the university of Connecticut libraries X m BRITL 642. SH5 c. 1 SHERWOOD # ART OF ENTERTAINING 3 T153 0DE3QT51 fi ;Dr - > ■ "' Q m DEC THE ART OF ENTERTAINING R'^ ck' THE ART OF ENTERTAINING BY M. E. W. SHERWOOD This night Beneath my roof my dearest friends I entertain Homer NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1893 Copyright, 1892, By Dodd, Mead and Company. All rights reserved. 55^^ 5aittbprsitij press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. With a grateful recognitioti of his services to "STfte ^rt of 3£nt£rtainin0," Both at home and abroad, and with a profound respect for his wit, eloquence., and learning, this book is dedicated TO THE HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, By his Friend, the Author. PREFACE. TN America the art of entertaining as compared with the same art in England, in France, in Italy and in Germany may be said to be in its infancy. But if it is, it is a very vigorous infant, perhaps a little overfed. There is no such prodigality of food anywhere nor a more genuinely hospitable people in the world than those descendants of the Pilgrims and the Cavaliers who peopled the North and South of what we are privileged to call the United States. Exiles from Fatherland taught the Indians the words ''Welcome!" and "What Cheer?" — a beautiful and a noble prophecy. Well might it be the motto for our national shield. We, who welcome to our broad garden-lands the hungry and the needy of an overcrowded old world, can well appropriate the legend. No stories of that old Biblical world of the patriarchs who lived in tents have been forgotten in the New World. The Western settler who placed before his hungry guest the last morsel of jerked VI PREFACE. meat, or whose pale, overworked wife broiled the fish or the bird which had just fallen before his unerring gun, — these people had mastered in their way the first principle in the art of entertaining. They have the hospitality of the heart. From that meal to a Newport dinner what an infinite series of gradations ! Perhaps we may help those on the lower rungs of the ladder to mount from one to the other. Perhaps we may hint at the poetry, the romance, the history, the literature of entertaining; perhaps with practical hints of how to feed our guests we may suggest where meat faileth to feed the soul, and where intellect, wit, and taste come in. American dinners are pronounced by foreign critics as overdone. The great too much is urged against us. We are a wasteful people as to food ; we should learn an elegant and a wise economy. In a French family, eggs and lumps of sugar are counted. Economy is a part of the art of enter- taining ; if judiciously studied it is far from niggard- liness. Such economy leads to judicious selection. One has but to read the Odes of Horace to learn how much of the mind can be appropriately de- voted to the art of entertaining. Milton does not disdain, in Paradise Lost, to give us the menu of Eve's dinner to the Angel. We find in all great poets and historians stories of great feasts. And PREFACE. Vll with us in the nineteenth century, dinner is not alone a thing of twelve courses, it is the bright consummate flower of the day, which brings us all together from our various fields of work. It is the open sesame of the soul, the hour of repose, of amusement, of innocent hilarity, — the hour which knits up the ravelled sleeve of care. The body is carefully apparelled, the mind swept and garnished, the brain prepared for fresh impress. It is said that no important political movement was ever inaugurated without a dinner, and we may fanci- fully state that no great poem, no novel, no philo- sophical treatise, but has been made or marred by a dinner. There is much entertaining, however, which is not eating. We do not gorge ourselves, as in the days of Dr. Johnson, until the veins in the forehead swell to bursting, but perhaps we are just as far from those banquets which Horace describes, — a glass of Falernian, a kid roasted, a bunch of grapes, and a rose, with good talk afterward. We have not mingled enough of the honey of Hymettus with our cookery. Lady Morgan described years ago a dinner at Baron Rothschild's in Paris where the fineness of the napery, the beauty of the porcelain and china, the light, digestible French dishes, seemed to her a great improvement on the heaviness of an English Vlll PREFACE. dinner. That one paper is said to have altered the whole fabric of English dinner-giving. English dinners of to-day are superlatively good and agree- able in the best houses, and although national English cookery is not equal to that on the other side of the Channel, perhaps we could not have a better model to follow. We can compass an '' all round " mastery of the art of entertaining if we choose. It is not alone the wealth of America which can assist us, although wealth is a good thing. It is our boundless resource, and the capability, spirit, and generosity of our people. Venice alorfe at one imperial moment of her success had such a chance as we have ; she was free, she was indus- trious, she was commercial, she was rich, she was artistic. All the world paid her tribute. And we see on her walls to-day, fixed there by the pencils' of Tintoretto and Titian, what was her idea of the art of entertaining. Poetry, painting, and music were the hand-maidens of plenty ; they wait upon those Godlike men and those beautiful women. It is a saturnalia of colour, an apotheosis of plenty with no vulgar excess, with no slumberous repletion. ** T is but the fool who loves excess," says our American Horace in his " Ode to an Old Punch Bowl." When we read Charles Lamb's " Essay on Roast PREFACE. IX Pig," Brillat Savarin's grave and witty '' Physiologie du Gout," Thackeray's " Fitz Boodle's Professions," Sydney Smith's poetical recipe for a salad ; when we read Disraeli's description of dinners, or the immortal recipes for good cheer which Dickens has scattered through his books, we learn how much the better part of dinner is that which we do not eat, but only think about. What a liberal education to hear the late Samuel Ward talk about good din- ners ! Variety not vegetables, manners not meat, was his motto. He invested the whole subject with a sort of classic elegance and a humorous sense of responsibility. Anacreon and Charles Delmonico seemed to mingle in his brain, and one would gladly now be able to dine with him and Longfellow at their yearly Christmas dinner. . Cookery books, receipts, and menus are apt to be of little use to young housekeepers before they have mastered the great art of entertaining. Then they are like the system of logarithms to the mariner. Almost all young housekeepers are at sea without a chart. A great, turbulent ocean of butchers, bakers and Irish servants swim before their eyes. How grapple with that important question, "How shall I give a dinner?" Who can help them? Shall we try? •CONTENTS. PAGB Our American Resources and Foreign Allies. 13 The Hostess 22 Breakfast o 35 The Lunch 49 Afternoon Tea 59 The Intellectual Components of a Dinner . 68 Conscientious Diners 79 Various Modes of Gastronomical Gratifica- tion 94 Soups 105 Fish 113 Salad 124 Desserts 134 German Eating and Drinking 143 The Influence* of Good Cheer on Authors AND Geniuses 152 Bonbons 162 Famous Menus and Receipts 176 Cookeries and Wines of Southern Europe . 185 Some Oddities in the Art of Entertaining . 197 xii CONTENTS. PAGE The Servant Question 206 Something About Cooks 221 Furnishing a Country House 233 •Entertaining in a Country House 241 A Picnic 253 Pastimes of Ladies 260 Private Theatricals 271 Hunting and Shooting 280 Golf 288 Games 299 Archery 313 The Season — Balls and Receptions .... 321 Weddings 33i How Royalty Entertains 340 Entertaining at Easter 353 How TO Entertain Children . . » 361 Christmas and Children 371 Certain Practical Suggestions 381 The Comparative Merits of American and Foreign Modes of Entertaining . . . 389 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. OUR AMERICAN RESOURCES, AND FOREIGN ALLIES. "Let observation, with extensive view, Survey mankind from China to Peru." THE amount of game and fish which our great country and extent of sea-coast give us, the variety of climate from Florida to Maine, from San Francisco to Boston, which the remarkable net-work of our railway communication allows us to enjoy, — all this makes the American market in any great city almost fabulously profuse. Then our steamships bring us fresh artichokes from Algiers in mid-winter, and figs from the Mediterranean, while the remarkable climate of California gives us four crops of delicate fruits a year. There are those, however, who find the fruits of California less finely flavoured than those of the Eastern States. The peaches of the past are almost a lost flavour, even at the North. The peach of Europe is a different and far inferior fruit. It lacks that essential flavour which to the American palate tells of the best of fruits. It may be well, for the purposes of gastronomical history, to narrate the variety of the larder in the height of the season, of a certain sea-side club-house, a few years ago : 14 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. "The season lasted one hundred and eighty days, during which time from eighty thousand to ninety thou- sand game-birds, and eighteen thousand pounds of fish were consumed, exclusive of domestic poultry, steaks and chops. On busy days twenty-four kinds of fish, all fit for epicures, embracing turbot, Spanish mackerel, sea trout ; the various kinds of bass, including that gamest of fish the black bass, bonito from the Gulf of Mexico, the purple mullet, the weakfish, chicken halibut, sole, plaice, the frog, the soft crab from the Chesapeake, were served. Here, packed tier upon tier in glistening ice, were some thirty kinds of birds in the very ecstasy of prime condition, and all ready prepared for the cook. Let us enumerate ' this royal fellowship of game.' There were owls from the North (we might call them by some more enticing name), chicken grouse from Illinois, chicken partridge, Lake Erie black and summer ducks and teal, woodcock, upland plover (by many esteemed as the choicest of morsels), dough-birds, brant, New Jersey millet, godwit, jack curlew, jacksnipe, sandsnipe, rock- snipe, humming-birds daintily served in nut-shells, golden plover, beetle-headed plover, redbreast plover, chicken plover, seckle-bill curlew, summer and winter yellow-legs, reed-birds and rail from Delaware (the latter most highly esteemed in Europe, where it is known as the ortolan), ring-neck snipe, brown backs, grass-bird, and peeps." Is not this a hst to make " the rash gazer wipe his eye " ? And to show our riches and their poverty in the matter of game, let us give the game statistics of France for one September. There are thirty thousand communes in France, and in each commune there were killed on the average on September i, ten hares, — total, three hun- dred thousand ; seventeen partridges, — total, five huu- OUR AMERICAN RESOURCES, ETC. 1$ dred and ten thousand ; fourteen quail, — total, four hundred and twenty thousand; one rail in each com- mune,— thirty thousand total as to rails. That was all France could do for the furnishing of the larder; of course she imports game from Savoy, Germany, Norway, and England. And oh, how she can cook them ! Woodcock, it is said, should be cooked the day it is shot, or certainly when fresh. Birds that feed on or near the water should be eaten fresh; so should snipe and some kinds of duck. The canvasback alone bears keeping, the others get fishy. Snipe should be picked by hand, on no account drawn ; that is a practice worthy of an Esquimaux. Nor should any condiment be cooked with woodcock, save butter or pork. A piece of toast under him, to catch his fragrant gravy, and the delicious trail should alone be eaten with the snipe ; but a bottle of Chambertin may be drunk to wash him down. The plover should be roasted quickly before a hot fire ; nor should even a pork jacket be appUed if one wishes the dehcious juices of the bird alone. This bird should be served with water-cresses. Red wine should be drunk with game, — Chambertin, Clos de Vougeot, or a sound Lafitte or La Tour claret. Champagne is not the wine to serve with game ; that belongs to the filet. With beef braise a glass of good golden sherry is allowable, but not champagne. The deep purple, full-bodied, velvety wines of the Cote d'Or, — the generous vintages of Burgundy, — are in order. Indeed these wines always have been in high renown. They are passed as presents from one royal personage to another, like a cordon d'honneiir. Burgundy was the wine of nobles and churchmen, who always have had enviable palates. 1 6 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Chambertin is a lighter kind of Volnay and the vin veloute par excellence of the Cote d'Or. It was a great favourite with Napoleon I. To considerable body it unites a fine flavour and a suave bouquet of gx^2X finesse, and does not become thin with age like other Burgundies. As for the Clos de Vougeot, its characteristics are a rich ruby colour, velvety softness, a delicate bouquet, which has a slight suggestion of the raspberry. It is a strong wine, less refined in flavour than the Chambertin, and with a suggestion of bitterness. It was so much admired by a certain military commander that while marching his regiment to the Rhine he commanded his men to halt before the vineyard and salute it. They presented arms in its honour. Chateau Lafitte, renowned for its magnificent colour, exquisite softness, delicate flavour, and fragrant bouquet, recalling almonds and violets, is one of the wines of the Gironde, and is supposed of late to have deteriorated in quality ; but it is quite good enough to command a high price and the attention of connoisseurs. Chateau La Tour, a grand Medoc claret, derives its name from an existing ancient, massive, round tower, which the English assailed and defended by turns during the wars in Guienne. It has a pronounced flavour, and a powerful bouquet, common to all wines of the Gironde. It reminds one of the odour of almonds, and of Noyau cordials. • These vineyards were in great repute five centuries ago ; and it would be delightful to pursue the history of the various crus, did time permit. The Cos d'Estoumet of the famous St. Estephe crus is stiU made by the peasants treading out the grapes, foule a pied, to the accompaniment of pipes and fiddles as in the days of Louis XIV. OUR AMERICAN RESOURCES, ETC. 1/ We will mention the two premiers grands crus of the Gironde, the growth of the ancient vineyards of Leoville and the St. Julian wines, distinguished by their odour of violets. Thackeray praises Chambertin in verse more than once : — •* ' Oui, oui, Monsieur,' 's the waiter's answer ; ' Quel vin Monsieur desire-t-il ? ' * Tell me a good one.' — ' That I can, sir : The Chambertin, with yellow seal.'" Then again he speaks of dipping his gray beard in the Gascon wine 'ere Time catches him at it and Death knocks the crimson goblet from his lips. In countries where wine is grown there is little or no drunkenness. It is to be feared that drunkenness is increased by impure wines. It is shocking to read of the adulterations which first-class wines are subjected to, or rather the adulterations which are called first-class wines. Wilkie Collins has a hit at this in his "No Name," where he makes the famous Captain Wragge say, " We were engaged at the time in making, in a small back parlour in Brompton, a fine first-class sherry, sound in the mouth, tonic in character, and a great favourite with the Court of Spain." Our golden sherry, our Chambertin, our Chateau La- fitte is said often to come from the vineyards of Jersey City and the generous hillsides of Brooklyn ; and we might perhaps quote from the famous song of "The Canal": — " The tradesmen who in liquor deal. Of our Canal good use can make ; And when they mean their casks to fill. They oft its water freely take. 2 1 8 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. By this device they render less The ills that spring from drunkenness ; For harmless is the wine, you '11 own. From vines that in canals is grown." A large proportion of the so-called foreign wines sol;l in America are of American manufacture. The medium grade clarets and so-called Sauternes are made in Cali- fornia, in great quantities. Our Senator, Leland Stanford, makes excellent wines. On the islands of Lake Erie, the lake region of Central New York, and along the banks of the Ohio and Missouri Rivers, are vineyards producing excellent wines. An honest American wine is an excellent thing to drink; and yet it disgusted Commodore McVicker, who was entertained in London as President of our Yacht Club, to be asked to drink American wines. Yet the Catawbas, " dulcet, delicious and creamy," are not to be despised ; neither are the sweet and dry California growths. The indigenous wines which come from Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and Mississippi are likely to be musty and foxy, and are not pleasant to an American taste. The Cataw- bas are pleasant, and are of three colours, — rose colour, straw colour, and colourless, if that be a colour. In taste they are like sparkling Moselle, but fuller to the palate. The wine produced from the Isabella grape is of a decided raspberry flavour. The finest American wines are those produced from the vines known as Norton's Virginia and the Cynthiana. The former produces a well-blended, full-bodied, deep-coloured, aromatic, and almost astringent wine ; the second, — probably the finer of the two, — is a darker, less astringent, and more delicate product. OUR AMERICAN RESOURCES, ETC. IQ Among "the American red wines may be mentioned the product of the Schuylkill oSIuscadel, which was the only esteemed growth in the country previous to the cultivation of the Catawba grape, being in fact ambi- tiously compared to the cnis of the Gironde. It was a bitter, acidulous wine, little suited to the American palate, and invariably requiring an addition of either sugar or alcohol. Longfellow sings of the wine of the Mustang grape of Texas and New Mexico : — " The fiery flood Of whose purple blood Has a dash of Spanish bravado." The Carolina Scuppernong is detestable, reminding us of the sweet and bitter medicines of childhood. The Herbemont, a rose-tinted wine is very like Spanish Manganilla. Longfellow says of sparkling Catawba, that it *' fills the room with a benison on the giver." It has, indeed, a charming bouquet, as says the poet. The name of Nicholas Longworth is intimately con- nected with the subject of American wines. To him will ever be given all honour, as being the father of this industry in the New World ; but the superior excellence of the California wines has driven the New York and Ohio wines, it is said, to a second place in the market. In the expositions of 1889 at Paris, and in Melbourne, silver medals were awarded to the Inglenook wines, which are of the red claret, burgundy and Medoc type ; also white wines, — Sauterne Chasselas, and Hock, Chablis, Riesling, etc. The right soil for the cultivation of the grape is a hard thing to find ; but Captain Niebaum, a rich California 20 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. grower, has hit the key-note, when he says, " I have no wish to make any money out of my vineyard by produc- ing a large quantity of wine at a cheap or moderate price. I am going to make a Cahfornia wine which, if it can be made, will be worthily sought for by connoissetirs ; and I am prepared to spend all the money needed to accomplish that result." He says frankly that he has not yet produced the best wine of which California is capa- ble, but that he has succeeded in producing a better wine than many of the foreign wines sold in America. He might have added that hogsheads of California grape- juice are sent annually to Bordeaux to be doctored, and returned to America as French claret. The misfortunes of the vine-grower in Europe, the ruin of acres of grape-producing country by the phyloxera, should be the opportunity for these new vine-growers in the United States. It is only by travel, experiment, and by a close study of the methods of the foreign wine- growers that a Californian can possibly make himself a vineyard which shall be successful. He must induce Nature to sweeten his wines, and he can then laugh at the chemist. Of vegetables we have not only all that Europe can boast, excepting perhaps the artichoke, but we have some in constant use and of great excellence which they have not. For instance, sweet corn boiled or roasted and eaten from the cob with butter and salt is unknown in Europe. They have not the sweet potato, so deli- cious when baked. They have not the pumpkin-pie although they have the pumpkin. They have egg-plant and cauliflower and beans and peas, but so have we. They have bananas, but never fried, which is a negro dish, and excellent. They have not the plantain, good OUR AMERICAN RESOURCES, ETC. 21 baked, nor the avocado or alligator pear, which fried in butter or oil is so admirable. They have not the ochra, of which the negro cooks make such excellent gumbo soup. They have all the salads, and use sorrel much more than we do. They do not cook summer squash as we do, nor have they anything to equal it. They use vegetables always as an entree, not served with the meat, unless the vegetable is cooked with the meat, like beef stewed in carrots, turnips, and onions, veal and green peas, veal with spinach, and so on. The peas are passed as an entree, so is the cauliflower, the beet-root, and the turnips. They treat all vegetables as we do corn and as- paragus, as a separate course. For asparagus we must give the French the palm, particularly when they serve it with Hollandaise sauce ; and the Italians cook cauUflower with cheese, a ravir. THE HOSTESS. * A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food ; For transient sorrow, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. THE " house -mother," — the mistress of servants, the wife, the mother, the hostess, — is the first person in the art of entertaining ; and considering how busy, how hard worked, how occupied, are American men, she is generally the first person singular. ( In nine Cases out of ten, American men neither know nor care much about the conduct of the house if the wife will assume it ; they only like to be made comfortable, and to find a warm, clean home, with a good dinner await- ing them. It is the wife who must struggle with the problems of domestic defeat or victory. When Washington Irving was presented at the Court of Dresden his Saxon Majesty remarked, " Mr. Irving, with a republic so liberal, you can have no servants in America." " Yes, Sire, we have servants, such as they are," said the amiable author of the '• Sketchbook ; " " but we do not call them servants, we call them help." " I cannot understand that," said the king. The king's mental position was not illogical ; for, with bis experience of the servile position of the domestic in THE HOSTESS. 23 Europe, he could not reconcile to his mind the declara- tion of social equality in America. The American hostess must, it would seem, for many centuries if not forever, have to struggle against this diffi- culty. As some writer said twenty years ago, of this question : " Rich as we are in money, profuse in spend- ing it to heighten the enjoyment of life, the good servant, that essential of comfort and luxury, seems beyond our reach. Superfine houses we have, and superfine furni- ture, and superfine ladies, and all the other superfineties to excess, but the skilful cook, the handy maid, and the trusty nurse we rarely possess." Thus, afar from the great cities and even in them, we must forge the instruments with which we work, instead of finding them ready to hand, as in other countries. That is to say, the mistress of a household must teach her cook to cook, her waiter to wait, her laundress to get up fine linen. She is happy if she can get honest people and willing hands, but trained servants she durst not ex- pect away from the great centres of Hfe. Considering what has been expected of the Amer- ican woman, has she not done rather well ? That she must be first servant-trainer, then housekeeper, wife, mother, and conversationist, that she must keep up with the always advancing spirit of the times, read, write, and cipher, be beautifully dressed, play the piano, make the wilderness to blossom as the rose, be charitable, thought- ful, and good, put the mind at its ease, strive to learn how to do all things in the best way, be a student of good taste and good manners, make a house luxurious, orna- mental, cheerful, and restful, have an inspired sense of the fitness of things, dress and entertain in perfect accord with her station, her means, and her husband's ambition, 24 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. master, unassisted, all the ins and outs of the noble art of entertaining, — has not this been something of the nature of a large contract? ^ She must go to the cooking-lecture, come home and visit the kitchen, go to the intelligence office, keeping her hand on all three. She must be the mind, while the Maggies and Bridgets furnish the hands. She must never be fussy, never grotesque ; she must steer her ship through stormy seas, and she must also learn to enjoy Wagner's music. There is proverbially no sea so dan- gerous to swim in as that tumultuous one of a new and illy regulated prosperity; and in the changeful, uncer- tain nature of American fortunes an American woman must be ready to meet any fate. .; Judging from many specimens which we have seen, may we not claim that the American woman must be stamped with an especial distinction ? Has she not conquered her fate ? Curiously enough, fashion and good taste seem to lackey to the American woman, no matter where she was born or where educated. In spite of all drawbacks, and the counter-currents of destiny, she is a well bred and tasteful woman. No matter what the American woman has to fight against, poverty or lack of opportunities, she is likely, if she is called upon to do so, to administer gracefully the hospitalities of the White House or to fill the difficult role of an ambassadress. Some of them have bad taste perhaps. " What is good taste but an instantaneous, ready appreciation of the fit- ness of things ? " To most of us who observe it in others, it seems to be an instinct. We envy those few who are always well dressed, who never buy unbecoming stuffs, who have the gift to make their clothes look as if they THE HOSTESS. 5$ had simply blossomed out of their inner consciousness, as a rose blossoms out of its calyx. Some women always dress their hair becomingly; others, even if handsome, look like beautiful frights. Some wear their clothes as if they had been hurled at them by a tornado, and remind one of the poor husband's remark, " I feel as if I had married a hurricane." The same exceptions, which only prove the rule, because you notice them, may extend to the housewives who aim at more than they can accomplish, who make their house an anguish to look at, preten- tious without beauty, overloaded or incorrect, who have not tact, who say the awkward thing. Such people exist sometimes, sinning from ignorance, but they are decidedly in the minority. The American woman is generally a success. She has fought a hard battle, but she has won. She has had her defeats, however. Who does not remember the failure of that first dinner-party ? — when the baby began to cry so loud ; when the hostess was not dressed when the bell rang ; when the cook spilled the soup all over the range and filled the house with a bad odour; when the waitress, usually so cool, lost all her presence of mind and fell on the basement stairs, breaking all the plates ; when one failure succeeded another until the husband looked reproachfully at his wife, who, poor creature, had been working day and night to get up this dinner, who was responsible for none of the failures, and who had an attack of neuralgia afterward which lasted all winter. Who has not read Thackeray's witty descriptions of the dinners, poor and pretentious, ordered in from the green-grocer's, and uneatable, — in London ? " If they would have a leg of mutton and an apple pudding and a glass of sherry, they could do well; but they must shine, 26 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. they must outdo their neighbours." And that is the first mistake. People with three thousand a year should not try to emulate those who have fifty thousand a year. And Thackeray says again : *' But there is no harm done, not as regards the dinner-givers, though the dinner- eaters may have to suffer. It only shows that the former are hospitably inclined, and wish to do the very best in their power. If they do badly, how can they help it? They know no better." The first thing at which a young housekeeper must aim is to live well every day. Her tablecloth must be fresh, her glass and silver clean ; a few flowers must be on her table to make it dainty, a few dishes well cooked, — such a table as will be well for her children and accept- able to her husband ; and then she has but to add a little more and it is fit for any guest, and any guest will be glad to join such a dinner-party. But here I am met by the almost unanswerable argu- ment that the simplest dinner is the most difficult to find. Who knows how to cook a beefsteak, to roast a piece of mutton so that its natural juices are retained, — to roast it so that the blood shall follow the knife ; to mash potatoes and brown them ; to make a perfect rice- pudding that is said to " deserve that cordon bleu which Vatel, Ude, and Bechamel craved " ? The young housekeeper of to-day with very modest means has, however, now to meet a condition of pros- perity which even twenty-five years ago was unknown. xAll extremes of luxury and every element of profusion is now fashionable, — one may say expected. But agreeable young people will be entertained by the man who is worth fifty thousand dollars a day, and they will wish to return the civility. Herein lie the difiicul- THE HOSTESS. 2/ ties in the art of entertaining ; but let them remember that there is one simple dinner which covers the whole ground, which the poor gentleman may aspire to give, and to which he might invite a prince. The essentials of a comfortable dinner are but few. The beauty of a Grecian vase without ornament is perfect. You may add cameo and intaglio, vine, acanthus leaf, satyrs, and fauns, handles of ram's horns and circlet of gems to your vase if you wish, and are rich enough, but unless the outline is perfect the splendour and the arabesque but render the vase vulgar. So with the simple dinner ; it is the Grecian vase unadorned. Remember that rich people, stifled with luxury at home, like to be asked to these dinners. A lady in England, very much admired for her witty conversation, said she intended to devote herself to the amelioration of the condition of the upper classes, as she thought them the most bored and altogether the least attended to of any people ; and we have heard of the rich man in New York who complained that he was no longer asked to the little dinners. There is too much worship and fear of money in our country. In England and on the Continent there is no shame in acknowledging, " I cannot afford it." I have been asked to a luncheon in England where a cold joint of mutton, a few potatoes, and a plate of peaches constituted the whole repast ; and I have heard more delightful conversation and have met more agreeable people than at more expensive feasts. Who in America would dare to give such a lunch? The simple dinner might be characterized, giving the essentials, as a soup, a fish, a roast, one entree, and a salad, an ice and fruit (simply the fruit in season), a cup Qf coffee afterward, with a glass of sherry, claret, or 28 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. champagne. Such a dinner is good enough for anybody, and is possible to the person of moderate means. From this up to the splendid dinners of millionnaires, served on gold and silver and priceless Sevres, Dresden, Japanese, and Chinese porcelain, with flagons of ruby glass bound in gold, with Benvenuto Cellini vases, and siis^er candelabra, the ascent may be gradual. In the one the tablecloth is of spotless damask ; in the other it may be of duchesse lace over red. The very mats are mirrors, the crystal drops of the epergne flash like diamonds. It may be served in a picture-gallery. Each lady has a bouquet, a fan, a ribbon painted with her name, a basket or bonbonniere to take home v/ith her. The courses are often sixteen in number, the wines are of fabulous value, antiquity, and age. Each drop is like the River Pactolus, whose sands were of gold. The viands may come from Algiers or St. Petersburg ; strawberries and peaches in January, the roses of June in February, fruit from the Pacific, from the Gulf, artichokes from Marseilles, oranges and strawberries from Florida, game from Arizona and Chesapeake Bay, mutton and pheas- ants from Scotland, luxury from everywhere. The primal condition of this banquet is, that everything should be unusual. But remember that, after all, it is only the Grecian vase heavily ornamented. No one person can taste half the dishes ; it takes a long time, and the room may be too hot. The limitations of a dinner should be considered. It is a splendid picture, no doubt, but it need not appall the young hostess who desires to return the civility. A vase of flowers or a basket of growing plants can re- place the epergne. Some pretty dinner-cards may be etched by herself, with a Shakspearean quotation show- THE HOSTESS. 29 ing a personal thought of each guest. Her spotless glass and silver, her good soup, her fresh fish, the haunch of venison roasted before a wood fire, the salad mixed by her own fair hands, perhaps a dessert over which she has lingered, a bit of cheese, a cup of coffee, a smiling host, a composed hostess, a congenial com- pany, and wit withal, — who shall say that the little dinner is not as amusing as the big dinner? To be composed : yes, that is the first thing to be remembered on the part of a young hostess. She may be essentially nervous and anxious, particularly if she is just beginning to entertain, but here she must resolutely put on a mask of composure, and assume a virtue if she have it not. Nothing is of much importance, excepting her own demeanor. A fussy hostess who scolds the servants, wrinkles her brow, or even forgets to listen to the man who is talking to her is the ruin of a dinner. The author of " Cecil " tells his niece that if stewed puppy-dog is brought to the table she must not notice it. Few hostesses are subjected to so severe an ordeal as this, but the remark contains a goodly hint. As, however, it is a great intellectual feat to achieve a perfect little dinner with a small household and small means, perhaps that form of entertaining may be post- poned a few years. Never attempt anything which can- not be well done. There is the afternoon tea, the musical evening, the reception, the luncheon ; they are all easier to give than the dinner. The young hostess ambitious to excel in the art of entertaining can choose a thousand ways. Let her alone avoid attempting the impossible ; and let her remember that no success which is not hon- estly gained is worth a pin. If it is money, it stings ; if it is place and position, it becomes the shirt of Nessus, 30 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. But for the well mannered and well behaved American woman what a noble success, what a perfect present, what a delightful future there is ! She is the founder of the American nobility. All men bow down to her. She is the queen of the man who loves her ; he treats her with every respect. She is to teach the future citizen honour, loyalty, duty, respect, politeness, kindness, the law of love. Such a man could read his Philip Sidney and yet not blush to find himself a follower. An American woman wields the only rod of empire to which American men will bow. She should try to be an empress in the best sense of the word ; and to a young woman entering society we should recommend a certain exclusiveness. Not snobbish exclusiveness ; but it is always well to choose one's friends slowly and with due consideration. We are not the most perfect beings in all the world ; we do not wish to be intimate with too much imperfection. ( A broken friendship is a very painful thing.| We should think twice before we give an intimate friendship to any one. No woman who essays to entertain should ask everybody to her house. The respect she owes to her- self should prevent this ; her house becomes a camp unless she has herself the power of putting a coarse sieve outside the door. We have no such inviolable virtue that we can as yet rate Dives and Lazarus before they are dead. Very rich people are apt to be very good people ; and in the realms of the highest fashion we find the simplest, best, and purest of characters. It is therefore of no consequence as to the shade of fashion and the amount of the rent- roll. It must not be supposed because some leaders of fashion are insolent that all are. A young hostess must try to find the good, true, honourable, generous, well bred^ THE HOSTESS. • $1 well educated member of society, no matter in what con- ditions of life. Read character first, and hesitate before drawing general deductions. A hostess is the slave of her guests after she has in- vited them ; she must be all attention, and all suavity. If she has nothing to offer them but a small house, a cup of tea, and a smile, she is just as much a hostess as if she were a queen. If she offers them every luxury and is not polite, she is a snob and a vulgarian. There is no such detestable use of one's privileges as to be rude on one's ground. " The man who eats your salt is sacred." To patronize is a great necessity to some natures. There is little opportunity for it in free, brave America, but some mistaken hostesses have gone that way. Every one feels pleasantly toward the woman who invites one to her house ; there is something gracious in the act. But if, after opening her doors, the hostess refuses the welcome, or treats her guests with various degrees of cordiality, why did she ask at all ? Every young Amer- ican can become a model hostess ; she can master etiquette, and create for herself a poHte and cordial manner. She should be as serene as a summer's day ; she should keep all her domestic troubles out of sight. If she entertains, let her do it in her own individual way, — a small way if necessary. There was much in Touchstone's philosophy, — "a poor thing, but mine own." She must have the instinct of hospitality, which is to give pleasure to all one's guests ; and it seems unnecessary to say to any young American hostess, Noblesse oblige. She should be more polite to the shy, ill- dressed visitor from the country — if indeed there is such a thing left in America, where, as Bret Harte says, " The fashions travel by tele- graph " — than to the sweeping city dame, that can take care of herself. A kindly greeting to a gawky youth will i± THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. never be forgotten; and it is to the humblest that a hostess should address her kindest attentions. There are born hostesses, like poets, but a hostess can also be made, in which she has the advantage of the poets ; and to the very wealthy hostess we should quote this inestimable advice : — Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiant Haec tria : mens hilaris, requies, moderata diaeta. Horace. Do not over-feed people. Who is it that says, "If simplicity is admirable in manners and in literary style, in the matter of dinners it becomes exalted into one of the cardinal virtues "? The ambitious housewife would do well to remember this when she cumbers herself, and thinks too much about her forthcoming banquet. If she ignores this principle of simplicity and falls into the opposite ex- treme of ostentation and pretentiousness, she may bore her guests rather than entertain them. It is an incontestable fact that dinners are made elabo- rate only at a considerable risk ; as they increase in size and importance, their character is likely to deteriorate. This is true not only with regard to the number of guests, but with reference to the number of dishes that go to make up a bill-of-fare. In fact we, as Americans, generally err on the side of having too much rather than too little. The terror of running short is agony to the mind of the conscientious housewife. How much will be enough and no more? It stands to reason that the fewer the dishes, the more the cook can concentrate her attention upon them ; and here is reason for reducing the mem/ to its lowest terms. Then to consult the proper gradation. Brillat Savarin recounts a rather cruel joke perpe- THE HOSTESS. 33 trated on a man who was a well-known gourmand. The idea was that he should be induced to satisfy himself with the more ordinary viands, and that then the choic- est dishes should be presented in vain before his jaded appetite. This treacherous feast began with a sirloin of beef, a fricandeau of veal, and a stewed carp with stuffing. Then came a magnificent turkey, a pike, six entremets^ and an ample dish of maccaroni and Parmesan cheese. Nor was this all. Another course appeared, composed of sweetbread, surrounded with shrimps in jelly, soft roes, and partridge wings, with a thick sauce or puree of mushrooms. Last of all came the delicacies, — snipes by the dozen, a pheasant in perfect order, and with them a slice of tunny fish, quite fresh. Naturally, the gourmand was hors du combat. As a joke, it was successful ; as an act of hospitality, it was a cruelty ; as pointing a moral and adorning a tale, it may be useful. This anecdote has its historical value as showing us that the present procession of soup, fish, roast, entree, game, and dessert was not observed one hun- dred years ago, as a fish was served after beef and after turkey. Dr. Johnson describes a dinner at Mrs. Thrales which shows us what was considered luxurious a hundred years ago. " The dinner was excellent. First course : soups at head and foot, removed by fish and a saddle of mut- ton. Second course : a fowl they call galenan at head, a capon larger than our Irish turkeys at foot. Third course : four different ices, — pineapple, grape, raspberry, and a fourth. In each remove four dishes ; the first two courses served on massive plate." These "gentlemen of England who live at home at ease," these earls by the king's grace, viceroys of India, 3 34 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. clerks and rich commoners, would laugh at this dinner to-day ; so would our clubmen, our diners at Delmonico's, our millionnaires. Imagine the feelings of that chef who received ten thousand a year, with absolute power of life or death, with a wine-cellar which is a fortress of which he alone knows the weakest spot, — what would he sa>' to such a dinner? But there are dinners where the gradation is perfect, where luxury stimulates the brain as Chateau Yquem bathes the throat. It would seem as if the Golden Age, the age of Leo X. had come back; and our nine- teenth century shows all the virtues of the art of en- tertaining since the days of Lucullus, purified of the enormities, including dining at eleven in the morning, of the intermediate ages. It must not be forgotten that this simplicity which is so commended can only be obtained by the most studied, artful care. As Gray's Elegy reads as the most consummately easy and plain poetry in the world, so that we feel that we have but to sit down at the writing- desk and indite one exactly like it, we learn in giving a little, simple, perfect dinner that its combinations must be faultless. Gray wrote every verse of his immortal poem over many times. The hostess who learns enough art to conceal art in her simple dinner has achieved that perfection in her art which Gray reached. Perfect and simple cookery are, like perfect beauty, very rare. However, if the art of entertaining makes hostesses, hostesses must make the art of entertaining. It is for them to decide the juste milieu between the not enough and the great too much. BREAKFAST. Before breakfast a man feels but queasily, And a sinking at the lower abdomen Begins the day with indifferent omen. Browning. — The Flight of the Dtuhess, And then to breakfast with what appetite you have. Shakspeare. BREAKFxA.ST is a hard thing to manage in America, particularly in a country-house, as people have different ideas about eating a hearty meal at nine o'clock or earlier. All who have lived much in Europe are apt to prefer the Continental fashion of a cup of tea or coffee in one's room, with perhaps an egg and a roll ; then to do one's work or pleasure, as the case may be, and to take the dejeuner a la fourchette at eleven or twelve. To most brain-workers this is a blessed boon, for the heavy American breakfast of chops, steaks, eggs, force- meat balls, sausages, broiled chicken, stewed potatoes, baked beans, and hot cakes, good as it is, is apt to render a person stupid. It would be better if this meal could be rendered less heavy, and that a visitor should always be given the alternative of taking a cup of tea in her room, and not appearing until luncheon. The breakfast dishes most to be commended may begin with the omelet. This the French make to per- fection. Indeed, Gustav Droz wrote a story once for the 36 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. purpose of giving its recipe. The story is of a young couple lost in a forest, who take refuge in a wood-cutter's hut. They ask for food, and are told that they can have an omelet : " The old woman had gone to fetch a frying-pan, and was then throwing a handful of shavings on the fire. " In the midst of this strange and rude interior Louise seemed to me so fine and delicate, so elegant, with her \orig gaitts de Suede, her little boots, and her tucked-up skirts. With her two hands stretched out she sheltered her face from the flames, and from the corner of her eye, while I was talking with the splitters, she watched the butter that began to sing in the frying-pan. " Suddenly she rose, and taking the handle of the frying-pan from the old woman's hand, * Let me help you make the omelet,' she said. The good woman let go the pan with a smile, and Louise found herself alone in the position of a fisherman at the moment when his float begins to bob. The fire hardly threw any light ; her eyes were fixed on the liquid butter, her arms outstretched, and she was biting her lips a little, doubtless to increase her strength. " ' It is a bit heavy for Madame's little hands,' said the old man. ' I bet that it is the first time you ever made an omelet in a wood-cutter's hut, is it not, my little lady?' " Louise made a sign of assent without removing her eyes from the frying-pan. " ' The eggs ! the eggs ! ' she cried all at once, with such an expression of alarm that we all burst out laugh- ing. ' The eggs ! the butter is bubbling ! quick, quick ! ' '' The old woman was beating the eggs with animation. ' And the herbs ! ' cried the old man. * And the bacon, BREAKFAST. 