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THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE.

WITHOUT wishing to be guilty of any truism, we believe that all civilised nations join in the opinion that the one great purpose of life is having a good dinner daily. It is all very well for the sage to decry the axiom "dùm vivimus vivamus," and earnestly point out the necessity of directing our thoughts to more important matters; but, after all, there is great truth in many of the opinions put forth by the eminent Soyer as to civilisation and cookery advancing hand in hand. The untutored savage will satisfy his simple wants with "boiled missionary," but, once initiated into the blessings of European cookery, he makes a great step in advance, and appeases his appetite with roast pig, which travellers tell us is prepared with some degree of pretension. We are happy to notice that in our own benighted country much progress has been recently made, and that the culinary sermons of Ude, Francatelli, and Soyer have not been thrown away. We are convinced that one may dine in London, at some few houses, without having the fear of dyspepsia before one's eyes, and it is now possible to escape the once inevitable roast-beef, which Britons had a mystic belief was somehow inseparably connected with their national supremacy. Strange to say, though, the Crimean war did not show any falling off in the prowess of our officers, although they had abjured the use of brandied port in behalf of claret, and rendered themselves what the fine old fellows of the last century would have contemptuously termed milksops. If the Anglo-French alliance has borne no other fruits, it has at any rate introduced us to many new and valuable dishes, which are decidedly beneficial to the health, and can no longer be ridiculed as kickshaws only suitable for the allonging and marchonging Frenchmen. Still we have great cause to lament our inferiority. We may search in vain for a café in London which supplies our wants so well and cheaply as the Parisian restaurants, and too many of us are confined to the satisfying though monotonous exchange of a steak for a chop. Nor will this be altered until we condescend to take a lesson from the French, who, in this as in many other matters, manage better than we do; and we humbly submit that the first step in advance would be the elevation of cookery into a science. How many learned men across the Channel have devoted their attention to the kitchen as the best pharmacopoeia, and written learned treatises to show that peculiar diseases require peculiar dishes ?-just as a German doctor, when called in to attend you, will gravely suggest that you should smoke Varinas instead of C'naster, or vice versa. But the subject of culinary medicine is one of so important a nature, that we shall be fully justified in examining more closely into what French savans have done for the improvement of the national health.

The author from whom we derive our details (it is needless to add, a Frenchman) approaches his grave subject by a profound lamentation at the want of gastronomes in the present degenerate age. He allows there are still great eaters among us, gourmets, gourmands, and even gastrolâtres, whatever they may be: but the true gastronomes, the men who

laid down laws, and enjoyed the double honour of being men of merit and of a delicate taste, have departed from among us. "In the present day," he laments, "each man isolates himself; each man only thinks of proceeding individually to the lofty and solemn operation of dining." In former times, which may be emphatically called the good times, it was not so: the physicians were regarded as very learned, but, at the same time, excellent table companions; and they have, in some degree, maintained the reputation, although unjustly. Without going back to preAdamitic epochs, we find that the famous Chirac, physician to the Regent, was a celebrated gastronome. In spite of his grave studies, he devoted himself considerably to the kitchen: a sauce à la Chirac became renowned, which has since remained in grateful remembrance, being, as was said afterwards of the sauce Robert, the only sauce with which it would be excusable to eat one's father. At that day, too, there was a rich and sybaritic Doctor Sidobre, who discovered a fricasee whose reputation was for a long time kept up in the "high kitchen." It was even asserted at court, and among the old councillors of parliament, that the ducks au Père Douillot, a very celebrated and admired dish, were due to Sidobre, but this interesting problem has never been satisfactorily solved.

During the eighteenth century the gastronomic physicians were numerous and remarkable. Among the celebrities of the age were La Mettrie, who died of indigestion (probably on the sui sibi gladio hunc jugulo principle), and who gained the applause of the great Frederick; then Bouvart, the eminent practitioner; Sylva, physician to Voltaire, and inventor of the rissolettes à la Pompadour; and Bordeu, in spite of his gout and all he says about physicians loving good cheer. Of course we can only quote the most celebrated, whose merits have survived to the present day. It was at this period that Maloët, an old ruined physician, said to one of his confrères, "How can I help it? My means only allow me two indigestions a week." When the Revolution broke out, the luxury of good eating had attained its apogee in France. But what was to be done? On one side, the customs of the ancient republics were praised excessively the black broth of the Spartans was in high honour-in books. On the other side, the manners loathed any radical reform. In truth, the ardent promoters of equality, the apostles of a frugal and philosophic life, continually visited well-served tables at private houses, or at the most famed restaurants of the day, such as Beauvilliers, Robert, Février, &c. Still, there were some ardent republicans who added the word sobriety to the national motto, and went into enthusiastic fits about the radishes of Cincinnatus. They formed, however, but a minority, and many violent patriots, especially during the earlier years of the Revolution, yielded themselves unhesitatingly up to the pleasures of eating. It was all very well for Danton to affirm that champagne "effeminised" patriotism, but he was not listened to, and himself swallowed this perfidious beverage at the clubbists' orgies. Camille Desmoulins used to say that a good dinner was only a degrading sybaritism; and at Mirabeau's table, reproaching himself for the luxuries he had indulged in, he inflicted a succession of meâ culpâs on his own chest by the help of a skewer. According to him, republican virtues were not cultivated with a fork; but this commissary of the lantern was

