The Physiology of Taste (26 page)
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Authors: Anthelme Jean Brillat-Savarin
26.
This is a nourishing flour made from the dried and powdered roots of various orchids, and first devised by the Turks as a restorative drug.
27.
The good Mother Superior’s small innocent bit of Jesuitical quibbling is less important, in this anecdote of the Professor’s, than her too-fleeting hint about the night’s repose for a pot of chocolate. It reminds me of what a man in New York once told me about the hot cocoa, as it was called, that could be bought in the Horn and Hardart’s, those exciting frightening eating places which may last long after such literary masterpieces as this one are forgotten, because of their pure automatism.
The man said, as we sat at the bar in the Colony Restaurant, which in 1945 was the antithesis of an automat, that the reason the best hot chocolate in all America could be bought at Horn and Hardart’s was that their chief drink-cook was a Dutchman, and as such knew the prime secret for it. What is that? We drank another glass of champagne. “It is that chocolate,” the man said happily, proud of his private knowledge, “should be made at least twenty-four hours before it is to be served, and preferably forty-eight, so that it may take on the lightest possible hint of fermentation. Then it should be beaten again, heated, and served!”
This secret is a good one, especially if the drink be made, as
Brillat-Savarin advises, of the best possible ingredients. The liquid should be mixed as if it were to be drunk the next moment, and then allowed to rest two nights, not one, in a warmish place and in a porcelain or enamel pot, to thwart the acids. It should be stirred up once the next day after making, and the following day beaten lightly, heated but not boiled, and poured foaming into its pitcher again.
Mexican chocolate, which is the grandmother of the kind the Professor used to order from Spain or buy from the pharmacist M. Debauve, comes from any Mexican store, in Paris or London or Chicago, or even Cuernavaca, still in flat rounds marked off in quarters as it was for the Aztecs in the sixteenth century, as it was in the nineteenth when William Prescott wrote about them and their passion for hot chocolate in his
HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO
. The sections should be melted in hot milk, one for each cupful, and then the whole beaten in its pot until it foams and sends out a fine gas of cinnamon, orange-peel, and honest-to-god
cacao
.
And on the other hand, there is a brew made in an obliquely similar way by the Russians: a heavy syrup of bitter chocolate, sugar, and vanilla, cooled and then blended with its weight of rich cream, whipped. Gobbets of this fastuous dark thick sauce are put in cups which have been heated, and hot milk is poured over (from a
silver
pot. Amateurs of chocolate are invariably finicky about the pots. Perhaps a china one would do …), and there you are, all at once, in the nursery and a Viennese coffee house and … Russia?
THEORY OF FRYING
*
48:
IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL
day in May: the sun shed his gentlest rays on the begrimed roofs of the City of Pleasure, and the streets were free of both mud and dust (a rare thing).
The heavy mail coaches had long since ceased to thunder over the pavement; the rubbish carts were still at rest, and all that one saw were those open carriages from which our own and foreign beauties, shaded by the most elegant of hats, are in the habit of shedding such disdainful glances upon the lowly, and such coquettish ones upon the handsomer fellows.
It was, in other words, three o’clock in the afternoon, when the Professor sat himself down in his easy chair.
His right leg was pressed vertically down upon the floor; the left, as it stuck out, formed a diagonal line; his back was comfortably supported deep in the chair, and his hands rested on the lions’ heads which capped the arms of this venerable piece of furniture.
His lofty forehead betrayed a love of serious studies, and his mouth a taste for pleasant distractions. His air was contemplative, and his manner such that any man who saw him would certainly say, “This Ancient of Days must be a sage.”
1
Thus ensconced, the Professor called for his chief cook,
2
and soon the servant arrived, ready to receive suggestions, lessons, or commands.
“Maître la Planche,” said the Professor, in a tone grave enough to pierce the hardest heart, “everyone who has sat at my table
proclaims you as a
soup-cook
of the highest order, which is indeed a fine thing, for soup is of primary concern to any hungry stomach; but I observe with chagrin that so far you are but an
uncertain fryer
.
“Yesterday I heard you moan over that magnificent sole, when you served it to us pale, flabby, and bleached. My friend R …
*
threw a disapproving look at you; Monsieur H. R … averted his gnomonic nose, and President S … deplored the accident as if it were a public calamity.
“This misfortune happened because you have neglected the theory of frying, whose importance you do not recognize. You are somewhat opinionated, and I have had a little trouble in making you understand that the phenomena which occur in your laboratory are nothing more than the execution of the eternal laws of nature, and that certain things which you do inattentively, and only because you have seen others do them, are nonetheless based on the highest and most abstruse scientific principles.
“Listen to me with attention, then, and learn, so that you will have no more reason to blush for your creations.”
“Liquids which you expose to the action of fire cannot all absorb an equal quantity of heat; nature has made them receptive to it in varying degrees: it is a system whose secret rests with her, and which we call
caloric capacity
.
“For instance, you could dip your finger with impunity into boiling spirits-of-wine, but you would pull it out as fast as you could from boiling brandy, faster yet if it was water, and a rapid immersion in boiling oil would give you a cruel injury, for oil can become at least three times as hot as plain water.
“It is because of this fact that hot liquids react in differing ways upon the edible bodies which are plunged into them. Food which is treated in water becomes softer, and then dissolves and is
reduced to a
bouilli
; from it comes soup-stock or various essences: whereas food which is treated in oil grows more solid, takes on a more or less deep color, and ends by burning.
“In the first case, the water dissolves and pulls out the inner juices of the food which is plunged into it; in the second, these juices are saved, since the oil cannot dissolve them; and if the food becomes dry, it is only because the continuation of the heat ends in vaporizing their moistness.