37 and the salt,* said the young man. Then we all set to work, chopping the herbs and cutting the bacon, while Louisa cried, ' Quick ! quick ! ' " At last there was a big splash in the frying-pan, and the great act began. We all stood around the fire watching anxiously, for each having had a finger in the pie, the result interested us all. The good old woman, kneeling down by the dish, lifted up with her knife the corners of the omelet, which was beginning to brown. " ' Now Madame has only to turn it,' said the old woman. " ' A little sharp jerk,' said the old man. " ' Not too strong,' said the young man. " ' One jerk ! houp ! my dear,' said I. " ' If you all speak at once I shall never dare ; besides, it is very heavy, you know — ' " ' One little sharp jerk — ' " ' But I cannot — it will all go into the fire — oh ! ' ** In the heat of the action her hood had fallen ; she was red as a peach, her eyes glistened, and in spite of her anxiety, she burst out laughing. At last, after a supreme effort, the frying-pan executed a rapid move- ment and the omelette rolled, a little heavily I must confess, on the large plate which the old woman held. " Never was there a finer-looking omelet." This is an excellent description of the dish which is made for you at every little cabaret in France, as well as at the best hotels. That dexterous turn of the wrist by which the omelet is turned over is, however, hard to reach. Let any lady try it. I have been taken into the kitchen in a hotel in the Riviera to see a cook who was so dexterous as to turn the frying-pan over entirely, without spilling the omelet. 38 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. However, they are innumerable, the omelet family, plain, and with parsley, the fancy omelet, ana the creamy omelet. Learn to make every sort from any cooking-book, and your family will never starve. Conquer the art of toasting bacon with a fork ; it is a fine relish for your egg, no matter how cooked. To fry good English bacon in a pan until it is hard, is to disfigure one of Fortune's best gifts. Study above all things to learn how to produce good toast ; not all the cooks in the great kingdom or empire or republic of France (whatever it may be at this minute) can produce a good slice of toast. They call it J>ain roti, and well they may ; for after the poor bread has been burned they put it in the oven and roast it. No human being can eat it. It is taken away and grated up for sawdust. They make delicious toast in England, and in a few houses in America. The bread should be a little stale, the slice cut thin, the fire perfect, a toasting-fork should hold it before coals, which are as bright as Juno's eyes. It should be a delicate brown, dropped on a hot plate, fresh butter put on at once, and then, ah ! 't would tempt the dying anchorite to eat. Then conquer cream toast ; and there is an exalted substance called Boston brown bread which is delicious, toasted and boiled in milk. Muffins are generally failures in these United States. Why, after conquering the English, we cannot conquer their muffins, I do not know. They are well worth repeated efforts. We make up on our hot biscuits and rolls; and as for our waffles, griddle -cakes, and Sally Lunns, we distance competition. Do not believe that they are unhealthy ! Nothing that is well cooked is unhealthy to everybody ; and all things which are good BREAKFAST. 39 are unhealthy to somebody. Every one must determine for himself what is healthy and unhealthy. A foreign breakfast in France consists of eggs in some form, — frequently au beurre not?', which is butter melted in a little vinegar and allowed to brown, — a stew of vegetables and meat, a little cold meat (tongue, ham, or cold roast beef,) a very good salad, a small dish of stewed fruit 01 a little pastry, cheese, fruit, and coffee, and always red wine. Or perhaps an omelet or egg au plat (simply dropped on a hot plate), mutton cutlets, and fried pota- toes, perhaps stewed pigeons, with spinach or green peas, or trout from the lake, followed by a beefsteak, with highly flavoured Alpine strawberries or fresh apricots or figs, then all eating is done for the day, until seven o'clock dinner. This is of course the mid-day dejeihier a la fourchette. At the earlier breakfast a Swiss hotel offers only coffee, rolls, butter, and honey. All sorts of stews — kidney, liver, chicken, veal, and beef — are good, and every sort of httle pan-fish. In our happy country we can add the oyster stew, or the lobster in cream, the familiar sausage, and the hereditary hash ; if any one knows how to make good corned-beef hash she need not fear to entertain the king. There are those who know how to broil a chicken, but they are few, — " Amongst the few, the immortal names which are not born to die." There are others, also few, who know how to broil ham so that it will not be hard, and on it to drop the egg so that it be like Saturn, — a golden ball in a ring of silver. Amongst the good dishes and cheap dishes which I have seen served in France for a breakfast I recommend lambs' feet in a white sauce, with a suspicion of onion. 40 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. All sorts of fricassees and warmed over things can be made most deliciously for breakfast. Many people lite a salt mackerel or a broiled herring for breakfast; ;liese are good avant gouts, stimulating the appetite. The Danes and Swedes have every form of dried fish, and even some strange fowl served in this way. Dried beef served up with eggs is comforting to some stomachs. Smoked salmon appeals to others ; and people with an ostrich digestion like toasted cheese or Welsh rarebits. The fishball of our forefathers is a supreme delicacy if well made, as is creamed codfish ; but warmed over pie, or warmed over mutton or beef, are detestable. The appetite is in a parlous state at nine o'clock and needs to be tempted ; a bit of breakfast bacon, a bit of toast, an ^gg, and a fresh slice of melon or a cold sliced tomato in summer, voila tout! as the French say. Begin with the melon or a plate of strawberries. These early breakfasts at nine o'clock may be followed by the hot cake, but later on the dejeuner a la fourchette, which with us becomes luncheon, demands another order of meal, as we have seen, more like a plain dinner. It is a great comfort to the housekeeper, or to the lady who has been imprisoned behind the tea and coffee pot that she may serve thence a large family, to some- times escape and have both tea and coifee served from the side tables. Of course, for a small and intimate breakfast there is nothing like the " steaming urn," and the tea made by the lady at the table ; and the Hon. Thomas H. Benton declared that he "liked to drink his tea from a cup which had been washed by a lady." Woman is the genius of the tea-kettle. To make a good cup of coffee is a rare accomplishment. Perhaps the old method is as good as any : a small BREAKFAST. 4 1 cupfu! of roasted and ground coffee, one third Mocha and two thirds Java, a small tgg, shell and all, broken into the pot with the dry coffee. Stir well with a spoon and then pour on three pints of boiling water ; let it boil from five to ten minutes, counting from the time it begins to boil. Then pour in a cupful of cold water, and turn a little of the coffee into a cup to see that the nozzle of the pot is not filled with grounds. Turn this back, and let the coffee stand a few minutes to settle, taking care that it does not boil again. The advantages of boiled egg with coffee is, that the yolk gives a rich flavour and good colour; also the shells and the white keep the grounds in order, settUng them at the bottom of the pot. But the most economical and the easiest way of mak- ing coffee is by filtering. The French coffee biggin should be used. It consists of two cylindrical tin ves- sels, one fitting into the other, the bottom of the upper being a fine strainer. Another coarser strainer, with a rod coming from the centre, is placed on this. Then the coffee, which must be finely ground, is put in, and another strainer is placed on the top of the rod. The boiling water is poured on, and the pot set where it will keep hot, but not boil, until the water has gone through. This will make a clear, strong coffee with a rich, smooth flavour. The advantage of the two strainers is, that the one coming next to the fine strainer prevents the grounds from filling up the fine holes, and so the coffee is clear, — a grand desideratum. Boiled milk should be served with coffee for an early breakfast. Clear coffee, ca/e noi'r, is served after dinner, and in France, always after the twelve o'clock breakfast. 42 For a nine o'clock breakfast the hostess shou/d also serve tea, and perhaps chocolate, if she has a large family of guests, as all cannot drink coffee for breakfast. Pigs' feet a la poulette find favour in Paris, and are delicious as prepared there; also calf's liver i I'Alsa- cienne. Chicken livers are very nice, and cod's tongues with black butter cannot be surpassed. Mutton kidneys with bacon are desirable, and all the livers and kidneys en brochette with bacon, empaled on a spit, are excellent. Hashed lamb a la Zingara is highly peppered and very good. Broiled fish, broiled chicken, broiled ham, broiled steak and chops are always good for breakfast. The gridiron made Saint Lawrence fit for heaven, and its qualities have been elevating and refining ever since. The summer breakfast can be very nice. Crab, clam, lobster, — all are admirable. Fresh fish should be served whenever one can get it. Devilled kidneys and broiled bones do for supper, but fresh fish and easily digested food should replace these heavier dainties for breakfast. Stewed fruit is much used on the Continent at an early breakfast. It is thought to avert dyspepsia. Americans prefer to eat fruit fresh, and therefore have not learned to stew it. Stewing is, however, a branch of cookery well worth the attention of a first-class housekeeper. It makes canned fruit much better to stew it with sugar. Stewed cherries are delicious and very healthy ; and all the berries, even if a little stale, can be stewed into a good dish, as can the dried fruits, like prunes, etc. Stewed pears make an elegant dessert served with whipped cream ; but this is too rich for breakfast. Baked pears with cream are sometimes offered, and eggs in every form, — scrambled, dropped, boiled, stuffed, and BREAKFAST. 43 even boiled hard, sliced and dressed as a salad. " What is so good as an egg salad for a hungry person? " asked a hostess in the Adirondacks who had nothing else to offer ! Eggs are the staple for breakfast. Ham omelet with a little parsley, lamb chops with green peas, tripe a la Bourdelaise, hashed turkey, hashed chicken with cream, and breaded veal with tomato sauce, calf's brains with a black butter, stewed veal a la Chasseur, broiled shad's roe, broiled soft- shell clams, minced tenderloin with Lyonnaise potatoes, blue-fish au gratin, broiled steak with water-cress, picked-up codfish, and smoked beef in cream are of the thousand and one delicacies for the early breakfast, — if one can eat them. It is better to eat a saucer of oatmeal and cream at nine o'clock, take a cup of tea, and do one's work ; then at twelve to sit down to as good a breakfast as possible, — a regular dejeuner a la foicrchette. The digestion is then active ; the brain after several hours work needs repose, and at one or two o'clock can go to work again like a giant refreshed. An early breakfast with meat is thought by foreign doctors not to be good for children. But in France they give children wine at a very early age, which is rarely done in this country. At all boarding-schools and hospitals wine is given to young children. Certainly there are fewer drunkards and fewer dyspeptics in France than in America. Brillat Savarin says of coffee, "It is beyond doubt that coffee acts upon the functions of the brain as an excitant." Voltaire and Buffon drank a great deal of coffee. If it deprives persons of sleep it should never be taken. It is to many a poison ; and hospitals are full 44 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. of men maae cripples by the immoderate stimulus of coffee. The Spanish people live and flourish on choco- late ; introduced into Spain during the seventeenth century, it crossed the Pyrenees with Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip II. and wife of Louis XIII., and at the commencement of the Regency was more in vogue than coffee. Many modern writers advise a good cup of chocolate at breakfast as wholesome and easily digested, and it is good for clergymen, lawyers, and travellers. In America it is considered heavy and headachy ; and doubtless the climate has something to do with this. Cocoa and the lighter preparations of chocolate are good at sea, and very comforting to those who find their nerves too much on the alert to stand coffee or tea. Every one must con- sult his own health and taste in this as in all matters. The boldest attempts to increase the enjoyments of the palate, or to tell people what they shall eat or drink, are constantly overthrown by some subtile enemy in the stomach; and breakfasts should especially be so light that they can tickle the palate without disturbing the brain. A red herring is a good appetizer. " Meet me at breakfast alone, And then I will give you a dish Which really deserves to be known, Though 't is not the genteelest of fish. You must promise to come, for I said A splendid red herring I 'd buy. Nay, turn not aside your proud head ; You '11 like it, I know, when you try. " If moisture the herring betray, Drain till from the moisture 't is free. Warm it through in the usual way, Then serve it for you and for me. BREAKFAST. 45 A piece of cold butter prepare, To rub it when ready it lies ; Egg sauce and potatoes don't spare, And the flavour will cause you surprise." It is not only the man who has eaten a heavy supper the night before ; it is not only the heavy drinker, al- though brandy and soda are not the best of appetite pro- vokers, so they say ; but it is also the brainworker who finds it impossible to eat in the morning. For sleep has the effect of eating. Who sleeps, eats, says the French proverb; and we often find healthy children unwilling to eat an early breakfast. Appetites vary both in indi- viduals and at various seasons of the year. Nothing can be more unwise than to make children eat when they do not wish to do so. During the summer months we are all of us less inclined for food than when sharp set by hard exercise in the frosty air ; and we loathe in July what we like in winter. » The heavy domestic breakfast of steak and mutton- chops in summer is often repellent to a dehcate child. The perfection of good living is to have what you want exactly when you want it. A slice of fresh melon, a plate of strawberries, a thin slice of bread and butter may be much better for breakfast in summer than the baked beans and stewed codfish of a later season. Do not force a child to eat even a baked potato if he does not like it. It is maintained by some that a strong will can keep off sea-sickness or any other malady. This is a fallacy. No strong will can make a delicate stomach digest a heavy breakfast at nine o'clock. Therefore we begin and end with the same idea, — breakfast is a hard thing to man- age in America. 46 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. In England, however, it is a very happy-go-lucky meal ; and although the essentials are on the table, peo- ple are privileged to rise and help themselves from the sideboard. I may say that I have never seen a fashion- able EngUsh hostess at a nine o'clock breakfast, although the meal is always ready for those who wish it. For sending breakfasts to rooms, trays are prepared with teapot, sugar, and cream, a plate of toast, eggs boiled, with cup, spoon, salt and pepper, a little pat of butter, and if desired a plate of chops or chicken, plates, knives, forks, and napkins. For an English country- house the supply of breakfast trays is like that of a hotel. The pretty little Satsuma sets of small teapot, cream jug, and sugar-bowl, are favourites. When breakfast is served in the dining-room, a white cloth is generally laid, although some ladies prefer vari- ously coloured linen, with napkins to match. A vase of flowers or a dish of fruit should be placed in the centre. The table is then set as for dinner, with smaller plates„ and all sorts of pretty china, like an egg dish with a hen sitting contentedly, a butter plate with a recumbent cow, a sardine dish with fishes in Majolica, — in fact, any suggestive fancy. Hot plates for a winter break- fast in a plate-warmer near the table add much to the comfort. Finger bowls with napkins under them should be placed on the sideboard and handed to the guest with the fruit. It is a matter of taste as to whether fruit pre- cedes or finishes the breakfast ; and the servant must watch the decision of the guest. A grand breakfast to a distinguished foreigner, oi some great home celebrity at Delmonico's for instance, would be, — BREAKFAST. 47 A table loaded with flowers. Oysters on the half-shell. Chablis. Eggs stuffed. Eggs in black butter, {au beiirre noir). Chops and green peas. Champagne. Lyonnaise potatoes. Sweetbreads. Spinach. Woodcock. Partridges. Salad of lettuce. Claret. Cheese /tpz/fl'z/. Dessert : Charlotte Russe. Fruit Jelly. Ices. Liqueurs. Grapes. Peaches. Pears. Coffee. A breakfast even at twelve o'clock is thus made notice- ably lighter than the meal called lunch. It may be intro- duced by clam juice in cups, or bouillon, but is often served without either. These breakfasts are generally prefaced by a short reception, where all the guests are presented to the foreigner of distinction. There is no formality about leaving. Indeed, these breakfasts are given in order to avoid that. For an ordinary breakfast at nine o'clock in a family of ten, we should say that the menu should be something as follows : The host and hostess being present, the lady makes the tea. Oatmeal and cream would then be offered; after that a broiled chicken would be placed before the host, which he carves if he can. An ome- let is placed before the lady or passed ; stewed pota- toes are passed, and toast or muffins. Hot cakes finish this breakfast, unless fruit is also added. It is con- sidered a very healthful thing to eat an orange before breakfast. But who can eat an orange well? One 48 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. must go to Spain to see that done. The senorita cuts off the rind with her silver knife. Then putting her fork into the peeled fruit, she gently detaches small slices from the pulp, leaving the core and seeds untouched ; passing the fork upward, she detaches every morsel with her pearly teeth, looking very pretty the while, and contrives to eat the whole orange without losing a drop of the juice, and lays down the core with the fork still in it. It seems hardly necessary to say to an American lady that she should be neatly dressed at breakfast. The pretty white morning dresses which are worn in America are rarely seen in Europe, perhaps because of the dif- ference of climate. In England elderly ladies and young married women sometimes appear in very smart tea gowns of dark silk over a colour ; but almost always the young ladies come in the yachting or tennis dresses which they will wear until dinner-time, and almost al- ways in summer, in hats. In America the variety of morning dresses is endless, of which the dark jacket over a white vest, the serviceable merino, the flannel, the dark foulards, are favourites. In summer, thin lawns, percales, Marseilles suits, calicos, and ginghams can be so prettily made as to rival all the other costumes for coquetry and grace. " Still to be neat, still to be drest As she were going to a feast," such should be the breakfast dress of the young matron. It need not be fine ; it need not be expensive ; but it should be neat and becoming. The hair should be carefully arranged, and the feet either in good, stout shoes for the subsequent walk, or in the natty stocking and well fitting slipper, which has moved the poet to such feeling verses, THE LUNCH. " A Gothic window, where a damask curtain Made the blank daylight shadowy and uncertain; A slab of agate on four eagle-talons Held trimly up and neatly taught to balance ; A porcelain dish, o'er which in many a cluster Plump grapes hung down, dead ripe, and without lustre; A melon cut in thin, delicious slices, A cake, that seemed mosaic-work in spices ; Two china cups, with golden tulips sunny, And rich inside, with chocolate like honey ; And she and I the banquet scene completing With dreamy words, and very pleasant eating." IF all lunches could be as poetic and as simple and as luxurious as this, the hostess would have little trouble in giving a lunch. But, alas ! from the slice of cold ham, or chicken, and bread and butter, has grown the grand hunt breakfast, and the ladies' lunch, most delicious of luxurious time-killers. The lunch, therefore, has become in the house of the opulent as elaborate as the dinner. Twenty years ago in England I had the pleasure of lunching with Lord Houghton, and I well remember the simplicity of that meal. A cup of bouillon, a joint of mutton, roasted, and carved by the host, a tart, some peaches, very fine hot- house fruit, and a glass of sherry was all that was served on a very plain table to twenty guests. But what a company of wits, belles, and beauties we had to eat it ! I once lunched with Browning on a much simpler bill of fare. I have lunched at the beauti- ful house of Sir John Millais on what might have been a 4 50 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. good family dinner with us. And I have lunched in Hampton Court, in the apartments of Mr. Beresford, now dead, who was a friend of George the Fourth and an old Tory whipper-in, on a slice of cold meat, a cutlet, a gooseberry tart, and some strawberries as large as toma- toes from the garden which was once Anne Boleyn's. What a great difference between these lunches and a ladies' lunch in New York, which, laid for twenty-eight people, offers every kind of wine, every luxury of fish, flesh, and fowl, flowers which exhibit the most over- whelming luxury of an extravagant period, fruits and bon- bons and bonboimih'es, painted fans to carry home, with ribbons on which is painted one's monogram, etc. I have seen summer wild- flowers in winter at a ladies' lunch, as the last concession to a fancy for what is un- usual. The order having been given in September, the facile gardener raised these flowers for this especial lunch. Far more expensive than roses at a dollar apiece is this bringing of May into January. It is impossible to say where luxury should stop ; and, if people can afford it, there is no necessity for its stopping. It is only to be regretted that luxury frightens those who might like to give simple lunches. A lunch-party of ladies should not be crowded, as handsome gowns take up a great deal of room ; and there- fore a lunch for ten ladies in a moderate house is better than a larger number. As ladies always wear their bon- nets the room should not be too hot. The menu is very much the same as a dinner, except- ing the soup. In its place cups of bouillon or of clam juice, boiled with cream and a bit of sherry, are placed before each plate. There follows presumably a plate of lobster croquettes with a rich sauce, filet de dceuf with THE LUNCH. 5 1 truffles and mushrooms, sweetbread and green peas, per- haps asparagus or cauliflower. Then comes so7'bet, or Roman punch, much needed to cool the palate and to invigorate the appetite for further delicacies. The Roman punch is now often served in very fanciful frozen shapes of ice, resembling roses, or fruit of various kinds. If a lady is not near a confectioner she should learn to make this herself. It is very easy, if one only compounds it at first with care. Maraschino cordial or fine old Jamaica rum being mixed with water and sugar as for a punch, and well frozen. The game follows, and the salad. These two are often served together. After that the ices and fruit. Cheese is rarely offered at a lady's lunch, excepting in the form of cheese straws. Chateau Yquem, champagne, and claret are the favourite wines. Cordial is offered after- ward with the coffee. A lady's lunch-party is supposed to begin at one o'clock and end at three. It is a delightful way of showing all one's pretty things. At a luncheon in New York I have seen a tablecloth of linen into which has been inserted duchesse lace worth, doubtless, several hundred dollars, the napkins all trimmed with duchesse, worth at least twenty dollars apiece. This elegant drapery was thrown over a woollen broad- cloth underpiece of a pale lilac. In the middle of the table was a grand epergne of the time of Louis Seize ; the glass and china were superb. At the proper angle stood silver and gold cups, orna- mental pitchers, and claret jugs. At every lady's plate stood a splendid bouquet tied with a long satin ribbon, and various small favours, as fans and fanciful menus were given. ^s the lunch went on we were treated to new surprises 52 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. of napery and of Sevres plates. The napkins became Russian, embroidered with gold thread, as the spoons and forks were also of Russian silver and gold, beautifully enamelled. Then came those embroidered with heraldic animals, — the Hon and the two-headed eagle and griffin, — the monogram gracefully intertwined. Plates were used, apparently of solid gold and beautiful workmanship. The Roman punch was hidden in the heart of a water lily, which looked uncommonly innocent with its heart of fire. The service of this lunch was so perfect that we did not see how we were served ; it all moved as if to music. Pleasant chat was the only addi- tion which our hostess left for us to add to her hospital- ity. I have lunched at many great houses all over the world, but I have never seen so luxurious a picture as this lunch was. It has been a question whether oysters on the half- shell should be served at a lady's lunch. For my part I think that they should, although many ladies prefer to begin with the bouillon. All sorts of hors d^osuvres, like olives, anchovies, and other relishes, are in order. In summer, ladies sometimes serve a cold luncheon, beginning with iced bouillon, salmon covered with a green sauce, cold birds and salads, ices and strawberries, or peaches frozen in cream. Cold asparagus dressed as a salad is very good at this meal. In English country-houses the luncheon is a very solid meal, beginning with a stout roast with hot vegetables, while chicken salad, a cold ham, and various meat pies stand on the sideboard. The gentlemen get up and help the ladies ; the servants, after going about once or twice, often leave the room that conversation may be more free. THE LUNCH. 53 It might well improve the young housekeeper to study the question of potted meats, the preparation of Melton veal, the various egg salads, as well as those of potato, of lobster and chicken, so that she may be prepared with dishes for an improvised lunch. Particularly in the country should this be done. The etiquette of invitations for a ladies' lunch is the same as that of a dinner. They are sent out a fortnight before ; they are carefully engraved, or they are written on note paper. Mrs. Somerville Requests the pleasure of Mrs. Montgomery's Company at lunch on Thursday, 15th, at I o'clock. R. S. V. P. This should be answered at once, and the whole engage- ment treated with the gravity of a dinner engagement. These lunch-parties are very convenient for ladies who, from illness or indisposition to society, cannot go out in the evening. It is also very convenient if the lady of the house has a husband who does not like society and who finds a dinner-party a bore. The usual custom is for ladies to dress in dark street dresses, and their very best. That with an American lady means much, for an American husband stops at no expense. Worth says that American women are the best customers he has, — far better than queens. The latter ask the price, and occasionally haggle ; American women may ask the price, but the order is, the very best you can do. Luncheons are very fashionable in England, especially on Sunday. These lunches, although luxurious, are by 54 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. no means the costly spreads which American women indulge in. They are attended by gentlemen as well as ladies, for in a land where a man does not go to the House of Commons until five in the afternoon he may well lunch with his family. What time did our fore- fathers lunch? In the reign of Francis the First the polite French rose at five, dined at nine, supped at five, and went to bed at nine. Froissart speaks of " waiting upon the Duke of Lancaster at five in the afternoon after he had supped." If our ancestors dined at nine, when did they lunch? After some centuries the dinner hour grew to be ten in the morning, by which time they had beseiged a town and burned up a dozen heretics, probably to give them a good appetite, a sort of avant gout. The later hours now in vogue did not prevail until after the Restoration. Lunch has remained fastened at one o'clock, for a number of years at least. In England, curiously enough, they give you no napkins at this meal, which certainly requires them. A hunt breakfast in America is, of course, a hearty meal, to which the men and women are asked who have an idea of riding to hounds. It is usually served at little tables, and the meal begins with hot bouillon. It is a heartier meal than a lady's lunch, and as luxurious as the hostess pleases ; but it does not wind up with ices and fruits, although it may begin with an orange. Much more wine is drunk than at a lady's lunch, and yet some hunters prefer to begin the day with tea only. Every- thing should be offered, and what is not liked can be refused. " What is hit, is History, And what is missed is Mystery." THE LUNCH. §5 There are flimous breakfasts in London which are not the early morning meal, neither are they called luncheons. It is the constant habit of the literary world of London to have reunions of scientific and agreeable people early in the day, and what would be called a party in the evening, is called a breakfast. We should call it a reception, except that one is asked at eleven o'clock. But the greatest misnomer of all is the habit in London of giving a dinner, a ball, and a supper out of doors at five o'clock, and calling that a " breakfast." Except that the gentlemen are in morning dress and the ladies in bonnets this has no resemblance to what we call breakfast. Breakfast at nine, or earlier, is a solemn process. It has no great meaning for us, who have our children to send to school, our husbands to prepare for business, ourselves for a busy day or a long journey. For the very luxurious it no longer exists. Luncheon on the contrary is apt to be a lively and exhilarating occasion. It is the best moment in the day to some people. A thousand dollars is not an unusual sum to expend on a lady's lunch in New York for eighteen or twenty- five guests, counting the favours, the flowers, the wines, and the viands, and even then we have not entered into the cost of the china, the glass, porcelain, cloisomie, Dresden, Sevres, and silver, which make the table a picture. The jewelled goblets from Carlsbad, the knives and forks with crystal handles, set in silver, from Bohemia, and the endless succession of beautiful plates, — who shall estimate the cost of all this ? As to the precedence of plates, it is meet that China, oldest of nations, should suffice for the soup. The oysters have already been served on shell-like Majolica. 56 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. England, a maritime nation surrounded by ocean, must furnish the plates for the fish. For the roast, too, what plates so good as Doulton, real English, substantial faience ? For the Bouchers a la Reine and all the entrees we must have Sevres again. Japanese will do for the filet aux champignons^ the venison, the pieces de resistance, as well as English. Japanese plates are strong. But here we are running into dinner; indeed, these two feasts do run into each other. One should not have a roast at ladies' lunch, unless it be a roast pheasant. Dresden china plates painted with fruits and flowers should be used for the dessert. On these choice plates, with perforated edges marked " x\ R " on the back, should lie the ices frozen as natural fruits. We can scarcely tell the frozen banana or peach before us, from the painted banana on our plate. For the candied fruit, we must again have Sevres. Then a gold dish filled with rose-water must be passed. We dip a bit of the napkin in it, for in this country we do have napkins with our luncheon, and wipe our lips and fingers. This is called a trempoir. The cordials at the end of the dinner must be served in cups of Russian gold filagree supporting glass. There is an analogy between the rival, luscious richness of the cordial and the cup. The coffee-cups must be thin as egg-shells, of the most delicate French or American china. We make most delicate china and porcelain cups ourselves nowa- days, at Newark, Trenton, and a dozen other places. There is a vast deal of waste in ofl"ering so much wine THE LUNCH. 57 at a ladies' lunch. American women cannot drink much wine ; the climate forbids it. We have not been brought up on beer, or on anything more stimulating than ice- water. Foreign physicians say that this is the cause of all our woes, our dyspepsia, our nervous exhaustion, our rheumatism and hysteria. I believe that climate and constitution decide these things for us. We are not prone to over- eat ourselves, to drink too much wine ; and if the absence of these grosser tastes is visible in pale cheeks and thin arms, is not that better than the other extreme? All entertaining can go on perfectly well without wine, if people so decide. It would be impossible, however, to make many poetical quotations without an allusion to the " ruby," as Dick Swiveller called it. Since Cleopatra dissolved the pearl, the wine-cup has held the gems of human fancy. Champagne Cup : One pint bottle of soda water, one quart dry champagne, one wine-glass of brandy, a few fresh strawberries, a peach quartered, sugar to taste ; cracked ice. Another recipe : One quart dry champagne, one pint bottle of Rhine wine, fruit and ice as above ; cracked ice. Mix in a large pitcher. Claret Cup : One bottle of claret, one pint bottle of soda water, one wine-glass brandy, half a wine-glass of lemon- juice, half a pound of lump sugar, a few slices of fresh cucumber ; mix in cracked ice. ^^int Julep : Fresh mint, a few drops of orange bitters and Maraschino, a small glass of liqueur, brandy or whiskey, put in a tumbler half full of broken ice ; shake well, and serve with fruit on top with straws. Another recipe for Miiif Julep : Half a glass of port wine, a few drops of Maraschino, mint, sugar, a thin slice of lemon, shake the cracked ice from glass to glass, add strawberry or pineapple. 58 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Turkish Sherbets : Extract by pressure or infusion the rich juice and fine perfume of any of the odouriferous flowers or fruits; mix them in any number or quantity to taste. When these essences, extracts, or infusions are pre- pared they may be immediately used by adding a proper proportion of sugar or syrup ; and water. Some acid fruits, such as lemon or pomegranate, are used to raise the flavour, but not to overpower the chief perfume. Fill the cup with cracked ice and add what wine or spirit is preferred. Claret Cobbler : One bottle wine, one bottle ApoUinaris or Seltzer, one lemon, half a pound of sugar ; serve with ice. Champagne Cobbler : One bottle of champagne, one half bottle of white wine, much cracked ice, strawberries, peaches or sliced oranges. Shej'ry Cobbler: Full wine-glass of sherry, very little brandy, sugar, sliced lemon, cracked ice. This is but one tumblerful. Kiurunel : This liqueur is very good served with shaved ice in small green claret-cups. Punch : One bottle Arrack, one bottle brandy, two quart bottles dry champagne, one tumblerful of orange curagoa, one pound of cracked sugar, half a dozen lemons sliced, half a dozen oranges sliced. Fill the bowl with large lump of ice and add one quart of water. Sha7idygaff : London porter and ginger ale, half and half. AFTERNOON TEA. *' And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in." WHATEVER objections can be urged against all other systems of entertaining, including the ex- pense, the bore it is to a gentleman to have his house turned inside out, the fatigue to the lady, the disorganiza- tion of domestic service, nothing can be said against afternoon tea, unless that it may lead to a new disease, the delirium teamens. There is danger to nervous women in our climate in too great indulgence in this delicious beverage. It sometimes murders sleep and impairs digestion. We cannot claim that it is always safer than opium. It was very much abused in England in 1678, ten years after Lords Arlington and Ossory brought it over from the meditative Dutchman, who was the first European to appreciate it. It was then called a ** black water with an acrid taste." It cost, however, in England sixty shillings a pound, so that it must have been fashionable. Pepys in his diary records that he sent for a cup of tea, a " China drink which he had not used before." He did not like it, but then he did not like the " Midsummer Night's Dream." " The most insipid, ridiculous play I ever saw in my life," he writes; so we 4o not care what he thought about a blessed cup of tea. 60 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. In the middle of the sixteenth century, with pasties and ale for breakfast, with sugared cakes and spiced wines at various hours of the day, with solid " noonings," and suppers with strong potations of sack and such possets as were the ordinary refreshments, it is not prob- able that tea would have been appreciated. The Dutch were crafty, however ; they saw that there was a common need of a hot, rather stimulating beverage, which had no intoxicating effects. They exported sage enough to pay for the tea, and got the better of even the wily Chinaman, who avowed some time after, in their trade with America, "That spent tea-leaves, dried again, were good enough for second-chop Enghshmen." Jonas Haunay wrote a treatise against tea- drinking in Johnson's time, and that vast, insatiable, and shameless tea-drinker took up the cudgels for tea, settling it as a brain-inspirer for all time, and wrote Rasselas on the strength of it. Cobbett wrote against its use by the labouring classes, and the " Edinburgh Review " endorsed his arguments, stating that a " prohibition absolute and uncompromising of the noxious beverage was the first step toward insuring health and strength for the poor," and asserting that when a labourer fancied himself refreshed with a mess of this stuff, sweetened with the coarsest brown sugar and diluted by azure- blue milk, it was only the warmth of the water which consoled him for the moment. Cobbett claimed that the tea-table cost more to support than would keep two children at nurse. The " Quarterly Review " in an article written perhaps by the most famous chemist of the day, said, however, that " tea relieves the pains of hunger rather by mechan- ical distention than by supplying the waste of nature by adequate sustenance," but claimed for it the power of AFTERNOON TEA. 6 1 calm, placid, and benignant exhilaration, greatly stimulat- ing the stomach, when fatigued by digestive exertion, and acting as an appropriate diluent of the chyle. More recent inquiries into the qualities of the peculiar power of tea have tended to raise it in popular esteem, although no one has satisfactorily explained why it has become so universally necessary to the human race. An agreeable little book called ''The Beverages We Indulge In," "The Herbs Which We Infuse," or some such title, had a great deal to do with the adoption of tea as a drink for young men who were training for a boat- race, or who desired to economize their strength for a mountain climb. But every one, from the tired washer- woman to the student, the wrestler, the fine lady, and the strong man, demands a cup of tea. To the invalid it is the dearest solace, dangerous though it may be. Tannin, the astringent element in tea, is bad for delicate stomachs and seems to ruin appe- tite. Tea, therefore, should never be allowed to stand. Hot water poured on the leaves and poured off into a cup can hardly afford the tannin time to get out. Some tea- drinkers even put the grounds in a silver ball, perforated, and swing this through a cup of boiling water, and in this way is produced the most delicate cup of tea. The famous Chinese lyric which is painted on almost all the teapots of the Empire is highly poetical. " On a slow fire set a tripod ; fill it with clear rain-water. Boil it as long as it would be needed to turn fish white and lobsters red. Throw this upon the delicate leaves of choice tea ; let it remain as long as the vapour rises in a cloud. At your ease drink the pure liquor, which will chase away the five causes of trouble." The "tea of the cells of the Dragons," the purest 62 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Pekoe from the leaf-buds of three-year-old plants, no one ever sees in Europe ; but we have secured many brands of tea which are sufficiently good, and the famous Indian tea brought in by the great Exposition in Paris in 1889 is fast gaining an enviable reputation. It has a perfect bouquet and flavour. Green tea, beloved by our grandmothers and still a favourite with some connois- seurs, has proved to have so much theine, the element of intoxication in tea, that it is forbidden to nervous people. Tea saves food by its action in preventing various wastes to the system. It is thus peculiarly acceptable to elderly persons, and to the tired labouring- woman. Doubtless Mrs. Gamp's famous teapot with which she entertained Betsy Prig contained green tea. There is an unusually large amount of nitrogen in theine, and green tea possesses so large a proportion of it as to be positively dangerous. In the process of dry- ing and roasting, this volatile oil is engendered. The Chinese dare not use it for a year after the leaf has been prepared, and the packer and unpacker of the tea suifer much from paralysis. The tasters of tea become fre- quently great invalids, unable to eat ; therefore om favourite herb has its dangers. More consoling is the legend of the origin of the plant. A drowsy hermit, after long wrestling with sleep, cut off his eyelids and cast them on the ground. From them sprang a shrub whose leaves, shaped like eyelids and bordered with a fringe of lashes, possessed the power of warding off sleep. This was in the third century, and the plant was tea. But what has all this to do with that pleasant visage of a steaming kettle boihng over a blazing alcohol lamp, the silver tea-caddy, the padded cozy to keep the teapot AFTERNOON TEA. 6^ Warm, the basket of cake, the thin bread and butter, the pretty girl presiding over the cups, the delicate china, the more delicate infusion? All these elements go to make up the afternoon tea. From one or two ladies who stayed at home one day in the week and offered this refreshment, to the many who came to find that it was a very easy method of entertaining, grew the present party in the daytime. The original five o'clock tea arose in England from the fact that ladies and gentlemen after hunting required some slight refreshment before dressing for dinner, and liked to meet for a Httle chat. It now is used as the method of introducing a daughter, and an ordinary way of entertaining. The primal idea was a good one. People who had no money for grand spreads were enabled to show to their more opulent neighbours that they too had the spirit of hospitality. The doctors discovered that tea was healthy. English breakfast tea would keep nobody awake. The cup of tea and the sandwich at five would spoil nobody's dinner. The ladies who began these entertainments, receiving modestly in plain dresses, were not out of tone with their guests who came in walking-dress. But then the other side was this, — ladies had to go to nine teas of an afternoon, perhaps taste something everywhere. Hence the new disease, deli7'ium teame7is. It was uncomfortable to assist at a large party in a heavy winter garment of velvet and fur. The afternoon tea lost its primitive character and became an evening party in the daytime, with the hostess and her daughters in full dress, and her guests in walking-costume. The sipping of so much tea produces the nervous prostration, the sleeplessness, the nameless misery of our overwrought women; and thus a healthful, inexpensive 64 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. and most agreeable adjunct to the art of entertaining grew into a thing without