The greedy book : $b A gastronomical anthology

THE GREEDY BOOK




     “How admirable and beautiful are eating and drinking,
     and what a great invention the human digestive system
     is! How much better to be a man than an alligator! The
     alligator can fast for a year and a half, whereas five
     hours’ abstinence will set an edge on the most pampered
     human appetite. Nature has advanced a little since Mesozoic
     times. I feel certain that there are whole South Seas of
     discovery yet to be made in the art and science of eating
     and drinking.”

                                               JOHN DAVIDSON




  [Illustration: LES SENS: PAR BERTALL
                                          [Frontispiece]




                                  THE
                              GREEDY BOOK


                       A GASTRONOMICAL ANTHOLOGY

                                  BY

                           FRANK SCHLOESSER

                               AUTHOR OF
                    “THE CULT OF THE CHAFING DISH”


                            [Illustration]


                                LONDON
                             GAY AND BIRD
                   12 & 13 HENRIETTA STREET, STRAND
                                 1906

                         _All rights reserved_




                                 _To_

                           THE IDEAL WAITER


               _They also serve who only stand and wait_
                                 Milton’s Sonnet “On his Blindness”




                               CONTENTS


                 CHAP.                           PAGE

                   I. Cooks and Cookery             1

                  II. Byways of Gastronomy         20

                 III. The Poet in the Kitchen      41

                  IV. The Salad in Literature      62

                   V. Mrs. Glasse and her Hare     81

                  VI. Menus                       112

                 VII. Oysters                     166

                VIII. Waiters and Snails          189

                  IX. Dishes of History           220

                   X. Lenten Fare                 242




                            LIST OF PLATES


      Les Sens                                 _Frontispiece_

      Les Aliments                          _To face page_ 30

      Les Audiences d’un Gourmand                  ”       89

      Les Rêves d’un Gourmand                      ”      135

      Des Magens Vertheidigung der edlen Austern   ”      178

      Les Boissons                                 ”      194




     My thanks are due to the Editors of the _St. James’s
     Gazette_, the _Evening Standard_, the _Academy_, the _Daily
     Mail_, the _Daily Express_, the _Globe_, the _Tribune_, and
     _Vanity Fair_ for permission to reproduce certain portions
     of these papers.




                       [Illustration: CHAPTER I

                          COOKS AND COOKERY]

          “In short the world is but a Ragou, or a large
          dish of Varieties, prepared by inevitable Fate to
          treat and regale Death with.”

          ‘Miscellanies: or a Variety of Notion and
          Thought.’ By H. W. (Gent.) [Henry Waring] 1708.


The only thing that can be said against eating is that it takes away
one’s appetite. True, there is a French proverb to the contrary, but
that really only applies to the _hors d’œuvre_ and the soup. We all eat
three meals a day, some four, and a few even five, if one may reckon
afternoon tea as a meal. Yet the art of eating--that is to say, how to
eat, what to eat, and when to eat it--is studiously neglected by those
who deem they have souls superior to the daily stoking of the human
engine.

Whosoever simply wants to eat certainly does not require to know how
to cook. But whosoever desires to criticize a dinner and the dishes
that compose it--and enjoyment without judgment is unsatisfactory--need
not be a cook, but must understand what cooking implies; he must have
grasped the spirit of the art of cookery.

Cooks themselves almost always judge a dinner too partially, and
from the wrong point of view; they are, almost without exception,
obstinately of the opinion that everything they cook must taste equally
good to everybody. This is obviously absurd (but so like a cook), for
allowance must be made for the personal equation. Nothing tastes so
good as what one eats oneself, so it is not to be expected that one and
the same dish will please even the most fastidious octette. Still there
have been occasional instances.

The late Sir Henry Thompson once had a new cook, and, in an interview
with her after the first dinner-party, she expressed herself as being
delighted that everything had been so satisfactory. “But how do you
know it was?” asked Sir Henry. “I’ve not given you my opinion yet.”
“No, Sir Henry,” said the cook, “but I know it was all right, because
none of the salt-cellars were touched.”

It is a mistaken idea that a man-cook can be a _cordon-bleu_.