far from putting his own maxims in practice, and preferred a well-covered board to the repasts of the true sans-culottes. A fresh proof we take it that, in France, though the heart may be republican, the stomach can never be so. Still, we must allow that, during the disastrous Reign of Terror, true gastronomy disappeared. To keep a man-cook would have been an insult to the majesty of the people, and persons would have undoubtedly sacrificed their heads to satisfy a delicate stomach. But, during the Directory, there was a glorious change; and there were many men of high position, like Barras, for instance, who seemed to live only to satisfy their palate, and with whom "living was eating, and eating living. The physicians distinguished themselves greatly during that gastronomic era. We may add that learned societies were founded to give subscription dinners, at which the rules of moderation were not always observed. Thus Doctor Gastaldy, after having fed hugely, ordered a large plate of macaroni. A lady remarking on the circumstance, he replied to her, "Madam, macaroni is heavy, but it is like the Doge of Venice; when he arrives, all must make room for him and leave a clear passage." It was not, however, till the reign of Napoleon that the noble science of gastronomy made any real progress. The Emperor, whose favourite meal was a dish of haricot beans in oil, for political reasons favoured the return to sumptuous repasts, and a perfect cuisine. Then, too, the famous "tasting jury" was established, and Grimod de la Reynière published his Almanach des Gourmands. Many physicians distinguished themselves by their skill in gastronomy: some even were renowned for their discoveries, for the famous soup à la Camerani was owing to a doctor who, through an excess of modesty, desired to remain anonymous. Corvisart, first physician to the Emperor, was a refined and talented gastronomer, and you could notice in him the harmony of a great talent and a good stomach. Owing to his professional reputation, patients visited him at all hours of the day; but when he was at table, when he had said solemnly to his housekeeper, "I am only at home to the Emperor"-which meant that Napoleon was the only patient having a right to summon him—no sum of money would have induced him to interrupt his dinner. Next to Corvisart comes Doctor Gastaldy, whose reputation was so thoroughly established that he was unanimously chosen as perpetual president of the Tasting Club. The choice was so just that Gastaldy died on the field of honour, for while artistically dissecting a Strasbourg paté he was struck by an apoplectic fit. Among other gastronomic physicians of the glorious period of the first Empire, we may mention Menuret, author of an excellent work on Paris, and discoverer of a scallop which attained immense renown; and Tartra, celebrated for his treatise on nitric acid, and his vast gastric abilities. Nor must we forget Gall, the phrenologist. On his reception into the Society of the Caveau Moderne, says an historian, a dish was served up to him consisting solely of the brains of game, fish, and poultry, and he was asked if he would like to feel the skulls of these ladies and gentlemen. The savant unwrinkled, and replied, with a laugh, that he must feel the bodies in the first instance, and that at his table his system was never isolated—a reply which was found excellent and conclusive.

In the present day there are no gastronomers par état; and this

change the author from whom we are quoting attributes to the rapid spread of Broussais's doctrine that everything which excited the stomach might influence it. At any rate, when this theory was in full swing the consumption of wine in France was diminished by more than 200,000 hectolitres. People took to drinking water, a régime which certainly has its advantages according to the Spanish proverb, inasmuch as mucho vale, poco cuasta, but, otherwise, it is unphilosophical, anti-social, and even anti-medical. Then, old Noël, who was both a doctor and a winemerchant at Rheims, said, full of comic fury, "In fact, I cannot understand the inhabitants or my confrères of Paris: they all have their stomachs lined with amadou, and catch fire from a spark." The rest of our author's remarks are so touching, that we must allow him to speak in his own language:

