The Feasts of Autolycus Part 6

Here, indeed, is romanticism gone mad. Grated bacon, shallots, a _bouquet garni_, mace, pepper and salt, eggs and b.u.t.ter share the baking-dish with the mushrooms; bread-crumbs complete the strange, subtle combination, upon which you may break your fast, dine, sup and sleep, as Valentine upon the very naked name of love. A sorry plight were yours if love, fickle and fading, could be preferred to a dish of mushrooms fashioned so fantastically.

"And oh! what lovely, beautiful eating there is in this world!" It is Heine who said it--Heine who, for a good dinner, would have given twice the three hundred years of eternal fame offered by Voltaire for a good digestion. But lovely and beautiful are but feeble words when it is a question of the mess of mushrooms, for which who would not sacrifice eternal fame for ever, in all cheerfulness and glee?

The reigning sultana in the mushroom's harem is the brilliant golden egg. Sweet symphonies in brown and gold are the dishes their union yields. _OEufs brouilles aux champignons_--has not the very name a pretty sound? It is a delight best suited to the midday breakfast; a joyous course to follow the anchovy salad, the eel well smoked, or whatever dainty _hors d'oeuvre_ may stimulate to further appet.i.te. The eggs, scrambled and rivalling the b.u.t.tercup's rich gold, are laid delicately on crisp toast, and present a couch, soft as down, for a layer of mushrooms. Let Ruskin rave of Turner's sunsets, let the glory of the Venetians be a delight among art critics; but when did Turner or t.i.tian or Tintoret invent a finer scheme of colour than egg and mushroom thus combined for the greater happiness of the few? A silver dish or one of rarest porcelain should be frame for a picture so perfect.

Borrow a hint from the Hungarians, and vary the arrangement to your own profit. Make a _puree_ of the mushrooms, as rich as cream permits, and offer it as foundation for eggs poached deftly and swiftly: a harmony in soft dove-like greys and pale yellow, the result. It is an admirable contrivance, a credit to Szomorodni-drinking Magyars. And there is no known reason why it should not be eaten on Thames side as on the banks of the Danube. Szomorodni, in its native splendour, alas!

is not to be had in London town. But, without sacrilege, Chablis or Graves, or Sauterne may take its place. To drink red wine would be to strike a false note in the harmony.

Another day, another dish, which you cannot do better than make _omelette aux champignons_. And if you will, you may eat it even as it was prepared for Royal Stuarts by Master Cook Rose, who wrote almost as prettily as he cooked. Thus:--"Stove your champignons between two dishes, season them with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then make an omelette with a dozen of eggs, and when he is ready cover him over with your champignons, and fold him up, triangle-wise, and serve him with the juice of lemons over him." A royal dish, indeed.

Creatures of infinite resources, eggs and mushrooms meet in cases to produce a new and distinct joy. The mushrooms, stewed in milk thickened with the yolks of raw eggs and bread-crumbs, line the little fluted china cases; into each a fresh egg is broken; then more mushrooms and bread-crumbs are spread gently above; a shallow pan, its bottom just covered with hot water, receives the cases, and ten minutes in the oven will complete a triumph which, once tasted, you may well remember all the days of your life.

The kidney is loved by the mushroom scarce less tenderly than the egg.

_Rognons aux champignons_, fragrant rich, ravishing, may also be claimed by the happy midday hour. And like so many a n.o.ble dish, it lavishes upon you the pleasures of antic.i.p.ation. For the kidneys, cut in slices and laid in thickened gravy, must stew slowly, slowly--never boiling, unless you would have them vie with leather in consistency.

At an early stage the mushrooms, also in pieces, may be added, and pepper and salt according to inclination. And slowly, slowly let the stewing continue. At the last supreme moment pour in a gla.s.s of generous red wine, or if it please you more, Marsala, and serve without delay. Chambertin, or Nuits, at peace in its cradle, is surely the wine decreed by fate to drink with so sublime a creation.

With the tender _filet_, mushrooms prove irresistible; with the graceful cutlet they seem so ravishing that even _sauce Soubise_, the once inseparable, may for the moment be easily forgotten. And veal is no less susceptible to its charms: let _noisettes de veau aux champignons_ be the _entree_ of to-morrow's dinner, and you will return thanks to your deliverer from the roast!

