Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 371, May 23, 1829», sayfa 4

THE SELECTOR, AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

FRENCH COOKERY AND CONFECTIONERY

Monsieur Ude, who is, unquestionably, the prince of gastronomers, has just published the tenth edition of his French Cook, of which, line upon line, we may say, Decies repelita placebit; and Jarrin, the celebrated artiste en sucre, has also revised his Italian Confectioner, in a fourth edition. We should think both these works must be the literary furniture of every good kitchen, or they ought to be; for there is just enough of the science in them to make them extremely useful, whilst all must allow them to be entertaining.

A few years ago, Mrs. Glasse ruled the roast of cookery, and not a stew was made without consulting her invaluable book. Whilst we were embroiled in war, her instructions were standing orders, but with the peace came a host of foreign luxuries and fashions, among these, Cookery from France. Hence the French system became introduced into the establishments of the wealthy of this country, to which may be attributed the sale of nine editions of M. Ude's work; for it is strictly what it professes to be, "A System of Fashionable and Economical Cookery, adapted to the use of English Families." The tenth edition, before us, is a bulky tome of about 500 pages, with an appendix of observations on the meals of the day; mode of giving suppers at Routs and soirées, as practised when the author was in the employ of Lord Sefton; and above all, a brief history of the rise and progress of Cookery, from an admirable French treatise. This is literally the sauce piquante of the volume, and we serve a little to our readers:—

It appears that the science of Cookery was in a very inferior state under the first and second race of the French kings. Gregory of Tours has preserved the account of a repast of French warriors, at which, in this refined age, we should be absolutely astounded. According to Eginhard, Charlemagne lived poorly, and ate but little—however, this trait of resemblance in Charlemagne and Napoleon, the modern Eginhards have forgotten in their comparison of these two great men. Philippe le Bel was hardly half an hour at table, and Francis I. thought more of women than of eating and drinking; nevertheless, it was under this gallant monarch that the science of gastronomy took rise in France.

Few have heard the name of Gonthier d'Andernach. What Bacon was to philosophy, Dante and Petrarch to poetry, Michael Angelo and Raphael to painting, Columbus and Gama to geography, Copernicus and Galileo to astronomy, Gonthier was in France to the art of cookery. Before him, their code of eating was formed only of loose scraps picked up here and there; the names of dishes were strange and barbarous, like the dishes themselves.

Gonthier is the father of cookery, as Descartes, of French philosophy. It is said that Gonthier, in less than ten years, invented seven cullises, nine ragoûts, thirty-one sauces, and twenty-one soups.

A woman opened the gates of an enlightened age; it was Catherine, the daughter of the celebrated Lorenzo de Medici, niece of Leo the Tenth, then in all the bloom of beauty. Accompanied by a troop of perfumers, painters, astrologers, poets, and cooks, she crossed the Alps, and whilst Bullan planned the Tuileries, Berini recovered from oblivion those sauces which, for many ages, had been lost. Endowed with all the gifts of fortune, the mother and the wife of kings, nature had also gifted her with a palate, whose intuitive sensibility seldom falls to the lot of sovereigns. In consequence of which, after having driven before her this troop of male and female soothsayers, who pretended to foretel the future, she consulted her maître d'hôtel, about some roast meat brought from luxurious Florence; and dipped in a rich sauce the same hand that held the reins of the empire, and which Roussard compared to the rosy fingers of Aurora! Let the foolish vulgar laugh at the importance which the queen-mother seems to place in the art of cooking; but they have not considered that it is at table, in the midst of the fumes of Burgundy, and the savoury odour of rich dishes, that she meditated the means of quelling a dangerous faction, or the destruction of a man, who disturbed her repose. It was during dinner she had an interview with the Duke of Alba, with whom she resolved on the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

Not long after the massacre of St. Bartholomew the throne was occupied by Henry de Valois, brother to Charles the Ninth, and son of Catherine. He was a prince of good appetite, a lover of wine and good cheer, qualities which his mother had carefully fostered and cultivated, that she alone might hold the reigns of government. Henry de Valois spent whole days at table, and the constellations of the kitchen shone with the greatest splendour under this gourmand king. We date from the beginning of his reign the invention of the fricandeau, generally attributed to a Swiss. Now the fricandeau having its Columbus, its discovery appears not more wonderful than that of America, and yet it required une grande force de tête.

Though we acknowledge the immense influence this monarch had over cookery, we must not conceal that he brought in fashion aromatic sauces, tough macaroni, cullises, and brown sauces calcined by a process like that of roasted coffee. These sauces gave the dishes a corrosive acidity, and as Jourdan le Cointe remarks, far from nourishing the body, communicated to it a feverish sensation, which baffled all the skill of physicians, in their attempts to cure it. They were positive poisons which the Italians had introduced into France, a taste for which spread through every class of society.

Under the reign of Henry III. a taste for warm drinks was joined to that of spicy dishes. Hippocrates recommends hot water in fevers, Avicenna in consumption, Trallien in phrensy, Plato in loathings, AEtius in strangury,—whence we conclude that warm water, having so many different qualities, must have been a very useful article at table, had it only been to assist digestion, considering that people ate copiously in the reign of the Valois. They made not one single repast without a jug full of hot water, and even wine was drunk lukewarm.

If the poor have preserved the memory of Henry IV., we cannot say as much of his cooks. That monarch did nothing for them;—either Nature had not endowed him with a good appetite, (for what prince ever was perfect,) or he looked upon them, as, in the last century, we looked upon soups, as things of hardly any use; but in return they also did nothing for him.

