Appendix. — Luxuries of the Table in France and in England, in Mediæval and Modern Times
According to Brantome, the first nobleman in France who introduced at court a more luxurious table was the Marshal St. André. The historian thus speaks of him:—“Et certes estoit par trop excessif en friandises et délicatesse de viandes, tant de chair que de poisson et autres friands mangers, tellement que quelqu’un qui n’eust ouy que de sa vie délicieuse n’eust jamais pu n’y en juger n’y croire qu’il fust esté si Grand Capitaine.” Among the kings of France, the first who distinguished himself by this sumptuosity of fare was Francis I., and he carried his table extravagance to a foolish and absurd extent; for besides the unequalled luxury of the royal table, there were, according to Brantôme, the tables of the grand master, of the great chamberlain, of the chamberlain, of the gentlemen of the chamber, of the gentlemen servants, and ever so many others. The graphic memoir writer, the Seigneur de Bourdeille adds:—“Et toutes si bien servies que rien n’y manquoit. Et ce qui estoit plus remarquable c’est que dans un village, dans les forêts, dans les assemblées, l’on y estoit traité comme si l’on eust esté dans Paris.”
Henri II. and Francis II. kept as good a table as their father and grandfather; but things changed under Charles IX. and Henry III., of whom Brantôme says, “C’était par boutades que l’on y faisoit bonne chere, car le plus souvent la marmité se renversoit; chose que hait beaucoup le courtesan qui aimeà avoir bouche à cour et à l’armée parceque alors il ne lui conte rien.”
Henry IV., for a long time, was as “heinously unprovided” (to use a Shakespearian phrase) as his royal predecessor. His finances were so straitened, say the “Memoirs of the Duke of Angouleme,” “que souvent sa table manquoit, et qu’il se trouvoit contraint d’aller manger chez quelqu’un de ses sérviteurs.” Louis XIII. established, in a great degree, the luxury of Francis I.; and Louis XIV., to use the words of Le Grand, effaced even the remembrance of the repasts of the most luxurious of former kings, by his elaborate feasts. It was under his reign that “collations grasses” were eaten after dinner. Madame de Sévigné writes, in 1680, “La Princesse de Tarente m’a faite une collation en viande; je la lui ai rendue. C’est une sotte mode; je pense que cela ne durera pas.” Bélon, who published his “Traité des Oiseaux,” in 1555, describes how magnificently the dinner tables were served in that day. “Pour entrées,” he says, “nous avons mille petits deguisemens de chair comme potages, fricassées, hachis, salades. Le second service est de rôti, de bouilli, de diverses viandes, tout de boucherie que de gibier. Pour issue de table choses froides comme fruictages, laictages, et doulceurs, rissoles, petits choux tout chauds, petits gateaux caveux, ratons de fromage, pommes de capendu, salade de citron ou de grenades.”
Gontier, who wrote in the seventeenth century, complains of the luxury of the dinners in 1668, at which period, he says, there were no less than eight courses. The “Mercure Galant” gives a description of the royal banquet that was given at Versailles, for the marriage of Mademoiselle de Blois, natural daughter of Louis XIV., with the Prince of Conti. At this feast there were three courses of 160 dishes at each course. The first course was half soups and half entrées; the second, half in entremets and half in roasts; the third, dessert. The roasts were all small, and the ortolans alone cost 16,000 francs.
Later in the reign of Louis XIV., the mode of serving dinners in France a good deal resembled the system followed in the present day. In the entertainment given by Louvois to the Queen at Meudon, covers were laid for nineteen, and there were four courses.
The first course consisted of forty entrées, the second of forty roasts and salads, the third of hot and cold entremets, and the last course of dessert. In the kitchen of Louis XV. there were about thirty cooks employed, and four pâtissiers-bouche.
I now proceed to give a few bills of fare, from the days of Louis XIV. to the present time.
The first is the menu of a dinner given 212 years ago by Matthew Molé, keeper of the seals in France to Mons. Le Prince Louis de Bourbon-Condé, on the 9th August, 1652:—
Meneu du Disner qui fust donné par Messire Mathieu Molé, Garde des Sceaux de France, à Monsieur le Prince (Louis de Bourbon-Condé), le Samedi, 9 Αout, 1652.
XIV. potages maigres,
dont
1 aux écrevisses du Rhyn et vin d’Espaigne, et l’aultre aux huistres d’Angoulesme et
œufs de perdrix rouges, lesquels servis aux deux costés de son Altesse.
XIV. plats de poissons.
1 un saulmon de vingt escus.
1 brochet de 19 liures.
1 carpe aux œufs, de Champlastreux.
1 truite de Suysse, 24 liures.
1 turbot du Hasvre de Grasce.
1 matelotte de lamperoyes d’Angers.
1 hochepot de gibiers de riuiesre.
1 gibelotte de poissons meslés.
1 anguille à la broche, 9 liures 16 sols.
1 pasté de barbottes du Rhosne.
1 fricassée de lottes aux asperges.
1 de morue fraische aux groseilles uerdes.
1 d’aloses de Rouen grillées.
1 d’esperlants farinnés au cédrat.
XIV. plats de rost.
6 de poissons cuits au bleu.
4 de poissons à la poisle.
4 de gibiers de riuiesre, à la broche.
XIV. sallades.
3 de légumes cuits.
3 d’herbes uerdes.
6 d’œufs accommodés diuersement.
2 de citrons musqués, 10 escus.
XIV. assiettes gauffrées.
7 de pastisseries à fonds de cresme.
7 de pastisseries à fonds de fruict.
XVIII. jattes de fruicts et aultres,
desquels
6 agnanats touts entiers et 12 pacquets de fleurs de joncquilles à confire.
Dont cxii. escus pour le coust d’yceulx fruicts et fleurs, et pour le tout de la despense généralle, mil neuf cens soixante et cinq liures, et unze sols,
Que certifie iuste et uallable:
Maugis.
Apprevvay cette partie de Mavgis.
Bon povr 1965 livres 11 sols, que playra payer
à lvy maistre Lordier de Lestanville.
Molé.
The second is the menu of a supper of the Regent Orleans, moitié gras, moitié maigre:—
Menu d’une Table de Douze Couverts, pour un Souper du Régent, servi moitié Gras, moitié Maigre.
Pour le milieu une grosse pièce,
Deux potages pour les bouts de table:
Dix entrées, savoir, quatre jattes et six plats à festons, &c.
PREMIER SERVICE.
1 pièce de bœuf salé, garnie de carottes et de patates.
Deux potages, savoir:
1 maigre, coulis de brochet (un brochet).
1 de navets (un canard dessus).
Dix entrées, savoir: quatre dans quatre jattes, et six dans six plats à festons.
Les quatre jattes, savoir:
1 de filets de mouton glacés et piqués, et des cornichons par-dessus.
1 de poulets piqués de persil, avec une sauce à l’espagnole dessous (2 poulets).
1 de brochets à la polonaise (un brochet).
1 de perches à la génevoise (6 perches, une bouteille de vin blanc).
Les six plats à festons, savoir:
1 de saurcroûte au maigre (un brochet).
1 quarteron d’huîtres, cuites avec une pinte de crême.
1 d’une noix de veau à la napolitaine.
1 de perdreaux en levraut (3 perdreaux).
1 d’anguilles à la bavaroise (2 belles anguilles).
1 demi-cent de belles écrevisses.
Deux plats de poissons pour relever les potages, savoir:
1 d’une carpe à l’anglaise.
1 de Water Fisch (2 douzaines de petites perches, quatre petits brochetons).
SECOND SERVICE.
1 reins de sanglier marinés.
Deux plats de pâtisserie, savoir:
1 d’un gâteau fourré de marmelade d’abricots.
1 d’une tourte à la glace (6 pêches à l’eau-de-vie, une pinte de crême).
Quatre plats de rôt, savoir:
1 d’éperlans frits, trempés dans des œufs et panés.
1 de 2 poulardes.
1 de soles frites (2 belles soles).
1 de 2 canards sauvages.
Quatre salades différentes avec quatre différentes sauces.
Quatre petits entremets chauds, savoir:
1 de ris de veau piqués et glacés (6 ris de veau).
1 de pieds de cochon à la Sainte-Ménéhould.
1 de petits pois secs à la crême, d’œufs pochés dessus.
1 de pommes de reinette à la chinoise (6 oranges confites).
The following is the menu of a supper of Louis XV. at La Muette, on 18th February, 1749:—
Souper du Roi Louis XV. à la Muette, le Samedi, 18 Février, 1749.
Deux grandes entrées.
Un râble de mouton de montagne.
Un quartier de veau, une blanquette dans le cuisseau.
Deux oilles.
1 au riz.
1 à la jambe de bois.
Deux potages.
1 à la faubonne.
1 aux choux verts.
Seize entrées.
1 de côtelettes mêlées.
1 de petits pâtés à la Béchameil.
1 de langues de moutons à la duchesse.
1 de petits pigeons aux truffes entières.
1 de haricot de mouton aux navets.
