CHAPTER III

THE POET IN THE KITCHEN

The quotation with which I have headed this chapter, though appropriate enough in a sense, disproves itself in the assertion. We have “Eating Songs” in plenty, both in our own language and in foreign tongues, but they have been neglected and spurned, and for that reason they well repay a little enterprising research. Here and there, throughout our literature, are gems of gastronomical versification, and it is, in fact, impossible to do more than indicate a tithe of the treasures that may be unearthed with a very little trouble and patience.

Among the anthologies of the future, the near future maybe, is undoubtedly the Anthology of the Kitchen. It is ready written, and only remains to be gathered. There is barely a poet of note who could not be laid under contribution. Shakespeare, Byron, Béranger, Browning, Burns, Coleridge, Crabbe, Dryden, Goethe, Heine, Landor, Prior, Moore, Rogers, and Villon are the first chance names to occur, but there are many more who might be cited with equal justice.

Thackeray wrote verses on Bouillabaisse; which it would be absurd to quote, so well are they known. Méry, Alexandre Dumas, Th. de Banville, Th. Gautier, and Aurélien Scholl collaborated, under the editorship of Charles Monselet (himself a gastronomic poet of no mean order), in a little book published in 1859 under the title “La Cuisinière Poétique.” Five years later there appeared in Philadelphia “A Poetical Cook Book,” by J. M. M., with charming rhymed recipes for such things as stewed duck and peas:—

The poetical author dilates too upon buckwheat cakes and oatmeal pudding, and quotes Dodsley on butter and Barlow on hasty pudding. Sydney Smith’s recipe for a salad is only too well known, and it may be hoped that it is not often tried, because from a gastronomic point of view it is a dire decoction. Arthur Hugh Clough in “Le Diner” (Dipsychus) has this entirely charming verse:—

Nearly two hundred years ago (in 1708, to be precise) Dr. William King wrote “The Art of Cookery,” in imitation of Horace’s “Art of Poetry”; in the original edition it was advertised as being by the author of “A Tale of a Tub,” but although King was a friend of Swift, there seems to have been no authority to make use of his name. In the second edition, in the following year, some letters to Dr. Lister are added, and the title page ascribes the poem to “the Author of the Journey to London,” who dedicates it—or, rather, “humbly inscribes” it—to “The Honourable Beefsteak Club.” This edition has an exquisitely engraved frontispiece by M. Van der Gucht.

In the fifth volume of Grimod de la Reynière’s entrancing “Almanach des Gourmands” (1807) there is a poetical epistle d’un vrai Gourmand à son ami, l’Abbé d’Herville, homme extrêmement sobre, et qui ne cessoit de lui prêcher l’abstinence. These are a few of his lines:—

Subsequent volumes contain many poetical references. There is even a hymn to Epicurianism, a fable gourmande et plus morale encore, entitled “Les Œufs; a logogriphe; several chansons; and a boutade.” Mortimer Collins, in “The British Birds,” has an exquisitely humorous tourney of three poets who respectively sing the praises of salad; and the late Dr. Kenealy wrote a book (in 1845) called “Brallaghan, or the Deipnosophists,” in which he tunes his lyre in praise of good food—and Irish whisky. Although Sydney Smith’s salad mixture is useless, his verses entitled “A Receipt to Roast Mutton” are excellent, particularly this verse:—

An anonymous author has given us the immortal lines:—

That they are absolutely true every Feinschmecker, as the Germans say, is bound to admit. The famous Cheshire Cheese pudding has not been without its laureate, one J. H. Wadsworth, who opens his pæan thus:—

The leg of mutton has not lacked its devotees from Thackeray’s—

to Berchoux’ praise of the gigot—

Sir John Suckling contributes to the poetic garland in his lines:—

And an anonymous Scotch poet indites the following ode to luncheons:—

A well-known French critic, Achille (not Octave) Uzanne, has compiled a little collection of menus and receipts in verses, with a notable preface by Chatillon-Plessis, which includes poems on such thrilling subjects as jugged hare, lobster in the American fashion, Charlotte of apples, truffles in champagne, epigrams of lamb, mousse of strawberries, and green peas. A more recent American poetaster has published during the last few years “Poems of Good Cheer,” which are in the manner of fables, such as that of the man who “Wanted Pearls with his Oysters,” and the busy broker “Who had no time to eat,” and consequently acquired dyspepsia.