As sauce, mushroom is the chosen one of fowl and fish alike. Join your mushrooms to _Bechamel_, one of the great mother sauces, and you will have the wonder that Careme, its creator, served first to the Princesse de B. How resist so aristocratic a precedent? _Gra.s.se_, or _maigre_, you can make it, as the season demands. Or to a like end you may devote that other marvel, _puree de champignons a la Laguipierre_, whose patron was the great Louis de Rohan, and into whose mysteries Careme was initiated by the "Grand M. Dunan." Ham, tomato, nutmeg, pepper, lemon juice, are the chief ingredients that enter into its composition. Who, after testing it, will dare find naught but vexation and vanity in the reign of the Sixteenth Louis? Subtle variation may be had by subst.i.tuting as foundation, _sauce a la regence_ or _sauce a la princesse_ for _sauce Bechamel_; while a sensation apart springs from the lofty alliance between oysters and mushrooms.

How natural that for masterpieces in mushrooms royalty so often has stood sponsor! Upon the Prince of Wurtemberg rests the glorious responsibility of Seine shad _a la puree de champignons_. If history records not his name, a prince--in spirit at least--must also have been the first happy man to eat red mullets _aux champignons_, or eels _aux huitres et aux champignons_; show yourself as princely before you are a week older. While a king was he who first smiled upon that kingly _ragout_ of mushrooms, mussels, and shrimps. Be you a king in your turn--there are few pleasures equal to it.

"For white fowls of all sort," Mrs Gla.s.se recommends her mushroom sauce, thus giving loose reins to the artist's fancy. The fowl may be boiled, and then rich with cream must be the sauce that redeems it from insipidity. It may be roasted, and then let the mushrooms be somewhat more in evidence. Or it may be broiled, and then mayhap it would be wise to grill the mushrooms whole, instead of converting them into sauce. Or--here is another suggestion, and be thankful for it--mince your chicken, which toast will receive gladly as a covering and set upon it, as already upon _oeufs brouilles_, the mushrooms grilled in b.u.t.ter. Long might you live, far might you wander, before chancing upon another delicacy so worthy. Though, truth to tell--and where gastronomy is the subject it is always best to be honest--_croquettes de poulet aux champignons_ seem well-nigh worthier. If you would decide for yourself, try both, and joy go with you in the trying.

An afterthought: dress livers with mushroom sauce, and this is the manner in which it should be done. "Take some pickled or fresh mushrooms, cut small--both if you have them--and let the livers be bruised fine, with a good deal of parsley chopped small, a spoonful or two of catchup, a gla.s.s of white wine, and as much good gravy as will make sauce enough; thicken it with a piece of b.u.t.ter rolled in flour.

This does for either roast or boiled."

For the rest, how count the innumerable ways in which the mushroom adds to the gaiety of the gourmand? What would the _vol-au-vent_ be without it? What the "Fine Pye," made otherwise of carps and artichokes and crayfishes' feet and lobster claws and nutmeg and cloves alone? What, according to the "Complete Court Cook," so proper for the second course as the patty all of mushrooms? What garniture fairer for "ragoo" or _frica.s.see_, according to the same authority, than mushroom _farcis_? But, however they may be served and eaten, mushrooms you must make yours at any cost. To say that you do not like them is confession of your own philistinism. Learn to like them; _will_ to like them, or else your sojourn on this earth will be a wretched waste. You will have lived your life in vain if, at its close, you have missed one of its finest emotions.

THE INCOMPARABLE ONION

Too often the poet sees but the tears that live in an onion; not the smiles. And yet the smiles are there, broad and genial, or subtle and tender. "Rose among roots," its very name revives memories of pleasant feasting; its fragrance is rich forecast of delights to come. Without it, there would be no gastronomic art. Banish it from the kitchen, and all pleasure of eating flies with it. Its presence lends colour and enchantment to the most modest dish; its absence reduces the rarest dainty to hopeless insipidity, and the diner to despair.