1 de boudins d’écrevisses.
1 de filets de poularde à la d’Armagnac.
1 de matelote à la Dauphine.
1 de noix de veau aux épinards.
1 de membres de faisan à la Conty.
1 de filets de perdreau à la Périgueux.
1 de petits poulets à l’Urlubie.
1 de ris de veau à la Sainte-Ménéhould.
1 sarcelles à l’orange.
1 lapereaux en crépines.
1 poules de Caux en escalopes.
Quatre relevés.
1 dindonneau à la peau de goret, sauce Robert.
1 pâté de bécassines.
1 quartier de sanglier.
1 noix de bœuf aux choux-fleurs.
Deux grands entremets.
1 pâté de jambon.
1 gâteau de Savoie.
Quatre moyens.
2 de buissons d’écrevisses.
2 gâteaux au fromage.
Huit plats de rôts non mention-nés.—Seize entremets.
1 de cardes au jus.
1 de crêtes au bouillon.
1 d’amourettes.
1 de foies gras grillés.
1 de ragoûts mêlés à la crême.
1 de crême au chocolat.
1 d’abaisse de massepain.
1 d’œufs à l’infante.
1 d’huîtres au gratin.
1 de pattes de dindon à l’espagnole.
1 d’asperges.
1 de truffles à la cendre.
1 de crême glacée.
1 de canelons meringués.
1 de choux-fleurs.
Here is a Carte Dinatoire for twelve persons, for the table of the Citoyen Directeur et Général Barras, le Décadi, trente floréal:—
Carte Dinatoire pour la table du Citoyen Directeur et Général Barras, le Décadi, 30 Floréal. Douze personnes.
(Autographes de M. Théodore Vivien.)
1 potage.
1 relevé.
6 entrées.
2 plats de rôt.
6 entremets.
1 salade.
24 plats de dessert.
Le potage aux petits ognons à la ci-devant minime.
Le relevé; un tronçon d’esturgeon à la broche.
Les six entrées.
1 d’un sauté de filets de turbot à l’homme de confiance ci-devant maître-d’hôtel.
1 d’anguilles à la tartare.
1 concombres farcis à la moelle.
1 vol-au-vent de blanc de volaille à la Béchameil.
1 d’un ci-devant Saint-Pierre, sauce aux câpres.
1 de filets de perdrix en anneaux.
Les deux plats de rôt.
1 de goujons du département.
1 d’une carpe au court-bouillon.
Les six entremets.
1 d’œufs à la neige.
1 de betteraves blanches, sautées au jambon.
1 d’une gelée au vin de Madère.
1 de beignets de crême à la fleur d’orange.
1 de lentilles à la ci-devant Reine, à la crème au blond de veau.
1 de culs d’artichauts à la ravigote.
1 salade; céleri en rémoulade.
Trop de poisson. Otez les goujons. Le reste est bien. Qu’on n’oublie pas encore de mettre des coussins sur les siéges pour les citoyennes Tallien, Talma, Beauharnais, Hinguerlot et Mirande.
Et pour cinq heures très-précises.
Signé Barras.
Faites venir des glaces de Veloni. Je n’en veux pas d’autres.
Here is a menu of a dinner served to the Emperor Napoleon and his family, on the Samedi Saint, 1811:—
Menu d’un Dîner de la Famille Bonaparte, aux Tuileries.
Deux potages.
Au macaroni et purée de marrons.
Deux relevés.
Une pièce de bœuf bouillie, garnie de légumes.
Un brochet à la Chambord.
Quatre entrées.
Côtelettes de mouton à la Soubise.
Perdreaux à la Montglas.
Fricassée de poulet à la chevalière.
Filets de canard au fumet.
Deux rôtis.
Un chapon au cresson.
Un gigot d’agneau.
Deux plats de légumes.
Des choux-fleurs au gratin.
Du céleri-navet au jus.
Quatre entremets au sucre.
Crême au café.
Gelée d’orange.
Génoise décorée.
Gauffres à l’allemande.
Now comes the first dinner en maigre which Louis XVIII. had at Compiegne. It is certainly a most recherché one:—
Premier Diner du roi Louis XVIII., à Compiegne.
(En Maigre.)
Quatre potages.
Potage de poisson à la provençale.
Nouilles à l’essence de racines.
Potage à la d’Artois à l’essence de racines.
Filets de lottes aux écrevisses.
Quatre relevés de poissons.
Croquettes de brochet à la Béchameil.
Vol-au-vent garni de brandade de morue aux truffes.
Filets de soles à la Dauphine.
Orly de filets de carrelets.
Quatre grosses pièces.
Turbot au beurre d’anchois.
Grosse anguille à la Régence.
Bar à la vénitienne.
Saumon, sauce aux huîtres.
Trente-deux entrées.
Escalopes de truites aux fines herbes.
Sauté de filets de plongeons au suprême.
Vol-au-vent de poissons à la Nesle.
Petites caisses de foies de lottes.
Les croquettes de brochets.
Raie bouclée à la hollandaise.
Bayonnaise de filets de soles.
Quenelles de poisson à l’italienne.
Grondins grillés, sauce au beurre.
La grosse anguille à la Régence.
Blanquette de turbot à la Béchameil.
Pain de carpes au beurre d’écrevisses.
Salade de filets de brochet aux laitues.
Filets d’alose à l’oseille.
La marinade de bonne morue.
Plies à la poulette.
Pâté chaud de lamproies.
Pluviers de mer en entrée de broche.
Brême à la maître-d’hôtel.
Rougets à la hollandaise.
Filets de sarcelles à la bigarade.
Timbale de macaroni garnie de laitances.
Emincé de turbotin gratiné.
Les filets de soles à la Dauphine.
Perches au vin de Champagne.
Darne d’esturgeon au beurre de Montpelier.
Turban de filets de merlans à la Conty.
Escalopes de morue à la provençale.
La bar à la vénitienne.
Papillotes de surmulet à la d’Huxelles.
Boudins de poisson à la Richelieu.
Vives froides à la provençale.
Sauté de lottes aux truffes.
La orly de filets de carrelets.
Caisse d’huîtres aux fines herbes.
Escalopes de barbue en croustade.
Filets de poules d’eau à la bourguignonne.
Eperlans à l’anglaise.
Quatre grosses pièces d’entremets.
L’hermitage indien.
Le pavillon rustique.
Le pavillon hollandais.
L’hermitage russe.
Quatre plats de rôts pour les contre-flancs.
Aiguillettes de goujons.
Poules de mer.
Sarcelles au citron.
Petites truites au bleu.
Trente-deux entremets.
Céleri à l’essence maigre.
Gelée de punch.
Œufs brouillés aux truffes.
Petits nougats de pommes.
Les aiguillettes de goujons.
Gâteau renversé au gros sucre.
Truffes à l’italienne.
Pudding au vin de Malvoisie.
Choux-fleurs au parmesan.
L’hermitage Indien.
Laitues au jus de racines.
Blanc-manger à la crême.
Buisson de homards.
Gâteaux glacés à la Condé.
Les poules de mer.
Petits soufflés de fécule.
Œufs pochés à la ravigote.
Gelée de citrons moulée.
Champignons à l’espagnole.
Concombres au velouté.
Gelée de café Moka.
Œufs pochés aux épinards.
Génoises en croissant perlées.
Les sarcelles au citron.
Gâteaux glacés aux pistaches.
Crevettes en hérisson.
Fromage bavarois aux abricots.
Les pommes de terre à la hollandaise.
L’hermitage Russe.
Cardes au jus d’esturgeon.
Pommes au riz glacées.
Truffes à la serviette.
Petits gâteaux de Pithiviers.
Les petites truites au bleu.
Panachées en diadème au gros sucre.
Petites omelettes à la purée de champignons.
Gelée des quatre fruits.
Salsifis à la ravigote.
Pour extra, dix assiettes de petits soufflés en croustades.
Soufflés aux macarons amers.
Soufflés à l’orange.
Dessert.
8 Corbeilles et 10 corbillons.
12 Assiettes montées.
10 Compotiers.
24 Assiettes et 6 jattes.
There is now the bill of fare of the dinner given by the Emperor Alexander, on his birthday, at Vertus, near Chalôns, on the 11th September, 1815. Covers were laid for 300, and the dinner began with 600 plates of oysters, for which 300 lemons were provided:—
Diner de l’Empereur Alexandre, à Vertus, près Chalons-sur-Marne, le 11 Septembre, 1815, jour anniversaire de la naissance de sa Majesté.
(Table de 300 couverts, servie à la russe.)
600 assiettes d’huîtres, 300 citrons.
PREMIER SERVICE.
Les huîtres, les citrons.
Trois potages.
Potage à la jardinière pour 150 personnes.
Soupe froide à la russe pour 150 personnes.
Crécy aux petits croûtons pour 150 personnes.
Vingt-huit hors-d’œuvres.
De petits vol-au-vent à la purée de gibier.
Vingt-huit entrées froides.