a name, and became the large, gas- lighted ball at five o'clock, where half the ladies were in decollete dresses, the others in fur tippets. It was pro- nounced a breeder of influenzas, and the high road to a headache. If a lady can be at home every Thursday during the season, and always at her position behind the blazing urn, and will have the firmness to continue this practice, she may create a salon out of her teacups. In giving a large afternoon tea for which cards have been sent out, the hostess should stand by the drawing- room door and greet each guest, who, after a few words, passes on. In the adjoining room, usually the dining- room, a large table is spread with a white cloth ; and at one end is a tea service with a kettle of water boiling over an alcohol lamp, while at the other end is a service for chocolate. There should be flowers on the table, and dishes containing bread and butter cut as thin as a shaving. Cake and strawberries are always permissible. One or two servants should be in attendance to carry away soiled cups and saucers, and to keep the table look- ing fresh ; but for the pouring of the tea and chocolate there should always be a lady, who like the hostess should wear a gown closed to the throat ; for nothing is worse form now-a-days than full dress before dinner. The ladies of the house should not wear bonnets. When tea is served every afternoon at five o'clock, whether or no there are visitors, as is often the case in many houses, the servant — who, if a woman, should always in the afternoon wear a plain black gown, with a white cap and apron — should place a small, low table before the lady of the house, and lay over it a pretty AFTERNOON TEA. 65 white cloth. She should then bring in a large tray, upon which are the tea service, and a plate of bread and butter, or cake, or both, place it upon the table, and re- tire, — remaining within call, though out of sight, in case she should be needed. The best rule for making tea is the old-fashioned one : " one teaspoonful for each per- son and one for the pot." The pot should first be rinsed with hot water, then the tea put in, and upon it should be poured enough water, actually boiling, to cover the leaves. This decoction should stand for five min- utes, then fill up the pot with more boiling water, and pour it immediately. Some persons prefer lemon in their tea to cream, and it is a good plan to have some thin slices, cut for the purpose, placed in a pretty little dish on the tray. A bowl of cracked ice is also a pleas- ant addition in summer, iced tea being a most refresh- ing drink in hot weather. Neither plates nor napkins need appear at this informal and cosey meal. A guest arriving at this time in the afternoon should always be offered a cup of tea. Afternoon tea, in small cities or in the country, in villages and academic towns, can well be made a most agreeable and ideal entertainment, for the official pre- sentation of a daughter or for the means of seeing one's friends. In the busy winter season of a large city it should not be made the excuse for giving up the even- ing party, or the dinner, lunch, or ball. It is not all these, it is simply itself, and it should be a refuge for those women who are tired of balls, of over dressing, dancing, visiting, and shopping. It is also very dear to the young who find the convenient tea-table a good arena for flirtation. It is a form of entertainment which allows one to dispense with etiquette and to save time. 5 66 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Five-o'clock teas should be true to their name, nor should any other refreshment be offered than tea, bread and butter, and little cakes. If other eatables are of- fered the tea becomes a reception. There is a high tea which takes the place of dinner on Sunday evenings in cities, which is a very pretty entertainment ; in small rural cities, in the country, they take the place of dinners. They were formerly very fashionable in Philadelphia. It gave an oppor- tunity to oifer hot rolls and butter, escalloped oysters, fried chicken, delicately sliced cold ham, waffles and hot cakes, preserves — alas ! since the days of canning, who offers the delicious preserves of the pasti^ The hostess sits behind her silver urn and pours the hot tea or coffee or chocolate, and presses the guest to take an- other waffle. It is a delightful meal, and has no proto- type in any country but our own. It is doubtful, however, whether the high tea will ever be popular in America, in large cities at least, where the custom of seven-o'clock dinners prevails. People find in them a violent change of living, which is always a challenge to indigestion. Some wit has said that he always liked to eat hot mince-pie just before he went to bed, for then he always knew what hurt him. If any- one wishes to know what hurts him, he can take high tea on Sunday evening, after having dined all the week ac seven o'clock. A pain in his chest will tell him that the hot waffle, the cold tongue, the peach preserve, and that '' last cup of tea " meant mischief. Oliver Cromwell is said to have been an early tea- drinker ; so is Queen Elizabeth, — elaborate old teapots are sold in London with the cipher of both ; but the report lacks confirmation. We cannot imagine Oliver AFTERNOON TEA. 6/ drinking anything but verjuice, nor the Hon woman as sipping anything less strong than brown stout. Litera- ture owes much to tea. From Cowper to Austin Dob- son, the poets have had their fling at it. And what could the modern English novelist do without it? It has been in politics, as all remember who have seen Boston Harbor, and it goes into all the battles, and climbs Mt. Blanc and the Matterhorn. The French, who despised it, are beginning to make a good cup of tea, and Russia bathes in it. The Samovar cheers the long journeys across those dreary steppes, and forms again the most luxurious ornament of the palace. On all the high roads of Europe one can get a cup of tea, except in Spain. There it is next to impossible ; the universal chocolate supersedes it. If one gets a cup of tea in Spain, there is no cream to put in it ; and to many tea drinkers, tea is ruined without milk or cream. In fact, the poor tea drinker is hard to please any- where. There are to the critic only one or two houses of one's acquaintance where five o'clock tea is perfect. THE INTELLECTUAL COMPONENTS OF DINNER. " Lend me your ears," '* TT has often perplexed me to imagine," writes Na- J- thaniel Hawthorne, " how an EngHshman will be able to reconcile himself to any future state of existence from which the earthly institution of dinner is excluded. The idea of dinner has so imbedded itself among his highest and deepest characteristics, so illuminated itself with intellect, and softened itself with the kindest emotions of his heart, so linked itself with Church and State, and grown so majestic with long hereditary custom and ceremonies, that by taking it utterly away. Death, instead of putting the final touch to his perfection, would leave him infinitely less complete than we have already known him. He could not be roundly happy. Paradise among all its enjoyments would lack one daily felicity in greater measure than London in the season." No dinner would be worth the giving that had not one witty man or one witty woman to lift the conversa- tion out of the commonplace. As many more agreeable people as one pleases, but one leader is absolutely necessary. Not alone the funny man whom the enfant terrible silenced by asking, " Mamma would like to know when you are going to begin to be funny," but those men who INTELLECTUAL COMPONENTS OF A DINNER. 69 have the rare art of being leaders without seeming to be, who amuse without your suspecting that you are being amused ; for there never should be anything professional in dinner-table wit. The dinner giver has often to feel that something has been left out of the group about the table ; they will not talk ! She has furnished them with food and wine, but can she amuse them? Her witty man and her witty woman are both engaged elsewhere, — they are apt to be, — and her room is too warm, perhaps. She determines that at the next dinner she will have some mechanical adjuncts, even an empirical remedy against dulness. She tries a dinner card with poetical quotations, conun- drums, and so on. The Shakspeare Club of Philadelphia inaugurated this custom, and some very witty results followed : — "Enter Froth" (before champagne). " What is thine age ? " {Ro77ieo and Juliet) brings in the Madeira. LOBSTER SALAD. " Who hath created this indigest "i " Pray you bid these unknown friends welcome, for it is a way to make us better friends. — Winter's Tale. ROAST TURKEY. See, here he comes swelling like a turkey cock. — Henry IV. YORK HAMS. Sweet stem from York's great stock. — Henry VI. TONGUE. Silence is only commendable in a neat's tongue dried — Merchant of Venice. BRAISED LAMB AND BEEF. What say you to a piece of lamb and mustard 1 — a dish that I do love to feed upon. — Taming of the Shrew. LOBSTER SALAD. Sallat was born to do me good. — Henry IV. 70 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. And so on. The Bible affords others, well worth quoting : — OYSTERS. He brought them up out of the sea. — Isaiah. And his mouth was opened immediately. — Luke i. 64. BEAN SOUP. " Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils." FISH, STRIPED BASS. We remember the fish we did eat freely. — Numbers. These with many stripes. — Deuteronomy. STEINBERGER CABINET. Thou hast kept the good wine until now. — Johji ii. 10. BOILED CAPON. Accept it always and in all places. — Acts xxiv. 3. PIGEON BRAISE. Pigeons such as he could get. — Leviticus. SUCCOTASH. ' They brought corn and beans. ^Samuel. QUAIL LARDED. Even quail came. — Exodus. Abundantly moistened with fat. — Isaiah. LETTUCE SALAD. A pleasant plant, green before the sun. — Isaiah. Pour oil upon it, pure oil, olive. — Lruiticus. Oil and salt, without prescribing how much. — Ezra vii. 22. ICE CREAM. Ice like morsels. — Psalms. CHEESE. Carry these ten cheeses unto the captain. — Samtiel. FRUITS. All kind of fruits. — Eccles. COFFEE. Last of all. — Matthew xxi. 37. They had made an end of eating. — Ainos vii. 2. CIGARS. Am become like dust and ashes.— y^?^ xxx. 19. INTELLECTUAL COMPONENTS OF A DINNER. /I And so on. Written conundrums are good stimu- lants to conversation, and dinner cards might be greatly historical, not too learned. A legend of the day, as Lady Day, or Michaelmas, is not a bad promoter of talk. Or one might allude to the calendar of dead kings and queens, or other celebrities, or ask your preferences, or quote something from a memoir, to find out that it is a birthday of Rossini or Goethe. All these might be written on a dinner card, and will open the flood gates of a frozen conversation. Let each dinner giver weave a net out of the gossamer threads of her own thoughts. It will be the web of the Lady of Shalott, and will bid the shadows of pleasant memory to remain, not float " forever adown the river," even toward " towered Camelot " where they may be lost. Some opulent dinner giver once made the dinner card the vehicle of a present, but this became rather burden- some. It was trying and embarrassing to carry the gifts home, and the poorer entertainer hesitated at the expense. The outlay had better come out of one's brain, and the piquing of curiosity with a contradiction like this take its place : — " A lady gave me a gift which she had not, And I received the gift, which I took not, And if she take it back I grieve not." But there is something more required to form the intel- lectual components of a dinner than these instruments to stimulate curiosity and give a fillip to thought. We must have variety. Mrs. Jameson, the accomplished author of the * " Legends of the Madonna " gives the following descrip- tion of an out-of-door dinner, which should embolden the young American hostess tp go and do likewise ; — ' J2 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. " Yesterday we dined alfi-esco in the Pamfili Gardens, in Rome, and although our party was rather too large, it was well assorted, and the day went off admirably. The queen of our feast was in high good humour and irre- sistibly charming, Frattino very fascinating, T. caustic and witty, W. lively and clever, J. mild, intelligent and elegant, V. as usual quiet, sensible, and self-complacent, L. as absurd and assiduous as ever. *' Everybody played their part well, each by a tacit convention sacrificing to the amour p7'opre of his neigh- bour, each individual really occupied with his own peculiar role^ but all apparently happy and mutually pleased. Vanity and selfishness, indifference and eninii were veiled under a general mask of good humour and good breeding, and the flowery bonds of politeness and gallantry held together those who knew no common tie of thought or interest. " Our luxurious dinner, washed down by a competent proportion of Malvoisie and champagne, was spread upon th-^ grass, which was literally the flowery turf, being cov- ered with violets, iris, and anemones of every dye. " For my own peculiar taste there were too many ser- vants, too many luxuries, too much fuss ; but considering the style and number of our party, it was all consistently and admirably managed. The grouping of the company, picturesque because unpremeditated, the scenery around, the arcades and bowers and columns and fountains had an air altogether poetical and romantic, and put me in mind of some of Watteau's beautiful garden pieces." Now in this exquisite description Mrs. Jameson seems to me to have given the intellectual components of a dinner. "The hostess, good-humoured and charming, Frattino very fascinating, T. caustic and witty, W, lively INTELLECTUAL COMPONENTS OF A DINNER. 73 and clever, J. mild, intelligent, and elegant, V. as usual quiet, sensible, and self-complacent, L. as absurd and as assiduous as ever." There was variety for you, and the three last were un- doubtedly listeners. In the next paragraph she covers more ground, and this is most important : — " Each by a tacit convention sacrificing to the amour propre of his neighbour." That is an immortal phrase, for there can be no pleas- ant dinner when this unselfishness is not shown. It was said by a witty Boston hostess that she could never invite two well-known diners-out to the same dinner, for each always silenced the other. You must not have too many good talkers. The listeners, the receptive listener.^, should outnumber the talkers. In England, the land of dinners, they have, of course, no end of public, semi-official, and annual dinners, — as those of the Royal Literary Fund, the Old Rugbians, the Artists Benevolent Fund, the Regimental dinners, the banquets at the Liberal and the Cobden Club, and the nice little dinners at the Star and Garter, winding up with the annual fish dinner. Now of all these the most popular and sought after is the annual dinner of the Royal Academy. Few gratifi- cations are more desired by mortals than an invitation to this dinner. The president, Sir Frederic Leighton, is hantisome and popular. The dinner is representative in character ; one or more members of the Royal Family are present ; the Church, the Senate, the Bar, Medicine, Literature and Science, the Army, the Navy, the City, — ■ all these have their representatives in the company. Who would not say that this would be the most amus- ing dinner in London? Intellect at its highesi' water 74 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. mark is present. The menic is splendid. But I have heard one distinguished guest say that the thing is over- freighted, the ship is too full, and the crowd of good things makes a surfeic. Dinners at the Lord Mayor's are said to be pleasant iin 1 fine specimens of civic cheer, but the grand nights at the Middle Temple and others of the Inns of Court are occasions of pleasant festivity. We have nothing to do with these, however, except to read of them, and to draw our conclusions. I know of no better use to which we can put them than the same rereading which we gave Mrs. Jameson's well-considered menu : " Each individual really occupied with his own role, but all apparently happy and mutually pleased. Variety and selfishness or indifference or ennui well veiled under a general mask of good humour and good breeding, and the flowery bands of politeness and gallantry holding to- gether those who knew no common tie of thought and interest." It requires very civilized people to veil their indifference and ennui under a general mask of good humour. To have unity, one must first have .units ; and to make an agreeable dinner-party the hostess should invite agreeable people, and her husband should be a good host ; and here we must again compliment England. An Englishman is ch.urlish and distant, self-conscious and prejudiced everywhere else but at his own table. He is a model host, and a most agreeable guest. He is the most genial of creatures after the soup and sherry. In- deed the English dinner is the keynote to all that is best in the English character. An Englishman wishes to eat in company. How unlike the Spaniard, who never asks you to din- INTELLECTUAL COMPONENTS OF A DINNER. 75 ner. However courtly and hospitable he may be at other times and other hours of the day, he likes to drag his bone into a corner and gnaw it by himself. The Frenchman, elegant, soigne^ and economical, invites you to the best-cooked dinner in the world, but there is not much of it. He prefers to entertain you at a caf6. Country life in France is delightful, but there is not that luxurious, open-handed entertaining which obtains in England. In Italy one is seldom admitted to the privacy of the family dinner. It is a patriarchal affair. But when one is admitted one finds much that is siinpafica. The cookery is good, the service is perfect, the dinner is short, the conversation gay and easy. In making up a dinner with a view to its intellectual components, avoid those tedious talkers who, having a theme, a system, or a fad to air, always contrive to drag the conversation around to their view, with the intention of concentrating the whole attention upon themselves. One such man, called appropriately the Bore Constrictor of conversation in a certain city, really drove people away from every house to which he was invited ; for they grew tired of hearing him talk of that particular science in which he was an expert. Such a talker could make the planet Jupiter a bore, and if the talker were of the feminine gender how one would shun her verbosity. " I called on Mrs. Marjoribanks yesterday," said a free lance once, " and we had a little gossip about Co- pernicus." We do not care to have anything quite so erudite, for if people are really very intimate with Co- pernicus they do not mention it at dinner. It is as impossible to say what makes the model diner-out as to describe the soil which shall grow the 76 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. best grapes. We feel it and we enjoy it, but we can give no receipt for the production of the same. As history, with exemplary truthfulness, has always painted man as throwing off all the trouble of giving a dinner on his wife, why have not our clever women ap- preciated the power of dinner-giving in politics ? Why are not our women greater politicians? Where is our Lady Jersey, our Lady Palmerston, our Princess Belgi- oso? The Princess Lieven, wife of the Russian Am- bassador in London, was said to have held the peace of Europe in the conduct of her entrees ; and a country- woman of our own is to-day supposed to influence the policy of Germany largely by her dinners. From the polished and versatile memoirs of the Grammonts, Wal- poles, D'Azelios, Sydney Smith, and Lord Houghton, how many an anecdote hinges on the efficacy of a dinner in reconciling foes, and in the making of friends. How many a conspiracy was hatched, no doubt, behind an aspic of plover's eggs or a vol au vent de volaille. How many a budding ministry, according to Lord Lam- mington, was brought to full power over a well-ordered table-cloth. How many a war cloud dispelled by the proper temperature of the Burgundy. It is related of Lord Lyndhurst that when somebody asked him how to succeed in life, he answered, "Give good wine." A French statesman would have answered, " Give good din- ners." Talleyrand kept the most renowned table of his day, quite as much for political as hygienic reasons. At eighty years of age he still spent an hour every morning with his chef, discussing the dishes to be served at dinner. The Emperor Napoleon, who was no epicure, nor even a connoisseur, was nevertheless pleased with Talleyrand's luxurious and refined hospitality, in conse- INTELLECTUAL COMPONENTS OF A DINNER. JJ quence of the impression it made on those who were so fortunate as to partake of it. On the other hand, one hesitates to contemplate the indigestions and bad Enghsh cooking which must have hatched an OUver Cromwell, or still earlier that decadence of Italian cookery which made a Borgia possible. Social leaders in all ages and countries have thus studied the tastes and the intellectual aptitudes and ca- pabilities of those whom they have gathered about their boards ; and Mythology would suggest that the petits soiipers on high Olympus, enlivened by the " inextin- guishable laughter of the gods," had much to do with the politics of the Greek heaven under Jupiter. Reading the Northern Saga in the same connection, may not the vague and awful conceptions of cookery which seem to have filled the Northern mind have had something to do with the opera of Siegfried ? Even the music of Wag- ner seems to have been inspired by a draught from the skull of his enemy. It has the fascination of clanging steel, and the mighty rustling of armour. The wind sighs through the forest, and the ice-blast freezes the hearer. The chasms of earth seem to open before us. But it has also the terror of an indigestion, and the brooding horror of a nightmare from drinking metheglia and eat- ing half-roasted kid. The political aspect of a Scandi- navian heaven was always stormy. Listen to the Trilogy. In America a hostess sure of her soups and her en- trees, with such talkers as she could command, could influence American political movements — she might in- fluence its music — by her dinners, and become an envi- able Lady Palmerston. Old people are apt to say that there is a decay in the art of conversation, that it is one of the lost arts. No 78 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. doubt this is in a measure true all over the world. A French salofi would be to-day an impossibility for that very reason. It is no longer the fashion to tell anec- dotes, to try to be amusing. A person is considered a prig who sits up to amuse the company. All this is bad ; it is reactionary after the drone of the Bore Constrictor. It is going on all over the world. It is part of that hurry which has made us talk slang, the jelly of speech, speech condensed and boiled down, easily transported, and warranted to keep in all climates. But there is a very pleasant juste milieu between the stately, perhaps starchy, anecdotist of the past and the easy and witty talker of to-day, who may occasionally drop into slang, and what is more, may permit a certain slovenliness of speech. There are certain mistakes in English, made soberly, advisedly, and without fear of Lindley Murray, which make one sigh for the propri- eties of the past. The trouble is we have no standard. Writers are always at work at the English language, and yet many people say that it is at present the most irregular and least understood of all languages. The intellectual components of a successful dinner, should, if we may quote Hawthorne, be illuminated with intellect, and softened by the kindest emotions of the heart. To quote Mrs. Jameson, they must combine the caustic and the witty, the lively and the clever, and even the absurd, and the assiduous above all. Everybody must be unselfish enough not to yawn, and never seem bored. They must be self-sacrificing, but all apparently well-pleased. The intellectual components of a dinner, like the condiments of a salad, must be of the best ; and it is for the hostess to mix them with the unerring tact and fine discrimination of an American woman. CONSCIENTIOUS DINERS. It is chiefly men of intellect who hold good eating in honour. The head is not capable of a mental operation which consists in a long sequence of appreciations, and many severe decisions of the judgment, which has not a well-fed brain. Brillat Savarin. A GOOD dinner and a pretty hostess, — for there are terms on which beauty and beef can meet much to the benefit of both, — one wit, several good talkers, and as many good listeners, or more of the latter, are said to make a combination which even our greatest statesmen do not despise. Man wants good dinners. It is woman's province to provide them ; but nature and education must make the conscientious diner. It is to be feared that we are too much in a hurry to be truly conscientious diners. Our men have too many school-tasks yet, — politics, money-making, science, men- tal improvement, charities, psychical research, building railroads, steam monitors, colleges, and such like gauds, — too many such distractions to devote themselves as they ought to the question of entrees and entremets. They should endeavour to give the dinner a fitting place. Just see how the noble language of France, which Racine dignified and Moliere amplified, respectfully puts on its robes of state which are lined with ermine when it approaches the great subject of dinner ! 8o THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. It is to be feared that we are far off from the fine art of dining, although many visits to Paris and much patronage of Le Doyon's, the Cafe Anglais, and the Cafe des Ambassadeurs, may have prepared us for the entremet and the piece de resistance. We are im- proving in this respect and no longer bolt our dinners. The improvement is already manifest in the better tempers and complexions of our people. But are we as conscientious as the gentleman in " Punch " who rebuked the giddy girl who would talk to him at dinner? *' Do you remember, my dear, that you are in the house of the best entrees in London? I wish to eat my dinner." That was a man to cook for i He had his appropriate calm reserve of appreciation, for the supreme de volaille. He knew how to watch and wait for the sweetbreads, and green peas. Not thrown away upon him was that last turn which makes the breast of the partridge become of a delicate Vandyck brown. How respectful was he to that immortal art for which the great French cook died, a suicide for a belated turbot. ** Ah," said Parke Godwin once, when in one of his most brilliant Brillat Savarin moods, '' how it ennobles a supper to think that all these oysters will become ideas ! " But if a dinner is not a cookery book, neither is it a matter of expense alone, nor a payment of social debts. It is a question of temperature, of the selection of guests, of the fitness of things, of a proper variety, and of time. The French make their exquisite dinners light and short. The English make theirs a trifle long and heavy. The young hostess, to strike the juste milieu^ must travel, reflect, and go to a cooking-school. She must CONSCIENTIOUS DINERS. 8 1 buy and read a library of cooking- books. And when all is done and said, she must realize that a cookery-book is not a dinner. There are some natures which can absorb nothing from a cookery-book. As Lady Galway said that she had put all her wits into Bradshaw's '' Rail- way Guide " and had never got them out again, so some amateur cook remarked that she had tested her recipes with the " cook-book in one hand and the cooking-stove in the other," yet the wit had stayed away. All young housekeepers must go through the discipline — in a land where cooks are as yet scarce — of trying and failing, of trying and at length succeeding. They must go to La Belle France to learn how to make a soup, for instance. That is to say, they must study the best French authorities. The mere question of sustenance is easy of solution. We can stand by a cow and drink her milk, or we can put some bread in our pockets and nibble it as we go along; but dinner as represented by our complicated civilization is a matter of interest which must always stand high amongst the questions which belong to social life. It is a very strange attendant circumstance that having been a matter of profound concern to mankind for so many years, it is now almost as easy to find a bad dinner as a good one, even in Paris, that head- quarters of cookery. There would be no sense in telling a young American housekeeper to learn to make sauces and to cook like a French chef, for it is a profession requiring years of study and great natural taste and aptitude. A French chef commands a higher salary than a secretary of state or than a civil engineer. As well tell a young lady that she could suddenly be inspired with a knowledge of the 5552- 82 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. art of war or of navigation. She would only perhaps learn to do very badly what they in ten years learn to do so weil. She would say in her heart, '' For my part I am surfeited with cookery. I cry, something 7-aw if you please for me, — something that has never been touched by hand except the one that pulled it off the blooming tree or uprooted it from the honest ground. Let me be a Timon if you will, and eat green radishes and cabbages, or a Beau Brummel, asphyxiated in the consumption of a green pea; but no ragoiit, coteleitCj compote, crenie, or any hint or cooking till the remem- brance of all that I have seen has faded and the smell of it has passed away ! " Thus said one who attended a cooking- school, had gone through the mysteries of soup-making, had learned what saute means ; had mastered ent7-emets, and entrees, and plats, and hors cTmcvres ; had learned that boudins de veau are simply veal puddings, something a little better than a veal croquette made into a little pie ; and had found that all meats if badly cooked are much alike. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about making good dishes out of nothing. A French cook is very economical, he uses up odds and ends, but he must have something to cook with. Stone broth does not go down with a hungry man, nor bad food, however disguised with learned sauces. A little learning is a dangerous thing, and one who attempts too much will fail. But one can read, and reflect, and get the general outlines of cultivated cookery. As to cultivated cookery being necessarily extravagant, that is a mistake. A great, heavy, ill-considered dinner is no doubt costly. Almost all American housekeeping is wasteful in the extreme, but the modern vanities which CONSCIENTIOUS DINERS. 83 depend on" the skill of the cook and the arranging mind of the housekeeper, all these are the triumphs of the present age, and worthy of deep thought and considera- tion. Let the young housekeeper remember that the pretty entrees made out of yesterday's roast chicken or turkey will be a great saving as well as a great luxury, and she will learn to make them. Amongst a busy people like ourselves, from poorest to the richest, dinners are intended to be recreations, and recreations of inestimable value. The delightful con- trast which they offer to the labours of the day, the pleas- ant, innocent triumph they afford to the hostess, in which all may partake without jealousy, the holiday air of guests and of the dining-room, which should be fresh, well aired, filled with flowers, made bright with glass and silver, — all this refreshes the tired man of affairs and invigorates every creature. As far as possible, the discussion of all disagreeable subjects should be kept from the dinner- table. All that is unpleasant lowers the pulse and re- tards digestion. All that is cheerful invigorates the pulse and helps the human being to live a more brave and use- ful life. No one should bring an unbecoming grumpi- ness to the dinner-table. Be grumpy next day if you choose, when the terrapin may have disagreed with you, but not at the feast. Bring the best bit of news and gossip, not scandal, the choicest critique of the last novel, the cream of your correspondence. Be sympathetic, amiable, and agreeable at a feast, else it were better you had stayed away. The last lesson of luxury is the advice to contribute of- our very best to the dinners of our friends, while we form our own dinners on the plane of the highest luxury which we can afford, and avoid the great too much, Remember that in all countries the 84 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. American lavish prodigality of feasting, and the expensive garniture of hothouse flowers, are always spoken of as vul- gar. How well it will be for us when our splendid array of fish, flesh, and fowl shall have reached the benediction of good cookery ; when we know how to serve it, not with barbaric magnificence and repletion, but with a delicate sense of fitness. Mr. Webster, himself an admirable dinner giver, said of a codfish salad that it was " fit to eat." He afterwards remarked, more gravely, — and it made him unpopular, — that a certain nomination was " not fit to be made." That led to a discussion of the word " fit." The fitness of things, the right amount, the thing in the right place, whether it be the condiment of a salad or the nomination to the presidency, — this is the thing to consult, to think of in a dinner ; let it be " fit to be made." An American dinner resolves itself into the following formula : — The oyster is offered first. What can equal the Amer- ican oyster in all his salt-sea freshness, raw, on the half- shell, a perpetual stimulant to appetite, — with a slice of lemon, and a bit of salt and pepper, added to his own luscious juices, his perfect flavor? The jaded palate, worn with much abuse, revives, and stands, like Oliver, asking for more. The soup follows. To this great subject we might de- vote a chapter. What visions of white and brown, clear and thick, fresh beef stock or the maritime delicacies of Cray fish and prawn rise before us, — in every colour, from pink or cream to the heavy Venetian red of the mulliga- tawny or the deep smoke-tints of mock turtle and terra- pin ! The subject grows too large for mere mention ; we must give a chapter to soup. CONSCIENTIOUS DINERS. 85 When we speak of fish we reaUze that the ocean even is inadequate to hold them all. Have we not trout, sal- mon, the great fellows from the Great Lakes, and the ex- clusive ownership of the Spanish mackerel ? Have we not the fee simple of terrapin and the exclusive excellence of shad? This subject, again, requires a volume. The roast I Ah ! here we once bowed to our great Mother England, and thought her roast beef better than ours. There are others who think that we have caught up on the roasts. Our beef is very good, our mutton does not equal always the English Southdowns ; but we are even improving in the blacknosed woolly brethren who conceal such delicious juices under their warm coats. A roast saddle of mutton with currant jelly — but let us not linger over this thrilling theme. Our venison is the best in the world. As for turkeys, — we discovered them, and it is fair to say that, after looking the world over, there is no better bird than a Rhode Island Turkey, particularly if it is sent to you as a present from a friend. Hang him a week, with a truffle in him, and stuff him with chestnuts. As for chickens — there France has us at a disadvan- tage. There seems to be a secret of fowl-feeding, or rearing, in France which we have not mastered. Still we can get good chickens in America, and noble capons, but they are very expensive. The entrees — here we must go again to those early missionaries to a savage shore, the Delmonicos. They were the high priests of the entree. The salads — those daughters of luxury, those deli- cate expressions, in food, of the art of dress — deserve a separate chapter. 86 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. And now the sorbet cools our throats and leads us up to the game. The American desserts are particularly rich and pro- fuse. Our pies have been laughed at, but they also are fit to eat, especially mince-pie, which is first cousin to an English plum-pudding. Our puddings are like our Western scenery, heavy but magnificent. Our ices have reached, under our foreign imported artists, the greatest perfection. Our fruit is abundant and highly flavoured. We have not yet per- haps known how to draw the line as to desserts. The great too 7mich prevails. Do we not make our dinners too long and too heavy? How great an artist would he be who should so gradu- ate a dinner that there would be no to-morrow in it ! We eat more like Heliogabalus than like that gourmet who took the beccafico out of the olive which had been hidden in the pigeon, which had in its turn been warmed in the chicken, which was cooked in the ox, which was roasted whole for the birthday of a king. The goitnneT discarded the rest, but ate the beccafico. The first duty of a guest who is asked to one of these dinners is to be punctual. Who wishes to sit next to Mr. Many-Courses, when he has been kept waiting for his dinner? Imagine the feelings of an amiable host and hostess who, after taking the trouble to get up an excellent dinner, feel that it is being spoiled by the tar- diness of one guest ! They are nervously watching Mr. Many-Courses, for hungry animals are frequently snap- pish, and sometimes dangerous. The hostess who knows how to invite her guests and to seat them afterwards is a power in the State. She helps to refine, elevate, and purify our great American con- CONSCIENTIOUS DINERJ^. ^f glomerate. She has not the Englishman's Bible, " The Peerage," to help her seat her guests ; she must trust to her own intelligence to do that. Our great American conglomerate repels all idea of rank, or the precedence idea, which is so well understood in England. Hereditary distinction we have not, for although there are some families which can claim a grandfather, they are few. A grandfather is of little importance to the men who make themselves. Aristocracy in America is one of talent or money. Even those more choice intelligences, which in older countries are put on glass pedestals, are not so elevated here as to excite jealousy. We all adore the good diner- out, but somebody would be jealous if he had always the best seat. Therefore the hostess has to contend with much that is puzzling in the seating of her guests ; but if she says to herself, " I will place those people near each other who are sympathetic," she will govern her festive board with the intelligence of Elizabeth, and the generosity of Queen Margharita. She must avoid too many highly scented flowers. People are sometimes weary of the " rapture of roses." Horace says : " Avoid, at an agreeable entertainment, discordant music, and muddy perfume, and poppies mixed with Sardinian honey ; they give offence." Which is only another way of saying that some music may be too heavy, and the perfume of flowers too strong. Remember, young hostess, or old hostess, that your dinner is to be made up of people who have to sit two hours chatting with each other, and that this is of itself a severe ordeal of patience. Good breeding is said to be the apotheosis of self- 88 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. restraint, and so is good feeding. Good breeding puts nature under restraint, controls the temper, and refines the speech. Good feeding, unless it is as well governed as it should be, inflames the nose and the temper, and enlarges the girth most unbecomingly. Good breed- ing is the guardian angel of a woman. Good feeding, that is, conscientious dining, must be the patron saint of a man ! A truly well bred and well fed man is quiet in dress, does not talk slang, is not prosy, is never unbe- comingly silent, nor is he too garrulous. He is always respectful to everybody, kind to the weak, helpful to the feeble. He may not be an especially lofty character, but good feeding inducts him into the character and duties of a gentleman. He simulates a virtue if he has it not, especially after dinner. Noblesse oblige is his motto, and he feels what is due to himself. Can we be a thorough-bred, or a thorough-fed, all by ourselves ? It is easy enough to learn when and where to leave a card, how to behave at a dinner, how to use a fork, how to receive and how to drop an acquaintance ; but what a varied education is that which leads up to good feeding, to becoming a conscientious diner. It is not given to every one, this lofty grace. A dinner should be a good basis for a mutual under- standing. They say that few great enterprises have been conducted without it. People are sure to like each other much better after dining together. It is better to go home from a dinner remembering how clever everybody was, than to go home merely to wonder at the opulence that could compass such a pageant. A dinner should put every one into his best talking condition. The quips and quirks of excited fancy CONSCIENTIOUS DINErS. 89 should come gracefully, for society well arranged brings about the attrition of wits. If one is comfortable and well-fed — not gorged — he is in his best condition. The more civilized the world gets, the more difficult it is to amuse it. It is the common complaint of the children of luxury that dinners are dull and society stupid. How can the reformer make society more amusing and less dangerous? Eliminate scandal and back-biting. The danger and trials and difficulties of dinner-giving are manifold. First, whom shall we ask? Will they come? It is often the fate of the hostess, in the busy season, to invite forty people before she gets twelve. Having got the twelve, she then has perhaps a few days before the dinner to receive the unwelcome news that Jones has a cold, Mrs. Brown has lost a relative, and Miss Malcontent has gone to Washington. The dinner has to be reconstructed ; deprived of its original inten- tion it becomes a balloon which has lost ballast. It goes drifting about, and there is no health in it and no purpose. This is especially true also of those dinners which are conducted on debt- paying principles. How many hard-worked, rich men in America are bored to death by the gilded and over-burdened splen- dour of their wives' dinners and those to which they are to go. They sit looking at their hands during two or three courses, poor dyspeptics who cannot eat. To re- lieve them, to bring them into communion with their next neighbour, with whom they have nothing in common, what shall one do? Oh, that depressing cloud which settles over the jaded senses of even the conscientious diner, as he fails to make his neighbour on either side say anything but yes or no ! ^6 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. We must, perhaps, before we give the perfect dmner, renounce the idea that dinner should be on a commercial basis. Of course our social debts must be paid. It is a large subject, like the lighting of a city, the cleaning of the streets, and must be approached carefully, so that the lesser evil may not swamp the greater good. Do not invite twelve people to bore them. The dinner hour differs in different cities, — from seven to half-past seven, to eight, and eight and a half; all these have their adherents. In London, many a party does not sit down until nine. Hence the necessity of a hearty meal at five o'clock tea. The royalties, all blessed with good appetites, eat eggs on toast, hot scones and other good things at five o'clock tea, and take often an avant goiit diho at seven. In our country half-past seven is generally the most convenient hour, unless one is going to the play after- ward, when seven is better. A dinner should not last more than an hour and a half. But it does last some- times three hours. Ladies dress for a large dinner often in low neck and short sleeves, wear their jewels, and altogether their finest things. But now Pompadour waists are allowed. For a small dinner, the Pompadour dress, half-open at the throat, with a few jewels, is in better taste. Men should be always in full dress, — black coat, waist- coat, and trousers, and white cravat. There is no varia- tion from this dress at a dinner, large or small. For ladies in delicate health who cannot expose throat or arms, there is always the largest liberty allowed ; but the dinner dress must be handsome. In leaving the house and ordering the carriage, name the earliest hour rather than the latest ; it is better to CONSCIENTIOUS DINERS. 9I keep one's coachman waiting than to weary one's host- ess. It is quite impossible to say when one will leave, as there may be music, recitations, and so on, after the dinner. It is now quite the fashion, as in London, to ask people in after the dinner. Everybody should go to a dinner intending to be agreeable. " E'en at a dinner some will be unblessed, However good the viands, and well dressed ; They always come to table with a scowl, Squint with a face of verjuice o'er each dish, Fault the poor flesh, and quarrel with the fish, Curse cook, and wife, and loathing, eat and growl." Such men should never be asked twice ; yet such were Dr. Johnson, and later on, Abraham Hayward, the Eng- lish critic, who were invited out every night of their lives. It is a poor requital for hospitality, to allow any personal ill-temper to interfere with the pleasure of the feast. Some hostesses send around the champagne early to unloose the tongues ; and this has generally a good effect if the party be dull. Excessive heat in a room is the most benumbing of all overweights. Let the hostess have plenty of oxygen to begin with. For a little dinner of eight we might suggest that the hostess write : — Dear Mrs. Sullivan, — Will you and Mr. Sullivan dine with us on Thursday at half-past seven to meet Mr. and Mrs. Evarts, quite informally ? Ever yours truly, Mary Montgomery. This accepted, which it should be in the first person, cordially, as it is written, let us see what we would have for dinner : -^ 92 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Sherry. Soup. Sorrel, d. Pesseiice de veau. Lobsters, saute h la Bonnefoy. Chablis. Veal Cutlets, a la Zingara. Fried sweet potatoes. Champagne. Roast Red-Head Ducks. Currant jelly. Claret. Curled Celery in glasses. Olives. Cheese. Salad. Frozen Pudding. Grapes. Coffee. Liqueurs. Or. if you please, a brown soup, a white fish or bass, boiled, a saddle of mutton, a pair of prairie chickens and salad, a plate of broiled mushrooms, a sorbet of Maraschino, cheese, ice-cream, fruit. It is not a bad "look-out," is it? How well the Italians understand the little dinner ! They are frugal but conscientious diners until they get to the dessert? Their dishes have a relish of the forest and the field. First comes wild boar, stewed in a delicious condiment called sour-sweet sauce, composed of almonds, pistachio nuts, and plums. Quails, with a twang of aromatic herbs, are followed by maccaroni flavoured with spiced livers, cocks' combs, and eggs called risotto, then golden /r///^^, cooked in the purest C7'u of olive oil, and quocchi cakes, of newly ground Indian corn, which is all that our roasted green corn is, without the trouble of gnawing it off the cob, — a process abhorrent to the conscientious diner unless he is alone. One should first take monastic vows of extreme austerity before he eats the forbidden fruit, onion, or the delicious corn. But when we can conquer Italian cooking, we can eat these two deliciou5 CONSCIENTIOUS DINERS. 