upon Modern English and Continental Principles, with Thirty for
Little Dinners, worked out in Detail, and an Essay on our Kitchens in
India 8vo., pp. 651. Madras, 1878 ; 4th edition, ibid., 1883.
THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF COOKERY
7
Latest French Literature.
French cookery as accepted during the last twenty-five
years has been most sumptuously represented in ‘ The
Book of the Kitchen,’ by Jules Gouffe,* who for some years
was culinary ofiicer of the Jockey Club at Paris. The pon-
derous and elegantly-printed tome is divided into two parts,
of which the first describes what we may call ordinary
household cookery {la cuisine, des mdnages), pp. 1 to 338 ;
while the second part, pp. 339 to 804, treats of the cookery
of great establishments (la grande cuisine). This division
is somewhat arbitrary; e.g., crayfish sough in French bisque
d’dcrdvisses, which on the Continent is a popular soup in
thousands of households, hotels, and restaurants, is not
given in the first part, but only in the second. On com-
parison of the two parts, it appears clearly that in society
no such sharp separation exists as is here marked off ; the
.grande cuisine is nothing better than the cuisine de menage
in the disguise of a great mass of perfectly useless garnishes,
which, with the main viands, are elevated on socles of
stearin, or propped up by croustades, surrounded by borders
never intended to be eaten, and surmounted by unmeaning
skeioers of silver poked through cock’s combs, crayfish,
truffles, and rudely carved pieces of carrots, turnips, and
beetroot. The author’s recipes are expressed in aphorisms,
each of which begins with a new line, so that upwards of a
third of the space of the more than 800 pages is not occu-
pied by printed matter. The author’s recipes are eminently
practical, because they run on the lines of tradition, although
he says that ‘ most of the books on cookery published up to
his time were useless.’ This sweeping assertion is made
out of sight of the literature of the science, and the very
* Gouff^, Jules, ‘Le Livre de Cuisine, comprenant la cuisine de Manage
et la Grande Cuisine.’ Avec 25 planches, impriin^es en chromolithographie,
et 182 gravures sur bois, dessinees d’apres nature par E. Ronjat. Paris,
Hachette and Co., gr. 8vo. edition p. 1867 ; 7tli edition, 1888.
48
THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY
fact of authors copying others, with which he severely re-
proaches them, shows the practical value of the matters
copied, multiplied and preserved. However well the author
may have ‘ braised,’ he fails in describing either its theory
or its practice ; he is quite unconscious of the current fallacy
about bones and their value for the production of broth, but
relies, as a good cook should, upon the assistance of a good
many kilos of beef, veal, mutton, fowl and game. The
author evidently has not yet adopted the teaching of his
eminent countryman, Louis Proust, regarding the essence of
meat. Of chartreuses he only gives one of fruit (p. 758),
namely, apples, and one of partridges (p. 601), perhaps
because he was an admirer of Careme, and, like him, dis-
regarded his own teaching and all tradition, to the effect
that a chartreuse to be such must not contain any meat,
but only vegetables.
Page 42
Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
upon Modern English and Continental Principles, with Thirty for Little Dinners, worked out in Detail, and an Essay on our Kitchens in India 8vo., pp. 651. Madras, 1878 ; 4th edition, ibid., 1883.
Latest French Literature.
French cookery as accepted during the last twenty-five years has been most sumptuously represented in ‘ The Book of the Kitchen,’ by Jules Gouffe,* who for some years was culinary ofiicer of the Jockey Club at Paris. The ponderous and elegantly-printed tome is divided into two parts, of which the first describes what we may call ordinary household cookery {la cuisine, des mdnages), pp. 1 to 338 ; while the second part, pp. 339 to 804, treats of the cookery of great establishments (la grande cuisine). This division is somewhat arbitrary; e.g., crayfish sough in French bisque d’dcrdvisses, which on the Continent is a popular soup in thousands of households, hotels, and restaurants, is not given in the first part, but only in the second. On comparison of the two parts, it appears clearly that in society no such sharp separation exists as is here marked off ; the .grande cuisine is nothing better than the cuisine de menage in the disguise of a great mass of perfectly useless garnishes, which, with the main viands, are elevated on socles of stearin, or propped up by croustades, surrounded by borders never intended to be eaten, and surmounted by unmeaning skewers of silver poked through cock’s combs, crayfish, truffles, and rudely carved pieces of carrots, turnips, and beetroot. The author’s recipes are expressed in aphorisms, each of which begins with a new line, so that upwards of a third of the space of the more than 800 pages is not occupied by printed matter. The author’s recipes are eminently practical, because they run on the lines of tradition, although he says that ‘ most of the books on cookery published up to his time were useless.’ This sweeping assertion is made out of sight of the literature of the science, and the very
* Gouff^, Jules, ‘Le Livre de Cuisine, comprenant la cuisine de Manage et la Grande Cuisine.’ Avec 25 planches, impriin^es en chromolithographie, et 182 gravures sur bois, dessinees d’apres nature par E. Ronjat. Paris, Hachette and Co., gr. 8vo. edition p. 1867 ; 7tli edition, 1888.
fact of authors copying others, with which he severely reproaches them, shows the practical value of the matters copied, multiplied and preserved. However well the author may have ‘ braised,’ he fails in describing either its theory or its practice ; he is quite unconscious of the current fallacy about bones and their value for the production of broth, but relies, as a good cook should, upon the assistance of a good many kilos of beef, veal, mutton, fowl and game. The author evidently has not yet adopted the teaching of his eminent countryman, Louis Proust, regarding the essence of meat. Of chartreuses he only gives one of fruit (p. 758), namely, apples, and one of partridges (p. 601), perhaps because he was an admirer of Careme, and, like him, disregarded his own teaching and all tradition, to the effect that a chartreuse to be such must not contain any meat, but only vegetables.