De galantines de poulardes à la gelée.
Vingt-huit grosses pièces.
De filets de bœuf au vin de Madère, demi-espagnole.
Cent douze entrées.
50 de filets de soles à la Orly, garnis d’une escalope de saumon.
12 de cailles aux fines herbes dans des bordures de racines.
25 de sautés de poulets au suprême, ragoût à la Toulouse.
25 de timbales de macaronis au chasseur.
Vingt-huit plats de rôts.
10 de poulets gras, 10 de dindonneaux, 8 longes de veau.
60 salades pour 300 personnes.
Cinquante entremets de légumes.
25 d’épinards au velouté.
25 de haricots verts à l’anglaise.
Cinquante-six entremets au sucre.
De crèmes françaises à la vanille et de génoises aux amandes pralinées.
Huit souillés d’extra pour être placés à portée de S. M. Impériale.
60 assiettes de pâtisseries de petit four.
60 assiettes de fruits crus.
60 assiettes de fruits confits.
60 assiettes de fruits à l’eau-de-vie.
20 assiettes de fromages de France, &c.
Underneath is the bill of fare of the first diplomatic dinner given by the Duke of Wellington, when ambassador in Paris, in 1815. It will be seen that the fare was simple, and most of the dishes dressed in the English fashion:—
Premier Dîner Diplomatique de l’Ambassadeur d’Angleterre à Paris. Menu d’un Service à l’Anglaise pour 20 Couverts.
PREMIER SERVICE.
Potage.
1 potage de tête de veau en fausse tartine.
Deux bouts de table.
1 d’un dindon bouilli, sauce au céleri.
1 rosbif aux pommes de terre.
Six entrées.
1 d’une tranche de saumon bouillie, sauce aux câpres. Purée de navets.
1 de deux lapereaux, sauce aux ognons. Choux-fleurs sans sauce.
1 de quatre escalopes de veau.
1 de maquereaux bouillis, sauce au fenouil. Epinards bouillis à l’anglaise.
1 deux poulets, sauce au persil. Purée de pommes de terre.
1 de perdreaux étuvés. Bread sauce.
SECOND SERVICE.
Milieu.
1 quartier de chevreuil à la broche, sauce à la gelée de groseilles.
1 d’une poularde rôtie.
1 d’un levraut farci.
Deux salades.
1 d’herbes vertes.
1 de citrons entiers.
Six entremets.
1 d’une gelée de vin de Madère.
1 d’un plum-pudding.
1 d’une tourte aux confitures.
1 de welches rabbits.
1 d’un pudding de riz.
1 d’une gelée de citrons.
Treize assiettes de dessert.
2 compotes.
4 assiettes de fruits crus.
2 de biscuits.
2 de mendiants.
2 de fromages.
1 assiette montée.
I conclude French bills of fare with a menu of a royal banquet given at the Tuileries, on Twelfth-day, 1820, at which Louis XVIII., Monsieur (afterwards Charles X.), and the Duchess of Angouleme, the Duke and Duchess of Berri, the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, the Duke and Duchess of Bourbon were present:—
Menu du Grand-couvert, ou Banquet Royal aux Tuileries, pour le jour des Rois, 6 Janvier, 1820.
Deux potages.
Printanier de santé.
Bisque d’écrevisses.
Quatre grosses pièces.
Faon de daim à la broche.
Turbot, sauce aux huîtres et aux moules.
Carpe à la Régence.
Casserole au riz à la Saint-Hubert.
Seize entrées.
Filets glacés aux laitues.
Sauté de filets de perdreaux aux truffes.
Grenadins de filets de lapereaux à la Toulouse.
Côtelettes de chevreuil à la Soubise.
Filets de lottes à la Villeroy, sauce vénitienne.
Quenelles de volailles au consommé réduit.
Attelets à la Bellevue à la gelée.
Escalopes de levrauts au sang.
Poularde à l’estragon.
Cremeskis au velouté.
Blanquette (le filets de poulardes à la Conty.
Perches à la waterfisch.
Poulets à la Reine à la Chevry.
Petits pâtés à la Béchameil.
Filets d’agneaux aux pointes d’asperges.
Purée de gibier à la polonaise.
Quatre grosses pièces.
Buisson d’écrevisses.
Sultane à la Chantilly.
Soufflé au fromage.
Jambon de sanglier glace.
Quatre plats de rôts.
Faisans de Bohême.
Perdreaux rouges.
Eperlans frits.
Bécasses du Morvan.
Seize entremets.
Asperges en branches.
Choux-fleurs au parmesan.
Champignons à la provençale.
Truffes au vin de Champagne.
Laitues à l’essence.
Epinards au consommé.
Salade à la piémontaise.
Concombres au consommé.
Gelée d’oranges.
Crème à l’anglaise.
Pannequets aux citrons confits.
Œufs pochés au jus.
Gâteaux soufflés.
Macaroni à l’italienne.
Pommes au beurre de Vanvres.
Gaufres à la flamande.
Deux plombières, extra. Dessert.
8 corbeilles, 4 corbillons, et le reste en proportion de cette donnée.
At the period when luxurious tables became prevalent in France, good cheer also prevailed in London. In the time of Queen Mary, according to Maitland, luxury prevailed to such an excessive degree in the sumptuousness and extravagance of the city magistrates, that many of the principal citizens chose rather to retire into the country than to serve expensive offices. It was enacted by the Common Council, to prevent such extravagances, that the mayor should have no more than one course either at dinner or supper; and that on a festival day, a flesh day, a repast was to consist of no more than seven dishes, whether hot or cold; and on every festival day being a fish day, of eight dishes; and on every common flesh day, six dishes; and on every common fish day, seven dishes, exclusive of brawn, collops with eggs, salads, potage, butter, eggs, herrings, sprats, and shrimps, together with all sorts of shell-fish and fruits.
Regulations were also issued for the aldermen, sheriffs, and City companies at their several entertainments.37 They were to have neither swan, crane, nor bustard under the penalty of forty shillings.
During the reign of Elizabeth, the city venison feasts became offensive to the queen and her nobility. In consequence, a letter, signed by the Lord Mayor and two aldermen, was addressed to Lord Burleigh, in which these officials say, “For avoyding the excessive spending of venison and other vitail in the halles of this citie, which we understand to have been offensive to her matie and the nobilitie, we have by act of common counsel forbidden such festes hereafter to be kept, and have restrained the same only to necessary metinges in wh also venison is permitted as by copie of this act herewith sent into yr L. may appere.” These worshipful personages go on to assure Lord Burleigh that, unless similar proceedings be adopted in St. Martin’s and Westminster, the restraints imposed on the City of London would be of little use.
The golden age of cookery in modern times in England, however, was the reign of Queen Anne. The Queen herself was fond of good eating, and elaborate feasts became the custom among the nobility, gentry, and wealthy traders. In this reign it was that Dr. King published his “Art of Cookery,” in imitation of Horace’s “Art of Poetry,” making an attempt to introduce French dishes. In an oft-quoted passage of his poem he says:—
“The French our relish help, and will supply
The want of things too gross by decency.
Our fathers most admired their sauces sweet,
And often asked for sugar with their meat;
They butter’d currants on fat veal bestow’d,
And rumps of beef with virgin honey strew’d.”
Sir John Hill, M.D., followed Dr. King, with “Mrs. Glasse’s Cookery Book,” in which are some few receipts for French dishes. The great Lord Chesterfield, however, was the first nobleman who made the most strenuous efforts to introduce French cookery. He engaged as his cook La Chapelle, a descendant of the famous cook of Louis XIV. La Chapelle published a treatise on cookery in three volumes, which is now very rarely met with. It is entitled “The Modern Cook,” by Vincent La Chapelle, chief cook to the Earl of Chesterfield, and was printed for the author in 1733, and sold by Nicholas Prevost, a Frenchman, over against Southampton Street, in the Strand.
About the period of the publication of this book, Lord Chesterfield was lord steward of the household to George II., and undoubtedly was the most renowned and fashionable host in London. His dinners and suppers were then deemed perfection; and these entertainments were one of the few items in which his expenditure was liberal. Lord Chesterfield lived till 1773, and I more than once heard the late Earl of Essex say, more than thirty years ago, at Brookes’s Club, that he remembered as a boy of fourteen or fifteen seeing the Earl seated on a rustic seat, inhaling the air outside the court-yard of his house in May Fair. Chesterfield House was ninety-one years ago at the very extremity of London, and all beyond it was an expanse of green fields.
The table of twenty or twenty-five covers was one of the noble earl’s official dinners, but the supper was for a party of intimate friends:—
A Table of Twenty or Twenty-five Covers, served with Twenty-nine Dishes.
FIRST COURSE.
The middle of the table.
A surtout in the middle.
1 Piece of beef garnished with attelets.
1 quarter of veal with gravy.
Two terrines.
1 of fillets of pikes with crayfish.
1 of a matellottée of one eel and two carps, and two large pikes.
Two pots of olió.
1 of water.
1 of roots with oil.
Two terrines.