93 things, nor fear to whisper to our best friend, nor fear to be seen eating. The triumphs of the dolce belong also to the Italians. Their sugared fruits, ices, and pastry are all matchless ; and their wines, Chianti, Broglio, and Vino Santo, a kind of Malaga, as " frankly luscious as the first grape can make it," are all delicious. VARIOUS MODES OF GASTRONOMIC GRATIFICATION. Phyllis, I have a cask full of Albanian wine upwards of nine years old ; I have parsley in the garden for the weaving of chap- lets. The house shines cheerfully with plate ; all hands are busy. Horace, Ode XI. SOME old French wit spoke of an " idea which could be canonized." Perhaps yet we may have a Saint Table-Cloth. There have been worse saints than Saint Table-Cloth and clean linen, since the days of Louis XIII ! We notice in the old pictures of feasting that the table-cloth was of itself a picture, — lace, in squares, blocks, and stripes, sometimes only lace over a colour, but generally mixed with linen. It was the highest ambition of the Dutch housewife to have much double damask of snowy whiteness in her table-linen chest. That is still the grand reliable table- linen. No one can go astray who uses it. Table-linen is now embroidered in coloured cottons, or half of its threads are drawn out and it is then sewed over into lace-work. It is then thrown over a colour, generally bright red. But pale lilac is more refined, and very becoming to the lace-work. Not a particle of coarse food must go on that table- cloth. Everything must be brought to each guest from the broad, magnificent buffet ; all must be served a Ic^ MODES OF GASTRONOMIC GRATIFICATION. 95 Russe from behind a grand, impenetrable screen, which should fence off every dining-room from the butler's pantry and the kitchen. All that goes on behind that screen is the butler's business, and not ours. The butler is a portly man, presumably, with a clean-shaven face, of English parentage. He has the key of the wine-cellar and of the silver-chest, two heavy responsibilities ; for nowa- days, not to go into the question of the wines, the silver- chest is getting weighty. Silver and silver-gilt dishes, banished for some years, are now reasserting their pre- eminent fitness for the dinner-table. The plates may be of solid silver; so are the high candlesticks and the salt-cellars, of various and beautiful designs after Benvenuto Cellini. Old silver is reappearing, and happy the hostess who has a real Queen Anne teapot. The soup-tureen of silver is again used, and so are the old beer- mugs. Our Dutch ancestors were much alive to good silver ; he may rejoice who, joking apart, had a Dutch uncle. I, for one, do not like to eat off a metalUc plate, be it of silver or gold. It is disagreeable to hear the knife scrape on it, even with the delicate business of cutting a morsel of red canvas-back. Gastronomic gratification should be so highly refined that it trembles at a crumpled rose-leaf. Porcelain plates seem to be perfect, if they have not on them the beautiful head of Lamballe. Nobody at a dinner desires to cut her head off again, or to be reminded of the French Revolution. Nor should we hurry. A master says, " I have arrived at such a point that if the calls of business or pleasure did not interpose, there would be no fixed date for find- ing what time might elapse between the first glass of sherry and the final Maraschino," 9^ THE ART OF ENTERT AlNlNC^. However, the pleasures of a dinner may be too pro- longed. Men like to sit longer eating and drinking than women ; so when a dinner is of both sexes it should not continue more than one hour and a half. Horace, that prince of diners, objected to the long-drawn-out meal. "Then we drank, each as much as he felt the need," meant no orgy amongst the Greeks. But if the talk lingers after the biscuit and cheese the hostess need not interrupt it. Talleyrand is said to have introduced into France the custom of taking Parmesan with the soup, and the Madeira after it. There are many conflicting opinions about the proper place for the cheese in order of serving. The old fashion was to serve it last. It is now served with, or after, the salad. "A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman with one eye," says an old gourmet. " Eat cheese after fruit, to prepare the palate for fresh wine," says another. '•After melon, wine is a felon." If it is true that " an American devours, an English- man eats, and a Frenchman dines," then we must take the French fashion and give the cheese after the salad. Toasted cheese savouries are very nice. The Roman punch should be served just before the game. It is a very refreshing interlude. Some wit called it at Mrs. Hayes' dinners " the life-saving station." When the ices are removed a dessert-plate of glass, with a finger-bowl, is placed before each person, with two glasses, one for sherry, one for claret, or Burgundy ; and the grapes, peaches, pears, and other fruits are then passed. The hostess makes the sign for retiring to a salon per- MODES OF GASTRONOMIC GRATIFICATION. 9/ haps rich with magnificent hangings of old gold, with pictures, with vases of Dresden, of Sevres, of Kiota, with statuary, and specimens of Capo di Monti. There coffee may be brought and served by the footmen in cups which Catherine of Russia might have given to Potemkin. The gendemen, in England and America, remain behind to smoke. There is much exquisite porcelain in use in the opulent houses of America. It is getting to be a famous fad with us, and nothing adds more to one's pleasure in a good dinner than to have it served on pretty plates. And let us learn to say ''footman," and not "waiter;" the latter personage belongs to a club or a hotel. It would prevent disagreeable mistakes if we would make this correction in our ordinary conversation. In the arrangement of a splendid dinner let us see what should be the bill of fare. This is hard to answer, as the delicacies vary with the season. But we will venture on one : — Oysters on the half-shell. Sherry. Soups : Crhne iVAsperges^ Julienne. Fish : Chablis. Fried Smelts, or Salmon. Fresh Cucumbers. Champagne. Filet de Boeiif, with Truffles Claret. and Mushrooms. Fried Potatoes. Entrees : Poulet a la Marechale. Petits Pois, Timbale de Macaroni. Sweetbreads. Vegetables. Artighokea. 7 98 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Sorbet. Roman Punch. Steinberger. Game : Canvas-back or Wild Duck with Currant Jelly. Quail with Water-Cresses. Salad of Lettuce. Salad of Tomato. Rudesheimer. Pate de foie gras. Hot dessert : Cabinet Pudding. Cold dessert : Crhne glade aiix tuttifrutti. Marron glacis. Cakes. Preserved ginger. Madeira. Cheese. Port. Cafe. Cordials. I apologize to my reader for mixing thus French and English. It is a vulgar habit, and should be avoided. But it is almost impossible to avoid it when speaking of a dinner; the cooks being French, the menus are written in French, and the names of certain dishes are usually written in French. Now all people undersitand French, or should do so. If they do not, it is very easy to learn that the " vol au vent de volaille " is simply chicken pie, that potatoes are still potatoes under what- ever alias they are served, and so on. No such dinner as this can be well served in a private house unless the cook is a chef, a cordon bleu, — here we must use French again, — and unless the service is perfect this dinner will be a failure. It is better to order such a dinner from Delmonico's or Sherry's or from the best man you can command. Do not attempt and fail. But the little dinners given by housekeepers whose service is perfect are apt to be more eatable and palata- ble than the best dinner from a restaurant, where all the food is cooked by gas, and tastes alike. MODES OF GASTRONOMIC GRATIFICATION. Q^ The number of guests is determined by the size of the room. The etiquette of entering the dining-room is this : the host goes first, with the most distinguished lady. The hostess follows last, with the most distin- guished gentleman. Great care and attention must be observed in seating the guests. This is the province of the hostess, who must consider the subject carefully. All this must be written out, and a diagram made of the table. The name of each lady is written on a card and enclosed in an envelope, on the outside of which is inscribed the name of the gentleman who has the honour to take her in. This envelope must be given each man by the servant in the dressing-room, or he must find it on the hall table. Then, with the dinner-card at each place, the guests find their own places. The lady of the house should be dressed and in the drawing-room at least five minutes before the guests are to arrive, which should be punctually. How long must a hostess wait for a tardy guest? Only fifteen minutes. It is well to say to the butler, " Dinner must be served at half-past seven," and the guests may be asked at seven. That generally ensures the arrival of all before the fish is spoiled. Let the company then go in to din- ner, allowing the late-comer to follow. He must come in alone, blushing for his sins. These facts may help a hostess : No great dinner in Europe waits for any one ; royalty is always punctual. In seating your guests do not put husband and wife, sisters or relatives together. An old courtesy book of 1290 says : — *' Consider about placing Each person in the post that befits him. Between relations it behooves To place others midway sometimes." 100 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. We should respect the superstitions of the dmner- table. No one should be helped twice to soup; it means an early death. Few are free from the feeling that thirteen is an unlucky number ; so avoid that, as no one wishes to make a guest uncomfortable. As we have said, Gasthea is an irritable muse ; she must be flattered and pam- pered. No one must put salt on another's plate. There is a strong prejudice against spilling the salt ; but evil conse- quences can be avoided by throwing a pinch of salt over the left shoulder. These remarks may seem frivolous to those unhappy persons who have not the privilege of being superstitious. It gives great zest to life to have a few harmless supersti- tions. It is the cheese /<?;z^// of the mental faculties ; and we may add that a consideration of these maxims, handed down from a glorious past of gastronomes, con- tributes to the various modes of gastronomic gratification. We must remember that the tongue of man, by the deli- cacy of its structure, gives ample evidences of the high functions to which it is destined. The Roman epicures cultivated their taste so perfectly that they could tell if a fish were caught above or below a bridge. Organic per- fection, epicureanism, or the art of good living, belongs to man alone. The pleasure of eating is the only one, taken in moderation, which is common to every time, age, and condition, which is enjoyed without fatigue or danger, which must be repeated two or three times a day. It can combine with our other pleasures, or console us for their loss. " Un bo7i difier, c'est un consolation pour les illusions perdusT And we have an especial satisfaction, when in the act of eating, that we are prolonging our existence, and enabling ourselves to become good citizens whilst enjoying ourselves. MODES OF GASTRONOMIC GRATIFICATION. lOI Thus the pleasures of the table, the act of dining, the various modes of gastronomic gratification should re- ceive our most respectful consideration. '* Let the soup be hot, and the wines cool. Let the coffee be perfect, and the liqueurs chosen with peculiar care. Let the guests be detained by the social enjoyment, and ani- mated with the hope that before the evening is over there is still some pleasure in store." Our modern hostesses who understand the art of entertaining often have music, or some recitations, in the drawing-room after the dinner; and in England it is often made the occasion of an evening party. Thus gourmandize is that social love of good dinners which combines in one Athenian elegance, Roman lux- ury, and Parisian refinement. It implies discretion to arrange, skill to prepare, and taste to direct. It cannot be done superficially, and if done well it takes time, ex- perience, and care. " To be a success, a dinner must be thought out." " By right divine, man is the king of nature, and all that the earth produces is for him. It is for him that the quail is fattened, the grape ripened. For him alone the Mocha possesses so agreeable an aroma, for him the sugar has such wholesome properties." He, and he alone, banquets in company, and so far from good living being hurtful to health, Brillat Savarin declares that the gourmets have a larger dose of vitality than other men. But they have their sorrows, and the worst of them is a bad dinner, — an ill-considered, wretch- edly composed, over-burdened repast, in which there is little enjoyment for the brain, and a constant disappoint- ment to the palate. " Let the dishes be exceedingly choice and but few in 102 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. number, and the wines of the best quahty. Let the order of serving be from the more substantial to the Hghter." Let the eating proceed without hurry or bustle, since the dinner is the last business of the day ; and let the guests look upon themselves as travellers about to reach the same destination together. A dinner is not, as we see, a matter of butler or chef alone. " It is the personal trouble which a host and hostess are willing to take ; it is the intimate association of a cultivated nature with the practical business of en- tertaining, which makes the perfect dinner. *' Conviviality concerns everything, hence it produces fruits of all flavours. All the ingenuity of man has been for centuries concentrated upon increasing and in- tensifying the pleasures of the table." The Greeks used flowers to adorn vases and to crown the guests. They ate under the vault of heaven, in gardens, in groves, in the presence of all the marvels of nature. To the pleasures of the table were joined the charms of music and the sound of instruments. Whilst the court of the king of the Phoenicians were feasting, Phenius, a minstrel, celebrated the deeds of the warriors of bygone times. Often, too, dancers and jugglers and comic actors, of both sexes and in every costume, came to engage the eye, without lessening the pleasures of the table. We eat in heated rooms, too much heated perhaps, and brilliantly lighted, as they should be. The present fancy for shaded lamps, and easily ignitible shades, leads to im- promptu conflagrations which are apt to injure Saint Table-Cloth. That poor martyr is burned at the steak quite too often. Our dancers and jugglers are introduced after dinner, not during dinner; and we have our war- MODES OF GASTRONOMIC GRATIFICATION. IO3 riors at the table amongst the guests. Nor do we hire Phenius, a minstrel, to discourse of their great deeds. I copy from a recent paper the following remarks. Mr. Elbridge T. Gerry, says : *' There are in society some newly admitted members who, with the best intentions imaginable, are never able to do things in just the proper style. They are persons of wealth, fairly good breeding and possessed of a desire to entertain. With all the good-humoured witticisms that the newspapers indulge in on this subject, it is nevertheless a fact that the art of entertaining requires deep and careful study, as well as natural aptitude." Some of the greatest authors have stated this in poetry and prose. '^ A typical member of this new class recently gave a dinner to a number of persons in society. It was a very dull affair. There was prodigality in everything, but no taste, and no refinement. The fellow amused me by telling us he had no trouble in getting up a fine dinner ; he had only to tell his butler and chef to get up a meal for so many persons, and the whole thing was done. There are few persons fortunate enough to possess chefs and butlers of that kind ; he certainly was not. Of the persons who attended his dinner, nine out of ten were displeased and will never attend another. It does not take long for the experienced member of society to know whether a host or hostess is qualified to entertain, and the climbers soon find it a hard piece of business to secure guests." But on the other hand, we can reason that so fond of the various modes of gastronomic gratification is the human race, that the dinner giver is a very popular variety of the genus homo ; nor does the host or hostess 104 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. generally find it a hard matter to secure guests. Indeed there is a vulgar proverb to the effect that if the Devil gives a ball, all the angels will go to it. " If you want an animal to love you, feed it." So that the host can stand a great deal of criticism. We should, however, take a hint from the Arabs, nor abuse the salt ; it is almost worse than spilling it. Lady Morgan described the cookery of France as being " the standard and gauge of modern civilization ; " and when, during the peace which followed Waterloo, Brillat Savarin turned his thoughts to the aesthetics of the dinner-table, he probably added more largely to the health and happiness of the human race than any other known philanthropist. We must not forget what had gone before in the developments and refinements of the reigns of Louis XIV., XV., and the Regent; we must not forget the honour done to gastronomy by such statesmen as Colbert, such soldiers as Cond^, nor by such a wit and beauty as Madame de Sevign^. OF SOUPS. " Oh, a splendid soup is the true pea-green, I for it often call, And up it comes, in a smart tureen, When I dine in my banquet hall. When a leg of mutton at home is boiled, The liquor I always keep, And in that liquor, before 'tis spoiled, A peck of peas I steep ; When boiled till tender they have been I rub through a sieve the peas so green. " Though the trouble the indolent may shock, I rub with all my power. And having returned them to the stock, I stew them for an hour ; Of younger peas I take some more, The mixture to improve, Thrown in a little time before The soup from the fire I move. Then seldom a better soup is seen Than the old familiar soup pea-green." HE best of this poetical recipe is that it is not only funny, but a capital formula. " The giblet may tire, the gravy pall, And the truth may lose its charm; But the green pea triumphs over them all And does not the slightest harm." Some of us, however, prefer turtle. It would seem sometimes as if turtle soup were the synonym for a good dinner, and as if it dated back to the days of good T 106 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Queen Bess. But fashion did not set its seal on turtle soup until about seventy years ago ; as an entry in the " Gentleman's Magazine " mentions cahpash and cali- pee as rarities. It is now inseparable from the Lord Mayor's dinner. When we notice ninety-nine recipes for soup in the latest French cookery book, and when we see the fate of a dinner made or marred by the first dish, we must concede that it will be a stumbling-block to the young housekeeper. Add to that the curious fact that no Irishwoman can make a good soup until she has been taught by years of experience, and we have the first problem in the danger- ous process of dinner-giving staring us in the face. A greasy, watery, ill-considered soup will take away the appetite of even a hungry man ; while a delicate white or brown soup, or the purees of peas and asparagus, may weh whet the appetite of the most pampered gourmet. The subject of soup-making may well be studied. A good soup is at once economical and healthful, and of the first importance in the construction of a dinner. Soup should be made the day before it is to be eaten, by boiling either a knuckle of veal for a white soup, three or four pounds of beef, with the bone well cracked, for a clear consomme, or by putting the bones of fish, chickens, and meat into water with salt and pepper, and thus making an economical soup, which may, however, be very good. The French put everything into the soup pot, — bones, scraps, pot liquor, the water in which onions have been boiled, in fact in which all vegetables includ- ing beans and potatoes have been boiled ; even as a French writer says " rejected MSS. may be thrown into the soup pot ; " and the result in France is always good. It is to be observ^ed that every soup should be allowed OF SOUPS. 107 to cool, and all the fat should be skimmed off, so that the residuum may be as clear as wine. Delicate soups, clear consomme, and white soups a la Reifie, are great favourites in America, but in England they make a strong, savoury article, which they call gravy soup. It is well to know how to prepare this, as it makes a variety. Cut two pounds of beef from the neck into dice, and fry until brown. Break small two or three pounds of bones, and fry lightly. Bones from which streaked bacon has been cut make an excellent addition, but too many must not be used» lest the soup be salt. SHce and fry brown a pound of onions, put them with the meat and bones and three quarts of cold water into the soup pot; let it boil up, andhaving skimmed add two large turnips, a carrot cut in slices, a small bundle of sweet herbs, and a half a dozen pepper-corns. Let the soup boil gently for four or five hours, and about one hour before it is finished add a little piece of celery, or celery-seed tied in muslin. This is a most delicious flavour. When done, strain the soup and set it away for a night to get cold. Remove the fat and next day let it boil up, stirring in two spoonfuls of corn starch, moistened with cold water. Season with salt and pepper to taste, not too salt; add forcemeat balls to the soup, and you have a whole dinner in your soup. An oxtail soup is made like the above, only adding the tail, which is divided into joints, which are fried brown. Then these joints should be boiled until the meat comes easily off the bones. When the soup is ready put in two lumps of sugar, a glass of port wine, and pour all into the tureen. The Julienne soup, so delicious in summer, should be a nice clear stock, with the addition of prepared vege- tables. Unless the cook can buy the excellent com- 108 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. pressed vegetables which are to be had at the Italian warehouses, it is well to follow this order : — Wash and scrapa a large carrot, cut away all the yellow parts from the middle, and slice the red outside. Take an equal quantity of turnips and three small onions, cut in a similar manner. Put them in a stewpan with two ounces of butter and a pinch of powdered sugar, stir over the fire until a nice brown colour, then add a quart of clear, well-flavoured stock, and let all simmer together gently for three hours. When done, skim the fat off very carefully, and ten minutes before serving add a lettuce cut in shreds and blanched for a minute in boiling water. Simmer for five minutes and the soup will be ready. This is a most excellent soup if well made. Mock-turtle soup is easily made : — Boil the bones of the head three hours, add a piece of gravy meat cut in dice and fried brown, three onions sliced and fried brown, a carrot, a turnip, celery, and a small bundle of sweet herbs ; boil gently for three hours and take off the fat. When it is ready to be served add a glass of sherry and slices of lemon. The various parts of a calf s- head can be cooked and used as forcemeat balls, and made to look exactly like turtle. This soup is found canned and is almost as good as the real article. Dried-pea soup, creme d'asperge, and bean soup, in fact all the pinres, are very healthful and elegant soups. The pia-ee .is the mashed mass of pea or bean, which is added to the stock. Boil a pint of large peas in a quart of water with a sprig of parsley or mint, and a dozen or so of green onions. When the peas are done strain and rub them through a sieve, put the puree back into the liquor the peas were boiled in, add a pint of good veal or beef broth, a lump of sugar, and pepper and salt to taste. Let the soup get thoroughly hot without boiling, stir in an ounce of good butter, and the soup is ready. OF SOUPS. 109 A plain but quick and delicious soup may be made by using a can of corn, with a small piece of pork. This warmed up quickly, with a little milk added, is very good. As for a C7'h7ie {fasperge, it is better to employ a chef to teach the new cook. Mulligatawny soup is a visitor from India. It should not be too strong of curry powder for the average taste. The stock should be made of chicken or veal, or the liquor in which chickens have been boiled. Slice and fry in butter six large onions, add four sharp, sour apples, cored and quartered, but not peeled. Let them boil in a little of the stock until quite tender, then mix with them a quarter of a pound of flour, and a small teaspoonful of curry powder. Take a quart of the stock and when the SQ^p has boiled skim it ; let it simmer for half an hour, then carefully take off all the fat, strain the soup, and rub the onions through a sieve. When ready to heat the soup for the dinner-table add any pieces of meat or chicken cut into small, delicate shapes. When these have been boiled together for ten minutes the soup will be ready ; salt to taste. Boiled rice should be sent in on a separate dish. Sorrel soup is a great favourite with the French people. We do not make enough of sorrel in this country; it adds an excellent flavour. Carefully wash a pound of sorrel, and having picked, cut it in shreds, put it into a stewpan with two ounces of fresh butter and stir it over the fire for ten minutes. Stir in an ounce of flour, mix well together and add a pint and a half of good white stock made as for veal broth. Let it simmer for half an hour. Having skimmed the soup, stir in the yolks of three eggs beaten up in half a pint of milk or cream. Stir in a little pat of butter, and when dissolved pour the whole over thin pieces of toasted bread into the tureen. 110 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. With the large family of the broths every housewife should become acquainted. They are invaluable for the sick, especially broths of chicken and mutton. For veal broth the following is an elaborate, but excellent recipe : Get three or four pounds of scrag, or a knuckle of veal, chopped into small pieces, also a ham bone, or slice of ham, and cover with water ; let it boil up, skim it until no more rises. Put in four or five onions, a turnip, and later a bit of celery or celery seed tied in muslin, a little salt, and white pepper. Let it boil gently for four hours ; strain the gravy and having taken off all the fat return the residue to the pot and let it boil ; then slightly thicken with corn flour, about one teaspoonful to a quart of soup ; let it simmer before serving. Three pounds of veal should make two quarts of good soup. A sheep's-head soup is famous all over Scotland and is made as follows : — Get the head of a sheep with the skin on, soak it in tepid water, take out the tongue and brains, break all the thin bones inside the cheek, and carefully wash it in several waters ; put it on in a quart of water with a teaspoonful of salt and let it boil ten minutes. Pour away this water and put two quarts more with one pound of a scrag of mutton ; add, cut up, six onions, two turnips, two carrots, a sprig of parsley, and season with pepper and salt. Let it boil gently for four or five hours, when the head and neck will not be too much cooked for the family dinner, and may be served either with parsley or onion sauce. It is a most savoury morsel. Strain the soup, and let it cool so as to remove every particle of fat. Rub the vegetables through a sieve to a fine puree. Mix a tablespoonful of flour in a quarter of a pint of milk; make the soup boil up and stir it in with the vegetables. Have the tongue boiled until it is very tender, skin and trim it, have the brains also well cooked, and chop and pound them very fine with the tongue, mix them with an equal weight of sifted bread-crumbs, a tablespoonful of chopped OF SOUPS. Ill green parsley, pepper, salt, and egg, and if necessary a small quantity of flour to enable you to roll the mixture into little balls. Put an ounce of butter into a small frying-pan and fry the balls until a nice brown, lay them on paper before the fire to drain away all the fat, and put them into the soup after it is poured into the tureen. Scald and chop some green parsley and serve separately on a plate. Thackeray thought so much of a boiled sheep's head that he made it the point of one of his humorous poems. " By that grand vow that bound thee Forever to my side, And by the ring that made thee My darling and my bride ! Thou wilt not fail or falter But bend thee to the task — A boiled sheep's head on Sunday Is all the boon I ask ! " In France, cabbage is much used in soup. " Ha, what is this that rises to my touch So like a cushion — can it be a cabbage ? It is, it is, that deeply inspired flower Which boys do flout us with, but yet — I love thee, Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout. Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright As these thy puny brethren, and thy breath Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air ; And now thou seemst like a bankrupt beau Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences, And growing portly in his sober garments." The cabbage is without honour in America ; and yet if boiled in water which is thrown away, having absorbed all its grosser essences, and then boiled again and chopped and dressed with butter and cream, it is an excellent vegetable. Its disagreeable odour has led to its expulsion from many a house, but corn-beef and cab- bage are not to be despised. 112 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Cauliflower, which Thackeray calls the " apotheosis of cabbage," is the most delicate of vegetables ; and a puree of cauliflower shall close onr chapter on soups. Boil in salted water, using a small piece of butter, two heads of cauliflower, drain and pass them through a colander, dilute with two quarts of sauce and a quart of chicken broth, season with salt, white pepper, and grated nutmeg. Add a teaspoonful of fine white sugar, then pass the whole forcibly with a wooden presser through a fine sieve, — the finer the sieve the better the puree. Put the residue in a stewpan, set it on the fire, stir all the while till it boils, let it boil for ten minutes, strain well, add a mixture made with the yolks of six eggs and half a pint of cream, finish with four ounces of table butter, and serve with small, fried, square croutons. A puree of celery is equally excellent ; but all these soups require an intelligent cook. It is better to have one's cook taught to make soups by an expert, for it is the most difficult of all the dishes, if thoroughly good. The plain soup, free from grease and well flavoured, is easy enough after a little training, *' but the chief ingredient of soup is brains," according to a Lon- don chef. It is, however, a good practice for an amateur cook to experiment and to try these various recipes, all of which are practicable. FISH. What is thy diet ? Canst thou gulf a shoal Of herrings? Or hast thou gorge and room To bolt fat porpoises and dolphins whole By dozens, e'en as oysters we consume ? Punch. The world 's mine oyster, which I with sword will open. Hotspur. THE Egyptians, strange to say, did not deify fish, that important article of their food. We read of the enormous yield of Lake Moeris, which was dammed up by the great Rameses, and whose draught of fishes brought him so enormous a revenue. One of the most fascinating of all the Egyptian Queens, Sonivaphra, received the revenues of one of these fisheries to keep her in shoe-strings, — probably another name for pin money. And yet the Egyptians, while mummying the cats and dogs and beetles, and such small deer, made no gods of the good carp or other fish which must have stocked the river Nile. They emblazoned the crocodile on their monuments, but never a fish. It is a singular foreshadowing of that great vice of the human race, ingratitude. The Romans were fond of fish, and the records of their gastronomy abound in fish stories. We read of Licinius Crassus, the orator, that he lived in a house of great elegance and beauty. This house was called the 8 114 THE ART Of entertaining. " Venus of the Palatine," and was remarkable for its size, the taste of the furniture, and the beauty of the grounds. It was adorned with pillars of Hymettian marbles, with expensive vases and triclinia inlaid with brass ; his gardens were provided with fish-ponds, and noble lotus-trees shaded his walks. Abenobarbus, his colleague in the censorship, found fault with such luxury, such " corruption of manners," and complained of his crying for the loss of a lamprey as if it had been a favourite daughter ! This, however, was a tame lamprey, which used to come to the call of Crassus and feed out of his hand. Crassus retorted by a public speech against his colleague, and by his great power of ridicule turned him into de- rision, jested upon his name, and to the accusation of weeping for a lamprey, replied that it was more than Abenobarbus had done for the loss of any of his three wives ! In the sixteenth century, that golden age of the Vati- can, the splendid court of Leo X. was the centre of ar- tistic and literary life, and the witty and pleasure-loving Pope made its gardens the scene of his banquets and concerts, where he listened to the recitations of the poets who sprung up under his protection. There be- neath the shadow of the ilex and the lauristines, in a circle so refined that ladies were admitted, Leo him- self leaned on the shoulder of the handsome Raphael, who was allowed to caress and admire the Medicean white hand of his noble patron. We read that this fa- mous Pope was so fastidious as to the fish dinners of Lent, that he invented twenty different recipes for the chowder of that day ! Walking in disguise with Raphael through the fish-market, he espied a boy who, on his FISH. 115 knees, was presenting a fish to a pretty contadina. The scene took form and immortaUty in the famous Vierge au Foissofi, in which, conducted by the Angel Gabriel, the youthful Saint John presents the fish to the Virgin and child, — a beautiful picture for the church whose patron saint was a fisherman. Indeed, that picture of the sea of Galilee, and the sacred meaning attached to the etymology of the word " fish," has given the finny wanderer of the seas a peculiar and valuable personality. All this, with the selection by our Lord of so many of his disciples from amongst the fishermen, the many poetical associations which form around this, the cheapest and most delicate form of food with which the Creator has stocked this world of ours, would, if followed out, afford a volume of suggestion, quotation, poetry, and romance with which to embellish the art of entertaining. Fish is now believed to produce aliment for the brain, and as such is recommended to all authors and editors, statesmen, poets and lawyers, clergymen and mathema- ticians,— all who draw on that finer fibre of the brain which is used for the production of poetry or prose. England is famed for its good fish, as why should it not be, with the ocean around it? The turbot is, par excellence, the fish for a Lord Mayor's dinner, and it is admirable a la creme for anybody's dinner. Excellent is the whitebait of Richmond, that fnysterious little dwarf. Eaten with slices of brown bread and butter it is a very delicious morsel, and the whiting, which always comes to the table with his tail in his mouth, beautifully browned outside, white as snow within, what so excellent as a whiting, except a sole au gj-afin with sauce Tartare ? Fresh herrings in Scotland are delicious, almost equal Il6 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. to the red mullets which Caesar once ate at Marseilles. The fresh sardines at Nice, and all along the Mediterra- nean, are very delicate, as are the thousand shell-fish. The langoose, or large lobster of France and the Medi- terranean, is a surprise to the American traveller. Not so delicate as our American lobster, it still is ad- mirable for a salad. It is so large that the flesh — if a fish has flesh — can be sliced up and served like cold roast turkey. The salmon, king of fish, inspires in his capture, in Scotland rivers, in Labrador, in Canada, some of the best writing of the day. William Black, in Scotland, and Dr. Wier Mitchell, of Philadelphia, can tell stories of salmon-fishing which are as brilliant as Victor Hugo's description of Waterloo, or of that mysterious jelly-fish in his novel, " The Toilers of the Sea." The New York market boasts the red snapper, the sheepshead, the salmon, the salmon-trout, the Spanish mackerel, most toothsome of viands, the sea bass, cod, halibut, the shad, the greatest profusion of excellent oysters and clams, the cheap pan-fish, and endless eels. The French make many fine dishes of eels, as the Romans did. To be good, fish must be fresh. It is absolutely in- dispensable, to retain certain flavours, that the fish should go from one element to another, out of the water into the fire, and on!b the gridiron or into the frying pan as soon as possible. Therefore, if the housewife has a fish seasonable and fresh, :and a gridiron, she can make a good dish for a hungry man. We shaU begin with the cheapest of the products of the water, and although they may squirm out of our hands, try to bring to the table the despised eels, FISH. 117 An old proverb said that matrimony was a bag in which there were ninety-nine snakes and one eel, and the young lady who put her hand into this agreeable company had small chance at the eel. It would seem at first blush as if no one would care particularly for the eel. In old England, eels were exceedingly popular, and the monks dearly loved to feed upon them. The cellar- ist of Barking Abbey, Essex, in the ancient times of monastic foundations, was, amongst other eatables, to provide stewed eels in Lent and to bake eels on Shrove Tuesday. There were artificial receptacles made for eels. The cruel custom of salting eels alive is men- tioned by some old writers. '* When the old serpent appeared in the guise of a stewed eel it was impossible to resist him." Eels €71 matelote should be cut in three-inch pieces, and salted ; fry an onion brown in a little dripping, add half a pint of broth to the brown onion, part of a bay leaf, six broken pepper-corns, four whole cloves, and a gill of claret. Add the eels to this and simmer until thoroughly cooked. Remove the eels, put them on a hot dish, add a teaspoonful of brown flour to the sauce, strain and pour over the eels. Spatch-cooked eels are good. Fricasseed eels : Cut three pounds of eels into pieces of three inches in length, put them into a stewpan, and cover them with Rhine wine, or two thirds water and one third vinegar ; add fifteen oysters, two pieces of lemon, a bouquet of herbs, one onion quartered, six cloves, three stalks of celery, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and salt to taste. Stew the eels one hour, remove them from the dish, strain the liquor. Put it back into the saucepan with a gill of qream and an ounce of butter rolled in flour, simmer gently a few minutes, pour over the fish, and you have a dish for a king. Stewed eels are great favourites with gourmets, cooked 9-S follows : — Il8 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Cut into three-inch pieces two pounds of medium-sized cleaned eels. Rub the inside of each piece with salt. Let them stand half an hour, then parboil them. Boil an onion in a quart of milk and remove the onion. Drain the eels from the water and add them to the milk. Season with half a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, salt and pepper, and the smallest bit of mace. Simmer until the flesh falls from the bones. Fried eels should be slightly salted before cooking. Do not cover them with batter, but dredge them with just flour enough to absorb all moisture, then cover them v/ith boiling lard. As for the thousand and one recipes for cooking an oyster, no one need tell an American hostess much on that subject. Raw, roasted, boiled, stewed, scalloped and baked in patties, what so savoury as the oyster? They should be bought alive, and opened with care by an expert, for the bits of shell are dangerous. If eaten raw, pieces of lemon should be served with them. Plates of majolica to hold five or seven oysters are now to be bought at all the best crockery stores. To stew oysters well, cream and butter should be added, and the whole mixture done in a silver dish over an alcohol lamp. Broiled oysters should be dipped first in melted butter, then in bread crumbs, then put in a very fine wire gridiron, and broiled over a bright bed of coals. Scalloped oysters should be carefully dried with a clean napkin, then laid in a deep dish on a bed of crumbs and fresh butter, all softened by the liquor of the oyster ; a layer of oysters and a layer of crumbs should follow each other, with little walnuts of butter put be- tween. The mixture should be put in a very hot oven and baked a delicate brown, but not dried. The plain fried oyster is very popular, but it should not FISM. 1 19 be cooked in small houses just before in entertainment, as the odour is not appetizing, ^o dip them in egg batter, then in bread-crumbs, and fry them in drippings is a common and good fashion. A more elaborate fashion is to beat up the yolks of four eggs with three tablespoonfuls of sweet oil, and season them with a tea- spoonful of salt, and a saltspoonful of cayenne pepper. Beat up thoroughly, dip each oyster in this mixture and then in bread crumbs, and fry in hot oil. The best and most elegant way of cooking an oyster is, however, " a la poti letter Scald the oysters in their own liquor, drain them, and add to the liquor, salt, half an ounce of butter, the juice of half a lemon, a gill of cream, and a teaspoonful of dissolved flour. Beat the yolk of one ^gg, and add to the sauce, stir until the sauce thickens ; place the oysters on a hot dish, pour the sauce over them, add a little chopped parsley and serve. x\ simpler and more primitive but excellent way of cooking oysters is to clean the shells thoroughly, and place them in the coals in an open fireplace, or to roast them in hot ashes until the shells snap open. When the oyster departs then the clam takes his place, and is delicious as an avant goiU or an appetizer at a dinner. If clams are broiled they must be done quickly, else they become hard and indigestible. The soft-shell clam, scalloped, makes a good dish. Clean the shells well, then put two clams to each shell, with half a teaspoonful of minced celery. Cut a slice of fat bacon small, add a little to each shell, put bread crumbs on top and a little pat of butter, bake in the oven until brown. A clam broth is a delicious and healthful beverage for sick or well ; add cream and a spoonful of sherry to it, and it becomes a fabulously fine 120 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. thing. In this mixture the clams must be strained out before the cream and wine are added. But if the clam is good what shall we say of crabs. Hard-shell crabs must be boiled about twelve minutes, drained, and set away to cool. Eaten with sandwiches and a dressing they are considered a dehcacy for supper. They can be more cooked with chopped eggs, or treated like a chicken pasty, and cooked in a paste shell they are very good. Take half an ounce of butter, half an onion minced, half a pound of minced raw veal, and a small carrot shredded, a chopped crab, a pint of boiling cream ; sim- mer an hour, then strain into a saucepan, and what a sauce you have ! The soft-shell crab is an invalid. He is caught when he is helpless, feverish, and not at all, one would say, healthy. He is killed by the jarring of the train, by thunder, by some passing noisy cart, and some say by a fall in stocks, or a sudden change in political circles. Such sensitive creatures must be cooked as soon as possible. It is only necessary to remove the feathery substance under the pointed sides of the shells, rinse them in cold water, drain, season with salt and pepper, dredge them in flour and fry in hot fat. Crab patties and crabs cooked in any other way than this fail to please the epicure. Nothing with so pronounced an individual- ity as a soft-shelled crab should be disguised. A devilled crab is considered good, but it should be cooked by a negro expert from Maryland. Scallops are essentially good in stews, or fried, and when, cut in small pieces, with a pint of milk, a little but- ter, and a little