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37 chapters
TABLE TRAITS,
TABLE TRAITS,
WITH SOMETHING ON THEM. BY DR. DORAN. “Je suis aujourd’hui en train de conter; plaise à Dieu que cela ne soit pas une calamité publique.”— Brillat Savarin. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET; OLIVER & BOYD, EDINBURGH; HODGES & SMITH, DUBLIN; AND TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS, AND AT THE RAILWAY STATIONS. 1854. LONDON: R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY, EARL OF HAREWOOD , IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF BY-GONE HAPPY YEARS, THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBE
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THE LEGEND OF AMPHITRYON. A PROLOGUE.
THE LEGEND OF AMPHITRYON. A PROLOGUE.
“ Le véritable Amphitryon est l’Amphitryon où l’on dîne. ”— Molière. Among well-worn illustrations and similes, there are few that have been more hardly worked than the above line of Poquelin-Molière. It is a line which tells us pleasantly enough, that he who sits at the head of a table is among those “respectable” powers who find an alacrity of worship at the hands of man. I say, “at the hands;” for what is “adoration” but the act of putting the hand to the mouth (as expressed by its components
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DIET AND DIGESTION.
DIET AND DIGESTION.
“No digest of law’s like the law of digestion.”— Moore. Our good neighbours the French, or rather, the philosophers among them, have asserted that the perfecting of man and his species depends upon attention to diet and digestion; and, in a material point of view, they are not far wrong; and, indeed, in a non-material point of view, it may be said that the spirit, without judgment, is very likely to be exposed to indigestion; and perhaps ignorance complete is to be preferred to an ill-digested e
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WATER.
WATER.
A Kentucky man, who was lately at one of the great tables in an hotel in the States, where the bill of fare was in French, after sorely puzzling himself with descriptions which he could not comprehend, “ cotelettes à la Maintenon ” and “ œufs à la braise ;” exclaimed, “I shall go back to first principles: give me some roast beef!” So, after speaking of the birth of him, whose putative father has lent a name to liberal hosts, let us also fall back upon first principles, and contemplate the uses o
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MATERIALS FOR BREAKFAST.
MATERIALS FOR BREAKFAST.
And first of milk. If Britons really have, what they so much boast of,—a birth-right,—the least disputable article of that class, is their undoubted right to that lacteal treasure which their mother holds from Nature, on trust, for their use and advantage. It is a curious fact, that aristocratic infants are those who are most ordinarily deprived of this first right of their citizenship, and are sent to slake their thirst and fortify their thews and sinews at ochlocratic breasts. Jean Jacques Rou
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CORN.
CORN.
Our first parents received the mission to cultivate the garden which was given them for a home. Their Hebrew descendants looked upon tillage of all descriptions with a reverence worthy of the authority which they professed to obey. The sons of the tribes stood proudly by the plough, the daughters of the patriarchs were gleaners, warriors lent their strength in the threshing barn, Kings guided oxen, and Prophets were summoned from the furrows to put on their mantles, and go forth and tell of thin
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BUTTER.
BUTTER.
The illustrious Ude, or some one constituting him the authority for the nonce, has sneered at the English as being a nation having twenty religions, and only one sauce,—melted butter. A French commentator has added, that we have nothing polished about us but our steel, and that our only ripe fruit is baked apples. Guy Pantin traces the alleged dislike of the French of his day for the English, to the circumstance that the latter poured melted butter over their roast veal. The French execration is
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TEA.
TEA.
The origin of tea is very satisfactorily accounted for by the Indian mythologists. Darma, a Hindoo Prince, went on a pilgrimage to China, vowing he would never take rest by the way; but he once fell asleep, and he was so angry with himself, on awaking, that he cut off his eye-lids, and flung them on the ground. They sprang up in the form of tea shrubs; and he who drinks of the infusion thereof, imbibes the juice of the eye-lids of Darma. Tea, however, is said to have been first used in China as
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COFFEE.
COFFEE.
The English and French dispute the honour of being the first introducers of coffee into Western Europe. The Dutch assert that they assisted in this introduction; and, although coffee was not drunk at Rome, until long after it had been known to, and tasted by, Italian travellers at Constantinople, the Church looked with pleasure on a beverage, one effect of which was to keep both Priests and people awake. An Arab author of the fifteenth century—Sherbaddin—asserts, that the first man who drank cof
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CHOCOLATE.
CHOCOLATE.