1 of fillets of soles.
1 of fillets of eels.
At each of the tables 2 dishes of petits pâtées.
Four soops.
1 of bisque of cray-fish.
1 of muscles.
1 of pottage de Santé.
1 soop, (à la St. Cloud.)
Eight entries, four with meat, and four in meager.
1 of chickens, Italian sauce.
1 of young turkeys with trufles.
1 of fricandoes of veal glazed.
1 of pheasants, with a carp sauce, a carp.
The four meager dishes.
1 of a pudding of old ling (à la Muscovite).
1 of carps forc’d (à la Dauphine), 3 carps.
1 of eels rowl’d, 1 eel.
1 of tenches (à la Ste. Menehout).
Eight small dishes of melons, figs, and radishes.
Four removes for the soops.
1 of pikes (à la Civita Vecchia).
1 of perches, the Dutch way.
1 of trouts (à la Genoise).
1 of turbot broil’d, with shalot sauce, and oil.
To remove the eight small dishes of melons, figs, and radishes.
1 of lottes with champagne.
1 of soles, the Italian way.
1 of sturgeon roasted, sharp sauce.
1 of fillets of pikes, with an Italian sauce.
Four of meat.
1 of quails with oil.
1 of young partridges, the Spanish way.
1 of pigeons (à la d’Huxelles).
1 of fillets of fowls with cray-fish.
SECOND COURSE.
For the large entremets for the middle of the table.
1 ham pasty.
1 turkey pasty.
1 salmon.
1 turbot.
2 of cray-fish.
For the two sides of the table.
1 Savoy cake.
1 croquante.
Eight dishes of roast, viz., four of meat and four meager.
1 of 6 chickens (à la Reine).
1 of fowls.
1 of 6 young partridges.
1 of 4 wood pigeons.
4 sallets and 4 sauces.
The four meager.
1 of soles fry’d in oil.
1 of barbots.
1 of trouts.
1 of fry’d pikes.
THIRD COURSE.
Eight entremets, to remove the eight dishes of roast.
1 of small loaves of pistaches.
1 of Puis d’Amour.
2 Tourtes (à la Glace).
2 of Turkey caps.
1 of Crême soufflée.
1 of Crême veloutée.
Eight hot entremets to remove the four sallets and four sauces.
2 of trufles, the Italian way.
2 of lamb-stones.
2 of little artichokes, in surprize.
2 of quisselles.
A Bill of Fare for a Supper of Fifteen or Sixteen Covers, served up with a great Dish, two middling, four small, and Six Hors d’Œuvre.
FIRST COURSE.
For the middle.
1 quarter of veal in cawl.
Two pots of olió, one for each end.
1 à la jambe de bois.
1 with rice and cray-fish cullis.
Four entries.
1 of pullets (à la Montmorency).
1 of partridges, the Spanish way.
1 of young ducks with orange-juice.
1 of pigeons (à la d’Huxelles).
Six small dishes.
1 of mutton-cutlets, glaz’d with endive.
1 of fricando’s of veal, glaz’d with sellery.
1 of popiettes, the Italian way.
1 of larks, the Muscovite way.
1 of fillets of soles with champain.
1 of eels, glaz’d with an Italian sauce
To remove the two pots of olió.
1 of a turbot, glaz’d.
1 of a jowl of salmon boiled, with shrimp-sauce.
SECOND COURSE.
Entremets.
1 of a roasted ham for the middle.
For both ends of the table.
1 of a Savoy cake.
1 of a cake of mille feuilles.
Four dishes of roast fowl.
1 of turkeys.
1 of fowls.
1 of partridges.
1 of young pigeons, dress’d like ortolans.
Four sallets and 2 sauces.
THIRD COURSE.
Ten hot small entremets to remove the sauces, sallets, and roast-meat.
1 of cray-fish, the Italian way.
1 of sweetbreads of veal (à la Dauphine).
1 of artichokes, the Italian way.
1 of green pease.
1 of lamb-stones.
1 of anchovies in Canappé.
1 of cocks’ combs.
1 of ducks’ tongues.
1 of Peaux d’Espagne.
1 of eggs with gravy.
Sixteen or seventeen years after the death of Lord Chesterfield, a great number of French refugees of the highest family, who had emigrated in consequence of the Revolution to England, mixed much in English society, and the consequence was that French cookery became more prevalent. Several of our nobility vied with each other in entertaining the French princes, the Count de Lille, and the Count d’Artois (afterwards Louis XVIII. and Charles X.), and also the Dukes of Condé and Bourbon. Among the foremost of these were the Marquis of Buckingham and the Earl of Moira, both of whom expended vast sums in these hospitalities.
The Count de Lille and others of his family occupied, in 1807, Gossfield House, near High Garret, in Essex, a seat belonging to the Marquis of Buckingham; and in 1808 these princes were received with the most splendid marks of hospitality at the princely mansion of Stowe, where their residence was commemorated by a Latin inscription. For several months there was a dinner prepared daily for Louis XVIII., the Count d’Artois, the Duke d’Angoulême, the Duke of Berry, the Duke of Orleans, the Count de Beaujolais, the Prince of Condé, and the Duke of Bourbon. But Stowe was a scene of even greater festivity in 1805, when the Heir Apparent (afterwards George IV.), the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.), with Mr. Fox, and all the members of the new coalition, were present. On this occasion 800 persons were invited. Grand entertainments were given during several successive days; illuminations took place in the evening, and the grotto in which their Royal Highnesses supped was illuminated with from 10,000 to 15,000 lamps.
At the Christmas dinner of the Duke of Buckingham, in 1808, Louis XVIII. was present, and the following was the bill of fare, as prepared by Mr. Simpson, the duke’s cook. It is undoubtedly more substantial than elegant.
Of French cookery the Prince Regent was during his life a great admirer, and no one in his Majesty’s dominions, or out of it, kept a more recherché or expensive table. But the Coronation Dinner at Westminster Hall, in 1822, was a monster banquet merely, and it gives no indication whatever of the king’s more refined taste in cookery. As a curiosity I print the bill of fare of this great feast.
Bill of Fare of the Banquet given by George IV. on the 19th of July, 1822, in Westminster Hall, on the day of his Coronation.
Hot Dishes.—160 tureens of soup; 80 of turtle; 40 of rice; 40 of vermicelli; 80 dishes of turbot; 40 of trout; 40 of salmon; 80 dishes of venison; 40 of roast beef; 3 basins of beef; 40 dishes of mutton and veal; 160 dishes of vegetables, including potatoes, peas, and cauliflowers; 480 sauce-boats; 240 lobsters; 120 of butter; 120 of mint.
Cold Dishes.—80 of braised ham; 80 savory pies; 80 of geese à la daube, two in each dish; 80 of savory cakes; 80 of braised beef; 80 of braised capons, two in each dish; 1190 side dishes of various kinds; 320 of mounted pastry; 400 of jellies and creams; 80 of lobsters; 80 of crayfish; 161 of roast fowls; 80 of house-lamb.
Total Quantities.—Beef, 7442 lbs.; veal, 7133 lbs.; mutton, 2474 lbs.; house-lamb, 20 quarters; legs of ditto, 20; lamb, 5 saddles; grass-lamb, 55 quarters; lamb sweetbreads, 160; cow-heels, 389; calves’-feet, 400; suet, 250 lbs.; geese, 160; pullets and capons, 720; chickens, 1610; fowls for stock, 520; bacon, 1730 lbs.; lard, 550 lbs.; butter, 912 lbs.; eggs, 8400.
The Wines.—Champagne, 100 doz.; burgundy, 20 doz.; claret, more than 200 doz.; hock, 50 doz.; moselle, 50 doz.; Madeira, 50 doz.; sherry and port, about 350 doz.; iced punch, 100 gallons. The champagne, hock, and moselle, were iced before being placed upon the table.
The expenses of this banquet and the coronation together amounted to the sum of 238,238l. As a contrast to this, it may be also mentioned that the banquet and coronation of his Majesty William IV., which took place September, 1831, did not cost 50,000l.
It may be mentioned that, at the coronation of George IV., the glut of fruit was unprecedented; a gentleman of Lambeth cut sixty ripe pine-apples on the occasion; and that many hundreds of pines remarkable for size and flavour came from distant parts of the country; one from Lord Cawdor’s weighed 10 lbs., and formed part of the royal banquet.
The taste of the royal gourmand will be more fully disclosed by a bill of fare of one of the private dinners given at the Pavilion, Brighton, in 1817.
Carème was at that period for eight months chef de cuisine to the Prince Regent of England (afterwards George IV.), and for seven months of that period the chef says he never quitted his post. During these seven months, if we are to believe this celebrated cuisinier, his Royal Highness never felt any attack of gout, whereas before the cookery was so highly spiced (aromatisée) that the royal gourmand was tormented with it both day and night. Here is one of those menus of thirty-two entrées, given at the Pavilion, Brighton, on the 8th of Jan., 1817, which gave no gout:—
Quatre potages.