The secret of good cooking lies in the discreet and sympathetic treatment of the onion. For what culinary masterpiece is there that may not be improved by it? It gives vivacity to soup, life to sauce; it is the "poetic soul" of the salad bowl; the touch of romance in the well-cooked vegetable. To it, st.u.r.diest joint and lightest stew, crisp rissole and stimulating stuffing look for inspiration and charm--and never are they disappointed! But woe betide the unwary woman who would approach it for sacrilegious ends. If life holds nothing better than the onion in the right hand, it offers nothing sadder and more degrading than the onion brutalised. Wide is the gulf fixed between the delicate sauce of a Prince de Soubise, and the coa.r.s.e, unsavoury sausage and onion mess of the Strand. Let the perfection of the first be your ideal; the horrid coa.r.s.eness of the latter shun as you would the devil.

The fragrance of this "wine-scented" esculent not only whets the appet.i.te; it abounds in a.s.sociations glad and picturesque. All Italy is in the fine, penetrating smell; and all Provence; and all Spain. An onion or garlic-scented atmosphere hovers alike over the narrow _calli_ of Venice, the cool courts of Cordova, and the thronged amphitheatre of Arles. It is only the atmosphere breathed by the Latin peoples of the South, so that ever must it suggest blue skies and endless sunshine, cypress groves and olive orchards. For the traveller it is interwoven with memories of the golden canvases of t.i.tian, the song of Dante, the music of Mascagni. The violet may not work a sweeter spell, nor the carnation yield a more intoxicating perfume.

And some men there have been in the past to rank the onion as a root sacred to Aphrodite: food for lovers. To the poetry of it none but the dull and brutal can long remain indifferent.

Needless, then, to dwell upon its more prosaic side: upon its power as a tonic, its value as a medicine. Medicinal properties it has, as the drunkard knows full well. But why consider the drunkard? Leave him to the tender mercies of the doctor. _Gourmandise_, or the love of good eating, here the one and only concern, is opposed to excess. "Every man who eats to indigestion, or makes himself drunk, runs the risk of being erased from the list of its votaries."

The onion is but the name for a large family, of which shallots, garlic, and chives are chief and most honoured varieties. Moreover, country and climate work upon it changes many and strange. In the south it becomes larger and more opulent, like the women. And yet, as it increases in size, it loses in strength--who shall say why? And the loss truly is an improvement. Our own onion often is strong even unto rankness. Therefore, as all good housewives understand, the Spanish species for most purposes may be used instead, and great will be the gain thereby. Still further south, still further east, you will journey but to find the onion fainter in flavour, until in India it seems but a pale parody of its English prototype. And again, at different seasons, very different are its most salient qualities. In great gladness of heart everyone must look forward to the dainty little spring onion: adorable as vegetable cooked in good white sauce, inscrutable as guardian spirit of fresh green salad, irreproachable as pickle in vinegar and mustard.

Garlic is one of the most gracious gifts of the G.o.ds to men--a gift, alas! too frequently abused. In the vegetable world, it has something of the value of scarlet among colours, of the clarionet's call in music. Brazen, and crude, and screaming, when dragged into undue prominence, it may yet be made to harmonise divinely with fish and fowl, with meat, and other greens. Thrown wholesale into a salad, it is odious and insupportable; but used to rub the salad bowl, and then cast aside, its virtue may not be exaggerated. For it, as for lovers, the season of seasons is the happy spring time. Its true home is Provence. What would be the land of the troubadour and the Felibre without the _ail_ that festoons every greengrocer's shop, that adorns every dish at every banquet of rich and poor alike? As well rid _bouillabaisse_ of its saffron as of its _ail_; as well forget the _pomme d'amour_ in the sauce for _macaroni_, or the rosemary and the thyme on the spit with the little birds. The verse of Roumanille and Mistral smells sweet of _ail_; Tartarin and Numa Roumestan are heroes nourished upon it. It is the very essence of _farandoles_ and _ferrades_, of bull-fights and water tournaments. A pinch of _ail_, a _coup de vin_, and then--

Viva la joia, Fidon la tristessa!

And all the while we, in the cold, gloomy north, eat garlic and are hated for it by friends and foes. Only in the hot south can life _ail_-inspired pa.s.s for a _galejado_ or jest.

