Food and Flavor: A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living: Chapter X - BRITISH SPECIALTIES

Food and Flavor: A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living, by Henry Theophilus Finck is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Chapter X : BRITISH SPECIALTIES

X. BRITISH SPECIALTIES

THACKERAY'S LITTLE SERMON.

England has produced some eminent epicures. As prominent among them as among her novelists is William Makepiece Thackeray. In a magazine article on Greenwich and Whitebait, dated 1844, he expressed his scorn for those who do not appreciate good food. "A man who brags regarding himself; that whatever he swallows is the same to him, and that his coarse palate recognizes no difference between venison and turtle, pudding or mutton-broth, as his indifferent jaws close over them, brags about a personal defect—the wretch—and not about a virtue. It is like a man boasting that he has no ear for music, or no eye for color, or that his nose cannot scent the difference between a rose and a cabbage—I say, as a general rule, set that man down as a conceited fellow who swaggers about not caring for dinner."

Three years earlier, in his Memorials of Gormandizing, which he penned in Paris, he preached another sermon on the subject—a sermon which may fitly be reprinted here because the state of affairs which distressed Thackeray has not been quite mended yet—far from it. Speaking of Parisian opportunities for gastronomic experiments, he says:

"A man in London has not, for the most part, the opportunity to make these experiments. You are a family man, let us presume, and you live in that metropolis for half a century. You have on Sunday, say, a leg of mutton and potatoes for dinner. On Monday you have cold mutton and potatoes. On Tuesday, hashed mutton and potatoes; the hashed mutton being flavored with little damp triangular pieces of toast, which always surround that charming dish. Well, on Wednesday, the mutton ended, you have beef: the beef undergoes the same alterations of cookery and disappears. Your life presents a succession of joints, varied every now and then by a bit of fish and some poultry....

"Some of the most pure and precious enjoyments of life are unknown to you. You eat and drink, but you do not know the art of eating and drinking; nay, most probably you despise those who do. 'Give me a slice of meat,' say you, very likely, 'and a fig for your gourmands.' You fancy it is very virtuous and manly all this. Nonsense, my good sir; you are indifferent because you are ignorant, because your life is passed in a narrow circle of ideas, and because you are bigotedly blind and pompously callous to the beauties and excellencies beyond you.

"Sir, RESPECT YOUR DINNER; idolize it, enjoy it properly. You will be by many hours in the week, many weeks in the year, and many years in your life the happier if you do.

"Don't tell me that it is not worthy of a man. All a man's senses are worthy of enjoyment, and should be cultivated as a duty. The senses are the arts.... You like your dinner, man; never be ashamed to say so. If you don't like your victuals, pass on to the next article; but remember that every man who has been worth a fig in this world, as poet, painter, or musician, has had a good appetite and a good taste."

DR. JOHNSON AND SAMUEL PEPYS.

Doubtless the attitude towards the pleasures of the table which displeased Thackeray was largely a sham, a mere pretense, though to some extent it was a Puritan reaction from the gross gluttony in which Englishmen indulged in ye olden times, as did the Germans, the Romans, the Russians, the Dutch, and many others.

Dr. Samuel Johnson was an amusing and amazing example of inconsistency in his gastronomic preaching and practice. To Mrs. Piozzi he remarked that "wherever the dinner is ill got up there is poverty or there is avarice, or there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong." To Boswell he said: "Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it that he that does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else."

Yet on other occasions Boswell heard him talk with great contempt of people who were anxious to gratify their palates. He sneered at gluttons, yet he was one himself. "When at table he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment: his looks seemed riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite; which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that, while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible." He told Boswell he had never been hungry but once; upon which that biographer comments: "They who beheld with wonder how much he ate upon all occasions, when his dinner was to his taste, could not easily conceive what he must have meant by hunger." Yet he was a man of discernment: he used to descant critically on the dishes which had been at table where he had dined or supped, and to recollect very minutely what he had liked. According to Mrs. Piozzi, his favorite dainties were "a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal pie with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef." He surely needed a Parisian education!

The same witness throws a limelight on the doctor's peculiarities by remarking with regard to drink that "his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the flavor but the effect he sought for and professed to desire."

In other words, strength and quantity were of greater importance to him than quality (Flavor); and in this he was a true descendant of his predecessors, one of whom has left an amazing record of his appetite. The home menus of Samuel Pepys included on one occasion "a dish of marrow bones, a leg of mutton, a loin of veal, a dish of fowl, three pullets, and a dozen larks all in a dish; a great tart, a neat's-tongue, a dish of anchovies, a dish of prawns, and cheese." More astonishing still is the following repast, prepared, as he boasts, by his "own only mayde": "We had a fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey-pie, a most rare pie, a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble." This dinner, he exclaims, joyously, "was great." It certainly was.

If England is to the present day classed among the ungastronomic nations, by her own epicures as well as by foreigners, it is due largely to this indulgence in "great" dinners, this regard for quantity—especially of meats—at the expense, usually, of quality and artistic cooking. Generally speaking, the English have been slower than the Italians, the French, and the Germans in discovering the gastronomic importance of the more delicate Flavors developed by the cooking, which is done con amore. Koche mit Liebe is the title of a German cook book, and there certainly are more housewives in the three countries named who cook for their families "with loving devotion" to their task than there are in England or America.

THE ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND.

Too much emphasis cannot, however, be placed on the fact that, while all these things are true, England has nevertheless led the way in some of the most important branches of culinary progress. It is to these branches that I wish to devote this chapter, pointing out the lessons Great Britain teaches us and the European continent. It seems never to have occurred to any writer to do this, which is strange, for the story is interesting as well as important.

To begin with butcher's meats, the English certainly excel in the roasting and broiling of them, as well as in the rearing of the right kind of stock, which is equally important from the point of view of Flavor.

Perhaps it is as foolish to refer to the British as beef-eaters as it is to call the Italians macaroni-eaters and the Japanese rice-eaters, for the humbler classes in England cannot afford beef any oftener than the poorer Italians and Japanese can afford to eat macaroni or rice.

Time was when even the wealthy Britons could not often eat beef or other butcher's meat, especially in winter. Up to the eighteenth century sheep and cattle were killed and salted at the beginning of cold weather and "during several months of the year even the gentry tasted scarcely any fresh animal food, except game and river fish. As to the common people, an old chapbook of the period, entitled 'The Misfortunes of Simple Simon' uses the expression 'roast-meat cloaths' as an equivalent for holiday clothes."

The systematic growing of turnips for the winter keep of cattle made it possible to have fresh meat in winter, too; and at the same time, thanks largely to the efforts of the agriculturist, Robert Bakewell, cattle and sheep breeding began to be done on scientific principles.

Bakewell's aim was to fatten the animals more quickly and to secure a greater proportion and a better quality of meat. The result of such improvements was that, whereas in 1710 the average net weight of cattle sold in London was 370 lbs., by the time of Bakewell's death (1795) it had increased to 800 lbs., while the average weight of sheep had increased from 28 pounds to 80.

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the Collins brothers still further improved cattle by breeding for special points, reducing the size of the head and legs and enlarging the useful parts. The shorthorns gradually extended their domain not only throughout the British Isles but to France and other countries. Improvement continued steadily until English beef became the standard for the whole world.

With the rapid increase of population and a decrease in the area of pasture land the time came when Great Britain had to begin to import meats from Australia and South America. At the end of the first decade of this century London alone needed 420,000 long tons of meat a year. Of this, over 122,000 tons came from South America, nearly 106,000 tons from Australasia, about 97,000 tons from continental Europe and North America, and less than 95,000 tons from the United Kingdom itself.

