By

A. V. KIRWAN

An excerpt from

HOST AND GUEST

1864

Host and Guest by A.V. Kirwan is an exploration of the art and etiquette of entertaining, focusing on the subtleties that make a dinner memorable. This classic guide weaves together practical advice on everything from curating a guest list to pairing wines with care and selecting desserts that leave an impression. Kirwan delves into the nuances of dinner-giving with elegance and charm, emphasizing the importance of creating an experience that fosters connection and enjoyment. With insights on hosting that reflect the traditions and social customs of its time, Host and Guest is both a timeless reference for the culinary-minded and a glimpse into the grace of bygone gatherings.

On Dinners and Dinner-giving

Dinner is unquestionably the most important and substantial meal of the two, three, or four, in which civilized man indulges, and it is a meal which any healthful and laborious person (whether his labour be of mind or body) enjoys zestfully. Man is distinguished from the beasts of the field in being a conversing and a dining animal. Jules Janin says somewhere, with more of truth and less of exaggeration than he usually employs, that beasts feed, but man dines; that lower animals hunger, but man something more than hungers, for he has a discriminating appetite.

Dinner is an important consideration to those who study health, temper, and the best method of getting through business. Our great moralist, Johnson, would never have accomplished a tithe of what he has done for his generation and posterity, had he not sensibly given much more attention to what suited his palate and his appetite than the great mass of mankind. The Doctor laughed at those who affected not to care for dinner, and asserted that from having long thought on the subject, he could write a better cookery book than had ever appeared in his day, because it would be written on philosophical principles. The late Sydney Smith, too, one of the ablest and wittiest men of our own generation, laid great stress on the importance of dinner to the proper performance of our most serious duties and functions; and there can be no doubt that the Canon of St. Paul’s had reason on his side. Every sensible and thoughtful man is, in truth, aware how much better he is able to speak, or to write, or take his part in conversation and debate after a satisfactory meal, which pleased his palate, and suited and satisfied his appetite, than after a cold, a comfortless, or an unrelished dinner. The result can be explained on purely medical and physiological grounds, and need not be further laboured in a work of this kind. Suffice it to say, however, that in ancient, mediæval, and modern times, some of the most scientific and learned men have not disdained to write on dinners. I need but mention the treatise of Apicius, who lived in the time of Augustus, “De Re Culinaria;” the treatise of Nonius, a learned Antwerp physician of the sixteenth century, “De Re Cibariâ;” and the more modern treatise of Lemery, physician of Louis XIV., and thirty-three years the physician to the Hôtel Dieu at Paris. Lemery published his “Traité des Alimens,” in 1702. Contemporaneously with him, flourished Dr. Lister, Physician to our own Queen Anne, who wrote a cookery book in 1705, and gave a paraphrastic translation of the work of Apicius, under the title, “De Obsoniis et Condimentis sive de Arte Coquinaria.” In the reign of George IV., Dr. Kitchener and half a dozen of his brethren of the faculty in Paris, wrote disquisitionally upon cookery; and, in our own day, Drs. Pereira and Lankester have written valuable treatises on food, with a view that we should employ such a diet and regimen as is most conducive to health. The truth is that we must all dine, tant bien que mal, every day in the three hundred and sixty-five; and, as many of us give dinners every seven, fourteen, twenty-eight or thirty days, or every quarter of a year, to our friends and acquaintances, it behoves us to know what to order for ourselves, when dining en famille, as well as for the guests who honour us with their company.

