The Feasts of Autolycus Part 7

The tomato as a vegetable should be the first point of the meditation.

Let us reflect. Stewed, though not as in America of old, until all flavour is lost, it has the merit of simplicity by no means to be underestimated: drained of the greater part of its juice, thickened slightly with flour, it cannot disappoint. _Au gratin_, it aspires to more delirious joys: the pleasure yielded develops in proportion to the pains taken to produce it. Into a baking dish olive oil is poured in moderation; a sprinkling of salt and pepper and fragrant herbs well powdered, together with bread-crumbs duly grated, follows; next the tomatoes, eager and blus.h.i.+ng, whole or in dainty halves, as the impulse of the moment may prompt; more bread-crumbs and pepper and salt and herbs must cover them gently, more oil be poured upon the stirring harmony; and an hour in the oven will turn you out as pretty a side-dish as was ever devised by ingenious Mrs Gla.s.se, who--O the pity of it--lived too soon for fond dalliance with love's crowning vegetable.

_Farcies_ tomatoes may not easily be surpa.s.sed. Upon your whim or choice it will depend whether you stuff them whole, or cut them in half for so ineffable a purpose. And upon your whim likewise depends the special forcemeat used. Chopped mushrooms, parsley and shallot, seasoned with discretion, leave little to ask for. Prepare, instead, sausage meat, garlic, parsley, tarragon, and chives, and the tomatoes so stuffed you may without pedantry call _a la Grimod de la Reyniere_.

But whatever you call them, count upon happiness in the eating.

Second point of the meditation: the tomato as an auxiliary. If you have learned the trick of a.s.sociation, at once you see before you a steaming harmony in pale yellow and scarlet, the long soft tubes of _macaroni_ or _spaghetti_ encompa.s.sed round about by a deep stream of tomatoes stewed and seasoned; at once you feast upon _macaroni al pomodoro_ and Chianti, and Italy lies, like a map, before your mind's eye, its towns and villages marked by this dish of dishes. With rice, tomatoes are no less in pleasant, peaceful unity; in stuffed _paprika_, or pepper, they find their true affinity. Grilled, they make a sympathetic garniture for _filet pique a la Richelieu_; stuffed, they are the proper accompaniment of _tournedos a la Leslie_; neatly halved, they serve as a foundation to soles _a la Loie Fuller_.

Chickens clamour for them as ally, and so does the saltest of salt cod. In a word, a new combination they might with ease provide for every day in the year. Enough will have been said if this one truth is established: there is scarce a fish or fowl, scarce any meat or vegetable, that is not the better and the n.o.bler for the temporary union with the tomato.

And now, the third point of the meditation, which, too often, escapes the prosaic, unmeditative islander: the tomato as a dish for breakfast. Only recently it was thus that two of rare beauty and sweet savour fulfilled their destiny: on a plate fas.h.i.+oned by barbarous potters on the banks of the Danube, where the love-apple grows in gay profusion, stretched a thin, crisp slice of bacon decoratively streaked with fat and grilled to a turn; it bore, as twin flowers, the two tomatoes, also grilled, fragrant, tender, delectable. Surely here was a poetic prelude to the day's toil. To Belgium all praise be given for teaching that, stewed and encircling b.u.t.tered or scrambled eggs, tomatoes may again enliven the breakfast table, that bitter test of conjugal devotion; to France, the credit of spreading them at the bottom of plate or dish as a bed for eggs artistically poached or fried. History records the names of generals and dates of battles, but what chronicler has immortalised the genius who first enclosed tomatoes in an omelet? This is a brutal, ungrateful world we live in.

And now pa.s.s on to the fourth heading, and new ecstasies: the tomato as salad. Remember that the tomatoes must be deftly sliced in their skins or else the juice escapes; that a touch of onion or garlic is indispensable; that the dressing must be of oil and vinegar, pepper and salt; unless, of course, a _mayonnaise_ be made. Another weird salad there is with qualities to endear it to the morbid and neurotic.

