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Rubbing the Dish with Garlic

There are yarns and yarns about great secrets in cookery and their possessors, like one in the REPORTER recently of a castaway Frenchman who made the fortune of a Russian innkeeper and of the town by imparting the secret of French chicken fricassee. What a curious scrap--book might be made if some of the people who have time to play would collect these wonderful gastronomical and culinary anecdotes!

The really good cooks of the country practice thousands of the fine touches which the uninitiated might term great secrets, and throw them all into the grand aggregate that is styled excellence of the hotel cuisine. Some of these fine touches lie in flavoring salads, more particularly the salad dressings, and one of them is to rub the salad dish with garlic. There was a head waiter in Boston once who rubbed the dish with garlic and his salads were in great repute, though none could tell the secret of the subtle aroma they possessed. If any looked for vulgar garlic in the salad they found none. It was only a case of the scent of the roses that hung round it still. Sort of hook baiting trick, an illusion, as it were. Possibly some castaway Frenchman had imparted this secret to this head waiter of the Boston hotel, but it was impossible for it to remain unshared, and so a waiter, after a while, discovered his superior rubbing the dish with garlic. Now two persons possessed the secret and of course they could not both live in one house. There used to be an awful story told about the great Captain Cook and his too smart cabin boy who, when at the antipodes, was asked by the gleeful captain if he knew where he was, and had the indiscretion to answer "under London bridge." But the captain would not allow anyone to remain in the vessel who knew as much as he did himself, and pitched the poor boy overboard, which was very shocking, and that is about what happened to this poor, waiter, so he went West. Francatelli instructing the English cooks in French cookery could not quite abandon garlic; but found it necessary to warn them not to use a head of garlic, but only one clove, and took occasion to remark, "Over-seasoning is the bane of English cookery."

A little touch of garlic is desirable, it is the petit point d'ail in a ragout praised by Sir Walter Scott. And this is but one of many flavorings to be used with discretion, for which no directions can be given. The foregoing will perhaps give point to the following excerpt from Brillat-Savarin, so far as to call attention to the flavorings named: "I prefer to tell the story of a Frenchman of Limousin, who made his fortune in London by his skill in mixing a salad. Although his means were very limited, Albignac (so he was called, if I remember right) went one day to dine in one of the most famous taverns in London. Whilst he was finishing his succulent beefsteak, there were five or six young dandies of good family regaling themselves at a neighboring table. One of them came to him and said very politely: 'Sir, it is said that your nation excels in the art of making salads; will you be so good as oblige us by mixing one?' "D'Albignac consenting, after a little hesitation, ordered all that he thought necessary for the expected masterpiece, used his best endeavors, and had the good luck to succeed. "Whilst studying the ingredients, he answered frankly all questions about himself. He said he was an emigrant and admitted, not without some natural shame, that he was receiving assistance from the English government--a circumstance which no doubt authorized one of the young men to slip into the exile's hand a five-pound note, and insist on his keeping it. "He had given his address, and some time after, he received a very civil note, requesting him to go and mix a salad in one of the finest houses in Grosvenor Square. D'Albignac arrived punctually, after furnishing himself with some special seasonings and maturing his plans. He had the good luck to succeed again. "The first party for whom he had manipulated had exaggerated the merits of his salad, and the second company made so much more noise about it, that d'Albignac's reputation was already made. He was known as the fashionable salad maker, and soon had a gig, in order to keep his appointments, with a servant to bring his mahogany case containing all the ingredients--such as vinegars of different flavors, oils with or without a fruity taste, soy, caviare, truffles, anchovies, ketchups, gravies, and even hard-boiled eggs. "Later he got cases made to order, furnished them completely and sold them by hundreds. In short he came to realize a fortune of more than eighty thousand francs."

In those countries where butter is held in little esteem and olive oil in a large degree takes its place, it may naturally be surmised the fastidious people are as particular in the quality of oil and its combinations and critical of their flavors as Americans and English of "Cold Spring Creamery Gilt Edged" and the famous "Suffolk Dairy Butter." The impossibility of improving the flavor of butter by any addition does not exist in regard to oil, and it seems quite possible for connoiseurs to surprise the palate of their friends by new admixtures, especially in mayonaise and salads. In Russia, it is said, the oil of sunflower seed is largely used for salad making. The olive oil which now comes from California has much the same nutty flavor, or perhaps more resembles the taste of beech nuts. The best we can ask for is to have oil as nearly tasteless as possible if we want to make salads more popular, and above all reject the oil which is sold cheap because it has become rancid, just as we reject strong butter.

If we cannot afford to select our oils of various brands--"with or without a fruity taste"--according to the use intended, we need not be so restricted in the choice of vinegars of various flavors, to give variety to the mayonaise. French cooks who disagree in most things are all agreed in using tarragon vinegar for salad dressings whenever it can be had and look with a withering sort of pity on the American cook who has never had even a pint of it bought for his use in the whole course of his life. They don't know how thankful he is if even the plain vinegar furnished proves not to be diluted sulphuric acid.

Tarragon and other flavored vinegars which connoiseurs regard as indispensible can be bought like any other good thing ready prepared, but where it cannot be had for the asking it may be worth while for the cook to make his own.