Gastronomy is, in fine, the expression of a refined and distinguished organisation, and in this respect no one can become a gastronomer at will. Montesquieu was right: Polixenes and Apicius took with them to the table many sensations unknown to us other vulgar eaters. What is the result? if gourmandism is attainable at all ages, gastronomy is only produced very late, at a very advanced period of mental development. But, if society be agitated to its depths, the majority of good tables disappears, and with them elegant manners, intimate relations, and those nutritive revelations of the stomach which, by the aid of delicious wines and a cup of exquisite coffee, go straight to the brain, to warm it and stimulate it, and endow it, in short, with a species of second sight. And believe me when I say that everybody is a loser by it, those who have little or nothing even more than the rest, for the superfluities of the rich man ever go to profit the poor; and there is never a great repast which does not secondarily furnish a livelihood to many poor persons. Nothing, then, is more evident than that gastronomy, like the fine arts and the belles lettres, like everything allied to the intelligence and delicate sensations, always announces progress. Henrion de Pansey, the grave jurisconsult, rightly said, "I shall not believe in civilisation till I see a cook in the Institute." Nothing is more self-evident than that the fire of sedition is incompatible with the fire of a high and learned cuisine. The pleasures of an elegant table demand a time of peace, gay spirits, and the luxurious leisure of a world which nothing troubles or disquiets. One thing is certain, that whenever the worship of gastronomy makes its appearance in society, if it can count fervent apostles, the nation may hope and rejoice, for this is a certain sign that the social body is being cured, and a symptom of a return to peace, prosperity, and order.

Our readers must not believe that we are passing a poor jest on them by quoting from the Almanach Comique or Charivari. On the contrary, this memorable sentence appeared in the grave pages of the Moniteur prior to the coup d'état, and was evidently meant in all seriousness. It goes far to prove one assertion, that gastronomy is regarded as a science in France. The writer is no less than Dr. Réveillé-Parise, well known for his works on the digestive functions, and we cannot do better than examine another of his dissertations, as containing much valuable information on the vexata quæstio of oysters. For lovers of the mollusk we have the gratifying intelligence that the worthy doctor regards it as the digestible food par excellence: it is the first step on the ladder of the table reserved by Providence for delicate stomachs, sick persons, and convalescents. Experience has so fully demonstrated this fact, that no festival is held, no dinner given worthy the attention of connoisseurs, unless the oyster figure in the first rank. In truth, it seems as if the oyster

were intended to prepare the stomach for the sublime functions of digestion; in a word, it is the golden key to that paradise which is called an appetite. The Romans, our masters in everything, sought this mollusk with peculiar attention. "We cannot say too much," writes Pliny, "about the oysters that figure with so much dignity on the tables of our rich men." We must not suppose that the gourmets of Rome were satisfied with the oysters obtained by hazard on the coasts of Italy. Like us, they desired them plump, fresh, fine, and of an exquisite flavour. Sergius Orata, Pliny tells us, was the first to lay down oyster banks in the vicinity of Baiæ, in the time of Crassus. The same worthy also discovered the way to impart a delicious flavour to the oysters of the Lucrine Lake. At the present day this lake has utterly disappeared; even the Président des Brosses, that talented and caustic traveller, when trying to see this lake, was forced to express his disappointment in the following words: "It is only a wretched swampy marsh. Those precious oysters of Catiline's grandpapa, which in our eyes soften the horror of his grandson's crimes, are metamorphosed into wretched eels gambolling in the mud. A great ugly mountain of ashes, coal, and stones, which thought proper to rise up in one night like a mushroom in 1538, reduced this poor lake to the state in which I describe it." Further on our traveller adds: "Pliny was no fool when he said that the oysters of the Lucrine Lake were only fashionable because those of England were till then unknown-but where the deuce had he eaten of them?" It is certainly the fact that, from the earliest ages to the present, the oyster has enjoyed a reputation that has endured through revolutions and the overthrow of empires: time could not destroy it, for whatever is useful and beneficial to humanity will be always revered. We know that Franklin, who was only acquainted with the useful, preferred a turkey to an eagle, and assuredly no one could blame him for it. So much is decided, that the oyster is a species of food combining the most precious alimentary qualities. Its meat is soft, firm, and delicate. It has sufficient flavour to please the taste, but not enough to excite, to surfeit, or attain that frightful limit of the gastronome, "it is too much." Through a quality peculiar to itself it favours the intestinal and gastric absorption, mixing easily with other food, and assimilating with the juices of the stomach it aids and favours the digestive functions. There is no alimentary substance, not even excepting bread, which does not produce indigestion under certain given circumstances, but oysters never. This is a homage due to them. They may be eaten to-day, to-morrow, for ever, in profusion; indigestion is not to be feared, and we may be certain that no doctor was ever called in through their fault. It is said that the celebrated Dr. Hecquet used to embrace cooks through sheer gratitude, but it could not have been on account of oysters. Of course we except cooked oysters; but this is only an exception which confirms the general rule, for where should we find the barbarian that would eat them?

The truffle has been exalted through all time; an English poet even gave it the appellation of the "subterranean empress;" that distinguished gastronome, the Marquis de Cussy, declares it to be the diamond of the kitchen. Though we would not venture to gainsay the eminent qualities of this precious tubercle-for, should we not thus raise the whole civilised

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