Salmi
As to the meaning of the word some information will be found in the article on Gallimawfray. It means a highly sauced preparation (sal) of some bird (mi). Salmagundi-in French salmigondis is the same thing, with the additional indication that the bird, mi or ma, is pounded, or in the language of our ancient cookery "smitten to gobbets." The ordinary salmi admits of many variations, according to the nature of the bird, which is first roasted, then allowed to get cold, then carved, then heated Salmi up in what our ancestors intended by the syllable sal-, -a salmi sauce. The inside and the trimmings of the roast game are chopped up and put into a stewpan, with a bayleaf and a sprig of thyme, to be fried in a tablespoonful of salad oil. Add to them afterwards a glass of French wine (white or red), with half a pint of brown sauce, and simmer them for ten minutes. Skim off the grease, strain the sauce, heat up the pieces of game in it, and serve.
The Bernardin Salmi has a little of the pungency which in England would procure for it the name of a devil; but it is a mild devil, and a wet one too. The receipt takes its name from the circumstance that it was given to Grimod de la Reynière by the prior of an abbey of Bernardins, who made him promise that he would never attempt to put it into practice at any table within twenty leagues of the Abbey of Haute-Seille. The salmi, it should be understood, is not prepared in the kitchen, but at table, before the eyes of the assembled guests, which proves its simplicity; but as this might also excite the contempt of the reader, Grimod de la Reynière adds the wise caution that care must be taken to serve the salmi on its passage to the mouth with a fork, for fear of devouring one's fingers in case they should touch the sauce. Take three woodcocks ;-the system is applicable to other birds, such as ducks (wild or tame), widgeons, teal, plovers, partridges, and even beyond winged game to the melancholy hare; but the woodcocks will do for an example. Let them be roasted; let them come to table underdone; and let them be carved. Take a silver dish, and on this bruise the livers and trails of the woodcocks; squeeze on them the juice of four lemons and grate the zest of one; add the members of the woodcocks, seasoned with salt, with mixed spices (or with nutmeg instead), and with two spoonfuls of French mustard; pour over all half a glass of very good white wine; and then put the dish on a spirit-lamp, to become very hot, but without boiling. When it is near to boil, add a dash of salad oil, Salmon lower the flame, and stir the salmi well until all the flavours are harmoniously blended. It is to be noted that in this salmi there is no gravy; and if the quantity of lemon seem too much, it must be remembered that when woodcocks come in, lemons are small, and their juice scanty.
Two recipes sit inside this entry: a plain salmi built on a made brown sauce, and the theatrical Bernardin version finished at the table over a spirit lamp. Both depend on gentle heat and on game that arrives at the table underdone.
- Never let it boilThis is the hinge of both versions, and the Bernardin one says so outright. Boiling toughens the already-roasted flesh and splits the liver-and-lemon liaison into grit and oil; hold it just below a simmer and stir until it thickens and gloss.
- Brown sauceIn a book of this date this most likely means espagnole — a roux-based brown stock sauce, reduced and skimmed, not a bottled condiment. Half an imperial pint is 10 fl oz (about 1¼ US cups); a good reduced game or veal stock stands in tolerably.
- A glass of wineNineteenth-century cookery books reckon a wineglassful at anywhere from about 2 to 4 fl oz, so "half a glass" falls somewhere between a tablespoon or two and a scant quarter cup. Nothing here is precise enough to worry over.
- Four lemons is too manyFour lemons is a lot -- The text half-admits this, pleading that winter lemons are small and dry. Modern lemons are likely to give considerably more juice than the ones the writer had in mind; start with one, taste, and add more.
- French mustard, mixed spices, salad oilFrench mustard here means a Dijon-type. "Mixed spices" means a spice blend of the period — on the lines of pepper, nutmeg, clove, ginger or cinnamon — and the recipe offers plain nutmeg as the substitute. Salad oil means a mild olive or neutral oil, not a dressing.
- The spirit lampA tabletop alcohol burner under a silver dish gives very low, diffuse heat. A chafing dish, a fondue burner, or the lowest gas flame under a heavy skillet does the same job; a bare induction hob will run too hot at its lowest setting for the liver to hold together.
- The trailWoodcock and snipe are traditionally roasted ungutted, and the "trail" — the intestine, mashed with the liver — is the whole point of the sauce. If you are working with any other bird, use the liver and heart only and discard the gut. Wild game viscera warmed but never cooked through carries the usual risk; anyone pregnant, elderly or immune-compromised should leave it alone.
- Finding the birdWoodcock cannot legally be sold in the United States, so unless you shoot or are given them, the "system" the text describes is the useful part. Squab, mallard, teal, pheasant legs and partridge all take the same treatment; the book itself extends it to hare.
- YieldThree woodcock feed three people as a course, four at a stretch. The plain salmi with brown sauce scales to a brace of pheasant or a pair of ducks and serves four.
The etymology offered here is folk etymology of the confident Victorian kind: salmi is not sal plus mi but a clipped form of salmigondis, a word whose own origin is genuinely obscure and much argued over. What is solid is the attribution: Grimod de la Reynière, the Paris lawyer-turned-gastronome whose Almanach des Gourmands appeared in eight volumes from 1803, collected exactly this sort of anecdote — a receipt extracted from a Bernardin (Cistercian) prior on condition it never be cooked within twenty leagues of the abbey. Whether the prior existed hardly matters; the joke is that a monastic house held the best recipe for a bird eaten rare, guts and all, and wanted it kept quiet. Kettner's Book of the Table (1877), written by the journalist E. S. Dallas around the name of the Soho restaurateur Auguste Kettner, is full of such borrowings from the French gastronomic literature, and its taste for tableside cookery — the salmi "prepared before the eyes of the assembled guests" — belongs to the same late-Victorian restaurant theatre that gave us crêpes Suzette and the pressed duck.