The Express.
London, England, 1857-09-11 00:00:00

LITBRATUBB.

Soor's Culinary Campaign. Routledge.
There may have been heroes before Agamemnon,
but there certainly never were any real, ex 're,
cosmopolitan, gastronomic regenerator. in the world
until the illustrious Alexis Soyer appeared upon the
sublunary scene. The Greeks knew little about
cookery—indeed, we have no literary proof that they
gave the stomach its proper high position in the
animal economy, for)Comer's banquets were perfect
cannibalism, and, judging from the collapsed
appearance of the gastric region in their finest
statues, we should be led to conclude that even
Pedalos himself did not reckon a single gridiron
amongst the appendages of his luxury. As for the
Romans, the banquet-hall of Lumillus would be a
chamber of horrors to a modern gourmet, and there
is much in modern British cookery to lead shrewdly
to the suspicion that his compatnots, when leaving
as to the tender mercies of the Picts and Soots, did
not think of taking their cookery-books along with
them. But every age bas its "Representative Men,"
and to the nineteenth century belongs the honour
of producing Alexis Soyer, to do for our stomachs
what his countryman Jullien has done for our ears,
that is, to give them pare , digestible, wholesome
nutriment, and to teach them how to appreciate it ;
in a word, to regenerate them. It is corms to trace
the growth of a mere domestic art into a profession
of world-wide importance, in the hands of a man of
genius. In a leaky day for England the manager:
of the Reform Club first introduced M. Boyer into
the now famous cuisine of that establishment ; and
how much of our social progress since that time, how
many of our enlightened legislative measures, how
moth of the abatement of party rancour, and of the
diMmion of a general philanthropy, may not be uses&
tothe mannertn which M. Soyer educated the stoma
of third estate, to the refinement he gave to
their palates, and the harmonious regularity he im-
parted to their digestions. It is true, he has sines
then soared into higher and wider fields of nicht.
nem, but he had sown the good seed, he had framed
the gastronomic constitution, so to speak, and it con-
tinues to work well, though its administration's*
now confided to less noted hands. In the year of
grace 1855, one of those happy thoughts, a which
only Representative Men are capable, sent M. Boyer
es hie mission of culinary regeneration to the seat of
war in the East He was supping one evening at
the Albion, or rather waiting for his supper—the
smallest particulars connected with great events are
interesting-and beguiling the weary moments
with the newspapers. Waiters paned and re-
pined with tough kidneys for their emnal
vistim, and the practical mind of the gutro-
namie regenerator seized upon the opportunity
to give a lecture on the best method of rendering
those popular viscera fit for human food; but this
was only the premonitory symptom of the coming
burst of energy which was at no distant day to
fructify in good dinners and easy digestion for an
army of a hundred thousand men. A "sudden in-
spiration" seized upon him, and, as every one doss
now-allays under a similar impetus, he grasped •
pen, and at once wrote off to the newspapers, offer-
ing to do for the convalescents in Scutari Hospital
1111$ Miss Nightingale was so efficiently doing for
the ak. His offer was at once accepted, and what
Mewed is matter of history. He was sent for by
the Dubs= of Sutherland, sent for by the War-
t:Ace, and forthwith accredited by Lord Panmure
to the various officials at the seat of war.
While this rapid negotiation was going on,
H. Sayer was a sort of focus upon which all the
rays of aristocratic curiosity were concentrated. He
was questioned by the Duke of Argyll, complimented
by Lord Blantyre, and had an audience of Mr. Her-
bert, and in short of other distinguished persona
whose names and imitations are all carefully
chronicled in the history upon which we now sit in
judgment. But the smiles of the great did not
tempt him to a moment's delay in the path of duty.
He was soon on the road, armed, like other great
commanders, with simply a carpet bag, and he
stopped only a moment, err route, to hear from the
lips of the Emperor of the French the astounding
news of the death of the Emperor of Russia. His
journey through France is from henceforth as the
flight of an eagle; but, true to his title of gastro-
nomic regenerator, ho makes one swoop at Mar-
seilles, to taste the far-famed Bouillabaisse, a dish
of which the world has no equal. The land-
lord of " The Reserve," proud of the presence
of so illustrious a visitor, cooks the dish himself,
giving M. Soyer the receipt, which is now published,
and is in itself worth the price of the whole bask.