Each country and capital has its mode and season for giving dinners, but there can be no doubt whatever that the best dinners in the world are given in Paris and in London. Probably if the dinners of London were to be judged by the specimens afforded in the most refined houses of the highest aristocracy in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, and Belgravia, in the season between April and July, we should bear off the bell against the world; but the general cookery of a great capital containing nearly three millions of souls cannot be properly judged by the superior cookery of about three hundred first-rate houses, in all of which accomplished French or French-trained men cooks officiate. The dinners given at such houses present the substantial solidity, as well as the gracefulness, lightness, and science of French cookery, and display a combination as rare as nutritious, as desirable as delightful. But if we descend in England beyond the upper ten thousand, though the fried and roast are generally excellent, the attendance good, and the display of glass, crystal and plate much greater and better kept, than in any other country and capital in the world, yet the cookery is not to be compared to the finer cuisine bourgeoise of Paris. The professional and learned classes at Paris, as well as the class of superior traders, all feast at a cuisine, which, for its science, its relishing and appetizing qualities, greatly surpasses ours. In moderate houses in Paris there is far less pretension than there is among us. For instance, an eminent lawyer, doctor, or publisher, will give you at a small friendly dinner of four or six, a good soup, a good fish plain or dressed, a good roti, and a couple of side dishes, all of which are excellent in their way, with a salmi of game and a couple of entremets quite perfect of their kind, and this at an expense of little more than one half of what an English dinner costs. There is on the table plenty for every guest; but the beauty of such dinners is, that nearly every morsel is eaten up. There are a few good dishes well cooked, and everybody relishes his portion. The wines, liqueurs, and coffee are all good.

In some of the very first houses in the Faubourg St. Germain, at a small party you seldom see more than two men servants, and often only one. Among professional men living in the neighbourhood of the Palais de Justice, the Chaussée d’Antin, the Faubourg St. Honoré, or the Marais, the attendance is generally by a femme de charge, aided by what would in this country be called a parlour maid, and who sometimes acts as the femme de chambre of the lady of the house, if there be one.

On the other hand, among the foreign ambassadors in Paris, and more especially at the Austrian and Russian Embassies, there are most sumptuous dinners, distinguished by great luxury and display. The great functionaries of the Court too, the Ministers, the Prefect of the Seine, and other high official dignitaries, most of whom are nouveaux riches, live expensively, keeping numerous servants, taking their cue from the Court. But it would be an error to suppose from this, that excessive expenditure is the custom of the nation. Far indeed from it; for the great majority of Frenchmen are thrifty, and spend little on hospitality. The class of bankers, however, agents de Change, speculators on the Bourse, railroad contractors, and persons connected with the Crédit Foncier and the Crédit Mobilier make much display, and live fastly, though in bad taste; many of them, poor and utterly unknown fourteen or fifteen years ago, now possess fine mansions, first-rate cooks, and live à la Lucullus.

But these men do not move in high or select society. They live among speculators and jobbers, and their tables are often presided over by some incognita of the demi-monde, some première danseuse of the opera, or some jeune première of the Variétés or the Vaudeville.

The gentry and higher middle classes in Paris enjoy an exquisite and not expensive cuisine bourgeoise, but English or foreigners are rarely met at their dinners. The truth is that few Englishmen speak the French language sufficiently well or understand French domestic life so thoroughly as to relish French society. Notwithstanding the great intercourse that has prevailed between the two nations for nearly half a century, they do not mix well together socially. Englishmen, notwithstanding the extended intercourse they have had with the Continent, still like to sit an hour or so over their wine, after the ladies have departed, whereas in Paris ladies and gentlemen leave the salle à manger, or dinner table, together, and retire to another room to coffee and conversation. The coffee and liqueurs despatched, the dinner circle is dissolved by host and guests either proceeding to the theatres, or to some cercle or réunion, where other friends are met. The result is, that after from two and a half to three hours of agreeable conviviality, the circle separate, mutually pleased with each other, and greatly exhilarated by the good cheer, the good converse, and the good coffee. The parties sit down to their repast at six or seven, and separate at half-past eight or half-past nine, when it is not too late to go to the Italian or French opera, or even to the Theatre du Palais Royal, the Vaudeville, or the Variétés. There is no torturing headache the next day from that “casse tête” wine called port, and there has been no time lost in waiting, as with us, for people arrive in France at the very moment invited—a moment which is always considered military time, so precisely is it kept.

It is a pity we do not adopt something of this system among all classes in England. People might under this condition of things, give two dinners for every one they now give, and both host and guest would be all the better in person and pocket for a more elegant and temperate style of living.

To return, however, to English dinners. Though in no capital in the world is hospitality more generally exercised than in London from January to December, yet among the higher classes the grand time for giving dinners is at the height of the season—that is to say, when both houses of Parliament are sitting. The season may generally be described as extending from the middle of April to the middle of July, a period of three months. Occasionally it begins a little earlier and ends a little later, but on an average of years it would be found that London is filled with the most distinguished visitors during these months.

