MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. IN A LETTER TO OLIVER YORKE, ESQ., BY M. A. TITMARSH SIR PARIS, May, 1841. IR, -The man who makes the best salads in London, and whom, therefore, we have facetiously called Sultan Saladin, a man who is conspicuous for his love and practice of all the polite arts, music, to wit, architecture, painting, and cookery, once took the humble personage who writes this into his library, and laid before me two or three volumes of manuscript year-books, such as, since he began to travel and to observe, he has been in the habit of keeping. Every night, in the course of his rambles, his highness the Sultan (indeed, his port is sublime, as, for the matter of that, are all the wines in his cellar) sets down with an iron pen, and in the neatest handwriting in the world, the events and observations of the day with the same iron pen he illuminates the leaf of his journal by the most faithful and delightful sketches of the scenery which he has witnessed in the course of the four and twenty hours; and if he has dined at an inn or restaurant, gasthaus, posada, albergo, or what not, invariably inserts into his log-book the bill of fare. The Sultan leads a jolly life, a tall, stalwart man, who every day about six o'clock in London and Paris, at two in Italy, in Germany and Belgium at an hour after noon, feels the noble calls of hunger agitat ing his lordly bosom (or its neighborhood, that is), and replies to the call by a good dinner. Ah! it is wonderful to think how the healthy and philosophic mind can accommodate itself in all cases to the varying circumstances of the time, -how, in its travels through the world, the liberal and cosmopolite stomach recognizes the national dinner-hour! Depend upon it that, in all countries, nature has wisely ordained and suited to their exigencies THE DISHES OF A PEOPLE. I mean to say, that olla podrida is good in Spain (though a plateful of it, eaten in Paris, once made me so dreadfully ill that it is a mercy I was spared ever to eat another dinner), I mean to say, and have proved it, that sauer-kraut is good in Germany; and I make no doubt that whale's blubber is a very tolerable dish in Kamtschatka, though I have never visited the country. Cannibalism in the South Seas, and sheepsheadism in Scotland, are the only practices that one cannot, perhaps, reconcile with this rule, at least, whatever a man's private opinions may be, the decencies of society oblige him to eschew the expression of them, upon subjects which the national prejudice has precluded from free discussion. Well, after looking through three or four of Saladin's volumes, I grew so charmed with them that I used to come back every day and study them about an I declare there are bills of fare in those books over which I have cried; and the reading of them, especially hour before dinner, has made me so ferociously hungry, that, in the first place, the Šultan (a kindhearted, generous man, as every man is who loves his meals) could not help inviting me to take potluck with him; and, secondly, I could eat twice as much as upon common occasions, though my appetite is always good. Lying awake, then, of nights, or wandering solitary abroad on wide commons, or by the side of silent rivers, or at church when Dr. Snufflem was preaching his favorite sermon, or stretched on the flat of my back smoking a cigar at the club when X was talking of the corn-laws, or Y was describing that famous run they had with the Z hounds, - at all periods, I say, favorable to self-examination, those bills of fare have come into my mind, and often and often I have thought them over. "Titmarsh," I have said to myself, "if ever you travel again, do as the Sultan has done, and keep your dinner-bills. They are always pleasant to look over; they always will recall happy hours and actions, be you ever so hard pushed for a dinner, and fain to put up with an onion and a crust: of the past fate cannot deprive you. Yesterday is the philosopher's property; and by thinking of it, and using it to advantage, he may gayly go through to-morrow, doubtful and dismal though it be. Try this lamb stuffed with pistachio-nuts; another handful of this pillau. Ho, you rascals! bring round the sherbet there, and never spare the jars of wine, 'tis true Persian, on the honor of a Barmecide!" Is not that dinner in "The Arabian Nights" a right good dinner? Would you have had Bedreddin to refuse and turn sulky at the windy repast, or to sit down grinning in the face of his grave entertainer, and gayly take what came? Remember what came of the honest fellow's philosophy. He slapped the grim old prince in the face; and the grim old prince, who had invited him but to laugh at him, did presently order a real and substantial repast to be set before him,- great pyramids of smoking rice and pillau (a good pillau is one of the best dishes in the world), savory kids, snow-cooled sherbets, luscious wine of Schiraz; with an accompaniment of moon-faced beauties from the harem, no doubt, dancing, singing, and smiling in the most ravishing manner. Thus should we, my dear friends, laugh at Fate's beard, as we confront him, thus should we, if the old monster be insolent, fall to and box his ears. He has a spice of humor in his