salt, they again return to their beautiful shells and are baked as a scallop, they are delicious. Put in pork fat, and fried, they are also very fine. FISH. 121 The lobster is now considered very healthful, and as conveying more phosphorus into the human system than any other fish. Broiled, devilled, stewed, cooked in a fashion called Boiirdelaise, it is the most delicious of dishes, and as a salad what can equal it? A baked whitefish with Bordeaux sauce is very fine. Clean and stuff the fish with bread-crumbs, onions, butter, and sweet marjoram. Put it in a baking pan, add a liberal quantity of butter previously rolled in flour, put in the pan a pint of claret, and bake for an hour. Remove the fish and strain the gravy, put in a teaspoonful of brown flour and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Halibut with an egg sauce and a border of parsley is a dish for a banquet, only the cook must know how to make egg sauce. Supposing we tell her? Put two ounces of butter in a stew-pan ; when it melts, add one ounce of flour. Stir for one minute or more, but do not brown. Then add by degrees two gills of boiHng water, stirring until smooth, and boiling about two minutes. If not perfectly smooth, pass it through a sieve ; then add an- other ounce of butter cut in pieces. When the butter is melted, add three hard-boiled eggs, chopped not too fine, season with pepper and salt, and serve immediately. This sauce is admirable for cod, and for all boiled fish. But the " perfectest thing on earth " is a broiled fish, a shad for instance ; and one of the best preventives against burning is to rub olive oil on the fish before putting it on the gridiron. Charcoal affords the best fire, and it must be free from all smoke and flame. A little sweet butter, half a teaspoonful of chopped parsley and the juice of a lemon should be melted together, and stand ready to be poured over the broiled fish. Mr. Lowell, in one of his delightful, witty papers in the 122 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Atlantic Monthly years ago, regretted that he could not find a gridiron near the St. Lawrence, although its patron saint suffered martyrdom on that excellent kitchen utensil. It is a lamentable fact that wood fires and gridirons are giving out. They contain within them- selves the merits of all the kitchen ranges, all the lost juices of that early American cookery, which one who has tasted it can never forget. Where are the broils of our childhood ? Codfish is a family stand-by, but a tasteless fish unless covered with oysters or something very good ; but salt- codfish balls are a great luxury. Brook trout, boiled, baked, and broiled, are all inferior to the fry. The frying-pan has to answer for a multitude of sins, but nothing so base can be found as to deprive it of its great glory in sending us a fried brook-trout. "Clean and rinse a quarter-of-a-pound trout in cold water," says one recipe. Why not a pound -and-a-quarter trout? The recipe begins later on : after some pork has been fried in the pan, throw in ygur carefully cleaned fish, no matter what their weight may be, turn them three times most care- fully. Send to table without adding or detracting from their flavour. This is for the sportsman who cooks his trout himself by a wood fire in the woods ; and no other man ever arrives at just that perfect way of cooking a trout. When the trout has come down from cooling springs to the hot city, it requires a seasoning of salt, pepper, and lemon- juice. Frogs — frogs as cooked in France, grenouilles a la poiilette — are a most luxurious delicacy. They are very expensive and are to be bought at the inarche St FISH. 123 Honore. As only the hind legs are eaten, and the price is fifteen francs a dozen, they are not often seen. We mi^ht have them in this country for the catching. Of their tenderness, succulence, and delicacy of flavour there can be no question. They are clean feeders, and un- doubtedly wholesome. Sala, writing in " Breakfasts in Bed " does not praise bouillabaisse. He declares that the cooks plunge a roll- ing-pin in tallow and then with it stir that pot pouni of red mullet, tomatoes, red pepper, red Burgundy, oil, and garlic to which Thackeray has written so delightful a lyric. " Against fish soups, turtle, terrapin, oyster, and bisque," he says, " I can offer no objection." The Italians again have their good zuppa marinana, which is not all like the bouillabaisse , and the Russians make a very appetizing fish pottage which is called batwina, the stock of which is composed of kraus, or half-brewed barley beer, and oil. Into this is put the fish known as the sterlet of the Volga, or the sassina of the Gulf of Fin- land, together with bay leaves, pepper, and lumps of ice. Baiwina is better than bouillabaisse. THE SALAD. " Epicurean cooks shall sharpen with cloyless sauce the appetite." OF all the vegetables of which a salad can be made, lettuce is the greatest favourite. That lettuce which is pajiachee, says the Almanack des GoiirmandSy that is, when it has streaked or variegated leaves, is truly Mfie salade de disti7iction. We prefer in this country the fine, crisp, solid little heads, of which the leaves are bright green. The milky juices of the lettuce are sopo- rific, like opium seeds, and predispose the eater to sleep, or to repose of temper and to philosophic thought. After, or before, lettuce comes the fragrant celery, always an appetizer. Then the tomato, a noble fruit as sweet in smell as Araby the blest, which makes an illus- trious salad. Its medicinal virtue is as great as its gastro- nomical goodness. It is the friend of the well, for it keeps them well, and the friend of the sick, for it brings them back to the lost sheep-folds of hygeia. There are water-cress and dandelion, common mus- tard, boiled asparagus, and beet root, potato salad, beloved of the Germans, the cucumber, most fragrant and delicate of salads, a salad of eggs, of lobsters, of chickens, sausages, herrings, and sardines. Anything that is edible can be made into a salad, and a vegetable mixture of cold French beans, boiled peas, carrots and potato, onion, green peppers, and cucumber, covered with THE SALAD. I25 fresh mayonnaise dressing, is served ice cold in France, to admiration. To learn to make a salad is the most important of qualifications for one who would master the art of entertaining. Here is a good recipe for the dressing : — Two yolks of eggs, a teaspoonful of salt, and three of mus- tard, — it should have been mixed with hot water before using, — a httle cayenne pepper, a spoonful of vinegar ; pound the eggs and mix well. Common vinegar is preferred by many, but some like tarragon vinegar better. Stir this gently for a minute, then add two full spoonfuls of best oil of Lucca. " A sage for the mustard, a miser for the vinegar, a spend- thrift for the oil, and a madman to stir " is the old saw. Add a teaspoonful of brown sugar, half a dozen little spring onions cut fine, three or four slices of beet root, the white of the egg, not cut too small, and then the lettuce itself, which should be torn from the head stock by the fingers. Some French salad dressers <s,z.y fatiguez la salade^ which means, shake it, mix it, and bruise it; but the modern arrangement is to delicately cover the leaves with the dressing, and not to bruise them. This is an old-fash- ioned salad. An excellent salad of cold boiled potatoes cut into slices about an inch thick, may be made with thin slices of fresh beet root, and onions cut very thin, and very little of them, with the same dressing, minus the sugar. Francatelli speaks of a Russian salad with lobster, a German salad with herrings, and an Italian salad with potatoes ; but these come more under the head of the mayonnaises than of the simpler salads. The cucumber comes next to lettuce, as a purely vegetable salad^ and is most desirable with fish. Pr, 126 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Johnson declared that the best thing you could do with a cucumber, after you had prepared it with much care and thought, was to throw it out of the window ; but Dr. Johnson, although he could write Rasselas and a dictionary, knew nothing about the art of entertaining. He was an eater, a glutton, a gourmand, not a gou7'jiiet. Plow should he dare to speak against a cucumber salad? Endive and chiccory should be added to the list of vegetable salads. Neither of them is good, however. An old-fashioned French salad is made thus : " Chop three anchovies, an onion, and some parsley small ; put them in a bowl with two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, one of oil, a little mustard and salt. When well mixed, add some slices of cold roast beef not exceeding two or three inches long. Make three hours before eating. Garnish •with parsley." This is by no means a bad way of serv- ing up yesterday's roast beef. The etymology of salad is said to be " sal," or some- thing salted. Shakspeare mentions the salad five or six times. In Henry VI., Jack Cade, in his extremity of peril when hiding from his pursuers in Ida's garden, says he has climbed over the wall to see if he could eat grass, or pick a salad, which he says " will not come amiss to cool a man's stomach in the hot weather." In An- tony and Cleopatra, the passionate queen speaks of her *' salad days" when she was "green in judgment, cool in blood." This means, however, something raw or unripe. Hamlet uses the word with the more ancient orthography of "sallet," and says in his speech to the players, " I remember when there were no sallets in these times to make them savoury." By this he meant there was nothing piquant in them, no Attic salt. One author, not so illustrious, claims that the noblest prerog- THE SALAD. 12;;^ ative of man is that he is a cooking animal, and a salad eater. " The Hon is generous as a hero, the rat artful as a lawyer, the dove gentle as a lover, the beaver is a good engineer, the monkey is a clever actor, but none of them can make a salad. The wisest sheep never thought of culhng and testing his grasses, seasoning them with thyme or tarragon, softening them with oil, exasperating them with mustard, sharpening them with vinegar, spirit- ualizing them with a suspicion of onions, in that no sheep has made a salad. Their only sauce is hunger. " Salads," says this pleasant writer, "were invented by Adam and Eve, — probably made of pomegranates as to-day in Spain." Of all salads, lobster is the most picturesque and beau- tiful. Its very scarlet is a trumpet tone to appetite. It lies embedded in green leaves like a magnificent tropical cactus. A good dressing for lobster is essence of an- chovy, mushroom ketchup, hard-boiled eggs, and a little cream. Mashed potatoes, rubbed down with cream, or simply mixed with vinegar, are no bad substitute for eggs, and impart to the salad a new and not unpleasing flavour. French beans, the most delicate of vegetables, give the salad eater a new sensation. A dressing can be mixed in the following proportions : " Four mustard ladles of mustard, four salt ladles of salt. Three spoonfuls of best Italian oil, twelve of vinegar, three unboiled eggs. All are to be carefully rubbed together. This is for those who like sours and not sweets. An old French emigre, who had to make his living in England during the time of the Regency, a man of taste and refinement, an epicurean Marquis, carried to noblemen's houses his 12§ THE ART OF ENTERTAININC. mahogany box full of essences, spices, and condiments, and made his salad in this way : he chopped up three anchovies with a little shallot and some parsley ; these he threw into a bowl with a little mustard and salt, two tablespoonfuls of oil, and one brimming over with vine- gar. When thoroughly merged he added his lettuce, or celery, or potato, extremely thin, short slices of best Westphalia ham, or the finest roast beef, which he had steeped in the vinegar. He garnished with parsley and a few layers of bacon. This man was called Le Roi de la salade. A cod mayonnaise is a good dish : — Boil a large cod in the morning. Let it cool ; then re- move the skin and bones. For sauce put some thick cream in a porcelain sauce-pan and thicken it with corn-flour which has been mixed with cold water. When it begins to boil stir in the beaten yolks of two eggs. As it cools beat it well to prevent it from being lumpy, and when nearly cold stir in the juice of two lemons, a little tarragon vinegar, a pinch of salt, and a soupqo7i of cayenne pepper. Peel and slice some very ripe tomatoes or cold potatoes, steep them in vinegar with cayenne, pounded ginger, and plenty of salt. Lay these around the fish and cover with ' cream sauce. The tomatoes and potatoes should be carefully drained before they are placed around the fish. A salmon covered with a green sauce is a famous dish for a ball supper ; indeed, there are thirty or forty salads with a cold fish foundation. This art of dressing cold vegetables with pepper, salt, oil, and vinegar, should be studied. In France they give you these salads to perfection at the dejeuner a la fourchette. Fillippini, of Delmonico's, in his admirable work, "The Table," adds Swedish salad. String Bean Salad, Russian Salad^ Salad Macedoine, Escarolle^ Don- THE SALAD. I29 cetfe, Dandelioii a la coiitoise^ Baib de Capucine, Cauli- flower salad, and Salad a V Italian. I advise any young housekeeper to buy this book of his, as suggestive. It is too elaborate and learned, however, for practical application to any household except one in which a French cook is kept. A mayonnaise dressing is a triumph of art when well made : — A tablespoonful of mustard, one teaspoonful of salt, the yolk of three uncooked eggs, the juice of half a lemon, a quarter of a cupful of butter, a pint of oil, and a cupful of whipped cream. Beat the yolks and dry ingredients until they are very light, with a wooden spoon or with a wire beater. The bowl in which the dressing is being made should be set in a pan of ice water. Add oil, a few drops at a time, until the dressing becomes thick and rather hard. After it has reached this stage the oil can be added more rapidly. When it gets so thick as to be difficult to beat add a little vinegar, then add the juice of the lemon and the whipped cream, and place on ice until desired to be used. Another dressing can be made more quickly : — The yolk of a raw ^gg, a tablespoonful of mixed mustard, one fourth of a teaspoonful of salt, six tablespoonfuls of oil. Stir the yolk, mustard, and salt together with a fork until they begin to thicken ; add the oil gradually, stirring all the time. An excellent salad dressing is also made by using the yolk of hard-boiled eggs, some cold mashed potatoes well pressed together with a fork, oil, vinegar, mustard, and salt rubbed in, in the proportions of two of oil to one of vinegar. A salad must be fresh and freshly made, to be good. Never serve a salad the second day ; and it is not well to cover a delicate salad with too much mayonnaise. The 9 I30 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. very heart of the celery or the delicate inner leaves of the lettuce are the best for dinners. The heavy chicken and lobster, cabbage and potato salads, are dishes for lunches and suppers. The chief employment of a kitchen maid, in France, where a man cook is kept, is to wash the vegetables ; and you see her swinging the salad in a wire safe after washing it delicately in fresh water. The care bestowed on these minor morals of cookery, so often wholly neg- lected, adds the finishing touch to the excellence of a French dinner. For a green mayonnaise dressing, so much admired on salmon, use a little chopped spinach and finely chopped parsley. The juice from boiled beets can be used to make a fine red dressing. Two of these dishes will make a plain, country lunch- table very nice, and will have an appetizing effect, as has anything that betokens care, forethought, neatness, and taste. Some people cannot eat oil. Often the best oil can- not be bought in a retired and rural neighbourhood. But an excellent substitute is fresh butter or clarified chicken- fat, very carefully prepared, and icy cold. The yolks of four raw eggs, one tablespoonful of salt, one of mustard, the juice of a lemon, and a speck of cayenne pepper should be used. Two drops of onion juice, or a bit of onion sliced, will add great piquancy to salad dressing, if every one likes onion. I have never tried the following recipe, — I have tried all the others, — but I have heard that it was very good : Four tablespoonfuls of butter, one of flour, one table- spoonful of salt, one of sugar, one heaping teaspoonful of mustard, a speck of cayenne, one cupful of milk, half a cup- THE SALAD. 13I ful of vinegar, three eggs. Let the butter get hot in a sauce- pan. Add the flour and stir until smooth, being careful not to brown. Add the milk and boil up. Place the saucepan in another of hot water. Beat the eggs, salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard together, and add the vinegar. Stir this into the boiling mixture and stir until it thickens like soft custard, which will be about five minutes. Set away to cool, and when cold, bottle and place in the ice-chest. This will keep two weeks. If one wishes to use prepared mayonnaise it is better to buy that which is sold at the grocers. It has not the charm of a fresh dressing, however, but is rather like those elaborated impromptus which some studied talkers get off. A very pretty salad can be made of nasturtium- blossoms, buttercups, a head of lettuce, and a pint of water-cresses. It is to be covered with the French dressing and eaten immediately. Asparagus is so good in itself that it seems a shame to dress it as a salad ; yet it is very good eaten with oil, vinegar, and salt. Cauliflower, cold, is delicious as a salad, and can be made very ornamental with a garniture of beet root, which is a good ingredient for a salad of salt codfish, boiled. Sardine salads are very appetizing for lunch. Arrange a cold salmon or codfish on a bed of lettuce. Split six sardines, remove the bones, and mix them into the dressing. Garnish the whole dish with sardines, and cover with the dressing. All kinds of cooked fish can be served with salads. Lettuce is the best green salad to serve with them ; but all cooked and cold vegetables go well with fish. Add capers to the mayonnaise. A housekeeper who has conquered the salad question 132 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. can always add to the plainest dinner a desirable dish. She can feed the hungry, and she can stimulate the most jaded fancy of the over-fastidious gourmei by these delicate and consummate luxuries. Here is Sydney Smith's recipe for a salad : — *' To make this condiment your poet begs The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs ; Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, Smoothness and softness to the salad give. Let onion atoms wink within the bowl, And half suspected, animate the whole; Of mordant mustard, add a single spoon, (Distrust the condiment that bites too soon), But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault. To add a double quantity of salt. Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, And twice with vinegar, procured from town; And lastly, o'er the favoured compound toss A magic soupgon of anchovy sauce. Oh, green and glorious ! Oh, herbaceous treat ! 'T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat ! Back to the world would turn his fleeting soul, To plunge his fingers in a salad bowl ! Serenely full, the epicure would say, • Fate cannot harm me, — I have dined to-day.' " LOBSTER SALAD. "Take, take lobsters and lettuces, Mind that they send you the fish that you order ; Take, take a decent sized salad bowl. One that 's sufficiently deep in the border ; Cut into many a slice, All of the fish that 's nice ; Place in the bowl with due neatness and order ; Then hard-boiled eggs you may Add in a neat array, All toward the bowl, just by way of a border. THE SALAD. 1 33 " Take from the cellar of salt a proportion, Take from the castors both pepper and oil. With vinegar too, but a moderate portion, — Too much of acid your salad will spoil ; Mix them together, You need not mind whether You blend them exactly in apple-pie order, But when you 've stirred away. Mix up the whole you may. All but the eggs which are used as a border. " Take, take plenty of seasoning ; A teaspoonful of parsley that 's chopped in small pieces Though, though, the point will bear reasoning, A small taste of onion the flavour increases As the sauce curdle may, Should it, the process stay. Patiently do it again in good order ; For if you chance to spoil Vinegar, eggs, and oil, Still to proceed would on lunacy border." A Spanish salad, gaspacho, is a favourite food of the Andalusian peasant. It is but bread soaked in oil and water, with a large Spanish onion peeled, and a fresh cucumber. Slice three tomatoes, take out the grain and cut up the fruit. Arrange carefully all these materials in a shallow earthen pan, tier upon tier, salting and peppering each to taste, pouring in oil plentifully, and vinegar. Last of all, let the salad lie in some cool spot for an hour or two, then sprinkle over it two handfuls of bread-crumbs. In Spanish peasant houses, the big wooden bowl hang- ing below the eaves to keep it cool is always ready for attack. The oil in Spain is not to our taste; but the salad made as above, with good oil, is delicious. It should have a sprinkling of red pepper. DESSERTS. There is not in the wide world so tempting a sweet As that trifle where custard and macaroons meet. Oh ! the latest sweet tooth from my head must depart Ere the taste of that trifle shall not win my heart. Yet it is not the sugar that 's thrown in between, Nor the peel of the lemon so candied and green, 'Tis not the rich cream that 's whipped up by a mill, Oh, no ; it is something more exquisite still ! THE great meaning of dessert is to offer '' something more exquisite still." And it is the province of the housekeeper, be she young or old, to study how this can be done. Nothing in European dinners can compare with the American custards, puddings, and pies. We are accused as a nation of having eaten too many sweets, and of hav- ing ruined our teeth thereby ; but who that has languished in England over the insipid desserts at hotels, and the tooth-sharpeners called " sweets," meaning tarts as sour as an east wind, has not sighed for an American pie? In Paris the cakes are pretty to look at, but oh, how they break their promise when you eat them ! Nothing but sweetened white of egg. One thing they surpass us in, — ■ omelette souffle ; and a gateau St. Honore is good, but with that word of praise we dismiss the great French nation. DESSERTS. 135 Just look at our grand list of fruit desserts : apple char- lotte, apricots with rice, banana charlotte, banana frit- ters, blackberry short-cake, strawberry short-cake, velvet cream with strawberries, fresh pine-apples in jelly, frozen bananas, frozen peaches in cream, orange cocoa- nut salad, orange salad, peach fritters, peach meringue, peach short-cake, plum salad, salad of mixed fruits, sliced pears with whipped cream, stewed pears, plain, and pumpkin pie ! But oh ! there is " something more exquisite still," and that is an apple pie. " All new dishes fade, the newest oft the fleetest ; Of all the pies ever made, the apple 's still the sweetest. Cut and come again, the syrup upward springing, While life and taste remain, to thee my heart is clinging. Who a pie would make, first his apple slices, Then he ought to take some cloves and the best of spices, Grate some lemon rind, butter add discreetly, Then some sugar mix, but mind, — the pie not made too sweetly. If a cook of taste be competent to make it, In the finest paste will enclose and bake it." During years of foreign travel I have never met a dish so perfect as the American apple pie can be, with cream. Then look at our puddings ; they are richer, sweeter, more varied than any in the world, the English plum- pudding excepted. That is a ponderous dainty, which few can eat. It looks well when dressed with holly and lighted up, but it is not to be eaten every day. Baked bread pudding, carrot pudding, exceedingly delicate, chocolate pudding, cold cabinet-pudding, boiled rice- pudding with custard sauce, poor man's rice-pudding, green-apple pudding, Indian pudding, minute pudding, tapioca pudding, and all the custards boiled and baked with infinite variety of flavour, — these are the every-day 136 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. luxuries, and they are very great ones, of the American table. One charming thing about dessert and American dishes is that ladies can make them. They do not flush the face or derange the white apron. They are pleasant things to dally with, — milk and eggs, and spice and sugar. A model kitchen is every lady's delight. In these days of tiles, and marble pastry-boards, and modern improve- ments, what pretty things kitchens are. The model dairy, too, is a delight, with its upright milk-pans, in which the cream is marked off by a neat little thermometer, and its fire-brick floor. How cool and neat it is ! Sometimes a stream of fresh water flows under the floor, as the river runs under the Chateau of Chenonceaux, where Diane de Poitiers dressed her golden hair. In the model kitchen is the exquisite range, with its polished batterie de cuisine. Every brilliant saucepan seems to say, " Come and cook in me ; " every porcelain- lined pan urges upon one the necessity of stewing nectar- ines in white sugar ; every bright can suggests the word " conserve," which always makes the mouth water; every clatter of the skewers says, " Dainty dishes, come and make me." All this is quite fascinating to an amateur. No pretty woman, if she did but know it, is ever so pretty as when she is playing cook, and doing it well. The clean white apron, the short, clean, cambric gown, the little cap, the white, bare arms, — the glorified creams and jelhes, pies and Charlotte Russe, cakes and puddings, which fall from such fingers are ambrosial food. There is a great passion, in the properly regulated woman's heart, for the cleanly part of the household work. The love of a dairy is, with many a duchess, part DESSERTS. 137 of the business of her rank. In our country, where ladies are compelled to put a hand, once perhaps too often, owing to the insufficiency of servants, to the cook- ing, it is less a pastime, but a knowledge of it is indis- pensable. To cook a heavy dinner in hot weather, to wash the dishes afterward, this is sober prose, and by a very dull author; but to make the dessert, this is poetry. In the early morning the hostess should go into her neat dairy to skim the cream ; it will be much thicker if she does. She will prepare all things for the desserts of the day. She will make her well- flavoured custard and set it in the ice-chest. She will place her compote of pears securely on a high shelf, away from that ubiquitous cat who has, in most families, so remarkable and so irre- pressible an appetite. Then she should make a visit to the kitchen before dinner, to see to it that the roast birds are garnished with water- cress, that the vegetables are properly pre- pared, that the dishes are without a smear on their lower surfice. All this attention makes good servants and very good "dinners. In the matter of flavouring, the coloured race has us at a great disadvantage. Any old coloured cook can distance her white *' Missus " there. This highly gifted race seem to have a sixth sense on the subject of flavours. The rich tropical nature breaks out in reminiscences of orange-blossoms, pineapple, guava, cocoanut, and man- darin orange. Never can the descendants of the poor, half- starved, frozen exiles of Plymouth Rock hope to achieve such custards and puddings as these Ethiops pour out. It is as if some luxurious and beneficent gift had left us when we were made poets, orators, philoso- phers, preachers, and authors, when we were given what 138 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. we proudly term a higher intelHgence. Who would not exchange all the cold, mathematical, intellectual suprem- acy of which we boast for that luscious gift of making pies and puddings a ravir ? The making of pastry is so delicate and so varied a task that we can only say, approach it with cold hands, cold ice-water, roll it on a marble slab, then bake it in a very hot oven. Learn to stew well. Stew your fruit in a porcelain stewpan before putting it in your tarts. It is one of the most wholesome forms of cookery; a French novelist calls the stewpan the " favourite arm, the talisman of the cook." A celebrated physician said that the action of the stewpan was like that of the stomach, and it is a great gain if we can help that along. Stewing goose- berries, cherries, and even apples with sugar and lemon- peel before putting them in the tart, ensures a good pie. Whipped white of Qgg is an elegant addition to most dessert dishes, and every lady should provide herself with wire whisks. Whipped to a strong froth with sugar, and lemon or vanilla flavouring, this garnish makes an ordinary into a superior pudding. New-laid eggs are exceedingly difficult to beat up well. Take those which have been laid sev- eral days. Have a deep bowl with a circular bottom, and in beating the eggs keep the whisk as much as pos- sible in an upright position, moving it- very rapidly ; a little boiling water, a tablespoonful to two eggs, and a teaspoii^ful of sifted sugar put to them before beating is commenced, facilitates the operation. For omelette sotcffle the white of eggs, beaten, should be firm enough to cut. DESSERTS. 139 An orange-custard pudding is so very good that we must give a time-honoured recipe : — Boil a pint of new milk, pour it upon three eggs lightly beaten, mix in the grated peel of an orange, and two ounces of loaf sugar ; beat all together for ten minutes, then pour the custard into a pie dish, set it into another containing a little water, and put it in a moderate oven. When the cus- tard is set, which generally takes about half an hour, take it out and let it get cold. Then sprinkle over rather thickly some very fine sugar, and brown with a salamander. This should be eaten cold. Of rice and tapioca puddings the variety is endless, and they are most healthful. A wife who will give her dyspeptic husband a good pudding every day may per- haps save his life, his fortunes, and if he is an author, his literary reputation. An antiquary of the last century wrote, "Cookery was ever reckoned a branch of the art medical ; the verb curare signifies equally to dress vegetables and to cure a distemper, and everybody has heard of Dr. Diet, and kitchen physic." Indeed that most sacred part of a woman's duty, learning to cook for the sick, can be studied through desserts. A lady, very ill in Paris through a long winter, declared that she would have been cured had she once tasted cream-toast, or tapioca pudding ; both were lux- uries which she never encountered. Then come all the jeUies ; and it is better to make your own gelatine from the real calves'-feet than to use patent gelatine. The latter, however, is very good, and saves time. It also makes excellent foundation for all the so-called creams. Some ardent housekeepers put up all their jams, 140 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. preserves, and currant jelly ; some even make the cordials curagoa, noyau, peach brandy, ginger cordial, and cherry brandy, but this is unnecessary. They can be bought cheaper and better than they can be made. The history of liqueurs is a curious one. Does any one ever think, as he tastes Chartreuse, of the gloomy monks who dig their own graves, and never speak save to say, " Mes freres, il faut mourir," who alone can make this sparkling and delicate liqueur which figures at every grand feast? I have made an expedition to their splendid mountain- bound convent. It is one of the most glorious drives in Europe, and rises into Alpine grandeur and solemnity. There, amid winter's cold and summer's heat, the Char- treuse lives in severe penance, making his hospitable liqueur which enchants the world, out of the chamomile and other herbs which grow around his convent. The best French liqueurs were made formerly at La Cote by the Visetandine nuns. Kirschwasser is made from the cherries which grow in the Alpine Tyrol, in one small province which produces nothing else. Liqueurs were invented for Louis XIV. in his old age. A cordial was made by mixing brandy with sugar and scents. In making a mince pie, do not forget the excellent brandy, and the dash of orange cura^oa, which should be put in by the lady herself. Else why is it that other- wise the mince pie seems to lack the inspiriting an ! hidden fire. We read that there is '" many a slip 'tv/"x'. the cup and the lip." Perhaps the cook could tell, but one may be very sure she will not. The modern, elegant devices by which strawberries, violets, and roseleaves, orange blossoms, and indeed all DESSERTS. 141 berries can be candied fresh in sugar, afford a pretty pastime for amateur cooks. But if near a confectioner in the city these can be bought cheaper than they can be made. It may amuse an invaUd to make them, and the art is easily learned. The c\\Q&SQ fondu is a great favourite at foreign des- serts. It is of Swiss origin. It is a healthful, sav^oury, and appetizing dish, quickly dressed and good to put at the end of a dinner for unexpected guests. Take as many eggs as there are guests, and then about a third as much by weight of the best Gruy^res cheese, and the half of that of butter. Break and beat up well the eggs in a saucepan, then add the butter and the cheese, grated or cut in small pieces ; place the saucepan on the fire, and stir with a wooden spoon till it is of a thick and soft consistence ; put in salt according to the age of the cheese, — fresh cheese requires the most, — and a strong dose of pepper, then bake it like macaroni and send to table hot. One pie we have which is national ; it is that made of the pumpkin, and it is notoriously good. Also we may claim the squash pie and the sweet-potato pie, both of which merit the highest encomiums. Our fruits are so plentiful and so good that few house- keepers can fail of having a good dessert of fruits alone. But do not force the seasons. Take them as they come. When fruits are cheapest then they are best. Our peaches have more flavour than those of Europe, and our grapes are unrivalled. Of plums and pears, France has better than we can boast, but our strawberries are as good and as plentiful as in England. In fact, all the wild berries which are now getting to be cultivated berries, Hke blackberries, blueberries, huckleberries, and raspberries, are better than similar 142 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. fruits abroad. The wild strawberry of the Alps is, how- ever, delicious in flavour and sweetness. A very grand dessert is furnished with ices of every flavour, jellies holding fruit and flavoured with maraschino, all sorts of bonbons, nuts in sugar, candied grapes and oranges, fresh fruits in season, and ending with liqueurs and black coflee. A simple pudding, or pie followed by grapes and peaches, with the cup of black coflee afterward, is the national dessert of our United States. In winter it may be enriched by a Newtown pippin or a King of Tompkins County apple, some boiled chestnuts and a few other nuts, some Florida oranges, or those delicious little mandarins, perhaps raised by the immortal Rip Van Winkle, our own Joe Jefl"erson, on his Louisiana estate. He seems to have infused them with the flavour of his own rare and cheerful genius. He has raised a laugh before this, as weU as the best mandarin oranges. Some dyspeptics declare that to chew seven roasted almonds after dinner does them good. And the roasted almonds fitly close the chapter on desserts. GERMAN EATING AND DRINKING. " I wonder if Charlemagne ever drank A tankard of Assmanschausen. Nay ! If he had, his empire never would rank As it does with the royalist realms to-day; For the goddess that laughs within the cup Had wiled and won him from blood and war. And shown, as he drained her long draughts up, There was something better worth living for Than kingcraft keeping his gruff brow sad. I wish from my very soul she had." THE deep, dark, swiftly flowing Rhine, its legends, its forests of silver firs and pines, its mountains crowned with castles, and its hillsides blushing with the bending vine, the convent's ancient walls, the glistening spire, the maidens with their plaited hair, and " hands that offer early flowers," all the bright, beautiful, romantic landscape, the dancing waves which wash its historic shores, its donjon keeps and haunted Tenter Rock, its " Beetling walls with ivy grown, Frowning heights of mossy stone," — all this beauty is placed in the land of the sauer-kraut, the herring salad, the sweet stewed fruit with pork, pig and prune sauce, carp stewed in beer, raw goose-flesh or Gottingen sausages, potato sweetened, and cabbage soured, — in a land, in short, whose kitchen is an abomi- nation to ah other nations. Not that one does not get an excellent dinner at a German hotel in a great city. But all the cooks are 144 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. French. The powerful young emperor has, however, given his orders that all menus shall hereafter be written in German; the language of Ude, Soyer, Valet, and FrancateUi, Brillat, Savarin, and Bechamel, is to be replaced by German. But if the viands are not good, the wines are highly praised by the gourmet ; and as these wines are often ex- ported, it is said that one gets a better German wine in New York than at a second-class hotel at Bonn or Cologne or Diisseldorf, — on the same principle that fish at Newport is less fresh than at New York, for it is all bought, sent to New York, and then sent back to New- port. In other words, the exporters are careful to keep up the reputation of their exported wines. Assmanschausen is a red Rhine wine of high degree ; some gourmets call it the Burgundy of the Rhine. This poetic beverage is found within the gorge of the Rhine. The bend which the noble river assumes at the Rhein- gau is said to have the effect of concentrating the sun's rays, reflected from the surface of the water as from a mirror, upon the vine-clad slopes ; and it is to this cir- cumstance, combined with the favourable nature of the soil, and to the vineyards being completely sheltered from the north winds by the Taunus range, that the marked superiority of the wines of the Rheingau is ordinarily attributed. *' Bacharach has produced another fine wine. * He never has been to Heaven and back Who has not drunken of Bacharach.' " And Longfellow says : — " At Frankfort on the Maine, And at Wiirtzburg on the Stein, At Bacharach on the Rhine, Grow the three best kinds of wine/* German eating and drinkinc. 145 We know but little of the superior red wines of Walporz- heimer, .\hrweiler, and Bodendorfer, which come from the valley of the Ahr. The Ahr falls into the Rhine near Sinzig, midway between Coblenz and Bonn. The wines from its beautiful vineyards are a fine deep red. The taste is astringent, somewhat like port. There is an agreeable red wine called Kreutzburger which comes from the neighbourhood of Ehrenbreitstein. Linz on the Rhine sends us a good red wine known as Dattenberger. These are all pure wines which know no doctoring. The Liebfrauenmilch is a Riessling wine with a fine bouquet. It owes its celebrity rather to its name than its merits. It comes from the vineyards adjoining the Liebfrauen Kirche near Worms, and was named by some pious churchman. No wines have as many poetical tributes as the Rhine wines. One of the English poets sings : — " O for a kingdom rocky-throned, Above the brimming Rhine, With vassals who should pay their toll In many sorts of wine. Above me naught but the blue air. And all below, the vine, I 'd plant my throne, where legends say In nights of harvest-time King Charlemagne, in golden robe, — So runs the rustic rhyme, — Doth come to bless the mellowing crops While bells of Heaven chime." The Steinbergers, the Hochheimers, Marcobrunners, and Riidesheimers, sound like so many noble families. Indeed an American senator, hearing these fine names, remarked : " I have no doubt, sir, they are all very nice girls." 10 146 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. There is a famous Hochheimer, no less than a hundred and sixty-seven years old, the vintage of that year when the Duke of Marlborough gained the Battle of Ramillies. Let us hope that he and Prince Eugene moistened their clay and labours with some of this famous wine. These wines do not last, however. The best age is ten years, and those which have been stored in the antique vaulted cellar of the Bernardine Abbey of Eberbach, world- renowned as the Grand-ducal Cabinet wine of the ruler of Nassau, are now completely run out. Even Rudes- heimer of 1872 is no longer good. It must be remembered, however, that these wines are never fortified. To put extraneous alcohol into their be- loved Rhine wine would rouse Rudolph of Hapsburg and Conrad of Hotstettin from the sleep of centuries. The Steinberger Cabinet of 1862 is the most superb of Rhine wines for bouquet, refined flavour, combined richness and delicacy. We do not except Schloss Johan- nisberger, because that is not in the market. A Marco- brunner and a Rlidesheimer are not to be despised. Prince Metternich sent to Jules Janin for his autograph, and the witty poet editor sent a receipt for twelve bottles of Imperial Schloss Johannisberger. The Prince took the hint and had a dozen of the very best cabinet wine forwarded, every bottle being sealed and every cork duly branded with the Prince's crest ! The Johannisberger wine is excessively sweet, singularly soft, and gives forth a delicious perfume, a rich, limpid, amber-coloured wine, with a faint bitter flavour ; it is as beautiful to look at as it is luscious to the taste, and it possesses a bouquet which the Empress Eugenie compared to that of helio- trope, violets, and geranium leaves combined. The refined pungent flavour of a good Hock, its slight GERMAN EATING AND DRINKING. 1 47 racy sharpness, with an after ahiiond flavour, make it an admirable appetizer. The staircase vineyards, in which the grapes grow on the Rhine, seem to catch all the re- vivifying influences of sunshine. Their splendid golden colour is caught from those first beams of the sun as he greets his bride, the Earth, after he has been separated from her for twelve dark hours. Some very good wine comes from the Rochusberg, im- mediately opposite Rudesheim. Goethe heard a sermon here once in which the preacher glorified God in propor- tion to the number of bottles of good wine it was daily vouchsafed to him to stow away under his waistband. It was here that the rascal lived who drank wine out of a boot, immortalized by Longfellow. We can hardly, however, abuse the man, for he had an incurable thirst, and no crystal goblet would have held enough for him, — not indeed the biggest German beer mug. Longfellow, in the " Golden Legend," has a chapter devoted to wine. In this poem the old cellarer muses, as he goes to draw the fine wine for the fathers, who sit above the salt, and he utters this truth of those brothers who sit below the salt : — *' Who cannot tell bad wine from good, And are much better off than if they could." The superior wines of the Rhine, Walporzheimer, Ahrwei- ler and Bodendorfer, all deserve notice. The kind of wine to be served with a dinner must de- pend on the means of the host. It is to be feared that, ignorantly or otherwise, many wines with high-sounding names which are not good are off"ered to guests. Mr. Evarts made a witty remark on this subject. Some one said to him, '^ I hear that as a great diner-out 148 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. you find yourself the worse for drinking so many different sorts of wine." " Oh no," said Mr. Evarts, '' I do not object to the different wines, it is the indifferent wines which hurt me ! " Savarin says, sententiously, " Nothing can exceed the treachery of asking people to dinner under the guise of friendship, and then giving them to eat or drink of that which may be injurious to health." We should think so. That was the pleasant hospitality of the Borgias. In the neighbourhood of Neuwied, the dealers are accused of much doctoring of wine. During the vintage, at night, when the moon has gone down, boats glide over the Rhine freighted with a soapy substance manufactured from potatoes, and called by its owners sugar. This stuff is thrown into the vats containing the must, water is introduced from pumps and wells, chemical ferments and artificial heat are applied. This noble fluid is sent everywhere by land and water, and labelled as first-class wine. It is not bad to the taste, but does not bear transportation. This adulteration chiefly affects the wines sold at German hotels. Heinrich Heine has left us this picture of a German dinner : " I dined at the Crown at Clausthal. My repast consisted of spring greens, parsley soup, violet blue cab- bage, a pile of roast veal, which resembled Chimborazo in miniature, and a sort of smoked herring called buckings, from their inventor William Buckings, who died in 1447, and who on account of that invention was so greatly honoured by Charles V. that the great monarch in 1556 made a journey from Middelburg to Bierhed, in Zealand, for the express purpose of visiting the grave of the great fish-dryer. How exquisitely such dishes taste when we are familiar with their historical associations." GERMAN EATING AND DRINKING. 