Lope De Vega
To the philosophical chemist this is one of the most interesting personages in the whole range of history. He was a poet; he was a dramatic poet; he was the most prolific dramatic poet on record. He required for the composition of his dramas a diet of bacon. Toda es cosa vil 'A donde falta un pernil.
This is a fact most important to the dramatists of England -let them feed on bacon. It is all the more important when we remember that Fuseli prepared himself for his great pictures with underdone pork-chops, and that Thurtell committed one of the most celebrated murders of modern times after supping on the same dainty. In all three, Lope de Vega, Fuseli, and Thurtell, we detect the domination of melodrama. It is a pity that we have few such facts to put together. We know that Dryden and Byron found Epsom salts a wonderful help to their poetical invention; and we know that Napoleon made his great campaigns on chicken and coffee, not unaccompanied with rum. Newton loved tobacco and a redstreak apple. What would we not give to know what were the aliments that nourished the brain of Plato and directed the pen of Shakespeare?
Was Lord Eldon a dramatic character? He was a very Love in Disguise slow but sure old judge, who started in life with a romantic marriage-running away with his bride. He was devoted to liver and bacon, and whenever he dined with George IV. the cook had orders to have always ready a dish of them. Here we find that whereas a diet of bacon made Lope de Vega a dramatist, the combination of bacon with liver fixed Lord Eldon ever more and more firmly on the woolsack. These little contrarieties have to be studied, and a vast field of science opens before us.
LOVE IN DISGUISE is a calf's heart stuffed, then surrounded with forcemeat, next rolled in vermicelli, lastly deposited in a baking dish with a little butter, and sent to the oven. Serve it in the dish with its own gravy.
N ACARONI is in England a common name given to many preparations of Italian paste, as well as to that particular kind which Theodore Hook described as "tobacco-pipes made easy." We are not too well acquainted with the technical names for the ribbons, lozenges, ruffles, straws and strings into which this pleasant paste is formed, and for all the nice varieties of Genoese and Neapolitan manufacture. Even vermicelli would be classed in an English kitchen among the macaronis-which is the oldest known name for the species. In Chaucer's time the English name was macrow, and it was applied especially to little balls or puddings of paste.
Macaroni is a form of wheat-flour-a bread, in factso palatable, so cheap, and so easily managed in cookery, that it is a wonder to see it so little used in this country. Macaroni and cheese is the most digestible form in which bread and cheese can be presented-the only form in which many weak vessels can tolerate it.
Macaroni Macaroni à l'Italienne. - Put some macaroni into eight times its weight of boiling water. A pound and a pint being equivalent quantities, there should be four pints of boiling water for half a pound of the paste. Let it simmer with a little pepper and salt for twenty minutes-more or less, according to the quality of the macaroni, particularly its freshness. Test a piece between the fingers to know when it is done enough. Then drain it from the water in a colander, and put it back in the stewpan with as much broth or gravy as it can absorb in a further simmering of a minute or two. Half a pound of macaroni will take about half a pint of broth or gravy. Some cooks omit this process altogether, and in England it is common to use milk instead of broth; but our business at present is with the Italian fashion - Macaroni à l'Italienne. In the meantime have ready (for half a pound of macaroni) four or five ounces of grated cheese, half Parmesan, half Gruyère, and an ounce of butter. Shake half the cheese into the macaroni, and toss it well; then mix in the ounce of butter; finally shake in the remainder of the cheese, and when all is well mixed by tossing, and it begins to get stringy, serve it. Some people like the cook to be liberal with the pepper-pot in this dish.
Macaroni à la Milanaise is the same as the foregoing, with tomato sauce sprinkled over it in the dish; but generally in this case there is some addition of meat-say a cutlet-served over the macaroni.
Macaroni au gratin is still prepared in the same way. It is then heaped up on a dish which will stand the fire. It is sprinkled with grated cheese and with fine bread-raspings; it is bedewed with melted butter; it is put into the oven till it becomes of a golden hue; and if the oven is not hot enough, it may be finished with the salamander.
Macaroni Pudding. - Simmer macaroni in boiling water Mace for fifteen minutes, strain away the water, add some new milk to it, and let it cool. When cold, mix into it three or four beaten yolks of eggs; sweeten it with sugar, and season it with nutmeg, cinnamon, and a glass of noyau. Put it into a pudding-dish with a layer of orange marmalade or apricot jam in the centre, and bake it. Macaroni Soup. - Some macaroni added to a clear broth or consommé. When any of the Italian pastes are used in this way, they should be boiled first for five minutes in water, otherwise they may dim the clearness of the broth. Talleyrand laid down the law that with all the soups in which macaroni, vermicelli, and other Italian pastes are used, grated Parmesan should be served apart, and a glass of Madeira afterwards.
MACE is but the outer shell of the nutmeg, and resembles it in flavour. The nutmeg has been laughed out of cookery, and is chiefly now represented in the aromas of the kitchen by its husk-the mace.