Lord Byron too may be allowed to have his say:—

One of the most ambitious efforts in the culinary-poetic line is, undoubtedly, “La Gastronome, ou l’homme des Champs à Table; poème didactique en quatre chants, par J. Berchoux, 1804,” wherein is set forth, at some length—firstly, the history of cooking; then the order of the services; and lastly, some fugitive pieces which allude to the gay science in choice and poetic terms. The book is enriched with some exquisite copper-plate engravings by Gravelot, Cochin, and Monsiau. The lines addressed by the author to his contemporaries warning them against the “repas monstreux des Grecs et des Romains” are full of repressed dignity and good sound common sense. One puts down the book with a sense of poetical-gastronomical repletion.

The poetic afflatus has possessed most great cooks, but none with more practical application than the immortal Alexis Soyer, the hero of the Crimea and the Reform Club, who, on the death of his wife, a clever amateur artist, wrote this simple and witty epitaph, “Soyez tranquille.” Gay’s poem on a knuckle of veal is also worthy of record, and an anonymous American poet has immortalized the duck in four pregnant verses.

A very modern poet who writes over the initials of M. T. P. has four charming verses on the propriety of ladies wearing their hats whilst dining. The second and third stanzas read as follows:—

Some folks who are not yet very old may remember a quaint part-song or quartette for male voices, entitled “Life is but a Melancholy Flower,” which was sung alternately somewhat in this fashion:—

It had much deserved success in its day.

An old recipe for the roasting of a swan is very fairly summed up in these lines:—

TO ROAST A SWAN

• Take three pounds of beef, beat fine in a mortar,
• Put it into the swan—that is, when you’ve caught her.
• Some pepper, salt, mace, some nutmeg, an onion,
• Will heighten the flavour in Gourmand’s opinion.
• Then tie it up tight with a small piece of tape,
• That the gravy and other things may not escape.
• A meal paste (rather stiff) should be laid on the breast,
• And some “whitey brown” paper should cover the rest.
• Fifteen minutes at least ere the swan you take down,
• Pull the paste off the bird that the breast may get brown.

THE GRAVY

• To the gravy of beef (good and strong) I opine
• You’ll be right if you add half a pint of port wine;
• Pour this through the swan—yes, quite through the belly,
• Then serve the whole up with some hot currant jelly.
• N.B.—The swan must not be skinned.

This poem has been attributed to Mr. George Keech, chef of the Gloucester Hotel at Weymouth—of course a famous breeding place for swans.

The following recipe for making a “soft” cheese is said to be by Dr. Jenner:—

• Would you make a soft cheese? Then I’ll tell you how.
• Take a gallon of milk quite fresh from the cow;
• Ere the rennet is added, the dairyman’s daughter
• Must throw in a quart of the clearest spring water.
• When perfectly curdled, so white and so nice,
• You must take it all out of the dish with a slice,
• And put it ’thout breaking with care in the vat,
• With a cheese-cloth at bottom—be sure to mind that.
• This delicate matter take care not to squeeze,
• But fill as the whey passes off by degrees.
• Next day you may turn it, and do not be loth
• To wipe it quite dry with a clean linen cloth.
• This must be done you cannot well doubt,
• As long as you see the whey oozing out.
• The cheese is now finished, and nice it will be,
• If enveloped in leaves of the green ashen tree.
• Or what will do better, at least full as well,
• In nettles just plucked from the bank of the dell.