composition; and be sure he will be tickled by such conduct. Some months ago, when the expectation of war between England and France grew to be so strong, and there was such a talk of mobilizing national guards, and arming three or four hundred thousand more French soldiers, when such ferocious yells of hatred against perfidious Albion were uttered by the liberal French press, that I did really believe the rupture between the two countries was about immediately to take place; being seriously alarmed, I set off for Paris at once. My good sir, what could we do without our Paris? I came here first in 1815 (when the Duke and I were a good deal remarked by the inhabitants); I proposed but to stay a week: stopped three months, and have returned every year since. There is something fatal in the place, a charm about it, a wicked one very likely, but it acts on us all; and perpetually the old Paris man comes hieing back to his quarters again, and is to be found, as usual, sunning himself in the Rue de la Paix. Painters, princes, gormands, officers on half-pay, serious old ladies even acknowledge the attraction of the place, -are more at ease here than in any other place in Europe; and back they come, and are to be old haunts. found sooner or later occupying their | being flavored with little damp, triangular pieces of toast, which always surround that charming dish. Well, on Wednesday, the mutton ended, you have beef; the beef undergoes the same alternations of cookery, and disappears. Your life presents a succession of joints, varied every now and then by a bit of fish and some poultry. You drink three glasses of a brandyfied liquor called sherry at dinner; your excellent lady imbibes one. When she has had her glass of port after dinner, she goes up stairs with the children, and you fall asleep in your arm-chair. Some of the most pure and precious enjoyments of life are unknown to you. You eat and drink, but you do not know the art of eating and drinking; nay, most probably you despise those who do. 'Give me a slice of meat," say you, very likely, "and a fig for your gormands." You fancy it is very virtuous and manly all this. Nonsense, my good sir; you are indifferent because you are ignorant, because your life is passed in a narrow circle of ideas, and because you are bigotedly blind and pompously callous to the beauties and excellences beyond you. My darling city improves, too, with each visit, and has some new palace, or church, or statuc, or other gimcrack, to greet your eyes withal. A few years since, and, lo! on the column of the Place Vendôme, instead of the shabby tri-colored rag, shone the bronze statue of Napoleon. Then came the famous triumphal arch; a noble building indeed!-how stately and white and beautiful and strong it seems to dominate over the whole city! Next was the obelisk; a huge bustle and festival being made to welcome it to the city. Then came the fair asphaltum terraces round about the obelisk; then the fountains to decorate the terraces. I have scarcely been twelve months absent, and behold they have gilded all the Naiads and Tritons; they have clapped a huge fountain in the very midst of the Champs Elysées, a great, glittering, frothing fountain, that to the poetic eye looks like an enormous shaving-brush; and all down the avenue they have placed hundreds of gilded, flaring gas-lamps, that make this gayest walk in the world look gayer still than ever. But a truce to such descriptions, which might carry one far, very far, from the object proposed in this paper. I simply wish to introduce to public notice a brief dinner-journal. It has been written with the utmost honesty and simplicity of purpose; and exhibits a picture or table of the development of the human mind under a series of gastronomic experiments, diversified in their nature, and diversified, consequently, in their effects. A man in London has not, for the most part, the opportunity to make these experiments. You are a family man, let us presume, and you live in that metropolis for half a century. You have on Sunday say, a leg of mutton and potatoes for dinner. On Monday, you have cold mutton and potatoes. On Tuesday, hashed mutton and potatoes; the hashed mutton Sir, RESPECT YOUR DINNER; idolize it, enjoy it properly. You will be by many hours in the week, many weeks in the year, and many years in your life, the happier if you do. Don't tell us that it is not worthy of a man. All a man's senses are worthy of employment, and should be cultivated as a duty. The senses are the arts. What glorious feasts does Nature prepare for your eye in animal form in landscape and painting! Are you to put out your eyes, and not see? What royal dishes of melody does her bounty provide for you in the shape of poetry, music, whether windy or wiry, notes of the human voice, or ravishing song of birds! Are you to stuff your ears with cotton, and vow that the sense of hearing is unmanly? — you obsti nate dolt, you! No, surely; nor - with wretched opium pills and acrid vinegar, that sent his principle to sleep and turned his feelings sour! If that man had respected his dinner, he never would have written "Don Juan." Allons done! enough sermonizing; let us sit down and fall to at once. must you be so absurd as to fancy that the art of eating