THINGS TO EAT.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVII, Issue 1373, 20 August 1895, Page 2

THINGS TO EAT.

A CHAT ABOUT FRENCH AND ENGLISH COOKINU. One happy morning, never to be forgotten, says a writer in the “ Sun,” I was entertained at lunch at the Amphitryon Club, whereM.Emile Aoust, formerly maitre d’botel at Biquon’s restaurant in Paris, caters for the sons of Apicius, and cultivates the science which the French sail “la physiologic du gout.” The details of the menu have escaped my memory ; but I remember that each diS» was a consummate work of art, and 1 have a particularly lively recollection of a soulllut which seemed to regenerate my moral being. IF I kept it wait ing only two minutes, I was told, it would be spoilt, and there would be nothing for it but for the cook to set to work to make another ; but that fatuous experiment was not tried. WHAT M. AOUST SAYS. After the banquet was over I bad a little talk with M. Aoust. He told me that a specialist was retained to give his whole time and thought to each separate deparmtent of the culinary ar b - There was a specialist, for instance, for sauces, a specialist for the grill, a specialist for potatoes, and even a specialist for coffee, then, at my request, M. Aoust gave me his candid opinion of la cusine Anglaise. “La cuisine Anglaise,” be said. “Bah! That begin with roshif and end with saddle of mutton. You have also sausages and mashed.” So he declaimed, and it was a long time before any patriotic pride came back to me, and I began to think that there might be something to be said for the cooking of my own country after all. It returned, however, in the end. I was travelling one evening, from Amiens to Boulogne. In the carriage with me were several civic dignitaries —town councillors and so forth—who were returning from a public dinner. They all complained of hunger, and, soon after the (rain left Amiens, one of them pulled out a hamper from under the seat, and produced a mass of Gruyere cheese, and cut it iuto hunks and every town councillor accepted a hunk, and munched it greedily. “ That sort of thing,” I reflected, “ never happens after an English public dinner. For all M. Aoust’s rhetoric there must he something to be said for English cooking.” FRANCE AND ENGLAND. It is misleading to compare the best culinary work of the two countries ; there are not sufficient points of contrast. Just as “ good society is good society everywhere,” so good cooking is pretty much the same in all the centres of civilisation. The French, no doubt, invented it ; hut other nations have learnt to imitate their inventions with considerable success. It is when we come to compare the moderate cooking of the two countries that distinctions asser’ themselves with emphasis ; and then I have my doubts whether the French cook vwll get the better of the comparison. For, if the French are entitled to deride our omelettes, we have as good a right to speak scornfully of their beef steaks, which are almost invariably fried instead of grilled. But let us suppose that we are sitting down to a banquet in some French hotel where the cooking is pretentious but indifferent, and see what we shall get to eat. THE MENU. To begin with there will be a soup. But what a soup ! Not a bisque, and not a puree, hut merely a tureen full of hot water, in which the joint that is to follow has been boiled. The colour of it is a faint and wishy-washy yellow ; the flavour is insipid; whole handfuls of pepper and salt have to be thrown into it to make it drinkable; grease floats upon its surface. Then comes the fish. Are you looking for turbot and lobster sauce, or for boiled salmon, or for sole filleted a I’Orly ? Then yob will be disappointed. Such dainties are too bright and good for human nature’s daily food at our hotel. Instead, you will have boiled mackerel—though mackerel is that is only tolerable grilled or John Dory with, caper sauce—though John Dory is a fitih but littlehess unspeakable, under any circumstances, than perch. So the fish comes and goes, and after it there follows “ bouilli.” Bouilli—the meat which has had all the flavour boiled out of it to make the soup is the French equivalaut of our English joint ; and you will probably find to your distress that there are no vegetables served with it, but that some stringy French beans will come up afterwards as a separate course. POULET AU CRESSON. But there are two features in a French dinner which are supposed to merit the admiration of the civilised world. No French dinner is complete without a chicken, and no French dinner is complete without a salad. It is an excellent idea; but, all the same, a good deal depends upon the execution of it. Have you ever observed the way of a Frenchman with a chicken r The moment that it comes out of the oven, he tears it limb from limb and scatters the fragments abroad upon a dish to wait till they are wanted. Then, when it is half cold he bands it round, unaccompanied by bread sauce, 01 sausages, or stuffing, or even boiled potatoes. But the hard fact remains—as the good plain cook of the English household knows —that, it a chicken is to have any flavour, it must not be carved until just before it is going to be eaten. Served in a luke-warm condition, with bread and salad for its sole accessories, it is a very sorry dish. SALAD. But how about that salad ? you will ask. Does it not compensate for all ? By no means. The impression has spread itself abroad that France is the home of the salad ; and no doubt there are certain grounds for the belief. The French write books about salads ; they sing songs about salads ; it is not an unknown thing for them to sit up into the small hours arguing about salads ; beyond question there are places in Paris where they know how to make a salad which shall do much to lessen the total sum of human misery. But you must not expact salads of that sort to be served with the chicken at your provincial hotel. On the contrary you will get a salad which has only a single ingredient. At the best that ingredient will he lettuce ; at the worst it will bo endive. But it is not worth while to cross the Channel in order to eat endive salads. It is better to remain in England and avoid them. If it were necessary, I could go on to denounce the cheeses that you get in France, for they affect Gruyere, and I do not care for it. Cut I think I have said enough to vindicate the coukiug of my native land.