| [12] | A Persian term, much used in Hindostan, and signifying a plain open space of ground. |
| [13] | A sort of pea, on which the horses are fed in India, and which in Spain, under the denomination of “garbansos,” constitutes a general article of human food. |
| [14] | A term usually applied to a new-comer in India, and having a synonymous meaning to that of “greenhorn.” |
| [15] | Meaning “Nazarenes,” or Christians, who are likewise denominated “Ferringhees,” or Franks. |
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
Papers from the Quarterly Review. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 18mo.
Another volume of “Appleton’s Popular Library”—books intended to “quicken the intelligence of youth, delight age, decorate prosperity, shelter and solace us in adversity, bring enjoyment at home, befriend us out of doors, pass the night with us, travel with us, go into the country with us.” The present volume contains some happily selected papers from the London Quarterly Review, on “The Printer’s Devil,” “Gastronomy and Gastronomers,” “The Honey Bee,” “Music,” and “The Art of Dress;” papers which are gracefully written, and abounding in interesting anecdote. Our favorite is the article on “Gastronomy and Gastronomers,” in which the art of cooking is raised to its true dignity as one of the Fine Arts, and its great exemplars are generally judged according to the principles of the profoundest philosophical criticism. The great cooks have found in the author of this article one born to be their critic—the Schlegel of gastronomy. From the New Zealand cannibal, with his “cold clergyman on the sideboard,” to the exquisite Brummel, who “once eat a pea,” our author ranges at will, the interpretator of palates. And in truth the subject is worthy of such an analyst. It is generally conceded that the highest action of the mind, in the gladdest rush of its creative energy, is combination. From combination proceeds the picturesque, represented in literature by Shakspeare in England, and Calderon in Spain. The essence of the picturesque is the “union, harmonious melting down and fusion of the diverse in kind and disparate in degree;” and we suppose that in this quality of mind the great cook is preëminent. He creates, by combination, new dishes out of old materials; is the author of edible Hamlets and deliciously flavored Romeos; and appeals, not to gluttons and fat-witted beer guzzlers, but to the fine senses of the educated gastronomer.
It is impossible for an American, to whom a dinner is a mere filling up of an empty stomach, to realize the art and science of eating as practiced and taught in France. Our author tells us that no less a dignitary than M. Henrion de Pensey, late President of the Court of Cassation—a magistrate, says, or said, M. Royer Collard, “of whom regenerated France has reason to be proud”—expressed to MM. Laplace, Chaptol and Berthollet his views of the comparative importance of the astronomical and gastronomical sciences, in these memorable words: “I regard the discovery of a dish as a far more interesting event than the discovery of a star, for we have always stars enough, but we can never have too many dishes; and I shall not regard the sciences as sufficiently honored or adequately represented amongst us, until I see a cook in the first class of the Institute.”
In this article we have also a complete account given of the lives and viands of the French masters of cookery, and minute directions given respecting the character of the chief Parisian cafés. It must be confessed that the celebrities of gastronomy have felt the dignity of their art full as much as the sculptors and poets. George the Fourth, by persevering diplomacy, and the offer of a salary of £1000, induced Caréme to come to Carlton House as his chef; but the artist, indignant at the lack of refined taste at the monarch’s table, left him at the end of a few months in disgust. Russia and Austria then attempted to bribe him to their kitchens; but, turning a deaf ear to imperial solicitations, and determined never again to leave France, he accepted as engagement with Baron Rothschild. Another of these dignitaries refused to accompany the Duke of Richmond to Ireland, though offered a liberal salary, because he understood that there was no Italian opera in Dublin.