AN ACCOUNT OF GASTRONOMY FROM ANCIENT DAYS TO PRESENT TIMES. WITH A HISTORY OF ITS LITERATURE, SCHOOLS, AND MOST DISTINGUISHED ARTISTS; TOGETHER WITH SOME SPECIAL RECIPES, AND VIEWS CONCERNING THE AESTHETICS OF DINNERS AND DINNER-GIVING. BY GEORGE H. ELLWANGER, M.A. NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY PAGE AND CO. 1902 "Gasteria is the Tenth Muse; she presides over the enjoyments of Taste." Brillat-Savarin. "The History of Gastronomy is that of manners, if not of morals; and the learned are aware that its litera

It is far from the purpose or desire of the author to add another to the innumerable volumes having practical cookery as their theme—the published works of the past decade alone being too numerous to digest. The following chapters, therefore, though touching upon the practical part of the art, will be found more closely concerned with the history, literature, and æsthetics of the table than with its purely utilitarian side. Indeed, a complete manual of practical cookery is one of the impossibili

"L'art qui contient toutes les élégances, toutes les courtoisies, sans lesquelles toutes les autres sont inutiles et perdus; l'art hospitalier par excellence qui emploie avec un égal succès tous les produits les plus excellents de l'air, des eaux, de la terre."— Fayot. Cookery is naturally the most ancient of the arts, as of all arts it is the most important. Whether one should live to eat, is a question concerning which the epicure and the ascetic will hold widely varying opinions; but that one

"Whether woodcock or partridge, what does it signify, if the taste is the same? But the partridge is dearer, and therefore thought preferable."— Martial , Epigrams, xiii. 76. Passing from Greece to Italy, we find frugality to have been a prominent trait of the early Romans, and porridge to have been the national dish until wheaten bread was introduced from Athens. Like the Greeks, who received their initial lessons from the Persians, the Romans derived their knowledge of cookery from Attica, whe

"Le malheur de toutes les cuisines excepté de la cuisine française, c'est d'avoir l'air d'une cuisine de hasard. La cuisine française est seule raisonnée, savante, chimique."— Alexandre Dumas : Le Caucase. It is not unnatural that cookery as an art should finally have been resumed in the land where it had once attained its greatest development. First among Italian treatises on the subject was the volume of Bartolomeo Platina, "De Honesta Voluptate et Valitudine," which was written in Latin and p

The main attraction of the very early English cook-book, it must be confessed, is its rarity, to which may be added its quaint title-page and foreword, and sometimes its frontispiece and woodcuts. No new salads will be discovered in its repertory to tempt the epicure, or few dishes that will provoke his appetite. The text is usually difficult to interpret, and, beyond singular alimentary mixtures which attest the remarkable receptive qualities of our forefathers, it contains little to interest t

Reasoning from the standpoint that the stomach is the great motor of vital energy, it may justly be adduced that everything which contributes to a perfect balance of its mechanism is of inestimable importance. As, moreover, the true function of improved cookery is to second hygiene and to replace medicaments by ingenious combinations of natural products, it will be readily apparent that a good cook and a good writer on cookery—a cook who can compose and a writer who can suggest and stimulate—at

By the French the Germans are charged with having no cuisine that is worthy of the name, and having produced no poet of gastronomy or no work on the subject that merits serious attention. Dining at midday, and fond of Pumpernickel, what can they be but "barbarians," and how may they be expected to comprehend the finesse of an art which has been created for the elect among mankind? "Surely," argues De Quincey, "of the rabid animal who is caught dining at noonday, the homo ferus who affronts the m

"Depuis longtemps j'avais un mot à dire de Brillat-Savarin. Cette figure, souriante plutôt que riante, ce demi-ventre, cet esprit et cet estomac de bon ton, me tentait." Charles Monselet. Most noted of literary tributes to the table is that of Brillat-Savarin, who has discoursed on gastronomy with all the knowledge and discursiveness, with all the verve and raciness displayed by Ninon de l'Enclos in descanting on love in her letters to the Marquis de Sévigné. He is at once the corypheus of good

"Les écrivains-cuisiniers sont aussi nécessaires que les autres littérateurs: il vous faut connaître la théorie du plus ancien des arts."— Charles Gerard. Among the great professional cooks who were not alone notable practitioners, but who have written understandingly on the art, the names of Beauvilliers, Carême, Ude, Francatelli, Soyer, Urbain-Dubois, and Gouffé are preëminent. We have already considered the important rôle enacted by Beauvilliers as chef, restaurateur, and author. The unctuous