1 49 It is impossible in translation to give Heine's intense ridicule and scorn. He was a Frenchman out of place in Germany. He revolted at things German, but en- deared himself to his people by his wit, universality of talent, and sincerity. The world has thanked him for his " Reisebilder." Heine gives us new ideas of the hor- rors of German cookery when he talks of Gottingen sau- sages, Hamburg smoked beef, Pomeranian goose-breasts, ox-tongues, calf s brains in pastry, gudgeon cakes, and " a wretched pig's-head in a wretcheder sauce, which has neither a Grecian nor a Persian flavour, but which tasted like tea and soft soap." He cannot leave Gottingen without this description : "The town of Gottingen, celebrated for its sausages and its university, belongs to the King of Hanover, and con- tains nine hundred and ninety-nine dwellings, divers chambers, an observatory, a prison, a library, and a council chamber where the beer is excellent." German sausages are very good. Even the great Goethe, in dying, remembered to send a sausage to his aesthetic love of a Hfetime, the Frau Von Stein. Thackeray, who was keenly alive to the horrors of German cookery, says that whatever is not sour is greasy, and whatever is not greasy is sour. The curious bill of fare of a middle-class German table is something like this : They begin with a pudding. They serve sweet preserved fruit with the meat, generally stewed cherries. They go on with dreadful dishes of cabbage and prepa- rations of milk, curdled, soured, and cheesed. Dr. Lieber, the learned philologist, was eloquent on the subject of the coarseness of the German appetite. He had early corrected his by a visit to Italy, and he remarked^ with his usual profundity, that it was " the 150 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. more incomprehensible as nature had given Germany the finest wines with which to wash down the worst cookery." A favourite dish is potato pancakes. The raw pota- toes are scraped fine, mixed with milk, and then treated like flour cakes, served with apple or plum sauce. Sauer-kraut is ridiculed, but it is only cabbage cut fine and pickled. There are two delicious dishes in which it plays an important part : one is roast pheasant cut fine and cooked with sauer-kraut and champagne ; the other is sauer-kraut cooked in the crotUe of a Strasbourg pate de foie gras. Favourite Austro- Hungarian dishes are bachhendl, baked spring-chicken, — the chicken rolled into a paste of egg flour and then baked. It is rather dry to eat, but just the thing with a bottle of Hungarian wine. Also a beefsteak, with plenty of paprika, or Hungarian red pepper, Brinsa cheese, pot cheese, made in the Carpa- thian mountains and baked in a hot oven. Brook trout is never fried, but boiled in water, and then served surrounded by parsley in melted butter. In eastern Russia grows a pea, the gray pea, which is boiled and eaten like peanuts by peeling off the hard skin, or boiled with some sort of sour-sweet sauce, which softens the skin. This pea is such a favourite with the Lithuanians that it is made the subject of poetry. Venison, and hare soup, are deliciously gamey bouil- lons, which are made of the soup bone of the roast. The Polish soup barscz is made of bouillon with the juice of red beets, little saucissons, and specially made pastry, with highly spiced forced-meat balls swimming in it. Lettuce salad is prepared in Germany with sour cream. A favourite drink is warm beer, — beer heated with the yolk of an egg in it. GERMAN EATING AND DRINKING. I5t " Fill me once more the foaming pewter up ! Another board of oysters, ladye mine ! To-night Lucullus with himself shall sup. Those mute inglorious Miltons are divine; And as I here in slippered ease recline, Quaffing of Perkins's Entire my fill, I sigh not for the lymph of Aganippe's rill.'* Beer is the amber inspiration of the Germans, and plays its daily, hourly part in their science of entertaining. And the pea which can be skinned, which is such a favourite with the Lithuanians, has also been immor- talized by Thackeray : — " I give thee all ! I can no more, Though poor the offering be ; Stewed duck and peas are all the store That I can offer thee ! — A duck whose tender breast reveals Its early youth full well, And better still, a pea that peels From fresh transparent shell." But it must not be supposed that rich German citizens of the United States do not know how to give a good dinner. Cosmopolitan in everything else, these, the best colonists whom Europe has sent to us, make good soldiers, good statesmen, and good entertainers. They do not insist that we shall eat pig and prune sauce. No, they give us the most affluent bill of fare which the mar- ket affords. They give us a fine dining-room in which to eat it, and they offer as no other men can " a tank- ard of Assmanschausen." They give us, as a nation, a valuable present in mineral water. The ApolHnaris bubbling up near the Rhine seems sent by Heaven to avert that gout and rheuma- tism which are the terrible after-dinner penalties of those who like too well the noble Rhine wines. THE INFLUENCE OF GOOD CHEER ON AUTHORS AND GENIUSES. " The ancient poets and their learned rhymes We still admire in these our later times, And celebrate their fames. Thus, though they die Their names can never taste mortality. These had their helps. They wrote of gods and kings, Of temples, battles, and such gallant things. And now we ask what noble meat and drink Can help to make man work, to make him think.** " Pray, on what meat hath this our Caesar fed ? " WE should have a higher estimate of the value of a knowledge of cookery and of all the arts of en- tertaining, did we sufficiently realize that the style of Carlyle was owing to dyspepsia ! At the age of fifteen he entered Edinburgh University in order to fit himself for the pulpit. He studied for many months to that end, but his vocation refused to be clear. The ministry grew alien to his mind. Finally he shut himself up, and as he himself says, wrestled with the Lord and all the imps of darkness. Carlyle believed in a personal Devil, not tasting food or sleeping for three days and nights, and then terminated the struggle by resolving to pursue liter- ature. What mental revolution he underwent, he says he never could understand ; all that he knew was that he came out with that " dommed dyspepsia," — his Scotch way of pronouncing a stronger word. Influence of good cheer. 153 Some writer says that this anecdote solves the problem of Carlyle. The force, earnestness, and eloquence of his writings were born of a fine, free intellect. Then came despondency, rage, and bitterness, springing from dyspepsia, which had been his haunting demon from the first, releasing him at intervals only to assail and torture him the " more for each surcease." Most of his works come under the head of the Litera- ture of Dyspepsia, and can be as plainly traced to it as to the growth of his understanding or the sincerity of his convictions. Who does not recognize, in the oddities of the trials and spiritual agonies of Herr Teufelsdrockh, the author himself under a thin disguise, and the pro- motings and promptings, and phenomena of censuring indigestion? All through the " Sartor Resartus " it is evi- dent that the gastric juices of the illustrious iconoclast are insufficient ; that while he is railing at humanity he is suffering from gastritis, while he is prophesying that the race will come to naught but selfishness and stupidity he is undergoing gastrodynia, or, as it is commonly called, stomachic cramp. I do not know who wrote that masterly criticism, but evidently some man who had had a good dinner. But Carlyle gets better and writes his noble essay on Robert Burns, the life of John Sterling, Oliver Cromwell's letters and speeches. Then he is at his best ; sees man as a brother, handicapped with circumstances, riveted to temperament perhaps, but in spite of all short- comings and neglected opportunities, still a brother, demanding respect, deserving of help. How different Carlyle would have been, as a man and as a writer, with nutritive organs capable of continually and regularly performing their functions. Dyspepsia was his worst tj4 THE ART OF fiNTERTAINiNG. enemy, as it has been that of many of his readers. Every mouthful he ate must have been a gastric Nemesis for sins of opinion, and of heresies against humanity. His very style is the result of indigestion, — an excess of ill- chosen, ill-prepared German fare in a British stomach, affording a strange sustenance, which, like some diseases, keep a man alive, but which pain while they sustain. What a different genius was Prescott, who had a good dinner every day of his life, who was brought up from boyhood in a luxurious old Boston household where was the perfection of cookery ! Sydney Smith sent word to Prescott after he wrote "Ferdinand and Isabella," — " Tell Prescott to come here and we will drown him in turtle soup." "Say that I can swim in those seas," was Prescott's witty rejoinder. Mr. Prescott was fifty-three years of age when he visited England ; he was extremely handsome, courteous, and very much a man of the world. " We grow like what we eat. Bad food depresses, Good food exalts us like an inspiration." Mr. Prescott had been inspired by good food, as any one can see who reads that noble work " Ferdinand and Isabella." In England this accomplished man was received by Lady Lyell, to whom he was much attached. The account of English hospitality which he gives throws a rosy light on the history of the art of entertaining : " I returned last night from the Homers, Lady Lyell's parents and sisters, a very accomplished and happy family circle. They have a small house, with a pretty lawn stretching between it and the Thames, that forms a INFLUENCE OF GOOD CHEER. 155 silver edging to the close-shaven green. The family gather under the old trees on the little shady carpet, which is sweet with the perfume of flowery shrubs. And you see sails gliding by and stately swans, of which there are hundreds on the river. The next Sunday, after dinner, which we took at four o'clock, we strolled through Hampton Court and its royal park. The next day we took our picnic at Box Hill. On Friday to dinner at Sir Robert Peel's and to an evening party at Lady S 's. I went at eleven and found myself in a brilliant saloon filled with people amongst whom" I did not recognize a familiar face. You may go to ten parties in London, be introduced to a score of persons in each, and on going to the eleventh not see a face that you have ever seen before, so large is the society of the great metropolis. I was soon put at my ease, however, by the cordial reception of Lord and Lady C , who intro- duced me to a great number of persons." This alone would prove how great was Prescott's popularity, for in London, people, as a rule, are not introduced. " In the crowd 1 saw an old gentleman, nicely made up, stooping a good deal, covered with orders, and making his way easily along, as all, young and old, seemed to treat him with deference. It was the Duke of Well- ington, the old Iron Duke. He likes the attention he receives in this social way. He wore round his neck the order of the Golden Fleece, on his coat the order of the Garter. He is, in truth, the lion of England, not to say of all Europe." This beautiful little genre picture of the Iron Duke was written in the year 1850. Forty years later General Grant was received at Apsley House by the son of the 156 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. great Duke of Wellington, the second Duke, who opened the famous Waterloo room and toasted the modest American as the greatest soldier of modern times. Mr. Prescott goes on to say, — "We had a superb dinner at Sir Robert Peel's, four and twenty guests. It was served in the long picture- gallery. The windows of the gallery look out upon the Thames, its beautiful stone bridges with lofty arches, Westminster Abbey with its towers, and the living pano- rama on the water. The opposite windows look on the green gardens behind the Palace of Whitehall, which were laid out by Cardinal Wolsey, and near the spot where Charles I. lived, and lost his life on the scaffold. The gallery is full of masterpieces, especially Dutch and Flemish, amongst them the famous Chapeau de Faille, which cost Sir Robert over five thousand pounds. In his dining-room were also superb pictures, the famous one by Wilkie, of John Knox preaching, which did not come up to the idea I had formed of it from the engraving. There was a portrait of Dr. Johnson by Reynolds, the portrait owned by Mrs. Thrale and engraved for the Dictionary ; what a bijou ! "■ We sat at dinner looking out on the moving Thames. We dined at eight, but the twilight lingers here until half- past nine at this summer season. Sir Robert was exceed- ingly courteous to his guests, told some good stories, showed us his autographs, amongst which was the cele- brated one written by Nelson, in which he says, * If I die " Frigate " will be found written on my heart.' " Mr. Prescott's letter to his daughter points out the strange difference between the life of a girl in England and a girl here. " J think on reflection, dear Lizzy, that you did well INFLUENCE OF GOOD CHEER. 1 5/ not to come with me. Girls of your age [she was then nineteen] make no great figure in society. One never, or very rarely, m^ets them at dinner parties, and they are not so numerous at evening parties as with us, unless it be at balls. Six out of seven women you meet are over thirty, and many of them over forty or fifty, not to say sixty ; the older they are, the more they are dressed and diamonded. Young girls dress less, and wear very little ornament indeed." What a commentary this is on our American way of doing things, — where young girls rule society, put their mothers in the background, and wear too fine clothes. Dr. Prescott was of course presented at Court, and his account of it is delightful : — " Well ! the presentation has come off, and I will give you some account of it before going to dine with Lord Fitzwilliam. This morning I breakfasted with Mr. Monckton JMilnes, where I met Macaulay the third time this week. We had also Lord Lyttleton, an excellent scholar, Gladstone, and Lord W. Germains, a sensible and agreeable person, and two or three others. We had a lively talk, but I left early for the Court affair. I was at Mr. Abbott Lawrence's at one in my costume, — a chapeau with gold lace, blue coat, and white trowsers, begilded with buttons and metal, a sword, and patent- leather-boots. I was a figure indeed ! but I had enough to keep me in countenance. I spent an hour yesterday with Lady M. getting instructions for demeaning myself. The greatest danger was that I should be tripped up by my sword. On reaching St. James Place we passed up- stairs through files of the Guard, beefeaters, and were shown into a large saloon richly hung with crimson silk, and with some fine portraits of the family of George 158 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. III. It was amusing, as we waited there an hour, to see the arrival of the different persons, diplomatic, military, and courtiers, all men and women blazing in their stock of princely finery, and such a power of diamonds, pearls, emeralds, and laces, the trains of the ladies' dresses several yards in length. Some of the ladies wore coronets of diamonds, which covered the greater part of the head. I counted on Lady D 's head two strings of diamonds rising gradually from the size of a fourpence to the size of an English shilling, and thick in proportion. The dress of the Duchess of D was studded with diamonds • as large as nutmegs. The young ladies dressed very plainly. I tell this for Lizzy's especial benefit. The company were permitted to pass one by one into the presence-chamber, a room of about the same size as the other, with gorgeous canopy and throne, at the farther end of which stood the little Queen and her Consort, surrounded by her Court. She was rather simply dressed, but he was in Field-Marshal's uniform, and covered, I should think, with all the orders of Europe. He is a good-looking person, but by no means so good-looking as you are given to expect from his pictures. The Queen is better looking than you might expect. I was presented by our minister, by the order of the Chamberlain, as the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella and made my profound obeisance to her Majesty who made a dignified courtesy. I made the same low bow to his Princeship, and then bowed myself out of the circle without my sword tripping up my heels. As I was drawing off. Lord Carlisle, who was standing on the outer edge, called me to him and kept me by his side telling me the names of the different lords and ladies who, after paying their obeisance to the Queen, passed out before us." INFLUENCE OF GOOD CHEER. 1 59 Mr. Monckton Milnes became Lord Houghton, and I had great pleasure in knowing him well many years after this. He told me, what our American historian was too modest to tell, how well Mr. Prescott appeared in London. Lionized to death, as the English alone can lionize, Mr. Prescott never lost his modest self-posses- sion. He was everywhere remarked for his beauty, his fine manner, and his knowledge of the usages of good society. But then, in 1887 the Enghsh went equally wild, even more so, over Buffalo Bill, and probably preferred him. Mr. Prescott was entertained at Cuddeston Palace, the residence of Bishop Wilberforce, the famous " Soapy Sam," from the fact, as he said himself, that he ''was always in hot water, and always came out cleaner than he went in." This witty and accomplished prelate was very much pleased with our American scholar, and gave him a hearty welcome. It will sound curiously enough now, that Mr. Prescott found his Episcopal views very high, and says, " The service was performed with a cere- mony quite Roman Catholic." The Bishop of Oxford would, were he living now, be called low church, — so much do terms vary in different ages. Truly the world moves ! I was in my youth entertained at the house of Mr. Prescott, at Nahant, and allowed to see his workroom and the machinery with which he wrote. He gave me, and I have it still, a paper which he wrote for me with the wired plate which the blind use, for he could scarcely see at all. He was master of the art of entertaining. How charming he was at dinner at his own house ; how pleas- antly he made one forget his greatness, except that a l6o THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. supreme simplicity seems always to accompany true greatness. He had a regularity in his habits which would in a less amiable man have interfered with his agreeability, but with him it was most fascinating, as it seemed like musical chords set to noble words. It would be pleasant to record the triumphs of Mr Webster, Mr. Motley, Mr. Lowell, Mr. Phelps, Mr. Evarts, Mr. Depew, and many another great American in Eng- land, but that, while a subject for national pride, scarcely comes within the scope of this Httle book. It would seem, however, that our orators, however fed, have compassed the accomplishment of after-dinner speaking, which is so much appreciated in England, and it is to be hoped that no " dommed dyspepsia " from badly cooked food will dim the oratory of the future. It is quite true that a witty and full talker will be si- lenced if he is placed before a bad dinner, one which is palpably pretentious but not well cooked, and villanously served. It is impossible for the really conscientious diner-out, who respects his digestion, whose religion is his dinner, to talk much or laugh much, if his gorman- dize is wounded. Even if he wills to talk, in order not to lose his reputation, his speech will be a " muddy flood of saponaceous blather," instead of his usual bril- liant flow of anecdote and repartee. Not all great men have, however, felt the influence of food as an inspirer. Dr. Johnson was great although he was a horrible feeder ; and at the other extreme was General Grant, so abstemious that he once told me that he did not know the sensation of hunger ; that he could go three days without food. At the splendid banquets given to him he rarely ate much, but noticed the people and the surroundings, great hero that he was. INFLUENCE OF GOOD CHEER. l6l Thackeray, Disraeli, and Dickens have given us the most appreciative descriptions of the art of entertaining, and were men deeply sensible of the charms of a good dinner. Charles Lamb has been the poet of the homely and the comfortable side of good eating ; he records for us in immortal prose and poetry what roast pig and tobacco have done for him. We claim boldly that a part of Webster's greatness, Prescott's charm, the genius of Motley and of Lowell, the oratory of Depew, the wit of Parke Godwin and Horace Porter, even the magnificent march of Sherman to the sea, the great genius of Bryant, the sparkling cup of Anacreon, O. W. Holmes, the masterly speech of our lawyers, and the unrivalled eloquence of our pulpit orators, are owing to that earlier style of domestic x\merican cookery which was, and is, and always shall be, deserving of the highest praise, — when meats were cooked with all their juices, before a wood fire, when bread was light and feathery, when soups were soups, and broils were broils ! Oh, vanished excellence ! BONBONS. Do, child, go to it' grandam, child ; Give grandam kingdom ! and it' grandam will Give it plumb, a cherry, and a fig. King John. THEY used to call a sugar-plum a plumb in Shaks- peare's time. Was it on account of its weight? Few ladies, on receiving a box of bonbons from Mail- lards, go into the great question of their antiquity and their manufacture. Few, even now, who at a fashion- able hotel, receive on Sundays after dinner a pretty little paper box filled with candied rose-leaves and violets, remember that they are only following the fashion of Lucretia Borgia in putting them in their pocket to eat in their rooms, or at the theatre. There is nothing new under the sun. In France, in entertaining a lady, or a party of ladies, at theatre or opera, the gentleman host always carries a box of bonbons, within which is a little imitation-silver sugar- tongs by which she can help herself to a chocolate or a marron deginse, without soihiig her fingers. This pam- pered dame does not consider that France makes an- nually sixty million of francs' worth of bonbons; that it exports only about one fourth of this, leavmg an enor- mous amount for home consumption. They send over to England alone, cheap sweets manu- factured by steam, to the amount of three hundred thou- sand English pounds a year. BONBONS. 165 The stigar-plunl came from Italy, and dates no further back than the sixteenth century as an article of com- merce. But the skilful confectioners in private houses knew how to manufacture not only those which were healthful, but those which were very useful in getting rid of dreaded rivals, unfaithful lovers, and troublesome friends. The manufacture of the antique sugar-plum, the ante- diluvian baked almond, and the nauseous coloured abom- inations whose paint-poisoned surface has long been dis- carded in France, received, as I read in an old chroni- cle, its death-blow from the Aboukir almonds, during the period of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, which killed more people than the bullets. Next went down the cracker bonbons, called Cossacks, on account of the terror with which they inspired the gf-andes dames on their first advent in 18 14. These latter, however, have come back, in the harm- less detonating powder-charged bonbons which every one hears at a dinner-party, as the fringed papers are pulled. Then come the primaveras, a variety of sugared bomb. Then the marquises, orangines, marron glace, or sugared chestnut, cerises pralinee, burnt cherHes, bowks, ananas, dattes ail cafe, dates delightfully stuffed and covered with sugar, diables noi7's, ganaches, and an ephemeral but de- licious candy, bonbons fondants, with an inscription on the box that "these must be eaten within twenty-four hours.'* They are sometimes fruits with a creamy sugar, raspberries, currants, strawberries, and are delicious, but quite untransportable, although transporting merchandise. Their invention made the fortune of the inventor. Formerly the preparation of bonbons was a tedious affair. Now it is almost the work of a day, but they 164 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. are perishable. If you leave a box open they will de- vour themselves. Kept cool and air-tight, they will last for years. About the first of December the great manu- facturers in the Rue de la Paix, commence their opera- tions for New Year's, when everybody, from President Carnot down, sends his friend a box of bonbons. They tell of one confectioner who abandoned his sugar-pots to turn playwright, about the time that Alphonse Karr for- sook literature to sell bouquets. The principle remains the same. He wished to sweeten the existence of les Pai'isic fines. In visiting one of these immense establishments one descends a stone staircase, and finds one's self in a stifling atmosphere, heavily laden with the aroma of vanilla and other essences. Around are scores of workmen, in white- paper caps and aprons, their faces red with heat, as they plunge particular fruits into large cauldrons, filled with boiling syrups. More in the shade are other stalwart men, their faces pale with the heated atmosphere, piling up almonds on huge copper vessels ; and so constant is the sound of metal clashing against metal that the vis- itor might imagine himself in an armour smithy, instead of a sugar factory ; rather with Vulcan working for the gods, or some village blacksmith pounding out horse- shoes, than with a party of French ouvriers making sugar-plums for children to crunch. On all sides one sees sugar, gallons of liqueurs, syrups, and essences, rum, aniseed, noyau, maraschino, pineapple, apricot, straw- berry, cherry, vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and tea, with sacks of almonds, and baskets of chestnuts, pistachio nuts, and filberts being emptied into machines which bruise their husks, flay them, and blanch them, all ready to receive their saccharine coating. BONBONS. 165 Those bonbons which have Hqueur in them are much appreciated by gourmets who find other bonbons disagree with them ! A sugar-coated brandy cherry is rehshed by the wisest man. Most bonbons are made by hand ; those only which are flat at the bottom are cast in moulds. In the hand- made bonbons, the sugar paste is rolled into shapes by the aid of an instrument formed of a stout piece of wire, one end of which is twisted, and the other fixed into a wooden handle. With this the paste is taken out of the cauldron, and worked into the desired form by a rapid coup de main. For bonbons of a particular form, such as those in imitation of various fruits, models are carved in wood. Liqueur bonbons are formed of a mixture of some given liqueur and liquid sugar, which is poured into moulds, and then placed in a slow oven for the day. Long before they are removed a hard crust has formed on the outside, while the inside remains in its original liquid state. Bonbons are crystallized by being plunged into a syrup heated to thirty degrees Reamur ; by the time they are dry the crystallization is complete and acts as a protection against the atmosphere. The bonbons can then be kept a certain time, although their flavour deteriorates. I think sugar one of the most remarkable of all the gifts of nature. It submits itself to all sorts of plastic arts, and to see a confectioner pouring it through little funnels, to see him make a flower, even to its stamens, of this excellent juice of the cane or of the beet, — they use beet sugar almost entirely in France, — is to compre- hend anew how many of the greatest of all curiosities are hidden in the kitchen. One must go to Chamb^ry, in Savoy, to taste some / 1 66 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. / of the most exquisite pdftsserie, to find the most deli- cious candied fruits ; and at MontpelUer, in the south of France, is another most celebrated manufactory of bonbons. I received once from Montpellier a box holding six pounds of these marvellous sweets, which were arranged in layers. Beginning with chocolates in every form, tbey passed upward by strata, until they reached the candied fruit, which was to be eaten at once. I think there were fifty-five varieties of delicious sweets in that box. Such lovely colours, such ineffable flavours, such beauties as they were ! The only remarkable part of this anecdote is that I survived to tell it. I can only account for it by the fact that it was sent me by a famous physician, who must have hidden his power of healing in the box. Unlike Pandora's box which sent the troop of evils out into the world, this famous cachet sent nothing but good- will and pleasure, barring perhaps a possible danger. If, however, we speak of the bonbons themselves, what can we say of the bonbonnieres .' Everything that is beautiful, everything that is curious, everything that is quaint, everything that is ludicrous, everything that is timely, is utilized. I received an immense green satin grasshopper — the last jour de Van, in Paris — filled to his uttermost antetince with bonbons. It could be for once said that the " grasshopper had not become a burden." Tht pa7iier IVatfeau, formed of satin, pearls, straw, and flowers, may be made to conceal a handker- chief worth a thousand francs under the rose-satin fining. The boxes are painted by artists, and remain a lovely belonging for a toilet table. Beautiful metal reproductions of some antique chef (Poeuvre are made into bonbonnieres. Some bonbon- BONBONS. 167 bcxes have themselves concealed in huge bouquets of violets, fringed with lace, or hidden under roses, which are skilfully growing out of white satin ; beautiful reti- cules, all embroidered, hold the carefully bound up pack- ages, where tinfoil preserves the silk and satin from con- tact with the sugar. If France did nothing else but mcke bonbonnieres, she would prove her claim to being the most ingenious purveyor for the luxury of entertain- ing in all the world. If luxury means, " to freight the passing hour with flying happiness," France does her '* pssible " as she would say herself, to help along this fairy packing. A.t Easter, when sweetmeats are almost as much in request as at the New Year, — the French make very litle of Christmas, — these bonbon establishments are filed with Easter eggs of the gayest colours. There are nests of eggs, baskets of eggs, cradles full of eggs, and pjetty peasants carrying eggs to market ; nests of eggs, with birds of brilliant plumage sitting on the nests or hovering over them, while their freight of bonbons repose on softest swan's-down, lace, and satin ; or again, the ^gg itself of satin, with its yolk of orange creams and its white of marshmallow paste. There is no end to this felicitous and dulcet strain. The best candied fruit I have ever eaten, I bought in a railway depot at Venice. The Italians understand this art to perfection. They hang the fruit by its natural stem on a long straw ; and no better accompaniment for a long railway journey can be imagined. The French do not consider bonbons unhealthful. Instead of giving her boy a piece of bread and butter as he departs for the Lycee the French mamma gives him two or three chocolate bonbons. The hunter takes these 1 68 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. / to the top of the Matterhorn ; ladies take them in their pockets instead of a lunch-basket ; and one assured ne that two slabs of chocolate sufficed her for breakfast ind supper on the road from Paris to Rome. I do not know what Baron Liebig would say to thife in his learned articles on the " Nutritive Value of Certain Kinds of Food," but the French children seem to be |he healthiest in the world, — a tribute to chocolate of (he highest. "By their fruits shall ye know them." In the times of the Medici, and the St. Bartholonew Massacre, the French and Italian nobles had a curiius custom of always carrying about with them, in the pocktts of their silk doublets, costly little boxes full of bonbois. Henry IV., Marie de Medici, and all their friends a|id foes, carried about with them little gold and Limo^s enamelled boxes, very pretty and desirable articles of vertii now ; and doubtless there was one full of red aid white comfits in the pocket of Mary Queen of Scots, when she fell dead, poor, ill-used, beautiful woman, at the foot of the block, at Fotheringay. Doubtless there was one in the pouch of the grisly Due de Guise, with his close-cropped bullet head, and long, spidery legs, when he fell, done to death by treacherous Catherine de Medici, dead and bleeding on the polished floor of Blois ! It was a childish custom, and proved that the age had a sweet tooth ; but it might have been useful for diplomatic purposes, and highly conducive to flirting. As a Lord Chief Justice once said that "snuff" and snuff'-boxes help to develop character," so the bonbormiere helps to emphasize manners ; and I am always pleased when an old or new friend opens for me a httle silver box and offers me a sugared violet, or a rose leaf conserved in sugar, although I can eat neither of them. BONBONS. 169 A witty writer says that dessert should be " the giran- dole, or cunning tableau of the dinner." It should " surprise, astonish, dazzle, and enchant." We may al- most decide upon the taste of an age as we read of its desserts. The tasteless luxury and coarse pleasures of the reign of Charles II., — that society where Rochester fluttered and Buckingham flaunted, — how it is all de- scribed in one dessert ! At a dinner given the father (of a great many) of his subjects by Lady Dormer, was built a large gilded ship of confectionery. Its masts, cabins, portholes, and lofty poop all smart and glittering, its rig- ging all taut, its bunting flying, its figure-head bright as gold leaf could make it. Its guns were charged with actual powder. Its cargo was two turreted pies, one full of birds and the other of frogs. When borne in by the gay pages, to the sound of music, the guns were dis- charged, the ladies srceamed and fainted, so as to '* re- quire to be held up and consoled by the gallants, who offered them sips of Tokay." Poor little things ! Such was the Court of Charles. Then, to sweeten the smell of powder, the ladies threw at each other egg-shells filled with fragrant waters ; and " all danger being over," they opened the pies. Out of one skipped live frogs ; out of the other flew live birds who put out the lights ; so, what with the screams, the darkness, the frogs, and the smell of powder, we get an idea of sports at Whitehall, where blackbrowed, swarthy- visaged Charles presided, on which grave Clarendon condescended to smile, and which the gentle Evelyn and Waller were condemned to approve. We have not entirely refrained from such sugar em- blems at our own great feasts ; but fortunately, they have rather gone out, excepting for some emblem-haunted I/O THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. dinners where we do have sugared Monitors, and choco- late torpedos. I have seen the lovely Venus of Milo in frozen cream, which gave a wit the opportunity of saying that the home for such a goddess should be the temple of Isis ; and Bartholdi's immortal Liberty lends herself to chocolate and nougat now and then, but very rarely at private dinners. The fashion of our day, with its low dishes for the sweets, is so much better, that we cannot help congratulating ourselves that we do not live even in the days of the first George, when, as one witty author again says, " the House of Brunswick brought over sound protestantism, but German taste." Horace Walpole, great about trifles, incomparable decider of the width of a shoe-buckle, keen despiser of all meannesses but his own, neat and fastidi- ous tripper along a flowery path over this vulgar planet, derided the new fashion in desserts. The ambitious con- fectioners, he says, " aspired to positive statuary, spindle- legged Venus, dummy Mars, all made of sugar ; " and he mentions a confectioner of Lord Albemarle's who loudly complained that his lordship would not break up the ceiling of his dining-room to admit the heads, spear- points and upraised thunderbolts of a middle dish of Olympian deities eighteen feet high, all made of sugar. The dishes known in France as Les Quatres Men- diants, one of nuts, one of figs or dried fruit, one of raisins, and another of oranges, still to be seen on old- fashioned dinner-tables, was, I supposed, so called be- cause it is seldom touched, — in fact, goes a-begging. But I have found this pretty little legend, which proves that it was far more poetical in origin. The name in French for aromatic vinegar is also connected with it. It is called ^' The Vinegar of the Four Thieves." So BONBONS. 171 runs the legend : " Once four thieves of Marseilles, rub- bing themselves with this vinegar during the plague, de- fied infection and robbed the dead." Who were these wretches? All that we know of them is that they dined beneath a tree on stolen walnuts' and grapes, and im- agined the repast a feast. We can picture them, Holbein men with slashed sleeves, as old soldiers of Francis I. who had wrestled with the Swiss. We can imagine them as beaten about by Burgundian peasants ; and we know that they were grim, brown, scarred rascal*, cutting purses, snatching silken cloaks, — sturdy, resolute, heart- less, merry, desperate, God-forsaken scoundrels, living only for the moment. We can imagine Callot etching their rags, or Rembrandt putting in their dark shadows and high lights. We can see Salvator Rosa admiring them as they sleep under the green oak-tree, their heads on a dead deer, and the high rock above. Or we may get old Teniers to draw them for us, gambling with torn and greasy cards for a gold crucifix or a brass pot, or revelling at the village inn, swaggering, swearing, drunk, or tipsy, playing at shuffle-board. The only point in their history worth recording is that they were destined to be asked to every dinner party for four hundred years ! — simply preceding the bonbons, as we see by the following verses : — " Once on a time, in the brave Henry's age, Four beggars dining underneath a tree Combhied their stores ; each from his wallet drew Handfuls of stolen fruit, and sang for glee. " So runs the story, — ' Carbon, bring the carte, Soup, cutlets — stay — and mind, a matelotte^ And 'Charles, — a pint of Burgundy's best Beanne"; In our deep glasses every joy shall float! ' 17^ THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. " And * Gar^oii, bring me from the woven frail That turbaned merchants from fair Smyrna sent, The figs with golden seeds, the honeyed fruit, That feast the stranger in the Syrian tent. ** * Go fetch us grapes from all the vintage rows Where the brave Spaniards gaily quaff the wine, What time the azure ripple of the waves Laughs bright beneath the green leaves of the vine ! " * Nor yet, unmindful of the fabled scrip, Forget the nuts from Barcelona's shore, Soaked in Iberian oil from olives pressed, To the crisp kernels adding one charm more. " 'The almonds last, plucked from a sunny tree. Half way up Lybanus, blanched as snowy white As Leila's teeth, and they will fitly crown The beggars' four-fold dish for us to-night. " * Beggars are happy ! then let us be so ; We 've buried care in wine's red-glowing sea. There let him soaking lie — he was our foe; Joy laughs above his grave — and so will we ! * " It was from that love of contrast, then, was it, which is a part of all luxury, that the fable of the Quatre Alen- diants was made to serve like the olives at dessert. Perhaps the fillip which walnuts give to wine suggested it. It was a modern French rendering of the skull made to do duty as a drinking-cup. It is a part of the five kernels of corn at a Pilgrim dinner, without that high conscientiousness of New England. It is a part, perhaps, of the more melancholy refrain, " Be merry, be merry, for to-morrow ye die ! " It is that warmth is warmer when we remember cold ; it is that food is good when we remember the starving ; it is that bringing in of the pleasant vision of the four beggars under the tree, BONBONS. 173 as a picture perhaps ; at any rate there it is, moral at your pleasure. The desserts of the middle ages were heavy and cumbrous affairs, and had no special character. There would be a good deal of Cellini cup and Limoges plate, and Palissy dish, and golden chased goblet about it, no doubt. How glad the collectors of to-day would be to get them ! And we picture the heavy indigestible cakes, and poisonous bonbons. The taste must have been questionable if we can believe Ben Jonson, who tells of the beribboned dwarf jester who, at a Lord Mayor's dinner, took a flying header into a dish of custard, to the infinite sorrow of ladies' dresses ; he followed, prob- ably, that dish in which the dwarf Sir Geoffrey Hudson was concealed, and they both are after Tom Thumb, who was fishing about in a cup of posset a thousand years ago. The dessert is allowed by all French writers to be of Italian origin ; and we read of the maitres (T hotel, before the Italian dessert arrived, probably introduced by Catherine de Medici and the Guises, that they gloried in mountains of fruit, and sticky hills of sweetmeats. The elegance was clumsy and ostentatious ; there was no poetry in it. Paul Veronese's picture of the " Marriage of Cana " will give some idea of the primeval French dessert. The later fashion was of those trees and gardens and puppets abused by Horace Walpole ; but Frenchmen delighted in seas of glass, flower-beds formed of coloured sand, and little sugar men and women promenading in enamelled bowling-greens. We get some idea of the magnificent fetes of Louis XIV. at Versailles from the glowing descriptions of Moliere. Dufoy in 1805 introduced " frizzled musUn into a slice 174 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. of fairyland ; " that is, he made extraordinary pictures of temples and trees, for the centre of his dessert. And these palaces and temples were said to have been of perfect proportions; his trees of frizzled muslin were admirable. It sounds very much like children's toys just now. He went further, Dufoy ; having ransacked heaven and earth, air and water, he thrust his hand into the fire, and made harmless rockets shoot from his sugar temples. Sugar rocks were strewn about with precipices of nougat, glaciers of vanilla candy, and waterfalls of spun sugar. A confectioner in 1805 had to keep his wits about him, for after every victory of Napoleon he was expected to do the whole thing in sugar. He was decorator, painter, architect, sculptor, and florist — icer, yes, until after the Russian campaign, and then — they had had enough ot ice. Thus we see that the dessert has always been more for the eye than for the stomach. The good things which have been said over the wal- nuts and the wine ! The pretty books written about claret and olives ! One author says that if all the good things which have been said about the gay and smiling dessert could be printed, it would make a pleasant anecdotic little pamphlet of four thousand odd pages ! We must not forget all the absurdities of the dessert. The Prince Regent, whose tastes inclined to a vulgar and spurious Orientalism, at one of his costly feasts at Carleton House had a channel of real water running around the table, and in this swam gold and silver fish. The water was only let on at dessert. These fancies may be sometimes parodied in our own time, as the bonbon makers of Paris now devote their talents to the paper absurdities of harlequins, Turks, BONBONS. 175 Chinamen, and all the vagaries of a fancy-dress ball with which the passengers of steamships amuse themselves after the Captain's dinner. This is not that legitimate dessert at which we now find ices disguised as natural fruits, or copying a rose. All the most beautiful forms in the world are now reproduced in the frozen water or cream, as healthful as it is delicious, in the famous jelly with maraschino, or the delicate bonbon with the price- less liqueur, or, better still, that eau de menthe cordial, our own green peppermint, which, after all, saves as by one mouthful from the horrors of indigestion and adds that " thing more exquisite still " to the perfect dessert, — a good night's sleep. FAMOUS MENUS AND RECIPES. Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost. JOHNvi. 12. THIS is not intended to be a cookery book ; but in order to help the young housekeeper we shall give some hints as to menus and a few rare recipes. The great hne of seacoast from New York to Florida presents us with some unrivalled delicacies, and the negroes of the State of Maryland, which was founded by a rich and luxurious Lord Baltimore, knew how to cook the terrapin, the canvas-back duck, oysters, and the superb wild turkey, — not to speak of the well-fattened poultry of that rich and luxurious Lorraine of America, "Maryland, my Maryland," which Oliver Wendell Holmes calls the " gastronomical centre of the uni- verse." Here is an old Virginia recipe for cooking terrapin, which is rare and excellent : — Tak^ three large, live, diamond-backed terrapin, plunge them in boihng water for three minutes, to take off the skin, wipe them clean, cook them in water slightly salted, drain them, ht them get cold, open and take out everything from the shell. In removing the entrails care must be taken not to break the gall. Cut off the head, tail, nails, gall, and bladder. Cut the meat in even-size pieces, put them in a sauce-pan with four ounces of butter, add the terrapin eggs, and moisten them with a half pint of Madeira wine. Let the mixture cook until the moisture is reduced one-half. Then FAMOUS MENUS AND RECIPES. 