The very large proportion of fat shows that the Italians are right in their mode of using their breakfast cup of chocolate. They cut their roll into ‘fingers,’ and dip it in the ‘aurora’ instead of spreading butter on it.
Vegetable food generally contains an excess of cellulose and a deficiency of fat; therefore cocoa, with its excess of fat and deficiency of cellulose, is theoretically indicated as a very desirable adjunct to an ordinary vegetarian dietary. The few experiments I have made by perpetrating the culinary heresy of adding cocoa to oatmeal-porridge and other purées, to mashed potatoes, turnips, carrots, boiled rice, sago, tapioca, &c., prove that vegetarians have much to learn in the cookery of cocoa. During two months’ sojourn in Milan my daily breakfast consisted of bread, grapes, and powdered chocolate. Each grape was bitten across, one-half eaten pure and simple, then the cut and pulpy face of the other half was dipped in the chocolate powder, and eaten with as much as adhered to it. I have never been better fed.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
THE COOKERY OF WINE.
In an unguarded moment I promised to include the above in this work, and will do the best I can to fulfil the rash promise; but the utmost result of this effort can only be a contribution to a subject which is too profoundly mysterious to be fully grasped by any intellect that is not sufficiently clairvoyant to penetrate paving-stones, and see through them to the interiors of the closely-tiled cellars wherein the mysteries are manipulated.
I will first define what I mean by the cookery of wine. Grape juice in its unfermented state may be described as ‘raw wine,’ or this name may be applied to the juice after fermentation. I apply it in the latter sense, and shall use it as describing grape juice which has been spontaneously and recently fermented without the addition of any foreign materials, or altered by keeping, or heating, or any other process beyond fermentation. All such processes and admixture which affect any chemical changes on the raw material I shall describe as cookery, and the result as cooked wine. When I refer to wine made from other juice than that of the grape it will be named specifically.
At the outset a fallacy, very prevalent in this country, should be controverted. The high prices charged for the cooked material sold to Englishmen has led to absurdly exaggerated notions of the original value of wine. I am quite safe in stating that the average market value of rich wine in its raw state, in countries where the grape grows luxuriantly, and where, in consequence, the average quality of the wine is the best, does not exceed sixpence per gallon, or one penny per bottle. I speak now of the newly-made wine. Allowing another sixpence per gallon for barrelling and storage, the value of the commodity in portable form becomes twopence per bottle. I am not speaking of thin, poor wines, produced by a second or third pressing of the grapes, but of the best and richest quality, and, of course, I do not include the fancy wines—those produced in certain vineyards of celebrated châteaux—that are superstitiously venerated by those easily-deluded people who suppose themselves to be connoisseurs of choice wines. I refer to ninety-nine per cent. of the rich wines that actually come into the market. Wines made from grapes grown in unfavourable climates naturally cost more in proportion to the poorness of the yield.
As some of my readers may be inclined to question this estimate of average cost, a few illustrative facts may be named. In Sicily and Calabria I usually paid at the roadside or village ‘osterias’ an equivalent to one halfpenny for a glass or tumbler holding nearly half a pint of common wine, thin, but genuine. This was at the rate of less than one shilling per gallon, or twopence per bottle, and included the cost of barrelling, storage, and innkeeper’s profit on retailing. In the luxuriant wine-growing regions of Spain, a traveller halting at a railway refreshment station and buying one of the sausage sandwiches that there prevail, is allowed to help himself to wine to drink on the spot without charge, but if he fills his flask to carry away he is subjected to an extra charge of one halfpenny. It is well known to all concerned that at vintage-time of fairly good seasons, in all countries where the grape grows freely, a good empty cask is worth more than the new wine it contains when filled; that much wine is wasted from lack of vessels, and anybody sending two good empty casks to a vigneron can have one of them filled in exchange for the other. Those who desire further illustrations and verification should ask their friends—outside of the trade—who have travelled in Southern wine countries, and know the language and something more of the country than is to be learned by being simply transferred from one hotel to another under the guidance of couriers, ciceroni, valets de place, &c.
Thus the five shillings paid for a bottle of rich port is made up of one penny for the original wine, one penny more for cost of storage, &c., about sixpence for duty and carriage to this country, and twopence for bottling, making tenpence altogether; the remaining four shillings and twopence is paid for cookery and wine-merchant’s profits.