FEINBERG/WHITMAN LITERARY FILE Prose "French Cookery" (updated). A.MS.draft. Box 36 Folder 16 French Cookery: essay. A.MS. (AP. 31 1/2 x 21cm.) Written in ink on one side of the white unlined paper, with very few corrections or changes, about 650 words, and containing a new-paper clipping of about 975: In our preceding article,(to which this is a conclusion,) endeavored to give a fair statement of the theory of-the-French-cuisine-that-and that underlies the doings of that much praised class restaurants and hotels of Europe and America.--French cookery, under his direction, presents itself in hundreds of pretty of tempting forms;-- the dishes are more digestible but very artificially complicated; they do not harass the stomach and passages, but they really afford to the blood little nourishment; they satiate the appetite, but they remove it from the standard of its natural tastes.--As part of the artificially, which seems fast becoming the ensemble of modern social life, it fits they fit in with the rest--with dress, manners, amusements, amours, and good - natured shams in general; and [page torn away]the french cook is 129A but a ne (page torn) results of the artificiality in the (page torn) partments we have mentioned (page torn) / under conditions favorable to healthy digestion and nutrition, or the reverse. -- Quite a general opinion prevails in America and English cities that there is no cookery equal to the French.--The writer has his own [opinions] views upon this point, and would like to present, (as confirming them, ) the following extract from a letter from Paris, in the Brooklyn Times, (Williamsburgh, ) by one who is evidently studying the French, not on the surface merely, but in the recesses of their interior and social life.--After praising the systematic arrangement of a representative Paris kitchen, he says: (in margin: 'small type & solid') Yet I am not at all an enthusiastic admirer of Paris cookery. It must be confessed, however, that my tastes are very simple, and, as Alexander Dumas, the famous author, epicure and cook, would add, if he but heard me--savage. I object to one, at least, of the cardinal principles. They dislike simple, i.e. uncompounded flavors in their food. Thus, in part, they are given so exceedingly to made dishes; and then in their compounds no one taste must strongly prevail. And this principle is practically carried out so per- French Cookery: 2 fectly, that it is frequently impossible for an unitiated Jonathan or John Bull to give the faintest guess at what he is eating. Now here I would date to join issue with the champion cook himself. Be a thing pleasant to my pal- ate in itself, I want to reach my palate by itself. Again: my palate varies. It tires of a particular flavor, or with a certain degree of it. Then I want to modify that flavor for the time being; but not according to any standard taste by which dishes are made the same 365 days in the year; but just to emit the peculiar, changed desire of my palate, whether the combined flavors be evenly balanced or most un- evenly. Am I singular in these tastes? What say Americans? All in favor will signify it by the usual sign! Englishmen would endorse me to a man, I know; all sensible Englishmen I mean! The people themselves here do not account their meat as sweet as the English; and to my own taste there is no comparison between any meat I have had here, and prime English roasted--not baked--beef, and Welch or South Down mutton. I am inclined to put American meat ahead of the 125A French. And yet the French is said to be great improvement upon the quality of 25 years ago. Now it coccurs to me that this inferiority of the French meat may account in considerable part for the national addictedness to mixtures, and their skill in contriving and producing them. It is a method of doctoring for its toughness and insipidity; and so far their addictedness would seem commendable. Mark, do not understand me as disapproving French cooking any further than I specify. I am not totally insensible to merits which have won for it so world-wide reputation. On the contrary I am struck with its superior, almost scientific character. It is refined to an extent, that my knowledge of American or English cookery (all the same) gave me no intimation of. For example, a piece of beef is put on the fire at 8 or 9 o'clock, and kept simmering (not boiling) till 5 or 6, for dinner; and the meat as well as the broth is much better for it. Then their vegetable soups are tremendously complicated and almost equally patience affairs. /I have procured, a list of articles entering into one of them, the "Potage Juilienne," I believe, and here is the translation of it: carrots, leeks, turnips, French Cookery: 3 parsnips, celery, thyme, sweet basil, laurel, parsley, garlic, chives, potato, onions, chibbal, pepper, salt, butter and water. To be nice, for company, the broth of beef is used instead of water and butter. The vegetables are partially boiled in plain water first, and then removed to the broth. The vegetables are cut up very fine, yet not mashed; and as fresh ones give a better flavor than those ready cut for sale, they are often cut up in the kitchen--a job of Job. Well, their soups are very palatable, as they deserve to be; but I cannot help feeling that all this learning, labor and attention--and I have mentioned nothing but what pertains to the very plainest living--is a waste of powder for the game; is too much like living to eat, instead of eating to live. It is contended that food is made more digestible and nourishing, and people are saved from dyspepsia thereby. Ha! Is pampering man's appetites the way to keep off dyspepsia? Has dyspepsia so humble a birth as to be the child of the bad cook? Well, now, I always thought it was the off-spring of luxury and leisure. Isn't it wonderful that men were able 126A to digest at all before refined cooking came into vogue; and what a world of