To the onion, the shallot is as the sketch to the finished picture; slighter, it may be; but often subtler and more suggestive. Unrivalled in salads and sauces, it is without compare in the sumptuous seasoning of the most fantastic viands. It does not a.s.sert itself with the fury and pertinacity of garlic; it does not announce its presence with the self-consciousness of the onion. It appeals by more refined devices, by gentler means, and is to be prized accordingly. Small and brown, it is pleasant to look upon as the humble wild rose by the side of the _Gloire de Dijon_. And, though it never attain to the untempered voluptuousness of the onion, it develops its sweetness and strength under the hottest suns of summer: in July, August, and September, does it mature; then do its charms ripen; then may it be enjoyed in full perfection, and satisfy the most riotous gluttony.

Shallots for summer by preference, but chives for spring: the delicate chives, the long, slim leaves, fair to look upon, sweet to smell, sweeter still to eat in crisp green salad. The name is a little poem; the thing itself falls not far short of the divine. Other varieties there be, other offshoots of the great onion--mother of all; none, however, of greater repute, of wider possibilities than these. To know them well is to master the fundamental principles of the art of cookery. But this is knowledge given unto the few; the many, no doubt, will remain for ever in the outer darkness, where the onion is condemned to everlasting companionship with the sausage--not altogether their fault, perhaps. In cookery, as in all else, too often the blind do lead the blind. But a few years since and a "delicate diner," an authority unto himself at least, produced upon the art of dining a book, not without reputation. But to turn to its index is to find not one reference to the onion: all the poetry gone; little but prose left! And this from an authority!

The onion, as a dish, is excellent; as seasoning it has still more pleasant and commodious merits. The modern _chef_ uses it chiefly to season; the ancient _cordon bleu_ set his wits to work to discover spices and aromatic ingredients wherewith to season it. Thus, according to Philemon,--

If you want an onion, just consider What great expense it takes to make it good; You must have cheese, and honey, and sesame, Oil, leeks, and vinegar, and a.s.safoetida, To dress it up with; for by itself the onion Is bitter and unpleasant to the taste.

A pretty mess, indeed; and who is there brave enough to-day to test it? Honey and onion! it suggests the ingenious contrivances of the mediaeval kitchen. The most daring experiment now would be a dash of wine, red or white, a suspicion of mustard, a touch of tomato in the sauce for onions, stewed or boiled, baked or stuffed. To venture upon further flights of fancy the average cook would consider indiscreet, though to the genius all things are possible. However, its talents for giving savour and character to other dishes is inexhaustible.

There is no desire more natural than that of knowledge; there is no knowledge n.o.bler than that of the "gullet-science." "The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a planet!" What would be Talleyrand's record but for that moment of inspiration when, into the mysteries of Parmesan with soup, he initiated his countrymen? To what purpose the Crusades, had Crusaders not seen and loved the garlic on the plains of Askalon, and brought it home with them, their one glorious trophy. To a pudding Richelieu gave his name; the Prince de Soubise lent his to a sauce, and thereby won for it immortality.

A benefactor to his race indeed he was: worthy of a shrine in the Temple of Humanity. For, plucking the soul from the onion, he laid bare its hidden and sweetest treasure to the elect. Scarce a sauce is served that owes not fragrance and flavour to the wine-scented root; to it, _Bearnaise_, _Maitre d'Hotel_, _Espagnole_, _Italienne_, _Bechamel_, _Provencale_, and who shall say how many more? look for the last supreme touch that redeems them from insipid commonplace. But _Sauce Soubise_ is the very idealisation of the onion, its very essence; at once delicate and strong; at once as simple and as perfect as all great works of art.

The plodding painter looks upon a nocturne by Whistler, and thinks how easy, how preposterously easy! A touch here, a stroke there, and the thing is done. But let him try! And so with _Sauce Soubise_. Turn to the first cookery book at hand, and read the _recipe_. "Peel four large onions and cut them into thin slices; sprinkle a little pepper and salt upon them, together with a small quant.i.ty of nutmeg; put them into a saucepan with a slice of fresh b.u.t.ter, and steam gently"--let them smile, the true artist would say--"till they are soft." But why go on with elaborate directions? Why describe the exact quant.i.ty of flour, the size of the potato, the proportions of milk and cream to be added? Why explain in detail the process of rubbing through a sieve?

