Becafico
The fig-pecker, a small bird something like a nightingale which feeds on figs and grapes, that give to its flesh in the autumn a peculiar delicacy. It has been said that if the becafico were only as big as a pheasant it would be worth an acre of land. As it is rarely to be seen Béchamel at an English table, it belongs to the category of pleasures to be dreamt of. Bacon said that some books are to be read thoroughly, some are to be tasted only, and others may be read by deputy. Unfortunately for us, the becafico has to be eaten by deputy and enjoyed in a reverie. BÉCHAMEL is a sauce which takes its name from Louis de Béchameil or Béchamel, Marquis de Nointel, who is described as a financier, but is chiefly known as Maître d'Hôtel (Lord Steward of the Household) of Louis XIV. He died in Paris in 1703, and must have been a poor sort of creature if the story which St. Simon tells of him be true. He fancied that he resembled the Comte de Grammont, and being too proud of it, did all he could by dress and manner to nurse the illusion. One day Grammont saw him walking in the Tuileries, and determined to make sport of him. He asked the bystanders what they would bet against his giving a kick to the Marquis de Nointel in what is commonly considered the most honourable part of the body, and against the kick being received as a compliment. Bets were made and the kick was given. Béchamel turned round astonished. Grammont hastened to explain that the kick was intended for his nephew-he really fancied that it was his nephew he saw before him. Béchamel was instantly appeased, and strolled away arm-in-arm with Grammont, to his own great delight, and amid the laughter of the court. A prodigy of meanness, a gigantic parasite, an inspired idiot, this Béchamel invented a sauce which will shed a halo round his name through endless ages. Nothing can be more simple. When once it is described we wonder that it was never thought of before. The white sauce known as Velvet-down is mixed with an equal quantity of cream-that is all, and there is Béchamel. The learnedest of men and the cunningest of cooks had been compassing heaven and earth to find out a new and perfect sauce. It was left for the most fortunate of ninnies Béchamel and the most superfluous of puppies to hit upon a combination which has every day since then, for one hour out of the twenty-four, contributed more to the peace and satisfaction of mankind than any other relish in the range of cookery. In presence of such a fact as this one half understands and sympathises with those races of men who worship their idiots. It is difficult to venerate fools, but at least henceforth let us not despise them. One is always inclined to kick a sublime puppy, forgetting that to him also, as to another Béchamel, may be revealed in vision secrets of art which are concealed from the wise and good. Béchamel, as above mentioned, is composed of Velvetdown and cream in equal proportions. Cream, however, is a wide word, and may mean almost anything from milk to the richest double cream. There are some dairies whose milk is as good as the cream of others. This accounts for the fact that in some of the receipts for Béchamel we are told to take cream, to reduce it to half its volume by rapid boiling, and then to mix it in equal quantities with Velvetdown. 4 Cold Béchamel-for cold chicken, turbot, and other viands. Mix with the Béchamel, so as to stiffen it when cold, a few spoonfuls of any clear white stock that has turned to jelly-as the jelly of chicken broth, veal broth, or calves' feet.
Mock Béchamel.-Put into a saucepan four ounces of butter, with a sliced onion, a sliced carrot, a faggot of parsley, a little nutmeg, pepper and salt. Let them stew slowly for twenty minutes or half an hour. Then stir in about four ounces of flour and a pint of new milk, a little at a time. Boil this gently for half an hour till the milk is well reduced, taking every care to avoid burning. Lastly pass it through a strainer. Some cooks when they find the sauce too thin, through the thinness of the milk, choose to Beef thicken it with yolks of egg. This may be very nice, but it destroys the character of the Béchamel.
Two workable sauces are buried in this essay: true Béchamel, which assumes you already have a velouté to hand, and "Mock Béchamel", which is a self-contained recipe closer to what most cooks now call béchamel. The opening paragraphs on the fig-pecker are commentary, not instruction.
- "Velvet-down"Kettner's anglicisation of velouté — a white roux moistened with veal or chicken stock rather than milk, cooked out until smooth. Under this entry's definition, Béchamel is simply equal parts velouté and cream, so you need the stock sauce made first.
- What "cream" means hereVictorian dairy cream ranged from barely-separated milk to something close to modern double cream. Use single or whipping cream; if you reduce it by half as the text suggests, expect a much richer, thicker result and taste before adding salt, since reduction concentrates it.
- Mock Béchamel proportionsMock Bechamel proportions -- Four ounces of butter and four ounces of flour to one pint of milk is a very stiff sauce by modern standards or a pouring consistency it is several times the usual quantity of roux, and the half-hour reduction thickens it further. For a coating sauce, plan on thinning with extra milk as it cooks.
- New milkFresh whole milk straight from the dairy, unhomogenised and unskimmed. Ordinary whole milk is the substitute; the recipe's complaint about "thinness of the milk" reflects wide variation in nineteenth-century supply.
- A faggot of parsleyA small bundle of stalks tied with string so it can be lifted out whole, the English equivalent of a bouquet garni. Stalks carry more flavour than leaves and will not shred into the sauce.
- The instruction that matters"Taking every care to avoid burning" is the hinge. With this much flour and a half-hour simmer, use a heavy pan over low heat, whisk the milk in gradually, and stir into the corners; scorched flour cannot be strained out and will taint the whole pint.
- Cold BéchamelAdding jellied white stock so the sauce sets when cold is the technique behind chaud-froid coatings. Use a firm, well-flavoured chicken or veal jelly, and stir it in while the sauce is warm so it disperses evenly before setting.
- Egg yolksThe author disapproves, and technically he is right that yolks change the sauce's character. If you do use them, temper them with a little hot sauce and keep the pan below a simmer or they will curdle.
- YieldThe Mock Bechamel gives about a pint or rather less of thick sauce once the milk has reduced enough to coat a chicken or a large fish, or perhaps six to eight servings as an accompaniment.
Louis de Béchameil, Marquis de Nointel, was a financier who held the post of maître d'hôtel at the court of Louis XIV, and the sauce is generally said to have been named in his honour rather than invented by him — the flattering of a rich official by a court cook is the usual explanation, and the gleeful character assassination in Kettner's Book of the Table, borrowed from Saint-Simon's memoirs, belongs to that tradition of grumbling that the name was undeserved. The definition given here, velouté plus cream, is the older French one: it was Carême in the early nineteenth century who systematised the white sauces, and only later did béchamel settle into its modern identity as milk thickened with a white roux — which is exactly what this book files under the dismissive heading "Mock Béchamel". As for the becafico, or fig-pecker, the name was applied loosely to several small warblers and is conventionally identified with the garden warbler, fattened on autumn figs and grapes and eaten whole in southern Europe much as the ortolan was; the book treats it as a pleasure to be imagined rather than served, and it is now a protected species across Europe, so the reverie is all that remains of it.