Society as I Have Found It
the purchases, for these gentry like to make a little _economie_, which
always benefits themselves, and such _economie_ gives you poor material
for him to work upon, instead of good.
How often have I heard a hostess boast, “I never give any attention to
the details of my dinner, I simply tell my butler how many people we are
to have.” In nine cases out of ten this is apparent in the dinner.
Madame Rothschild, who has always given the best dinners in Paris,
personally supervises everything. The great Duchess of Sutherland, the
Queen’s friend, when she entertained, inspected every arrangement
personally herself. I daily comment to my cook on the performance of the
previous day. No one, especially in this country, can accomplish great
results without giving time and attention to these details. No French
cook will take any interest in his work unless he receives praise and
criticism; but above all things, you must know how to criticise. If he
finds you are able to appreciate his work when good, and condemn it when
bad, he improves, and gives you something of value.
Now let us treat of dinners as given before the introduction of _chefs_,
and still preferred by the majority of people.
The best talent with poor material may give a fair dinner, but if the
material is poor, the dinner will evidence it. For forty years I have
always marketed myself and secured the respect of my butcher, letting
him know that I knew as much if not more than he did.
In selecting your shin of beef, remember that a fresh shin is always the
best for soup. In choosing fish, look at their gills, which should be a
bright red.
See your _filet_ cut with the fat well marbled, cut from young beef.
Sweetbreads come in pairs; one fine, one inferior. Pay an extra price,
and get your butcher to cut them apart and give you only the two large
heart breads, leaving to him the two thin throat breads to sell at a
reduced price.
In poultry there are two kinds of fat, yellow and white. Fowls fed on
rice have white fat; those on corn meal, yellow fat. By the feet of the
bird, you can tell its age.
The black and red feathered fowls are always preferred. Never take a
gray feathered bird.
Look at the head of the canvasback and the redhead; see them together,
and then you will readily see the birds to pick, i.e. the canvasback.
Weigh in your hand each snipe or woodcock; the weight will tell you if
the bird is fat and plump.
In buying terrapin, look at each one, and see if they are the simon-pure
diamond back Chesapeakes.
In choosing your saddle of mutton, take the short-legged ones, the meat
coming well down the leg, nearly reaching the foot; a short, thick,
stubby little tail; must have the look of the pure Southdown, with
black legs and feet.
Of hothouse grapes, I find the large white grapes the best, Muscats of
Alexandria.
Parch and grind your coffee the day you drink it. Always buy green
coffee.
Never use the small _timbales_ of _pâté de foie gras_, generally given
one to each guest. Always have an entire _foie gras_, be it large or
small, for in this way you are apt to get old _foie gras_ thus worked
up.
Always buy your _foie gras_ from an A1 house, never from the butcher or
fruiterer.
I here give as a recollection of the past the
Menu of an Old-fashioned Southern Dinner.
Terrapin Soup and Oyster Soup, Or Mock Turtle Soup,
Soft Shell Or Cylindrical Nose Turtle.[a]
Boiled Fresh Water Trout (Known With Us at the North
As Chub).
Shad Stuffed and Baked (We Broil It).
Boiled Turkey, Oyster Sauce. a Roast Peahen.
Boiled Southern Ham.
Escalloped Oysters. Maccaroni With Cheese. Prawn Pie.
Crabs Stuffed in Shell.
Roast Ducks. a Haunch of Venison.
_dessert._
Plum Pudding. Mince Pies. Trifle. Floating Island.
Blanc Mange. Jelly.
Ice Cream.
[A] This turtle is only found in the ditches of the rice fields,
and is the most valued delicacy of the South. It is too delicate to
transport to the North. I have made several attempts to do this, but
invariably failed, the turtle dying before it could reach New York.
Its shell is gelatinous, all of which is used in the soup. It is only
caught in July and August, and even then it is very rare, and brings a
high price.
On repeatedly visiting the West Indies, I found that two of the best
Carolina and Georgia dishes, supposed always to have emanated from the
African brain, were imported from these islands, and really had not even
their origin there, but were brought from Bordeaux to the West Indies,
and thence were carried to the South. I refer to the _Crab à la Creole_,
and _Les Aubergines farcies à la Bordelaise_.
After the great revolution, when the Africans of Hayti drove from the
island their former masters, good French cooking came with them to
Baltimore, and other parts of the South. In talking of Southern dishes,
I must not forget the Southern barnyard-fed turkey. They were fattened
on small rice and were very fine. In discussing Southern dinners, I
cannot omit making mention of the old Southern butler, quite an
institution; devoted to his master, and taking as much pride in the
family as the family took in itself. Among Southern household servants
(all colored people), the man bore two names as well as the woman. The
one he answered to as servant, the other was his title. Whenever, as a
boy, I wanted particularly to gratify my father’s old butler, I would
give him his title, which was “Major Brown.” He was commonly called Nat.
I remember, on one occasion, a guest at my father’s table asking Major
Brown to hand him the rice, whilst he was eating fish. The old
gray-haired butler drew himself up with great dignity, and replied,
“Massa, we don’t eat rice with fish in this house.”