“These two methods also have different names, and
frying
is the one for boiling in oil or grease something which is meant to be eaten. I believe that I have already explained that, in the culinary definition, oil and grease are almost synonymous, grease being nothing more than solid oil, while oil is liquid grease.”
“Fried things are highly popular at any celebration: they add a piquant variety to the menu; they are nice to look at, possess all of their original flavor, and can be eaten with the fingers, which is always pleasing to the ladies.
“Frying also furnishes cooks with many ways of hiding what has already been served the day before, and comes to their aid in emergencies; for it takes no longer to fry a four-pound carp than it does to boil an egg.
3
“The whole secret of good frying comes from the
surprise
; for such is called the action of the boiling liquid which chars or browns, at the very instant of immersion, the outside surfaces of whatever is being fried.
“By means of this
surprise
, a kind of glove is formed, which contains the body of food, keeps the grease from penetrating, and concentrates the inner juices, which themselves undergo an interior cooking which gives to the food all the flavor it is capable of producing.
“In order to assure that the
surprise
will occur, the burning liquid must be hot enough to make its action rapid and instantaneous; but it cannot arrive at this point until it has been exposed for a considerable time to a high and lively fire.
“The following method will always tell you when the fat is at
a proper heat: Cut a finger of bread, and dip it into the pot for five or six seconds; if it comes out crisp and browned do your frying immediately, and if not you must add to the fire and make the test again.
“Once the
surprise
has occurred, moderate the fire, so that the cooking will not be too rapid and the juices which you have imprisoned will undergo, by means of a prolonged heating, the changes which unite them and thus heighten the flavor.
“You have doubtless noticed that the surface of well-fried foods will not melt either salt or sugar, which they still call for according to their different natures. Therefore you must not neglect to reduce these two substances to the finest powder, so that they will be as easy as possible to make adhere to the food, and so that by means of a shaker you can properly season what you have prepared.
“I shall not speak to you of the choice of oils and greases; the various manuals which I have provided for your pantry bookshelf have already shed sufficient light for you on this subject.
“However, do not forget, when you are confronted with one of those trout weighing barely a quarter-pound, the kind which come from murmuring brooks far from our capital, do not forget, I say, to fry it in your very finest olive oil: this simple dish, properly sprinkled with salt and decorated with slices of lemon, is worthy to be served to a Personage.
*
“In the same way treat smelts, which are so highly prized by the gastronomers. The smelt is the figpecker of the seas: the same tiny size, the same delicate flavor, the same subtle superiority.
“My two prescriptions are founded, again, on the nature of things. Experience has taught us that olive oil must be used only for operations which take very little time or which do not
demand great heat, because prolonged boiling of it develops a choking and disagreeable taste which comes from certain particles of olive tissue which it is very difficult to get rid of, and which are easily burned.
“You have charge of my domestic regions, and you were the first to have the glory of producing for an astonished gathering an immense turbot. There was, on that occasion, great rejoicing among the chosen few.
“Get along with you: continue to make everything with the greatest possible care, and never forget that from the instant when my guests have set foot in my house, it is
we
who are responsible for their well-being.”
*
This word
FRYING
applies equally, in French, to the
ACTION
, to the means employed to
FRY
, and to the thing which is
FRIED
.
*
M. R … was born at Seyssel, near Belley, about
1757
. An elector of the grand college, he can be thought of as the happiest combination of prudent behavior joined to the most inflexible honesty.
*
M. Aulissin, a highly trained lawyer from Naples, and a delightful amateur violoncellist, dined one day at my home and, eating something which pleased him especially, said to me,
“Questo è un vero boccone di cardinale!”
“Why,” I asked him in the same language, “don’t you say as we do in France: fit for a king?”
“Monsieur,” the amateur replied, “we Italians feel that kings cannot possibly be gourmands, because their meals are too short and too solemn; but cardinals? Eh?!!” And he chuckled in his own well-known little way:
hou, hou, hou, hou, hou, hou!
1.
The Professor lived much longer than most men of his day, and was in robust health and gay vigorous spirits until the time of his death, a walking proof of many of his own gastronomical theories.
2.
It is reported (by Graham Robertson in
LIFE WAS WORTH LIVING
) that James A. McNeill Whistler once said in his customarily iconoclastic way, “I don’t see why people make such a to-do about choosing a new cook. There is only one thing that is absolutely essential. I always ask at once, ‘Do you drink?’, and if she says ‘No!’ I bow politely and say that I am very sorry but I fear that she will not suit. All
good
cooks drink.”
If Whistler meant that all good cooks drink to excess, his quip is only superficially amusing, and is part of the grim picture drawn by statistics which show that in many great prisons there are more cooks than there are representatives of any other one profession. Most cooks, it would seem, are misunderstood wretches, ill-housed, dyspeptic, with aching broken arches. They turn more eagerly than any other artists to the bottle, the needle, and more vicious pleasures; they grow irritable; finally they seize upon the nearest weapon, which if they are worth their salt is a long knife kept sharp as lightning … and they are in San Quentin.
On the other hand, some of the best cups I have ever downed
were in the company of good cooks, men (and a few women) who were peaceful and self-assured, confident that they were artists among their sincere admirers.
3.
It is interesting that here the Professor betrays a characteristic of every good amateur cook I have known (using the word amateur as the opposite of professional): “a perfectly boiled egg” is in his mind all that the word perfection can mean. It is unsullied, and pure in form. It is a challenge to any human being’s sense of balance, of time, and of taste. It has submitted to none of man’s gastronomical caprices (a Mr. Robert Fudge reported in London in Mid-Victorian days that Paris had 686 ways of preparing an egg), and the most capricious gastronomer will feel respect for it, if indeed it be “perfectly boiled.”
ON THIRST