The Pleasure of Eating: 2, Touch.

On Day 2 of our exploration of the role of the senses in the pleasure of eating, as explained in Dining and its Amenities, by a Lover of Good Cheer (New York, 1907) it is the turn of the tactile sense. Here are our author’s words on the subject:

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'The tactile sense, so indispensable to all animated creatures, never fails to take cognisance, in the mouth, of the pungency, consistence and temperature of ingested aliments. Manual touch, too, is especially gratified by the smoothness of those shapely modern implements for cutting and those for breaking up the food and for conveying it to the mouth where its consistency is more exactly determined by the action of the tongue and teeth. The exquisite tactile sense of the lips and tongue's tip is either supremely gratified or painfully roused when the fork, spoon, or food touches these guardians of the mouth which are ever ready to give warning of the too high or too

low temperature of liquids or solids. The thermic sensibility of the tongue and mouth was once shockingly realised in the case of the voracious Doctor Samuel Johnson at dinner in good company. Feeding and talking at the same time with little intermission, he crammed in greedily a large scalding mouthful of food which he forthwith disgorged in his plate, saying to a fair neighbor: ''a fool would have swallowed that."

Certain aliments are enjoyed only when very warm and seasoned with pungent condiments. Tepid or cool they give no pleasing sensation. Vegetables are the more succulent and tasty when served very hot, notably the mushroom whose aroma thus heightened gives almost as much pleasure as its savor. The perfume of the truffle is always delightful even in cold pasties, but is completely developed only by heat. Coffee infusion is most agreeable to smell and taste when served at very near the boiling point. Such aliments as raw mollusks are enjoyable only when very cold. The crispness of some of the cold hors-d'oeuvres, so grateful to the dental tactile sense, is due in great part to the low temperature at which they are served. Crisp crusts also give a very pleasing sensation to the teeth. Some red wines, as the Burgundies, those of the Rhone and Gironde, and the heavy vintages of Spain, require a moderate degree of heat to develop their full aroma, whilst the light white wines as well as those of Xeré and Malaga must be cool to be pleasing to the tactile and gustative senses. All sparkling wines need to be very cold. Some northerly gourmets who are fond of very sweet sparkling wines prefer them cooled down to a fraction of a degree above the freezing point.'

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As the recipe for the day, I give you a delightfully tactile, sticky, juicy orange dish.

A Pretty Dish of Oranges Croquante.

Take ten or a dozen oranges, remove the peel, all the white part and the seeds. Do this carefully by quartering them, retaining the transparent pulp and juice. Do not break the skins of the sections. Boil a pound of loaf sugar in half a glass of water until the syrup strings when lifted on a fork, then take it from the fire and dip each section of orange in this candy while it is hot; you can do this by placing each one on a little stick cut for the purpose. As the pieces are dipped, arrange them in some pretty form on a dish or bowl, and fill up the hollow with whipped cream, sweetened and seasoned with a glass of maraschino.

La Cuisine Creole (New Orleans, c1895), by Lafcadio Hearn.

The Pleasure of Eating: 1, Vision.

This week I want to share with you the insights and theories of the role of the senses in the pleasure of eating, from the author of Dining and its Amenities, by a Lover of Good Cheer (New York, 1907.)  Five senses to cover over five weekday posts works well for us. We will consider one of the senses each day, but first, the author’s introductory words:

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"The Creator, in compelling man to eat that he may live, invites him through appetite and rewards him by pleasure."

Such is one of the sublime aphorisms of the great deipnosophist who regaled his readers with the vast abundance of gastronomic lore that has prompted the present statement of some of the features of the correlative influence of the senses on the pleasure of eating so admirably traced by the greatest of seers in these lines-

The five best senses

Acknowledge thee their patron; and come freely

To gratulate thy plenteous bosom; th' ear

Taste, touch and smell, pleased, from thy table rise;

They only now come but to feast thine eye.

True it is that nearly all animated beings are endowed with special senses, but to man alone is granted the faculty of cultivating them in a very high degree for bodily nourishment and mental enrichment as well as for other purposes. Forced by hunger to eat for his sustenance, he labored diligently in seeking the necessary aliments which, originally, he had found through the aid of certain lower creatures whose movements he had cunningly espied. The first sense he naturally exercised was that of sight; the second, touch, when with his hand he seized an edible substance and carried it toward a third sense organ which gave him its odor, then greedily thrust it into his mouth to awaken the gustative sense; the clattering of his teeth pleasantly rousing the auditive sense.

