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American Vs. English Cookery (Edy might be to imitate)

edy might be to imitate the French of two hundred years ago, and provide an entertaining illustrated text-book for children, artfully designed to foster a love of gastronomy. Thus, in a work of this nature entitled "Roast Pig," the text is freely interlarded with appetising pictures of viands and table scenes, accompanied by such maxims as these: "A well-minced ham is fine eating, but not without something to drink"; "pâté of venison and craquelins are not intended for naughty children"; "damask prunes are delicious to eat for those who deserve them"; "venison is better in a pâté than with any sauces, if it is well seasoned and accompanied with wine." 1 The excellence of the morale of a work of this nature cannot fail to impress itself on those of mature years whose incentive to learning in youth was more often the ruler and the rod than sugar-plums and wine. But while the advantages of such a method for moulding the youthful taste are to be extolled, it presents the objection that much valuable time must elapse before the results would become tangible, and hence its benefits would accrue too late save for the younger generation and its successors.

It were well, withal, in furtherance of the advance of the art, if a society were formed for the suppression of the filet, the consommé with whipped cream, and also the sweetbread in its usual form, which are so frequently employed in "company" dinners, the bill 1 " Roti-Cochon ou Méthode Très- Facile pour bien apprendre les Enfants a Lire en Latin et en Francais, par des Inscriptions moralement expliquées de plusieurs Representations figurées de différentes choses de leurs connoissances; très utile et meme necessaire, tant pour la vie & le salut, que pour la gloire de Dieu.

A Dijon, chez Claude Michard, Imprimeur & Marchand Libraire à Saint Jean l'Evangéliste." of fare of which is left by the housewife to the cook or the purveyor who is engaged for the day. In such cases the guest often needs no menu to know what is forthcoming-the lukewarm Blue Points, the flavourless broth, the overdone halibut, the tasteless tenderloin and green peas, and the half-mixed salad deluged with tarragon vinegar. As for the wines, one may be reasonably sure of a woody-tasting sherry, a sour and watery "claret," and a still more asperous brut champagne that is doled out, when appetite has waned, to chill the dessert and render the sweets the more indigestible. Not that this menu is the general rule by any means in the United States, but it is of far too frequent occurrence, and should be placed under ban -a charge that concerns the host and hostess alike.

For whatever difficulty the mistress may experience in procuring trained culinary skill, a simple bill of fare, daintily served, is always at her command; while there can be no excuse on the part of the master for presenting a sharp brut champagne at the end of the repast, if indeed it be presented at all; and as for a reputable Bordeaux, if such be not in his cellar, it is or should be obtainable at his club. Where champagne is permitted to diffuse its sunshine, it goes without saying it should be of irreproachable quality and dealt out with a liberal hand. To stint in Ay or Sillery is as unpardonable as to ice one's Burgundy. The host should watch the various brands attentively from year to year, noting their improvement or deterioration, judging them by their quality only, and choosing them irrespective of their vogue or the plaudits of those who may not be capable of judging.

The introducer of the dry flint cracker in place of fresh bread to go with the cheese, though never definitely ascertained, is said to have been a dentist who in this wise succeeded in obtaining many wealthy patients. A person who is guilty of offering hardtack to his friends may be expected to pour a mayonnaise dressing over his cucumbers and beat up his lettuce and tomatoes in a salad. To serve cheese with the salad is a syncretism, besides being a great injustice to the roast to which the salad rightly appertains.

The absence of butter which is often noticeable at formal repasts has no raison d'être. It is wanted at most dinners, particularly for corn, baked potatoes, etc., and is always needed for bread; its non-employment in Europe is only a consequent of economical custom. A vice it were seemingly useless to protest against, so universal is the practice, is the serving of raw fruit after a hearty dinner. As long as courses are presented in a tempting way, so long will the unthinking majority continue to taste them, even if it be fruit, -"gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night," after the final sweets. The only one who has exclaimed against this custom, to the writer's knowledge, is the Ettrick Shepherd in the "Noctes": "As for frute after fude, it 's a downricht abomination, and coagulates on the stomach like sour cruds."