dyspeptics! What we have now must be only the tail end of them, instead of being, as I had supposed, quite a modern species of animal! To be serious, I admit that there is such a thing as well or ill cooking of plain, healthy food, and that food well cooked has the advantage both for health and economy. I go further, and allege that still more could be gained in both these respects, by a better attention to the elementary ingredients required for the support of the human frame. And I yield to none in appreciation of the health of body and mind which all this might promote. But my objection to the refinement of French cookery is this, that much of it aims at enticing the palate, which, as a general principle, I hold to be fundamentally wrong. Multiplied variety, and indigestible, innutritious relishes are introduced, as excitants of appetite, in lieu of hunger; and excess and the vitiation of derangement of the system and incipient disease, are the legitimate consequences. And this is the very part of French superiority that we are most in danger of imitating. Rather than acquire anything new in that line, I see more clearly than French Cookery: 4 127 ever from this side of the Atlantic, that we have very much to unlearn. We tumble down hot cakes and hot bread, and butter and cheese, and meat and grease, and pickles, and preserves, and pudding, and pies, and cakes, and candies at a rate that would amaze, I believe, any other nation in the world. In this extract, though the question of comparison between plain and French cookery is not deliberately argued, and though we think the case is stated fairly as regards a description of the latter, there is an impression left unfavorable to it.--As to our own better judgment, we believe in Cookeries, (as we do of Religions,) that there is something good and meritorious in every kind--and that, of any special one, it, in particular respects, fits the particular race who follow it, better than any other could.--/ Of French cookery, therefore we are to consider it as being appropriate to the Parisians--for Paris is France.--The scale of living, taking a broad average, is probably more economical there than in any other city in the world--and more is made of a little capital, (either in meat, money or dry-goods) than in any other city.--There is so much taste--so much art, finesse. And all this is carried out in Cookery.-- For the French are note, a hearty in the physiological sense of the tern, a hearty people. --They can live on a little, and enjoy the fixing and fussing over that little fully as much as the substance of it. --We do not mention this in a sarcastic sense--for we believe it is one of the glories of France that the people are so great in little things--so full of little graces and capabilities.--Nor are those really little things, rightly viewed--any more than delicate instruments, an anatomist's tools, watch-movements, &c., are little things.-- Still the it remains to be thought of whether the finesse of French cookery is worthy of being recommended in America. We shall deal of that in a second and concluding article.-- In our preceding article, (to which this is a conclusion,) we endeavored to give a fair statement of the theory [of the French cuisine that and] that underlies the doings of that much praised "artist," the French cuisinier-the great man of the modern first-class restaurants and hotels of Europe and America.-French cookery, under his direction, presents itself in hundreds of pretty and tempting forms;- the dishes are more digestible, but very [artificial] complicated; they do not harass the stomach and passages, but they really afford to the blood little nourishment; they satiate the appetite, but they remove it from the standard of its natural tastes.- As a part of the artificiality, which seems fast becoming the ensemble of modern social life, [it fits] they fit in with the rest-with dress, manners, amusements, amours, and good natured shams in general; and [?] the French cook is but a [very?] [?] result of the artificiality in the [partments?] we have mentioned 2 under conditions favorable to healthy digestion and nutrition, or the reverse.- Quite a general opinion prevails in American and and English cities that there is no cookery equal to the French.-The writer has his own [opinions] views upon this point, and would like to present, (as confirming them,) the following extract from a letter from Paris, in the Brooklyn Times, (Williamsburgh,) by one who is evidently studying the French, not on the surface merely, but in the recesses of their interior and social life.- After praising the systematic arrangement of a representative Paris kitchen, he says: Yet I am not at all an enthusiastic admirer [*small type of Paris cookery. It must be confessed, however, & that my tastes are very simple, and, as solid*[ Alexander Dumas, the famous author, epicure and cook would add, if he but heard me- savage. I object to one, at least, of their cardinal principles. They dislike simple, ie uncompounded flavors in their food. Thus, in part, they are given so exceedingly to made dishes; and then in their compounds no one taste must strongly prevail. And this principle is practically carried out so perfectly, that is is frequently impossible for an uninitiated Jonathan or John Bull to to give the faintest guess at what he is eating. Now here I would dare to join issue with the champion cook himself Be a thing pleasant to my palate in itself, I want it to reach my palate by itself. Again: my palate varies. It tires of a particular flavor, or with a certain degree of it. Then I want to modify that flavor for the time being; but not according to any standard taste by which dishes are made the same 365 days in the year; but just to suit the peculiar, changed desire of my palate, whether the combined flavors be evenly balanced or most unevenly. Am I singular in these tastes? What say Americans? All in