Читать книгу Dinners and Diners: Where and How to Dine in London - Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis - Страница 5

I would be willing to make you, my dear sir, a very small bet, that if in the early afternoon you go into the restaurant where you intend to dine in the evening and disturb the head waiter, who is reading a paper at one of the side tables, suddenly breaking the news upon him that you want a simple little dinner for two at eight o'clock, and wish to commence the repast with clear soup, he, in reply, after pulling out a book of order papers and biting his lead pencil, will, a moment of thought intervening, suggest petite marmite.

It is not his fault. Hundreds of Britons have taken the carte de jour out of his hands, and, looking at the list of soups, puzzled by the names which mean nothing to them, have fallen back upon petite marmite or croûte au pot, which they know are harmless homely soups which the lady they are going to bring to dinner cannot object to.

It requires a certain amount of bravery, a little consciousness of knowledge, for the ordinary man looking down a list of dishes to put his finger on every third one and ask, "What is that?" He is much more likely, the head waiter, who has summed him up, prompting him, to order very much the dinner that he would have eaten in his suburban home had he been dining there that night.

Every good cook has his little vanities. They are all inventors; and when any one of them, breaking away from the strict lines of the classic haute cuisine, finds that a pinch of this or two drops of that improves some well-known dish, he immediately gives it a new name. It is the same with explorers. Did any one of them find a goat with half a twist more in its horns than another explorer had noticed, but he called it a new species and christened it Ovis Jonesi, Browni, or Robinsoni, according to his surname. If you see filets de sole à la Hercules John Jones on the carte do not be afraid to ask what it is. It is probably some old acquaintance slightly altered by the chef, who has had a flash of inspiration when preparing it for Mr. Hercules John Jones, a valued client of the restaurant.

I should have begun this foreword by warning all experienced diners to skip it and go on to Chapter I. It is not too late to do so now. I, who have gone through all the agonies that a simple Briton struggling in the spider web of a carte de jour can endure, am only trying to warn other simple Britons with a liking for a good dinner by an account of my experiences.

If you or I, in the absence of the maître d'hôtel and the head waiter, fall into the hands of an underling, Heaven help us. He will lure you or me on to order the most expensive dinner that his limited imagination can conceive, and thinks he is doing his duty to the patron. Luckily, such ill-luck as this rarely occurs. The manager is the man to look for, if possible, when composing a menu. The higher you reach up that glorious scale of responsibility which runs from manager to marmiton, the more intelligent help you will get in ordering your dinner, the more certain you are to have an artistic meal, and not to be spending money unworthily.

That you must pay on the higher scale for a really artistic dinner is, I regret to say, a necessity. No doubt the luxurious surroundings, the quick, quiet service appear indirectly in the bill; but the material for the dinner is costly. No pains are spared nowadays to put on the table of a first-class restaurant the very best food that the world can produce. Not only France, but countries much farther afield are systematically pillaged that Londoners may dine, and I do not despair of some day eating mangostines for dessert. All this costs money; but the gourmets, like the dilettanti in any other art, do not get a chef-d'œuvre for the price of a "pot-boiler."

I, personally, always prefer a dinner à la carte to a table-d'hôte one. The table-d'hôte one—which is a misused word, for the table-d'hôte was the general table presided over by the host—has advanced, with the more general appreciation that dining does not mean simply eating, and at a good restaurant the dinner of the day is cooked to the minute for the groups at each separate table; but it has the disadvantage that you have to eat a dinner ordered according to somebody else's idea, and you have no choice as to length or composition. With a friendly maître d'hôtel to assist, the composing of a menu for a small dinner is a pleasure. To eat a table-d'hôte dinner is like landing a fish which has been hooked and played by someone else.

Mr. Echenard, late of the Savoy, in chatting over the vagaries of diners, shook his head over the want of knowledge of the wines that should be drunk with the various kinds of food. No man knows better what goes to make a perfect dinner than Mr. Echenard does, and as to the sinfulness of Britons in this particular, I quite agreed with him. In Paris no man dreams of drinking champagne, and nothing but champagne, for dinner; but in London the climate and the taste of the fair sex go before orthodox rules. A tired man in our heavy atmosphere feels often that champagne is the one wine that will give him life again; and as the ladies as a rule would think a dinner at a restaurant incomplete without champagne, ninety-nine out of a hundred Englishmen, in ordering a little dinner for two, turn instinctively to the champagne page of the wine-card. It is wrong, but until we get a new atmosphere and give up taking ladies out to dinner, champagne will be practically the only wine drunk at restaurants.

On the subject of tips it is difficult to write. I have always found that a shilling for every pound or part of a pound, or a shilling for each member of a party brings a "thank you" from the waiter at any first-class restaurant. I should be inclined to err a little on the liberal side of this scale; for waiters do not have an easy life, are mainly dependent on the tips they get, and have it in their power to greatly add to, or detract from, the pleasure of a dinner. I always find that the man who talks about "spoiling the market," in this respect is thinking of protecting his own pocket and not his neighbour's.

Finally—and I feel very much as if I had been preaching a sermon—I should, to put it all as shortly as possible, advise you, my brother simple Briton—not you, the experienced diners, who have been expressly warned off from this lecture—in ordering your dinner to get the aid of the manager, and failing him the maître d'hôtel, never to be hustled by an underling into ordering a big dinner when you want a small one, and never to be afraid of asking what the composition of a dish is.

The following little essay on the duties of a maître d'hôtel which Mons. Joseph has sent me speaks most eloquently for itself:

Mon cher Colonel—

Vous me demandez pour votre nouveau livre des recettes. Méfiez-vous des recettes. Depuis la cuisinière bourgeoise et le Baron Brisse on a chanté la chanson sur tous les airs et sur tous les tons. Et qu'en reste-t'il; qui s'en souvient? Je veux dire dans le public aristocratique pour qui vous écrivez, et que vous comptez intéresser avec votre nouvelle publication, cherchez le nouveau dans les à propos de table, donnez des conseils aux maîtresses de maison, qui dépensent beaucoup d'argent pour donner des dîners fatiguants, trop longs, trop compliqués; dîtes leur qu'un bon dîner doit être court, que les convives doivent manger et non goûter, qu'elles exigent de leur cuisinier ou cuisinière de n'être pas trop savants, qu'ils respectent avant tout le goût que le bon Dieu a donné à toutes choses de ne pas les dénaturer par des combinaisons, qui à force d'être raffinées deviennent barbares.

On a beaucoup parlé du cuisinier. Si nous exposions un peu ce que doit être le Maître d'Hôtel.