For a very good reason there was for years a prejudice against all imported meats, their use being confined exclusively to the poorer classes who could not afford to pay the higher prices—from three to twelve cents a pound more—asked for the meat from the home-grown or home-killed cattle.

The very good reason for this preference for the home product was that imported meat was frozen, and the public promptly discovered that meat which had been frozen had little or no Flavor.

That freezing spoils the Flavor of meat was known generations ago. Eugen Baron Vaerst, e. g., in his "Gastrosophie," Vol. I, p. 214, calls attention to this fact and explains why the meat should be preserved by chilling it; that is, by hanging it in an icy atmosphere which is constantly kept moving and which kills all germs of putrefaction without actually freezing the meat.

Naturally this process costs more than simple freezing; yet some years ago attempts were made to bring chilled meat from as far as South America and Australia, and after some improvements had been made in the methods of transportation the results were most satisfactory. As one report said: "Part of a quarter that had been purposely sent a considerable distance and then cooked in the ordinary way for the table was found to be tender, full of flavor, and equal to any beef wherever grown." No chemicals were used.

An amusing sequel to the story is told with much gravity in a consular report from Sheffield: "Frozen meat is much preferred by the trade for two reasons: It is cheaper, and the customers, after having used chilled meats, will not so readily take to the frozen again."

The dear dealers, surely, ought to be allowed to have their own way. Why should they pay any attention to the consumer, with his ridiculous predilection for food that has Flavor?

Germany protested violently in 1912 against attempts to introduce frozen meats, and the following consular information regarding another country is suggestive:

"The sale of Argentine frozen meat in Switzerland is not so satisfactory as originally expected, and the large importers are now buying live cattle from that country, importing through Italy, and slaughtering there."

SOUTHDOWN MUTTON.

English mutton and lamb are as far-famed as English beef, and most deservedly so. The unnamed but well-informed author of the hand-book on Sheep in Vinton's Country Series (London) states the plain truth when he declares that "it was because our forefathers had, during many ages, been careful and skilful breeders of sheep that their descendants were enabled to take the front rank in the world as improvers of these as well as of horses, cattle, and pigs."

The English, undeniably, are in many ways an ungastronomic people, yet when we reflect that they have given to the world the best butcher's meats—mutton and pork, as well as beef—their claim to rank high among gastronomic nations is established. Think of the important rôle butcher's meat plays in our dietary!

It was not by a mere accident that Great Britain won supremacy in this line, but in consequence of the application of principles of scientific breeding, resembling those to which the Californian, Luther Burbank, owed his startling successes in creating new fruits and vegetables of superior size, tenderness, and Flavor.

It took the combined efforts of several English "Burbanks" to create the ideal mutton chops and joints. The two who deserve the lion's share of praise were Robert Bakewell and John Ellman.

Bakewell came first. Before his day, the fleece was the thing sheep growers were mainly interested in. They wanted as big animals and as much wool as possible.

Bakewell was not interested in wool. What he was after was an improved mutton-producing breed—or rather one which, besides meat, yielded a large amount of fat. That was what the market of his day demanded, in consequence of the way in which mutton was served. The usual practice, we read, "was to put a large joint of fat mutton over a dish of potatoes at the workman's table. The meat went to the head of the family; the potatoes, saturated with the meat and gravy, making a savory meal for the junior members. Thousands in the manufacturing and mining districts were for many years brought up in this way, so that, in breeding fat sheep, Bakewell had a better warrant than would apply in the present day, when fat is obtained in more palatable and digestible form in butter and its cheaper imitations, and when the working classes, as well as others, prefer to have lean and juicy mutton."

An anecdote in Pitt's "General Survey of the Agriculture of Leicester" (1809) throws further light on the situation: "Your mutton is so fat that I cannot eat it," said a gentleman to Bakewell, who replied: "I do not breed mutton for gentlemen, but for the public; and even my mutton may be kept leaner to suit every palate by stocking harder in proportion and by killing the sheep in time."

Gradually the "public's" taste for mutton became more "gentlemanly." At present the article most in demand is a carcass weighing about twenty pounds per quarter "with a large preponderance of lean flesh."

The change was accelerated by the activity of the Ellman family. Whereas Bakewell had operated with the long-wool Leicester breed, the meat of which was coarse-grained, with little delicacy or Flavor, the Ellmans revealed to the world the superlative gastronomic attributes of mutton yielded by the short-wool Southdowns.

In muttonland the Southdown is what the Bresse is in the chicken world.

In London markets you may find palatable meat cut from the carcasses of the Wensleydale, the Suffolk, the Dorset, the Exmoor, the Irish Roscommon, and other breeds; but the three breeds which are rated highest for epicures are the Southdown, the Welsh Mountain, and the Scotch Black-faced.

Note that all three are mountain sheep. It is to the hill-lands we must go for meat of the finest Flavor. As a rule, we read in the admirable Vinton book referred to, "the fleezy denizens of the mountains and downs were distinguished by the excellence of their mutton, their active habits, necessitated by long journeys in search of the scanty food that was available, conducing to the development of the finest quality of meat."

This point is gastronomically so very important that I will quote also what Professor Tanner wrote on it, as long ago as 1869, in a paper on the "Influence of Climate, etc., on Sheep," published in the "Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England":

"The quality of the meat depends upon the lean portion being tender and charged with a rich juice; and these results can only be obtained from an animal of mature age, of active habits, and fed upon short, sweet herbage. By activity of body the muscles are brought into exercise, and a healthy growth is the consequence. The food being short and sweet compels the sheep to take plenty of exercise to gather their supplies, and the herbage being sweet and nutritious, in contra-distinction to that which is coarse and immature, renders the meat savory, the gravy dark and rich, and the meat palatable and digestible."

Professor Tanner evidently understood the importance of having the right kind of feed—a subject on which much more will be said in a later chapter, under the head of "Feeding Flavor Into Food."

The Southdown sheep, which have been happily called "small in size but great in value," inhabit a district the characteristics of which explain the incomparable Flavor of their mutton. The South Downs of Sussex, from which they derive their name, "consist of a range of low, chalky hills, five or six miles in breadth, stretching along the coast for a distance of upwards of sixty miles and passing into the chalky hills of Hampshire in the west."

All the Southdown mutton, as a matter of course, does not come from one locality. The breed has been widely spread over the country and also used for crossing; but under similar conditions there is no reason why first-class mutton should not be produced in many localities. Naturally, substitution is practised; and in England, as elsewhere, the consumer is largely dependent on the honesty of his butcher. If the butcher is a wise man, anxious to get rich, he will always provide the best to those who know the difference and are willing to pay for it.

John Ellman devoted half a century to the improvement of Southdown mutton, which is now grown in many English counties. Early maturity has been one of the points aimed at; to-day Southdowns are fit for the butcher at thirteen to fifteen months, and weigh many pounds more than their predecessors did. Some epicures still ask for well-aged meat, but the great buying public "prefer tender, fine-grained meat cut from young sheep."

In some parts of the United States there is a decided prejudice against mutton. No doubt this is due to the fact that many local markets are supplied with the mutton of sheep which are raised chiefly for their wool and yield inferior meat. It would hardly do to throw away the carcases of these animals after they have served their purpose. But surely those who can afford to pay for better meat from "mutton-sheep," ought everywhere to have a chance to do so. Mountains abound in our country, and the breeders can, as already intimated, make sheep perform any function they choose quite à la Burbank.

We need men of brains who will let our gastronomic demands guide them to wealth along this line as along so many others. Valuable hints may be obtained in the Vinton book, from which I have repeatedly quoted.

