Carving
Wynkyn de Worde printed in the year 1508 "The Booke of Kervinge." Some of the words are curious, and throw light on the names of dishes which Cassis have been corrupted by process of time. Where the meaning is quite plain the spelling is modernised, but not otherwise. "The terms of a carver be as here followeth. Break that deer-lesche (leach) that brawn-rear that gooselift that swan-sauce that capon-spoil that hen-frusche (fruss) that chicken-unbrace that mallard-unlace that coney-dismember that heron-display that crane-disfigure that peacock-unjoint that bittern-untache that curlew-alaye that felande-wing that partridge-wing that quail-mine that plover-thigh that pigeon-border that pasty-thigh that woodcock-thigh all manner small birds-timber that fire-tire that egg-chine that salmon -string that lamprey-splat that pike-sauce that plaice -sauce that tench-splay that bream-side that haddock -tusk that barbel-culpon that trout-fin that chevintrassene that eel-tranch that sturgeon-undertranch that porpoise-tame that crab-barb that lobster. Here endeth the goodly terms of Carving."
CASSIS-the French name for black currants and for the syrup made from them. The cassis of Dijon has a great reputation throughout France as a cooling drink. There is nothing in England made from the same fruit that can approach it; but that stiff-necked generationthe Commissioners of Customs-have put a prohibitive duty upon it, so that it is impossible to import it. This is because there is a drop or two of alcohol in it. The alcohol is infinitesimal, not enough to upset the equilibrium of a fly, very much less than there is in the cheap clarets which are charged only a duty of 2d. a bottle; yet the customhouse levies a duty on it of 2s. 4d. a bottle-that is, even more than on neat brandy, the duty on which is but 1s. 9d. a bottle. It is amazing that the English manufacturers, being thus protected, are unable to do anything to rival the French in the preparation of this delicious and most Caviare innocent liqueur, which Sir Wilfrid Lawson himself might drink without a suspicion of the still.
CAULIFLOWER is to be had nearly all the year round, and it is at its best in England. The Dutch send to England for their cauliflower seeds, and there was at one time, if there is not still, a considerable export to France of the cauliflowers themselves.
They are to be carefully trimmed and (to eject the insects) soaked for some time in cold water and salt. They are then to be boiled in abundance of water with enough of salt for twenty minutes-more or less. The time must be ascertained by pressure. Drain them well, and send them to table with English sauce acidulated with lemon-juice or vinegar. It can be thus served either for a garnish or for an entremet. If for a garnish, the acid should be scarcely perceptible, and the cauliflower may be a little less cooked than for an entremet.
Cauliflower au Gratin. -Entremet. In this case all the green leaves are to be removed, and the cauliflowers to be boiled as above, but rather underdone. No harm if they are cut into quarters to shorten the time of boiling. Prepare an English sauce according to the receipt, only that less butter may be used, and instead of it two ounces of grated cheese-half Gruyère, half Parmesan being best. Break up some of the cauliflower, arrange it on a dish, and pour over it some of the sauce. On this bed heap up the rest of the cauliflower unbroken; pour over it the remainder of the sauce; powder it with the finest breadcrumbs or raspings, and with more grated cheese ; lastly, bedew it with a spoonful of oiled butter. Put this into a hot oven till it takes a golden colour-say from ten to fifteen minutes. If the colour is imperfect, use the salamander. Serve it in the dish in which it has been cooked.
The entry is three things at once: a glossary of carving verbs, a complaint about customs duty on cassis, and a genuine working recipe for cauliflower, plain and au gratin. Only the last needs translating.
- Cut the boiling timeTwenty minutes in abundant salted water will give you grey, sulphurous cauliflower by modern taste. Florets need 5-7 minutes to the point of resistance, and for the gratin they should be pulled out at 4-5 minutes, since they will bake again.
- "English sauce"Kettner's English sauce appears to be a plain white sauce: butter and flour cooked together, moistened with milk or the cooking liquor, seasoned. For the gratin the book cuts the butter back and adds two ounces of grated cheese, half Gruyere and half Parmesan; add the cheese off the heat so it does not string.
- Oiled butterThis means butter melted until it separates and clarifies, not butter creamed with oil. A spoonful drizzled over the crumbs is what gets them to brown.
- RaspingsDried breadcrumbs made by grating the hard outside of a stale loaf. Panko or any dry crumb does the same work; fresh soft crumbs will go soggy under the sauce.
- "A hot oven" and the salamanderRead the hot oven as 425-450F. The salamander was an iron plate heated red and held over the dish to finish the browning; the overhead broiler is its direct descendant, and two or three minutes under it will do.
- EntremetIn this period an entremet is generally a course served after or alongside the roast rather than a dessert. The gratin is meant to stand on its own as a small course, and the book has the remaining cauliflower heaped up unbroken rather than spread flat.
- The soakThe book says to soak "for some time" in cold water and salt, to eject the insects from the curd. Supermarket cauliflower rarely needs it, but the step does no harm and helps a head from a garden or market stall.
- YieldOne large head, sauced and gratined, serves four as a side or three as the course the book intends. Bake in the dish you will serve from, as instructed.
The carving terms come from Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of Kervynge, printed in 1508 by Caxton's former assistant and one of the earliest English books on service at table. Its long list of verbs - break that deer, lift that swan, unlace that coney, barb that lobster - records a period when carving was a skilled office performed standing, in front of the household, and when, it is often said, using the wrong word for the wrong bird marked a man as no gentleman. That such a list should sit in a Victorian dictionary of cookery next to instructions for cauliflower cheese says a good deal about Kettner's Book of the Table, published in 1877 and generally attributed to the journalist E. S. Dallas rather than to Auguste Kettner, the Soho restaurateur whose name it carries. The book is arranged alphabetically and moves without apology between antiquarian scholarship, recipes, and the author's grievances - here a genuinely aggrieved passage about the customs duty on cassis de Dijon, with a swipe at Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the temperance campaigner and MP who was then the most conspicuous advocate of prohibition in Parliament.