Let it be explained briefly, that lurid description may not be thought to exaggerate lurid attraction: drop your tomatoes, brilliantly red as the abhorred Scarlet Woman, into hot water in order to free them of their skins; place them whole, and in pa.s.sionate proximity, in a dish of silver or delicate porcelain; smother them under a thick layer of whipped cream. For the sake of decoration and the unexpected, stick in here and there a pistachio nut, and thank the G.o.ds for the new sensation.

In soup, thin or clear, the tomato knows no rival; in sauce, it stands supreme, ranking worthily with the four cla.s.sical sauces of the French _cuisine_. And here, a suggestion to be received with loud, jubilant _Alleluias_! Follow the example of Attila's heirs, and, as last touch, pour cream upon your tomato sauce. He who has known and eaten and loved _paprika gefullte_ in the wilds of Transylvania, will bear willing witness to the admirable nature of this expedient.

The more devout, the professed wors.h.i.+pper, will eat his love-apple without artificial device of cookery or dressing, with only salt for savour. For this excess of devotion, however, unqualified commendation would not be just. Unadorned the tomato is not adorned the most.

But cook or serve it as you will, see that it be eaten by you and yours--that is the main thing. The tomatoes that make glad the heart of the loiterer in Covent Garden are fresh as the sweet breath of May.

A DISH OF SUNs.h.i.+NE

"The weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics." How can the ingenious housewife talk of aught else in the Winter season? Not because, as Mr Stevenson argues, "the dramatic element in scenery is far more tractable in language, and far more human both in import and suggestion, than the stable features of the landscape," but because upon it she is dependent for ease and success in making her every luncheon and dinner a culinary triumph.

Of what avail the morning's conference with the greengrocer's boy, or even the conscientious visit to the greengrocer's shop or the ramble through the market--unless, perhaps, and happily, her pockets be lined with gold, when hothouse vegetables, and out-of-season delicacies, must be paid for with the alacrity of a Croesus? Otherwise, dark, hopeless despair seizes upon her? Must she not brood in abject melancholy when the hideous truth is revealed to her that earth's resources are limited to turnip-tops and Brussels sprouts, with, it may be, a few Jerusalem artichokes thrown in? Celery, the lordly, is frozen. Cauliflower, the fragrant, frost-bitten irretrievably, will not yield to the most urgent inducements of hot water. Lettuce is a thing of the past and of the future. Sad and drear indeed is the immediate prospect. For surely turnip-tops are a delusion, and against the monotony of sprouts the aspiring soul rebels.

It is at this crisis that hope flames right in a strangely neglected corner. Italian suns.h.i.+ne and blue skies, concentrated in flour paste, wrought into tubes and ribbons, squares and lozenges, come to gladden the sinking heart and cheer the drooping spirits. Why despair when _macaroni_ is always to be had, inestimable as a vegetable, unrivalled as an _entree_, a perfect meal, if you choose, in itself?

Upon the imagination of those to whom food is something besides a mere satisfaction to carnal appet.i.te, _macaroni_ works a strange, subtle spell. The very name conjures up sweet poetic visions; it is the magic crystal or beryl stone, in which may be seen known things, dear to the memory: smiling valleys where the vines are festooned, not as Virgil saw them, from elm to elm, but from mulberry to mulberry; and where the beautiful, broad-horned, white oxen drag, in solemn dignity, the crawling plough; olive-clad slopes and lonely stone palms; the gleam of sunlit rivers winding with the reeds and the tall, slim poplars; the friendly wayside _trattoria_ and the pleasant refrain of the beaming _cameriere_, "_Subito Signora; ecco!_"--a refrain ceaseless as the buzzing of bees among the clover. In a dish of _macaroni_ lies all Italy for the woman with eyes to see or a heart to feel.

