Foods of
Luxury: Delicacies for the Wealthy; 1914.
I invite
you to read the following interesting article from The Times (London, England), of Monday, June 8th, 1914,
and to then ponder upon the concept of luxury food items then and now. Please
let me know your thoughts.
FOODS OF
LUXURY.
--
DELICACIES FOR THE WEALTHY.
--
Foods of luxury should not be
confused with foods that are expensive because they are out of season. A
strawberry in the winter may cost half a crown, and prawns in a Paris
restaurant are sometimes a franc apiece, but neither strawberries nor prawns
are luxuries at the right time and in the right place. Caviar, oysters, and
plovers’ eggs are luxuries, for they are difficult to obtain. Caviar becomes a
super-luxury when, according to Cubtat’s practice in his Paris restaurant, a
sturgeon is brought to table and the caviar is brought out of it on the spot.
Turtles conveyed from the warm seas of the West that aldermen may dine on them
rank high among luxuries, and so do their smaller cousins, the terrapins. The
birds’ nests that the Chinese taught us to use in soup, and which bring to the
sense of taste a memory of the sea, are food of luxury, but that other great
Chinese delicacy, sharks’ fins, no one but
Chinaman can eat. The sea-slugs from the Seychelles are another delight
from a far country that give a pleasant flavour to soup.
SOUPS AND
FISH FOR EPICURES.
There could be no more suitable
introduction to banquets, after we have trifled with the hors d’oeuvres – the
anchovies Alici tartufate [Mozzarella with anchovies in truffle oil], the
crayfish tails, the sardines with truffles, the Astrachan caviar, or the tunny
fish à l’huile – than these soups which give a healthy glow to the system and
stimulate the appetite for what follows. All manner of soups prepared for the
table, from the lordly turtle to the tail of the kangaroo, the bêche de mer
from Queensland, the Milanese potage d’escargot, and a host of others, are
available for the Londoner, and can be enjoyed here in their full perfection,
because these luxuries lend themselves so rapidly to preservation for their
use. Fish in Great Britain ought not to be a luxury, for our seas and rivers
teem with them. But our whitebait are not so toothsome fry as the nonnats of
the Bay of Monaco, while to the ombre-chevalier of Lake Leman and the fogash of
Lake Balaton we can show no equals. A fat quail is certainly a luxury, so is a
canvas-back duck, and the little ortolan can creep in under that heading.
Agneau de lait and the snowy white veal of Pontoise are luxuries in the wide
list of meats, while asparagus, whether the great white stalks of Agenteuil or
the more slender green plant of England, can claim the same distinction. Of
tubers, the noble truffle is the acknowledged king. The pâtés are all in the
list of luxury – the fatted geese livers of Strasburg, the ducks’ livers from
the Midi of France, the pâté de Perigord aux truffles, and the woodcock pâtés
of Belgium. Hams, whether Virginia peach-fed from America, or chestnut-fed and
snow-cured from Traveles, near Granada, the ham of Bayonne, or of the other
half-hundred varieties, come under the heading; and of fruit, British hothouse
grapes and pines contest supremacy with mangoes from Bombay and Alpine
strawberries. England has yet to learn the supreme delicacy of taste of the
mangosteen of the Straits Settlements.
CHARMS OF
ASSOCIATION.
Certain luxuries depend to some
extent upon mere association; thus the dainty little agone of the North Italian
lakes must be eaten on a terrace overlooking Como, and we can scarcely believe
that its reputation would be the same if we could enjoy it on a London
breakfast table. There is a certain flat cream cheese with just a soupçon of
the fragrance of wood-smoke from the forest which seems a little short of
perfection, if eaten at Fontainebleau, in the vicinity of the chasselas vines,
but we question if it would ever seem quite the same elsewhere. No doubt modern
skill as brought within the epicure’s reach, well preserved in transparent
glass, many of the delicacies of foreign lands, but it is too often found that,
away from the scenes where we once considered their flavour to be so admirable
they lose much of their persuasive power to tickle the palate. We can no more
bottle up the sunshine than we can bring away the haunting grace of the
surrounding that gave more than half their charms to many of these
well-remembered dainties, and so time and place must ever have their share in
the subtle effect produced by their merits. The mushroom gathered from the dewy
pastures in the early morning may challenge comparison with the hothouse
product of the market gardener, but to the refined taste the champignon plucked
from the rings where the fairies have danced puts both into the shade by its
superlative excellence.