During the season of which I speak, the prices of all table luxuries are enhanced, spring chickens as they are called costing generally about 12s. or 13s. the couple. Fashion, however, will exert its sway, and, totally irrespective of cost, diners d’apparat, or grand entertainments, are always given during this season. Covers are laid for twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty, as the case may be, though occasionally the number of guests is considerably larger. At regular dress dinners of this kind there is great magnificence, great luxury, all the primeurs, as the French call them, all the early fruits and vegetables, no matter what the cost, are provided and produced. Green peas are imported from Portugal, and asparagus from the same place, and from Hyeres, Nice, &c. Most of the nobility and gentry are enabled to supply themselves from their country seats with hot-house grapes and pines; but, to such as are not, Covent Garden, and the best fruiterers of London are always open, and in no country in the world do you find, if prepared to incur the expenditure, finer fruits (especially hot-house fruits) than in England, though finer vegetables are to be found in the Brussels and occasionally in the Parisian markets.

At the grand dinners of which I speak the custom has been, and still in a great degree is, to divide the dinner into several courses, but this is a practice super-inducing trouble, profusion, and expense. These may be incurred where there are large establishments and colossal fortunes (as there are in England in a greater degree than in any country in the world), and where the object is to astonish and render rivalry hopeless, rather than to please or satisfy your guest; but as in the great majority of cases the fortunes and the desires of men are moderate, it seems to me it would be in better sense, and, indeed, in better taste too, to allow of but two courses as in France. In some of the best houses in the Faubourg St. Germain, fish and hors d’œuvre, such as patties, &c., form part of the first course, and not a distinct course as here.

In all grand dinners for twelve persons in England, two soups, two fishes, and four entrées for the first course are considered indispensable; and two roasts, two removes, and half a dozen entremets for the second course. For a dinner of twenty, the entrées and the entremets would necessarily have to be doubled, being each increased to eight. Of course the bill of fare for these dinners varies with the season. In April a turtle and a spring soup may be given with turbot and crimped salmon, roast fore-quarter of lamb, fillet of beef, &c.; whereas in January or February there may be an ox-tail, a mock turtle, a gravy or a giblet or a grey pea soup, with a variety of game, such as partridges, black cock, wild duck, snipe, and woodcock, not procurable in April or May. Persons giving dinners should, of course, consider the season.

Men of rank and fortune who keep a regular house steward or maître d’hôtel have this trouble taken off their hands, for a confidential servant, or a French chef de cuisine arranges with the master of the establishment or the lady of the house what is to be the menu or bill of fare; but persons of two or three thousand a year, or of one thousand a year (and such persons now give occasional dinners, vying with those of ten and twenty times their fortune) cannot afford to keep French men cooks, or to maintain extensive establishments. It is therefore necessary, unless these gentlemen be supplied by Gunter, Bridgeman, or some other tradesmen, at so much per head, that he should know how to order a dinner.

In the case of men of moderate fortune, it is very likely a first-rate man cook, French or English, will be introduced for the occasion, and come the day before the dinner to make preliminary arrangements, and to give directions to, and to aid the ordinary woman cook of the household. Unless some such arrangement as this be adopted, a dinner cannot be very satisfactory, and probably it would be better for persons who have to give set dinners on certain occasions twice or thrice a year, and who cannot fully rely on their own English female cook, and the professed man cook brought in to assist and superintend, to contract with some renowned undertaker or entrepreneur of dinners, such as Gunter, Staples, Bathe and Breach, &c., to supply the party of twelve or twenty, as the case may be, at so much a head, exclusive of wine.