favor will signify it by the usual sign! Englishmen would endorse me to a man, I know; all sensible Englishmen I mean! The people themselves here do not account their meat as sweet as the English; and to my own taste there is no comparison between any meat I have had here, and prime English roasted-not baked-beef, and Welsh or South Down mutton. I am inclined to put American meat ahead of the French. And yet the French is said to be a great improvement upon the quality of 25 years ago. Now it occurs to me that this inferiority of the French meat may account in considerable part for the national addictedness to mixtures, and their skill in contriving and producing them. It is a method of doctoring for its toughness and insipidity; and so far their addictedness would seem recommendable. Mark, do not understand me as disapproving French cooking any further than I specify. I am not totally insensitive to merits which have won for it so world-wide reputation. On the contrary I am struck with its superior, almost scientific character. It is refined to an extent that my knowledge of American or English cookery (all the same) gave me no intimation of. For example, a piece of beef is put on the fire at 8 or 9 o'clock, and kept simmering (not boiling) till 5 or 6, for dinner; and the meat as well as the broth is much better for it. Then their vegetable soups are tremendously complicated and [equally?] patience affairs. 3 (?) I have procured, a list of articles entering into one of them, the "Potage Jullienne," I believe, and here is the translation of it: carrots, leek, turnips, parsnips, celary, thyme, sweat basil, laural, parsley, garlic, chives, potato, onions, chibbal, pepper, salt, butter and water. To be nice, for company, the broth of beef is used in- stead of water and butter. The vegetables are partially boiled in plain water first, and then removed to the broth. The vegetables are cut up very fine, yet not mashed; and as fresh ones give a better flavor than those ready cut for sale, they are often cut up in the kitchen— a job for Job. Well, their soups are very palatable, as they deserve to be; but I cannot help felling that all this learning, labor and attention — and I have mentioned nothing but what pertains to the very plainest living — is a waste of powder for the game; is too much like living to eat instead of eating to live. It is contended that food is made more digestible and nourishing, and people are saved from dyspepsia thereby. Ha! Is pampering men's appetites the way to keep off dyspepsia? Has dyspepsia so humble a birth as to be the child of the bad cook? Well, now, I always thought it was the offspring of luxury and leisure. Isn't it a wonder that men were able to digest at all before refined cooking came in vogue; and what a world of dyspeptics! What we have now must be only the tall end of them, instead of being, as I had supposed, quite a modern species of animal! To be serious, I admit that there is such a thing as well or ill cooking of plain, healthy food, and that food well cooked has the advantage both for health and economy. I go further, and allege that still more could be gained in both these respects, by a better attention to the elementary ingredients required for the support of the human frame. And I yield to none in appreciation of the health of body and mind which all this might promote. But my objection to the refinement of French cookery is this, that much of it aims at enticing the palate , which, as a general principle, I hold to be fundamentally wrong. Multiplied variety, and indigestible, innutritious relishes are introduced, as excitants of appetite, in lieu of hunger; and excess and the vitiation and derangement of the system and incipient disease, are the legitimate consequences. And this is the very part of French superiority that we are most in danger of imitating. Rather than acquire anything new in that line, I see more clearly than ever from this side of the Atlantic, that we have very much to unlearn. We tumble down hot cakes and hot bread, and butter and cheese, and meat and grease, and pickles, and preserves, and pudding, and pies, and cakes, and candles, at a rate that would amaze , I believe, any other nation in the world. In this extract, though the question of comparison between plain and French cookery is not deliberately argued, and though we think the case is stated fairly as regards a description of the latter, there is an impression left unfavorable to it. -— As to [that] our own[beli] judgment, we believe of Cookeries, (as we do of Religions,) that there is something good and meritorious in every kind — and that, of any special one, it in particular respects, fits the particular race who follow it, better than any other could. 4 Of French cookery, therefore we are to consider it as being appropriate to the Parisians- for Paris in France.- The scale of living, taking a broad average, is probably more economical there than in any other city in the world- and more is made of a little capital, (either in meat, money or dry goods) than in any other city.- There is so much taste- so much art, finesse.- And all this is carried out in Cookery. For the French are not, [ a hearty] in the physiological sense of the term, a hearty people.- They can live on a little, and enjoy the fixing and fussing over that little full as much as the substance of it.- We do not mention this in a sarcastic sense- for we believe it is one of the glories of France that the people are so great in little thins- so full of little graces and capabilities.- Nor are those really little things, rightly viewed- any more than delicate instruments, an atomists' tools, watch= movement, ye, are little things.- Still [the] it remains to be thought of whether the finesse of French cookery is worthy of being recommended in the America. We shall [?] of [?] in a second and [?} article.- Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.