Truffles
It is time that the truth should be spoken about truffles. The French praise them in high-flown terms, which are not in the least extravagant.
English, praising them in the selfsame terms, are very extravagant indeed. When truffles are to be had fresh (and they are in perfection with the turkeys at Christmas-tide), it seems too much to believe that they have come out of the earth and have been detected in their hiding-places by the Truffles snouts of pigs. They are beyond praise in the perfection of their perfume. But once unearthed the perfume soon fades, and by the time they reach London it becomes so faint that if the truffles are not quickly disposed of they are scarce to be recognised as the sublime of human food. What they lose in perfume they gain in price, and dealers in London demand twelve and fifteen shillings a pound for them. A bottle no bigger than one of those used for hyacinth bulbs, containing preserved. truffles, which are not to be compared with fresh ones, is sold at half a guinea. Now when we know that some French cooks require six or eight pounds of truffles for a single dish, we can all calculate whether a truffle in England is worth its price, and we shall not be astonished at the tale told by Mr. Hayward of a magnificent turkey stuffed with truffles by Morel and sold for something like £20. Common sense tells us that a fresh mushroom gathered in English fields and woods, and well cooked, is worth more than all but a sprinkling of the truffles which cross the Channel; but, all the same, fashion is omnipotent, and a cook who should abstain from cramming his sauces with essence of truffles, and from adorning his meats with slices of them, would be regarded as ignorant of his business, and fit only for the lowest of low life. Let it be observed that much as the truffle is vaunted, the civilised world has continued to do without it until very recently. It was, indeed, known to the Romans; but, says Brillat-Savarin, "from the Romans to our own day there is a long interregnum, and the resurrection of the truffle is recent enough. One may even say that the generation which is now (1826) passing away, has been witness of it."
Truffles in a Napkin. - Wash and brush them several times in cold water. Then stew them slowly in a Mirepoix of white wine for half an hour or three-quarters. Drain them and serve them in a folded napkin.
Turbot Truffes à l'Italienne. - Wash and brush them well as before, cut them in slices, and toss them for ten minutes with an ounce of butter, chopped parsley, shalot, and salt. Pour off the butter, and in return put in a piece of fresh butter, with a ladleful of the best brown gravy, the juice of a lemon, and a sprinkling of cayenne. This is in effect but a variety of the Duxelles originally invented by La Varenne, only substituting truffles for mushrooms. TURBOT has been described as the pheasant of the sea, and is certainly the noblest of the flat fish. According to Yarrell, the great actor and gastronomer Quin "is said to have given it as his opinion that the flesh on the dark-coloured side of the turbot is the best meat; and as examples occasionally occur that are dark-coloured on both sides, some London fishmongers, from experience in their good qualities, recommend such fish as deserving particular attention."
Boiled Turbot. - Let the turbot soak for some little time in cold salt and water, to remove the slime. Then with a knife make an incision down the backbone on the black side, which is the upper one of the fish in the sea, but its under one on the dish. The object of this cut is to prevent the white skin cracking when the turbot begins to heat and to swell in the kettle. It is to be boiled in plenty of cold salt and water-nothing else. Let it come gradually to the boil and then let it simmer for half an hour or so. The time of course is less for a small or chicken turbot, or for one of those slices into which a turbot cuts up with ease. In the French receipts an order is often given to cut off the fins that is, the best part of the fish-and to boil it in milk; which sounds well, but is a mistake. When the turbot is ready, dish it on a hot napkin and strew on it and about it parsley leaves and nasturtium flowers. It may be garnished with potatoes, and it is to be served with Dutch, Béarnaise, lobster, or shrimp sauce.
Turkey Turbot à la Normande. - The Normandy Matelote of Turbot. It is done precisely as the sole of the same name.
Turbot with Cream au Gratin. - Break up some cold turbot, removing the black skin, perhaps also the white. Make it hot in some Béchamel sauce, which is half cream. Arrange fish and sauce upon a dish which will stand the fire. Strew over it some breadcrumbs and some grated Parme- Also put round it a border of mashed potatoes. Put it into the oven or before the fire to take a golden tint, and if necessary use the salamander. san.