In arrangements such as this much trouble is saved to the man of small fortune, and there is no waste, for the provider of the dinner removes the débris on the very night of the feast, or early the following morning. Why, however, it will be asked, should persons of a couple or three thousand a year give so pretentious and costly a dinner? Because every one in England tries to ape the class two or three degrees above him in point of rank and fortune, in style of living, and manner of receiving his friends. Thus it is that a plain gentleman of moderate fortune, or a professional man making a couple of thousands a year, having dined with a peer of £50,000 a year in Grosvenor Square or Belgravia, seeks when he himself next gives a dinner, to imitate the style of the Marquis, Earl, or Lord Lieutenant of a county with whom he has come into social contact. The attempt is a great mistake, and generally a failure; for unless there be a unity and completeness, an ensemble in such a feast, it is a misadventure. In a party of twenty at one of these great houses there are from a dozen to fifteen servants, exclusive of the butler and under-butler, waiting at table, and where is the man of three thousand or six thousand a year who could afford such a retinue of liveried lackeys! The keep, liveries, beer-money, and wages of a dozen livery servants of this kind, would amount to from £1600 to £2000 a year alone. Is it not therefore folly for gentlemen of small means, or for struggling professional men, to seek to vie with, by aping, these magnates. Let the great brewers, the great bankers, the great merchants, and the great railway contractors and millionaires, vie with them if it please them, but let men of mind and brain not attempt it. Even in the case of millionaires, the essay at rivalry is rarely successful. There is ostentation without ease, elegance, good breeding, or good taste, and the parvenu too often appears in all his disagreeable hideousness and self-sufficiency. It were far better if men of moderate fortune would attempt less. The success of a dinner does not depend in the least on two soups, two fishes, two removes, and eight entrées, but on having sufficient on table the best of its kind, and thoroughly well dressed. Better far have one first-rate soup and one good fish, such as turbot or salmon, than a multiplicity of dishes, unless you have good cooks and a retinue of servants, and all the accessories of a first-rate establishment. It is within the power of every gentleman of fair means to give a good soup, a good fish, a couple of removes, and four entrées at the first course, and a couple of small roasts, a couple of removes, and a few entremets at the second course, and what can any reasonable man want in addition? If the dinner be composed exclusively of English, let the remove be a haunch or saddle of mutton, a roast turkey and ham, a braized leg of mutton, a fillet or a sirloin of beef, and surely there is enough to create “a soul under the ribs of death,” with the entrées of lamb, mutton, and veal cutlets, with fillets of pheasants, vol au vents blanquette, of sweetbreads and such like. In April, May, June, and July, fricassées of chickens, leverets, pigeons, fillets of rabbits, with quails, ducklings, turkey poults, and guinea fowls may be served for entrées and second courses; while in August there is venison, grouse, and wheatears. In September, October, November, and December, there are partridges, grouse, blackcock, golden plover, snipe, woodcock, wild duck, hare, and pheasants; while in the two last months of November and December, ox-tail, mulligatawney, mock turtle, and giblet soups may do frequent duty, with turbot, crimped cod, haddock, and brill for fish. For entrées in the winter months there may be pork cutlets, quenelles, mutton cutlets, rabbit curries, &c.

I am now speaking, of course, of dinners of some pretension; but there are every day given in England those quiet little family dinners of six or eight persons, which are the perfection of social life.

It is said that the number present at these dinners should not be less than the graces, nor more than the muses. There is a good deal of truth in this. Conversation cannot be general or quite unrestrained, where the company exceeds eight or ten. In a party of sixteen or twenty you are forced to converse with your neighbours on either side, or with the gentleman opposite to you. The master of a feast should take care in selecting his guests, whether in a large or in a small party, but more particularly in a small party—that they should be people of analogous tastes. In most cases it would not very well answer to place a Puritan side by side with a High Churchman—or a peace-at-any-price man next an engineer officer, earnest in the pursuit of his profession. An Allopathist should not be united en petit comité with a Homœopathist; nor a whig of the old school with a violent radical. The great object is to pair amiable, pleasant and agreeable men, who have travelled much and lived in the world, and pleasant and agreeable women. A good talker at a dinner-table is a great acquisition, but good listeners are not less essential.

But your good talker should be an urbane and polite man, not bumptious and underbred. Barristers and travelled physicians are generally excellent company, though the former not seldom monopolise too much of the conversation, and give it occasionally a shoppy air. If the object of dining be to secure the greatest quantity of health and enjoyment, such results are more likely to be attained at small than at those set and formal dinners, where people are kept—to use the language of the late Mr. Walker, in “stately durance.” The essence of a good dinner, as the author of the “Original” sensibly remarks, is “that it should be without ceremony, and that you should have what you want when you want it.” This you cannot have at a ceremonial and formal London dinner, where you are encumbered with help, and are not allowed to do anything for yourself. At small every-day dinners, you may have every thing upon the table that is wanted at the time; thus for salmon you would have lobster, or parsley and butter, or cockle sauce, as you might prefer, with cayenne, chili vinegar, sliced cucumber, &c. The comfort of this is great, as the guests pass the sauces at once and instantaneously to each other. At great dinners this is never done. Everything is handed round by a file of liveried servants, who are continually changing the courses and taking up and laying down dishes, to the discomfort of the guests. Yet it is this dull, comfortless, stately and ostentatious formality that every one is striving at.

