THE TIMES

_The Gastronomic Regenerator._--_The Modern Cook._--“Any body can dine,” says the clever and profound author of the ‘Original,’ “but very few know how to dine so as to ensure the greatest quantity of health and enjoyment.” The pith and truth of this remark are unquestionable; and, indeed, we know nothing more painful than that utter disregard of the very first principles of gastronomic science evinced by so many unprincipled and reckless individuals of the present day, who eat as though the sole object of eating were to sustain life. Not that they take the best means for accomplishing even that ignoble end. The rules, whose observance renders eating a luxury and an art, also conduce in the highest degree to health. Sacrifices to Ceres and Bacchus, in the very act of the offering, should have a sweet fragrance in the nostrils of Hygeia.

Who shall affix a boundary to the possible progress of an art? Let the vulgar do so, who, struck by apparent perfection, conclude at once that the force of genius “can no further go.” We assert fearlessly that the limits of human creation and improvement are yet unknown. Least of all are they to be defined with reference to that great art which has been styled “the standard and gauge of human civilization,” and which Montaigne, with less respect, denominated the _science de la gueule_. Sceptics were they who, revelling at the table of Louis XIV in the sauces of a Bechamel, or lingering at the board of the great Condé over the _chefs d’œuvre_ of a Vatel--that illustrious martyr to a point of culinary honour!--or inhaling gently and delicately, and degustating slowly, and with marvellous discrimination, the exquisite and quintessential results of the vigils of an Ude, who refused, in their turns, to believe that the science professed by these great men could be capable of improvement, or was susceptible of higher elevation. Alas! have we not lived to vote the resources of all _perruque_ and _rococo_, and to behold the precious laurels that wreathed the temples of the culinary demigods of the 18th century, transferred by acclamation in the 19th to the mighty brows of a Carême and a Beauvilliers, a Soyer and a Francatelli--great names every one--poetizers of the spit, philosophers of the larder, sublime fire-worshippers, high priests of a kitchen fuller than Druidical groves of deep and sacred mysteries?

The two bulky and important volumes before us are characteristic of the distinguished artists to whom we own them. Written, the one by a Frenchman, the other by an Englishman (for Mr. Francatelli, in spite of his name, boasts of an Anglican origin), they differ greatly in form, although in substance, as far as the uninitiated may judge, they are equally excellent. The Modern Cook enters upon his task in a grave and business-like fashion, never tempted into digression, never moved into metaphor, ever keeping in view his main object, which, we an proud to say, is eminently patriotic, for he seeks to elevate the character and position of the English Cook, and to produce a work creditable to the gastronomic knowledge of the nation. “The Gastronomic Regenerator” is a different personage. He can afford to garnish his prose with the flowers of fancy, as his material dishes are crowned with _croustades_ and _atelettes_; he handles with equal ability the quill of Pegasus and the larding-needle, and records with the former the achievements of the latter, in a strain of enthusiasm and heroic sensibility that are not to be surpassed even in the odes of a poet laureate. We confess at the outset that there is much to marvel at in the recondite pages of the Regenerator, but there is nothing to admire more than his matchless modesty, his courteous urbanity, his devotion to the fair sex, and his occasional touching and highly imaginative digressions.

“Why do you not write and publish a Cookery-book? was a question continually put to me. For a considerable time this scientific word caused a thrill of horror to pervade my frame, and brought back to my mind that one day, being in a most superb library in the midst of a splendid baronial hall, by chance I met with one of Milton’s allegorical works, the profound ideas of Locke, the several _chefs d’œuvre_ of one of the noblest champions of literature, Shakspeare; when all at once my attention was attracted by the nineteenth edition of a voluminous work: such an immense success of publication caused me to say, ‘Oh! you celebrated man, posterity counts every hour of fame upon your regretted ashes!’ Opening this work with intense curiosity, to my great disappointment what did I see,--a receipt for Ox-tail Soup! The terrifying effect produced upon me by this succulent volume made me determine that my few ideas, whether culinary or domestic, should never encumber a sanctuary which should be entirely devoted to works worthy of a place in the Temple of the Muses.”

