaurants in envy of the cooks, and of the genesis of some of the dishes in the long list of the specialities of his cuisine. With a sudden turn to the subject of literature, Joseph wrote down for me his contribution, made the day before, to a young lady's album. This is it:—
"C'est la première côtelette qui coûta le plus cher à l'homme—Dieu en ayant fait une femme."
Then, passing the table-d'hôte room, with its great marble chimney-piece and walls with an Oriental pattern on them, on our way we went to the kitchens, where M. Henri Thouraud, the chef, a tall, plump, good-looking Parisian, with a light moustache, received us.
First, I was shown the means of communication between the kitchen and various parts of the hotel, and the close touch kept between M. Joseph in the restaurant and the chef in the kitchen, each knowing the other's methods, for they have worked together off and on for twenty years; and then my attention was turned to the arrangement of the kitchen and the battalion of cooks, every man having his duty assigned him, every man having his place in that chain of responsibility which runs from chef to marmiton.
Every master of the culinary art has his own ideas as to the arrangement of his kitchen, and M. Joseph has made some changes from the arrangements of Maître Escoffier in the great white-tiled room in which the roasting and boiling is done.
Two plump fowls were spinning and dripping before the roasting fire, there was a steamy heat in the air, and I was rather glad to move into the cooler atmosphere of the rooms on a lower floor, where I was shown all the good things ready to go to the fire or the buffet.