"Les vûës courtes, je veux dire les esprits bornez et resserrez dans leur petite sphère, ne peuvent comprendre cette universalité de talens que l'on remarque quelquefois dans un même sujet."— La Bruyere : Du Mérite Personnel. It were ungracious to trace the development of gastronomy further, or to peruse its literature at greater length, without rendering justice to the chief cause of its progress, deprived of which a Carême and a Gouffé were impossible, and cookery, from a fine art, would resol

"The finest landscape in the world is improved by a good inn in the foreground." Samuel Johnson. Strictly speaking, there exists as yet no general high-class English or American cuisine, beyond the natural alimentary resources of these countries, supplemented by the efforts of foreign cooks. There are certain native dishes of merit in England, to be sure, and there is a so-termed Southern and Eastern kitchen in the United States where not a few dishes are admirably prepared. But the art of bakin

Whether cookery is indebted to the Roman Catholic Church to the full extent that is commonly supposed is questionable. It is certain, however, that the olden monks and friars performed considerable service in preserving ancient recipes and inventing new formulas, many of which have been improved upon as the science has advanced. Previous to the Renaissance the higher cultivation of cookery was confined largely to the monasteries, which prided themselves upon their excellent cheer and the hospita

"Sir, Respect Your Dinner ; idolize it, enjoy it properly. You will be many hours in the week, many weeks in the year, and many years in your life the happier if you do."— Thackeray. A review of the dinner-table were incomplete without a reference to several writers, other than those already cited, who have wielded a more or less pronounced influence on gastronomy. Of such, two English authors deserve especial mention, each of whom has sought to prove that the art of the gastronomer is the art o

"Je la redoute, cette sauce. Avec elle on mangerait toujours. La lecture seule de sa recette donne faim." Baron Brisse: La Petite Cuisine. The supreme triumph of the French cuisine consists in its sauces; for nothing can so vary the routine of daily cookery as the different combinations of herbs and seasonings that may be utilised by a competent artist as an adjunct and a finish to a dish. King's "Art of Cookery" has admirably versified the mission of the sauce: A SUPPER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUR

Days there are in late November and December, too, when the beauties of leafless vegetation are scarcely surpassed by the pomp of October or the glamour of the Red Man's summer; when tender tones of russet and grey bask over bare fields and fallows, and wanton amid mysterious woods; and strange, ripe hues, rich as those of old tapestries, smoulder and gleam the livelong day from the southern horizon's verge. There is a charm as well in the clear crispness of a winter's day, when the woods are cu

"Avec les truffes, et avec quelques-uns de ces excellents champignons si admirablement analysés par M. Roques, vous refaites la cuisine; vous en avez une du moins qui ne vieillit jamais, même pour vous."— Marquis de Cussy : L'Art Culinaire. The truffle! what a fragrance its very name exhales. A flower like the rose, but more enduring, say its admirers. This strange food product has been studied by botanists, sung by poets, extolled by epicures, and accorded certain rare attributes by physicians.

"First then to speak of Sallets, there be some simple, some compounded, some only to furnish out the table, and some both for use and adornation."— Gervaise Markham : The English Housewife. To remember a successful salad is generally to remember a successful dinner; at all events, the perfect dinner necessarily includes the perfect salad. The mere process of salad-making is among the most simple of all those that appertain to the table: a little oil, a little vinegar, of salt and pepper each a l

However scholiasts may have interpreted Horace's line,—and by no two is it interpreted alike,—the repetition or intensification of the first word in connection with the thought that follows must certainly carry conviction to the gastronomer that no mere stress upon a common adverb was intended, but rather a definite allusion to some particular object. The more the sentence is analysed, the greater seems the emphasis laid upon the power of sweets to attract and charm. Apart, moreover, from the it

A few among English, American, and French works, both ancient and modern, that relate to gastronomy and cookery are presented herewith. As may be perceived at a glance, the list is not intended to be comprehensive, so multitudinous are the monographs relating to the subject, but a mere index or signboard pointing to the nature of the vast and varied literature, both good, bad, and indifferent, that the topic has inspired. Works relating strictly to wines and alcoholic beverages have not been inc