The Physiology of Taste Part 12

Game is divided into three series.

The first contains all birds, from the grive to the smallest of the feathered tribe.

The second ascends from the rail to the snipe, partridge, and pheasant, including the rabbit and the hare; it is divided into three categories, of the marsh, hairy, and feathered.

The third, which bears the name of venison, is composed of the wild-boar, kid, and all other h.o.r.n.y-footed cattle.

Game is one of the great luxuries of our tables; it is a healthy, warm, highly-flavored and high tasted flesh, easily digested, whenever one is hungry.

These qualities, however, are not so inherent as not to a certain degree to depend on the skill of the cook. Put some water, salt and beef into a pot, and you can obtain from them a very good soup. Subst.i.tute venison for the beef, and the result will not be fit to eat. Butcher's meat, in this respect, has the advantage.

Under the manipulation, however, of a skilful cook, game undergoes various modifications and transformations, and furnishes the greater portions of the dishes of the transcendental kitchen.

Game derives, also, a great portion of its value from the soil on which it is fed. The taste of a Perigord partridge is very different from that of one from Sologne, and the hare killed in the vicinity of Paris is a very different dish from one shot on the hills of Valromey or upper Dauphiny. The latter is probably the most perfumed of all beasts.

Among small birds, beyond all doubt, the best is the "beccafico."

It becomes at least as fat as the red-throat or the ortolan, and nature has besides given it a slight bitterness, and a peculiar and exquisite perfume, which enables it to fill and delight all the gustatory organs. Were the beccafico as large as a pheasant, an acre of land would be paid for it.

It is a pity this bird is so rare, that few others than those who live in the southern departments of France, know what it is.

[Footnote: I am inclined to think the bird is utterly unknown in America.--TRANSLATOR.] Few people know how to eat small birds. The following method was imparted confidentially to me by the Canon Charcot, a gourmand by profession, and a perfect gastronome, thirty years before the word gastronomy was invented:

Take a very fat bird by the bill and sprinkle it with salt, take out the entrailles, I mean gizzard, liver, etc., and put it whole in your mouth. Chew it quickly, and the result will be a juice abundant enough to permeate the whole organ. You will then enjoy a pleasure unknown to the vulgar.

"Odi profanum vulgus et arceo." HORACE.

The quail, of all game properly so-called, is the nicest and the most pleasant. A very fat quail is pleasant both to eat, see, and smell. Whenever it is either roasted, or served en papillote, a great folly is committed, because its perfume is very volatile, and when ever in contact with a liquid, its flavor is dissolved and lost.

The snipe is a charming bird, but few people know all its charms.

It is in its glory only when it has been cooked under the huntsman's eyes; and the huntsman must have killed it. Then the roast is perfected according to rule, and the mouth is inundated with pleasure.

Above the preceding, and above all others, the pheasant should be placed. Few mortals, however, know exactly how to cook it.

A pheasant eaten only a week after its death is not good as a partridge or a pullet, for its merit consists in its aroma.

Science has considered the expansion of this aroma, experience has utilised science, so that a pheasant ready for the spit is a dish fit for the most exalted gourmands.

In the varieties will be found a recipe for roasting a pheasant, a la Sainte Alliance. The time has come when this method, hitherto concentrated in a small circle of friends, should be made known for the benefit of humanity. A pheasant with truffles is not good as one would be apt to think it. The bird is too dry to actuate the tubercle, and the scent of the one and the perfume of the other when united neutralize each other--or rather do not suit.

Section VI. FISH.

Savants, in other respects orthodox, have maintained that ocean was the common cradle of all that exists, and that man himself sprang from the sea and owes his actual habits to the influence of the air, and the mode of life he has been obliged to adopt.

Be this as it may, it is at least certain, that the waters contain an immense quant.i.ty of beings of all forms and sizes, which possess vitality in very different proportions, and according to mode very different from that of warm blooded animals.

It is not less true that water has ever presented an immense variety of aliments, and that in the present state of science it introduces to our table the most agreeable variety.

Fish, less nutritious than flesh and more succulent than vegetables, is a mezzo termine, which suits all temperments and which persons recovering from illness may safely eat.

The Greeks and Romans, though they had not made as much progress as we have in the art of seasoning fish, esteemed it very highly, and were so delicate that they could even tell where it had been taken.

Large fish ponds were maintained, and the cruelty of Vellius Pollis who fed his lampreys on the bodies of slaves he caused to be slain is well known. This cruelty Domitian disapproved of but should have punished.

There has been much discussion as to which is the best fish.

