Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 27

MASTER COOK.

Ay! Epicurus too was sure a cook, And knew the sovereign good. Nature his study, While practice perfected his theory.

Divine philosophy alone can teach The difference which the fish _Glociscus_[124] shows In winter and in summer: how to learn Which fish to choose, when set the Pleiades, And at the solstice. 'Tis change of seasons Which threats mankind, and shakes their changeful frame.

This dost thou comprehend? Know, what we use In season, is most seasonably good!

FRIEND.

Most learned cook, who can observe these canons

MASTER COOK.

And therefore phlegm and colics make a man A most indecent guest. The aliment Dress'd in my kitchen is true aliment; Light of digestion easily it pa.s.ses; The chyle soft-blending from the juicy food Repairs the solids.

FRIEND.

Ah! the chyle! the solids!

Thou new Democritus! thou sage of medicine!

Versed in the mysteries of the Iatric art!

MASTER COOK.

Now mark the blunders of our vulgar cooks!

See them prepare a dish of various fish, Showering profuse the pounded Indian grain, An overpowering vapour, gallimaufry A mult.i.tude confused of pothering odours!

But, know, the genius of the art consists To make the nostrils feel each scent distinct; And not in was.h.i.+ng plates to free from smoke.

I never enter in my kitchen, I!

But sit apart, and in the cool direct, Observant of what pa.s.ses, scullions' toil.

FRIEND.

What dost thou there?

MASTER COOK.

I guide the mighty whole; Explore the causes, prophesy the dish.

'Tis thus I speak: "Leave, leave that ponderous ham; Keep up the fire, and lively play the flame Beneath those lobster patties; patient here, Fix'd as a statue, skim, incessant skim.

Steep well this small Glociscus in its sauce, And boil that sea-dog in a cullender; This eel requires more salt and marjoram; Roast well that piece of kid on either side Equal; that sweetbread boil not over much."

'Tis thus, my friend, I make the concert play.

FRIEND.

O man of science! 'tis thy babble kills!

MASTER COOK.

And then no useless dish my table crowds; Harmonious ranged, and consonantly just.

FRIEND.

Ha! what means this?

MASTER COOK.

Divinest music all!

As in a concert instruments resound, My ordered dishes in their courses chime.

So Epicurus dictated the art Of sweet voluptuousness, and ate in order, Musing delighted o'er the sovereign good!

Let raving Stoics in a labyrinth Run after virtue; they shall find no end.

Thou, what is foreign to mankind, abjure.

FRIEND.

Right honest Cook! thou wak'st me from their dreams!

Another cook informs us that he adapts his repasts to his personages.

I like to see the faces of my guests, To feed them as their age and station claim.

My kitchen changes, as my guests inspire The various spectacle; for lovers now, Philosophers, and now for financiers.

If my young royster be a mettled spark, Who melts an acre in a savoury dish To charm his mistress, scuttle-fish and crabs, And all the sh.e.l.ly race, with mixture due Of cordials filtered, exquisitely rich.

For such a host, my friend! expends much more In oil than cotton; solely studying love!

To a philosopher, that animal, Voracious, solid ham and bulky feet; But to the financier, with costly niceness, Glociscus rare, or rarity more rare.

Insensible the palate of old age, More difficult than the soft lips of youth, To move, I put much mustard in their dish; With quickening sauces make their stupor keen, And lash the lazy blood that creeps within.

Another genius, in tracing the art of cookery, derives from it nothing less than the origin of society; and I think that some philosopher has defined man to be "a cooking animal."

COOK.

"The art of cookery drew us gently forth From that ferocious life, when void of faith The Anthropophaginian ate his brother!

To cookery we owe well-ordered states, a.s.sembling men in dear society.

Wild was the earth, man feasting upon man, When one of n.o.bler sense and milder heart First sacrificed an animal; the flesh Was sweet; and man then ceased to feed on man!

And something of the rudeness of those times The priest commemorates; for to this day He roasts the victim's entrails without salt.

In those dark times, beneath the earth lay hid The precious salt, that gold of cookery!

But when its particles the palate thrill'd, The source of seasonings, charm of cookery! came.

They served a paunch with rich ingredients stored; And tender kid, within two covering plates, Warm melted in the mouth. So art improved!

At length a miracle not yet perform'd, They minced the meat, which roll'd in herbage soft, Nor meat nor herbage seem'd, but to the eye, And to the taste, the counterfeited dish Mimick'd some curious fish; invention rare!

Then every dish was season'd more and more, Salted, or sour, or sweet, and mingled oft Oatmeal and honey. To enjoy the meal Men congregated in the populous towns, And cities flourish'd which we cooks adorn'd With all the pleasures of domestic life.

An arch-cook insinuates that there remain only two "pillars of the state," besides himself, of the school of Sinon, one of the great masters of the condimenting art. Sinon, we are told, applied the elements of all the arts and sciences to this favourite one. Natural philosophy could produce a secret seasoning for a dish; and architecture the art of conducting the smoke out of a chimney: which, says he, if ungovernable, makes a great difference in the dressing. From the military science he derived a sublime idea of order; drilling the under cooks, marshalling the kitchen, hastening one, and making another a sentinel. We find, however, that a portion of this divine art, one of the professors acknowledges to be vapouring and bragging!--a seasoning in this art, as well as in others. A cook ought never to come unaccompanied by all the pomp and parade of the kitchen: with a scurvy appearance, he will be turned away at sight; for all have eyes, but few only understanding.[125]

Another occult part of this profound mystery, besides vapouring, consisted, it seems, in filching. Such is the counsel of a patriarch to an apprentice! a precept which contains a truth for all ages of cookery.