One more citation from this creamy little book will help to emphasize the statement I have just made:

"At the time of writing the importations of foreign mutton are very large, as they have been for some years. In this way there is an abundant supply of cheap, wholesome food, which, however, lacks the flavor and quality of the home-bred mutton, and those who can afford it will always give a higher price for the latter. The object, therefore, of the home-breeder is to produce the very best description of mutton, for which there is an increasing demand."

WILTSHIRE BACON.

In the restaurants and hotels of France and Switzerland, no less than in those of London, York ham is often served, and York ham at its best is considered by epicures equal to the hams of Prague or Westphalia. But if the English hams must share honors with the products of Germany and Bohemia, when it comes to bacon, Britannia rules the world.

Let not that seem a trifling matter to any one. Bacon—I mean smoked bacon—is one of the most useful and delicious of all appetizers, alone or with other meats. It is a great tonic, too, on account of its exceptional nutritive value. Anemic individuals should eat it every morning; it is beneficial to consumptives whose digestive powers are not too enfeebled; and for nursing mothers it is an ideal food. I remember reading in a medical journal that the health of babies is often wonderfully improved if the mother eats bacon—good bacon, such as one can get in England often and in America sometimes. The drugged, denatured, indigestible rubbish usually sold in the United States as "bacon," is not fit for food. The men who make it or sell it ought to be imprisoned; some day they will be.

In view of the nutritive value of bacon and its exquisite Flavor when properly cured, it seems strange that Continental nations have not learned how to make it, except those which, like Denmark and Sweden, cater for the English market. Canada also caters to this market and Canadian bacon enjoys a much better reputation at home and abroad than that made in the United States, with a few honorable exceptions.

In England, also, bacon was not always appraised at its true value. Dryden, we are informed, "honestly liked the flitch of bacon better than more delicate fare"; but he deemed it necessary to apologize for having "a very vulgar stomach."

Doubtless, in his day, it took a robust stomach to digest bacon, and doubtless, also, it was not so delicate and so well-flavored as it is now. Wiltshire bacon is, like Southdown mutton, the outcome of years of British breeding on scientific and gastronomic principles.

Professor Robert Wallace of the University of Edinburgh tells in his "Farm Live Stock of Great Britain" what happened:

"A great change has within comparatively recent years come over the system of feeding pigs, as well as of curing their carcases. A generation ago it was the custom to kill pigs about two years old, at enormous weights, after the flesh had become coarse. The method of curing left the lean portion gorged with salt, hard, indigestible and uninviting: then it was an advantage to have a large proportion of fat to lean. Now, however, the system of mild-curing renders the flesh sweet and juicy, and all efforts are directed towards the production of as great a proportion of lean to fat as possible. The large increase of the consumption of fresh pork has also encouraged the demand for young lean bacon; and on the other hand the change of fashion which has put young and tender pork on the market has helped to increase its consumption."

Of the many English breeds the Tamworth has been found the best bacon pig. It is one of the eldest breeds and is nearly related to the wild boar. It benefited by the methods of improvement inaugurated by Bakewell and his pupil, Colling; together with some other English breeds, it has helped to modify, and in some cases has eliminated, the kinds of pigs indigenous to European countries. The Danish curers admit that without the importation of stock from England "their bacon would never have taken such high rank in the world's markets."

In the United States, unfortunately, most of the breeds are lard-hogs. "Bacon pigs," says Professor Robert Wallace, "fed on Indian corn degenerate into lard-hogs."

Now lard is doubtless a profitable article to raise, both for home use and for export. But in the kitchen the use of lard is an anachronism, since it has become generally known that butter and olive oil and beef suet are far superior to it in the yield of agreeable Flavors. Yankee ingenuity may even succeed in producing really palatable vegetable oils for cooking—a consummation devoutly to be wished, because it will help along the efforts to substitute the bacon pig for the lard hog.

When Julius Sterling Morton was United States Secretary of Agriculture he published a document which attracted much attention. It was based mainly on a communication received from an American official in England who advised American farmers, if they would secure a share of the profitable Danish and Canadian trade in cured bacon of a superior quality, to give up the various American breeds and substitute the British Tamworths or their crosses. That was many years ago, but American bacon is still for the most part what it should not be, although efforts have been made to improve it.

In the "Journal of the (British) Board of Agriculture" (1909-10, pp. 99-107) there is an interesting article on Coöperative Bacon Curing, the author of which says that the most useful breeds of pigs in the United Kingdom for bacon are Yorkshire and Berkshire breeds. But "a pure breed of pigs is not wanted by the bacon curer. What he wants is a bacon pig, and this is an animal which does not belong to any particular breed."

What is a bacon pig? The same writer answers: "A bacon pig should mature in about seven months and should weigh about 168 pounds. This yields the best and most profitable bacon. A bacon pig, furthermore, must be long in body and deep in side.... This form is desirable because it is the side of the hog that furnishes the best and most expensive cuts, and it is necessary to have as much as possible of this at the expense of the other parts."

Bacon curing as an organized industry is not much over half a century old. The Wiltshire cure of bacon is, however, referred to as far back as 1705 by Edward Lisle, in his "Observations in Husbandry." Many years later there came a great expansion of trade in Wiltshire County which made the name world-famed. To this day the bulk of British bacon is cured in Wiltshire fashion in whole sides.

There are about fifty bacon factories in the United Kingdom. While their capacity is not so great as that of the factories in the United States, the treatment and quality of American meat are, as the writer just cited remarks, "much below the standard aimed at in the United Kingdom, and notwithstanding the immense supplies of bacon which reach our country from abroad, the high price of the home product is on this account maintained."

It must not be supposed that all the bacon offered for sale in England is of superior quality. Sanders Spencer complained some years ago that the Irish bacon-curers were resting on their laurels; that a very large proportion of the pigs found in England "would be looked upon with disgust by the Danes and Canadians and that much of the meat from our home-bred pigs is inferior to a great deal of imported pork."

The temptation to use denaturing chemical preservatives and to smoke insufficiently, or not at all, in order to save weight exists in England as in America and must be combated by the consumer.

Extra choice specimens still come from some English hill farms, and the superexcellence of this bacon is due chiefly to its being skilfully smoked in the old-fashioned smoke house, which cures thoroughly while avoiding the rankness that comes from too rapid curing with very strong smoke. Properly smoked bacon is fragrant, like a flower. The other kind isn't. The test is a very simple one: if the odor makes your mouth water, it is all right.

Not only "hill-farmers" but thousands of others have a chance to get rich by catering to the gastronomic demands of the time for the best bacon, ham, and fresh young pork.

"The modern method of pig feeding has shown," as an expert informs us, "that a combination of separated milk and cereals is by far the best fattening material, and the future of the bacon-curing industry is therefore, to a large extent, in the hands of dairy farmers."

Important information on this point was gathered for the benefit of American farmers by Consul Homer M. Byington, of Bristol, and printed in the "Daily Consular and Trade Reports" for January 4, 1912. Among other things, he wrote that "Wiltshire cured hams and bacon command a higher price than the hams and bacon of any other country. It is therefore of interest to ascertain why this should be so. One of the most prominent experts in the industry has stated that it is almost entirely a question of feeding. The fine breed of hogs kept by the best farmers in Wiltshire, Somerset, and Dorset are fed principally upon skim milk and barley meal. It is claimed by the English producers that American hogs are practically all fed on corn, which, although a perfectly wholesome food, tends to make the hog fat, and a little mellow, whereas feeding by the British method gives a meat beautifully white and as solid as meat need be." Referring to a leading Wiltshire curer, the Consul continues:

"This latter firm, although purchasing 2,000 to 3,000 hogs per week from farmers in the surrounding territory, does not allow any breeder under contract to give his animals refuse for food. The pigs are subject to an ante-mortem and a post-mortem examination by a qualified veterinary surgeon and medical officer of health. No boracic acid or other injurious preservative is used in curing."