Le potage de lièvre au chasseur.
Le potage de sauté au consommé de volaille.
Le potage aux laitues.
Le macaroni lié à l’italienne.
Quatre relevés de poissons.
Les perches au vin de champagne.
L’anguille à la régence.
Le turbot grillé, sauce aux homards.
Le cabillaud à la hollandaise.
Quatre grosses pieces.
Le dindon braisé aux huîtres.
Le filet de bœuf piqué glacé.
Les poulets à la financière.
Le quartier de sanglier, gelée de grosseilles.
Quatre contre-flans.
Le pain de gibier sur un socle.
La poularde sur un socle.
Le turban sur un socle.
La galantine sur un socle.
Quatre plats rôts.
Le chapon au cresson.
Le lièvre à l’anglaise.
Le dindonneau au cresson.
Le pluviers bardés.
Huit entremets.
Les pommes de terre frites.
Les asperges.
Les huîtres au gratin.
La salade de volaille.
Les salsifis au beurre.
Les epinards à la française.
Les truffes à la serviette.
Les écrivisses au madère.
Bill of Fare for Ten or Twelve Persons. January.
FIRST COURSE.
Two soups.
Soup à la Julienne.
Purée of pheasant.
Two fishes.
Filets de sole à la Dieppoise.
John Dory, sauce hollandaise.
Two roasts.
Roast turkey à la financière, aux truffes.
Westphalia, York, or Cumberland ham, with Madeira sauce.
Four entrées.
Mutton cutlets à la Soubise.
Filet de la pin à la Marechale.
Ris de veaus piqué, aux épinard.
Pâtés à la Reine.
SECOND COURSE.
Two roasts.
A hare roasted.
A wild duck roasted.
Four entremets.
Apricot soufflé.
Salsifis à la crême.
Ramequins.
Œufs à la Neige.
Dinner for Fourteen Persons. April.
FIRST COURSE.
Two soups.
Purée à la Reine.
Purée des carottes au ris.
Two fishes.
Crimped salmon, parsley and butter sauce.
Soles au gratin.
Two removes.
Roast fore-quarter of lamb.
Poularde à la printanière.
Four entrées.
Lamb cutlets, sauce aux concombres.
Fricandeau de veau, sauce aux épinards.
SECOND COURSE.
Spring chickens.
Leverets.
Four entremets.
Champignons au gratin.
Seakale à la sauce blanche.
Vanille cream.
Apricot tartlets.
Dinner for Sixteen in May or June.
FIRST COURSE.
Two soups.
Clear turtle.
Potage printanière.
Two fishes.
Turbot, au naturel with lobster or Dutch sauce.
Salmon slices, with parsley and butter or caper sauce.
Two removes.
Roast filet of beef larded.
Poivrade sauce.
Roast fore-quarter of lamb.
Entrées.
Noix de veaux à la St. Cloud.
Filets de mouton piqué, sauce aux tomates.
Suprême de volaille aux concombres.
Un pâté chaud à la financière.
Filets de laperaux, sauce aux oignons.
Filets de maquereau, à l’anglaise.
SECOND COURSE.
Guinea fowls.
Pigeons.
Six entremets.
Macaroni à l’italienne.
Choux-fleurs au parmesan.
Gelée de marasquin.
De tartelettes à la Chantilly.
Les asperges à la sauce blanche.
A lobster salad with plovers’ eggs.
Dinner in a plain English Fashion for Fourteen.
FIRST COURSE.
Two soups.
Giblet soup.
Soupe à la Julienne.
Two Fishes.
Turbot boiled.
Slices of salmon, Génevoise sauce.
Two roasts.
A small fore-quarter of lamb.
A haunch of mutton.
Eight entrées.
Lamb cutlets, cucumber sauce.
Lobster patties.
Mutton cutlets à la Soubise.
Croquettes of sweetbreads.
Chickens boiled, cream sauce.
Sweetbreads.
Filet of beef, sauce poivrade.
A tongue glazed, with Windsor beans.
SECOND COURSE.
2 turkey poults (1 piqué).
2 ducklings.
Eight entremets.
Plovers’ eggs with aspic.
Prawns.
Jelly with strawberries.
Caramel basket with caramelled fresh fruits.
Noyeau jelly.
French beans.
Peas à l’anglaise.
Chantilly basket with trifle.
Anthony Carême
Of Carème it is necessary I should say a little before he proceeds to tell his own story. If you believe him (see passim the six volumes of his culinary works) he was the Homer and Virgil, the Corneille and Dryden, the Pope and Boileau, the Byron and De Béranger of cookery. Every other art, noble or ignoble, every other superiority, literary, legal, histrionic, saltatory, medicinal, modistical, may be contested with the Gauls; but great and little of all nations, peers and pork-men, boyars and butchers, graffs and gastronomers, of whatever land, all by common consent agree in shouting, in loud cosmopolitan acclaim, the glories and the greatness of Carème. “He was a man,” says one of his disciples, “whose tension and activity of mind were never exhausted; the more tedious and difficult were his duties, the more brilliant he emerged from them.” The greatest men in ancient and modern times have written their own history. Plato in his choicest dialogues gives us an insight into his own character; Cicero, in his work “De Oratore,” paints himself under a feigned name; Caesar writes us an account of his own exploits in his “Commentaries,” as the Duke of Wellington does in his “Despatches;” Montecuculli penned his own Memoirs; and Napoleon laboured at the “Mémoriel de St. Hélène;” why, therefore, should not a greater man in his own estimation than any one among them all, reveal his own precious history and the mysteries of his science, and lay patent to the public the simple grandeur of his batteries de cuisine? Ay, why not? Open the pages of his instructive Memoirs and Autobiography, and see whether there is any one of the Useful Knowledge Society heroes who have gone so far in the pursuit of knowledge under imminent and impending difficulties, as that really noble fellow Anthony Carème? Did he not abandon the first families to write his cookery and the practice of some great contemporaries? for, observe you, Carème is not always peering a Brobdignagian I under your nose, or flourishing the flaunting motto of “Ego et Rex Meus” before your perplexed eyes. No, this good savoury Samaritan cook has some bowels, some thoughts of others, some kindliness for the absent and the departed. He seems always with the modesty of real merit to say, though of the strongest in his generation, “Vixere fortes Agamemnona.” But his virtues were not merely negative, they were of the most positive kind. He would only accept places “where his taste for study would not be interfered with;” for his ambition was “serious and elevated.” Then he felt, poignantly felt, “the misery of living among men destitute of education.”
Rousseau, in that most eloquent of books, “The Confessions,” tells us under what circumstances certain of his writings were composed. The gruff Sam. Johnson, the delightful debt-contracting Oliver Goldsmith, the ingenious and fantastic William Hazlitt are equally communicative; but, maugré this copious sincerity, what are these men to Carème? Is there any one sentence in all they have ever written equal to the following? “From the time I arranged the sideboard of the Saxon ambassador, the thought of the ‘Pâtissier Royale,’ and the ‘Cuisinier Parisien,’ entered my head.” Cause and effect are here beautifully, lucidly transparent. Dr. Brown and Dugald Stewart, and all the Scotch mystifiers, might have written on the subject till the crack of doom, and left the darkness more dim, and the subject more perplexed; it is only Carème who has made, in throwing off this bright sentence, the doctrine quite plain.
“It was at the little inn at Llangollen,” says Hazlitt, “after a supper, that I wrote such a sketch” (which he names). See how great geniuses fall on the same style and method. “It was in the night,” says Carème, “after a short sleep, that I lately dictated to my daughter my most recent chapters.”
“In the busiest period of my service with Alexander,” says this ingenious maker of sauces, “I never once abandoned my evening notes.” Admirable, glorious man! who will not think in reading this of the parallel passage in the life of Fox, who, in the busiest conflicts of party, left the blaze and bustle of the Commons to read Aristophanes, as the other great performer left the blaze and bustle of the kitchen to compose his evening notes. It was owing to these “viginti annorum lucubrationes”—it was owing to the “severe studies of the empire,” that he was at length, after wrestling with difficulties unheard of, enabled “to seize on sugared entremets as his domain in fee.” He had, too, all the independence of mind of a great genius, “the surveillance of Russia appeared degrading to him, and he promptly left the land of the tyrant and the slave. Nor was this all: such was the profoundness of his ennui in this work-a-day world of ours—in this heavy, muddy, manufacturing England—that he was forced to leave the service of George IV. to resume the composition of his works.
These works are collected in six volumes; and, as one great genius may be permitted to speak of another, “they are,” says William Hall, cook to Thomas Peere Williams, and “conductor” of the parliamentary dinners of Viscount Canterbury,—“they are the productions of a man whose imagination greatly enlarged the variety of entrées and entremets previously practised, and whose clear and perspicuous details render them facile, not only to the artist who has already an advance in his profession, but also to those whose knowledge of the higher code of the kitchen has been necessarily limited.”