“State,” as Mr. Walker observes, “without the machinery of state, is of all states the worst;” and it is detestable to see men with a couple of thousands a year, and a couple of men servants, and an English female cook, imitating the style of living of men of thirty thousand a year, with a dozen male servants. I would not have it inferred, that a large income and a first-rate man cook are indispensable to the giving of good dinners. There are now several Schools of Cookery in London, from some of which one can obtain regularly educated female cooks, and it is quite possible, with small establishments and small fortunes, to give comfortable and even elegant dinners, in which the English style shall be diversified by the French. But in these small establishments too much should not be attempted. Everything savouring of too much state and over-display should be discarded. The dishes should be choice, but limited in number, and the wines more remarkable for their excellence than their variety. It is the exquisite quality of a dinner or a wine that pleases us, not the number of dishes, nor the number of vintages. The late Earl of Dudley was wont to say, “that a good soup, a small turbot, a neck of venison, and ducklings with green peas, or chicken with asparagus, or an apricot tart, was a dinner for an emperor!” and to my thinking it was far too good for most emperors past and present.

I have already observed, that in my mind the really fine cuisine bourgeoise of good houses in France is perfection, and I do not despair of seeing such cookery infinitely more generally used in England than it ever has been; but the more expensive French cookery is never likely to become generally prevalent amongst us. Carème tells us that at grand balls and dinners he used to roast turkeys only for his soups and consommés, and he talks as volubly of two, four, and half-a-dozen fowls, as though they were had for eighteen pence a piece, instead of costing at the cheapest rate and time 5s. 6d. or 6s. a couple. A system of cookery so expensive as this can never become general in any country. Carème tells how he formed his consommés, and though doubtless they were better flavoured and presented a more golden appearance than the generality of consommés, yet, to use the language of Burke,

“They were soon exhaled, and vanished hence—

A short, sweet odour at a vast expense.”

There are, however, many things in the French kitchen which are daily coming into more general use. First, there is the pot au feu for the family broth; there are the various purées for fowl, rabbit, and vegetable soups of all kinds, from Jerusalem artichokes, carrots, and turnips, to onions and cerfeuil. Thirdly, there are the various sauces of blanc, espagnole, roux blanc, velouté, sauce à la creme, and poivrade, which are now of much more common usage than they were thirty, twenty, or even ten years ago. We are every day also getting more and more into the habit of filleting our soles, or dressing them au gratin or à la Normande; and in the serving of entrées and entremets we have made visible improvement. Still there are few English cooks in England who can turn out an omelette aux fines herbes, or an omelette soufflée as well as an ordinary French cook. Yet, what an excellent thing this for breakfast or lunch when one is tired of a boiled egg, of a slice of cold ham, beef, or tongue, or of a mutton chop, beefsteak, or cold game pie.

A morning’s meal is no unimportant thing to a man who has to appear in half a dozen causes in a crowded court, who has to visit five-and-twenty patients, or to get through half a dozen Blue-books before he goes down to a Parliamentary Committee at the House of Lords or Commons. Our mental energies, in a great degree, depend on our physical condition and well-being; and the physical condition of that man, be he peer, senator, advocate, or doctor, who, for half a dozen days, has had an indifferent breakfast or dinner, cannot be good.