The question will never be decided, for as the Spanish proverb says, sobre los gustos no hai disputa. Every one is effected in his own way. These fugitive sensations can be expressed by no known character, and there is no scale to measure if a CAT-FISH (!), a sole, or a turbot are better than a salmon, trout, pike, or even tench of six or seven pounds.

It is well understood that fish is less nourishing than meat, because it contains no osmazome, because it is lighter in weight, and contains less weight in the same volume. Sh.e.l.l-fish, and especially oysters, furnish little nutrition, so that one can eat a great many without injury.

It will be remembered that not long ago any well arranged entertainment began with oysters, and that many guests never paused without swallowing a gross (144). I was anxious to know the weight of this advance guard, and I ascertained that a dozen oysters, fluid included, weighed four ounces averdupois. Now look on it as certain that the same persons who did not make a whit the worse dinner, on account of the oysters would have been completely satisfied if they had eaten the same weight of flesh or of chicken.

ANECDOTE.

In 1798 I was at Versailles as a commissary of the Directory, and frequently met M. Laperte, greffier of the count of the department. He was very fond of oysters, and used to complain that he had never had enough.

I resolved to procure him this satisfaction, and invited him to dine with me on the next day.

He came. I kept company with him to the tenth dozen, after which I let him go on alone. He managed to eat thirty-two dozen within an hour for the person who opened them was not very skilful.

In the interim, I was idle, and as that is always a painful state at the table, I stopped him at the moment when he was in full swing. "Mon cher," said I, "you will not to-day eat as many oysters as you meant--let us dine." We did so, and he acted as if he had fasted for a week.

Muria-Garum

The ancients extracted from fish two highly flavored seasonings, muria and garum.

The first was the juice of the thuny, or to speak more precisely, the liquid substance which salt causes to flow from the fish.

Garum was dearer, and we know much less of it. It is thought that it was extracted by pressure from the entrailles of the s...o...b..a or mackerel; but this supposition does not account for its high price. There is reason to believe it was a foreign sauce, and was nothing else but the Indian soy, which we know to be only fish fermented with mushrooms.

Certainly, people from their locality are forced to live almost entirely upon fish. They also feed their working animals with it, and the latter from custom gradually grow to like this strange food. They also manure the soil with it, yet always receive the same quant.i.ty from the sea which surrounds them.

It has been observed that such nations are not so courageous as those that eat flesh. They are pale, a thing not surprising, for the elements of fish must rather repair the lymph than the blood.

Among ichthyophages, remarkable instances of longevity are observed, either because light food preserves them from plethora, or that the juices it contains being formed by nature only to const.i.tute cartilages which never bears long duration, their use r.e.t.a.r.ds the solidification of the parts of the body which, after all, is the cause of death.

Be this as it may, fish in the hands of a skilful cook is an inexhaustible source of enjoyment. It is served up whole, in pieces, truncated with water, oil, vinegar, warm, cold; and is always well received. It is, however never better than when dressed en matilotte.

This ragout, though made a necessary dish to the boatmen on our rivers, and made in perfection only by the keepers of cobarets on their banks, is incomparably good. Lovers of fish never see it without expressing their gratification, either on account of its freshness of taste, or because they can without difficulty eat an indefinite quant.i.ty, without any fear of satiety or indigestion.

a.n.a.lytical gastronomy has sought to ascertain what are the effects of a fish diet on the animal system. Unanimous observation leads us to think that it has great influence on the genesiac sense, and awakens the instinct of reproduction in the two s.e.xes. This effect being once known, two causes were at once a.s.signed for it:

1st. The different manner of preparing fish, all the seasoning for it being irritating, such as carar, hering, thon marine, etc.

2d. The various juices the fish imbibes, which are highly inflammable and oxigenise in digestion.

Profound a.n.a.lysis has discovered a yet more powerful cause: the presence of phosphorous in all the portions, and which decomposition soon developes.

These physical truths were doubtless unknown to the ecclesiastical legislators, who imposed the lenten diet on different communities of monks, such as Chartreux, Recollets, Trappists, and the Carmelites reformed by Saint Theresa; no one thinks that they wished to throw a new difficulty into the way of the observance of the already most anti-social vow of chast.i.ty.

In this state of affairs, beyond doubt, glorious victories were won, and rebellious senses were subjected; there were, however, many lapses and defeats. They must have been well averred, for the result was the religious orders had ultimately a reputation like that of Hercules and the daughters of Danaus, or Marshal Saxe with M'lle Lecouvreur.