Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 150.djvu/176
water was not alone, for there was a flask of leather called bottrine, which held about a quart of exquisite vin de Beaulne. So many good things might have created an appetite under the ribs of death.”
Meantime, in England, the French conquerors had introduced many refinements into the coarse though abundant banquets of the Anglo-Saxons; and in the time of Richard II. appeared the first English cookery-book, known as the ‘Forme of Cury,’ which gives us considerable insight into medieval dishes. It is observable that there is a great use of vegetables, of honey and saffron as condiments (probably a vicious relic of Roman cookery), of strongly seasoned soups and broths, and every variety of minces, hashes, stews, and pasties. The dinner usually consisted of three courses, each of which included on State occasions some eight or ten dishes, varied by such royal joints as a haunch of venison, a peacock, or a sturgeon.
Fish-dinners were a feature of these Catholic times; for all through Lent, as well as on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, the use of meat was forbidden by the Church. There does not appear to have been much penance involved in this, for the menus of fast-days, although they consist wholly of fish, are in every respect as abundant as those on festivals; in fact, there is no other form of food which lends itself to such infinite variety in the hands of a good cook, especially of a medieval chef, who apparently made use of everything that had fins or swam in sea or river and did not scruple to serve up powdered lampreys, and fried leeches.
Certainly, one of the best dinners ever eaten by the writer of these pages was on Ash-Wednesday at a Roman Catholic club in Savile Row some years since, and he has even now a pleasant remembrance of the bisque, the filets de sole aux truffes, the omelette, the beignets d'abricot, the tomates ou gratin, and the “Roederer ’68,” which formed part of this penitential feast. One of the longest and most elaborate menus in existence is that composed by the late Mr Hayward for a fish-dinner that might be given to the Pope in case his Holiness should ever visit England, and which will be found in the Appendix to the ‘Art of Dining.’
In the Tudor period dinners seem to have become more substantial: large joints appear more frequently in the bills of fare, and table decorations come into favour, as well as cunning devices in the way of pastry and confectionery. Pepys' Diary gives us frequent glimpses of middle-class cookery in the time of the Stuarts; and the Admiralty clerk was himself no mean judge of good cheer. Here, for example, is a dinner which he considers an unusually good one: “Fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, roasted pigeons, four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey-pie (a most rare pie), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble, and to my great content.”[1] Sir Walter Scott, again, gives us an account of a little dinner prepared by “M. Chaubert” for two epicures of the Court, on their way to Martindale Castle, the refinements of which were wasted on the unsophisticated Julian Peveril: “Squab pigeons, wild-fowl, young chickens,