177 add two spoonfuls of cream sauce. After five minutes add the yolks of four raw eggs diluted with a half-cup of cream. Season with salt and a pinch of red pepper. The mixture should not boil after the yolk of egg is added. Toss in two ounces of butter before serving. The heat of the mess will cook egg and butter enough. Serve with quartered lemon. This is, perhaps, if well-cooked, the most excellent of all American dishes. A chicken gumbo soup is next : — Cut up one chicken, wash and dry it, dip it in flour, salt and pepper it, then fry it in hot lard to a delicate brown. In a soup kettle place five quarts of water and your chicken, let it boil hard for two hours, cut up twenty-four okra pods, add them to the soup, and boil the whole another hour. One large onion should be put in with the chicken. Add red pepper to taste, also salt, not too much, and serve with rice. Dried okra can be used, but must be soaked over night. Another Maryland success was the tomato catsup : — Boil one bushel of tomatoes until soft, squeeze through a sieve, add to the juice half a gallon of vinegar, i}4 pints salt, 3 ounces of whole cloves, i ounce of allspice, 2 ounces of cayenne pepper, 3 tablespoonfuls of black pepper, 3 heads of garlic, skinned and separated ; boil three hours or until the quantity is reduced one-half, bottle without skim- ming. The spices should be put in a muslin bag, which must be taken out, of course, before bottling. If desired i peck of onions can be boiled, passed through a sieve, and the juice added to the tomatoes. Green pepper pickles : Half a pound of mustard seed soaked over night, i quart of green pepper chopped, 2 quarts of onions chopped, 4 quarts of cucumbers also chopped, 8 quarts of green tomatoes chopped, 6 quarts of cabbage chopped ; mix and measure. To every gallon of this mixture add one teacup of salt, let it stand until morning, then squeeze perfectly dry with the hands. Then add 8 pounds 12 1/8 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. of sugar, and cover with good vinegar and boil five minutes. After boiling, and while still hot, squeeze perfectly dry, then add 2 ounces of cloves, 2 ounces of allspice, 3 ounces of cinnamon and the mustard seed. The peppers should be soaked in brine thirty-six or forty- eight hours. After soaking, wipe dry and stuff, place them in glass jars, and cover with fresh vinegar. This was considered the triumph of the Southern housekeeper. Chicken with spaghetti: Stir four sliced onions in two ounces of butter till very soft, add one quart of peeled tomatoes ; stew chicken in water until tender, and pick to pieces. Add enough of the gravy to make a quart, put with the onions and tomatoes. Let it stew fifteen minutes gently. Put into boiling water 2_J^ pounds of spaghetti and a handful of salt, boil twenty minutes or until tender ; drain this and put in a layer on a platter sprinkled with grated cheese, and pour the stew on it. Fill the platter with these layers, reserving the best of the chicken to lay on top. The old negro cooks made a delicious confection known as confection cake. Those who lived to tell of having eaten it declared that it was a dream. It cer- tainly leads to dreams, and bad ones, but it is worth a nightmare : — 1% cups of sugar, 2%. cups of flour, % cup of butter, yi cup of sweet milk, whites of six eggs, 3 small teaspoons of baking powder. Bake in two or three layers on a griddle. Filling: i small cocoanut grated, i pound almonds blanched, and cut up not too fine, i teacup of raisins chopped, I teacup of citron chopped, 4 eggs, whites only, 7 table- spoonfuls of pulverized sugar to each tgg. Mix this destructive substance well in the froth of egg, and spread between the layers of cake when they are hot ; set it a few minutes in the oven, but do not FAMOUS MENUS AND RECIPES. 1/9 burn it, and you have a delicious and profoundly indi- gestible dessert. You will be able to write Sartor Re- sartus, after eating of it freely. Walnut Cake : i cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 6 eggs, 4 cups of flour, I cup of milk, 2 teaspoonfuls of yeast powder. This is also baked in layers, and awaits the dynamite filling which is to blow you up : — Walnut Filling: 2 cups of brown sugar, i cup of cream, a piece of butter the size* of an ^gg. Cook twenty minutes, stirring all the time ; when ready to take off the stove put in one cup of walnut meats. After this has cooked a few min- utes longer, spread between the layers, and while both cake and filling are hot. Perhaps a few menus may be added here to assist the memory of her " who does not know what to have for dinner : " — Tomato Soup, Golden Sherry. Whitefish broiled. Claret. Mashed potatoes. Round of beef braise, Madeira. with glazed onions. Champagne. Roast plover with cress. Chateau Yquem. Chiccory Salad. Custard flavoured with vanilla. Cheese. Cordials. Chambertin. Fruit. Coffee. Or a plain dinner : — Sherry. Oxtail Soup. Claret Filet of lobster h la Mazarin. Turkey rings with puree of chestnuts. Salad of fresh tomatoes. Cream tart with meringue. Cheese. l80 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. This last dinner is perhaps enough for only a small party, but it is very well composed. A much more elab- orate menu follows : — Oysters on the half-shell. Soup : Consomme royale. Fish : Rudesheimer. Fried smelts, sauce Tartare, Duchess potatoes. Sherry. Releves: Boned capon. Roast ham. Champagne. Madeira, Entrees : Sweetbreads braisi. Quails. Claret. Sorbet an kirsch. Game : Port, Broiled woodcock, Chambertin. Canvas-back duck. Vegetables : Cauliflower, Spinach, French peas, Stewed tomatoes. Chateau Yquem. Dessert : Frozen pudding, Biscuits Diplomats. Meringues Chantilly^ Assorted Cake. Fruit. Brandy. Coffee. Cordials. An excellent bill of fare for eight persons, in the month of October, is the following : — Soup. Bisque of crayfish. Fish. Baked smelts, h la Mentone, Potato balls, h la RouenaisCy Ribs of beef braised, stewed with vegetables. Brussels sprouts. Roast birds, or quail on toast. Celery salad- FAMOUS MENUS AND RECIPES. l8l To make a bisque of crayfish is a very delicate opera- tion, but it is worth trying : — Have three dozen live crayfish, wash them well, and take the intestines out by pinching the extreme end of the centre fin, when with a sudden jerk the gall can be withdrawn. Put in a stewpan two ounces of butter, with a carrot, an onion, two stalks of celery, two ounces of salted pork, all sliced fine, and a bunch of parsley ; fry ten minutes, add the crayfish, with a pint of French white wine and a quart of veal broth. Stir and boil gently for an hour, then drain all in a large strainer, take out the bunch of parsley and save the broth ; pick the shells off the crayfish tails, trim them neatly and keep until wanted. Cook separately a pint and a half of rice, with three pints of veal broth, pound the rest of the crayfish and vegetables, add the rice, pound again, dilute with the broth of the crayfish, and add more veal broth if too thick. Pass forcibly through a fine sieve with a wooden presser, put the residue in a saucepan, warm with- out boiling, and stir all the while with a wooden, spoon. Finish with three ounces of table butter, a glass of Madeira wine, and a pinch of cayenne pepper ; serve hot in soup tu- reen with the crayfish tails. To prepare baked sinelts a la Meiitone : Spread in a large and narrow baking-dish some fish forcemeat half an inch thick, have two dozen large, fresh, well-cleaned smelts, lay them down in a row on the forcemeat, season with salt, pep- per, and grated nutmeg, pour over a thick white Italian sauce, sprinkle some bread crumbs on them, put a small pat of butter on each one and bake for half an hour in a pretty hot oven, then squeeze the juice of a lemon over and serve in a baking-dish. To 7nake potato balls a la Rouenaise : Boil the potatoes and rub them fine, then roll each ball in white of Qgg, lay them on a floured table, roll into shape of a pigeon's e.gg^ dip them in melted butter, and fry a light brown in clear hot grease. Sprinkle fine salt over and serve in a folded napkin. To prepare braised ribs of beef : Have a small set of three 1 82 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. ribs cut short, cook it as beef a la vtode^ that is, stew it with spices and vegetables, dish it up with carrots, turnips, and onions, pour the reduced gravy over. To firepare Brussels sprouts^ demi-glace : Trim and wash the sprouts, soak them in boiUng salted water about thirty minutes, cool them in cold water, and drain them. Put six ounces of butter in a large frying-pan, melt it and put the sprouts in it, season with salt and pepper, fry on a brisk fire until thoroughly hot, serve in a dish with a rich drawn-butter sauce with chopped parsley. A diplomatic supper was once served at the White House, of which the following menu is an accurate report : — Salmon with green sauce. Cold boned turkey, with truffles. Pates of game, truffled. Ham cooked in Madeira sauce, Aspic of chicken. Pate de foie gras. Salads of chicken and lobster in forms, surrounded by jelly. Pickled oysters. Sandwiches. Scalloped oysters. Stewed terrapin. Chicken and lobster croquettes. Chocolat h la crbne. Coffee. Dessert : Ices. Fancy meringue baskets filled with cream. Pancakes. Large cakes. Fancy jellies. Charlotte Russe. Fruits. Cake. Wafers. Nougat. One could have satisfied an appetite with all this. General Grant was probably the most feted American who ever visited Europe. He was entertained by every monarch and by many most distinguished citizens. The Duke of Wellington opened the famous Waterloo Room FAMOUS MENUS AND RECIPES. 1 83 in Apsley House in his honour, and toasted him as the first soldier of the age. But it is improbable that he ever had a better dinner than the following : — It was given to him in New York, in 1880, at the Hotel Brunswick. It was for ten people only, in a pri- vate parlour, arranged as a dining-room en suite with the Venetian parlour. The room was in rich olive and bronze tints. The buffet glittered with crystal, and Ve- netian glass. On the side tables were arranged the coffee service and other accessories. The whole room was filled with flowers, the chandelier hung with smilax, dotted with carnations. The table was arranged with roses, heliotrope, and carnations, the deep purple and green grapes hanging over gold dishes. The dinner service was of white porcelain with heliotrope border, the glass of iridescent crystal. The furnishing of the Venetian parlour, the rich carvings, the suits of armour, the antique chairs were all mediaeval ; the dinner was modern and American : — Oysters. Soup, CoJisonune Royale. Fish : Fried smelts, sauce Tartare. Releves : Boned capon. Entrees : Sweetbreads, braise. Quails, h la Perigord. Sorbet an kirsch. Game. Broiled woodcock, Canvas-back duck. Terrapin. Vegetables : Cauliflower, Spinach, Artichokes, French peas. Dessert : Biscuits Diplomatiqties, Frozen pudding, Meringtie Chantilly, Assorted cakes. Fruit. Coffee. Cigars. Liqueurs. lS4 THE ART OF ENTERTAININC. Probably the last item interested and amused the General, who was no gourmet, much more than even the terrapin. This menu for a November dinner cannot be surpassed. COOKERY AND WINES OF THE SOUTH OF EUROPE. Aufidius for his morning beverage used Honey in strong Falernian wine infused ; But here methinks he showed his want of brains ; Drink less austere best suits the empty veins. Shell fish afford a lubricating slime ! But then you must observe both place and time. They 're caught the finest when the moon is new ; The Lucrine far excel the Eaian too. Misenum shines in cray fish ; Circe most In oysters ; scollops let Tarentum boast. The culinary critic first should learn Each nicer shade of flavour to discern : To sweep the fish stalls is mere show at best Unless you know how each thing should be drest. Let boars of Umbrian game replete with mast, If game delights you, crown the rich repast. Satires of Horace. ITALIAN cookery is excellent at its best. The same drift of talent, the same due sense of proportion which showed itself in all their art, which built St. Mark's and the Duomo, the Ducal Palace, the Rialto, and the churches of Palladio, comes out in their cookery. Their cooks are Michel Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci in a humbler sphere. They mingle cheese in cookery, with great effect ; nothing can be better than their cauliflower covered with 1 86 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Parmesan cheese, and baked. Macaroni in all its forms is of course admirable. They have mastered the use of sweet oil, which in their cookery never tastes oily ; it is simply a lambent richness. The great dish, wild boar, treated with a sweet and a sour sauce, with pine cones, is an excellent dish. Wild boar is a lean pork with a game flavour. All sorts of birds, especially becafico, are well cooked, they lose no juice or flavour over the fire. They make a dozen preparations of Indian meal, which are very good for breakfast. One little round cake, like a muffin, tastes almost of eocoanut ; this is fried in oil, and is most delicious. The fritfala is another well-known dish, and is com- posed of liver, bacon, and birds, aU pinned on a long stick, or iron pin. In an Italian palace, if you have the good luck to be asked, the dinner is handsome. It is served in twelve courses in the Russian manner, and if national dishes are ofl'ered they are disguised as inelegant. But at an ordi- nary farmhouse in the hifls near Florence, or at the ordinary hotels, there will be a good soup, trout fresh from the brooks, fresh butter, macaroni with cheese, a fat capon, and a delicious omelette, enriched with morsels of kidney or fat bacon, a frittala, a bunch of grapes, a bottle of Pogio secco, or the sweet Italian straw wine. The Italians are very frugal, and would consider the luxurious overflow of American munificent hospitality as vulgar. At parties in Rome, Naples, and Florence it is not considered proper to ofi'er much refreshment. At Mr. Story's delightful receptions American hospitality reigned at afternoon tea, as it did in all houses where COOKERY, ETC., OF SOUTHERN EUROPE. 1 8/ the hostess was American, but at the houses of the Princes nothing was offered but weak wine and water and little cakes. Many travellers have urged that the cookery of the common Italian dinner is too much flavoured with garlic, but in a winter spent in travelling through Italy I did not find it so. I remember a certain leg of lamb with beans which had a slight taste of onions, but that is all. They have learned, as the French have, that the onion is to cookery what accent is to speech. It should not be trop prononcee. The lamb and pistachio nuts of the Arabian Nights is often served and is delicious. They give you in an Italian country house for break- fast, at twelve o'clock, a sort of thick soup, very savoury, probably made of chicken with an herb like okra, one dish of meat smothered in beans or tomatoes, followed by a huge dish of macaroni with cheese, or with morsels of ham through it. Then a white curd with powdered cinnamon, sugar, and wine, a bottle of vino santo, a cup of coffee or chocolate, and bread of phenomenal white- ness and lightness. Alas, for the poor people ! They live on the chest- nuts, the frogs, or nothing. The porter at the door of some great house is seen eating a dish of frogs, which are, however, so well cooked that they send up an appe- tizing fragrance more hke a stew of crabs than anything else. One sees sometimes a massive ancient house, towering up in mediaeval grandeur, with shafts of marble, and columns of porphyry, lonely, desolate, and beautiful, infinitely impressive, infinitely grand. Some member of a once illustrious family lives within these ruined walls, on almost nothing. He would have to kill his pet falcon to give you a dinner, while around hi§ time-honourecj 1 88 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. house cluster his tenants shaking with malaria, — pale, unhappy, starved people. It is not a cheerful sight, but it can be seen in southern Italy. The prosperous Italians will give you a well- cooked meal, an immense quantity of bonbons, and the most ex- quisite candied fruits. Their C07ifetti are wonderful, their cakes and ices, their candied fruit, their ////// frutti, are beyond all others. They crown every feast with a Para- dise in spun sugar. But they despise and fear a fire, and foreigners are apt to find the old Italian palaces dreary, and very cold. A recent traveller writes from Florence : " I have been within the walls of five Italian houses at evening parties, at three of them, music and no conversation ; all except one held in cold rooms, the floors black, imperfectly covered with drugget, and no fire ; conversation, to me at least, very dull ; the topics, music, personal slander, — for religion, government, and literature, were generally excluded from polite society. In only one house, of which the mistress was a German, was tea handed around ; sometimes not even a cup of water was passed." We learn from the novels of Marion Crawford that the Ital- ians do not often eat in each others' houses. Victor Emmanuel, the mighty hunter, had a mighty appetite. He used to dine alone, before the hour for the State dinner. Then with sword in hand, lean- ing on its jewelled hilt, in full uniform, his breast covered with orders, the King sat at the head of his table, and talked with his guests while the really splendid dinner was served. Royal banquets are said to be dull. The presence of a man so much above the others in rank has a depressing effect. The guest must console himself with the glorious COOKERY, ETC., OF SOUTHERN EUROPE. 1 89 past of Italy, and fix his eyes on the magnificent furni- ture of the table, the cups of Benvenuto Cellini, the vases of Capo di Monti, the superb porcelain, and the Venetian glass, or he must devote himself to the lamb and pistachio nuts, the choux fleurs aux Farmesa?i, or the truffles, which are nowhere so large or so fine as at an Italian dinner. Near Rome they are rooted out of the oak forests by the king's dogs, and are large and full of flavour. King Humbert has inherited his father's taste for hunting, and sends presents of the game he has shot to his courtiers. The housekeeping at the Quirinal is excellent ; a royal supper at a royal ball is something to remember. And what wines to wash them down with ! — the delicious Lacryma Christi, the Falerno or Capri, the Chianti, the Sestio Levante or Asti. Asti is a green wine, rich, strong, and sweet. It makes people ill if they drink it before it is quite old enough — but perhaps it is not often served at royal banquets. Verdeaux was a favourite wine of Frederic the Great, but Victor Emmanuel's wine was the luscious Monte Pidciano. " Monte Pulciano d'ogni vino e il Re." The brilliant purple colour, like an amethyst, of this noble wine is unlike any other. The aromatic odour is deUcious ; its sweetness is tempered by an agreeable sharpness and astringency ; it leaves a flattering flavour on the tongue. These best Italian wines have a deliciousness which eludes analysis, like the famous Monte Beni, which old Tommaso produced in a small straw-covered flask at the visit of Kenyon to Donatello. This invaluable wine 1 90 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. was of a pale golden hue, like other of the rarest Italian wines, and if carelessly and irreligiously quaffed, might have been mistaken for a sort of champagne. It was not, however, an effervescing wine, although its delicate piquancy produced a somewhat similar effect upon the palate. Sipping, the gaest longed to sip again, but the wine demanded so dehberate a pause in order to detect the hidden peculiarities, and subtile exquisiteness of its flavour, that to drink it was more a moral than a physical delight. There was a deliciousness in it which eluded description, and like whatever else that is superlatively good was perhaps better appreciated by the memory than by present consciousness. One of its most ethereal charms lay in the transitory life of the wine's richest qualities ; for while it required a certain leisure and delay, yet if you lingered too long in the draught, it became disenchanted both of its fragrance and flavour. The lustre and colour should not be forgotten among the other good qualities of the Monte Beni wine, for " as it stood in Kenyon's glass, a little circle of light glowed on the table around about it as if it were really so much golden sunshine." There are few wines worthy of this beautiful eloquence of Hawthorne. The description bears transportation; the wine did not. The transportation of even a few miles turned it sour. That is the trouble with Italian wines. Monte Pulciano and Chianti do bear transporta- tion. Italy sends much of the latter wine to New York. Italy has, however, never produced a really good dry wine, with all its vineyards. The dark Grignolino wine grown in the vineyards of Asterau and Monferrato possesses the remarkable quality of keeping better if diluted with fresh water. COOKERY, ETC., OF SOUTHERN EUROPE. IQI The Falernian from the Bay of Naples, is the wine of the poets, nor need we remind the classical scholar that the hills around Rome were formerly supposed to pro- duce it. The loose, volcanic soil about Mount Vesuvius grows the grapes from which Lacryma Christi is produced. It is sometimes of a rich red colour, though white and sparkling varieties are produced. The Italians are supremely fond of alfresco entertain- ments, — their fine climate making out-of-door eating very agreeable. How many a traveller remembers the break- fast or dinner in a vine-covered loggia overhanging some splendid scene ! It forms the subject of many a picture, from those which illustrate the stories of Boccaccio up to the beautiful sketch of Tasso, at the court of the Due d'Este. The dangers of these feasts have been immortalized in verse and prose from Dante down, and Shakspeare has touched upon them twice. George Eliot describes one in a '^loggia joining on a garden, with all one side of the room open, and with numerous groups of trees and statues and avenues of box, high enough to hide an assassin," in her wonderful novel of Romola. In modern days, since the Borgias are all killed, no one need fear to eat out-of-doors in Italy. Not much can be said of the cookery of Spain. In the principal hotels of Spain one gets all the evils of both Spanish and Gascon cookery. Garlic is the favour- ite flavour, and the bad oil expressed from the olive, skin, seed and all, allowed to stand until it is rancid, is beloved of the Spanish, but hated by all other nations. I believe, however, that an oUa podrida made in a Spanish house is very good. It may not be inappropriate here to give two recipes for macaroni. The first, macaroni 19^ THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. ate gratin is very rarely found good in an American house : — Break two ounces of best Italian macaroni into a pint of highly seasoned stock, let it simmer until very tender. When done, toss it up with a small piece of butter, and add pepper and salt to taste ; put in a large meat dish, sift over it some fried bread-crumbs, and serve. It will take about an hour to cook, and should be covered with the stock all the time. Macaroni with Parmesan cheese: Boil two ounces of macaroni in half a pint of water, with an ounce of butter, un- til perfectly tender. If the water evaporates add a little more, taking care that the macaroni does not stick to the stewpan, or become broken. When it is done, drain away the water and stir in two ounces of good cheese grated, cay- enne pepper and salt to taste. Keep stirring until the cheese is dissolved. Pour on to a hot dish and serve. A little but- ter maybe stirred into the macaroni before the cheese, and is an improvement. Through the Riviera, and indeed in the south of France, one meets with many peculiar dishes. No one who has read Thackeray need be reminded oibouillabaise, that famous fish chowder of Marseilles. It is, however, only our chowder with much red pepper. A cook can try it if she chooses, and perhaps achieve it after many failures. There are so many very good dishes awaiting the ef- forts of a young American housewife, that she need not go out of her way to extemporize or explore. The best cook-book for foreign dishes is still the old Francatelli. The presence in our midst of Italian warehouses, adds an infinite resource to the housewife. Those stimulants to the appetite called hors d'ceuvres, we call them relishes, are much increased by studying the list of COOKERY, ETC., OF SOUTHERN EUROPE. 193 Italian delicacies. Anchovy or caviar, potted meat, grated tongue, potted cheese, herring salad, the inevi- table olive, and many other dehcacies could be mentioned which aid digestion, and make the plainest table inex- pensively luxurious. The Italians have all sorts of deli- cate vegetables preserved in bottles, mixed and ready for use in 2. jardiniere dressing ; also the best of cheeses, gargonzala, and of course the truffle, which they know how to cook so well. The Italians have conquered the art of cooking in oil, so that you do not taste the oil. It is something to live for, to eat their fried things. Speaking of the south of Europe reminds us of that wonderful bit of orientalism out of place, which is called Algiers, and which France has enamelled on her fabulous and many-coloured shield. Algiers has become not only a winter watering-place, high in favour with the traveller, but it is a great wine-growing country. The official statement of Lieut. Col. Sir R. L. Playfair, her Majesty's consul-general, may be read with interest, dated 1889 : "Viticulture in Algeria, was in 1778 in its infancy; now nearly one hundred and twenty-five thousand acres are under cultivation with vines, and during the last year about nine hundred thousand hectolitres of wine were produced. In 1873 Mr. Eyre Ledyard, an English cul- tivator of the vine in Algeria, bought the property of Chateau Hydra near Algiers. He found on it five acres of old and badly planted vineyards, which produced about seven hogsheads of wine. He has extended' this vineyard and carried on his work with great intelligence and industry. He cultivates the following varieties : the Mourvedie, of a red colour resembling Burgundy, Cari- guan, giving a wine good, dark, and rough, Alicante or 13 194 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Grenache, Petit Bouschet, Cabernot and Cot, a Bur- gundy, Perian Lyra, Aramen, and St. Saux. Chasselas succeeds well ; the grapes are exported to France for the table. Clairette produces abundantly and makes a good dry wine. Ainin Kelb, more correctly Ain Kelb, dog's- eye, is an Arab grape which makes a good strong wine, but which requires keeping. Muscat is a capricious bearer. From the two last-named varieties, sweet as well as dry wines are produced by adding large quantities of alcohol to the juice of the grape, and thus preventing fermenta- tion. The crops yield quantities varying from seven hundred gallons per acre in rich land to four hundred on the hillside, except Cariguan which yields more. Aramen yields as much, but the quality is inferior. The red wines are sent to Bordeaux and Burgundy, to give strength and quality to the French clarets, as they are very useful for blending. The dry, white wine is rather stronger and fuller than that of France or Ger- many, and is much used to give additional value to the thinner qualities of Rhine wine. The cellars of Chateau Hydra, are now probably the best in the colony. They are excavated in the soft rock here incorrectly called tufa, in reality an aggregation of minutely pulverized shells; it is soft and sandy, and easily excavated. The surface becomes harder by exposure to the atmosphere, and it is not subject to crumbling. Ml. Ledyard has excavated extensive cells in this rock, in which extreme evenness of temperature is en- sured, — a condition most necessary for the proper manu- facture of wine. Mr. Eyre Ledyard's vineyards and cellars of the COOKERY, ETC., OF SOUTHERN EUROPE. 1 95 Chateau Hydra estate are now farmed by the Societe Anony?7ie Viticole et Vinicole d' Hydra, of which Mr. Led- yard is chairman. These wines have been so success- fully shipped to England and other countries that the company now buys grapes largely from the best vine- yards, in order to make sufficient wines to meet the de- mand. The Hydra Company supplies wine to all vessels of the Ocean Company going to India and China. A very carefully prepared quinine white wine is made for invalids, and for use in countries where there is fever. I especially recommend a trial of this last excellent wine to Americans, as it is most agreeable as well as healthful. The postal address is M. Le Gerant, Hydra Caves, Bir- mandreis, Algiers. All the stories of Algiers read like tales of the Arabian Nights, and none is more poetic than the names and the story of these delicious wines. The Greek wines are well spoken of in Europe : San- torin, and Zante, and St. EH^, and Corinth, and Mount Hymettus, Vino Santo, and Cyprus, while from Magyar vineyards come Visontae, Badescony, Dioszeg, Bakator, Rust, Szamorodni, Oedenburger, Ofner, and Tokay. The Hungarian wines are very heady. He must be a swashbuckler who drinks them. They are said to make the drinker grow fat. To this unhappy class Brillat Savarin gives the following precepts : — " Drink every summer thirty bottles of seltzer water, a large tumbler the first thing in the morning, another before lunch, and the same at bedtime. " Drink white wines, especially those which are light and acid, and avoid beer as you would the plague. Ask frequently for radishes, artichokes with hot sauce, aspar- agus, celery ; choose veal and fowl rather than beef and 196 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. mutton, and eat as little of the crumb of bread as possible. ^' Avoid macaroni and pea soup, avoid farinaceous food under whatever form it assumes, and dispense with all sweets. At breakfast take brown bread, and chocolate rather than coffee." Indeed Brillat Savarin seems to have inspired this later poet : — " Talk of the nectar that flowed for celestials Richer in headaches it was than hilarity ! Well for us animals, frequently bestials, Hebe destroyed the recipe as a charity ! Once I could empty my glass with the best of 'em. Somehow my system has suffered a shock o' late ; Now I shun spirits, wine, beer, and the rest of 'em. Fill me, then fill me, a bumper of chocolate. *' Once I drank logwood, and quassia and turpentine. Liqueurs with coxcubes, aloes, and gentian in, Sure, 't is no wonder my path became serpentine, Getting a state I should blush now to mention in. Farewell to Burgundy, farewell to Sillery, I have not tasted a drop e'en of Hock o' late, Long live the kettle, my dear old distillery, Fill me, oh fill me, a bumper of chocolate." As we cannot all drink chocolate, I recommend the carefully prepared white wine, with quinine in it, which comes from Chateau Hydra in Algiers, or some of the Italian wines, Barolo for instance, or the excellent native wines which are produced in Savoy. About Aix les Bains, where the cuisine is the best in Europe, many wines are manufactured which are honest wines with no headaches in them. SOME ODDITIES IN THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. " Comparisons are odorous." I prithee let me bring thee where crabs grow ; And I with my long nails will dig thee pig nuts ; Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmozet ; I '11 bring thee To clustering filberds, and sometimes I '11 get thee Young staniels from the rocks. Wilt thou go with me ? The Tempest. IN the lamb roasted whole we have one of the earhest dishes on record in the history of cookery. Stuffed with pistachio nuts, and served with pilaf, it il- lustrates the antiquity of the art, and at the same time gives an example of the food upon which millions of our fellow creatures are sustained. At a dinner of the Acclimatization Society in London, all manner of strange and new dishes were offered, even the meat of the horse. A roast monkey filled with chestnuts was declared to be delicious ; the fawn of fallow deer was described as good ; buffalo meat was not so highly commended ; a red-deer ham was con- sidered very succulent ; a sirloin of bear was " tough, glutinous, and had, besides, a dreadful, half-aromatic, half-putrescent flavour, as though it had been rubbed with assafoetida and then hung for a month in a musk shop." 198 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. We will not try bear unless we are put to it. How- ever, at this same dinner — we read on — haunch of venison, saddle of mutton, roast beef of old England, which is really the roast beef which is of old Normandy now, all gave way to a Chinese lamb roasted whole, stuffed with pistachio nuts, and served with consousson, a preparation of wheat used among the Moors, Africans, and other natives of the north of Africa littoral, in place of rice. The Moorish young ladies are, it is said, fattened into beauty by an enforced meal of this strengthening compound. The consoiisson is made into balls and stuffed into the mouths of the marriageable young lady, until she grows as tired of balls as a young belle of three seasons. In Spain, in those damp swamps near Valencia, where the poor are old before forty and die before forty-five, the best rice sells at eleven farthings, the poorest at eight farthings per pound. This, cooked with the ground dust oi pimienios, or capsicums, is the foundation of every stew in the south of Spain. It is of a rich brick- dust hue, and is full of fire and flavour. Into this stew the cook puts the '' reptiles of the sea " known as '' spotted cats," "toads " and other oily fish, sold at two pence a pound, or the vogar, a silvery fish, or the gallina a coarse fish, chick peas, garlic, pork, and sausages. If rich she will make an olla podrida with bacon, fresh meat, potatoes, cabbages, and she will pour off the soup, calling it caldo, then the lumps of meat and bacon, called cocida, will be served next. Then the cigarette is smoked. If you are a king she will add a quince and an apple to the stew. Of puddings and pies they know notliing ; but what fruit they have ! — watermelons weighing fifteen pounds SOME ODDITIES IN ENTERTAINING. I99 apiece ; lemon pippins called pcrillons ; crimson, yellow, and purple plums ; purple and green figs ; tomatoes by the million ; carob beans, on which half the nation lives ; small cucumbers and gourds ; large black grapes, very sweet ; white grapes and quinces ; peaches in abundance ; and all the chestnuts and filberts in the world. In the summer they eat goat's flesh; and on All Saints' Day they eat pork and chestnuts and sweet babatas of Malaga. In exile, in Mexico and Florida, the Spaniard eats alligator, which could scarcely be called a game bird; but the flesh of young alligators' tails is very fair, and tastes like chicken if the tail is cut off immediately after death, and stewed. The frost fish of the Adirondacks is seldom tasted, except by those who have spent a winter in the North Woods. They are delicious when fried. There is a European fish as little known as this, the Marena, caught in Lake Moris in the province of Pomerania, also in one lake in southern Italy, which is very good. There are two birds known in Prussia, the bustard, and the kammel, the former a species of small ostrich, once considered very fine eating, the latter very tough, except under unusual conditions. The Chinese enjoy themselves by night. All their feasts and festivals are kept then, generally by moonlight. When a Chinaman is poor he can live on a farthing's worth of rice a day ; when he gets rich he becomes the most luxurious of sybarites, indulges freely in the most recherche delicacies of the table, and becomes, like any Roman voluptuary, corpulent and phlegmatic. A lady thus describes a Chinese dinner : — *' The hour was eleven a. m., tha locale a boat. Hav- ing heard much of the obnoxious stuff I was to eat, J 200 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. adopted the prescription of a friend. * Eat very little of any dish, and be a long time about it.' "We commenced with tea, and finished with soup. Some of the intermediate dishes were shark's-fin ; birds' nests brought from Borneo, costing nearly a guinea a mouthful, fricassee of poodle, a little dog almost a pig ; the fish of the conch-shell, a substance like wax or india rubber, which you might masticate but never mash ; pea- cock's liver, very fine and recherche ; putrid eggs, never- theless very good ; rice, of course, salted shrimps, baked almonds, cabbage in a variety of forms, green ginger, stewed fungi, fresh fish of a dozen kinds, onions ad libi- tum, salt duck cured like ham, and pig in every form, roast, boiled, and fried, Foo-Chow ham which seemed to me equal to Wiltshire. In fact, the Chinese excel in pork, though the English there never touch it, under the supposition that the pigs are fed on little babies. " But this is a libel. Of course a pig would eat a baby, as it would a rattlesnake if it came across one; but the Chinese are very particular about their swine and keep them penned up, rivalHng the Dutch in their scrubbing and washing. They grow whole fields of taro and herbs for their pigs. And I do not believe that one porker in a million ever tastes a baby." This traveller's sympathies appear to be with the pig. " About two o'clock we arose from the table, walked about, looked out of the window. Large brass bowls were brought with water and towels. Each one pro- ceeded to perform ablutions, the Chinese washing their heads ; after which refreshing operation we resumed our seats and re-commenced with another description of tea. '' Seven different sorts of Samchou we partook of, made from rice, from peas, from mangoes, cocoa-nut, all SOME ODDITIES IN ENTERTAINING. 201 fermented liquors, and the mystery remained, — I was not inebriated. The Samchou was drunk warm in tiny cups, during the whole course of the dinner. *' The whole was cooked without salt and tasted very insipid to me. The bird's-nest seemed like glue or isin- glass, but the coxcombs were palatable. The dog-meat was like some very delicate gizzards well-stewed, and of a short, close fibre. The dish which I most fancied turned out to be rat. Upon taking a second help, after the first taste I got the head, which made me rather sick ; but I consoled myself that when in California we ate ground squirrels which are first cousins to the flat-tailed rats ; and travellers who would know the world must go in for manners and customs. We had tortoise and frogs, — a curry of the latter was superior to chicken; we had fowls' hearts, and the brains of some birds, snipe, I think. We had a chow-chow of mangoes, rambustan preserved, salted cucumber, sweet potatoes, yams, taro, all sorts of sweets made of rice sugar, and cocoa-nuts ; and the soup which terminated the entertainment was certainly boiled tripe or some other internal arrange- ment ; and I wished I had halted some little time before. The whole was eaten with chop-sticks or a spoon like a small spade or shovel. The sticks are made into a kind of fork, being held crosswise between the fingers. It is not the custom for the sexes to meet at meals ; I dined with the ladies." This dinner has one suggestion for our hostesses, — it was in a boat, on a river, by torchlight. We can, how- ever, give a better one on a yacht at Newport, or at New London, or down on the Florida coast ; but it would be a pretty fancy to give it on our river. It is curious to see what varieties there are in the art of entertaining j 202 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. and it is useful to remember, when in Florida, " that alli- gators' tails are as good, when stewed, as chicken." The eating of the past included, under the Romans, the ass, the dog, the snail, hedge-hogs, oysters, as- paragus, venison, wild-boar, sea-nettles. In England, in 1272, the hostess offered strange dishes: mallards, herons, swans, crane, and peacock. The peacock was, of old, a right royal bird which figured splendidly at the banquets of the great, and this is how the mediaeval cooks dished up the dainty : — " Flay off the skin, with the feathers, tail, neck, and head thereon. Then take the skin and all the feathers and lay it on the table, strewing thereon ground cumin ; then take the peacock and roast him, and baste him with raw yolks of eggs, and when he is roasted take him off and let him cool awhile. Then sew him in his skin, and gild his comb, and so send him forth for the last course." Our Saxon ancestors were very fond, like the Span- iards, of putting everything into the same pot ; and we read of stews that make the blood boil. Travellers tell us of dining with the Esquimaux, on a field of ice, when tallow candles were considered delicious, or they found their plates loaded with liver of the walrus. They vary their dinners by helping themselves to a lump of whale -meat, red and coarse and rancid, but very tooth- some to an Esquimau, notwithstanding. If they should sit down to a Greenlander's table they would find it groaning under a dish of half-putrid whale's tail, which has been lauded as a savoury matter, not un- like cream cheese ; and the liver of a porpoise makes the mouth water. They may finish their repast with a slice of reindeer, or roasted rat, and drink to their host in a bumper of train oil. SOME ODDITIES IN ENTERTAINING. 203 In South America the tongue of a sea-Hon is esteemed a great dehcacy. Fashion in Siam prescribes a curry of ants' eggs as necessary to every well-ordered banquet. The eggs are not larger than grains of pepper, and to an unaccustomed palate have no particular flavour. Besides being curried, they are brought to table rolled in green leaves mingled with shreds or very fine slices of pork. The Mexicans make a species of bread of the eggs of insects which frequent the fresh water of the lagoons. The natives cultivate in the lagoon of Chalco a sort of carex called tonte, on which the insects deposit their eggs very freely. This carex is made into bundles and is soon covered. The eggs are disengaged, beaten, dried, and pounded into flour. Penguins' eggs, cormorants' eggs, gulls' eggs, the eggs of the albatross, turtles' eggs are all made subservient to the table. The mother turtle deposits her eggs, about a hundred at a time, in the dry sand, and leaves them to be hatched by the genial sun. The Indian tribes who live on the banks of the Orinoco procure from them a sweet and limpid oil which is their substitute for butter. Lizards' eggs are regarded as a bonne boiiche in the South Sea Islands, and the eggs of the guana, a species of lizard, are much favoured by West Indians. Alligators' eggs are eaten in the Antilles and resemble hens' eggs in size and shape. We have spoken of horse-flesh as introduced at the dinner of the Acclimatization Society, but it is hardly known that the Frenchmen have tried to make it as common as beef. Isidore St. Helain says of it, that it has long been regarded as of a sweetish, disagreeable taste, very tough, and not to be eaten without difficulty ; 204 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. but so many different facts are opposed to this prejudice that it is impossible not to perceive the sHghtness of the foundation. The free or wild horse is hunted as game in all parts of the world where it exists, — Asia, Africa, and America, and perhaps even now in Europe. The domestic horse is itself made use of for alimentary purposes in all those countries. ^' Its flesh is relished by races the most diverse, — Negro, Mongol, Malay, American, Caucasian. It was much esteemed until the eighth century amongst the ancestors of some of the greatest nations of Western Europe, who had it in general use and gave it up with regret. Soldiers to whom it has been served out and people who have bought it in markets, have taken it for beef j and many people buy it daily in Paris for venison." During the commune many people were glad enough to get horse-flesh for the roast. Locusts are eaten by many tribes of North American Indians, and there is no reason why they should'not be very good. The bushmen of Africa rejoice in roasting spiders ; maggots tickle the palates of the Australian aborigines ; and the Chinese feast on the chrysalis of a silk- worm. If this is what they ate, what then did they drink? No thin potations, no half-filled cups for the early English. Wine-bibbers and beer-bibbers, three-bottle men they were down to one hundred years ago. Provocatives of drink were called "shoeing horses," "whetters," "draw- ers off and pullers on." Massinger puts forth a curious test of these provoca- tives : — " I asked Such an unexpected dainty bit for breakfast As never yet I cooked ; 't is red botargo, SOME ODDITIES IN ENTERTAINING. 20^ Fried frogs, potatoes marroned, cavear, Carps' tongues, the pith of an English chine of beef. Now one Italian delicate wild mushroom, And yet a drawer on too ; and if you show not An appetite, and a strong one, I '11 not say To eat it, but devour it, without grace too, For it will not stay a preface. I am shamed, And all my past provocatives will be jeered at." Ben Jonson affords us many a glimpse of the drinking habits of all classes in his day. After the Restoration, England seems to have aban- doned herself to one great saturnalia, and men drank deeply, from the king down. The novels of Fielding and Smollett are full of the wildest debauchery and drunken extravagance. Statesmen drank deep at their councils, ladies drank in their boudoirs, the criminal on his way to Tyburn stopped to drink a parting glass. Hogarth in his wonderful pictures has held the mirror up to society to show how general was the shame, how terrible the curse. In Germany the Baierisch bier, drunk out of hier- gl'dschen ornamented as they are with engraved wreaths, " Zuvi Andenken,'' " A^ls Firundschaft,'' and other little bits of national harmless sentiment, has come down from the remotest antiquity, and has never failed to provoke quiet and decorous, if sleepy hilarity. We are afraid that the " Dew of Ben Nevis " is not so peaceful, nor the juice of the juniper, nor New England rum, nor the aqiiadiente of the Mexican, nor the vodka of the Russian. All these have the most terrible wild madness in them. To the honour of civilization, it is no longer the fashion to drink to excess. The vice of drunkenness rarely meets the eye of a refined woman ; and let us hope that less and less may it be the bane of society, the disgrace of the art of entertaining. THE SERVANT QUESTION. Verily I swear, 't is better to be lowly born, And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perked up in a glistering grief And wear a golden sorrow. Henry viii. IT is impossible to do much with the art of entertaming without servants, and where shall we get them? In a country village, not two hundred miles from New York, I have seen well-to-do citizens going to a little restaurant in the main street for their dinners during an entire sum- mer, because they could not get women to stay in their houses as servants. They are willing to pay high wages, they are generous livers, but such a thing as domestic service is out of the question. If any lady comes from the city bringing two or three maids, they are of far more interest in the village than their mistress, and are besieged, waited upon, intrigued with, to leave their place, to come and serve the village lady. What is the reason? The American farmer's daughter will not go out to service, will not be called a servant, will not work in another person's house as she will in her own. The Irish maid prefers the town, and dislikes the country, where there is no Catholic church. Such a story repeated all over the land is the story of American service. THE SERVANT QUESTION. 