Ferdinand Cortez went to Mexico in search of gold; but the first discovery he made was of chocolate. The discovery was not welcomed ecclesiastically, as coffee was. This new substance was considered a sort of wicked luxury, at least for Monks, who were among the earliest to adopt it, but who were solemnly warned against its supposed peculiar effects. The moralists quite as eagerly condemned it; and in England Roger North angrily asserted, that “the use of coffee-houses seems much improved by a n
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THE OLD COFFEE-HOUSES.
THE OLD COFFEE-HOUSES.
The “Grecian” appears to have been the oldest of the better-known coffee-houses, and to have lasted the longest. It was opened by Constantine, a Grecian, “living in Threadneedle-street, over against St. Christopher’s Church,” in the early part of the last half of the seventeenth century. Its career came to a close towards the middle of the nineteenth century; namely, in 1843, when the Grecian Coffee-house, then in Devereux-court, Strand, where it had existed for very many years, was converted in
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THE FRENCH CAFÉS.
THE FRENCH CAFÉS.
In the reign of Louis XV. there were not less than six hundred cafés in Paris. London, at the same period, could not count as many dozens. Under Louis Napoleon, the cafés have reached to the amazing number of between three and four thousand. All these establishments acknowledge the Café Procope as the founder of the dynasty, although, indeed, there were coffee-vendors in Paris before the time of the accomplished Sicilian. “ Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona. ” The consumption of coffee in Paris, a
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THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART.
THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART.
It is an incontestable fact, that he who lives soberly does not depend upon his cook for the pleasure which he derives from his repast. Nevertheless, the cook is one of the most important of personages; and even appetite, without him, would not be of the value that it is at present. A great artiste knows his vocation. When the cook of Louis XVIII. was reproached, by His Majesty’s Physician, with ruining the royal health by savoury juices, the dignitary of the kitchen sententiously remarked, that
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THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE.
THE MODERN COOK, AND HIS SCIENCE.
If it were necessary that the cook of the ancient world should be a Sicilian, and that the cuisinier of the ancient régime should be of Languedoc, (the native place of “ blanc manger ,”) so in these modern times he alone is considered a true graduate in the noble science de la gueule who is a Gaul by birth, or who has gone through his studies in the University of French Kitchens. In England, it must be confessed that great cooks have formed the exception rather than the rule; and that our native
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PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CARÈME.
PEN AND INK SKETCH OF CARÈME.
It would be as easy to compile a Dictionary of Cooks, as of Musicians or Painters; but it would not be so amusing or so edifying, except perhaps to those who think more of their stomach than of their mind. But it would then be attractive and useful to the majority of readers; for the sages themselves are not unmindful of their stomachs, and, according to a sage, they would be unworthy of the name if they neglected that vital matter. Johnson, you know, lived in an age when things were called by t
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DINNER TRAITS.
DINNER TRAITS.
“For these and all His mercies”——once began Dr. Johnson, whose good custom it was always to thank Heaven for the good things set before him; but he almost as invariably found fault with the food given. And of this see-saw process Mrs. Johnson grew tired; and on the occasion alluded to, she stopped her husband by remarking that it was a farce to pretend to be grateful for dishes which, in two minutes, he would pronounce to be as worthless as the worst of Jeremiah’s figs! And so there was no bless
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THE MATERIALS FOR DINING.
THE MATERIALS FOR DINING.
“All flesh is grass;” and grass has been the foundation of all feasts, in a double sense. It was not only a part of the early repast, in some shape or another, by derivation rather than immediately, but it formed the most ancient seats occupied by primitive and pastoral guests in very remote times. Dr. Johnson approved of asparagus being called “grass.” Romulus thought grass a sacred emblem, or he would not have suddenly converted his twelve lay foster-brothers into a priesthood to look after it
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A LIGHT DINNER FOR TWO.
A LIGHT DINNER FOR TWO.
Many years ago, when railways were things undreamt of, and when the journeys from Oxford to the metropolis were inevitably performed on that goodly and pleasant high road which is now dreary and forlorn, a gentleman and his son, the latter newly flushed with College fame and University honours, rode forth over Magdalen Bridge and the Cherwell, purposing to reach London in a leisurely ride. A groom, their only attendant, carrying their scanty baggage with him on a good stout cob, had been sent on
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SAUCES.
SAUCES.
The donor of the sauce dinner, mentioned in the last page, was an eccentric old Major. He invited three persons to partake of this unique repast. The soup consisted of gravy sauce, and oyster and lobster sauce were handed round instead of filet de sole . Then came the sirloin in guise of egg sauce, on the ground, I suppose, that an egg is proverbially “full of meat.” There was no pheasant, but there was bread sauce, to put his guests in mind of the flavour; and if they had not plum-pudding, they
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THE PARASITE.
