Library / Literature & Fiction
The Cook's Decameron A Study in Taste, Containing over Two Hundred Recipes for Italian Dishes
by W. G. Waters
- Pages
- about 162
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
Montaigne in one of his essays* mentions the high excellence Italian
cookery had attained in his day. "I have entered into this Discourse
upon the Occasion of an Italian I lately receiv'd into my Service,
and who was Clerk of the Kitchen to the late Cardinal Caraffa till his
Death. I put this Fellow upon an Account of his office: Where he fell
to Discourse of this Palate-Science, with such a settled Countenance and
Magisterial Gravity, as if he had been handling some profound Point
of Divinity. He made a Learned Distinction of the several sorts of
Appetites, of that of a Man before he begins to eat, and of those after
the second and third Service: The Means simply to satisfy the first, and
then to raise and acute the other two: The ordering of the Sauces, first
in general, and then proceeded to the Qualities of the Ingredients, and
their Effects: The Differences of Sallets, according to their seasons,
which ought to be serv'd up hot, and which cold: The Manner of their
Garnishment and Decoration, to render them yet more acceptable to the
Eye after which he entered upon the Order of the whole Service, full of
weighty and important Considerations."
It is consistent with Montaigne's large-minded habit thus to applaud the
gifts of this master of his art who happened not to be a Frenchman. It
is a canon of belief with the modern Englishman that the French alone
can achieve excellence in the art of cookery, and when once a notion of
this sort shall have found a lodgment in an Englishman's brain, the task
of removing it will be a hard one. Not for a moment is it suggested
that Englishmen or any one else should cease to recognise the sovereign
merits of French cookery; all that is entreated is toleration, and
perchance approval, of cookery of other schools.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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