In Germany, where one gets not only hams of the best quality, but excellent roast pork, many others besides farmers have taken to raising pigs. In 1873 there were only 7,124,088 pigs in the country; in 1907 there were over 22,000,000. The number of sheep has decreased in about the same proportion because three hogs can be raised by a peasant where he could not graze one sheep.

Pigs are particularly profitable because they can be fed largely on kitchen refuse and unsalable skim milk and because a pig "will produce a pound of meat from a far less weight of food than will either sheep or cattle."

By "mixing brains with the food," the profits can be enormously increased. Let me ask every American and English farmer to put the following words of England's leading authority, Sanders Spencer, into his pipe and smoke them slowly and thoroughly:

"This selection of a compact, thick-fleshed, and pure quality sire is of even greater importance in the pig department of the farm than in many others, as our object is to breed a pig which is capable of converting a large quantity of food into the largest amount of fine quality of meat, and is so formed that the latter is placed on those portions of the pig's body which realize the largest price in the market."

There is a funny story of a farmer who gave his pigs all they could eat one day and starved them the next, in order to have his bacon nicely streaked with alternate layers of fat and lean. In England they seem to have a number of these ingenious farmers; at any rate, in Wiltshire bacon there is always plenty of lean meat. And how delicious it tastes when grilled, or baked in a roasting pan on a wire rack from which the fat drips to the bottom of the pan!

When the bacon is too fat to suit the native connoisseur it is apparently exported to America and sold at fancy prices to people who have more money than knowledge.

Gastronomic demands suggest many opportunities to get rich, particularly along this line. Spencer speaks of the "marvelous increase in the proportion of the inhabitants of the British Isles who now eat pork." Ireland exported nearly $17,500,000 worth of pork products in 1909. The slaughter houses of Denmark deal with over a million pigs a year, largely for export to the United Kingdom, which, in 1911, imported altogether nearly $100,000,000 worth of bacon and other pork products.

In epicurean France pork gains rapidly on other meats and the Germans eat nearly twice as much pork as they do beef. The figures, in pounds, of the per capita consumption in the Empire for the first three months of 1912 stood in this ratio: Mutton 0.33; veal, 1.54; beef, 7.87; pork, 14.55.

FAIR PLAY FOR PIGS.

In the United States, also, the demand for pork products is growing. It would grow very much more rapidly were it not for three drawbacks: the custom of denaturing hams and bacon and of marketing the tough meat of old lard-pigs, and the impudent sale to the public of the products of swill-fed hogs that are not fit to eat.

It is impossible to place too much emphasis on the fact that no matter of how fine a breed the pig may be, its meat is spoiled if the feed given it is of an offensive nature. Farm-kitchen refuse is harmless when mixed with milk and greens, but porkers fed on city swill and garbage do not yield palatable meat.

Pigs seldom have fair play. Most farmers lower the value of the pork they raise by not giving the animals fresh air, sunshine, some exercise, and clean sties. In these respects we are not the only sinners. From an admirable editorial article in the London "Times" of June 27, 1912, I cite the following:

"The pig is generally kept in conditions of a grossly unsanitary kind. He is quite a cleanly animal if left to himself, but he is kept in sties which compel him to wallow in filth all day and to sleep in a horribly confined and polluted atmosphere when he seeks shelter. Nature did not construct him for such conditions, but for an open-air life, and it is not really surprising that he develops swine-fever, which, by the way, is remarkably like the fevers that afflict overcrowded, filthy, and unventilated human dwellings. Cowhouses are regulated, but pigsties are not. Their position, however, is regulated in a way that presses very hardly upon cottagers. It is calmly assumed that pigsties must be dirty and offensive, so instead of insisting that they shall be clean, legislation decrees that they shall be at a distance from dwellings which makes it impossible for a cottager to pay his rent with cheaply raised bacon."

Pigs that are overfed and denied fresh air, sunshine, exercise, and a clean bed cannot possibly yield meat with a tempting Flavor, for such animals are really diseased—as unhealthy as the slum-dwellers in our large cities, whom no cannibal would touch.

The best American ham, as everybody knows, is the Virginia, cut from hogs that roam the woods, live on acorns and beech nuts and are thoroughly healthy.

The attitude of the ancient Britons toward the pig was one almost of reverence, not only because of its utility in the larder, but because it fed on the acorns from the sacred oaks.

In those days all British pork was no doubt similar to the meat of the young wild boar. Civilization, as in so many other things, brought on a temporary deterioration which caused pork to be despised and considered fit only for those who had not the means to buy something better; and it is only now that we are coming to realize fully that the fault was that of the farmers who, by refusing to give the pigs fair play, made it impossible for them to come up to the highest epicurean standard as regards Flavor.

The Boar

According to high geological authority, the boar, from whom our domestic pigs are descended, was coeval with the extinct species of the mastodon and the dinotherium, and "hence must be regarded as the most ancient of our domesticated animals."

An aristocrat, in other words, is the pig! He is selfish, like most "aristocrats"—that cannot be denied; but he is clean—even his mud baths are taken merely to cool off or to scour his skin. Trainers, moreover, will tell you that he is one of the most intelligent of animals.

Pig brains are good to eat, too—better than calves' brains, but are usually sold as calves' brains because that's what the ignorant purchaser asks for. And pork, young, tender, and not too fat, is good all the year round, not only in the months which have an R in them.

GROUSE AND GRILLED SOLE.

Wild boars no longer roam the forests of England. Sportsmen do their pig-sticking in the jungles of India. But venison in season is still in evidence, and the hare will never be extinct, though he now comes to London chiefly in shiploads from Australia.

The well-informed editor of the "Hors d'Œuvre" department of the "Pall Mall Gazette" gives an amusing glimpse of the situation as regards English and Scotch venison, which he considers a veritable delicacy, preferable to the highly-sauced venison of France and Germany:

"We ought really to eat more venison when in season, but if the ordinary housewife were asked to provide it quite in the ordinary way for an ordinary dinner at home, she would be entirely nonplussed. 'But the butcher does not keep it.' 'Try the poulterer.' 'The poulterer says he can get it at a day's notice.' Why all this fuss? Venison is a national dish; it is not expensive; it is most nutritious and wholesome. Some one ought to 'buck up' the venison market."

Among British feathered animals the best is the grouse, "the only really native game bird of these islands." It comes to London by fast expresses from the North—recently also from Ireland, which would be a finer grouse country, were it not for poachers. For the first days of the season grouse bring easily a guinea a brace in London market, cheaper ones being cold-storage suspects. Later on—thanks to rational methods of game preservation—they pour in daily by the tens of thousands and come down to 8s. or less a brace. Though never as cheap in the restaurants as partridge is in Germany, grouse is worth its price when cooked in the English way, which preserves all the woodland flavor of the bird.

English farmers have not waked up to the opportunities that lie in catering to the demand for fresh-killed poultry of all kinds. The best restaurants get their supplies usually from France. There is in the Kingdom not even one adult fowl per acre of cultivated land. Here are possibilities of tremendous improvements, for, as Professor Edward Brown of the Ontario Agricultural College has truly said: "Masses of people living under highly artificial conditions must have food high in nutritive elements, easily digested and palatable, in which respect eggs stand first among all natural products and poultry not far behind."

A well-known poulterer is cited as saying in regard to the London markets: "Fat goslings and ducks are in good demand, and the best prices are being given for them. One hundred and fifty years ago tens of thousands of geese and turkeys were reared in Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and adjacent counties. The numbers now are, in comparison, insignificant. Nevertheless, the industry is one which might be made one of great importance and quite comfortable profits."