20/ We have, however, every day, ships arriving in New York harbour which pour out on our shores the poor of all nations. The men seem to take readily enough to any sort of work. Italians shove' snow and work on railroads, but their wives and daughters make poor domestic servants. The best that we can get are the Irish who have been long in the country. Then come the Germans, who now outnumber the Irish. French, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, all come in shoals. Of all these the French are by far the best. Of course, as cooks they are unrivalled ; as butler, waiter, footman, a well-trained French serving-man is the very best. He is neat, economical, and respectful. He knows his value and he is very expensive. But if you can afford him, take him and keep him. French maids are admirable as seamstresses, and in all the best and highest walks of domestic service, but they are difficult as to the other servants. They make trouble about their food ; they do not tell the truth, as a rule. A good Irish nurse is the best and most tender, the most to be relied on. Children love Irish servants ; it is the best recommendation we can give them. They are not good cooks as a rule, and are wanting in head, man- agement, and neatness ; but they are willing ; and a wise mistress can make of them almost anything she desires. The Germans surpass them very much in thrift and in concentration, but the Germans are stolid, and very far from being as gentle and willing as the Irish. If a housekeeper gets a number of German servants in train- ing and thinks them perfect, she need not be astonished if some fine morning she rises and finds them gone off to parts unknown. 208 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. The Swedes are more reliable up to a certain point ; they are never stupid, they are rather fantastic, and very eccentric. They are also full of poetry, and indulge in sublime longings. The Swedish language is made up of eloquence and poetry as soft as the Italian ; it has also something of the flow and the magnificence of the Spanish. It is freighted with picturesque and brilliant metaphor, and is richer than ours in its expressions of gentleness, politeness, and courtesy. They have a great talent for arguing with gentleness and courtesy, and of protesting with politeness, and they learn our language with singular ease. I once had a Swedish maid who argued me out of my desire to have the dining-room swept, in better language than I could use myself. One must, in hiring servants, take into account all these national characteristics. The Swedes are full of talent, they can do your work if they wish to, but ten chances to one they do not wish to. Gustavus i\dolphus and Charles XII. were two types of Swedish character. The Swedes of to-day, like them, are full of dignity and lofty aspiration ; they love brilliant display ; they have audacious and adventurous spirits ; one can imagine them marching to victory ; but all this makes them, in this country, " too smart " to be ser- vants. They are excellent cooks. A Swedish woman formerly came to my house to cook for dinner parties, and she was equal to any French cJicf. Her price was five dol- lars ; she would do all my marketing for me, and serv^e the dinner most perfectly, — that is, render it up to the men waiters. I rarely had any fault to find ; if I had, it was I who was in the wrong. She came often to in- struct my Irish cook ; but had I attempted any further THE SERVANT QUESTION. 20^ intercourse, I felt that it would have been I who would have had to leave the house, and not my excellent cook. They have every qualification for service excepting this : they will not obey, — they are captains. The Norwegians are very different. We must again remember that at home they are poor, frugal, religious, and capable of all sacrifice ; they will work patiently here for seven years in order to go back to Norway, to that poetical land, whose beauty is so unspeakable. These girls who come from the herds, who have spent the summer on the plains in a small hut and alone, making butter and cheese, are strong, patient, hand- some, fresh creatures, with voices as sweet as lutes, and most obedient and good, — their thoughts ever of father and mother and home. Would there were more of them. If they were a little less awkward in an American house they would be perfect. As for the men, they are the best farm-laborers in the world. They have a high, noble, patient courage, a very slow mind, and are fond of argument. The Norwegian is the Scotchman of Scandinavia, as the Swede is the Irish- man. There are no better adopted citizens than the Norwegians, but they live here only to go back to Norway when they have made enough. Deeply religious, they are neither narrow nor ignoble. They would be perfect ser- vants if well trained. The Danes are not so simple ; they are a mercantile people, and are desperately fond of bargaining. They are also, however, most interesting. Their taste for art is vastly more developed than that of either the Swedes or the Norwegians. A Danish parlour-maid will arrange the dj'ic-d-brac and stand and look at it. To go higher in their home history, they are making great painters. As 14 210 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. servants they are hardly known enough amongst us to be criticised ; those I have seen have been neat, faithful, and far more obedient than their cleverer Swedish sisters. Could I have my choice for servants about a country house they should be Norwegians, in a city house, French. In Chicago, the ladies speak highly of the German ser- vants, if they do not happen to be Nihilists, which is a dreadful possibility. At the South they still have the negro, most excellent when good, most objectionable when bad. Certainly freedom has not improved him as to manners, and a coloured coachman in Washington can be far more disagreeable than an Irishman, or a French cabby during the Exposition, which is saying a great deal. The excellence, the superiority, the respectful manners of English servants at home has induced many ladies to bring over parlour maids, nurses, cooks, from England, with, however, but small success. I need but copy the following from the " London Queen," to show how different is the way of speaking of a servant, and to a servant in London from that which obtains in New York. It is verbatim : — " The servants should rise at six-thirty, and the cook a little earlier ; she then lights the kitchen fire, opens the house, sweeps the hall, cleans the steps, prepares upstairs and downstairs breakfast. Meantime the house parlour- maid does the dining-room, takes up hot water to bed- rooms, lays the table, and so forth, while the housemaid dusts the day nursery and takes up the children's break- fast. Supposing the family breakfast is not wanted be- fore eight- thirty, that meal should be taken, in both THE SERVANT QUESTION. 211 kitchen and nursery, before eight o'clock. As soon as this is over the cook must tidy her kitchen, look over her stores, contents of pantry, etc., and be ready by nine- thirty to take her orders for the day. She will answer the kitchen bell at all times, and perhaps the front door in the morning, and will be answerable besides for ordi- nary kitchen work, for the hall, kitchen stairs, all the basement, and according to arrangement possibly the dining-room. She must have fixed days for doing the above work, cleaning tins, etc. The cook also clears away the breakfast. As soon as the housemaid has taken up the family breakfast, she, the housemaid, must be- gin the bedrooms, where the second scullery-maid may help her as soon as she has done helping the cook. The house parlour-maid will be responsible for the drawing-room and sitting-room and all the bedrooms, also stairs and landing, having regular days for cleaning out one of each weekly, being helped by the second scullery-maid. She should be dressed in time for lunch, wait on it, and clear away. She will answer the front door in the afternoon, take up five o'clock tea, lay the table and wait at dinner. The scullery maid must clear the kitchen meals and help in all the washing up, take up nursery tea, help the cook prepare late dinner, carry up the dishes for late dinner, clear and wash up kitchen supper. The nurse has her dinner in the kitchen. Ser- vants' meals should be breakfast, before the family, din- ner directly after upstairs lunch, tea at five, supper at nine. They should go to bed regularly at ten o'clock. Now as to their fare. For breakfast a httle bacon or an egg, or some smoked fish ; for dinner, meat, vegetables, potatoes, and pudding. If a joint has been sent up for lunchj it is usual for it to go down to the servants' table. 212 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. " Allow one pint and a half of beer to each servant who asks for it, or one bottle. Tea, butter, and sugar are given out to them. The weekly bills for the ser- vants shall be about two dollars and a half." The neatness of all this careful housekeeping would be delightful if it could be carried out with us, or if the servant would accept it. But imagine a New York mis- tress achieving it ! The independent voter would revolt, his wife would never accept it. English servants lose all their good manners when they come over here, and do not appear at all as they do in London. American servants are always expected to eat what goes down from the master's table, and there is no such thing as making one servant wait upon another in our free and independent country. There are households in America where many servants are kept in order by a very clever mistress, but it is rarely an order which lasts for long. It is a vexed question, and the freedom with which we take a servant, without knowing much of her character, must explain a great deal of it. Foreign servants find out soon their legal rights, and their im- portance. Here where labour is scarce, it is not so easy to get a good footman, parlour maid, or cook ; the great variety and antipathy of race comes in. The Irishman will not work on a railroad with the Italian, and we all know the history of the " Heathen Chinee." That is repeated in every household. Mr. Winans, in Scotland, hires a place which reaches from the North Sea to the Atlantic ; he spends two hun- dred thousand dollars a year on it. He has perhaps three hundred serv^ants, every one of them perfect. Imagine his having such a place here ! How many good servants could he find ; how long would they stay ? THE SERVANT QUESTION. 213 How long does a French chef^ at ten thousand dollars a year, stay? Only one year. He prefers to return to France. Indeed, French servants, poorly paid and very poorly fed at home, are the hardest to keep in this country ; they all wish to go back. It is a curious fact that they grow impertinent and do not seem to enjoy the life. They go back to Europe, and resume their good manners as if nothing had happened. It must be in the air. It is, however, possible for a lady to get good servants and to keep them for a while, if she has great executive ability and a natural leadership ; but the whole question is one which has not yet been at all mastered. There is no " hook and eye " between the ship loaded down with those who want work and those who want work done. The great lack of respect in the manners of servants in hotels is especially noticeable to one return- ing from Europe. A woman, a sort of care-taker on a third- story floor, will sing while a lady is talking to her, not because she wishes to sing at all, but to establish her independence. In Europe she would say, " Yes, my Lady," or " No, my Lady " when spoken to. It is to be feared that the Declaration of Indepen- dence is between us and good service. We must be con- tent if we find one or two amiable Irish, or old negroes, who will sei-ve us because of the love they bear us, and for our children's sake, whom they love as if they were their very own. This is, however, but taking the seamy side, and the humbler side. Many opulent people in America em- ploy thirty servants, and their house goes on with much of European elegance. It is not unusual in a fine New York house to find a butler and four men in the dining- 214 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. room ; a chef and his assistants in the kitchen ; a head groom and his' men in the stables; a coachman, who is a very important functionary ; and three women in the nursery besides the nursery governess, who acts as the amanuensis of the lady; the lady's maid, whose sole duty is to wait on her lady, and perhaps her young lady ; a parlour maid or two ; and two chambermaids, a laun- dress and her assistants. Of course the men in such a vast establishment do not sleep in the house, perhaps with one or two exceptions ; the valet and the head footman may be kept at home, as they may be needed in the night, for errands, etc. But our American houses are not built to accommodate so many. One lady, the head of such an establishment, said that she had " never seen her laundress." A different staircase led to the servants' room ; her maid did all the interviewing with this important personage. If a lady can find a competent housekeeper to direct this large household, it is all very well, but that is yet almost impossible, and the life of a fashionable woman in New York, who is the head of such a house, is apt to be slavery. The housekeeper and the butler are seldom friends, therefore the hostess has to reconcile these two conflicting powers before she can give a dinner; the head footman walks off disgusted and leaves a vacant place, etc. The households of men of foreign birth, who under- stand dealing with different nationalities, are apt to get on very well with thirty servants ; doubtless such men import their own servants. In a household where one man alone is kept, he is expected to open the front door and to do all the work of the dining-room, and must have an assistant in the The servant question. 21^ pantry. The cook, if a woman, generally demands and needs one ; if a man, he demands two, for a f/afwiW not do any of the menial work of cookery. He is a pam- pered official. In England, the housekeeper engages the servants and supervises them. She has charge of the stores and the house Hnen, and in general is responsible for the eco- nomical and exact management of all household details, and for the comfort of guests and the family. She is expected to see that her employers are not cheated, and this in our country makes her unpopular. A bad house- keeper is worse than none, as of course her powers of stealing are endless. The butler is responsible for the silver and wine. He must be absolute over the footman. It is he who directs the carving and passing of dishes, and then stands behind the chair of his mistress. All the men- servants must be clean shaven ; none are permitted to wear a mustache, that being the privilege of the gentlemen. A lady's maid is not expected to do her own washing, or make her own bed in Europe ; but in this country, being required to do all that, and to eat with the other servants, she is apt to complain. A French maid always complains of the table. She must dress hair, understand dress-making, and clear starching, be a good packer, and always at hand to dress her lady and to sit up for her when she returns from parties. Her wages are very high and she is apt to become a tyrant. It is very difficult to define for an American house- hold the duties of servants, which are so well defined in England and on the continent. Every lady has her own individual ideas on this subject, and servants have 2l6 THE ART OF ENTERTAtNINCi. f/tei'r individual ideas, which they do not have in Europe I heard an opulent gentleman who kept four men-ser- vants in his house, and three in his stable, complain one snowy winter that he had not one who would shovel snow from his steps, each objecting that it was not his business ; so he wrote a note to a friendly black man, who came around, and rendered it possible for the master of the house to go down to business. This was an extreme case, but it illustrates one of the phases of our curious civilization. The butler is the important person, and it will be well for the lady to hold him responsible ; he should see to it that the footmen are neat and clean. Most servants in American houses wear black dress-coats, and white cravats, but some of our very rich men have now all their flunkies in livery, a sort of cut-away dress-coat, a waistcoat of another colour, small clothes, long stock- ings, and low shoes. Powdered footmen have not yet appeared. If we were in England we should say that the head footman is to attend the door, and in houses where much visiting goes on he could hardly do anything more. Ladies, however, simplify this process by keeping a '' but- tons," a small boy, who has, as Dickens says, " broken out in an eruption of buttons " on his jacket, who sits the livelong day the slave of the bell. The second man seems to do all the work, such as scrubbing silver, sweeping, arranging the fireplaces, and washing dishes ; and what the third man does, except to black boots, I have never been able to discover. I think he serves as valet to the gentlemen and the growing boys, runs with notes, and is " Jeames Yellow- plush " generally. I was once taken over her vast THE SERVANT QUESTION. 217 establishment by an English countess, who was most kind in explaining to me her domestic arrangements; but I did not think she knew herself what that third man did. I noticed that there were always several foot- men waiting at dinner. " They also serve who only stand and wait." One thing I do remember in the housekeeper's room. There sat a very grand dame carving, and giving the servants their dinner. She rose and stood while my lady spoke to her, but at a wave of the hand from the countess all the others remained seated. The butler was at the other end of the table looking very sheepish. The dinner was a boiled leg of mutton, and some sort of meat pie, and a huge Yorkshire pudding, — no vegetables but potatoes ; pitchers of ale, and bread and cheese, finished this meal. The third footman, I remember, brought in afternoon tea; perhaps he filled that place which is described in one of Miss Mulock's novels : — " Dolly was hired as an off maid, to do everything which the other servants would not do." The etiquette of the stable servants was also explained to me in England. The coachman is as powerful a per- son in the equine realm as is the butler in the house. The head groom and his assistants always raise their finger to their hats when spoken to by master, or mis- tress, or the younger members of the family, or visitors, and in the case of royalty all stand with hats off, the coachman on the box slightly raising his, until the Prince of Wales, or his peers, are seated. In some houses I was told that the upper servants had their meals prepared by a kitchen maid, and that they had a different table from the scullery maids. 2l8 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. The nursery governess was a person to be pitied ; she was an educated girl, still the servant of the head nurse. She passed her entire hfe with the children, yet ate by herself, unless perhaps with the very young children. The head governess ate luncheon with the family, and came in to the parlour with the young ladies in the even- ing. Generally this personage was expected to sing and play for the amusement of the company. Now, imagine a set of servants thus trained, brought to America. The men soon learn that their vote is as good as the master's, and if they are Irishmen it is a great deal better. They soon cease to be respectful. This is the first break in the chain. A man, a Senator, was asked out to dinner in Albany ; the lady of the house said, '' I have a great respect for Senator ; he used to wait on this table." That is a glorious thing for the flag, for the United States, but there is a missing Hnk in the golden chain of household order. It is a difficult task to produce here the harmony of an English household. Our service at home is like our diplomatic service ; we have no trained diplomats, no gradation of service, but in the case of our foreign ministers, they have risen to be the best in the world. We have plenty of talent at top ; it is the root of the tree which puzzles us. We may make up our minds that no longer will the American girl go out to service. It is a thousand pities that she will not. It is not ignoble to do household work well. The chatelaines of the Middle Ages cooked and served the meals with their own fair hands. Train- ing-schools are greatly needed; we should follow the nurses' training-school. Our dinner-tables in America are generally long and narrow, fitted to the shape of the dining-room. Once I THE SERVANT QUESTION. 219 saw in England, in a great house, a table so narrow that one could almost have shaken hands with one's opposite neighbour. The ornaments were high, slender vases filled with grasses and orchids, far above our heads. One or two matchless ornaments of Dresden, the gifts of monarchs, alone ornamented the table. This was a very sociable dinner-table and rather pleasing. Then came the round table, so vast that the footmen must have mounted up on it to place the centre piece, like poor distraught Lady Caroline Lamb, whose husband came in to find her walking up and down the table, telhng the butler to " produce pyramidal effects." There is also the fine broad parallelogram, suited to a baronial hall ; and this is copied in our best country houses. As no con- versation of a confidential character is ever allowed at an English table until all the servants have left the room, so it is not considered good-breeding to allow a seiTant to talk to the mistress or the young ladies of what she hears in the servants' hall. The gossip of couriers and maids at a foreign watering-place reaches American ears, and unluckily gets into American newspapers sometimes. It is a wise precaution on the part of the English never to listen to this. As we have conquered everything else in America, perhaps we shall conquer the servant question, to the advantage of both parties. We should try to keep our servants a longer time with us. There are some houses where the law of change goes on forever, and there are some where the domestic machine runs without friction. The hostess may be a person with a talent for governing, and may be inspired with a sixth sense. If she is she can make her composite family respectful, helpful, and happy ; but it must be con- fessed that it is as yet a vexed question, one which gives 220 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. US trouble and will give us more. Those people are the happiest who can get on with three or four servants, and very many families live well and elegantly with this number, while more live well with two. To mark the difference in feeling as between those who employ and those who serve, one little anecdote may apply. At a watering-place in Europe I once met an English family, of the middle class. The lady said to her maid, ^' Bromley, your master wishes you to be in at nine o'clock this evening." Bromley said, " Yes, my lady." An American lady stood near with her maid, who flushed deeply. "What is the matter, Jane?" asked her lady. "I never could stand having any one called my master," said the American. This intimate nerve of self-love, this egotism, this false idea of independence affects women more than men, and in a country where both can go from the hum- blest position to the highest, it produces a ''ghstering grief." The difficulty of getting good servants prevents many families from keeping house. It brings on us the foreign reproach that we live in hotels and boarding- houses. It is at this moment the great unsolved Ameri- can Question. What shall we do with it? SOMETHING ABOUT COOKS. " Last night I weighed, quite wearied out, The question that perplexes still ; And that sad spirit we call doubt Made the good naught beside the ill. '• This morning, when with rested mind, I try again the selfsame theme, The whole is altered, and I find The balance turned, the good supreme." WHAT amateur cook has not had these moments of depression and exaltation as she has weighed the flour and sugar, stoned the raisins, and mixed the cake, or, even worse in her young novitiate, has at- tempted to make a soup and has begun with the formula which so often turns out badly : — " Take a shin of beef and put it in a pot with three dozen carrots, a dozen onions, two dozen pieces of celery, twelve turnips, a fowl, and two partridges. It must simmer six hours, etc." Yes, and last week and the week before her husband said, " it was miser- able." How willingly would she allow the claim of that glorious old coxcomb, Louis Eustache Ude, who had been cook to two French kings and never forgave the world for not permitting him to call himself an artist. "Scrapers of catgut," he says, "call themselves ar- tists, and fellows who jump like a kangaroo claim the title ; yet the man who has under his sole direction thf 222 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. great feasts given by the nobility of England to the allied sovereigns, and who superintended the grand ban- quet at Crockford's on the occasion of the coronation of Victoria, was denied the title prodigally showered on singers, dancers, and comedians, whose only quality, not requiring the microscope to discern, is vanity." Ude was the most eccentric of cooks. He was maitre (rjioiel to the Duke of York, who dehghted in his anec- dotes and mimicry. In his book, which he claims is the only work which gives due dignity to the great art, he says : '' The chief fault in all great peoples' cooks is that they are too profuse in their preparations. Suppers are after all only ridiculous proofs of the extravagance and bad taste of the givers." He mentions great wastes which have seared his already seared conscience thus : " I have known balls where the next day, in spite of the pillage of a pack of footmen, which was enormous, I have seen thirty hams, one hundred and fifty to two hundred carved fowls, and forty or fifty tongues given away. Jellies melt on all the tables ; pastries, patties, aspics, and lobster salads are heaped up in the kitchen and strewed about in the passages ; and all this an utter waste, for not even the footmen would eat this ; they do not consider it a legitimate repast to dine off the rem- nants of a last night's feast. Footmen are like cats ; they only like what they steal, but are indifferent to what is given them." This was written by the cook of the bankrupt Duke of York, noted for his extravagance ; but how well it would apply to-day to the banquet of many a nonveau riche, to how many a hotel, to bow much of our American house- keeping. Ude was a poet and an enthusiast. Colonel Damer met him walking up and down at Crockford's in ^ SOMETHING ABOUT COOKS. 2^3 great rage, and asked what was the matter. " Matter ! Ma foi! " answered he ; " you saw that man just gone out ? Well he ordered red mullet for his dinner. I made him a delicious little sauce with my own hand. The mullet was marked on the carte two shillings. I added sixpence for the sauce. He refuses to pay sixpence for the sauce. The imbecile ! He seems to think red mul- lets come out of the sea with my sauce in their pockets." Careme, one of the greatest of French cooks, became eminent by inventing a sauce for fast-days. He then devoted several years to the science of roasting in all its branches. He studied design and elegance under Robert Laine. His career was one of victory after vic- tory. He nurtured the Emperor Alexander, kept alive Talleyrand through "that long disease, his life," fostered Lord Londonderry, and delighted the Princess Belgra- tine. A salary of a thousand pounds a year induced him to become chef to the Regent ; but he left Carlton House, he would return to France. The Regent was inconsolable, but Careme was implacable. " No," said the true patriot, " my soul is French, and I can only exist in France." Careme, therefore, overcome by his feelings, accepted an unprecedented salary from Baron Rothschild and settled in Paris. Lady Morgan, dining at the Baron's villa in 1830, has left us a sketch of a dinner by Careme which is so well done that, although I have already alluded to it, I will copy verbatim : '' It was a very sultry evening, but the Baron's dining-room stood apart from the house and was shaded by orange trees. In the oblong pavilion of Grecian marble refreshed by fountains, no gold or silver heated or dazzled the eye, but porcelain beyond the price of all precious metals. There was no high-spiced 224 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. sauce in the dinner, no dark-brown gravy, no flavour of cayenne and allspice, no tincture of catsup and walnut pickle, no visible agency of those vulgar elements of cooking of the good old times, fire and water. Dis- tillations of the most delicate viands had been ex- tracted in silver, with chemical precision. Every meat presented its own aroma," — it was not cooked in a gas stove, — '* every vegetable its own shade of verdure. The mayonnaise was fixed in ice, like Ninon's description of Sevign^'s heart, * ime cifro7iille frite a la neige.' The tempered chill of the ploDibiere which held the place of the eternal fondus and soiifflets of our English tables, anticipated and broke the stronger shock of the exquisite avalanche, which, with the hue and odour of fresh-gathered nectarines, satisfied every sense and dis- sipated every coarser flavour. With less genius than went to the composition of that dinner, men have written epic poems." Comparing Careme with the great BeauvilHers, the greatest restaurant cook in Paris from 1782 to 1815, a great authority in the matter says : '' There was more aplomb in the touch of BeauvilHers, more curious felicity in Careme's. BeauvilHers was great in an ent7'ee, Ca- reme sublime in an ejitremet ; we should put BeauvilHers against the world for a roti, but should wish Careme to prepare the sauce were we under the necessity of eating an elephant or our great grandfather." Vatel was the great Condi's cook who kiHed himself because the turbot did not arrive. Madame de Sevigne relates the event with her usual clearness. Louis XIV. had long promised a visit to the great Conde at Chantilly, the very estate which the Due d'Aumale has so re- cently given back to France, but postponed it from SOMETHING ABOUT COOKS. 225 time to time fearing to cause Conde trouble by the sudden influx of a gay and numerous retinue. The old chateau had become a trifle dull and a trifle mouldy, but it got itself brushed up. Vatel was cook, and his first mortification was that the roast was wanting at several tables. It seemed to him that his great master the cap- tain would be dishonoured, but the king had brought a larger retinue than he had promised. " He had thought of nothing but to make this visit a great success." Gour- ville, one of the prince's household, finding Vatel so ex- cited, asked the prince to reassure him, which he did very kindly, telling him that the king was delighted with his supper. But Vatel mournfully answered : " Mon- seigneur, your kindness overpowers me, but the roast was wanting at two tables." The next morning he arose at five to superintend the king's dinner. The purveyor of fish was at the door with only two baskets. " And is this all?" asked Vatel. "Yes," said the sleepy man. Vatel waited at the gates an hour ; no more fish. Two or three hundred guests, and only two packages. He whispered to himself, "The joke in Paris will be that Vatel tried to save the prince the price of two red mullets a month." His hand fell on his rapier hilt, he rushed up-stairs, fell on the blade ; as he expired the cart loaded with turbot came into the yard. Voila ! Times have changed. Cooks now prefer living on their masters to dying for them. The Prince de Loubise, inventor of a sauce the dis- covery of which has made him more glorious than twenty victories, asked his cook to draw him up a bill of fare, a sort of rough estimate for a supper. Bertrand's first estimate was fifty hams. " What, Bertrand ! Are you going to feast the whole army of the Rhine ? Your 15 226 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. brains are surely turning." Bertrand was blandly con- temptuous. " My brains are surely turning? No, Mon- seigneur, only one ham will appear on the table, but the rest are indispensable for my espagnoks, my garnishing." "Bertrand, you are plundering me," stormed the prince. "This article shall not pass." The blood of the cook was up. " My lord," said he, sternly, " you do not understand the resources of our art. Give the word and I will so melt down these hams that they will go into a little glass bottle no bigger than my thumb." The prince was abashed by the genius of the spit, and the fifty hams were purchased. The Duke of Wellington liked a good dinner, and em- ployed an artist named Felix. Lord Seaforth, finding Felix too expensive, allowed him to go to the Iron Duke, but Felix came back with tears in his eyes. "What is the matter," said Lord Seaforth; " has the Duke turned rusty? " " No, no, my lord ! but I serve him a dinner which would make Francatelli or Ude die of envy, and he say nothing. I go to the country and leave him to try a dinner cooked by a stupid, dirty cook-maid, and he say nothing; that is what hurt my feelings." Felix lived on approbation ; he would have been capa- ble of dying like Vatel. Going last winter to see le Bourgeoise Gentilhoinme at the Comedie Frangaise, I was struck with the novelty of the dinner served by this hero of Moliere's who is so anxious to get rid of his money. All the dishes were brought in by little fellows dressed as cooks, who danced to the minuet. In a later faithful chronicle I learn that a certain marquis of the days of Louis XVI. invented a musical SOMETHING ABOUT COOKS. 22/ spit which caused all the snowy-garbed cooks to move in rhythmical steps. All was melody and order. '^ The fish simmered in six-eight time, the ponderous roasts circled gravely, the stews blended their essences to solemn anthems. The ears were gratified as the nose was regaled ; this was an idea worthy of Apecius." So Moliere, true to the spirit of his time, paid this compliment to the Marquis. Bechamel was cook to Louis XIV., and invented a famous sauce. Durand, who was cook to the great Napoleon, has left a curious record of his tempestuous eating. Francatelli succeeded Ude in England, was the chef at Chester- field House, at Lord Kinnaird's, and at the Melton Club. He held the post of maitre d'hotel for a while but was dismissed by a cabal. The gay writer from whose pages we have gathered these desultory facts winds up with an advice to all who keep French cooks. " Make your chef your friend. Take care of him. Watch over the health of this man of genius. Send for the physician when he is ill." Imagine the descent from these poets to the good plain cook, — you can depend upon the truth of this description, — with a six weeks' reference from her last place. Imagine the greasy soups, the mutton cutlets hard as a board, the few hard green peas, the soggy po- tatoes. How awful the recollections of one who came in "a week on trial !" Whose trial? Those who had to eat her food. It is bad to be without a cook, but ten times worse to have a bad one. But if Louis Eustache Ude, the cook par excellence of all this little study, lamented over the waste in great kitchens, how much more should he revolt at that whole- 22S THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. sale destruction of food which might go to feed the hungry, nourish and sustain the sick, and perhaps save many a child's life. What should be done with the broken meats of a great household? The cook is too apt to toss all into a tub or basket, to swell her own iniquitous profits. The half-tongues, ends of ham, roast beef, chicken-legs, the real honest relics of a generous kitchen would feed four or five poor families a week. What gifts of mercy to hospitals would be the half of a form of jelly, the pudding, the blanc mange, which are thrown away by the careless ! In France the Little Sisters of the Poor go about with clean dishes and clean baskets, to collect these morsels which fall from the rich man's table. It is a worthy custom. While studying the names of these great men like Ude and Careme, Vatel and Francatelli, what shades of dead pdtissiers^ spirits of extinct confiseurs, rise around us in savoury streams and revive for us the past of gas- tronomic pleasure ! Many a Frenchman will tell you of the iced meringues of the Palais Royal and the salades de fraises aii marasquin of the Grand Seize as if they were things of the past. The French, gayer and lighter handed at the moulding of pastry, are apt to exceed all nations in this delicate, delicious entretnet. The vol au vent de volaille, or chicken pie, with its delicate filling of chicken, mushroom, truffles, and its enveloping pastry, is never better than at the Grand Hotel at Aix les Bains, where one finds the perfection of good eating. "Aix les Bains," says a resident physician, " lies half-way be- tween Paris and Rome, with its famous curative baths to correct the good dinners of the one, and the good wines of the other." Aix adds a temptation of its own. SOMETHING ABOUT COOKS. 229 The French have ever been fond of the playthings of the kit':hen, — the tarts, custards, the frothy nothings which are fashioned out of the evanescent union of whipped cream and spun sugar. Their poHteness, their brag, their accomphshments, their love of the external, all lead to such dainties. It was observed even so long ago as 1 8 1 5 , when the allies were in Paris, that the fifteen thou- sand pates which Madame Felix sold daily in the Passage des Panoramas were beginning to affect the foreign bay- onets ; and no doubt the German invasion may have been checked by the same dulcet influence. There is romance and history even about pastry. The baba, a species of savoury biscuit coloured with saffron, was introduced into France by Stanislaus, the first king of Poland, when that unlucky country was alternately the scourge and the victim of Russia. The dish was perhaps oriental in origin. It is made with brioche paste, mixed with madeira, currants, raisins, and potted cream. French jellies are rather monotonous as to flavour, but they look very handsome on a supper-table. A macedoine is a delicious variety of dainty, and worthy of the French nation. It is wine jelly frozen in a mould with grapes, strawberries, green-gages, cherries, apricots, or pineapple, or more economically with slices of pears and apples boiled in syrup coloured' with carmine, saffron, or cochineal, the flavour aided by angelica or brandied cherries. An invention of Ude and one which we could copy here is jelly au miroton de peche : — Get half a dozen peaches, peel them carefully and boil them, with their kernels, a short time in a fine syrup, squeeze six lemons into it, and pass it through a bag. Add some clarified isinglass and put some of it into a mould in ice ; then fill up with the jelly and peaches alternately and freeze it. 230 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. Fruit cheeses are very pleasant, rich conserves tor dessert. They can be made with apricots, strawbernes, pineapple, peaches, or gooseberries. The fruit is pow- dered with sugar and rubbed through a colander ; then melted isinglass and thick cream is added, whipped over ice and put into the mould. The French prepare the most ornamental ices, both water and cream, but they do not equal in richness or flavour those made in New York. Pancakes and fritters, although English dishes, are very popular in France and very good. Apple fritters with sherry wine and sugar are very comforting things. The French name is beigiiet de potfi7?ie. Thackeray immortalizes them thus : — " Mid fritters and lollypops though we may roam, On the whole there is nothing like beignet de pomnie. Of flour half a pound with a glass of milk share, A half-pound of butter the mixture will bear. Pontine! Pommel Beignet de poinme! Of beignets there 's none like the beignet de pomme! " A beigiiet de pomme you may work at in vain If you stir not the mixture again and again. Some beer just to thin it may into it fall, Stir up that with three whites of eggs added to all. Pomme ! Pomme ! Beignet de pomme ! Of beignets there 's nothing like beignet de pomme ! " Six apples when peeled you must carefully slice, And cut out the cores if you '11 take my advice ; Then dip them in butter and fry till they foam, And you '11 have in six minutes your beignet de pomme. Pomme ! Pomme ! Beignet de pomme ! Oi beignets there 's nothing like beignet de pomme ! In the Almanack de Gourma?ids there appeared a philosophical treatise on pastry and pastry cooks, prob- SOMETHING ABOUT COOKS. 23 1 abiy by the learned Giedeaud de la Reyniere himself. PaSry, he says, is to cooking what rhetorical metaphors are to oratory, — life and ornament. A speech with- out -netaphors, a dinner without pastry, are alike in- sipid, but, in like manner, as few people are eloquent, so few can make perfect pastry. Good pastry-cooks are as rare as good orators. This writer recommends the art of the rolling-pin to beautiful women as being at once an occupation, a pleas- ure, and a sure way of recovering embonpoint and fresh- ness. He says : " This is an art which will chase ennui from the saddest. It offers varied amusement and sweet and salutary exercise for the whole body; it restores appetite, strength, and gayety; it gathers around us friends ; it tends to advance an art known from the most remote antiquity. Woman ! lovely and charming woman, leave the sofas where ennui and hypochondria prey upon the springtime of your life, unite in the varied moulds sugar, jasmine, and roses, and form those delicacies that will be more precious than gold when made by hands so dear to us." What woman could refuse to make a pudding and any number of pies after that? There seems to be nothing left to eat after all this perilous sweet stuff but a devilled biscuit at ten o'clock. " ' A well devilled biscuit ! ' said Jenkins, enchanted, ' I '11 have after dinner, — the thought is divine ! ' The biscuit was brought and he now only wanted, To fully enjoy it, a glass of good wine. He flew to the pepper and sat down before it, And at peppering the well-buttered biscuit he went; Then some cheese in a paste mixed with mustard spread o'er it, And down to the kitchen the devil was sent. " * Oh, how ! ' said the cook, ' can I thus think of grilling .? When common the pepper, the whole will be flat ; 232 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. / But here 's the cayenne, if my master be willing / I '11 make if he pleases a devil with that.' So the footman ran up with the cook's observation To Jenkins, who gave him a terrible look ; * Oh, go to the devil ! ' — forgetting his station — Was the answer that Jenkins sent down to the cook." A slice of pate de foie gras, olives stuffed with anchovy, broiled bones, anchovy on toast, Welsh rarebit, devilled biscuit, devilled turkey-legs, devilled kidneys, caviare, devilled crabs, soft-shell crabs, shrimp salad, sardines on toast, broiled sausages, etc., are amongst the many appe- tizers which gourmets seek at ten or twelve o'clock, to take the taste of the sweets out of their mouths, and to prepare the pampered palate perhaps for punch, whiskey, or brandy and soda. THE FURNISHING OF A COUNTRY HOUSE. THE hostess should, in furnishing her house, provide a number of bath-tubs. The tin ones, shaped Hke a hat, are very convenient, as are also india-rubber portable baths. If there is not a bath-room belonging to every room, this will enable an Englishman to take his tub as cold as he pleases, or allow the American to take the warmer sponge bath which Americans generally prefer. The house should also be well supplied with lunch- baskets for picnics and for the railway journey. These can be had for a small sum, and are well fitted up with drinking- cups, knives, forks, spoons, corkscrews, sandwich-boxes, etc. These and a great supply of unbreakable cups for the lawn-tennis ground are very useful. There should be also any number of painted tin pails, and small pitchers to carry hot water ; several services of plain tea things, and Japanese waiters, on which to send tea to the bedrooms ; and in every room should be placed a table, thoroughly furnished with writing-materials, and with all the conveniences for writing and sealing a letter. Shakspeare's bequest to his wife of his second-best bed has passed as a bit of post-mortem ungallantry, which has dimmed his fame as a model husband ; but to-day that second-best bed would be a very hand- some bequest, not only because it was Shakspeare's, but 234 THE ART OF ENTERTAINING. because it was doubtless a " tester," for which there 15 a craze. All the old four-posters, which our grandmothers sent to the garret, are on their way back again to the model bedroom. With all our rage for ventilation and fresh air, we no longer fear the bed curtains which a few years ago were supposed to foster disease and death; because the model bedroom can now