The cooks of Rome and Athens stood in the market-place with aprons on, waiting to be hired for the occasion, and, after they had done the day’s service, were ignominiously dismissed out of doors; but the cooks of our day are the friends and familiars of the great. “I conversed for more than an hour on gastronomy with Prince Esterhazy,” says Carème, “and it is astonishing what a knowledge of the art he displayed.” How different, however, is the fate of different authors! Corneille died in an unknown corner, in forlornness and distress; Goldsmith was always in want of a guinea; Samuel Johnson was often sorely pinched; glorious John Dryden laboured hard for the day’s dinner; Fielding was often in the hands of bailiffs, and Savage and Otway lived and laboured in misery and distress: but Carème, unlike these, gained not only immortality, but money; not only praise, but good solid pudding. “My works,” says he, “created me, exclusive of places whose emoluments I sacrificed, a yearly income of more than 20,000 francs.”
The most amusing of these works is undoubtedly an autobiography, which he did not live to finish. As it has not appeared in an English dress, I give the gem in a translation made at the time it was published.
“Although born of one of the poorest families of France, of a family which counted amongst its members five-and-twenty children—although my father, to save me, literally flung me into the street; Fortune, nevertheless, rapidly smiled on me, and a good fairy often took me by the hand, to lead me in the right way. In the eyes of my enemies (and I have many) I have more than once appeared the spoiled child of Fortune. I have accepted and refused, at various times, the finest places; I have abandoned the first families in Europe to write my practice of cookery and that of some great contemporaries gone to their account, whose principles and practice were engraved in my memory.
“I have only accepted good places, however, in families where my taste for study, and the views which I early entertained as to eminence in my profession, would not be interfered with. In the rapid passage to all these places heaps of money were offered me half a score of times, but I have not been over-desirous of mere wealth. My ambition was serious and elevated, and very early in life I desired to elevate my profession into the dignity of an art. It is precisely in this road that I have encountered the greatest obstructions. I have everywhere found idleness and envy—that miserable disposition of mind made wretched by every superiority, and above all by that of a comrade. But I have had more success than I desired, though the exceptionable position in which I have been placed has never diminished the misery of often living among men destitute of all education. For some years I have sought the means to give these men a moral culture (l’éducation du cœur); but I could not very clearly see my way, for this self-education in the midst of an active life is the most difficult of acquisition. The example of a family is necessary to educate our soul.
“Here and there I have some remembrance of seriously disagreeable passages, owing to the low rich (vilains riches); but I ought, on the other hand, to recall to mind the good, the excellent conduct of gentlemen of truth, noble seigneurs that I have served. I have never had to complain but of the conduct of a parvenu, a name which the fellow decorated himself with without tact. It was under the Empire that I was most employed; it was, above all, at this era that my studies were severe; “c’est surtout à cette époque que j’ai fait des fortes études.” My researches were made in good time; they were continuous; they were serious. At M. de Talleyrand’s I was under Boucher, chef des services of the prince. I there perfected myself in one of the principal parts of cookery, which I afterwards developed. Some years previously I had executed many parts of the beaux extras. A little later I had the management of the charming little dinners given by a distinguished and lofty-minded man, M. de Lavalette. I also cooked the dinners and arranged the sideboard of the Saxon Ambassador. It is from that period that the first decided thought of the “Pâtissier Royal” and of the “Cuisinier Parisien,” first entered my mind. I now acquired the excellent habit of noting down in the evening, on returning home, the modifications that I had made in my labour, each day bringing some change. With pen in hand, I set down the reasons which had determined my mind. That which then particularly occupied me was the finer parts of the oven’s produce, and the cold sugared entremets. This labour is the most delicate portion of the art of the pastry-cook. I invented much in this branch—the foundation, the execution, the form—all these parts became easy to me, and I seized on them as of my domain in fee.
“I enjoyed perfect freedom at M. de Lavalette’s to compose my dinners. It was there I did the most to realize the problem whose solution I early sought—the union of order, delicacy, and economy. The guests were assiduous at these dinners; they were generally members of the senate, learned men, celebrated officers, all connoisseurs.
“I laboured as a supernumerary at the Prince de Talleyrand’s in 1814, when the Emperor Alexander arrived there. There I obtained the friendship and protection of an agreeable and distinguished man, the comptroller of his Imperial Majesty’s household, M. Muller. Under his direction I became chief cook of the kitchens of the emperor, and was charged with all the expenses and the ordering of the bills of fare. This was the most active moment of my life; yet I did not renounce my custom, but continued to write what I had changed remodelled. I thus fixed ideas and combinations in my memory which might have been effaced from it. When the Emperor Alexander quitted Paris, I refused simultaneously the offer of the situation of chef de cuisine in many great houses. Soon after I decided to set out for Aix-la-Chapelle, still in the service of the Emperor Alexander. The congress of sovereigns was united, and M. Muller renewed his propositions of Paris, namely, that I should go and continue my labours at Petersburg. My mode of cookery pleased the emperor much, he said; that was easy, for everything was noble and truly imperial in that great establishment of the czar. My emoluments were 2400 francs per month, and the culinary expenses. That which I directed at Aix-la-Chapelle was from 80,000 to 100,000 francs a month; but this munificent expenditure was based on the greatest order and regularity, and the utmost strictness in making up the accounts.
“The Prince Louis de Rohan, a member of the congress, was one of my kindliest protectors. He advised me to enter into the regular service of the emperor. I wished for a delay, for I could not resolve to quit the researches and labours of digesting my works, which I had commenced at Paris.
“I then entered the service of Lord Stewart. The English embassy at Vienna was most brilliant at this time. Affairs called milord to London. It was there that Prince Orloff offered me anew the vacant places of maître d’hôtel and chef des cuisines to the Emperor Alexander. I left London, and came to see at Paris M. Daniel, who had just left the service of the Emperor of Russia, rich and honoured. He advised me to start for Petersburg. ‘You will not,’ he exclaimed, ‘find much serious rivalry there.’ I made up my baggage, and embarked at Honfleur. Arrived at Cronstadt, my old friend Riquette presented me immediately to the Prince Wolkonski. I was selected for the place of maître d’hôtel, but remarking that it was degraded by a humiliating surveillance, I determined to give it up. A few days afterwards I decided on leaving Petersburg, after having visited Moscow. I determined to return either to France or England, where I would find a good place in accordance with my habits and talents.
“I set sail, then, from Cronstadt; but the voyage was one continual tempest. We had been thirty-nine days at sea when we took shelter between Calais and Boulogne. On the morning of the thirty-ninth day, relief was afforded by large fishing smacks from Calais. After some days of repose, I returned to that Paris which I had never ceased to regret, and on my arrival, entered the service of the Princess Bragation, a lady of high rank, good, clever, and mistress of a table which, in delicacy, dignity, and culinary novelties, yielded the palm to no lordly table, whether French or English. The taste of this lady was exquisite. She had a grace, a charm of conversation which were cited as models. I always served my dinner en maître d’hôtel, and was uniformly complimented. The princess said to me one day, ‘Carème, did they not tell you that you were entering the service of a capricious lady?’ I signified assent. ‘You see the contrary, however, for I am delighted with your bills of fare, and accept them as you offer them.’ I thanked the princess, and added that the characteristic quality of my cookery was, above all, that delicacy and that variety which she was good enough to praise. One day somebody said that he had been invited to a dinner dressed by Carème. Her highness immediately answered, ‘There must be a mistake, for I am sure that Carème dresses no dinner out of my house.’ Madame understood my character. The guest replied, ‘Well, this cook of which I spoke is a pearl, at all events.’ ‘Say rather,’ rejoined the princess, ‘a false pearl, while mine is a real one.’ And there I was, as large as life!
“The princess was often ill. One day at dinner, and before me, the Prince de Talleyrand felicitated her on improved health. ‘Yes, I am better, and I owe that to Carème.’ The prince, with his usual intellectual grace and kindliness, approved of the princess’s remark. At that moment I was very happy.
“During my journey into Russia, Lord Stewart wrote to me at Petersburg, to engage me to go with him to Vienna, ‘as he could find no cook who reminded him of me.’ These were his very words. The Princess Bragation being some time afterwards almost perpetually confined to her bed, my place became nearly a sinecure, and I obtained from my kind patroness the permission to return to Vienna. When I arrived in the latter capital the ambassador was no longer there, but I rejoined him at Laybach.
“On my return to Vienna, I undertook the editing of the bill of fare (la rédaction du menu), which was not changed. I each day received in our magnificent kitchen the visit of milord; he daily bestowed on me presents and encouragements. It was his excellency who received the letter of the Prince Wolkonski, in which it was said that the emperor would accept the dedication of my projects of culinary architecture. A magnificent ring, studded with valuable diamonds, accompanied this letter. I received it with tears in my eyes. How happy had my life become!
“My ring was the subject of universal curiosity among my brethren. It was envied me by those who passed their lives in dissipation. See how delicate the emperor was. He would not reward me in an art in which I had pleased him, but he rewarded me in another art, to which I had consecrated all the leisure moments of my life. How often in that moment did I mentally thank M. Percier, that finely accomplished draughtsman, for the priceless instruction which he was good enough to give me.
