Choice Cuts
Page 30
—M.K.
The story requires us to relate what happened to six pilgrims coming from Saint-Sébastien, near Nantes, who, to get lodging that night, for fear of the enemy had hidden in the garden upon the pea-straw, between the cabbages and the lettuce.
Gargantua found himself a bit thirsty, and asked if someone could find him some lettuce to make a salad, and, hearing that there was some of the finest and biggest in the country, for the heads were as big as plum trees or walnut trees, decided to go there himself, and carried off in his hand what seemed good to him. With it he carried off the six pilgrims, who were so afraid that they dared neither speak nor cough.
So, as he was washing it in the fountain, the pilgrims were whispering to one another: “What’s to be done? We’re drowning here, amid the lettuce. Shall we speak? But if we speak, he’ll kill us as spies.”
And as they were deliberating thus, Gargantua put them with the lettuce on one of the dishes of the house, as big as the cask of Cisteaux, and, with oil and vinegar and salt, was eating them as a pick-me-up before supper, and had already swallowed five of the pilgrims. The sixth was in the dish, hidden under a lettuce leaf, except for his staff, which showed above it. Seeing it, Grandgousier said to Gargantua:
“That’s a snail’s horn there; don’t eat it.”
“Why not?” said Gargantua. “They’re all good all this month.”
And, pulling out his staff, he picked up the pilgrim with it, and was eating him nicely; then he drank a horrific draft of pineau, and they waited for supper to be ready.
The pilgrims, eaten thus, pulled themselves as best they could out away from the grinders of his teeth, and thought they had been put in some deep dungeon in the prisons, and, when Gargantua drank the great draft, thought they would drown in his mouth, and the torrent nearly carried them off into the gulf of his stomach; however, jumping with the help of their staffs as the Michelots do, they got to safety in the shelter of his teeth. But by bad luck one of them, feeling the surroundings with his staff to find out if they were in safety, landed it roughly in the cavity of a hollow tooth and struck a nerve in the jawbone, by which he caused Gargantua very sharp pain, and he started to cry out with the torment he endured.
So, to relieve himself of the pain, he had his toothpick brought, and, going out toward the young walnut tree, he dislodged milords the pilgrims. For he caught one by the legs, another by the shoulders, another by the knapsack, another by the pouch, another by the scarf; and the poor wretch who had hit him with the staff he hooked by the codpiece; however, this was a great piece of luck for him, for he pierced open for him a cancerous tumor that had been tormenting him since they had passed Ancenis.
So the dislodged pilgrims fled through the vineyard at a fine trot, and the pain subsided. At which time he was called to supper by Eudémon, for everything was ready.
—from Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1534,
translated from the French by Donald M. Frame
GIACOMO CASTELVETRO ON SALAD
It takes more than good herbs to make a good salad, for success depends on how they are prepared. So, before going any further, I think I should explain exactly how to do this.
It is important to know how to wash your herbs, and then how to season them. Too many housewives and foreign cooks get their greenstuff all ready to wash and put it in a bucket of water, or some other pot, and slosh it about a little, and then, instead of taking it out with their hands, as they ought to do, they tip the leaves and water out together, so that all the sand and grit is poured out with them. Distinctly unpleasant to chew on …
So, you must first wash your hands, then put the leaves in a bowl of water, and stir them round and round, then lift them out carefully. Do this at least three or four times, until you can see that all the sand and rubbish has fallen to the bottom of the pot.
Next, you must dry the salad properly and season it correctly. Some cooks put their badly washed, barely shaken salad into a dish, with the leaves still so drenched with water that they will not take the oil, which they should to taste right. So I insist that first you must shake your salad really well and then dry it thoroughly with a clean linen cloth so that the oil will adhere properly. Then put it into a bowl in which you have previously put some salt and stir them together, and then add the oil with a generous hand, and stir the salad again with clean fingers or a knife and fork, which is more seemly, so that each leaf is properly coated with oil.
Never do as the Germans and other uncouth nations do—pile the badly washed leaves, neither shaken nor dried, up in a mound like a pyramid, then throw on a little salt, not much oil and far too much vinegar, without even stirring. And all this done to produce a decorative effect, where we Italians would much rather feast the palate than the eye.