Or visions more personal, more intimate, she may summon for her own delight; the midday halt and lunch in Castiglione del Lago on its gentle hill-top, the blue of Thrasymene's lake s.h.i.+ning between the olives, and all fair to behold, save the _padrone_ with his conscienceless charges for the bowl of _macaroni_ that had been so good in the eating. Or else, perhaps, the evening meal in the long refectory at Monte Oliveto, with the white-robed brothers; or, again, the unforgettable breakfast at Pompeii's _Albergo del Sole_, the good wine ranged upon the old tree trunk that serves as central column, the peac.o.c.k, tail outspread, strutting about among the chairs and tables, the overpowering sweetness of the flowering bean stealing, from near fields, through open doors and windows. Or, still again, the thought of Pompeii sends one off upon the journey from its ruined streets to Naples--on one side the Bay, on the other the uninterrupted line of villages, every low white house adorned with garlands of _macaroni_ drying peacefully and swiftly in the hot sun. And a few pence only will it cost to dream such dreams of beauty and of gladness.

Many as are the devices for preparing this stuff that dreams are made of, none can excel the simplest of all. Eat it the way the Italian loves it, and for yourself you open up new vistas of pleasure. And what could be easier? In water well salted--upon the salt much depends--the _macaroni_, preferably in the large generous tubes, is boiled for twenty minutes, or half an hour, until it is as soft as soft may be without breaking. A capacious bowl, its sides well b.u.t.tered and sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese, must wait in readiness. Into it put the _macaroni_, well drained of the water, into its midst drop a large piece of sweet, fresh b.u.t.ter, and sprinkle, without stint, more of the indispensable Parmesan; mix wisely and with discrimination; and then eat to your soul's, or stomach's, content. To further your joy, have at your side a flash of Chianti, pure and strong, standing in no need of baptism. The G.o.ds never fared better.

But, one word of advice: if this dish you serve for luncheon, defy convention, and make it the first and last and only course. It may seem meagre in the telling. But to treat it with due respect and justice much must be eaten, and this much makes more impossible even to the hopeful.

Another word of advice: never break or cut the _macaroni_ into small pieces; the cook who dares to disobey in this particular deserves instant and peremptory dismissal. Where is the poetry, where the art, if it can be eaten with as little trouble and planning as an everyday potato, or a mess of greens? Who, that has seen, can forget the skilful Italian winding the long steaming tubes around and around his fork, his whole soul and intelligence concentrated upon the pretty feat of transposing these tubes from his fork to his mouth. It is difficult; yes, especially for the foreigner; but where is the pleasure without pain? As well tear your Troyon or your Diaz into shreds, and enjoy it in bits, as violate the virginal lengths of your _macaroni_.

In more lavish mood, prepare it _al sugo_, and no cause need you fear for regret. It is well-nigh as simple; the _macaroni_, or better still _spaghetti_, the smaller, daintier variety, once boiled, is taken from the water only to be plunged in rich gravy, its quant.i.ty varying according to the quant.i.ty of _spaghetti_ used; let it boil anew, or rather simmer, until each long tube is well saturated; then, add the cheese and b.u.t.ter, and say your _Benedicite_ with a full heart.

Or, would you have it richer still, and so tempt Providence? Make tomato the foundation of the gravy, spice it with cloves, bring out the sweet _bouquet garni_, serve with b.u.t.ter and Parmesan cheese as before, and call the result _Macaroni a la Napolitaine_. _Spaghetti_, here again, will answer the purpose as well, nor will the pretty, flat, wavy ribbon species come amiss. To court perfection, rely upon mushrooms for one of the chief elements in this adorable concoction, and the whole world over you may travel without finding a dish worthy to compete with it. _Macaroni_ can yield nothing more exquisite, though not yet are its resources exhausted.

_Au gratin_ it is also to be commended. The preliminary boiling may now, as always, be taken for granted. With its chosen and well-tried accompaniments of b.u.t.ter and Parmesan cheese, and steeped in a good white sauce, it may simmer gently over the fire until the sympathetic b.u.t.ter be absorbed; then in a decently prepared dish, and covered with bread-crumbs, it should bake until it is warmed into a golden-brown harmony that enraptures the eye. Or with stronger seasoning, with onion and pepper and cayenne, you may create a savoury beyond compare.

