Most
of us have done a little (or a lot) too much eating and drinking over the last
week or so, as we tend to do at this time of the year. Over the Christmas
season, words used in descriptions of the annual eating frenzy – words such as
gourmet, gourmand, glutton, epicure and so on - are tossed around with careless
abandon in newspapers and magazines, leading me to ask ‘What do each of these
words mean, specifically?’
I
give you one man’s opinion on the meaning of these words – and a few more - the
brilliant and entertaining wordsmith and food-lover, Mr. Charles Dickens,
editor of All the Year Round, Vol. 20
(1868.)
Gourmands And Gormandising.
The word the French use
as a term, if not of honour, certainly of approval, is with us changed into a
term of reproach: so much, even in small matters, do the two nations differ.
The dictionary of the Academy defines a Gourmand, as Dr. Johnson also does, as
synonymous with a glutton. In the Encyclopaedia, gormandising is translated as
"a demoralised love of good cheer;" but the Abbé Robaud, in his synonymes,
is more favourable to gourmands, describing them as "persons who love to
eat and make good cheer." They must eat, but not eat without selection.
Below the judicious and self-restraining epicure, the sensible and tolerant abbé
places four classes of people. First, the Friand, the person who likes all
sorts of dainties, especially sweetmeats and dessert. The Goinfre is a monster
who has an appetite so brutal that he swallows with ravening mouth everything
he comes near; he eats and eats for the sake of eating. Next appears the Goulu
(the shark), the wretch who snatches with avidity, swallows rather than eats,
and gobbles rather than chews. Last of all comes that very discreditable
creature the Glutton, who eats with an audible and disagreeable noise, and with
such voracity that one morsel scarcely waits for another, and. all disappears
before him, absorbed as it were in a bottomless abyss. Such are the subtleties
of the highly refined language of our neighbours. For all these expressions we
have but the feeble epithets of epicure, alderman, greyhound, wolf. We are
obliged, indeed, to borrow from the French, the two words Gourmand and Gourmet.
By the first, meaning those who eat largely, without much regard to quality; by
the second, those who study and appreciate the higher branches of cooking.
A
friend of Dreikopf’s has ascertained, after twenty years' experiments, that it
takes thirty-two movements of the upper and lower jaws to cut and grind a
morsel of meat sufficiently to allow it to be safely swallowed. The age and
strength of the person, and the quality of the molars and incisors, are also,
of course, to be taken into account, which drives one to algebra and vulgar
fractions; but the rule is a good general one, and may be trusted to. This is
philosophy indeed; and yet a man may use his teeth very well without knowing a
word of it. It would not have helped that notorious eater, the Abbé de
Liongeac, who, as the legend in Paris restaurants goes, would often for a wager
eat thirty-six dozens of small pâtés. The abbé was, moreover, a little fragile-looking
man, who looked as if a jelly would not melt in his mouth.
To
be an epicure, a man should be rich; a poor epicure (unless he steal) must lead
the life of twenty Tantaluses rolled into one. Elwes, the miser, was that
unhappy creature: an epicure restrained from indulging in one vice, by the
preponderance of another. People who laid traps for his rusty guineas used to
bring him luxurious dishes, which he spoiled by his meanness. On one occasion a
prudent lady sent the old miser a plate of richly stewed carp, of which he was
known to be fond. It arrived cold. The difficulty was how to warm it. Elwes had
no coal; he was not going to waste a fire; nothing would induce him to do that.
What should he do? A happy thought struck him. He took the dish, covered it
with another, and sat down on it patiently like a hatching hen until it got
tolerably warm, and the generous port wine flavour was elicited from the gravy.
There
was a story current some years ago in Paris, of a Gascon equally fond of good
living, but from much more tangible reasons unable to indulge his taste. On a
search for a dinner at some one's expense, our wily Gascon one day entered a
restaurant where a pompous gourmand of the parvenu kind was just finishing a
solitary but elaborate dinner, and sat surrounded by trophies of the strength
of his jaws. The gourmand was just then annoyed at some doubts of the power of
his appetite.
"Eh
bien, gentlemen," he said, carefully selecting a toothpick. "My
waistcoat strings are ready to fly, and yet I could recommence now, if any one
would offer me a wager."