Carian! time well thy ambidextrous part, Nor always filch. It was but yesterday, Blundering, they nearly caught thee in the fact; None of thy b.a.l.l.s had livers, and the guests, In horror, pierced their airy emptiness.

Not even the brains were there, thou brainless hound!

If thou art hired among the middling cla.s.s, Who pay thee freely, be thou honourable!

But for this day, where now we go to cook, E'en cut the master's throat for all I care; "A word to th' wise," and show thyself my scholar!

There thou mayst filch and revel; all may yield Some secret profit to thy sharking hand.

'Tis an old miser gives a sordid dinner, And weeps o'er every sparing dish at table; Then if I do not find thou dost devour All thou canst touch, e'en to the very coals, I will disown thee! Lo! old Skin-flint comes; In his dry eyes what parsimony stares!

These cooks of the ancients, who appear to have been hired for a grand dinner, carried their art to the most whimsical perfection. They were so dexterous as to be able to serve up a whole pig boiled on one side, and roasted on the other. The cook who performed this feat defies his guests to detect the place where the knife had separated the animal, or how it was contrived to stuff the belly with an olio composed of thrushes and other birds, slices of the matrices of a sow, the yolks of eggs, the bellies of hens with their soft eggs flavoured with a rich juice, and minced meats highly spiced. When this cook is entreated to explain his secret art, he solemnly swears by the manes of those who braved all the dangers of the plain of Marathon, and combated at sea at Salamis, that he will not reveal the secret that year. But of an incident so triumphant in the annals of the gastric art, our philosopher would not deprive posterity of the knowledge. The animal had been bled to death by a wound under the shoulder, whence, after a copious effusion, the master-cook extracted the entrails, washed them with wine, and hanging the animal by the feet, he crammed down the throat the stuffings already prepared. Then covering the half of the pig with a paste of barley, thickened with wine and oil, he put it in a small oven, or on a heated table of bra.s.s, where it was gently roasted with all due care: when the skin was browned, he boiled the other side; and then, taking away the barley paste, the pig was served up, at once boiled and roasted. These cooks, with a vegetable, could counterfeit the shape and the taste of fish and flesh. The king of Bithynia, in some expedition against the Scythians, in the winter, and at a great distance from the sea, had a violent longing for a small fish called _aphy_--a pilchard, a herring, or an anchovy. His cook cut a turnip to the perfect imitation of its shape; then fried in oil, salted, and well powdered with the grains of a dozen black poppies, his majesty's taste was so exquisitely deceived, that he praised the root to his guests as an excellent fish. This trans.m.u.tation of vegetables into meat or fish is a province of the culinary art which we appear to have lost; yet these are _cibi innocentes_, compared with the things themselves. No people are such gorgers of mere animal food as our own; the art of preparing vegetables, pulse, and roots, is scarcely known in this country. This cheaper and healthful food should be introduced among the common people, who neglect them from not knowing how to dress them. The peasant, for want of this skill, treads under foot the best meat in the world; and sometimes the best way of dressing it is least costly.

The gastric art must have reached to its last perfection, when we find that it had its history; and that they knew how to ascertain the aera of a dish with a sort of chronological exactness. The philosophers of Athenaeus at table dissert on every dish, and tell us of one called _maati_, that there was a treatise composed on it; that it was first introduced at Athens, at the epocha of the Macedonian empire, but that it was undoubtedly a Thessalian invention; the most sumptuous people of all the Greeks. The _maati_ was a term at length applied to any dainty of excessive delicacy, always served the last.

But as no art has ever attained perfection without numerous admirers, and as it is the public which only can make such exquisite cooks, our curiosity may be excited to inquire whether the patrons of the gastric art were as great enthusiasts as its professors.

We see they had writers who exhausted their genius on these professional topics; and books of cookery were much read: for a comic poet, quoted by Athenaeus, exhibits a character exulting in having procured "The New Kitchen of Philoxenus, which," says he, "I keep for myself to read in my solitude." That these devotees to the culinary art undertook journeys to remote parts of the world, in quest of these discoveries, sufficient facts authenticate. England had the honour to furnish them with oysters, which they fetched from about Sandwich. Juvenal[126] records that Monta.n.u.s was so well skilled in the science of good eating, that he could tell by the first bite whether they were English or not. The well-known Apicius poured into his stomach an immense fortune. He usually resided at Minturna, a town in Campania, where he ate shrimps at a high price: they were so large, that those of Smyrna, and the prawns of Alexandria, could not be compared with the shrimps of Minturna.

However, this luckless epicure was informed that the shrimps in Africa were more monstrous; and he embarks without losing a day. He encounters a great storm, and through imminent danger arrives at the sh.o.r.es of Africa. The fishermen bring him the largest for size their nets could furnish. Apicius shakes his head: "Have you never any larger?" he inquires. The answer was not favourable to his hopes. Apicius rejects them, and fondly remembers the shrimps of his own Minturna. He orders his pilot to return to Italy, and leaves Africa with a look of contempt.