A very different situation confronts us when we look at the supply of seafood. Here the British Isles hold their own in competition with any country, and the methods adopted to ensure a daily supply of fresh fish cannot be too urgently commended to American fish dealers.

One of the most interesting sights in London is Billingsgate market. Fish have been sold here for several centuries, but under changing conditions. No longer will you find here the "fat, motherly flatcaps, with fish-baskets hanging over their heads instead of riding-hoods, with silver rings on their thumbs, and pipes charged with 'mundungus' in their mouths, sitting on inverted eel-baskets and strewing the flowers of their exuberant eloquence over dashing young town-rakes who had stumbled into Billingsgate to finish the night.... But the town-rakes kept comparatively civil tongues in their heads when they entered the precincts of the Darkhouse. An amazon of the market, otherwise known as a Billingsgate fish-fag, was more than a match for a Mohock," as George Augustus Sala remarked in his "Twice Round the Clock, or the Hours of the Day and Night in London."

Gone are these amazons who by their abusive speech gave a new word to the English language. Men now monopolize Billingsgate Market, and the joke of it is that these men, as we found them at six o'clock on a September morning, are the very pink of politeness, most courteously ready to answer your questions regarding different fishes, and cockles, and periwinkles, though they know you are not there to buy. Even the rough, hurrying fish-porters make way for you to pass, and the auctioneers stop to warn you against places where your clothes might get soiled by drippings.

Billingsgate is now entirely given over to the wholesale fish-trade. The smell of it, fish-like but not ancient—for it is a clean place—easily guides you to the spot from the nearest station of the subway's inner circle. The streets near it are wet with the drip of fish-filled boxes, and crowded with wagons that are being loaded with the town's provisions of sea food—strictly fresh every day.

Billingsgate Market being on the water's edge all the fish is unloaded direct from the fishing boats. Processions of porters come from the boats, each with a great box full of fish balanced on the top of his head, on a queerly-shaped, padded, waterproof hat made expressly for this work. The fish are kept cool with loose ice, but are not frozen. The Spanish mackerel with their dark markings and opaline sides offer the most beautiful sight of all, so freshly caught that their colors are as vivid as when they left the water.

Besides these are whitings, flounders, pale-brown sole, halibut, turbot, all shining from the sea, and among the shell-fish may be seen oysters, huge crabs, lobsters,—white flecked dark green ones—periwinkles, and cockles. The latter look somewhat like very small clams, and they are sold cooked, having been separated from their shells by large sieves.

In the best New York restaurants you are not sure of getting fresh fish when you order it. In the best London restaurants you are. Probably some of the fish we saw that morning at Billingsgate was served to us that evening for dinner. I mean sole, of course. We were to be in London only a week on this occasion, and when you are in London a week only it would be unutterably absurd not to eat grilled sole at least once a day, for you cannot get anything equal to it anywhere else in the wide, wide world.

There are some, I know, who place turbot above sole, and others even prefer plaice. Put no faith in such people; they could never be honestly elected to a place on the bench of the Gastronomic Supreme Court. Turbot is delicious, and so is plaice, and so are chinook salmon and our shad and whitefish. Each of these seems the best of all fishes while you are eating it; but sole actually is the best. How do I prove this? Like the musician who boasted he was the best horn player in the world, I do not prove it; I admit it.

Seriously speaking, there can be no doubt that if a vote were taken on this question among the epicures of Europe, sole would win by a large majority. In Germany the Seezunge, or "sea-tongue," is the choicest of marine delicacies, and in France the chef's chief glory is his sole and the special sauce he serves with it. But nowhere is the sole so juicy and flavorful as in England; nor is it disguised there with any sauce, being served usually right off the grill. Grilled Sole is one of England's great specialties.

Whitebait is another. It is not a distinct species but consists of the fry of herrings, smelts, sprats, sand-eels, weevers, etc. It is supposed to have been first served in 1780. To this day no tourist who likes good things to eat omits a trip to Greenwich to enjoy a dish of whitebait at headquarters in the ship tavern. When Thackeray was there he indulged in these reflections: "Ah, he must have had a fine mind who first invented brown bread and butter with whitebait! That man was a kind, modest, gentle benefactor to his kind. We don't recognize sufficiently the merits of those men who leave us such quiet benefactions. A statue ought to be put up to the philosopher who joined together this charming couple."

Yarmouth bloaters and other cured fish are British specialties relished the world over. But the best of them is Finnan haddock, so named after Findon, a fishing village near Aberdeen where haddock smoking with peat or oak dust has attained perfection. There are flavorless imitations, preserved with pyroligneous acid. The genuine are cured in smoke houses. The condimental value of smoke is illustrated by the fact that while fresh haddock is by no means rated among the finest fishes, finnan haddie is one of the very best of cured fishes.

The Whitstable oyster is still another marine specialty enjoyed, not only throughout the British Isles as one of the most precious "natives," but also on the Continent. Far away Austria imports only $10,000 worth of oysters a year from all sources, but from Berlin and other German cities come large orders for the best English bivalves. France also takes them, but not on a large scale, as her own oyster production is large.

The best Whitstable oysters—from the coasts of Kent and Essex—are known as royals and cost in restaurants three or four shillings a dozen, which is considerably more than the price charged in our own restaurants. Whether they are worth more is a much disputed point. Most Americans object to what they call the coppery taste in English and Northern European oysters. Paderewski agreed with those who pronounce the English oyster superior to the American. I suggested that he probably had had the "floated" American oysters only. Certainly I have never tasted oysters with a more delicious Flavor than genuine Blue Points, Cotuits and Lynnhavens. The English natives are small, juicy, and fragrant of the sea—great appetizers indeed.

Alas, in England also the sewage plague has cast its blight on the shellfish business. Two decades ago 160,000,000 oysters are said to have been landed annually. In 1911 the number fell forty or fifty millions short of that figure because of typhoid fever and other diseases traced to the eating of oysters from polluted beds. The importation of American oysters was only at the rate of 100 barrels a week in 1911, as against 2,000 barrels fifteen years earlier.

Of the other British shellfish the periwinkle is much appreciated by the epicurean French who, not satisfied with importing them from England in bulk have also brought them over to plant in their own beds. They are boiled a few minutes in salted water and served with butter as an entrée, usually at the second morning meal.

COVENT GARDEN MARKET SCENES.

That the English do not live on butcher's meats and marine food alone, is made manifest by a matutinal visit to Covent Garden.

"In Covent Garden a filthy noisy market was held close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit women screamed, carters fought, cabbage stalks and rotten apples accumulated in heaps at the thresholds of the Countess of Berkshire and of the Bishop of Dunham"—such is Macaulay's picture of this market at the close of the seventeenth century. It is still given up entirely to vegetables, fruits, and flowers, but is now clean, orderly, and not especially noisy, as markets go—not so noisy, perhaps, as some of the operas performed in the neighboring Covent Garden Theater, the resort of fashionable society.

In September we found the flower pavilions the most interesting part of the market. Chrysanthemums with rich, deep-colored blossoms were the reigning favorites. Conspicuous among their rivals were the dahlias, gaudy and varicolored, some of them solid as cabbage heads, others strangely-quilled. Bright autumn leaves, recalling New England, attracted our attention. In one spot golden chrysanthemums and melons of exactly the same shade made a beautiful picture.