You English are even worse; after washing the salad heaven knows how, you put the vinegar in the dish first, and enough of that for a footbath for Morgante, and serve it up, unstirred, with neither oil nor salt, which you are supposed to add at table. By this time some of the leaves are so saturated with vinegar that they cannot take the oil, while the rest are quite naked and fit only for chicken food.
So, to make a good salad the proper way, you should put the oil in first of all, stir it into the salad, then add the vinegar and stir again. And if you do not enjoy this, complain to me.
The secret of a good salad is plenty of salt, generous oil and little vinegar, hence the text of the Sacred Law of Salads:
Insalata ben salata,
poco aceto e ben oliata.
Salt the salad quite a lot,
then generous oil put in the pot,
and vinegar, but just a jot.
And whosoever transgresses this benign commandment is condemned never to enjoy a decent salad in their life, a fate which I fear lies in store for most of the inhabitants of this kingdom.
—from The Fruit, Herbs & Vegetables of Italy, 1614,
translated from the Italian by Gillian Riley
MARGARET DODS JOHNSTONE ON SALADS OF SALADS.
Margaret Dods Johnstone established England’s first cooking club, the Cleikum Club. Unusual for British cookbooks of the early nineteenth century, hers includes not only French and English recipes but also recipes from Germany and Spain and even Asia. —M.K.
Salad herbs are cooling and refreshing. They correct the prutrescent tendency of animal food, and are antiscorbutic. Salads are at any rate a harmless luxury where they agree with the stomach; and though they afford little nourishment of themselves, they make a pleasant addition to other aliments, and a graceful appearance on the dinner-table. Lettuce, of the different sorts, or salad as it is often called, is the principal ingredient in those vegetable messes. It should be carefully blanched and eat young; when old, its juices become acrimonious and hurtful. Lettuce possesses soporific qualities, and is recommended as a supper-article to bad sleepers. Radishes, when young, are juicy and cooling, but a very few days change their nature, and they become woody and acrid; when not very young, they ought to be scraped. Cress and mustard are cordial and grateful, and of an agreeable pungency; and celery, when young and properly blanched, by its peculiar nutty flavour, contributes much to what EVYLYN calls “harmony in the composure of a sallet.” A variety of other herbs mingle in full well-selected salads, such as sorrel, young onions, cucumbers, tomatas, endive, radish-leaflets, &c. Many wild herbs were formerly employed, and are still used on the continent and in America, as saladings. As this is quite a delicate, jaunty branch of the culinary art, we would recommend that young ladies residing in the country should gather their own salad herbs, and dress salads for their families, which will give a better chance of a duty being well done, which, in the hurry of the stew-pan, the spit, and the stove, the poor distracted cook must often perform with haste and slovenliness. Never make a salad till near the dinner-hour, as it will flatten and lose its light appearance by standing. Foreigners call many things salads we would merely reckon cold, little, dressed dishes. As this may produce
a confusion of ideas in the young housekeeper we notice it here. Our ancestors had the same notion of what sallets were that the French still retain.
An English Salad and Salad-Sauce.
Let the herbs be fresh gathered, nicely trimmed and picked, and repeatedly washed in salt and water. Drain and cut them. Just before dinner is served, rub the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs very smooth on a soup-plate, with a little very rich cream. When well mixed, add a teaspoonful of made mustard and a little salt, a spoonful of olive-oil, one of oiled butter, or two of sour cream may be substituted, and when this is mixed smooth, put in as much vinegar as will give the proper degree of acidity to the sauce,—about two large spoonfuls; add a little pounded lump-sugar if the flavour is liked. Put this sauce in the dish, and lay the cut herbs lightly over it; or mix them well with it, and garnish with beet-root sliced and marked, rings of the white of the eggs, young radishes, &c. Onions may be served separately on a small dish. Some knowing persons like grated Parmesan put to their salad and sauce.
