ebrated gourmet of his day, author of '' Almanach des
Gourmands, " and authority on all matters culinary of the
last century, said, ^^ A true epicure can dine well on one
dish, provided it is excellent of its kind." Excellent,
that is it. A little care will generally secure to us the
refinement of having only on the table what is excellent
of its kind. If it is but potatoes and salt, let the salt be
ground fine, and the potatoes white and mealy. Thack-
eray says, an epicure is one who never tires of brown
bread and fresh butter, and in this sense every New
Yorker who has his rolls from the Brevoort House, and
uses Darlington butter, is an epicure. There seems to
me, more mere animalism in wading through a long
bill of fare, eating three or four indifferently cooked
vegetables, fish, meat, poultry, each second-rate in qual-
ity, or made so by bad cooking, and declaring that you
have dined well, and are easy to please, than there is in
taking pains to have a perfectly broiled chop, a fine po-
tato, and a salad, on which any true epicure could dine
well, while on the former fare he would leave the table
hungry.
Spenser points a moral for me when he says, speaking
of the Irish in 1580, " That wherever they found a plot
of shamrocks or water-cresses they had a feast ;" but there
were gourmets even among them, for ^^some gobbled
the green food as it came, and some picked the faultless
stalks, and looked for the bloom on the leaf."
Thus it is, when I speak of ''good living," I do not
mean expensive living or high living, but living so that
the table may be as elegant as the dishes on which it is
served.
I believe there exists a feeling, not of ten expressed per-
haps, but prevalent among young people, that for a lady
A Few Preliminary Remarks. 5
to cook with her own hands is vulgar; to loye to do it
shows that she is of low intellectual caliber, a sort of
drawing-room Bridget. When or how this idea arose it
would be diflftcult to say, for in the middle ages cooks
were often noble ; a Montmorency was chef de cuisine to
Philip of Valois ; Montesquieu descended, and was not
ashamed of his descent, from the second cook of the
Connetable de Bourbon, who ennobled him. And from
Lord Bacon, ^^ brightest, greatest, meanest of mankind,^'
who took, it is said, great interest in cooking, to Talley-
rand, the Machiavelli of France, who spent an hour eyery
day with his cook, we find great men delighting in the
art as a recreation.
It is surprising that such an essentially artistic people
as Americans should so neglect an art which a great
French writer calls the '' scie7ice mignonne of all dis-
tinguished men of the world." Napoleon the Great so
fully recognized the social yalue of keeping a good table
that, although no gourmet himself, he wished all his
chief functionaries to be so. ^'^Keep a good table," he
told them; ^^if you get into debt for it I will pay."
And later, one of his most deyoted adherents, the Mar-
quis de Cussy, out of fayor with Louis XVIII. on
account of that yery deyotion, found his reputation as
a gourmet very seryiceable to him. A friend applied
for a place at court for him, which Louis refused, till he
heard that M. de Cussy had inyented the mixture of
cream, strawberries, and champagne, when he granted
the petition at once.
Page 4
Presented as published in 1885. 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
ebrated gourmet of his day, author of '' Almanach des Gourmands, " and authority on all matters culinary of the last century, said, ^^ A true epicure can dine well on one dish, provided it is excellent of its kind." Excellent, that is it. A little care will generally secure to us the refinement of having only on the table what is excellent of its kind. If it is but potatoes and salt, let the salt be ground fine, and the potatoes white and mealy. Thackeray says, an epicure is one who never tires of brown bread and fresh butter, and in this sense every New Yorker who has his rolls from the Brevoort House, and uses Darlington butter, is an epicure. There seems to me, more mere animalism in wading through a long bill of fare, eating three or four indifferently cooked vegetables, fish, meat, poultry, each second-rate in quality, or made so by bad cooking, and declaring that you have dined well, and are easy to please, than there is in taking pains to have a perfectly broiled chop, a fine potato, and a salad, on which any true epicure could dine well, while on the former fare he would leave the table hungry.
Spenser points a moral for me when he says, speaking of the Irish in 1580, " That wherever they found a plot of shamrocks or water-cresses they had a feast ;" but there were gourmets even among them, for ^^some gobbled the green food as it came, and some picked the faultless stalks, and looked for the bloom on the leaf."
Thus it is, when I speak of ''good living," I do not mean expensive living or high living, but living so that the table may be as elegant as the dishes on which it is served.
I believe there exists a feeling, not of ten expressed perhaps, but prevalent among young people, that for a lady
A Few Preliminary Remarks. 5
to cook with her own hands is vulgar; to loye to do it shows that she is of low intellectual caliber, a sort of drawing-room Bridget. When or how this idea arose it would be difficult to say, for in the middle ages cooks were often noble ; a Montmorency was chef de cuisine to Philip of Valois ; Montesquieu descended, and was not ashamed of his descent, from the second cook of the Connetable de Bourbon, who ennobled him. And from Lord Bacon, ^^ brightest, greatest, meanest of mankind,^' who took, it is said, great interest in cooking, to Talleyrand, the Machiavelli of France, who spent an hour every day with his cook, we find great men delighting in the art as a recreation.
It is surprising that such an essentially artistic people as Americans should so neglect an art which a great French writer calls the '' scie7ice mignonne of all distinguished men of the world." Napoleon the Great so fully recognized the social value of keeping a good table that, although no gourmet himself, he wished all his chief functionaries to be so. ^'^Keep a good table," he told them; ^^if you get into debt for it I will pay." And later, one of his most devoted adherents, the Marquis de Cussy, out of favor with Louis XVIII. on account of that very devotion, found his reputation as a gourmet very serviceable to him. A friend applied for a place at court for him, which Louis refused, till he heard that M. de Cussy had invented the mixture of cream, strawberries, and champagne, when he granted the petition at once.