In praise of the best food in the world—plain British roast and boiled—Mr. G. R. Sims has dilated in his weekly columns; a verse from his perfectly correct and strict “Ballade of New-Time Simpson’s” is well worth quoting:—

The “Envoi,” which commences most cleverly according to traditional rule, runs as follows:—

To come back to recipes, here is one for the famous Homard à l’Amèricaine written by the chef of the Grand International Hotel at Chicago, who is quite annoyed with M. Rostand for his obvious plagiarism in “Cyrano de Bergerac.”

COMMENT ON FAIT LE HOMARD À L’AMÉRICAINE

Many curious old poems may be found by careful delving in the books our great-grandfathers used to read, and which we ought to read, but don’t. For instance, the Roxborough Ballads contain a delightful poem briefly entitled “The Cook-Maid’s Garland: or the out-of-the-way Devil: shewing how four highwaymen were bit by an ingenious cook-maid” (1720). There is a still older ballad in the same collection called “The Coy Cook-Maid, who was courted simultaneously by Irish, Welch, Spanish, French and Dutch, but at last was conquered by a poor English Taylor”; this is in blackletter, and is dated 1685.

A French lady with a happy knack of verse has written the following rhymed recipe for

SAUCE MAYONNAISE

Under the title of “Women I have never married,” O. S. of “Punch” writes delightfully on the lady who knew too much about eating. This is one of his verses:—

The following couplets are by—I think—an American author.

The Old Beef Steak Society, otherwise known as the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, and of which the full history has too often appeared in print, entertained the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV, on his election as a member; the following is a verse of a song written in honour of the occasion by the poet-laureate to the Society, Captain Charles Morris of “Pall Mall” fame:—

I venture to think that this little excerpt from Lafcadio Hearn’s “Kokoro” is worthy of record here as a piece of real poetry in prose. It is from a story called “The Nun of the Temple of Amida.” “Once daily, at a fixed hour, she would set for the absent husband, in his favourite room, little repasts faultlessly served on dainty lacquered trays—miniature meals such as are offered to the ghosts of the ancestors and to the gods. (Such a repast offered to the spirit of the absent one loved is called a kagé-sen, lit. ‘shadow-tray.’) These repasts were served at the east side of the room, and his kneeling-cushion placed before them. The reason they were served at the east side was because he had gone east. Before removing the food, she always lifted the cover of the little soup-bowl to see if there was vapour upon its lacquered inside surface. For it is said that if there be vapour on the inside of the lid covering food so offered, the absent beloved is well. But if there be none, he is dead, because that is a sign that his soul has returned by itself to seek nourishment. O-Toyo found the lacquer thickly beaded with vapour day by day.”

It would be unfair to omit mention of Molière, who so often and wisely devotes attention to the culinary craft, for which, indeed, he had a high appreciation. Did he not read his plays to his cook? A typical passage is that from his “Femmes Savantes,” when Chrysale expatiates to Philaminte and Bélise.

Very few people, I am afraid, read the entirely delightful verse of Mortimer Collins, poet, journalist, novelist, epicure (in the best sense), and country-lover—all in one. He was among the nowadays less-known masters of gastronomics, a man who, although no cook himself, knew by intuition and experience just what was right, and if it were wrong, just why it was wrong. His novels and poems, although very unequal, do not deserve to be forgotten, for they contain many fine, thoughtful, and beautiful passages. His burlesque of Aristophanes, “The British Birds,” is, in its way, a masterpiece. He wrote much and well on cookery and dining, both in prose and verse. Here follows one of his sonnets from a sequence addressed to the months—from a gastronomic point of view.

JUNE

The “Minora Carmina” of the late C. C. R., whose verse has much of the charm of J. K. S. and C. S. Calverley, contains a few verses anent the pleasure of dining out, which are headed

NUNC EST COENANDUM

It would be easy to extend this list indefinitely, but enough is as good as a feast.