On the whole the vegetable quarters are not specially interesting, particularly when one has seen the Halles Centrales of Paris. Flowers do not, as in Paris, crowd in among them, nor are the streets picturesque and slippery with many shades of green refuse. The carts are not emptied as they are in Paris, but form each its own stall. All the vegetable pictures are "skied," and are far less attractive than when they lie, in orderly confusion, all over the market streets. Celery, the first we had seen, was enormous, but deep green, instead of white, like ours. Many of the provisions are packed and sold hidden in large round baskets. A perfect tower of Babel, ten baskets in all, is one man's load, carried on his head, but they are evidently empty, as two seem to be as heavy a weight as a man cares to balance when they are full.

George Meredith is quoted as having said to a friend that he would be a vegetarian if he could get his vegetables decently cooked.

There are a few vegetarian restaurants in London, and probably there would be many more if the English knew, as several Continental nations know, the art of cooking greens and roots in a savory manner. Sir Henry Thompson grew enthusiastic over the "delicious characteristic flavor" of English garden peas, picked young and cooked à l'Anglaise, which is a better way than any French fashion of cooking them. Vegetable marrow tastes better in England than anywhere else, and the mushrooms are good. But on the whole England has a great deal to learn from France regarding variety and the best ways of growing and cooking vegetables.

Salad plants, in particular, are not appreciated as they should be. Read this wail, for an illustration, from a Covent Garden market report in the London "Telegraph": "Nothing short of a prolonged heat wave induces people to eat liberally of this health-giving vegetable. It was pitiful, yesterday, to see stacks of first-rate lettuce utterly neglected. The very best samples, carefully selected and packed in boxes, realized no more than 6d. per score—a score, by the way, being twenty-two heads. Any amount remained unsold."

Tomatoes are getting to be almost as popular as in America. In England, as elsewhere, there are those who maintain that "no salad is perfect without the inclusion of a little tomato"; and of course the delicious "love-apples," as they used to be called, are eaten in many other ways, raw or cooked, grilled tomatoes being an English specialty.

That England is a great fruit country no American can admit, however much he may enjoy the luscious hot-house and wall-grown peaches, nectarines, melons, pears, and grapes. Fruit needs, above all things, sunshine, and of sunshine we have a great deal more at home, especially in California. At Covent Garden and in the fruit shops of the metropolis there are indeed some tempting displays, but the prices are apt to stagger the visitor from across the Atlantic, who seldom pays more than a nickel for a peach or two—say two shillings a dozen at most—whereas in England peaches grown in orchards sell at retail for six to ten shillings a dozen, while those grown in hot-houses bring from fifteen shillings ($3.65) to a guinea ($5.11) per dozen. If you told the average Londoner that in New York one can often buy five or six good cantaloupes for a shilling, he would not believe you without an affidavit signed by the Consul General.

It may be said that owing to their cooler climate the inhabitants of the British Isles do not need fruit as much as we do, and that is true. Yet in all climates, seasons, and conditions of the weather fruit is healthful, and its Flavor is a great appetizer and aid to digestion. It is therefore encouraging to notice that strenuous efforts are being made not only to remove the old reproach that English grapes and other hot-house products have more beauty than Flavor, but also to raise and import orchard fruits in such abundance as to bring them within the reach of the purchaser of moderate means.

The growth of the banana trade strikingly illustrates this point. In the first years of this century this sweet and nutritious fruit was seldom seen in English markets. To-day there is a whole fleet of steamers occupied exclusively in bringing bananas from the West Indies and elsewhere to British ports. The change was greatly accelerated by the shrewdness of the importers, who freely advertised the merits of their goods in the newspapers, citing sample recipes for cooking them from a little book which is offered free.

This method of educating the public to try new foods and dainties doubtless has a great future. The Germans have a saying: Was der Esel nicht kennt das frisst er nicht, which politely translated means "the public must be taught to eat things it does not know."

A decade ago one seldom saw any grapefruit in England. It was Mrs. John Lane who taught Londoners the art of enjoying this most wholesome and palatable fruit—the queen of the citrus tribe. Its juice is the most marvelous combination of sour, bitter, and sweet in existence, and its charm grows on you from day to day. Mrs. Lane induced her greengrocer to keep some in stock, but ere long he confided to her that they were "bloomin' sour" and mostly a dead loss, for customers never bought them more than once. "They're forever asking me how to eat 'em," he said, "and how should I know!"—here he wiped his hands hesitatingly on his apron—"but if I could tell 'em how, why the trade would be grateful; anyhow, I'd be."

So Mrs. Lane wrote a little pamphlet in which she explained the secret of serving grapefruit sweetened in such ways that all may enjoy it. It is entitled "The Forbidden-Fruit or Shaddock; or Grapefruit, How to Serve and How to Eat It." (John Lane, Vigo Street, London.)

Doubtless this pamphlet had much to do with increasing the number of grapefruit eaters in Britain, now said to be very large. It is well to know that there are many varieties, and that some are far inferior to others; so if you eat one and it does not please you, don't be rash and say you do not like grapefruit. Try the other kinds. The best are neither too sour nor too bitter, and they have a "wild" fragrance as exquisite in its way as the marine tang of live oysters. When you get one of these you need none of the sugar, or the liqueur, or maraschino cherries nearly always served with grapefruit. Just peel off the yellow skin, cut the fruit lengthwise, separate the sections with your fingers, remove the membranes, and you have a pile of pulp resembling so many crab tails, which dissolve in the mouth and flood the palate with ambrosial Flavor.

Oranges are good, but grapefruit is as superior to them as sour cherries are to sweet.

One of England's chief claims to gastronomic distinction is that her orchards include plenty of sour-cherry trees. A common French name for tart cherries is cerises anglaises, which seems to indicate that they are an importation from England.

Epicures, from the ancient Lucullus, who introduced the sour cherry into Europe, to Paderewski, who eats no others, agree that, thoroughly ripened, it is far superior in Flavor to the sweet cherry, besides being more delicate, melting, digestible and wholesome. On a warm day nothing—not even a glass of lemonade or limeade—is so agreeably refreshing as a handful of Early Richmonds, Morellos, Montmorencys, or Baldwins.

A British expert claims that "despite the sunshine and climate of France, the quality and flavor of cherries grown in England are much superior to those of the foreign fruit."

Of no product of his island is the Englishman more boastful than of his strawberries. Big they certainly are, and beautiful; also fragrant after a few days of sunshine. Freshness, which is of such great importance in the case of these berries, is secured by growing them in enormous quantities within a twenty-mile radius of London. They are picked early—often by the light of lanterns—brought to the city, and delivered to families for breakfast a few hours later. Usually they are carefully graded, and you get what you order and pay for, be it "specials," "firsts," or "seconds."

After all, the big strawberries, however luscious, are seldom so fragrant as the little French fraises des bois, or strawberry of the woods. These are imported to some extent; yet a writer in the London "Telegraph" remarks that "if home-growers were to market tiny specimens with ambrosial flavor there would be no sale for the fruit, nor would the wild strawberry of our hedgerows be appreciated by the pampered gourmets of London." If this is true, something must be wrong with these same pampered gourmets. Perhaps the wild berries are less fragrant than in France. In Oregon, as you drive along wood roads and fields, the air is heavy with the fragrance of wild strawberries. But the richest perfume of the kind I ever inhaled was, strange to say, in the far north—the Norwegian city of Molde, where two bowls of strawberries on the table made the hotel dining-room smell like an Oriental rose garden. It was in Norway, too, that I ate the best sour cherries I ever tasted.

The fame of the British gooseberry has crossed the Atlantic, the jam made from it being purchasable in all the larger grocery stores throughout the United States and Canada. The gooseberry is indigenous to Great Britain, where it flourishes particularly well because it does not need or desire much sunshine. This is doubtless the reason why the British berry is superior to the American. I have read in a London journal that "American visitors are highly appreciative of the flavor of English gooseberries, as those of their own country are not nearly so good. In hotels largely frequented by Transatlantic guests there is quite a brisk demand for the fruit, especially the large yellow 'sulphur' berry and the 'white lion.' As judges of fruit Americans are proverbially keen, and their selections are usually worth following."