Thus were the five senses gratified whilst hunger was satisfied; appetite, that is to say, the desire to eat tasty food because so agreeable, being the outcome of that primitive experience.

It is the high cultivation of the senses that has been to man of such powerful aid in his struggle for existence and that has given him such supremacy over other animated beings. Those whose sense organs are abnormal, whose perceptions are naturally dull or accidentally obtunded, or whose mental faculties are untutored, have little if any real pleasure in eating. Hunger and thirst they feel and brutally appease, but have no true appreciation of, or appetite for, dainty food or for its use in moderation; whilst those of cultured mind and sound body, in the enjoyment of delicacies, bring into play all their senses to enhance the pleasure of eating. This is summed in

the aphorism: ''The beasts feed, man eats, the wise man alone knows how to eat."

…. The activity and interdependence of the senses are singularly well illustrated by the different pleasing sensations enjoyed during a feast given by an experienced amphitryon.

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And now, the first of the senses to be discussed by the author - the role of vision in the eating experience:

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The visual sense is the first to be gratified. The moment the guests enter the refectory, their sight is gladdened by the brilliantly lighted and richly ornamented table, the floral decorations on the snow-white cloth, the bright metallic implements, the crystalline drinking vessels, the good taste displayed in all the appurtenances of the well-ordered festal hall, and the congenial company. A new delightful visual impression then comes with each service, throughout the repast, to heighten the pleasure of eating. The form and coloring of each platter, the artistic disposition of its contents, and the beauty of the plate on which dainty bits are served, all gratify vision and addto the pleasure felt in the deliberate degustation of the savory meats. The view through clear crystal of the amber hued mellow Xerés, of the rich Burgundy suggestive of liquid garnet, of the ruby of Bordeaux, of the topaz tinted Chateau Yquem, and of the myriad pearly beads ever rising to crown with foam a cup of the sparkling nectar of Aii, may well be counted among the many visual delights of such beatic revellers.

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As our recipe for the day, a visually pleasing pink champagne jelly:

Pink Champagne Jelly.

Beat half the white of an egg to a stiff froth, and then stir it hard into three wineglasses of filtered water. Put twelve ounces of the best double-refined loaf-sugar (powdered fine and sifted) into a skillet lined with porcelain. Pour on it the white of egg and water, and stir it till dissolved. Then add twelve grains of cochineal powder. Set it over a moderate fire, aiid boil it and skim it till the scum ceases to rise. Then strain it through a very fine sieve. Have ready an ounce and a half of isinglass that has been boiled in a little water till quite dissolved. Strain it, and while the boiled sugar is lukewarm mix it with the isinglass, adding a pint of pink champagne and the juice of a large lemon. Run it through a linen bag into a mould. When it has congealed so as to be quite firm, wrap a wet cloth round the outside of the mould, and turn out the jelly into a glass dish; or serve it broken up, in jelly glasses, or glass cups.

Jelly may be made in a similar manner of Madeira, marasquin, or noyau.

Directions for cookery, in its various branches (1840) by Eliza Leslie.

Dinners, Compared.

Today I am taking the easy option (looming deadlines, you understand?) and making

The Greedy Book; a Gastronomical Anthology (1906) by Frank Schloesser do most of the talking.  You will remember this book, I am sure. It has been our source in previous posts, and its contribution is far from over.

The author is discussing the ‘general improvement of the menu.’ See if you agree with his ideas:-

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The mere multiplication of restaurants is nothing; but the general improvement of the average menu is everything. Here, for instance, is the menu of a dinner of the year 1876, recommended by no less an authority than the late Fin Bec, Blanchard Jerrold, whose Epicure's Year Books, Cupboard Papers, and Book of Menus are by way of being classics.

MENU.

Crecy aux Croûtons.

Printannier.

Saumon bouilli, sauce homard.

Filets de soles à la Joinville.

Whitebait.

Suprême de Volaille a l’écarlate.

Côtelettes d'Agneau aux concombres.

Cailles en aspic.

Selle de Mouton.

Bacon and beans.

Caneton.

Baba au Rhum.

Pouding glacé.

This was the dinner given by the late Edmund Yates on the occasion of the publication of the World newspaper. Observe its heaviness, clumsiness, and want of delicacy. Three fish dishes are ostentatious and redundant; three entrées simply kill one another; the quails are misplaced before the saddle; the bacon and beans is, of course, a joke. Altogether it is what we should call to-day a somewhat barbarian meal. Contrast therewith the following artistically fashioned programme of a dinner given by the Réunion des Gastronomes; it is practically le dernier mot of the culinary art.

