As much pains have been taken in describing, in the most intelligible manner, how to make, in the easiest, most agreeable, and economical way, those common sauces that daily contribute to the comfort of the middle ranks of society; as in directing the preparation of those extravagant and elaborate double relishes, the most ingenious and accomplished “officers of the mouth” have invented for the amusement of profound palaticians, and thorough-bred grands gourmands of the first magnitude: these we have so reduced the trouble and expense of making, as to bring them within the reach of moderate fortunes; still preserving all that is valuable of their taste and qualities; so ordering them, that they may delight the palate, without disordering the stomach, by leaving out those inflammatory ingredients which are only fit for an “iron throat and adamantine bowels,” and those costly materials which no rational being would destroy, for the wanton purpose of merely giving a fine name to the compositions they enter into, to whose excellence they contribute nothing else. For instance, consuming two partridges to make sauce for one: half a pint of game gravy ([No. 329],) will be infinitely more acceptable to the unsophisticated appetite of Englishmen, for whose proper and rational recreation we sat down to compose these receipts; whose approbation we have done our utmost to deserve, by devoting much time to the business of the kitchen; and by repeating the various processes that we thought admitted of the smallest improvement.
We shall be fully gratified, if our book is not bought up with quite so much avidity by those high-bred epicures, who are unhappily so much more nice than wise, that they cannot eat any thing dressed by an English cook; and vote it barbarously unrefined and intolerably ungenteel, to endure the sight of the best bill of fare that can be contrived, if written in the vulgar tongue of old England.[103-*]
Let your sauces each display a decided character; send up your plain sauces (oyster, lobster, &c.) as pure as possible: they should only taste of the materials from which they take their name.
The imagination of most cooks is so incessantly on the hunt for a relish, that they seem to think they cannot make sauce sufficiently savoury without putting into it every thing that ever was eaten; and supposing every addition must be an improvement, they frequently overpower the natural flavour of their PLAIN SAUCES, by overloading them with salt and spices, &c.: but, remember, these will be deteriorated by any addition, save only just salt enough to awaken the palate. The lover of “piquance” and compound flavours, may have recourse to “the Magazine of Taste,” [No. 462].
On the contrary, of COMPOUND SAUCES; the ingredients should be so nicely proportioned, that no one be predominant; so that from the equal union of the combined flavours such a fine mellow mixture is produced, whose very novelty cannot fail of being acceptable to the persevering gourmand, if it has not pretensions to a permanent place at his table.
An ingenious cook will form as endless a variety of these compositions as a musician with his seven[104-*] notes, or a painter with his colours; no part of her business offers so fair and frequent an opportunity to display her abilities: SPICES, HERBS, &c. are often very absurdly and injudiciously jumbled together.
Why have clove and allspice, or mace and nutmeg, in the same sauce; or marjoram, thyme, and savoury; or onions, leeks, eschalots, and garlic? one will very well supply the place of the other, and the frugal cook may save something considerable by attending to this, to the advantage of her employers, and her own time and trouble. You might as well, to make soup, order one quart of water from the Thames, another from the New River, a third from Hampstead, and a fourth from Chelsea, with a certain portion of spring and rain water.
In many of our receipts we have fallen in with the fashion of ordering a mixture of spices, &c., which the above hint will enable the culinary student to correct.
“Pharmacy is now much more simple; COOKERY may be made so too. A prescription which is now compounded with five ingredients, had formerly fifty in it: people begin to understand that the materia medica is little more than a collection of evacuants and stimuli.”—Boswell’s Life of Johnson.
The ragoûts of the last century had infinitely more ingredients than we use now; the praise given to Will. Rabisha for his Cookery, 12mo. 1673, is