THE PARASITE.
Para, “near,” and sitos , “corn,” pretty well explain what the Greeks understood by the word “parasite.” As the worthless weed among the wheat, so was this classical Skimpole in the field of society. As the weed hung for support to the substance that promised to yield it, so did the parasite cling to the side of those who kept good tables, and lacked wit to enliven them. The parasite was too delicate a fellow to allow of invidious distinctions. He supped or dined wherever he was invited, and at
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THE TABLES OF UTOPIA AND THE GOLDEN AGE.
THE TABLES OF UTOPIA AND THE GOLDEN AGE.
The good Archbishop Fénelon, in his “ Voyage dans l’Ile des Plaisirs ,” cites some charming examples of the pleasant way in which people lived in the Utopian Land of Cocagne, which he describes from imagination, and where the laws were characterized by more good sense than distinguishes the legislation of the Utopian authorities of More. The “ Voyage ” of Fénelon was probably founded on a fragment of Teleclides, who has narrated, in rattling Greek metres, how the citizens of the world lived and
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TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES.
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES.
When Diodorus Siculus wrote an account of the aboriginal inhabitants of Britain, some fifty years before the Christian era, he described the island as being thickly inhabited, ruled by many Kings and Princes, and all living peaceably together,—though with war-chariots and strong arms, to settle quarrels when they occurred. But if our ancestors lived peaceably among themselves, they can hardly be said to have lived comfortably. Their habitations were of reed, or of wood; and they gathered in the
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TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY.
TABLE TRAITS OF THE LAST CENTURY.
When Mr. Chute intimated to Horace Walpole that his “temperance diet and milk” had rendered him stupid, Walpole protested pleasantly against such an idea. “I have such lamentable proofs,” he says, “every day, of the stupifying qualities of beef, ale, and wine, that I have contracted a most religious veneration for your spiritual nouriture. Only imagine that I here, (Houghton,) every day, see men who are mountains of roast beef, and only seem just roughly hewn out into the outlines of human form,
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WINE AND WATER.
WINE AND WATER.
Early ages, and the oldest poets, confessed, that wine was the gift of the gods to men. The latter would appear to have abused the gift, if we may believe Philonides the physician, who wrote a treatise “On Perfumes and Garlands” (Περὶ Μύρων καὶ Στεφάνων). In this treatise he asserts, that, when Bacchus brought the vine from the Red Sea into Greece, men drank to such excess, that they became as beasts, and incapable of performing manly duties. A party of these revellers were once drinking by the
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THE BIRTH OF THE VINE, AND WHAT HAS COME OF IT.
THE BIRTH OF THE VINE, AND WHAT HAS COME OF IT.
The birth of the vine was in this wise. On the day of the creation, the trees vied with each other in boasting; and each exulted in the enjoyment of his own existence. “The Lord himself,” said the lofty cedar, “planted me, and in me has he united stability and fragrance, strength and durability.” “Me,” said the shade-spreading palm, “hath the beneficence of Jehovah appointed for a blessing, joining together in me utility and beauty.” Then the apple-tree spoke: “As a bridegroom among youths, so a
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THE MAKING AND MARRING OF WINE.
THE MAKING AND MARRING OF WINE.
It used to be said of the old learned and liquor-loving Germans, that they did not care what Latin they spoke, so long as it was Latin; nor what sort of wine they drank, so long as it was wine. I have read somewhere of a feudal German Baron becoming intoxicated upon pious principles. He was seated, with his wife at his side, at the centre of his own table, presiding at a banquet. He had drunk till he had scarcely power left to carry the goblet up to his ever thirsty lips. The Frau Baroninn had r
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AN INCIDENT OF TRAVEL.
AN INCIDENT OF TRAVEL.
It is now some twelve years ago that I was, in company with two Norwegians, in Prague, loitering beneath the tower of that sacred edifice dedicated to the fearful dancer, St. Vitus. The tower was the same which the drunken Emperor Wenceslaus had caused to be shortened, by some thirty or forty feet, because he took it into his head that it would one day fall, and crush him as he lay on his uneasy couch in the Hradschin. I remarked to my companions, that the empire, in its palmy days, had often be
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A FEW ODD GLASSES OF WINE.
A FEW ODD GLASSES OF WINE.
The ancient people who loved the juice of the grape, kept in grateful remembrance the names of the first planters of vines. Bacchus came from India, through Egypt, into Europe; and he and his joyous company made vineyards bloom amid many a desert. But the introduction of the vine was not unopposed. The Chians accepted gratefully the rosy gift from Œnopia; and the branch was hailed on its passage through Greece, Sicily, and Italy. But in Greece the vines were destroyed wherever the order of Lycur
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THE TABLE OF THE ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPTIANS.
