Book description
PREFACE If the art of Cookery in all its branches were not undergoing a
process of evolution, and if its canons could be once and for ever
fixed, as are those of certain scientific operations and mathematical
procedures,inasmuch as there already exist several excellent culinary
text-books in the English language. But everything is so unstable in
these times of progress at any cost, and social customs and methods of
life alter so rapidly, that a few years now suffice to change completely
the face of usages which at their inception bade fair to outlive the age
so enthusiastically were they welcomed by the public. In regard to the
traditions of the festal board, it is but twenty years since the
ancestral Engish customs began to make way before the newer methods, and
we must look to the great impetus given to travelling, in order to
account for the gradual but unquestionable revolution. In the wake of
the demand came the supply. Palatial hotels were built, sumptuous
restaurants were opened, both of which offered their customers luxuries
undreamt of theretofore in such establishments. Modern society
contracted the habit of partaking of light suppers in these placcs,
after the theatres of the Metropolis had closed and the well-to-do began
to flock to them on Sundays, in order to give their servants the
required weekly rest. And, since restaurants allow of observing and of
being observed, since they are eminently adapted to the exhibiting of
magnificent dresses, it was not long before they entered iuto the life
of Fortunes favourites. But these new-fangled habits had to be met by
novel methods of Cookery - better adapted to the particular environment
in which they were to be practised. The admirable productions
popularised by the old Masters of the Culinary Art of the preceding
century did not become the light and more frivolous atmosphere of
restaurants were, in fact, ill-suited to the brisk waiters, and their
customers who only had eyes for one another. The pompous splendour of
those bygone dinners, served in the majestic dining-halls of manors and
palaces, by liveried footmen, was part and parcel of the etiquette of
Courts and lordly mansions. It is eminently suited to State dinners,
which are in sooth veritable ceremonies, possessing their ritual,
traditions, and - one might even say -their high priests but it is a
mere hindrance to the modern, rapid service. The complicated and
sometimes heavy menus would be un-welcome to the hypercritical appetites
so common nowadays hence the need of a radical change not only in the
culinary preparations themselves, but in the arrangements of the menus,
and the service. Circumstances ordained that I should be one of the
movers in this revolution, and that I should manage the kitchens of two
establishments which have done most to bring it about. I therefore
venture to suppose that a book containing a record of all the changes
which have come into being in kitchen work - changes whereof I am in a
great part authpr - may have some chance of a good reception at the
hands of the public, i. e. at the hands of those very members of it who
have profited by the changes I refer to. For it was only with the view
of meeting the many and persistent demands for such a record that the
present volume was written...
