ROYALTY AND GASTRONOMY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXXI, Issue 10307, 28 March 1894, Page 4

ROYALTY AND GASTRONOMY.

An article ia the New York Sun , written apparently with the object of showing that the simplicity of taste now prevailing among the royalties of Europe has led to a great decadence in the art of cookery, has aroused the loyal indignation of Mr George Augustus Sala. The veteran journalist, who has written during the past fifty years a vast amount of very readable nonsense about royalty and gastronomy, has collected a great mass of evidence to prove that cookery is not yet a lost art in the kitchens of kings and queens. He produces from his rare collection of bills of fare the menu of an ordinary dinner at Windsor Castle to show that our own Sovereign is “too highly accomplished, too refined, and too hospitable to neglect the cultivation of good and tasteful cookery as one of the fine arts.” There is, it must be confessed, nothing very striking about this menu. People who have made a business of dining are accustomed to see common dishes described by very fine names, and would not be disconcerted by the very "foreign” bill of fare placed before them at the royal table. Lamb cutlets are lamb cutlets everywhere, and when served up as Les Cotelettes d’Agneau d la Soubise they probably taste, sauce and all, just aa sweet as they do at any well-ordered restaurant. Mr Sala lingers with all the appreciation of a culinary artist over some of the entremets on this simple menu, Hollandische TVafeln, ho tells us," are made of baked cream wafers, each divided transversely in two and placed in layers on the bottom of a dish. Each of the layers is masked with apricot marmalade, thus filling the cavities of the wafers, which are raised in a pyramid. This pyramid is masked with whipped cream, and is well sweetened and perfumed.” This surely cannot be one of the delicacies which add, according to Mr Sala, to the comfort, the cheerfulness, the refinement and thehealth of the community. It looks on paper like the deadliest combination of indigestible ingredients, and if her Majesty is bound to consume mixtures of this sort at Windsor, it ia small wonder that when she goes away to her beloved Balmoral she condescends to take a “ sup of parritch,” and looks with favour upon cock-a-leekie, and collops, and bannocks, and the mysterious haggis. Evan the digestion of n quean would brsab down under a long course of Hollandisehs Wajelu, and even a royal palate would gladly turn for a season from, the efforts of a French chef

I j ROTAL ! TASTES AND | DISHES.

The writer ia the Sun, who will doubtless be put to confusion by the pro duetion of the Windsor menu, gives some entertain-?

! iugj if not very reliable, particulars of royal tastes and dishes. He tells ua that the German Empress professes a partiality for British roast meat and for pastry, and that the Grand Duchess of Baden is justly I credited with keeping the best table in the Empire. The Queen of Sweden is said to be a great eater, wbo partakes of 1 moat three times a day, frequently supplemented by salmon, cured after the fashion of her country, and “halls of S beans, eggs and milk fried in oil.” Mr | Sala may well ssk for further details of | these wonderful balls. They read like the | very microbes of dyspepsia. Queen Isabella | of Spain, it seems, has the Castilian cocido, Iwith all its various and incongruous ingredients, served at every meal, and daily t eats rice cooked Ala Valencienne. The i Queen Segent of Spain prefers Austrian ! cooking, and eats sweet preserves of j fruit with the roasts, her favourite | sweet being a compote of currant, iAt the Court of Italy, we are ] told, gold plate is in every - day | use, and the "fritto” a national dish comi posed of fried artichokes mixed with the 1 crests and livers of cocks, is never missing. I Mr Sala joins issue with the veracious | man of the New York Sun over this j national mess. He is not acquainted with j any special Italian dish called "fritto,” \ and remembering the extent of hia dining 1 experience no one would have been eurj prised if ha had roundly stated i that no such dish has ever been | prepared. There is a frittata of arti- ( chokes much relished in Italy, but it is by no means so national a dish as macaroni lor rwvioU or stujjfato. It ia made, we are | instructed, of very tender artichokes, j minced, seasoned with salt and pepper, j Soured and dipped in beaten eggs, fried in I hot fat and served on a folded napkin. | But it is when the correspondent of j the Sun approaches the gastronomy of I British royalty thathobecomeaparticularly I offensive to Mr Sala. "This astounding • man,” to quote Mr Sala’a own con- ! temptuous language, declares that so ! long as Queen Victoria expresses heri self satisfied with porridge and plain ' Scotch dishes, her loyal subjects will ; stultify the ambitions and talents of budding Brillat Savarina ia her dominions. ; Her Majesty, we are asked to believe, i confesses to a partiality for oatmeal soup ' and raw ham! The oatmeal coup may be i well enough, but the suggestion of raw i ham is simply outrageous. Mr Sala is j justly indignant.

WISE APTEB THE EVENT.

People who have been puzzling their beads and depleting their pockets during the last day or two ; in attempts to anticipate I the winners of races at Eiccartosi may be j interested by an account given in Cassell’s i Saturday Review of two peculiar exj periments. A gentleman of sporting proclivities put a lady of marked sensitive temperament into a species of trance, and represented to ber that she was in the grand stand at an approaching race meeting. In a few momenta the lady was all alert, and began to describe the whole scene in ' a vivid manner. “ Now they are at the j starting post!” “How many horses are i there?" asked the gentleman. "Three, : four —no, five! Now they are off. No, I it’s a false start! ” Then a pause. " Now the flag has fallen! Oh, what a dust they make! I can’t sec. Notv ona horse is leading! Oh, it’s a long way from the rest! No [following the imaginary race [ with her eyes from one side cf the room to i tho other], now the second horse is catch- : ing him up! Ah, now they have parsed i the post! ” Which horse has won ? ” ' ‘I can’t quite see; it’a all so dim; they I are making cuch a dust.” Then she began Ito spell out the name of a horse. ; The gentleman read out the probable starters. Suddenly the lady hit ' upon one, and nothing would move ; her from the assertion' that this ' was the winner. The whole affair was ; so uncanny that the gentleman wan ean- | guine enough to believe he had hit upon a ; short cut to success on the turf, especially ; as the homes the lady gave were nearly all j favourites. The result was that at tho j end of the racing ho found that not a : single horse the lady had named had been successful. In tho evening of the same | day the gentleman took a race-card with I the winners all marked in pencil. Again he took tho lady in fancy to the raceI course; again she minutely described the episodes of the various events. But this I time not only did ehe name the exact ' number of starters, but she also gave I every winner correctly, without a single i exception. The explanation, which is not supplied by the Review, is that the mesmerist impressed hia subject, possibly unconsciously, with his own knowledge. His “mentality"—that is the popular word— suggested in the first experiment the favourites, and in the second indicated the actual winners.