The San Francisco call., 1910-05-01
GIoFifieS The y
typical Dinner
By Garnet Warren


favor. have eaten it elsewhere where it is dead
dry, sordid and unutterabe.-I 4 have followed it to
fair France.
BY the way. speaking OF France reminds me that
country Is cJrriousy divided the subjects OF
ton and lamb In the north OF France you see
mutton all the time. The comparative re6nements of
lamb appeal little to the less selective northern
palate Paris itself Is a great eater of mutton and
one sees little OF lamb there except it be in the
spring or the person Of some travelling American
offered up for the slaughter He regularly survives,
however. and can be confidently depended upon to
appear in the year following. lie feeds the very
hand that-weIl Of course. / don't mean exactly
that. And anyhow, tits time to come back TO
mutton, To say.
The south of France cares not for mutton The
south rererences its lamb The south is glamorous
land where the sun shines and the people easy
and pleasure loving; and. as I say they like their
lamb eztravagantly. The song so popular some few
years ago in (which the virtues Of that meat were
exolled and emphasized and the repeated three
times at the end of each chorus, might almost have
originated there.
Lamb is cooked In more ways in the south of
France than there are sayings by Solomon. You eat
that flesh baked and stewed-the rich delicaces of
sauce bathing and caressing it, You eat II roasted,
and for tenderness It IS little bird or the
love OF virgin sylph. But, OF course you've never
met sylph. They are seldom found in the larger
cities
However. in the matter OF lamb, or mutton, the
cooking is not everything though really good cook
ing seems 10 be most things upon earth. The pas
lures upon which the fairy feet OF the sweet live ami
mails have trod is thing 10 be noted and remem-
bered Sailed pastures are the thing-pastures
bathed bv the salt ocean breezes; pastures which
have been enriched by the full spray the kindly winds
blow over them. These it IS which produce the really
fit unexceDtionabe mutton which speaks OF springi-
ness and richness and full throated, blood lustiness
which really seems the last last word of the Creator
Though the Creator says many last, last words in
the matter of the table. each word is last word if
it be dish which preserves the quality of perfect
harmony The perfect dish should do that
Well, on that salt swept meadow our sheep crop
their fowery food" as the famous Pope remarked
when he was alive. Our hands quite justified
in being raised TO shed the blood of such sheep From
them comes the most gracious quality of mutton
known to man. 1t commands higher prices and
larger appetites than any mutton anywhere. Clover
fed mutton has sweet potency. There IS something
in the air of Wales too, in Great Britain which has
a poignant benignancy, if you will believe me- And
I know you will In my youth and under the stars
I carried conviction. Don't let me lose the trick.
THE WAY FRANCE DOES
The French people Gods chosen gourmets upon
earth have a delicate touch in the matter of NUT
ton. They pay high prices for it. They pay the
prices demanded for that salt swept meadow mutton
I just told you about They know things, those
French do. They know, for instance that sweet
butter opens many magic easements in the matter OF
cookery in the first place, sweet butter must be
fresh butter 1t won't dubious favors OF ran
cdity till the heat OF the oven calls them from their
hiding place. The trusts have not yet discovered
method OF making sweet butter which will be mar
ketabe after several years S0.the French-the good,
gastronomical French-use it in all their cooking.
And in the matter OF the mutton. They take their
mutton and they wipe It with nice exactness. They
cut the grosser fat from IT, Mutton fat possesses not
the sweet almost marrowlike delciousness of its
cousin pork or the distinctly nutlike favor of the
fat OF beef. The fat OF mutton inferior, loathly,
merely greasy thing which is only reasonably sue
cessfu when it composes inferior candles. The lib
retto Of the modern musical show" is only shade
less distressing.
But back to the mutton and the French Well, the
latter take the former and, say, relieve it of its
misery The French cooks take Glove of garlic and
split il up into four little cheerful pieces and make
four little hicks in the mutton-two aneath and two
atop-and stick the Little pieces Of garlic where the
nicks are The garlic is not buried too deeply. Then
the mutton is plastered with the butter 1t
takes at least couple OF tabespoonfuls for this If
the chefs have taken bath and feel particularly
uplifted they make it four. It is better TO make it
four. IT makes an inspiring, singularly ennobng
gravy when ii is Jour. 1t makes gratifying gravy
merely gratifying grayy-when ii is two. SO there
you are.
But anyhow. they cut potatoes into four pieces
each (iavng peeled all first. you may be sllre) and
put EN- -round-ardsy round the mutton. Then
those cooking people put half oupful Of hot water
lcrafty) around the mutton Simply enough to keep
the mutton mosf-not any more-not drop more.
II you insist upon that drop you get sloppy,
watery abominable gravy Indigenous to our boarding
houses Also you soak the potatoes-against which
God forfendl Then into hot with the whole
A hot oven Is another thing of which Anglo-Saxon
peoples do not understand the really hot oven
is as necessary to well cooked roass cool icebox
is to cantaloupe That hot oven seals-blessedy,
hermeticaly seals-the outer pores of the flesh and
nprisons the rich juices and blood within Then, in
due time, you can irnprison them yourself