Or combined with the same ingredients you may stew your _macaroni_ in milk, and revel in _macaroni saute_; worse a hundred times, truly, might you fare.

But, if you would be wholly reckless, why, then try _Macaroni a la Pontife_, and know that human ambition may scarce pretend to n.o.bler achievements. For a mould of goodly proportions you fill with _macaroni_ and forcemeat of fowl and larks and bits of bacon and mushrooms and game filleted; and this ineffable arrangement you moisten with gravy and allow to simmer slowly, as befits its importance, for an hour; eat it, and at last you too, with Faust, may hail the fleeting moment, and bid it stay, because it is so fair!

In puddings and pies _macaroni_ is most excellent. But if you be not lost beyond redemption, never sweeten either one or the other; the suggestion of such sacrilege alone is horrid. Into little croquettes it may by cunning hands be modelled; _en timbale_, in well-shaped mould, it reveals new and welcome possibilities. With fish it a.s.similates admirably; in soup it is above criticism. It will strengthen the flavour of chestnuts, nor will it disdain the stimulating influence of wine, white or red. And in the guise of _nouilles_, or nudels, it may be stuffed with forcemeat of fowl or beef, and so clamour for the rich tomato sauce.

ON SALADS

To speak of salads in aught but the most reverential spirit were sacrilege. To be honoured aright, they should be eaten only in the company of the devout or in complete solitude--and perhaps this latter is the wiser plan. Who, but the outer barbarian, will not with a good salad,

A book, a taper, and a cup Of country wine, divinely sup?

Over your hot meats you cannot linger; if alone with them, and read you must, a common newspaper, opened at the day's despatches, best serves your purpose; else, your gravies and sauces congeal into a horrid white mess upon your plate, and tepid is every unsavoury morsel your fork carries to your mouth. But over any one of the "salad clan"--lettuce or tomato, beans or potato, as fancy prompts--you can revel at leisure in your Balzac, your Heine, your Montaigne, which, surely, it would be desecration to spread open by the side of the steaming roast or the prosaic bacon and eggs. There has always seemed one thing lacking in Omar's Paradise: a salad, he should have bargained for with his Book of Verses, his Jug of Wine, and Loaf of Bread "underneath the Bough."

Far behind has the Continent left Great Britain in the matter of salads. To eat them in perfection you must cross the Channel--as, indeed, you must in the pursuit of all the daintiest dishes--and travel still farther than France. The French will give you for breakfast a bowl of _Soissons_, for dinner a _Romaine_, which long survive as tender memories; even the humble dandelion they have enlisted in the good cause. With the Italian you will fare no less well; better it may be, for, with the poetic feeling that has disappeared for ever from their art and architecture, they fill the salad bowl at times with such delicate conceits as tender young violet leaves, so that you may smell the spring in the blossoms at your throat, while you devour it in the greens set before you. But in Germany, though there may be less play of fancy in the choice of materials, there is far greater poetry in the mixing of them. As an atonement for that offence against civilisation, the midday dinner, the Germans have invented a late supper that defies the critic: the very meanest _Speise-Saal_ is transfigured when the gaslight falls softly on the delicious potato or cuc.u.mber or herring salads of the country, flanked by the tall slim gla.s.ses of amber Rhenish wine. But, excelling Germany, even as Germany excels France, Hungary is the true home of the salad. It would take a book to exhaust the praise it there inspires. To die eating salad on the banks of the Danube to the wail of the Czardas--that would be the true death! What, however, save the ideals realised, is to be effected in a land where tomatoes are as plentiful as are potatoes in Ireland?

The Briton, it must be admitted, has of late progressed. Gone is the time when his favourite salad was a horror unspeakable: an onion and a lettuce served whole, chopped up by himself, smothered in salt and pepper, and fairly sluiced with vinegar. To understand the full iniquity of it, you must remember what an excess of vinegar the stalwart Briton was equal to in those days, now happily past. An imperial pint, Mr Weller's friend, the coachman with the hoa.r.s.e voice, took with his oysters without betraying the least emotion. As benighted, smacking no less of the Dark Ages, is the custom of serving with cheese a lettuce (of the long crisp species known as _cos_ in the cookery books), cut ruthlessly in halves. You are supposed to dip the leaves into salt, and afterwards return thanks with a grateful heart.