Nor may the wineless dinner be passed unnoticed, at which unfortunate guests sometimes find themselves unwittingly present with no means of escape. To those who are unaccustomed to their glass of claret or other vinous beverage at home its exclusion may not materially signify, though at a protracted repast there are not a few among such who find it a great aid to digestion. In the case of those who are habituated to it its absence becomes of serious moment, much the same as if a meal were deprived of salt or the postprandial cigar were proscribed. In vain may the unfortunate guest attempt to philosophise on the virtues of abnegation as he contemplates his glass where the gold gleams without, instead of sparkling from within, and he mournfully recalls the couplet of Monselet and the dinners that are past: "Sauternes, Haut-Brions, Latour, Margaux, Lafittes, Grands crûs de la Gironde, ah! quel bien vous me fîtes!" (Sauternes, Latour, Margaux, Lafitte, and O'Bryan, Grand growths of Gironde, let us make haste to try 'em!) The least that the dinner-giver could do who may be intent on restricting the product of the vine, out of respect for those whose happiness it befits him to consider, aye, for which he is directly responsible during the entire period they remain under his roof, — would be to apprise his guests on their invitation cards that his filet was to be accompanied by water. Then any possible uncertainty would at once become a certainty, and no one need be ensnared. Otherwise his dinner must border too closely on the very questionable form of entertainment tendered by the fox to the stork. "Let no man," says an old writer in "Blackwood's," "who has been so unfortunate as to be accustomed to drink water be afraid all at once to begin to drink wine. Let him without fear or trembling boldly fill a bumper to his most gracious majesty the king-then the Duke of Clarence and the navy-then Wellington and the army. These three bumpers will have made him a new man."

The fact that the host may not be a wine-drinker himself is no reason why he should select a dinnerparty as the field for enforcing his views on hydropathy. And if from sentiment or through physical reasons he prefer water, no one assuredly will question his right to abstain from vinous beverages. There was an old gentleman, it is related, who was fond of entertaining his friends, and who gave them wine of the very best. He himself would drink with them, but only from a particular decanter which was placed before him. An inquisitive neighbour at his table contrived to help himself from the same bottle, and discovered that, under a colourable imitation of sherry, his host was drinking cold tea. He was a total abstainer from principle, but he was too courteous a gentleman to flaunt his conviction in the face of his guests or to reflect upon the weakness of his friends by confessing himself superior to them.

Above all things, an invitation to dine should convey on its face the spirit of a refined, broad-minded hospitality and an assurance of perfect creature comforts, embodying in the fullest measure the sentiment expressed by Châtillon-Plessis, "Se soigner en buvant d'excellents vins et en mangeant d'excellents mets, voilà la bonne, la vraie médication!" (To care for one's self by drinking excellent wines and by eating excellent dishes, this is the proper, the true medication.) In all instances where the entertainer may be opposed to serving wine, it were better to dispense with the dinner and substitute a tea or a reading in its stead. A wineless dinner is justifiable only where every guest is a professed teetotaler and has become inured to Oolong and sparkling waters.

An editorial in the London "Spectator" deals summarily with such alleged entertainers, terming them "would-be hosts." "What!" [exclaims the writer] "shall a man be invited to a feast? shall he don his white tie with care and take his way through the inclement weather to his friend's home, determined, though weary and jaded with his daily toil, to shine at his best, and repay with the blithest company his friend's entertainment? and shall he be offered lemonade to drink? It is enough to curdle the milk of human kindness in his breast forever. Or iced water? Why, it would throw a chill upon the warmest good will, and freeze the speech even upon the lips of a lover. The man is neither a wine-bibber nor a sot. But he is accustomed to drink his glass of wine, even as he is accustomed to eat his dinner, and one is as necessary to him as the other. Well, we do not imagine that he dines with him twice."