Some features of the everyday Southern dinner were _pilau_, i.e. boiled
chickens on a bed of rice, with a large piece of bacon between the
chickens; “Hoppin John,” that is, cowpeas with bacon; okra soup, a
staple dish; shrimp and prawn pie; crab salad; pompey head (a stuffed
_filet_ of veal); roast quail and snipe, and, during the winter, shad
daily, boiled, broiled and baked.
As there is reciprocity in everything, if you dine with others, they, in
turn, must dine with you. Passing several winters at Nassau, N.P., I
dined twice a week, regularly, with the Governor of the Bahamas. I
suggested to him the propriety of my giving him a dinner. He smiled, and
said:
“My dear fellow, I represent Her Majesty; I cannot, in this town, dine
out of my own house.”
“Egad!” said I, “then dine with me in the country!”
“That will do,” he replied; “but how will you, as a stranger, get up a
dinner in this land, where it is a daily struggle to get food?”
“Leave that to me,” I said. The Governor’s accepting this invitation,
recalled a story my father oft related, which caused me some anxiety as
to the expense of my undertaking. A distinguished man with whom he was
associated at the bar was sent as our Minister to Russia; when he
returned home, my father interviewed him as to his Russian experience.
He said, that after being repeatedly entertained by the royal family, he
felt that it was incumbent on him, in turn, to entertain them himself;
so he approached the Emperor’s grand Chamberlain and expressed this
wish, who at once accepted an invitation to breakfast for the whole
Imperial family. “McAllister,” he said, “I gave that breakfast; I was
charmed with its success, but my dear man, it took my entire fortune to
pay for it. I have been a poor man ever since.”
Having this party on hand, I went to the _chef_ of the hotel,
interviewed him, found he had been at one time the head cook of the New
York Hotel in this city; so I felt safe in his hands. I went to work and
made out a list of all the French dishes that could be successfully
rechaufféd. Such as _côtelettes de mouton en papillotte_, _vol au vent à
la financière_, _boudins de volaille à la Richelieu_, _timbales de riz
de veau_, _et quenelle de volaille_; a boiled Yorkshire ham, easily
heated over, to cook which properly it must be simmered from six to
seven hours until you can turn the bone; then lay it aside twelve hours
to cool; then put it in an oven, and constantly baste it with a pint of
cider. It must be served hot, even after being cut. The oftener it is
placed in the oven and heated the better it becomes. Thus cooked, they
have been by one of my friends hermetically sealed in a tin case and
sent to several distinguished men in England, who have found them a
great delicacy.
I then hired for the day for $20 a shut-up country place; got plenty of
English bunting, quantities of flowers; saw that my champagne was of the
best and well _frappéd_; made a speech to the waiters and cook, urging
them to show these Britishers what the Yankee could do when put to his
stumps; and then with a long cavalcade of cooks, waiters, pots, and
pans, heading the procession myself, went off to my orange-grove
retreat, some five miles from Nassau, made my men work like beavers, and
awaited the arrival of my sixty English guests, who were coming to see
the American _fiasco_ in the way of a country dinner and _fête_. In they
came, and great was their surprise when they beheld a table for sixty
people, _pièces montés_ of confectionery, flowers, wines all nicely
decanted, and a really good French dinner, at once served to them. I
only relate this to show that where there is a will there is a way, and
that you can so work upon a French cook’s vanity that he will, on a
spurt like this, outdo himself.
Marvelous to relate, the _chef_ positively refused to be recompensed.
“No, sir,” he replied; “I am well off; I wish no pay. Monsieur has
appreciated my efforts. Monsieur knows when things are well done. He has
made a great success. All the darkies on this island could not have
cooked that dinner. I am satisfied.”
I was so pleased with the fellow, that when he broke down in health he
came to me, and I had him as my cook two Newport summers. I kept him
alive by giving him old Jamaica rum and milk fresh from the cow, taken
before his breakfast,--an old Southern remedy for consumption.
Some of his remarks on Nassau are worthy of repeating. I said to him,
“_Chef_, why don’t they raise vegetables on this fruitful island? Why
bring them all from New York?”
“Monsieur,” he replied, “here you sow your seed at night, by midnight it
is ripe and fit to cook; by morning it has gone to seed. The same way
with sheep. You bring a flock of sheep here, with fine fleeces of wool;
in a few months they are goats, and not wool enough on them to plug your
ears.”
BALLS.
CHAPTER XXIV.
_The “Banner Ball”--How to prepare a Ball-room Floor--A curious
Costume and a sharp Answer--The Turkish Ball--Indisposition of
ladies to dance at a Public Ball--The Yorktown Centennial
Ball--Committees are Ungrateful--My Experience in this Matter--I
discover Mr. Blaine and introduce Myself._
In 1876, asked by a committee of eighty-two ladies to act as Manager of
a ball they were getting up at Chickering Hall, in aid of the
“Centennial Union,” to be called the “Banner Ball,” I accepted their
flattering invitation to lead so fair a band of patriots.
On examining the premises, I found that on a new floor they had put a
heavy coat of varnish; there was nothing _then_ to be done but to
sprinkle it thickly with corn meal, and then sweep it off, and renew the
dressing from time to time. It is well to say here that if a floor is