“A short while after, we left Vienna, to be present at the coronation of George IV. Ten years before I had served this monarch, then I left him to go to Russia. I left him notwithstanding his generosity, notwithstanding the illustration which his regrets, so benignantly expressed, had thrown around my name. We did not arrive in time for the coronation. I regretted this at first; but, when I knew with what manner of men I should be associated, I looked on my absence as a real blessing. According to all account, nothing could be more triste, more paltry, more out of joint with the occasion, than these fêtes. My ancient colleague of Carlton House had completely failed.
“Towards the end of 1823 there was a talk of Prince Esterhazy as ambassador at Paris. The Duke de Perigord recalled me to the memory of his excellency Prince Esterhazy, who received me with kindness, and remembered with a lively pleasure the dinners of the Prince Regent. He engaged me in the event of his being nominated to the Parisian embassy, and retained me long enough that day to talk of the gastronomy, of which he spoke in a truly pertinent manner, and with much talent. The prince set out for London. I remained at Paris sixteen months in the expectation of the new place, and meanwhile refused fine offers; one of the Russian ambassador’s at Naples, the other of Lord Granville, who was leaving the Hague. I made it a point to be scrupulously faithful to the engagement which I had entered into with the prince.
“I forgot to say that, at the end of six months, Rothschild’s place was offered me. At first I refused, but, Prince Esterhazy not coming to Paris, one of my kind protectors, the Prince Louis de Rohan, presented me to Madame Rothschild. I accepted the place. The Duke de Perigord wished at this time that I should present my “Culinary Architecture,” magnificently bound by Thouvenin, to the Tuileries. The result was as I had foreseen—I only received cold compliments. The reward of the public was somewhat different. My “Projets d’Architecture,” though containing only rough sketches, were examined and approved. At the moment I write, 1833, here are nearly five years that I am with the Rothschilds. I have since refused the service of the Spanish embassy and of Prince Esterhazy, who came to Paris with the kindly thought of taking me back to England. M. Esterhazy was the intimate friend of George IV.; he dined weekly with his majesty. It was difficult for these two eminent gourmets, for these two personages, full of taste, to pass some hours together without talking of cookery. One day his Majesty asked the Prince where I was. ‘At Rothschild’s,’ said Esterhazy, ‘and in that house is the very best table in Paris.’ ‘I believe it,’ said George IV., ‘since Carème has the management of it.’ These words were repeated to me by a person of eminent rank who was present. George IV. was so perfect a connoisseur in all that related to the table, that I had a right to feel flattered by his approval. These words of kindliness were in conformity with everything which the Regent had the goodness to say to me ten years before—to every communication he caused to be made to me in the interval. Magnificent conditions were now proposed to me on the part of George IV.; my salary was to be doubled, and that salary was to be converted into a pension for life at the end of a few years. But, in the interval between the fashionable seasons, London and the country-houses of the three kingdoms were insupportable to me. Notwithstanding the kindness and friendship of this royal prince, I experienced while in his service so profound a melancholy and ennui, that I was forced to return to Paris to resume the composition of my works. It is not, therefore, to be wondered that I refused with regret, though with gratitude, offers of recall to the service of George IV. In the first place, my situation at Rothschild’s suited me perfectly; and, in the second place, I was somewhat wearied with service. I felt the first attack of the malady which gnaws at my vitals. I now only think of profiting of the days which Heaven may yet spare to me to finish the books whose germs are in my mind. These books have been the meditation of my entire life. What torments, what preoccupations, what cares, do they not represent, and how I have tormented body and mind by my long vigils. At break of day I was at the fish-market, seeking the elements of my labours. Some hours after, I was in the thick of business, with cap and apron on; and I was again at work, busy as a bee, some hours before dinner. It was in the night, after a short sleep, that I lately dictated to my daughter my most recent chapters. The certainty now remains to me of leaving something useful behind me. But I shall not leave all that I had conceived touching our art, in the interest of kindly civil men and good practicians.
“I now edited my ‘Maître-d’Hôtel;’ I published a new edition of the ‘Pâtissier Royale,’ and the third of the ‘Pâtissier Pittoresque;’ the copyright I kept in my own hands.
“My works, forming already six volumes, had created for me at last (exclusive of places whose emoluments I always sacrificed to my studies!) the annual income necessary to a tranquil and comfortable existence. I made that year an income of more than 20,000 francs (800l.). M. de Rothschild, valuing my services, raised, of his own accord, my wages. He had just about this time purchased of the Duke of Otranto the handsome estate of Ferrières. The baron was good enough to say that the resources of Ferrières would render my service more easy; he added, with kindness, ‘This beautiful château will, a dozen years hence, offer you a retreat.’ I eagerly thanked him, but said that I did not think my health would permit me to accept his offers, that I was worn out. ‘My wish,’ said I, ‘M. le Baron, is not to finish my days in a château, but in an humble lodging in Paris.’ I further mentioned that my books brought me in an income which exceeded my wants. I shall increase this income, for I have not finished my labours; I have yet to publish a book on the actual state of my profession.’ ‘But what is the amount of that income?’ kindly asked M. de Rothschild and his family. A lively surprise was the result of my answer. What I said appeared a dream. I added that this income was not of the past year only, but dated back for several years.
“It was some months after this that I was attacked with the malady which torments me, and which will close, perhaps, the future on me. I am still under the hands of the doctors, but do not mend. One of my old friends, M. Magonty, replaces me in my post.
“I will not close this chapter without saying that I obtained, while in the house of Madame Rothschild, the inestimable good-will of a man of genius, of the Maestro Rossini; he is a connoisseur, as is well known; he always said that he only dined well, according to his taste, at the house of Madame Rothschild. He asked me one day if my labours were not the result of very attentive meditation? I answered affirmatively, ‘All that I do is written; I slightly alter in execution.’ I remember that one day there was some talk of Rossini going to the United States; he was good enough to say, ‘I’ll start at once if Carème will but accompany me.’”
I shall conclude with a few detached passages, aphorisms, and thoughts, from the same great authority.
Fête given at the Elysée Impérial for the Marriage of Prince Jerome and the Princess of Wurtemburg.
“At this, a grand ball, Robert was comptroller, and the famous Laguipierre chef des cuisines. Riquette38 and I were charged with such portion of the supper as was served cold. We thus, as nearly as I can remember, filled the tables: twenty-four large joints, fourteen stands bearing hams, six galantines, and two wild boars’ heads, six loins of veal à la gelée, seventy-six entrées, six of which were sides and fillets of beef à la gelée, six noix de veau, six of dressed calves’ brains bordered with shapes of jelly, six of pain de foie gras, six of poulets à la reine en galantine, six d’aspics garnished with cocks’ combs and kidneys, six of salmis of red partridge lukewarm, six of fricasées of poulet à la reine, six of mayonnaises de volaille, six of slices of salmon au beurre de Montpelier, six of salads of fillets of soles, six of galantines of eels au beurre de Montpelier. Our borders were thus composed: for the slices of salmon, beurre rose; for the eels, beurre à la ravigotte vert-tendre; for the salads of filets de sole, borders of eggs; for the mayonnaises de volaille, the same; for the game and fowls, borders of truffles, mushrooms, and morels.”
New Invention of Carème.
“Towards 1804 I imagined our new suédoises. The shapes which they had before my time were without grace or elegance. My attempt had a decided success at a grand extra of a ball, which the marshals of France gave to the Chief-Consul, their master. The ball was magnificent; it was given in the Salle de l’Opéra decorated with hangings. M. Bécar, cook of the sugared entremets, called me in to assist him, he confided to me the suédoises. I made him thirty-six of them, and for several days afterwards these suédoises were the only topic of conversation from the kitchens to the salons of Paris. Happy times! agreeable labours!”
The following are the most striking among the Aphorisms, Thoughts, and Maxims, of the Cook Carème.
“France is the mother-country of amphitryons. Its kitchen and its wines assure the triumph of gastronomy. It is the only country in the world for good cheer. Strangers are convinced of these truths.
“The culinary art serves as a sort of escort to European diplomacy.
“The great diplomatist should have a renowned cook.
“The diplomatist is a fine appreciator of a good dinner.
“For the young nobility, embassies are courses of diplomacy and gastronomy.
“Gastronomy marches like a queen at the head of civilization, but vegetates merely in a period of revolution.
“Great doctors and great musicians are great lovers of good living; witness the celebrated Broussais, Roques, Rossini, and Boïeldieu.
“The rich man, fond of the pleasures of the table, passes through life with comfort and happiness, when he cares not a straw for public affairs.
“Cookery is a difficult art; a generous host knows how to appreciate its grandeur and dignity.
“In the houses of the old nobility, the chef de cuisine became maître d’hôtel, the assistant-cook took the place of the cook, and the scullions became assistant-cooks. By these mutations, these ministers to the mouth (hommes de bouche) attached themselves more and more to these noble houses, and thus the masters at once preserved their health and secured the comfort of their servants.