In asking people to dinner, you should put to yourself the question, “Why do I ask them?” and unless the answer be satisfactory, they are not likely to contribute much to the agreeability and sociality of the entertainment. They may be ornamental; it may be necessary, in a give-and-take sense, to have them in return for a dinner already long received and digested; but, unless they are sensible, social, unaffected, and clever men, they are not likely to contribute much to the hilarity of the entertainment. You may ask a man because he is a bon vivant, because he is a raconteur, because he talks brilliantly and eloquently, because he is a wit, because he is a distinguished traveller, poet, historian, or orator, or because he is a good-natured popular man, a “bon enfant,” or, what used to be called, a “jolly good fellow.” But do not ask any, however much above the average, who is a prig, who is pretentious, who is disputatious, or who is underbred. Never introduce to your table men who have not the feelings, habits, manners, and education of gentlemen—I had almost said, the birth of a gentleman; but it must be remembered that nature now and again produces some magnificent specimens of what somebody has called “God Almighty’s gentlemen.” But these are the exceptions, not the rule; for it will generally be found that men of gentle birth are also men of gentle breeding. The only two positively offensive and ill-bred men I ever encountered in society were men of some ability who had probably never entered the house of a gentleman to dinner, till they were four or five-and-twenty. In these instances, the want of early training and culture in manners and les convenances had never been supplied. The presence of men of this stamp is destructive to good fellowship. They are social pests, and should be avoided comme la gale.

Though the French learned a great deal of their cookery, and still more of their confectionery, from the Italians, yet there is little now in Italian cookery worthy of imitation or adoption among us. Macaroni and semolina soups are better made in Paris than in Italy, though the ribbon macaroni is better prepared at Naples and in Sicily than anywhere else in the world. Veal cutlets, also, are very well prepared in the great cities of Italy, and more especially at Naples and Turin.

Italian ices and confectionary are worthy of all praise; but, as the nation is not a dinner-giving nation, we have little or nothing to adopt from them. Some of their sausages are extremely good and appetizing.

The Spaniards are as little of a dinner-giving people as the Italians. Though every Spaniard tells you, with asseverating protestations, “Mi casa sta à la dispocion di usted,” yet this means nothing whatever, for assuredly you are never destined to eat or drink within his four walls, unless it be a cup of cold water. The only national dishes of any note in Spain, are the olla and the puchero, and neither would be relished by Englishmen of well-educated palates.

Germany has little to teach us in the way of cookery. On the banks of the Rhine they dress a carp well, with both sweet and sour sauce; but, for my own part, I prefer a Rhenish carp served in Paris by a French cook. German sauer kraut, with Hambro’ beef, may be said to be a national dish, and right good the Hambro’ salt beef is; but few Englishmen like either sauer kraut or potato salad—a dish of Fatherland. German batter and German horseradish sauce, made with cream, and also the cherry-sauce, so common, is not despicable with certain meats; but, on the whole, German cookery is not either elegant or palatable.

It may be thought that my condemnation of German cookery is too sweeping. It is not without full experience I speak of it, for I have lived in every capital town of Germany. At Dresden, many years ago, I rented a house in the Neu Markt, of the cook of Madame de Stael, and he furnished the best-dressed dinners I saw in Germany. At Vienna, among the Ambassadors of the five Great Powers, and among some of the Hungarian and Bohemian nobility, first-rate dinners are given, dressed by French cooks; but this is not the cookery of the nation at large, nor even of the well-to-do and easy portion of it. Carème was a considerable time at Vienna, as cook of the late Marquis of Londonderry, and he liked Vienna very well; but he says that the beef, mutton, and veal are very indifferent, badly bled, and disagreeable to dress. “There are wanting at Vienna,” says Carème, “the truffles of France, and the fish of the sea.” But, though these wants are now speedily supplied by rail, the general cookery is not good.

The best and truest account of German cookery is given in the “Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau.” “During the fashionable season,” says the author, the dinner at Langenschwalbach is at one o’clock. Seated at the table of the Allee Saal, I counted one hundred and eighty people at dinner in one room. To say in a single word whether the fare was bad or good would be quite impossible, it being so completely different from anything ever met with in England. To my simple taste, the cookery is most horrid; still there were now and then some dishes, particularly sweet ones, which I thought excellent. With respect to the made-dishes, of which there were a great variety, I beg to record a formula which is infallible; the simple rule is this—let the stranger taste the dish, and if it be not sour, he may be quite certain that it is greasy: again, if it be not greasy, let him not eat thereof, for then it is sure to be sour. With regard to the order of the dishes, that too is unlike anything Mrs. Glasse ever thought of: after soup, which all over the world is the alpha of the gourmand’s alphabet, the barren meat from which the said soup has been extracted is produced; of course it is dry, tasteless, withered-looking stuff, which a Grosvenor Square cat would not touch with its whiskers; but this dish is always attended by a couple of satellites—the one, a quantity of cucumber stewed in vinegar; the other, a black greasy sauce; and if you dare accept a piece of this flaccid beef, you are instantly thrown between Scylla and Charybdis, for so sure as you decline the indigestible cucumber, souse comes into your plate a deluge of the sickening grease. After the company have eaten heavily of messes, which it would be impossible to describe, in comes some nice salmon—then fowls—then puddings—then meat again—then stewed fruit; and after the English stranger has fallen back in his chair quite beaten, a leg of mutton majestically makes its appearance! The pig who lives in his sty would have some excuse, but it is really quite shocking to see any other animal overpowering himself at mid-day with such a mixture and superabundance of food. “Yet only think,” says our author, “what a compliment all this is to the mineral waters of Langenschwalbach, if the Naiads of the Pauline can be of real service to a stomach full of vinegar and grease, how much more effectually ought they to tinker up the inside of him who has sense enough to sue them in formâ pauperis.”