In telling or the reading these matters seem not above the intelligence of a little child. But in the actual making, only the artist understands the secret of perfection, and his understanding is born within him, not borrowed from dry statistics and formal tables.

He may safely be left to vary his methods; he may add sugar, he may omit nutmeg; he may fry the onions instead of boiling, for love of the tinge of brown, rich and sombre, thus obtained. But, whatever he does, always with a wooden spoon will he stir his savoury mixture; always, as result, produce a G.o.dlike sauce which the mutton cutlets of Paradise, vying with Heine's roast goose, will offer of their own accord at celestial banquets. What wonder that a certain famous French count despised the prosaic politician who had never heard of cutlets _a la Soubise_?

However, not alone in sauce can the condescending onion come to the aid of dull, substantial flesh and fowl. Its virtue, when joined to sage in stuffing, who will gainsay? Even chestnuts, destined to stuff to repletion the yawning turkey, cannot afford to ignore the insinuating shallot or bolder garlic; while no meat comes into the market that will not prove the better and the sweeter for at least a suspicion of onion or of _ail_. A barbarian truly is the cook who flings a ma.s.s of fried onions upon the tender steak, and then thinks to offer you a rare and dainty dish. Not with such wholesale brutality can the ideal be attained. The French chef has more tact. He will take his _gigot_ and sympathetically p.r.i.c.k it here and there with garlic or with chives, even as it is roasting; and whoever has never tasted mutton thus prepared knows not the sublimest heights of human happiness. Or else he will make a _bouquet garni_ of his own, entirely of these aromatic roots and leaves, and fasten it in dainty fashion to the joint; pleasure is doubled when he forgets to remove it, and the meat is placed upon the table, still bearing its delicious decoration.

Moods there be that call for stronger effects: moods when the blazing poppy field of a Monet pleases more than the quiet moonlight of a Cazin; when Tennyson is put aside for Swinburne. At such times, call for a shoulder of mutton, well stuffed with onions, and still further satiate your keen, vigorous appet.i.te with a bottle of Beaune or Pomard. But here, a warning: eat and drink with at least a pretence of moderation. Remember that, but for an excess of shoulder of mutton and onions, Napoleon might not have been defeated at Leipzig.

But at all times, and in all places, onions clamour for moderation. A salad of tomatoes buried under thick layers of this powerful esculent must disgust; gently sprinkled with chopped-up chives or shallots, it enraptures. Potatoes _a la Lyonnaise_, curried eggs, Irish stew, _Gulyas_, _ragout_, alike demand restraint in their preparation, a sweet reasonableness in the hand that distributes the onion.

For the delicate diner, as for the drunkard, onion soup has charm. It is of the nature of _sauce Soubise_, and what mightier recommendation could be given it? Thus Dumas, the high priest of the kitchen, made it: a dozen onions--Spanish by preference--minced with discretion, fried in freshest of fresh b.u.t.ter until turned to a fair golden yellow, he boiled in three pints or so of water, adequately seasoned with salt and pepper; and then, at the end of twenty full minutes, he mixed with this preparation the yolks of two or three eggs, and poured the exquisite liquid upon bread, cut and ready. At the thought alone the mouth waters, the eye brightens. The adventurous, now and again, add ham or rice, vegetables or a _bouquet garni_. But this as you will, according to the pa.s.sing hour's leisure. Only of one thing make sure--in Dumas confidence is ever to be placed without doubt or hesitation.

Dumas' soup for dinner; but for breakfast the unrivalled omelette of Brillat-Savarin. It is made after this fashion: the roes of two carp, a piece of fresh tunny, and shallots, well hashed and mixed, are thrown into a saucepan with a lump of b.u.t.ter beyond reproach, and whipped up till the b.u.t.ter is melted, which, says the great one, "const.i.tutes the speciality of the omelette;" in the meantime, let some one prepare, upon an oval dish, a mixture of b.u.t.ter and parsley, lemon juice, and chives--not shallots here, let the careless note--the plate to be left waiting over hot embers; next beat up twelve eggs, pour in the roes and tunny, stir with the zeal and sympathy of an artist, spread upon the plate that waits so patiently, serve at once; and words fail to describe the ecstasy that follows. Especially, to quote again so eminent an authority, let the omelette "be washed down with some good old wine, and you will see wonders," undreamed of by haschish or opium eater.

