Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-12-15
FAMOUS GoURMANDS.
Exalted Place in Mans Ruling Pas
sions Hold by Good Living. d.

Exalted Place in Mans Ruling Pas
sions Held by Good Living. O..
No digest of law is like the law OF
digest" said Moore, many years ago
in the age of gourmanderie. That is
of course, If gourmanderie e> >er had
particular age in which 1t was not
at least the second of mans ruling
passions.
Even the roast beef and plum pud-
ding, vaunted by the English as ma
tional institution, were the principal
features of the bill of fare at the table
of no less an ancient celebrity than
Cleopatra. Napoleon, the worlds
greatest soldier, met with his first de-
feat before a dish of mutton, losing
the battle of Leipsic through a fit of
indigestion caused by surfeit OF a
succulent joint of lamb, while Monte
yuma the Magnificent, who was found
in full regal authority by the Span
iards when they landed in Mexico, va
ried his bill Of fare, which was usu-
ally taken up with game and other
dainty viands, with an occasional
dairy-f fed baby. when that peculiar
delicacy happened to be in season.
Moderation and regularity formed
the text of many a discourse In the
good old days when dyspepsia prevail
ed and physicians rode in carriages
when the gourmand would praise the
simplicity Of living and sink to sleep
on heavy suppers and beds Of down.
Love of good food was a positive
obsession at the end of the eighteenth
century and we'll into the nineteenth
whence came many a heritage Of woe
in a weak stomach. There is a story
extant of the journey, post haste, OF
Her Grace of Queensbury to Parsons
Green to tell Lady Sophia Thomas
something of Importance" which
was: Take a couple Of beefsteaks
clap them together as if they were a
dumping, and eat them with pepper
and salt. It Is the best thing you ever
tasted. l could not help coming to
tell you this"
Napoleon had a penchant for roast
fowls, outlets, and smoking coffee. He
ate at odd times, and only when he
felt hungry, driving his cooks to dis
traction because when he called for
food it had to be ready for him almost
on the instant, or at least as soon as
the table could be laid.
Beau Brummel's favorite dish was
roasted capon stuffed with truffies
When he was living almost on the
bounty Of Mr.. Marshall he attended
dinner party at that gentleman's house
taking with him, according to his
most impertinent custom, one of his
favorite dogs The Beau was helped
to a wing of roast capon, but choos-
ing to fancy that the wing was tough
he delicately seized the end Of it with
napkin covered finger and thumb and
passed it under the table to his dog
with the remark: Here, About, try
if you can get your teeth through this,
for I'll be damned If can"
Brand relates that on Christmas
day, 1901, he dined at the chaplain's
table at ST. James's palace and par
took of the first thing served and eaten
on that festival at that table, namely,
"a tureen full of rich, luscious plum
porridge."
But the art Of cookery came into
England by way of France, which has
been celebrated through the ages as
the ideal home of the gastronomists
Cookery was so much esteemed by the
Normans that monarchs granted es-
tates on the sole condition that the
holder, through his cook. should pre-
pare a certain dish at stated periods
to set before the king. 1t was under
the Normans in England that the
boar's head had regal honors paid to
1t, and it's progress from the kitchen to
the banquet was under the escort OF
guard, and behind the deafening sa-
lutte of puffy checked trumpeters. The
crane was then, as the goose is now,
highly esteemed, yet laboring under
the suspicion of being common" The
peacock, on the other hand, was only
seen, tail and all, on the tables Of the
wealthy. Their beverages were of a
heavy, bilious character, spicy and
cordialed, hippocras, piment, morat
and mead. The Norman maxim for
good living was ito rise at 5, dine al
8, sup at 5, and bed at 9, If you'd live
to a hundred all but one"
And so it went down through ages
To have things "brennying like wild
fire" was the characteristic Of the
cookery of the regime of Richard IL
Confectionery Of the richest sorts was
the lightest material of meals, which
were abundantly irrigated by hippo
cras, piment, or claret, or the simpler
and purer wines of France, Spain, Sy-
ria and Greece.