“In the epoch in which we live the first culinary talents vegetate at Paris, and London is enriched with our renowned cooks.
“A cook is a gastronome both by taste and by profession.
“A cook who is clean in his person is clean also in his work.
“In ancient and modern times, the talents of cooks were honoured by kings, witness Marc Antoninus and the great Frederick.
“The French cook is esteemed by the great in distant lands; he is sought for and appreciated.
“The French cook is incited to his work by a point of honour inseparable from the culinary art; witness the death of the great Vatel.
“The French cook is happy in all the capitals of Europe, but he who does not wish to quit his country should have courage.
“At the Russian court the cook on duty (for there are four who take the work by turns every fortnight) always served his dinner en maître d’hôtel. This thoroughly gastronomical fashion should be generally adopted by amphitryons who love to make good cheer.
“The hypocritical valet is fatal to the tranquillity of a great establishment; he is vain, proud, paltry, crawling, lazy, and gluttonous; he is a tale-bearer for the purpose of gaining his master’s confidence, which he afterwards abuses; he is the Tartuffe of domestic life.
“The upstart valet is self-sufficient and scented.
“The doctor speaks ill of the cook, in order that he may not lose his influence over the mind of the rich man; but the talent of a good cook tends more to the preservation of his master’s health than the factitious science of certain doctors, whose medical advice is regulated by their own interests.
“The rich man who leads an irregular life ought rather to trust to the science of a cook to re-establish his health, if he feels the necessity of it, than to the discourses of the interested doctor.”
Such was Anthony Carème. He had gained the suffrages of emperors and kings, of princes royal and princes not royal, of noble ladies and rich banker Jews, when the climax of his felicity was capped by the friendship and good-will of Rossini, and a flattering notice of his work, in his usual sparkling style, from the facile pen of Jules Janin. This was too much for mortal man, and encumbered by the very splendour and vanity of his successes, and not a little worn out also, by thirty years of service, he sank into premature decay, and was taken from that world of bon-vivants and sensualists of whom he had formed the delight, somewhere about the year of grace 1835 or 1836. “He was,” says a celebrated gourmand, “lively, ardent, enthusiastic, of a rare patience, of an imperturbable sangfroid,” The last work of Carème, “’Art de Cuisine Française au XIXème Siècle,” was left in an unfinished state, but M. Plumeret, first cook of the Russian embassy, has finished it by the publication of the sixteenth and seventeenth parts. In the “aître d’Hôtel Français,” the “uisinier Parisien,”and “a Cuisine de Paris au XIXème Siècle,” will Carème live.
“Carème bestowed fine names on his soups:—Potages Condé, Boïeldieu, Broussais, Roques, Ségalas (the three last learned and agreeable doctors); Lamartine, Dumesnil (the historian); Buffon, Girodet; and to be just to all the world, that great practitioner in the culinary art which the world has lost, had not forgotten, before his death, to give also to one of his best soups the name of Victor Hugo. He called a matelote of fish after M. Delavigne, and a dish of perch after his physician, M. Gaubert.”
Here are M. Carème’s ideas on maigre sauces:—“It is in a lenten kitchen that the cleverness of a cook can shed a brilliant light. It was in the Elysée Imperial, and by the example of the famous Laguipierre and Robert, that I was initiated into this fine branch of the art, and it is inexpressible. The years ’93 and ’94, in their terrible and devastating course, respected these strong heads (ces fortes têtes). When our valiant First Consul appeared at the head of affairs our miseries and those of gastronomy finished.
“When the empire came, one heard of soups and entrées maigre. The splendid maigre first appeared at the table of the Princess Caroline Murat. This was the sanctuary of good cheer, and Murat was one of the first to do penitence. But what a penitence!”
One does not know whether to be indignant or to laugh at this. The old proverb, “Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride to the devil,” is undoubtedly true. A few years before the consulate the ambitious Caroline Buonaparte, afterwards wife of Murat, was, with her mother and the other female members of her family, in so destitute a situation at Marseilles, that they had not the means of buying wood to warm themselves; and as to Murat, her husband, it is well known that he rose from the very dregs of society, his father being a village innkeeper at Bastide Frontonière, in the department of Lot.
Footnotes:
1 An edition of Apicius, with notes and comments, has been given by Dr. Lister, physician to Queen Anne.
2 “Cours Gastronomique,” 124.
3 “Namque cocus domini debet habere gulam.”—Martial.
4 “Donat. in Terent. Andr.,” act. i. sc. 1.
5 “Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” act iv. sc. 1.
6 Amsterdam, 1726.
7 “Almanach des Gourmands,” 6me année.
8 Previous to 1789, says the “Almanach des Gourmands,” tom. i, p. 162, there were not one hundred restaurateurs in Paris. Now (in 1803) there are five times as many. Speaking at random and without book, there are at present 4000 or 5000, great and small. The author of the “Almanach des Gourmands” falls into the strange mistake of attributing the increase of restaurateurs to an Anglomania. “It is well known,” says he, “that the English almost always dine at a tavern.” What inconceivable ignorance!
9 “Memoires Anecdotiques sur l’intérieur du Palais, et sur quelques Evenemens de l’Empire, depuis 1805 jusqu’au 1 Mai 1814, pour servir à l’Histoire de Napoleon,” par L. F. J. De Bausset, ancien Préfet du Palais Impérial.
10 This was first printed at Milan, in 1498.
11 At the beginning of this century, Weeks’ Bush Inn, at Bristol, was famous for its Christmas fare. The bill of fare for Christmas 1800 was as follows:—A turtle of 120 lbs., 72 pots of turtle, a bustard, red game, black game, fish of almost innumerable kinds, venison, 42 hares, 87 wild ducks, 17 pheasants, 41 partridges, 17 wild geese, 149 snipes, 81 woodcocks, 17 wild turkeys, 44 tame turkeys, 10 capons, 52 barrels of Purfleet oysters.
12 Juvenal relates the story somewhat differently:—
“Sed deerat pisci patinæ mensura: vocantur
Ergo in concilium proceres,” &c.—Sat. II.
13 Galen, Lib. III.—De Aliment. See also Lib. VIII.—Methodi Medendi.
14 See also, Nonius de Re Cibar.—Lib. VIII.
15 Dictionnaire des termes du vieux François, ou tresor de recherches et antiquités Gauloises et Françoises, par M. Borel, Conseiller et Médecin ordinaire du Roi. Paris: chez Briasson, Rue St. Jacques. MDCCL.
16 Lib. XII. cap. 5.
17 “Ludovici Nonni Dieteticon,” Antverpiæ, MDCXVI. Lib. II. p. 242.
18 See 4 Inst., cap. lxvi. The office of swanherd is in Rot. Patentium, anno 11 and 4, called “Magister deductus Cygnorum.” See “Le case de Swannes,” lib. 7.
19 “Observations on the Ancient Statutes.” Dublin: Grierson, 1767.
20 Nonni “De Re Cib.” Lib. II.
21 Nonni, “De Re Cibariâ,” lib. ii., p. 215.
22 “Velocius quam asparagi coquuntur.” Suet.
23 Cotignac was a confection of quinces.
24 “Traité des Alimens,” par Lémery.
25 See “Traité des Alimens de Lémery.” Par le Docteur Bruhier.
26 “Traité des Alimens,” p. 360.
27 Eutropius.
28 Hist. des Empereurs, tom. ii.
29 Julian in Misopogon, p. 359.
30 I believe a third edition has been published in 1860.
31 It would, however, appear that the Romans employed corks:—
“Corticem astrictum pice dimovebit
Amphoræ,”
says Horace.
32 Henderson says that in some places where wood abounded, as in the neighbourhood of the Alps and in Illyria, wine casks were made of that material; but the vessels in general use among the Greeks and Romans were of earthenware. No authority is, however, cited by the Doctor for this statement.
33 Lib. xxvii., c. 6.
34 These customs are now (1864) exploded in London society, and only exist on circuit, at regimental messes, or at public dinners.
35 “Un poinçon de vin, d’huile, &c. Dolium vel doliolum. Le poinçon est la moitié d’un tonneau d’Orléans, ou d’Anjou. C’est un nom qu’on donne en Blasois et en Touraine au muid de vin. A Rouen le poinçon contient treize boisseaux. C’est à Paris la même chose qu’une demi-queue. On dit, Voici vendanges, il faut acheter des poinçons, faire relier nos poinçons, en parlant de toutes sortes de futailles et de vaisseaux.”—Dictionnaire de Trevoux.
36 This grape is named the Ciras. In the “Œnologie Française” for 1826, it is spelt Scyras, and it is stated, according to the tradition of the neighbourhood, the plant was originally brought from Shiraz, in Persia, by one of the hermits of the mountain.
37 History of London, vol. I., p. 250.
38 Riquette was then a young Parisian cook, who has since made a considerable fortune in the service of the Emperor Alexander. He spoke and wrote so remarkably, that his competitors called him the beau parleur.