Why, then, great artist, transgress this noble resolution? Why commit a desecration which, indeed, is no desecration, save to your own pre-eminent and too fastidious judgment? Ah, shall we confess it? It is the old story, familiar to the playgoing public, and to the printers of playbills. “The particular desire of several persons of distinction,” and especially of the ladies, to whose appeals M. Soyer Informs us he could never turn a deaf ear, has dragged the sage from his retirement, and compelled him to do violence to a settled conviction and a holy purpose. Some idea of the sacrifice which M. Soyer was called upon to make by the entreaties of the ladies and the distinguished individuals adverted to, may be gathered from the history of the hero during the composition of his work. For ten months he laboured at the pyramid which the remotest posterity shall applaud; and during the whole of that period he was intent upon providing the countless meals which a living generation have already approved and fully digested. Talk of the labours of a Prime Minister or Lord Chancellor! Sir R. Peel was not an idle man. Lord Brougham is a tolerably busy one. Could either, we ask, in the short space of ten months--ten “little months”--have written ‘The Gastronomic Regenerator,’ and furnished 25,000 dinners, 38 banquets of importance, comprising above 70,000 dishes, besides providing daily for 60 servants, and receiving the visits of 15,000 strangers, all too eager to inspect the renowned altar of a great Apician temple? All this did M. Soyer, and we back him for industry against even the indefatigable Brougham.

That more than one of the 38 banquets were of the highest moment, and must at the time have engrossed the mind of their accomplished author, to the serious derangement of his literary avocations, admits of no question the moment we peruse one bill of fare which M. Soyer places before our dazzled and admiring eyes. A memorable dinner was given at the Reform Club, upon the 9th day of May of the present year, to a select party of ten highly-gifted connoisseurs; none of your gobble-and-gulp people, who, in their melancholy ignorance, swallow a _potage à la Comte de Paris_, or a _rissolette à la Pompadour_, with the same frightful _nonchalance_ as a sailor will devour his pea-soup, or a rustic bolt his bacon; but creatures of ethereal natures, devotees of what the painters call “high art;” men who feed their bodies only to give elasticity and vigour to their souls. The _Diner Lucullusian à la Sampayo_ was ordered with a magnificent contempt of expense. No money was to be spared in obtaining the most novel, luxurious, and rare compounds that ingenuity could discover or gold procure. Stimulated by the anxious and repeated visits of a noble-spirited, and judicious guide, a Grove and a Jay, a Townsend and a Morel, a Slater and a Solomon, surpassed themselves in the quality of the viands they purveyed. One dish, the “_Buisson d’Ecrévisses Pagodatique au vin de Champagne à la Sampayo_” cost something more than seven guineas--a trifle! Two large bottles of Perigord truffles, value four guineas, were stewed with the _écrévisses_ in champagne. We have no heart to proceed, for “the author regrets that, in fulfilment of an agreement between him and M. Sampayo, he is restricted from giving the receipt of crawfish _à la Sampayo_.” Why was the dish mentioned at all, if the world is still to be deprived of the receipt? The loss is a national one. Doubtless it would have been very popular at the small clubs, and in great request with gentlemen of limited incomes! But to return to the in

We turn to the pictorial portion of this notable book. After the agreeable portrait of the author, which faces the title-page, the first of the woodcuts that attracts attention is “The Table of the Wealthy,” with the motto, “_Rien ne dispose mieux l’esprit humain à des transactions amicales qu’un dîner bien conçu et artistement préparé_.” A great maxim of diplomacy! How many treaties of peace and commerce have owed their conclusion to the mollifying effects of a series of good dinners! What numerous misunderstandings have been arranged and thorny points happily settled, less by the wisdom of the ambassador than by the ability of the ambassador’s cook! On a judiciously-compounded sauce, or a _rôti cuit à point_, or the seasoning of a _salmi_, or the twirl of a _casserole_, may depend the fate of a crowned head,--the marriage of a prince,--the weal or woe of a nation. Is cookery, then, no art? Truly is it--the highest, the noblest!

A second plate, “My Table at Home,” represents M. Soyer, in his _foyers_, presiding over a select party assembled round his hospitable and well-furnished board. Behold again the unrivalled gallantry of the country, and the individual finding a vent in a poetic and touching smile. “A gastronomical _réunion_, without ladies,” says the chief cook of the Reform Club,” is a parterre without flowers, the ocean without waves, a fleet without sails.”