MARMALADES, JAMS, AND BREAKFASTS.

In the matter of bottled condiments, sauces, walnut, mushroom, tomato and other catsups, diverse pickles, and biscuits in endless variety (of which, as of the bottled things, millions of dollars' worth are exported annually), Great Britain is also preëminent; and what is particularly commendable is that British products for export are usually made as conscientiously as those for home consumption. You can buy them in a Japanese village, and be as sure of their excellence as if you got them in London.

Gladstone was a great believer in jam. He constantly urged his countrymen to eat more of it and induced a number of them to go into the manufacturing business. Some of these lost money because the thing was overdone for a time.

While good jams and jellies are made in many countries, in the matter of marmalade, Scotland has a virtual monopoly so far as superexcellence is concerned.

Open an American cook book and you will find that the directions for making orange marmalade begin with the words, "Take one dozen oranges and four lemons," and end with the information that when bitter marmalade is desired the bitter can be obtained by soaking the orange seeds overnight and adding the water drained from them to the other ingredients.

A marmalade thus obtained is better than no marmalade at all, but it is far inferior to the British product, which is made of special varieties of oranges.

Inquiries having come from firms in the United States, the authorities in Washington asked Commercial Agent, John M. Carson, to find out the secret of the superior Flavor of Scotch marmalade.

The information he obtained is so instructive that I must quote it, in part, from the "Daily Consular and Trade Reports" of February 17, 1911:

British marmalade is produced from sour oranges and sugar. The best-known firms use almost exclusively the Seville (Spain) bitter orange, which has comparatively little pulp and consists mainly of rind, the substance most desirable for the making of good marmalade. Messina and Palermo "bitter" oranges, although not considered as good as those of Seville, are also used, but command a much lower price. With the exception of a very few firms who buy and "pulp" oranges at Seville and ship the pulp to England for preparation and canning by English factories, marmalade manufacturers buy the raw material in open market. London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Hull are the principal orange markets. The grower ships his product to his agents or to orange brokers or auctioneers, and it is then put up for sale to the highest bidder on a given date, in lots of scores, hundreds, or thousands of boxes, very much like wheat and other produce are sold in their respective exchanges, with the exception that in the case of oranges there are no "future sales," nor are "reserve" prices made.

Oranges being perishable, and their attractiveness and freshness continuing for so short a time, the brokers accept the highest bids made on the day of sale and never reserve the fruit for future offerings. The sales are held regularly on what are known as "market days." The character, quantities, qualities, and nativity of the fruit are made known to the trade by catalogue several days in advance, consequently the auctions are always well attended and the bidding spirited. The London Fruit Exchange is located in the eastern section of the city in a large structure known as the "Monument Building." More than $12,000,000 per annum is the amount required to pay for the oranges sold in the English market, the great bulk of the sales being by public auction. Apples are sold in like manner, the aggregate annual sales averaging in value $10,000,000. The great Covent Garden market, in the heart of London, buys its supplies of fruits at the regular auction sales held at the London Exchange, and in turn the retail dealers are supplied from Covent Garden....

The law requires that marmalade shall be composed of orange and sugar exclusively, and if any other substance is employed, no matter for what purpose, the manufacturer is liable to a heavy fine. It is generally conceded that the law is observed by English manufacturers. Fruit preservers as a rule use refined cane sugar, which they buy in the open market.

Orange marmalade has made Scotland famous throughout the gastronomic world, which seems odd in view of the fact that the country is too far north to raise oranges.

We shall see in the last chapter that the appreciation of bitter marks a higher stage of gastronomic culture than the liking for sweets or even for sour. The best orange marmalade is always bitter, and to this it owes not only much of its agreeable taste but its value as a tonic, the rind of the bitter orange being a valuable stomachic. It is therefore not strange that although there are many makers of this delicacy, the home demand often exceeds the supply, and that the new crop always is eagerly looked forward to. It has been claimed, with some show of reason, that British sturdiness is largely a result of the national custom of having bitter marmalade regularly served with breakfast.

Breakfast! That word suggests another great service Britannia has done the gastronomic world. Nothing could be more irrational for normal persons than the continental habit of eating only bread and butter for breakfast and then having a second, heavier breakfast—déjeuner à la fourchette—at eleven or twelve o'clock to interrupt the morning's work in its full tide. Far better, both economically and hygienically, is the English way—which fortunately we have adopted—of having a substantial breakfast, and then nothing more till lunch time, the best hour for which is one o'clock, as most of us know instinctively.

A healthy person ought to have a good appetite in the morning, after a night's rest, and gratify it. Lunch should be light, and dinner, more substantial than breakfast, should begin not later than seven for persons who retire at an hour conducive to longevity—that is, an early hour.

RESTAURANTS, CAKES, AND PLUM PUDDING.

As a rule, British inns and restaurants serve food as badly cooked as it is in American "hash houses," if not more so. I have had experiences with meat pies and sausages, with several kinds of pastry and with tasteless vegetables that quite recalled the Arizona days before Fred Harvey came from England—as related in the first chapter of this book—to civilize our Southwest.

Adulteration of foods is largely practised, and many of them are denatured by the use of chemical preservatives, although in these respects there has been considerable improvement since the "Lancet" exposed "the appalling state of the food supply" and fearlessly gave the names and addresses of hundreds of manufacturers and tradesmen who sold adulterated articles.

It was hoped that with the introduction of motoring there would come a revival of the good old coaching inns; but nothing of the sort has happened. According to the gastronomic editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette" what the touring motorist gets is "probably an American preserved soup which tastes like boiled blankets, a few sardines, stale and too long opened, a joint which has either been overcooked or under-done, a sodden pancake with no suggestion of the real thing, and a piece of cheese which is obviously non-British. And for this he is charged at least five shillings.... On the Continent one can get an excellently cooked and served meal for half the price."

While the English are thus their own severest critics, they do not hesitate, when brought to bay, to present the other side of the shield. In commenting on the Exhibition of the Cookery and Food Association in 1912, the London "Telegraph" called attention to the fact that "typical dishes are served to perfection every day on innumerable English tables"; and the writer just quoted, referring to the fact that France, Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Switzerland had sent over experts to show how things are done in their countries, goes on to say that "it might humbly be suggested that our own cooks might show the foreigners something. Few cooks, other than English, can cook whitebait satisfactorily; the same applies to Irish stew, steak, and kidney pudding with larks and oysters, to liver and bacon, to tripe and onions (no, not tripe à la mode de Caen), to a really good devil, and above all, to curry, wet or dry.... It is really about time that the British cook asserted himself."

A German lexicographer calls attention to the fact that the United Kingdom has contributed at least half a dozen words to the international dining-room language: Beefsteak, roast beef, Irish stew, mock-turtle soup, pudding, and toast. He might have added marmalade and cakes. A firm in Germany once offered a thousand marks for a good Teutonic equivalent for "cakes"; with what success I do not know.

It is not strange that Continental manufacturers are so much interested in these British cakes and biscuits. They are favorites the world over because of their crispness and good Flavor, and the exports of them amount to about £1,400,000 a year.

Seven million dollars! Is there a better guide to wealth than gastronomy, the art of preparing and serving appetizing food?

Plum pudding is another profitable product of British manufacturing skill.