THE OLD
TIME BANQUET.
A peacock roasted and then reclad
in the skin with the superb tail feathers duly displayed no doubt made goodly
show in point of decorative effect, but, apart from that, it would not command
the epicure’s respect. The partridge, the pheasant, and the grouse have now
become so common that we scarcely include them among luxuries, but the lark or
mauviette carefully wrapped in bacon and served upon toast is a toothsome
morsel, The snipe and the woodcock rank high among the smaller game birds, and
many of the ducks which visit this country are splendid for the table, though
they should be eaten almost raw or very lightly cooked. Though it is not given
in modern times to destroy the nightingale to obtain it tongues which might be
here find place, from the carefully smoked tongue of the ox to that of the
reindeer or the tender tongue of the lamb, cunningly enshrined in clear aspic.
Sheeps’ tongues and Russian ox tongues are among the choice viands prepared for
the breakfast table, and several varieties of cooked tongue, whether rolled in
glasses or collared in tins, may almost claim inclusion among the present list
of dainties.
BENEFITS
OF COLD STORAGE.
There are those who scoff at the
results of the cold storage system in the matter of luxuries, and at the
possibility of bringing over by this means many delicacies from foreign lands
in the ice chamber. Except, perhaps, in the case of certain fruits, the success
of this mode of transport is by no means free from cavil, but the plan has
hardly received fair treatment from the epicure’s point of view, for as yet
little has been attempted with rare and choice morsels. The aim of the importer
is to convey meat and foreign produce in bulk; and hitherto, with the exception
of butter, dairy produce, and fruit, the possibility of freezing and
transporting table delicacies has received but little attention. It is obvious
that there are difficulties to be overcome in the conveyance of the frozen
products from the ship’s hold to the table, and the case is very different from
that in which commodities such as entire carcasses of animals are being handled
in large quantities. We do not despair of the solution of the problem in the
near future, when it may be possible to enjoy the guava, the mangosteen, and
many other Oriental fruits in their prime. Indeed, judging by the success with
which peaches, nectarines, and other delicate fruits have been brought from
South Africa and Australia the ultimate issue is no longer doubtful.
CONFECTIONERY.
In no other department of
luxuries for the table do we rely more implicitly upon the skill of the French
cuisine than in the matter of sweet-meats and confectionery – whether it be the
delicately flavoured chocolate of Marquis; the Parisian crystallised flowers –
the acacia, the rose leaves, the orange blossom, and the violet; the glacé fruits
in rings and knot, the lunettes and the mirabelles; the caramels à la vanilla,
or le Rajah; the marrons glacés vanillés and a score of other delicacies. All
these and a host of others, too numerous to mention, have only to be named to
remind the epicure of the French capital.
Your
luxury recipe for the day is from The Art
of rench Cookery (1827) by Antoine Beauvilliers.
To roast
Woodcocks and Snipes. Bécasses, Bécassines, &. À la Broche.
Prepare
three woodcocks without opening them, take off the skin of the head, truss up
their feet and use their beaks for skewering them; choose the leanest and lard
it; barb the other two; pass a skewer between the thighs and fix the ends to
the spit; half an hour will do them; baste them and lay three toasts in the
dripping pan to receive their fat; when ready to serve take them up, dish the
bread, and lay the woodcocks over it.
Another
Way. Autre Manière de les servir a la Broche.
Draw or
empty the woodcocks by the back, take out the neck, mince, and add about half
the quantity of rasped lard with the intestines, a little minced parsley, young
onions and shalots, salt and pepper; stuff the woodcocks, sew them up, cover
them with slices of bacon, and finish as above. If they are to be served to the
English, send to table with them a bread sauce.
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