MENU

Huitres Royales Natives.

Tortue Claire.

Filets de Soles des Gastronomes.

Suprême de Poularde Trianon.

Noisettes d'Agneau a la Carême.

Pommes Nouvelles Suzette.

Sorbets à la Palermitaine.

Becassines à la Broche.

Salade.

Haricots Verts Nouveaux à la Crême.

Biscuit Glacé Mireille.

Cobeille de Friandises.

Dessert.

Nothing could be lighter or more graceful. There is naught that is over-elaborate or indigestible; on the contrary, the various flavours are carefully preserved, and there is a subtle completeness about the whole dinner which is very pleasing.

It was the late lamented Joseph, of the Tour d' Argent, the Savoy, and elsewhere, who once said: "Make the good things as plain as possible. God gave a special flavour to everything. Respect it. Do not destroy it by messing."

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I really don’t know how people got through these meals, do you? Even if the servings were not big, that is still an awful lot of food.

I do agree with the author about the bacon and beans in the first menu, it does seem rather odd. I wonder if there was some sort of in-house joke being referenced?

As the recipe for the day, I give you Filets of Sole à la Joinville, from How to Cook Fish, (1908) by Myrtle Reed (or Olive Green, if you prefer her pseudonym.)

Filets of Sole à la Joinville.

Season the prepared fillets with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg, and put into a buttered pan – pan with a tablespoonful of butter and half a cupful of white wine. Cover, cook for ten minutes, and drain, reserving the liquid. Arrange on a serving-dish, and cover with cooked mushrooms, oysters, and lobster. Cook together two tablespoonfuls each of butter and flour, add the fish gravy and two cupfuls of wine stock, and cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Take from the fire, add the yolks of four eggs beaten with the juice of half a lemon, two tablespoons of butter, a pinch of red pepper, and enough pounded lobster coral to tint. Pour the sauce over the fish and serve.

Bastard Wine and Hot Almond Milk.

A recipe in yesterday’s source caught my wandering eye:

To bake small meats.

Take Egges and seethe them hard, then take the yolkes out of them and braye them in the morter, and temper them with Creme, and then straine them, and put to them Pepper, Saffron, Cloves, Mace, small raisins, Almonds blanched and small shred and grated bread.

Take Peares also sodden in Ale, and bray and straine them with the same Licour, and put therto Bastard and Honny, and put it into a pan and stir it on the fire til it be wel sodden, then make little coffins and set them in the Oven til they be hard, and then take them out againe, and put the foresaid licour into them and so serve them forth.

A Book of Cookrye, (London, 1591) by A. W.

Pears poached in ale, then in ‘Bastard’ and honey sounds pretty good to me.

‘Bastard,’ according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “A sweet kind of Spanish wine, resembling muscadel in flavour; sometimes applied to any kind of sweetened wine,” and references to it start in the late fourteenth century. One of the supporting quotations in the OED suggests the meaning of the name:

1600:   R. Surflet tr. C. Estienne & J. Liébault Maison Rustique vi. xxii. 802   Bastards..seeme to me to be so called bicause they are oftentimes adulterated and falsified with hony.

Royal households were not above a little bastard, in spite of its dubious heritage. In the household books of George, Duke of Clarence, there is an entry dated the 9th December, 1409, for a sum of twenty pounds allowed for the purchase off ‘Malvesie, romenay, osay, bastard, muscadelle, and other sweete wynes.’

Shakespeare knew of it too. He mentions it in Henry IV, Part 1 -  “Anon, anon sir; score a pint of bastard in the halfe moone.”

My favourite reference, however, is from one of my favourite books of all time. It is from Lorna Doone (1869) by R. D. Blackmore – “He … called for a little mulled bastard.”

Mulled Bastard, I love it. It sounds so much more interesting than Mulled Wine. I cannot find a recipe specifically for mulled wine, but am sure the basic principles of wine-mulling will apply. I can give you another hot beverage made with Bastard, however. It will come in handy if you have a lot left over from your “small baked meats.”

To make Almond milk hot.

Take blanched Almonds and bray them smal, then with faire water draw them through a strainer, and make them not too thin nor too thick, and then put them into a pot with a quarter of a pound of sugar and let them boile over the fire, and when they boyle take them from the fire, then take a manchet loaf and cut it in thin peeces, steep it in a pinte of White wine, as Bastard, Tire, or Maulmsie, then cast it into Almond Milk and dresse it in fair dishes, and so serve it foorth.

A Book of Cookrye, (London, 1591) by A. W.