Society as I Have Found It

intended effect on the culinary artist, and _his_ brain would at once act in sympathy. The first battle is over the soup, and here there is a vast difference of opinion. In this country, where our servants are oftentimes unskilled, and have a charming habit of occasionally giving ladies a soup shower bath, I invariably discard two soups, and insist to the protesting _chef_ that there shall be but one. Of course, if there are two, the one is light, the other heavy. Fortunately for the period in which we live, our great French artists have invented the _Tortue claire_; which takes the place of our forefathers’ Mock Turtle soup, with forcemeat balls, well spiced, requiring an ostrich’s digestion to survive it. We have this, then, as our soup. The _chef_ here exclaims, “Monsieur must know that all _petites bouchées_ must, of necessity, be made of chicken.” We ask for a novelty, and his great genius suggests, under pressure, _mousse aux jambon_, which is attractive to the eye, and, if well made, at once establishes the reputation of the artist, satisfies the guests that they are in able hands, and allays their fears for their dinner. There is but one season of the year when salmon should be served hot at a choice repast; that is in the spring and early summer, and even then it is too satisfying, not sufficiently delicate. The man who gives salmon during the winter, I care not what sauce he serves with it, does an injury to himself and his guests. Terrapin is with us as national a dish as canvasback, and at the choicest dinners is often a substitute for fish. It is a shellfish, and an admirable change from the oft repeated _filet de sole_ or _filet de bass_. At the South, terrapin soup, with plenty of eggs in it, was a dish for the gods, and a standard dinner party dish in days when a Charleston and Savannah dinner was an event to live for. But no Frenchman ever made this soup. It requires the native born culinary genius of the African. Now when we mention the word terrapin, we approach a very delicate subject, involving a rivalry between two great cities; a subject that has been agitated for thirty years or more, and is still agitated, i.e. the proper way of cooking terrapin. The Baltimoreans contending that the black stew, the chafing dish system, simply adding to the terrapin salt, pepper, and Madeira, produce the best dish; while the Philadelphians contend that by fresh butter and cream they secure greater results. The one is known as the Baltimore black stew; the other, as the Trenton stew, this manner of cooking terrapin originating in an old eating club in Trenton, N. J. I must say I agree with the Philadelphians. And now, leaving the fish, we come to the _pièce de resistance_ of the dinner, called the _relévé_. No Frenchman will ever willingly cook a ladies’ dinner and give anything coarser or heavier than a _filet de bœuf_. He will do it, if he has to, of course, but he will think you a barbarian if you order him to do it. I eschew the mushroom and confine myself to the truffle in the treatment of the _filet_. I oftentimes have a _filet à la mœlle de bœuf_, or _à la jardinière_. In the fall of the year, turkey _poults à la Bordelaise_, or _à la Toulouse_, or a saddle of Southdown mutton or lamb, are a good substitute. Let me here say that the American turkey, as found on Newport Island, all its feathers being jet black and its diet grasshoppers, is exceptionally fine. Now for the _entrées_. In a dinner of twelve or fourteen, one or two hot _entrées_ and one cold is sufficient. If you use the truffle with the _filet_, making a black sauce, you must follow it with a white sauce, as a _riz de veau à la Toulouse_, or a _suprême de volaille_; then a _chaud-froid_, say of _pâté de foie gras en Bellevue_, which simply means _pâté de foie gras_ incased in jelly. Then a hot vegetable, as artichokes, sauce _Barigoule_, or _Italienne_, or asparagus, sauce _Hollandaise_. Then your _sorbet_, known in France as _la surprise_, as it is an ice, and produces on the mind the effect that the dinner is finished, when the grandest dish of the dinner makes its appearance in the shape of the roast canvasbacks, woodcock, snipe, or truffled capons, with salad. I must be permitted a few words of and about this _sorbet_. It should never be flavored with rum. A true Parisian _sorbet_ is simply “_punch à la Toscane_,” flavored with _Maraschino_ or bitter almonds; in other words, a homœopathic dose of prussic acid. Then the _sorbet_ is a digestive, and is intended as such. _Granit_, or water ice, flavored with rum, is universally given here. Instead of aiding digestion, it impedes it, and may be dangerous. A Russian salad is a pleasing novelty at times, and is more attractive if it comes in the shape of a _Macedoine de legumes_, Camembert cheese, with a biscuit, with which you serve your Burgundy, your old Port, or your Johannisberg, the only place in the dinner where you can introduce this latter wine. A genuine Johannisberg, I may say here, by way of parenthesis, is rare in this country, for if obtained at the Chateau, it is comparatively a dry wine; if it is, as I have often seen it, still lusciously sweet after having been here twenty years or more, you may be sure it is not a genuine Chateau wine. The French always give a hot pudding, as pudding _suedoise_, or a _croute au Madère_, or _ananas_, but I always omit this dish to shorten the dinner. Then come your ices. The fashion now is to make them very ornamental, a _cornucopia_ for instance, but I prefer a _pouding Nesselrode_, the best of all the ices if good cream is used. MADEIRAS. CHAPTER XX. _Madeira the King of Wines--It took its Name from the Ship it came in--Daniel Webster and “Butler 16”--How Philadelphians “fine” their Wines--A Southern Wine Party--An Expert’s shrewd Guess--The Newton Gordons--Prejudice