Practical gastronomy and culinary dictionary

At the coronation of King George IV., Court of Claims, July 12, 1820, the petition of the Arch- bishop of Canterbm'y, which was presented by Sir G. Nayler, claiming to perform the service of presenting a dish of ''de la groute " to the King at the banquet, was considered by the Court, and decided to be allowed. THE COOK AND THE KITCHEN 37 One of the great triumphs of the ancient cooks was to serve up a whole pig, boiled on one side and roasted on the other. The guests tried m vain to detect the place where the knife had separated the animal, or how it was contrived to stuff it with an olio composed of thrushes and other birds, slices of sow, hens, and highly spiced minced meat, the whole flavoured with a rich juice or sauce. These old cooks could with a vegetable counterfeit the taste of fish or flesh. It is reported that in an expedition against the Scythians in the winter, and at a great distance from the sea, the King of Bithynia had a violent longing for a pilchard. His cook cut a turnip in exact imitation of its shape, then fried it in oil, salted and well powdered it with the grains of a dozen black poppies, and his Majesty's taste was so exquisitely deceived that he praised the root to his guests as an excellent fish. This seeming transmutation of vegetables into fish is a great art, but in these days it appears to have gone out of practice ; it might with advantage be revived, especially in countries where much cheap and wholesome food is lost or wasted, because an adequate knowledge of cookery is wanting. The ancient cooks sent almost to the ends of the earth for choice viands which were not obtainable at home. Those of Athens, for instance, procured from England their oysters, of which the finest came from the neighbourhood of Sandwich. Juvenal records 38 PRACTICAL GASTRONOMY that the epicure Montaniis could tell by his first bite at an oyster whether it was English or not. " Man is a cooking animal." Such was the defini- tion of the human species which Boswell on a certain occasion gave to Edwin Burke. '* The beasts," continued Boswell, "■ have memory, judgment, and all the faculties and passions of our own mind in a certain degree, but no beast is a cook." Would that we could supplement that dictum of old Dr. Johnson's trumpeter by saying that the reverse holds true. But what man is there who can lay his hand on his heart and solemnly declare that something in the above is not true ? What one of us is there who has not had cause to anathematise his cook, and in a moment of righteous wrath felt a fiendish desire to inflict upon that functionary the doom of Richard Rose, the Bishop of Rochester's murderous cook, who was " boiled " to death at Smithfield ? Who shall say what stupendous issues in the world's history have not turned upon good or bad cookery? Most of us have heard of the famous black broth of Sparta, but few know, or are familiar with, its origin. " I am not astonished," exclaimed a native of Sybaris (the Pares of the Greek gourmand), after tasting it, " that you Spartans are so fearless of death on the battle-field, since anyone in his senses would rather die than be compelled to live on such execrable food." Bad cooking, then, may have been responsible for the Spartan courage. THE COOK AND THE KITCHEN 39