Talking of fleets, let us pass on at once to the Turkey _à la Nelson_, which deceased but much honoured bird is placed with its tail in the prow of a Roman galley, duly provided with anchor, sail, and all fitting appurtenances, and surmounted by fictitious ducklings, manufactured, as we are informed, but should never have divined, of the legs of fowls. Further on we have the _Gateau Britannique à l‘Amiral_, a comely corvette of cake, coppered with chocolate, displaying wafer sails and sugar rigging, tossing upon waves of _gelée à la Bacchante_,--her canvas swelling to a favouring breeze,--her sides dripping with wine and marmalade,--her interior, even to the hatchways, filled with such a freight as none but Soyer could provide, and perfect _gourmets_ thoroughly appreciate. It is whispered that upon this gallant ship Commodore Napier did fearful execution in the presence of his quondam foe and present friend, Ibrahim Pacha, when that illustrious individual dined with the Commodore at his club. Assaulting the craft with the fierce impetuosity for which the hero of Acre is so renowned, and thrusting his boarding-pike--his spoon we would say--deep into the hold of the luscious craft, he destroyed in an instant Soyer’s labour of a day. Timbers were stove in or out,--sails came down by the run,--masts went by the board,--and all was wreck, where a second before all had been symmetry and perfection.

Nothing that relates to the kitchen or the table has been neglected or overlooked by the Regenerator. We have plans and drawings of kitchens of every description, from the matchless establishments of the Reform Club, with its ice drawers, slate wells, steam closets, _bains marie_, and fifty other modern refinements, to the unpretending cooking-places of the cottage or the bachelor. But perhaps the section of the book to be chiefly prized by the general reader and indifferent gastronome, is the short one relating to carving. Good carvers are almost as rare as good tenor singers. The proper dissection of flesh and fowl is a matter of high importance, rarely excelled in, but should be always studied. It is an accomplishment almost as indispensable as reading and writing, and quite as graceful. “If you should, unhappily,” says Launcelot Sturgeon, in his Essays, Moral, Philosophical, and Stomachic, “be forced to carve at table, neither labour at the joint till you put yourself in a heat, nor make such a desperate effort to dissect it as may put your neighbours in fear of their lives; however, if an accident should happen, make no excuses, for they are only an acknowledgment of awkwardness. We remember to have seen a man of high fashion deposit a turkey in this way in the lap of a lady, but with admirable composure, and without offering the slightest apology, he finished a story which he was telling at the same time, and then quietly turning to her, merely said, ‘Madam, I’ll thank you for that turkey.’” To those who may not possess similar coolness, and the same stoical indifference to the fate of ladies’ dresses and the results of ladies’ indignation, M. Soyer’s improvements in carving are valuable indeed.

“Nature, says I to myself, compels us to dine more or less once a day; each of those days you are, honorable reader, subject to meet en _tête-à-tête_ with a fowl, poularde, duck, pheasant, or other volatile species; is it not bad enough to have sacrificed the lives of those _amimaus bienfaisans_ to satisfy our indefatigable appetites, without pulling and tearing to atoms the remains of our benefactors? it is high time for the credit of humanity and the comfort of quiet families, to put an end to the massacre of those innocents.”

Incomparable benevolence! Tenderest commiseration! Perfect humanity! “We will be sacrificers, not butchers, Caius Cassius.” The philanthropic progress of the century has reached the kitchen, and animal love is most intense in the vicinity of the stockpot. What would the kitchen of the Reform Club be without humanity and the liberal sentiments? No more will barbarous cooks be haunted by horrid visons of the night! Incipient porkers shall no longer pine away their sweetness, and strive to toughen their crackling in anticipation of a final flagellation. Eels shall no longer be required to give up their skins before their ghosts, and some humaner process than a surfeit of food, a deprivation of drink, and a gradual roasting near a scorching fire, will, let us hope, be discovered, to give to the livers of ducks that glorious expansion and pinguid richness so much appreciated by the epicure. We will not despair of witnessing, under the dominion of M. Soyer, the introduction and use of some instrument analogous to the guillotine, which by a stroke shall do its deadly necessary work: nay, might not advances lately made in Mesmerism be turned to good account in procuring painless death to those whom the feeling Soyer so beautifully calls our “benefactors?” A goose, in a state of coma, would be uncognizant of the penknife that divides its jugular; calves and sheep properly subjected to the action of the magnetic fluid would pass from life into the larder without a struggle or a groan. But to carving! For joints, our author gives most lucid directions, which, if properly studied, cannot fail to convert the merest tyro into an admirable carver. For game and poultry he has done more. He has invented an instrument, to be had at Bramah’s, in Piccadilly, and with which printed directions are given, by the aid of which the joints of birds are severed without the smallest detriment to their good looks. “Formerly,” he says, “nothing was more difficult to carve than wild fowl, the cont