When the little delicate spring onion is smelt in the land, a shame, indeed, it would be to waste its tender virginal freshness upon sauce and soup. Rather refrain from touching it with sharp knife or cruel chopper, but in its graceful maiden form boil it, smother it in rich pure cream, and serve it on toast, to the unspeakable delectation of the devout. Life yields few more precious moments. Until spring comes, however, you may do worse than apply the same treatment to the older onion. In this case, as pleasure's crown of pleasure, adorn the surface with grated Gruyere, and, like the ancient hero, you will wish your throat as long as a crane's neck, that so you might the longer and more leisurely taste what you swallow.

Onions _farcis_ are beloved by the epicure. A n.o.bler dish could scarce be devised. You may make your forcemeats of what you will, beef or mutton, fowl or game; you may, an' you please, add truffles, mushrooms, olives, and capers. But know one thing; tasteless it will prove, and lifeless, unless bacon lurk unseen somewhere within its depths. Ham will answer in a way, but never so well as humbler bacon.

The onion that lends itself most kindly to this device is the Spanish.

One word more. As the _ite missa est_ of the discourse let this truth--a blessing in itself--be spoken. As with meat, so with vegetables, few are not the better for the friendly companionship of the onion, or one of its many offshoots. Peas, beans, tomatoes, egg-plant are not indifferent to its blandishments. If honour be paid to the first pig that uprooted a truffle, what of the first man who boiled an onion? And what of the still mightier genius who first used it as seasoning for his daily fare? Every _gourmet_ should rise up and call him blessed.

THE TRIUMPHANT TOMATO

The triumph of the tomato has given hungry men and women a new lease of pleasure. Sad and drear were the days when the _gourmet_ thought to feast, and the beautiful scarlet fruit had no place upon his table.

The ancient _chef_ knew it not, nor the mediaeval artist who, even without it, could create marvellous works the modern may not hope to rival. Like so many good things, it first saw the light in that happy Western Continent where the canvas-back duck makes its home and shad swim in fertile rivers. What, indeed, was life, what the gift of eating, before the Columbus of the kitchen had discovered the tomato, the turkey, and the yellow Indian corn? Reflect upon it, and be grateful that you, at least, were not born in the Dark Age of cookery!

Poor, stupid man! a treasure was presented to him freely and generously, and he thrust it from him. The tomato offered itself a willing sacrifice, and he scorned it, mistaking gold for dross. The American--and long years in purgatory will not redeem his fault--looked upon it with suspicion. To-day, it is true, he honours it aright: in the summer-time he bows down before its gay freshness; in the winter he cherishes it in tins. It has become as indispensable to him as salt or b.u.t.ter. He values it at its true worth. But still, half a century has not pa.s.sed since he doubted it, heaping insults upon its trusting sweetness. He fancied poison lurked within it. O the cruel fancy! There it was, perfect and most desirable, and he, blind fool, would not touch it until endless hours of stewing had lessened, if not utterly destroyed, its fresh young charms. And the Englishman was no wiser. Within the last decade only has he welcomed the stranger at his gates, and at the best his welcome has been but halting and half-hearted. The many continue obstinately to despise it; the few have pledged their allegiance with reservations. The Latin, and even the wild Hun, were converted without a fear of misgiving while the Anglo-Saxon faltered and was weak. Many and beautiful are the strange dishes the tomato adorns in Magyarland. Was there ever a _menu_ in sunny Italy that did not include this meat or that vegetable _al pomodoro_? The very Spaniard, whom rumour weds irrevocably to garlic, nourishes a tender pa.s.sion for the voluptuous red fruit, and wins rapture from it. And deep and true is the Provencal's love for his _pomme d'amour_; is not the name a measure of his affection? The Love Apple! Were there, after all, tomatoes in Judea, and were these the apples that comforted the love-sick Shulamite?

Now that the tomato has forced universal recognition; now that in England it lends glory of colour to the greengrocer's display; now that the hothouse defeats the cruel siege of the seasons, and mild May, as well as mellow September, yields apples of love, pause a moment, turn from the trivial cares of life, to meditate upon its manifold virtues.