The Gascon leaped at
him. "I accept the wager, monsieur," he cried, throwing down the
carte he had been hungrily scanning. "I'll meet you, though I had formed a
project of fasting for a week, for only three days ago I began at a tremendous
wedding feast, which has lasted from then till now."
The
gourmand, either through politeness or pride, inquired no more, feeling sure of
victory in whatever condition his adversary might be. The bet was made. Whoever
gave up first was to pay for both dinners. The Gascon ate like a Lou. He was a
goinfre at the soup, a goulu at the fish, a gourmand at the entremets, a
gourmet at the wine, a friand at the dessert. Unfortunately, his stomach, like
a dry balloon, could not expand quite quick enough. The Gascon felt there was
something going wrong internally, but on he plunged, a hero to the last, and
knowing that, victorious or defeated, he could not pay, he ate until he fell in
a swoon of repletion.
The
waiters felt that here was the beaten man, to whom they had to look for the
bill. They surrounded the prostrate champion, partly to find his address,
partly to sound his purse, and make sure of their money, but, alas! the Gascon
had not enough even to pay Charon for the ferry over the gloomy river. The
restaurateur, in his despair, appealed to the witnesses whether the living
ought not to pay for the dead. Gourmands are generally good-natured easy people.
This epicure, delighted at his victory, though it had ended in the death of his
terrible opponent, drew out his purse, and smiling blandly at the prostrate
Gascon, quietly paid.
The generous creature
had hardly left, before the Gascon, who had remained forgotten in a corner,
came to himself, and comprehending from a few words dropped by the nearest
waiters that the bill was settled, was so overjoyed that he began to move,
which instantly brought every one round him. The universal cry was, "Give
him an emetic!" "Bring a stomach pump!"
The poor wretch turned
pale, pulled himself together, and, with one bolt, dashed like a harlequin
through the glass doors into the street.
"I
am all right," he said, when he was safe; "Cadedis, I'll take good
care of myself, for I am cured now for a good week more."
That
Gascon was evidently a great undeveloped epicure, who only wanted a good income
to have sipped his ortolan soup with the best. We can scarcely doubt that in
the old Greek times he would have worn his tongue in a little case, like the
Sybarite mentioned by Athenseus, who was anxious to preserve the purity and
sensitiveness of that useful and favoured organ.
There
is more in this article, so perhaps I will continue it tomorrow, but in the
meanwhile, I want to focus on the word ‘friand.’ Today, in the English
language, it is more likely to indicate a small cake of French (or presumed
French) heritage than a “person who likes all sorts of dainties, especially
sweetmeats and dessert.” According to the Oxford
English Dictionary, the word is derived from the French friend meaning
dainty, and is “an alteration of friant,
past participle of frire, the primary
sense being ‘qui grille (d'impatience)’ The OED
gives two usages
1.
Dainty; delicious to the palate; fond of
delicate food. First known usage in written English is given as occurring in
1599.
2.
A
person of dainty taste in food, an epicure. First known usage in 1598.
So,
the OED has not caught up with the cake-noun yet. Time (and insufficient
language skills) prevents me from performing an exhaustive search for the
development of the friend-as-cake, but I did find an interesting associated
word.
In
The Menu Book of Practical gastronomy, a
menu compiler and register of dishes (Chicago, 1908) by Charles Herman Senn
is a couple of mentions of something called a friandine. Senn gives the
derivation of this word as “French, from Old French friant, from present participle of frire to fry, roast.” His description of the items will serve as
our recipe for the day:
Friandines.
These are made of
puff-paste, rolled out thinly with a 2-inch fluted round cutter ; a portion of
prepared mince or salpicon of meat or game, etc., is placed in the centre of
each round ; this is covered with a round of paste, egged, dipped in crushed
vermicelli, and fried in clarified butter, lard or dripping.
Friandines de volaille.
- Chicken friandines.
-
de fole-gras. - Goose liver friandines.
-
de glbler. - Game friandines.
-
de homard
- Lobster friandines.
-
aux huitres. - Oyster friandines.
-
de poisson. - Fish friandines.
-
de ris de veau. - Sweetbread friandines.
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