Many there are who will still eat lettuce in this fas.h.i.+on with their tea; the curious student of evolution can point to it as a survival of the old barbarism; to the mustard and cress or cuc.u.mber sandwiches which have replaced it, as a higher phase of development.

But, though these sorry customs still survive here and there, even as superst.i.tions linger among ignorant peasants, British eyes are opening to the truth. The coming of the salad in England marks the pa.s.sing of the Englishman from barbarous depth to civilised heights. Has he not exchanged his old-love Frith for Whistler, and has he not risen from G. P. R. James to George Meredith? Not a whit less important in the history of his civilisation is his emanc.i.p.ation from that vile, vinegar-drenched abomination to the succulent tomato, the unrivalled potato, well "fatigued" in the "capacious salad-bowl."

Of every woman worthy of the name, it is the duty to master the secret of the perfect salad, and to prepare it for her own--and man's--greater comfort and joy in this life, and--who knows?--salvation in the next. This secret is all in the dressing. It is easy enough to buy in the market, or order at the greengrocer's a lettuce, or a cuc.u.mber, or a pound of tomatoes. But to make of them a masterpiece, there's the rub. Upon the dressing and "fatiguing" success depends. The mission of the lettuce, the resources of the bean were undreamed of until the first woman--it must have been a woman!--divined the virtue that lies in the harmonious combination of oil and vinegar. Vinegar alone and undiluted is for the vulgar; mixed with oil it as much surpa.s.ses nectar and ambrosia as these hitherto have been reckoned superior to the liquors of mere human brewing. Of _mayonnaise_ nothing need as yet be said; it ranks rather with sauces, irreproachable when poured upon salmon, or chicken, or lobster--upon the simpler and more delicate salads it seems well-nigh too strong and coa.r.s.e. The one legitimate dressing in these cases is made of vinegar and oil, pepper and salt, and, on certain rare occasions, mustard.

As with sauces, it is simple to put down in black and white the several ingredients of the good dressing. But what of the proportions?

What of the methods of mixing? In the large towns of the United States where men and women delight in the pleasures of the table, are specialists who spend their afternoons going from house to house, preparing the salads for the day's coming great event. And perhaps, in the end, all mankind may see advantages in this division of labour.

For only the genius born can mix a salad dressing as it should be mixed. Quant.i.ties of pepper and salt, of oil and vinegar for him (or her) are not measured by rule or recipe, but by inspiration. You may generalise and insist upon one spoonful of oil for every guest and one for the bowl--somewhat in the manner of tea-making--and then one-third the quant.i.ty of vinegar. But out of these proportions the Philistine will evolve for you a nauseating concoction; the initiated, a dressing of transcendental merit.

As much depends upon the mixing as upon the proportions. The foolish pour in first their oil, then their vinegar, and leave the rest to chance, with results one shudders to remember. The two must be mixed together even as they are poured over the salad, and here the task but begins. For next, they must be mixed with the salad. To "fatigue" it the French call this special part of the process, and indeed, to create a work of art, you must mix and mix and mix until you are fatigued yourself, and your tomatoes or potatoes reduced to one-half their original bulk. Then will the dressing have soaked through and through them, then will every mouthful be a special plea for gluttony, an eloquent argument for the one vice that need not pall with years.

One other ingredient must not be omitted here, since it is as essential as the oil itself. This is the onion--

Rose among roots, the maiden fair, Wine-scented and poetic soul

of every salad. You may rub with it the bowl, you may chop it up fine and sprinkle with it the lettuce, as you might sprinkle an omelet with herbs. But there, in one form or another, it must be. The French have a tendency to abuse it; they will cut it in great slices to spread between layers of tomatoes or cuc.u.mbers. But there is a touch of grossness in this device. It is just the _soupcon_ you crave, just the subtle flavour it alone can impart. You do not want your salad, when it comes on the table, to suggest nothing so much as the stewed steak and onions shops in the Strand! The fates forbid.