Two pages of Kettner run together here: an opinionated essay on truffles with two truffle preparations, then the turbot entries. The instructions assume a professional kitchen with stock, sauces and a coal range already going.
- Mirepoix means the braising bed, not diced vegetablesIn this period a mirepoix is a cooked aromatic base — carrot, onion, ham or bacon, herbs, moistened with wine — in which something is stewed, and it is discarded or strained afterwards. Stewing whole truffles in white wine mirepoix for 30-45 minutes is a gentle simmer, barely bubbling; the napkin they are served in is there to absorb the liquid and hold the heat.
- Truffle quantities and pricesTwelve to fifteen shillings a pound in the 1870s was a serious sum, but nothing like the modern ratio: fresh Périgord black truffle now runs to hundreds of pounds or dollars a pound, and the six or eight pounds Kettner mentions for one dish is not a figure any domestic cook will reproduce. Scale these recipes to the truffle you can actually buy — 30-60 g will scent a dish for four.
- Preserved truffles then and nowThe half-guinea bottle he sneers at would have been truffle preserved and sterilised in its own juice, which does lose most of its aroma. The modern equivalents are tinned truffle and truffle-flavoured oil, the latter usually a synthetic aroma compound rather than truffle at all. Kettner's advice stands: a good fresh mushroom beats a tired truffle.
- Duxelles and the à l'Italienne methodThe hinge in the second recipe is pouring off the first butter. The truffles are sweated to drive off water and pick up the shallot and parsley, then that fat is discarded and fresh butter, gravy and lemon build the sauce clean. Ten minutes over moderate heat is enough; the sliced truffle should never fry hard.
- Boiling turbot: the cut and the waterThe incision along the backbone on the dark side is the instruction that matters — without it the white skin splits as the flesh swells. Salted cold water only, brought slowly up and held at a bare simmer. Half an hour suits a large whole fish; a 2-3 lb chicken turbot or a cut steak wants 12-20 minutes, and the fish is done when the flesh parts from the bone at the thickest point.
- Fish kettleA whole turbot is broad rather than long and needs a diamond-shaped turbot kettle, or a large roasting tin covered with foil, with the fish supported so it can be lifted out unbroken. A wide deep pan and a folded cloth sling will do.
- The sauces named"Dutch sauce" is hollandaise under its older English name. Béchamel here is the classic milk-and-roux sauce, in the gratin made half with cream. Lobster and shrimp sauces are butter sauces mounted with the pounded shellfish.
- Salamander and oven heatThe salamander was an iron plate heated red and held over the dish to glaze it; use an overhead grill or broiler. The book gives no oven temperature, only 'the oven or before the fire'; a hot oven of roughly 200-220C/400-425F will brown the crumbs and Parmesan (the word is broken across the line as "Parme- san" in the original).
- GarnishNasturtium flowers are edible and were a standard summer garnish; they are peppery and worth keeping. Serve boiled turbot on a folded napkin set on the platter to soak up the water that keeps running from the fish.
Kettner's Book of the Table (1877) takes its name from Auguste Kettner, the Soho restaurateur, but the text was written by E. S. Dallas, a journalist and critic, which explains why an alphabetical cookery book keeps breaking into argument. The truffle entry is a good example: Dallas quotes Brillat-Savarin's Physiologie du Goût (1825) on the truffle's modern "resurrection" after a long interregnum since Rome, and then uses it to needle English cooks for paying Channel-freight prices for a scent that has already gone. He is broadly right about the chemistry — the volatile aromatics of a black truffle fade within days of lifting, which is why the Périgord trade has always been local and seasonal, peaking at midwinter, and why pigs (later dogs, which are less inclined to eat the find) were used to locate them by smell. The turbot passage borrows its authority from William Yarrell's History of British Fishes and the reported opinion of James Quin, the eighteenth-century actor whose reputation as a glutton outlived his reputation as a Falstaff.