The Sunday two- or three-o'clock dinner is a barbarism which calls loudly for suppression-a custom that has no justifiable motive, inasmuch as the only pretence for its existence is of questionable benefit to the servants, who are obliged to share equally the penalty visited upon every one by whom it is tolerated. As well establish a weekly custom of a Saturday banquet at midnight in order to allow the cook a full afternoon for visiting. For what are the inevitable results? Accustomed to the dinner in the evening and the luncheon at noon, for which the machinery of di- . gestion is set in perfect accord, the stomach is called upon to fast on the day devoted to rest until long after the period for the performance of its regular officesto be surfeited with excessive ingestion at a time when appetite is ravenous and the secretory organs are unable to perform their customary functions. Gluttony and subsequent lethargy are a necessary consequent, followed by a disturbed state of the digestion perhaps for days afterwards. The pathological deduction of irregular eating is a simple one. The stomach, having supplied its secretions at the accustomed time, waits but a brief period before it allows such secretions to be absorbed when deprived of the aliments that aid in the production of fresh supplies. After a few such experiences the secretions diminish in amount and in activity, even when food is introduced in the digestive tract, and stomachic disturbance is an inevitable sequence. It will thus be manifest that the Sunday-afternoon dinner and late Sunday supper become the greatest of all invitations to gastric disorders, and that the master and mistress of the well-regulated household should firmly resent this almost universal imposition. No one knows better than the physician the serious ailments caused by Sunday engorgement and irregular eating. And yet no one in this respect remains more passive to his own welfare or that of his patients.

The seven-o'clock theatre dinner, while less obnoxious than the Sunday evil, is nevertheless a positive discomfort and a direct incentive to flatulence and dyspepsia. It should likewise receive the stigma of public disapproval, and either be entirely abolished, out of comfort both to hosts and guests, or set at a sufficiently early hour to ensure their well-being and that of the audience it invariably disturbs. In any event, a formal repast of this nature can scarcely be partaken of with a sense of comfort, and it were better for all concerned if a supper after the performance were substituted.

To be regretted also is the growing tendency of adjourning the evening dinner-hour. Six o'clock, the hygienist will maintain, is the latest period in the day at which those who set a proper value on their health should begin to dine. It will be claimed, notwithstanding, by many who may be directly concerned, that this is too early for invited guests to assemble at table that the toiler in the business mart may not always call his time his own. Let the hours of the business man and the professionalist be shortened, so that life may contain a broader margin. There still remain but twenty-four hours in the day, and the existing hours of business are too long and do not enable the majority to regulate the conditions of life properly. Let us not be ever hastening on, as though the goal were to be attained only by whip and spur! "the wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure, and he that hath little business shall become wise." The ideal hour for dining would be half-past six, with fifteen minutes' grace at the utmost, when one need neither sit down in a half-famished condition nor be sent to bed with an overcharged stomach. Seven o'clock certainly is as late as one may dine with comfort. A deferred dinner means either a too substantial luncheon or a distressing feeling of "goneness," which frequently makes itself unpleasantly audible long before the announcement that dinner is served; while lateness in dining implies additionally an insufficient interim between the dessert and the night's repose. No period of the day begins to be as tedious as that which is often mistakenly extended for the benefit and encouragement of the unpunctual.

Would that the laggard who thus mars the comfort of others might feel the true force of Boileau's stricture: "I have always been punctual at the hour of dinner, for I knew that all those whom I kept waiting at that provoking interval would employ those unpleasant moments to sum up all my faults." To wait for tardy guests, it cannot be emphasised too strongly, is to try unwarrantably the temper of the remainder of the company and jeopardise the excellence of the repast. All such stumbling-blocks to the perfect advance of gastronomy, however, will doubtless be removed in time, and the pleasures of the table eventually be realised to their fullest extent in America. Again, turning from the state of cookery in this country to that in England, it must be admitted that advancement has been far less manifest. "In general," a French writer remarks, "the English are little inclined to epicurism; it is apparent that their palate is not apt to appreciate the finish, the delicacy of a dish artistically prepared." It cannot be said that this stricture is entirely just, despite existent conditions. Neither may it be charged that the general state of English cookery is entirely the result of supineness on the part of a considerable portion of those whose interests are most affected; for the travelled Briton is the first to complain of the sameness and lack of progress which characterise his native kitchen. With abundant material and the best of meats and fish, there is little variety and a conspicuous want of daintiness in the English bill of fare; while even in the capital the English restaurants, with few exceptions, are scarcely to be commended. One must perforce suppose that these conditions are more the outcome of the national conservatism-the tendency to "let well enough alone" -than that they are not realised by a certain portion of the community. The Englishman is the last one, however, to stint at his table, whereon the ample roast invariably figures, and whatever may chance to be served appears in generous profusion.