THE TABLE OF THE ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPTIANS.
If neither the grave of the Pharaohs nor physiology will, nor Dr. Hincke nor Chevalier Bunsen can, reveal to us the secret of the origin of the Egyptians, we, at all events, know that they were majestically-minded with respect to the table. The science of living was well understood by them; and the science of killing was splendidly rewarded; seeing that the soldiery, besides liberal pay, allowance of land, and exemption from tribute, received daily five pounds of bread, two of meat, and a quart
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THE BRIDAL AND BANQUET OF FERQUES.
THE BRIDAL AND BANQUET OF FERQUES.
Near the marble quarries of Ferques, adjacent to Landrecthun le Nord, in the Boulonnais, may be seen a circular range of stones, bearing a close resemblance in their shape, though little in their magnitude, to those at Stonehenge; as also to the Devil’s Needles, near Boroughbridge, and to the solitary block on the common at Harrogate. Learned people recognise the stones at Ferques by the appellation of the Mallus , a Druidical name for an altar; but the traditionary folks, wiser in their generat
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THE SUPPORT OF SAINTS OF LATER DAYS.
THE SUPPORT OF SAINTS OF LATER DAYS.
It may be seen from our last chapter, that the bill of fare of those who dined in the desert was neither very long nor very varied. It was otherwise with the better fed, but perhaps not better-taught gentlemen of the church of later days. Thus, for instance, the Curé of Brequier kept a very different table from that of the lean Amphitryons of the desert. Brillat Savarin once called on the holy man just as he had dismissed the soup and beef from the table. These were replaced by a leg of mutton à
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THE CÆSARS AT TABLE.
THE CÆSARS AT TABLE.
It is a well-ascertained truth, that the Cæsars at table by no means generally conducted themselves as though they were under the influence of a Roman Chesterfield, as regarded their behaviour; or a Roman Abernethy, as regarded their moderation. Perhaps the great Julius was as much of a gentleman in both the above respects as any of his imperial successors; and even he could reform the calendar with far more ease than he could reform himself. When he was commanding in the Roman provinces, beyond
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THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT.
THEIR MAJESTIES AT MEAT.
There was an old custom at Pisa, the origin of which may be traced to the anti-judaical days of persecution. On a certain day in the year, I believe, Good Friday or Easter Sunday, every Jew discovered in the streets, was hunted down by the populace. When the game was caught he was weighed, and compelled to ransom himself by paying his own weight of sweetmeats. It was an advantage, then, at Pisa for a Jew to be of a Cassius cast. It was different in other days, and climes, with regard to kings. N
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ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES.
ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES.
The utilitarians of history have declared that half our treasured incidents of story are myths. Rufus was not slain by Sir Walter Tyrrell; Richard III. was a marvellously proper man; and the young princes were not smothered in the Tower. They have laid their hands on our legends, as Augustus did his on the nose of the dead Alexander, and with the same effect,—under the touch it crumbled into dust. The infidels refuse even to have faith in that table trait of Alfred, which showed him making cakes
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THE CASTELLAN OF COUCY, OR THE HEART.
THE CASTELLAN OF COUCY, OR THE HEART.
The above story of the Castellan de Coucy is considered to be one of Uhland’s most remarkable poems, as much from its general sweetness, unhappily lost in translation, as from the wit with which he continually keeps before the reader the one word which forms the principal feature in the little romance. The tale is, however, by no means new. There are few nations whose story-tellers do not celebrate a lady who was forced by a jealous husband to eat the heart of her lover. It is common to England,
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THE LIQUOR-LOVING LAUREATES.
THE LIQUOR-LOVING LAUREATES.
It is incontrovertible that, with the exception of two or three, all our laureates have loved a more pleasant distillation than that from bay-leaves. In the early days, the “versificatores regis,” were rewarded, as all the minstrels in Teutonic ballads are, with a little money and a full bowl. The nightingales in kings’ cages piped all the better for their cake being soaked in wine. From the time of the first patented laureate, Ben Jonson, the rule has borne much the same character, and permanen
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SUPPER.
SUPPER.
The supper was the only recognised repast in Rome; if, indeed, we may call that supper which sometimes took place at three in the afternoon. It was then rather a dinner, after which properly educated persons would not, and those who had supped over freely could not, eat again on the same day. The early supper hour was favoured by those who intended to remain long at table. “Imperat extructos frangere nona toros,” says Martial. The more frugal, but they must also have been the more hungry, supped
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