Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
It seems a childish remark to make, that all salts do not coincide in
their saltness, nor sugars in their sweetness. The principle, however,
which the observation contains within it, is any thing but childish. It
implies, that, supposing the accuracy of a Soyer to be nearly infallible,
the faith in his instructions must never be so implicit as to supersede
the testimony of one's own senses, and the admonitions of one's own
judgment. It is with the most poignant recollections that we acknowledge
the justice of the Regenerator's caution on this head. We once, with a
friend who shared our martyrdom, tried to make onion soup in exact
conformity with what was set down in an Oracle of Cookery, which a foul
mischance had placed across our path. With unerring but inflecting
fidelity, we filled, and mixed, and stirred, and watched, the fatal
caldron. The result was to the eye inexpressibly alarming. A thick oily
fluid, repulsive in colour, but infinitely more so in smell, fell with a
flabby, heavy, lazy stream, into the soup-plate. Having swallowed, with a
Laocoonic contortion of countenance, two or three mouthfuls, our
individual eyes wandered stealthily towards our neighbour. Evidently we
were fellow-sufferers; but pride, which has occasioned so many lamentable
catastrophes, made us both dumb and obdurate in our agony. Slowly and
sadly, at lengthened intervals, the spoon, with its abominable freight,
continued to make silent voyages from the platters to our lips. How long
we made fools of ourselves it is not necessary to calculate. Suddenly, by
a simultaneous impulse, the two windows of the room favoured the headlong
exit of two wretches whose accumulated grievances were heavier than they
could endure. Hours rolled away, while the beautiful face of Winandermere
looked as ugly as Styx, as we writhed along its banks, more miserably
moaning than the hopeless beggar who sighed for the propitiatory obolus to
Charon. And from that irrevocable hour we have abandoned onions to the
heroines of tragedy. Fools, in spite of all warning, are taught by such a
process as that to which we submitted. Wise men, take a hint.
"Nature, says I to myself"--Soyer is speaking--"compels us to dine more or
less once a-day." The average which oscillates between the "more" and the
"less," it requires considerable dexterity to catch. Having read six
hundred pages and fourteen hundred receipts, the question is, where are we
to begin? Our helplessness is confessed. Is it possible the Regenerator
is, after all, more tantalizing than the Barmecide? No--here is the very
aid we desiderate. Our readers shall judge of a
"DINNER PARTY AT HOME."
BILL OF FARE FOR EIGHT PERSONS.
Asparagus.
New Potatoes.
1 SOUP.
French Pot au Feu.
1 FISH.
3 Slices of Salmon en matelote.
2 REMOVES.
Braised Fowls with spring vegetables.
Leg of Mutton basted with devil's tears.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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