is in any way less worthy than the other two. You like your dinner, man; never be ashamed to say so. If you don't like your victuals, pass on to the next article; but remember that every man who has been worth a fig in this world, as poet, painter, or musician, has had a good appetite and a good taste. Ah, what a poet Byron would have been had he taken his meals prop-cellent. Five men in England would erly, and allowed himself to grow fat, have consumed the same amount of -if nature intended him to grow fat, victuals, as you will see by the bills -and not have physicked his intellect of fare : — I dined soon after my arrival at a very pleasant Paris club, where daily is provided a dinner for ten persons, that is universally reported to be ex Poulets à la Marengo; Desserts of cheese. Pears and Fontainebleau Grapes. This dinner was very nicely served. | quantity that on this occasion came A venerable maître d'hôtel in black, to my share. But I would rather, as cutting up neatly the dishes on a a man not caring for appearances, trencher at the side-table, and several dine, as a general rule, off a beefsteak waiters attending in green coats, red for two at the Café Foy, than sit plush tights, and their hair curled. down to take a tenth part of such There was a great quantity of light in a meal every day. There was only the room; some handsome pieces of one man at the table besides your plated ware; the pheasants came in humble servant who did not put water with their tails to their backs; and into his wine; and he-I mean the the smart waiters, with their hair other-was observed by his friends, dressed and parted down the middle, who exclaimed, " Comment vous bu gave a pleasant, lively, stylish appear- vez sec," as if to do so was a wonance to the whole affair. der. The consequence was, that half a dozen bottles of wine served for the whole ten of us; and the guests, having despatched their dinner in an hour, skipped lightly away from it. did not stay to ruminate and to feel uneasy, and to fiddle about the last and penultimate waistcoat button, as we do after a house-dinner at an English club. What was it that made Now I certainly dined (by the way, I must not forget to mention that we had with the beef some boiled kidney potatoes, very neatly dished up in a napkin), I certainly dined, I say; and half an hour afterwards felt, perhaps, more at my ease than I should have done had I consulted my own inclinations, and devoured twice the For fifteen pence par tête, a company of ten persons may have a dinner set before them, nay, and be made to fancy that they dine well, provided the service is handsomely arranged, that you have a good stock of side-dishes, &c., in your plate-chest, and don't spare the spermaceti. vres; and, as I have said before, you may very probably make them believe that they have had a famous dinner. There was only one man in our company of ten the other day who ever thought that he had not dined; and what was he? A foreigner, a man of a discontented, inquiring spirit, always carping at things, and never satisfied. Well, next day I dined au cinquième with a family (of Irish extraction, by the way), and what do you think was our dinner for six persons? Why, simply, Nine dozen Ostend oysters; Soup à la mulligatawny; Boiled turkey, with celery sauce; Removes. Plompouding; croute de mac- Vin Beaune ordinaire, Volnay, Bordeaux, I forget the dessert. Alas! in moments of prosperity and plenty, one is often so forgetful: I remembered the dessert at the Cercle well enough. - A person whom they call in this country an illustration littéraire, — the editor of a newspaper, in fact, with a very pretty wife, were of the party, and looked at the dinner with a great deal of good-humored superiority. I declare, upon my honor, that I helped both the illustration and his lady twice to saddle of mutton; and as for the turkey and celery sauce, you should have seen how our host dispensed it to them! They ate the oysters, they ate the soup (" Diable! mais il est poivré!" said the illustra tion, with tears in his eyes), they ate the turkey, they ate the mutton, they ate the pudding; and what did our hostess say? Why, casting down her eyes gently, and with the modestest air in the world, she said, "There is such a beautiful piece of cold beef in the larder; do somebody ask for a little slice of it." As for the wine, that depends on yourself. Always be crying out to your friends," Mr. So-and-so, I don't drink myself, but pray pass the bottle. Tomkins, my boy, help your neighbor, and never mind me. What! Hopkins, are there two of us on the Doctor's list? Pass the wine; Smith I'm sure won't refuse it ;" and so on. A very good plan is to have the butler (or the fellow in the white waistcoat, who "behaves as sich ") pour out the wine when wanted (in half-glasses, of course), and to make a deuced great noise and shouting, John, John, why the devil, sir, don't you help Mr. Šimkins to another glass of wine?" If you point out Simkins once or twice in this way, depend upon it, he won't drink a great quantity of your liquor. You may thus Heaven bless her for that speech! keep your friends from being danger-I loved and respected her for it; it ous by a thousand innocent mantu- brought the tears to my eyes. A |