Though it has been traced to a Teutonic origin (Pflaumen-grütze) it is now characteristically Anglican, and the plum (Pflaume) has disappeared. In that monumental compendium of English philological erudition, Murray's "New English Dictionary," we read as one of the definitions of Plum: "a dried grape or raisin as used for puddings, cakes, etc.," and the editor adds: "This use probably arose from the substitution of raisins for dried plums or prunes as an ingredient in plum-broth,—porridge, etc., with retention of the name plum for the substituted article."

Considering the national liking for this pudding it is not surprising that the word plum for this favorite was retained, for "plum" also stands for tit-bit, or a good thing in general. As long ago as 1660 devotion to this dish was amusingly illustrated by these words in a mock sermon: "But there is your Christmas pye and that hath plums in abundance.... He that discovered the new Star in Cassiopeia ... deserves not half so much to be remembered, as he that first married minced meat and raisins together."

Until a few years ago the English housewife always boiled her own plum pudding. To-day she can buy it if she desires. It is made by machinery; hundreds of thousands of pounds are shipped to other countries annually; and it is claimed that this kind is as a rule superior in Flavor and digestibility to the home-made. It was during the Boer war that the export business received its first great impulse, thousands of pounds being sent to the soldiers in Africa to give them a taste of the Christmas dinner at home; and now the pudding is made in such large quantities that the United States Government has begun to take cognizance of it in official reports. In the "Consular and Trade Reports" (1911) Commercial Agent, John M. Carson, had a two-page communication from which I cite the following:

The extent and magnitude of the trade may be inferred from figures furnished by one of the several large manufacturers. In order to be prepared to meet the demand for their product, manufacturers begin active operations as soon as the new crops of raisins, currants, and other required fruits appear in September. All the constituents of plum pudding, which do not include plums, are prepared and manipulated by elaborate and expensive machinery. Currants are washed and stems removed, raisins are stoned, nuts are shelled and ground, oranges and lemons are peeled, the peel candied and cut up, eggs are beaten, and all other ingredients prepared by machinery. The manufacturing firm alluded to, in order to supply their trade this season, used the materials and quantities given below.

Exclusive of milk and rum, the ingredients above enumerated aggregate 620,140 pounds used by a single manufacturer in supplying plum pudding to meet the demands of the Christmas season of 1910, the number of puddings furnished aggregating 250,000. There are three or four other London manufacturers each of whose output perhaps equaled that described, and there are a large number of smaller establishments in which plum pudding was supplied for home and foreign consumption.

The pudding is put up in packages weighing one to five pounds each and securely packed to insure preservation and safe transportation. Properly prepared and packed the plum pudding of England, with ordinary care on the part of the housewife, will retain its virtues for a year or more.

Plum pudding has the evil repute of being indigestible. An English friend informs me that while it certainly is so if boiled only three hours, as is usually done, it becomes as digestible as good bread if boiled seven hours. It is then compact and yet brittle.

Plum pudding has the evil repute of being indigestible. An English friend informs me that while it certainly is so if boiled only three hours, as is usually done, it becomes as digestible as good bread if boiled seven hours. It is then compact and yet brittle.

Plum pudding has the evil repute of being indigestible. An English friend informs me that while it certainly is so if boiled only three hours, as is usually done, it becomes as digestible as good bread if boiled seven hours. It is then compact and yet brittle.

Plum pudding has the evil repute of being indigestible. An English friend informs me that while it certainly is so if boiled only three hours, as is usually done, it becomes as digestible as good bread if boiled seven hours. It is then compact and yet brittle.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

Still another profitable branch of the art of preparing appetizing food is that of the cheesemaker. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the English makers of Cheddar cheese have been flattered as few mortals have; for in the United States, as well as in Canada and Australia, most of the cheese made is of the Cheddar type. There would thus be no cause for exporting Cheddar, even if England had any to spare; nor is much of the Cheshire sent abroad, its fragile nature making it unsuitable for exportation, which is to be regretted, because in the opinion of Dr. Voelker, shared by many epicures, Cheshire is the finest flavored of British cheeses. It is made from milk which is perfectly sweet, and to this its special aroma has been attributed. For the third of the three best-known varieties of British cheeses—Stilton—there is a considerable demand for the tables of foreign epicures, as it exports well.

Stilton is a blue-molded cheese, which is manufactured of unskimmed milk in a way similar to the methods of making the French Roquefort and the Italian Gorgonzola. Like those, it owes its piquant Flavor to the mold, which is artificially spread throughout the cheese in diverse ways

Every American tourist who visits London goes to take a meal at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, made famous by Dr. Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith, and for three centuries the haunt of literary men, including Dickens and Thackeray. Toasted cheese—cheese bubbling in tiny tins and tasting like Welsh rarebit—was the original specialty of this place and is still served unless you prefer a wedge of uncooked Cheshire. But what ultimately made this place renowned throughout the world was its lark pudding.

Fortunately it is lark no more but pigeon pudding; at least, so it was frankly called when I ate it in September, 1912. What else it is compounded of no one knows but the proprietor and the cook, who guard the secret carefully. Kidney and steak and oysters are hinted at, and diverse strong spices are certainly in it.

HAUNCH OF VENISON, 3/6. This day at 6 o'clock.

Friday, 13th September, 1912.

THE CHEDDAR AND CHESHIRE CHEESES SERVED HERE OBTAINED FIRST PRIZE AT THE DAIRY SHOW 1911.

We entered the kitchen, but did not see the immense bowl that holds enough for sixty or seventy people, according to the booklet of ninety-two pages which tells the story of this eating place. Nor did we test the assertion that you can have two, three, or four helpings of the "pie" if you chose.

To tell the plain truth, one was quite enough and more. Never in all my wanderings—not even in Spanish countries where cayenne pepper is the staff of life—had I put into my mouth a mess so peppered and otherwise overseasoned as this same fiery pigeon pie. And the taste lingered for hours, giving me time to call back to memory all that I had read about the condimental atrocities of the Middle Ages, when the porpoise, the whale, the seawolf made favorite dishes; when potatoes were seasoned with nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, lemon, sugar, and rosewater; and meats were maltreated even more barbarously.

Quite as English as the Cheshire Cheese, and more up to date, is another London restaurant which all Americans visit—Simpson's, where joints are wheeled to you on little tables and you choose the particular cut you want. A glance at the bill of fare herewith reproduced will interest those who have never had a chance to compare English with American menus.

Colonel Newnham-Davis accomplished the task of writing a book of three hundred and seventy-six pages on the restaurants of London entitled "Dinners and Diners." It is not so interesting or so useful a book as his "Gourmet's Guide to Europe," yet it succeeds in a gossipy way in giving the atmosphere of these places. The best of them are in most respects frankly Parisian in cuisine and menu. The epicurean Colonel found four dozen among them with sufficient individuality to claim separate chapters. Since the second edition of this book appeared (1910), some of the old houses have disappeared and many new ones of the highest class have been opened. At all of them you can get, besides French dishes, such British specialties as turtle, ox-tail, and mulligatawny soups, venison, rabbit, or veal and ham pies, and, with your fish and meats—hot or cold—all the fiery gherkins, chow-chow, and diverse pungent sauces and catsups you may desire.

While these sharp condiments are for the most part special products of British ingenuity which cannot be duplicated elsewhere, it is likely that they will be less in demand in the future than they are now. They were invented to go with cold meats chiefly, and to give zest and varied Flavor to the monotonously recurring joints. But this monotony is disappearing; the number of national dishes is multiplying rapidly; and, altogether, "there is now," as a London journal has remarked, "a cult of cookery in England such as has never been before."

About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain.

Finck, Henry Theophilus. 2021. Food and Flavor: A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living). Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61719/61719-h/61719-h.htm#X

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.