—from Cook and Housewife Manual, 1829
MRS. BEETON ON ENDIVE
This vegetable, so beautiful in appearance, makes an excellent addition to winter salad, when lettuces and other salad herbs are not obtainable. It is usually placed in the centre of the dish, and looks remarkably pretty with slices of beetroot, hard-boiled eggs, and curled celery placed round it, so that the colours contrast nicely. In preparing it, carefully wash and cleanse it free from insects, which are generally found near the heart; remove any decayed or dead leaves, and dry it thoroughly by shaking in a cloth. This vegetable may also be served hot, stewed in cream, brown gravy, or butter, but when dressed thus, the sauce it is stewed in should not be very highly seasoned, as that would destroy and overpower the flavour of the vegetable.
Average cost, 1d. per head.
Sufficient,—1 head for a salad for 4 persons.
Seasonable from November to March.
Endive.—This is the C. endivium of science, and is much used as a salad. It belongs to the family of the Composite, with Chicory, common Goats-beard, and others of the same genus. Withering states, that before the stems of the common Goats-beard shoot up, the roots, boiled like asparagus, have the same flavour, and are nearly as nutritious. We are also informed by Villars that the children in Dauphiné universally eat the stems and leaves of the young plant before the flowers appear, with great avidity. The fresh juice of these tender herbs is said to be the best solvent of bile.
Stewed Endive
Ingredients.—6 heads of endive, salt and water, 1 pint of broth, thickening of butter and flour, 1 tablespoonful of lemon-juice, a small lump of sugar.
Mode.—Wash and free the endive thoroughly from insects, remove the green part of the leaves, and put it into boiling water, slightly salted. Let it remain for 10 minutes; then take it out, drain it till there is no water remaining, and chop it very fine. Put it into a stewpan with the broth; add a little salt and a lump of sugar, and boil until the endive is perfectly tender. When done, which may be ascertained by squeezing a piece between the thumb and finger, add a thickening of butter and flour and the lemon-juice: let the sauce boil up, and serve.
Time.—10 minutes to boil, 5 minutes to simmer in the broth.
Average cost, 1d. per head.
Sufficient for 3 or 4 persons.
Seasonable from November to March.
Endive a la Francaise.
Ingredients.—6 heads of endive, 1 pint of broth, 3 oz. of fresh butter; salt, pepper and grated nutmeg to taste.
Mode.—Wash and boil the endive as in the preceding recipe; chop it rather fine, and put into a stewpan with the broth; boil over a brisk fire until the sauce is all reduced; then put in the butter, pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg (the latter must be very sparingly used); mix all well together, bring it to the boiling point, and serve very hot.
Time.—10 minutes to boil, 5 minutes to simmer in the broth.
Average cost, 1d. per head.
Sufficient for 3 or 4 persons.
Seasonable from November to March.
—from Beeton’s Book of Household Management, 1860
GRIMOD DE LA REYNIÈRE’S
WARNING ON CELERY
The most important use for celery is in salad, or better yet rémoulade with an excellent mustard from Maille or Bordin. Well-seasoned in a good purée it can garnish major dishes, such as braised leg of lamb, a mouton roast, etc. For home cooking it serves as a low-cost side dish, but the best way to serve it is a cream: A well-made celery cream is the test of a good cook and presents fairly daunting problems.
Celery, once it is cooked, loses some of its medicinal qualities; however, it is still clearly an aromatic plant, good for the stomach, warming, and consequently a fairly powerful aphrodisiac. Our conscience forces us to warn shy people that considering this last quality of celery, they might abstain from eating it or use it with caution. Suffice it to say that it is in no way a salad for bachelors.
—from Almanach des Gourmands, 1804,
translated from the French by Mark Kurlansky
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Thing About Truffles
What did Grimod mean when he said that a truffle was a “foretaste of paradise”? Brillat-Savarin wrote, “Nobody dares admit that he has been present at a meal where there was not at least one dish with truffles.” What is it about this underground fungus? Is it the fact that it is underground, hidden from sight, hard to find? For more than a century agronomists have dreamed of farming it, but many think that if they succeeded, if it became readily available, it would lose its mystique. At a dollar a basket, the bumpy fungus might find itself abandoned like the kiwi, a Chinese gooseberry whose tree produces too many fruit to maintain exotic status. Waverley Root thought it was the price: Truffles were so valuable that nobody dared eat a big enough piece to understand what it really tasted like. Surely, if you just took a bite, like from an apple, it would be a disappointment.