Nor can one imagine a more delightsome host than the cultured Briton, who was first to proclaim the virtues of old-vintage champagnes, and who is still willing to undergo the martyrdom of gout for the sake of an after-glass of port which may not be equalled elsewhere. And if the English table be designated as "heavy" compared with that of the United States, it must be considered that climate has much to do with the form of a nation's alimentation. The national roast beef and ale are a fuel for the body in a land where fogs and mists prevail, and where the heating of dwellings and buildings is often inadequate. The chop-house is essentially English, and so far as its bill of fare extends its merits are unquestionable. The Englishman will also say, and his claim cannot be disputed, Is there a better substantial soup than turtle, or even ox-tail and mulligatawny? is any friture equal in delicacy to that of whitebait? and is not the English beefsteak incomparably superior to the larded filet of the French?

But turtle and turbot and beef and ale need not necessarily preclude the lighter forms of nutrition which the British lack, or that minute attention to detail without which the cuisine must languish. It is true that the kitchens of the very wealthy are presided over by skilled foreign chefs, as is the case in most other countries, and that my lord and my lady do not lack for the most exquisite refinements that the disciples of Carême can contribute. A rich ancestral English country-seat, shaded by its immemorial elms and limes, with its splendid conservatories and gardens, its game-preserves and trout and salmon waters, is perhaps the best expression of refined and luxurious hospitality to be found; and here, assuredly, the table does not yield in bounty and munificence to any in the world. Outside of comparatively few dishes, however, there is but little to commend in general English cookery; and it would seem that what else is specially characteristic and also good consists largely in the cold pieces, such as game-, pigeon-, and rabbit-pie, spiced beef, the lordly venison pasty, and similar comestibles. That there is no such thing as fine modern English cookery the Englishman will be first to acknowledge. Broadly speaking, all which is good is old, and all which is modern is French.¹ The 1 "The English system of cookery it would be impertinent for me to describe; but still, when I think of that huge round of parboiled ox-flesh, with sodden dumplings floating in a saline, greasy mixture, surrounded by carrots looking red with disgust and turnips pale with dismay, I cannot help a sort of inward shudder, and making comparisons unfavourable to English gastronomy." - ME- MOIRS OF A STOMACH, Written by Himself. London, 1853.

Ecooking of vegetables is notoriously poor, and variety in preparation is as limited on the ordinary table as the variety of the vegetables themselves during a major portion of the year. The seedsman and the market-gardener cannot be held accountable, for the seedsman produces excellent varieties in profusion, many of which are grown in this country, and marketgardeners abound who must raise them. And no gardener may excel, if equal, the Englishman, whether his operations extend to the kitchen- or the flower-garden. But where are his vegetables to be met with in perfection of variety and perfection of cooking? a question that becomes almost as great a problem as was the universal absence of male birds among the chaffinches or the mysterious disappearance of the ringouzels to Gilbert White. During the limited season, let us admit, there are some vegetables which may not be surpassed, like green peas and beans, cauliflower, asparagus, and many varieties of lettuce, especially Cos, which cannot be grown to equal advantage under our hot summer sun. It is unfortunate that potatoes are cooked only in about one way, for few potatoes can compare in flavour with those raised in England. All such vegetables as demand continuous midsummer heat for their perfect maturity, together with lateripening varieties of fruits, are necessarily raised at a disadvantage in most portions of Great Britain. Yet it would seem that the frowns of Vertumnus were far less responsible for this dearth of variety than the apparent apathy of the nation itself or those who are principally responsible for its alimentation— the cook, the epicure, the restaurant, and the housewife. Thus, in so simple a matter as the pumpkin-pie, which one occasionally meets in the southern and southwestern shires, it is hardly surprising that it is held in slight estimation when one reflects that the material is cut up in pieces, and then, with half apple and half pumpkin, a pie is made similar to the ordinary English apple-pie, and this in a climate where a pumpkin of good quality may not be grown out of doors. Contrary to general opinion, pumpkin-pie is not an American but an old English dish improved upon by the New England housewife. Three hundred years ago, when known as the "pompion," they were made into pies by cutting a hole in the side, extracting the seeds and filaments, stuffing the cavity with apples, and baking the whole.