It is very remarkable, that in France, where there is but one religion, the sauces are infinitely varied, whilst in England, where the different sects are innumerable, there is, we may say, but one single sauce. Melted butter, in English cookery, plays nearly the same part as the Lord Mayor's coach at civic ceremonies, calomel in modern medicine, or silver forks in the fashionable novels. Melted butter and anchovies, melted butter and capers, melted butter and parsley, melted butter and eggs, and melted butter for ever: this is a sample of the national cookery of this country. We may date the art of making sauces from the age of Louis XIV. Under Louis XIII. meat was either roasted or broiled: every baker had a stove where the citizen, as well as the great lord, sent his meat to be dressed; but, by degrees, they began to feel the necessity of sauces.

It appears that the great wits of the age of Louis XIV. had not that contempt for cookery which some idealists of our days affect to have. Boileau has described a bad repast like a man who has often seen better; he liked the pleasures of the table, which have never been incompatible with the gifts of genius, or the investigations of the understanding. "I cannot conceive," says Doctor Johnson, "the folly of those, who, when at table, think of every thing but eating; for my part, when I am there I think of nothing else; and whosoever does not trouble himself with this important affair at dinner, or supper, will do no good at any other time." Boswell affirms that he never knew a man who dispatched a dinner better than the great moralist. But what avails it to defend cooks and gourmands? It is an axiom in political economy, according to Malthus, that he who makes two blades of grass grow, where before there was but one, ought to be considered as the benefactor of his country, and of mankind. Is not this a service which the epicure and the cook every day do their country? Addison thought differently from Johnson on this subject: "Every time," says he, "that I see a splendid dinner, I fancy fever, gout, and dropsy, are lying in ambush for me, with the whole race of maladies which attack mankind: in my opinion an epicure is a fool." What does this blustering of Addison prove? Boswell also asserts, that Addison often complained of indigestion. And in the present times, the first chemist of the day, Sir Humphry Davy, passes for a finished gourmand.

Roasting, boiling, frying, broiling, do not alone constitute the arc of cooking, otherwise the savage of the Oronoco might be maître d'hôtel with Prince Esterhazy.

The science of gastronomy made great progress under Louis XV., a brilliant epoch for the literature of gastronomy: together with the fashions, customs, freedom of opinion, and taste for equipages and horses brought from Great Britain—some new dishes taken from the culinary code of this country, such as puddings and beef-steaks, were also introduced into France. Thanks to the increasing progress and discoveries in chemistry, and to the genius of our artists, the art of cookery rose to the greatest height towards the end of the last century. What a famous age was that of Mezelier, l'Asne, Jouvent, Richaud, Chaud, and Robert.

History will never forget that great man, who aspired to all kinds of glory, and would have been, if he had wished, as great a cook as he was a statesman—I mean the Prince de Talleyrand, who rekindled the sacred flame in France. The first clouds of smoke, which announced the resurrection of the science of cookery in the capital, appeared from the kitchen of an ancient bishop.

A revolution like the French, which presented to their eyes such terrible spectacles, must have left some traces in their physical or intellectual constitution. At the end of this bloody drama, the mind, bewildered by the late dreadful scenes, was unable to feel those sweet and peaceable emotions, in which it had formerly delighted; as the palate, having long been at rest, and now become blunted, must require high-seasoned dishes, to excite an appetite. The reign of the Directory, therefore is that of Romances à la Radcliffe, as well as of Sauces à la Provençale. Fortunately, the eighth of Brumaire pulled down the five Directors, together with their saucepans.

Under the Consulship, and during the empire, the art of cooking, thanks to the labours of Beauvilliers, Balaine, and other artists, made new and remarkable improvements. Among the promoters of the gastric science, the name of a simple amateur makes a distinguished figure—it is Grisnod de la Reynière, whose almanac the late Duke of York called the most delightful book that ever issued from the press. We may affirm, that the Almanach des Gourmands made a complete revolution in the language and usages of the country.

We are yet too near the restoration to determine the degree of influence it had on cookery in France. The restoration has introduced into monarchy the representative forms friendly to epicurism, and in this respect it is a true blessing—a new era opened to those who are hungry.

M. Jarrin's fourth edition contains upwards of 500 receipts in Italian confectionery, with plates of improvements, &c. like a cyclopaedian treatise on mechanics; and when our readers know there are "seven essential degrees of boiling sugar," they will pardon the details of the business of this volume. The "degrees" are—1. Le lissé, or thread, large or small; 2. Le perlé, or pearl, le soufflet, or blow; 4. La plume, the feather; 5. Le boulet, the ball, large or small; 6. Le cassé, the crack; and, 7. the caramel. So complete is M. Jarrin's system of confectionery, that he is "independent of every other artist;" for he even explains engraving on steel and on wood. What a host of disappointments this must prevent!

If we look further into, or "drink deep" of the art of confectionery, we shall find it to be a perfect Microcosm—a little creation; for our artist talks familiarly of "producing picturesque scenery, with trees, lakes, rocks, &c.; gum paste, and modelling flowers, animals, figures, &c." with astonishing mimic strife. We must abridge one of these receipts for a "Rock Piece Montée in a lake."

"Roll out confectionery paste, the size of the dish intended to receive it; put into a mould representing your pond a lining of almond paste, coloured pale pink, and place in the centre a sort of pedestal of almond paste, supported by lumps of the same paste baked; when dry put it into the stove. Prepare syrup to fill the hollow of the lake, to represent the water; having previously modelled in gum paste little swans, place them in various parts of the syrup; put it into the stove for three hours, then make a small hole through the paste, under your lake, to drain off the syrup; a crust will remain with the swans fixed in it, representing the water. Next build the rock on the pedestal with rock sugar, biscuits, and other appropriate articles in sugar, fixed to one another, supported by the confectionery paste you have put in the middle, the whole being cemented together with caramel, and ornamented. The moulding and heads should then be pushed in almond paste, coloured red; the cascades and other ornaments must be spun in sugar."