But then one day he did.
—M.K.
WAVERLEY ROOT ON TRUFFLES
“Lybians, unyoke your oxen!” Juvenal cried. “keep your grain, but send us your truffles!”
Truffles were already an old story by Juvenal’s time. They were being eaten in Mesopotamia at least by 1800 B.C., although I do not know that we are obliged to believe the contemporary French author who tells us that a certain Queen Shibtu of Babylon was fond of truffles wrapped in papyrus and roasted in the ashes of the hearth, the ancient precursor of the French truffes sous les cendres. The Romans had truffles from Greece, where they seem to have been appreciated, but less so than by themselves; Coelius Apicius concocted six truffle recipes, but we do not know what kind of truffles they were: one description suggests that they were gray truffles, a sort which has little flavor. The ancient Romans also ate, from their own territory, the truffles of Spoleto, in Umbria, highly thought of still; but whether they discovered them before or after Juvenal appealed to the Libyans I do not know. Apparently they never discovered that in what is now the Piedmont they possessed the tubercle most exclusively associated with Italy today, the white truffle.
Pliny agreed with Juvenal that the best truffles came from Africa; the latter prized them so highly that he advised the well-to-do to prepare them with their own hands, for they were too precious to trust to servants. Yet he did not rank them above what he evidently felt was Italy’s best MUSHROOM, putting them only on the same level as boleti, while Martial even ranked them a degree lower. Boleti did not mean what we might expect it to today—the boletus—but Caesar’s mushroom, Amanita caesarea. This species does indeed make excellent eating, but today it would generally be considered inferior to the truffle: Is it possible that the ancients did not know our best truffle, probably a native of France, not of Italy, nor of Libya either? Indeed we may wonder whether Martial was talking about truffles at all when, in a burst of unbridled empathy, he cast himself as a truffle and wrote: “We truffles, who burst through the nurturing soil with our
soft heads, are of earth’s apples second only to boleti.” The peculiarity of truffles is precisely that they do not burst through the nurturing soil with heads soft or otherwise, but remain buried snugly underground.
Truffles disappear from history after the collapse of the Roman Empire, though they must still have been there, allowed to stay underground by a society which was not characterized by gastronomic finesse. The reference books tell us that they returned about the middle of the fourteenth century, but without offering any specific examples; they are not mentioned in the anonymous Le Ménagier de Paris at the end of that century. The first trustworthy reference I have found dates from the fifteenth century, when Platina wrote of truffles that “they must be eaten as the last course, for they help greatly to make meat descend through the opening of the stomach.” It is at this period also that we first hear of truffles being sought in France with the aid of pigs carefully muzzled to prevent them from eating the truffles before their masters had time to lay hands on them. They seem at that time almost always to have been pickled, which must have deprived them of much of their natural flavor. The celebrated chef Pierre François de la Varenne rescued them from pickling in the seventeenth century, using them in cooking like other mushrooms. In the eighteenth, truffles were still rare and expensive. “A truffled turkey,” Brillat-Savarin wrote, “was a luxury, found only on the tables of the greatest lords and of kept women.”
It was in the nineteenth century that truffles reached their apogee. They cannot be said, however, to have penetrated deep into the less privileged layers of society in 1848, when the mob which pillaged the pantries of Louis Philippe’s Tuileries palace of its fine foodstuffs left his stock of truffles untouched because nobody knew if they were safe to eat. Yet in 1825 Brillat-Savarin had written, “Nobody dares admit that he has been present at a meal where there was not at least one dish with truffles. However good it may be in itself, an entrée does not appear to advantage unless it has been enriched with truffles.” The demand for them trebled, and so did the price. “The Bourbons governed with truffles,” Alexandre Dumas wrote, and of the two reigning theatrical queens of the time he ranked Mlle. George above Mlle. Mars because the former served truffles to her guests and the latter did not. Balzac, who mentions truffles often in his works, said of the Comte de Fontaine, one of the characters in his Le bal de Sceaux, that “the luxury of his table at his dinners, perfumed with truffles, rivaled the celebrated feasts by which the ministers of the times assured themselves of the votes of their warriors in parliament.”