"What diversities soever there be in herbs, all are shuffled up together under the name of sallade." And Montaigne wrote in sadness, knowing well that there could be no error more fatal. Have you ever asked for a salad at the greengrocer's, and been offered a collection of weeds befitting nothing so much as Betsy Prig's capacious pocket?

Have you ever, at the table of the indifferent, been served with the same collection plentifully drenched with "salad cream"? But these are painful memories, speedily to be put aside and banished for evermore.

Some combinations there are of herbs or greens or vegetables unspeakably delicious, even in the thought thereof. But it is not at haphazard, by an unsympathetic greengrocer, they can be made; not in haste, from bottles of atrocities, they can be dressed. They are the result of conscientious study, of consummate art.

Besides, some varieties there be of flavour too delicate to be tampered with: for instance, the cabbage lettuce, as the vulgar call it, which comes in about Easter time, but which, at the cost of a little trouble, can be had all the year round. For some reason unknown, your hard-hearted greengrocer, half the time, objects to it seriously, declares it not to be found from end to end of Covent Garden. But let him understand that upon his providing it depends your custom, and he fetches it--the unprincipled one--fast enough. The ragged outer leaves pulled away, crisp and fresh is the heart, a cool green and white harmony not to be touched by brutal knife. The leaves must be torn apart, gently and lovingly, as the painter plays with the colours on his palette. Then, thrown into the bowl which already has been well rubbed with onion, and slices of hard-boiled egg laid upon the top for adornment and flavouring alike, at once may the dressing of oil and vinegar and salt and pepper be poured on, and the process of "fatiguing" begin. You need add nothing more, to know, as you eat, that life, so long as salads are left to us, is well worth the living.

To say this is to differ in a measure from the great Alexandre, a misfortune surely to be avoided. To this lettuce he would add herbs of every kind; nay, even oysters, or tortoise eggs, or anchovies, or olives--in fact, the subject is one which has sent his ever delightful imagination to work most riotously. But, in all humility, must it still be urged that the cabbage lettuce is best ungarnished, save, it may be, by a touch of the unrivalled celery or slices of the adorable tomato--never, if yours be the heart of an artist, by the smallest fragment of the coa.r.s.e, crude, stupid beetroot.

The _romaine_, or _cos_, however, is none the worse for Dumas'

suggestions; indeed, it is much the better. Its long stiff leaves, as they are, may not be "fatigued" with anything approaching ease or success. It is to be said--with hesitation perhaps, and yet to be said--that they make the better salad for being cut before they are put into the bowl. As if to atone for this unavoidable liberty, dainty additions may not come amiss: the tender little boneless anchovies, fish of almost any and every kind--most admirably, salmon and a bit of red herring in conjunction--cuc.u.mbers, celery, tomatoes, radishes--all will blend well and harmoniously. Be bold in your experiments, and fear nothing. Many failures are a paltry price to pay for one perfect dish.

Of other green salads the name is legion: endive, dandelion leaves, chicory, chervil, mustard and cress, and a hundred and more besides before the resources of France--more especially the Midi--and Italy be exhausted. And none may be eaten becomingly without the oil and vinegar dressing; all are the pleasanter for the _soupcon_ of onion, and the egg, hard-boiled; a few gain by more variegated garniture.

But these minor salads--as they might be cla.s.sed--pale before the glories of the tomato: the _pomodoro_ of the Italian, the _pomme d'amour_ of the Provencal--sweet, musical names, that linger tenderly on the lips. And, indeed, if the tomato were veritably the "love apple" of the Scriptures, and, in Adam's proprietors.h.i.+p, the olives already yielded oil, the vines vinegar, then the tragedy in the Garden of Eden may be explained without the aid of commentary. Many a man--Esau notably--has sold his birthright for less than a good tomato salad.