against Malmsey--Madeira should be kept in the Garret--Some famous Brands._ Having had your champagne from the fish to the roast, your _vin ordinaire_ through the dinner, your Burgundy or Johannisberg, or fine old Tokay (quite equal to any Johannisberg), with the cheese, your best claret with the roast, then after the ladies have had their fruit and have left the table, comes on the king of wines, your Madeira; a national wine, a wine only well matured at the South, and a wine whose history is as old as is that of our country. I may here say, that Madeira imparts a vitality that no other wine can give. After drinking it, it acts as a soporific, but the next day you feel ten years younger and stronger for it. I have known a man, whose dinners were so famous by reason of his being always able to give at them a faultless Madeira, disappear with his wine. When his wine gave out, he collapsed. When asked, “Where is Mr. Jones?” the ready answer was always given, “He went out with his ‘Rapid’ Madeira.” Families prided themselves on their Madeira. It became an heirloom (as Tokay now is, in Austria). Like the elephant, it seemed to live over three score years and ten. The fine Madeiras were fine when they reached this country. Age improved them, and made them the poetry of wine. They became the color of amber and retained all their original flavor. But it is an error to suppose that age ever improved a poor Madeira. If it came here poor and sweet, it remained poor and sweet, and never lost its sweetness, even at seventy or eighty years, while the famous Madeiras, dating as far back as 1791, if they have been properly cared for, are perfect to this day. We should value wine like women, for maturity, not age. These wines took their names generally from the ships in which they came over. There is no more sensitive wine to climatic influences. A delicate Madeira, taken only a few blocks on a cold, raw day, is not fit to drink; and again, you might as well give a man champagne out of a horse bucket, as to give him a Madeira in a thick sherry or claret glass, or a heavy cut glass. The American pipe-stem is the only glass in which Madeira should be given, and when thus given, is, as one of our distinguished men once said, “The only liquid he ever called wine.” This ought to be given as was done by the Father of the Roman Lucullus, who never saw more than a single cup of the Phanean wine served at one time at his father’s table. A friend of mine once gave the proprietor of the Astor House, for courtesies extended to him, a dozen of his finest Madeira. He had the curiosity years after to ask his host of the Astor what became of this wine. He replied, “Daniel Webster came to my house, and I opened a bottle of it for him, and he remained in the house until he had drunk up every drop of it.” This was the famous “Butler 16.” As in painting there are the Murillo and Correggio schools, the light ethereal conceptions of womanhood, as against the rich Titian coloring; so in Madeira, there is the full, round, strong, rich wine, liked by some in preference to the light, delicate, straw-colored, rain-water wines. Philadelphians first took to this character of wine. They judiciously “fined” their wine, and produced simply a perfect Madeira,--to be likened to the best Johannisberg, and naturally so, it having similar qualities, as it is well known that the Sercial Madeira, the “king pin” of all Madeiras, was raised from a Rhine grape taken to the Island of Madeira. And here let me say, that “fining,” by using only the white of a perfectly fresh egg and Spanish clay, is proper and judicious, but milk is ruinous. The eggs in Spain are famous, and are thus used. In Savannah and Charleston, from 1800 up to our Civil War, afternoon wine parties were the custom. You were asked to come and taste Madeira, at 5 P.M., _after your dinner_. The hour of dining in these cities was then always 3 P.M. The mahogany table, which reflected your face, was set with finger bowls, with four pipe-stem glasses in each bowl, olives, parched ground nuts and almonds, and half a dozen bottles of Madeira. There you sat, tasted and commented on these wines for an hour or more. On one occasion, a gentleman, not having any wine handy, mixed half “Catherine Banks” and half “Rapid.” On tasting the mixture, a great wine expert said if he could believe his host capable of mixing a wine, he would say it was “half Catherine Banks and half Rapid.” This was after fifteen men had said they could not name the Madeira. A distinguished stranger having received an invitation to one of these wine parties from the British Consul, replied, “Thanks, I must decline, for where I dine I take my wine.” The oldest and largest shippers of Madeira were the Newton Gordons, who sent the finest Madeiras to Charleston and Savannah. From 1791 to 1805, their firm was Newton Gordon, Murdock, & Scott. One hundred and ten years ago, they sent five hundred pipes of Madeira in one shipment to Savannah. These wines sent there were the finest Sercials, Buals, and Malmseys. All those wines were known as extra Madeiras. The highest priced wine, a Manigult Heyward wine, I knew forty years ago; it was ninety years old--perfect, full flavored, and of good color and strength. In Charleston and Savannah from 1780 to 1840, almost every gentleman ordered a pipe of wine from Madeira. I know of a man who has kept this up for half a century. There is a common prejudice against Malmsey, as being a lady’s wine, and sweet; when very old, no Madeira can beat it. I have now in my cellar an “All Saints” wine, named after the famous Savannah Quoit Club, imported in 1791; a perfect wine, of exquisite flavor. My wife’s grandfather imported two pipes of Madeira every year, and my father-in-law continued to do this as long as he lived. When he died he had, as I am told, the