The quantity of fat and lard used in German cookery, more especially in cooking vegetables, renders it unpalatable to English tastes.

We may borrow from the Dutch kitchen something in fish soups. The Dutch eel soup is rich, full of flavour, and very nourishing; and the soup of herring roes, called Erasmus’s soup, prepared with twelve soft roes of herrings generally, and a quart of young peas, is by no means despicable.

I have also, after tossing on the German Ocean, enjoyed in Holland a Flushing soup made of flakes of cod and salmon. Our own modes of dressing cod, whether fresh or salted, is good, but something may be adopted from the Dutch in sauces for fish, and in the various ways of dressing herrings.

I have, in another part of this work, expressed an opinion as to the Russian mode of laying out a table. I will here merely say that almost everything good in the Russian cookery has been adopted from the English, French, and Dutch kitchens.

There is a fish soup in Russia, the chief ingredient in which is the sterlet, but as the fish is not obtainable here, it is useless to speak of it. Few of our peasantry would eat the Russian national soup—the tschy; and the barch, the Polish soup, which is fermented, is little likely to please an English or a French palate.

While Carème admits that the Russians have a few national dishes, he properly says these do not constitute a system of cookery. Their butcher’s meat, he adds, is very indifferent, their pullets are poor and small. The mutton consumed in St. Petersburgh comes from the interior, and is often, like the salmon, frozen.

From the Turkish and Indian cookery we may adopt much more than from the Russian. The pilau and kalobs of Turkey are very relishing, and so are the fish and vegetable curries of India—the pish poshes, pepper pots, and cutcharees and country captains. The Indian mulligatawney soup is excellent in the damp and cold weather, from the beginning of November to the end of February.

For ordinary dinners, English gentlemen should prefer simplicity and excellence to variety. Simplicity and convenience have triumphed in dress, and will sooner or later in dinners.

The circular form seems the most desirable in a dinner-table; and with respect to setting it out, I would say with the late Mr. Walker, nothing should be placed on it but what is wanted. The great object of meeting round table is to have free and unrestrained communication and hilarity, and these are impeded by plateaus, dormants, and centre-pieces.

I have not said a word of bachelors’ dinners, though of all dinners in the world they are the pleasantest, from the laisser aller and laissez faire style which prevails at them. At bachelors’ parties the age, disposition, and amusing qualities of the guests are more considered than at regular set dinners. Bachelors look for the idem velle and the idem nolle when they play the Amphytrion, and in consequence they succeed. Another reason of the success of bachelors’ entertainments arises from the fact that the dishes are few and simple; and as the dinner is generally given in a small house or chambers, the kitchen is not too far removed from the eating parlour. Everything comes up “screeching hot,” as they say in Ireland, and not lukewarm or soddened, as too often happens at great dinners. Centrepieces, epergnes, and dormants do not generally figure at bachelors’ dinners, and there is an absence of form and ceremony which gives zest. Ladies in general love ceremony and ornaments, and the accessories of epergnes, flowers, and perfumes.

I have not said anything of American dinners. The best of these in private houses are copied from the English and French model, although there is much that is distinctive in the manner of serving and consuming dinners at the great hotels in New York. American turtle soup is excellent; and so is their sturgeon soup. Though I do not agree in Mr. Money’s estimate of the Russian dinners, I quite concur in his valuable suggestion, that dinner chairs at our tables should be made lighter and more flexible in the back and sitting part.