At last he finds himself fairly afloat on " The dark
blue sea," and although fully alive, as a man of
taste ought to be, to the beauties of the scenes
through which he passes, it is carious to observe how
in all this hurry and excitement he never for a mo-
nient forgets the gastronomic regenerator, or his
mission. On board the steamer he pays a daily visit
to the restaurateur and his chef, and is soon on
good terms with both. Who that knows the bland
Alexia could doubt the latter statement? At Galli-
poli he notices that " the oysters are small and ill-
formed, but very sweet," and continues his voyage,
when he is overtaken by a fog—" a thing," said
the captain, "seldom seen in the Sea of Mar-
more. But the fog soon cleared away, and
enabled him to see the great white walla
of the Scutari hospital, the haven of all his philan-
throphic hopes and aspirations. Landed there, and
formally introduced to the authorities, his mind 'sat
first appalled by the work he had cut out for himself,
but as might be expected from the mall, he rises with
the occasion, his brain becomes " clear as a bell "
when was it ever muddled?—and, confident of suc-
cess, he exclaims, " If I succeed with a hundred, in a
very short time I can manage a thousand, provided I
meet with proper support." Henceforth he is full
of his mission, and nothing else. A glance is all that
is vouchsafed to the magnificent scenery of the Bos-
phorus, but a sure instinct arrests the gaze of the
regenerator, before a certain row of small domes,
whose appearance reminds him of " well-corked
bot tles." Ile eagerly saki what they are, and is informed
that they are the kitchen chimneys of the Sultan's
palace, under whose hospitable smoke dwell two or
three hundred men cooks and "the favourite sons of
high Turkish families." He is not long in present-
ing himself to Lord Stratford, and the two great
men become intimate at once. The regenerator of
Turkey hands the regenerator of the world's cookery
over to Signor Roco Vido, his lordship's head
manager an cook, and the first interview with the
major demo gives rise to the following profound re-
flection, destined, perhaps, to throw an entirely new
light on the history of the war ;
each me the Important aloe entrusted to the guidanes of
Spas Rom Vido. And who can my, after ell, that the late
deeinactive war ass not partly, or even entirely, caused by a
Amer P Did sot the French revolution of '4B ens mate from
• heagost f and epos this occasion, 18,54, sis years after, •
wed momenatelde
gestromesic event occurred, Lord Strat-
ford Reath* se ha nears to Constentieeple sa plenipo.
Mbed S., the lint thee invited his Excellency Prince
M • mad diplomat% dinner, where all the re-
ef the thes united cearts were to assemble. The
Ci:.m"ethiris Mr the 21a Meech, 1864, sad the Invitations
were cesdheyeseepted, moo especially by the repmentative
the Cass; be belay, no doubt, saxious to read upon the brow
et the dlleierelet the pelittol fading of his seam. That
•107 Ele7a 1101,mds nom, the Seine's meth re Ind. In the
she lied urines • least le his eseelkesy, expressive
el bee senesce that be weekleireily the tours welfare
of kat sea bible reletlens with the Mali seeemmeet Os
esseust of Mb memndsl erenik earl with meg pedound
die Meg ef swat tth
e 11•% 117 1 Ireinkriziri
die emir wasriessa far a yak sed
Week seal me
we lead ewe t
est epos Iteneriebialt"isr- the
se, end seneerate hordes !yea
l'AiWwwile hie ILiwaiwy Prises Ilea-
ebiltellf we es bawd a Unlit new-eStne maimed at the
month of the lied flee, wither with the dignity sad &-
Elam leuillteekle he the deeseesieelies of pare or wee. The
diplomatic banquet sever lost piece I the wee did I
When we remember the eventful results that fol-
lowed the spilling of the errre de teas, can we
doubt for a moment that M. Snyer's theory is as
feasible as it is original and ingenious? " The di-
plomatic banquet news took place ..—tbe war did:"