Alexandre Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine

288 Pages·2005·10.77 MB·English

by  Alexandre Dumas

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ALEXANDRE DUMAS'
DICTIONARY OF CUISINE
A cookery book by the author of The Three Muskateers and The
Count of Monte Cristo may seen an improbability. Yet Alexandre
Dumas was an expert cook- his love of food was said to be equalled
only by his love of women - and his Great Dictionary of Cuisine,
written "to be read by worldly people and used by professionals" and
published posthumously in 1873, it is a masterpiece in its own right.
This abridged version of the Dictionary is designed to be both useful
and entertaining. A glance at the Index will show that there are
hundreds of recipes - for sauces, soups, meat, fish, eggs, poultry and
game - not all kitchen-tested with modern ingredients, but well within
the scope of an experienced and imaginative cook.
THE I{EGAN PAUL LIBRARY Of
CULINARY ARTS
Editorial Advisor
Peter Hopkins
All About Ices, Jellies and Creams • Henry G. Harris and S. P. Borella
Alexandre Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine • Alexandre Dumas
Dictionary of Cooking
Something New in Sandwiches • M. Redington White
Three Hundred and Sixty-Six Menus and Twelve Hundred Recipes • Baron Brisse
A Guide to the Greedy by A Greedy Woman· Elizabeth Robins Pennell
Book of the Table • M. Auguste Kettner
Chinese Cookery Secrets· Esther Chan
Food for the Greedy· Nancy Shaw
French Household Cooking· Frances Keyzer
Good Living· Saravan Buren
Home Pickling· Henry Sarson
Moorish Recipes· John, Fourth Marquis of Bute
Mrs. A. B. Marshall\s Cookery Book· Mrs. A. B. Marshall
Paris Bistro Cookery· Alexander Watt
The Country Housewife's Book· Lucy H. Yates
The Finer Cooking • X. M. Boulestin
The Jam Book· May Byron
The Modem Cook • Charles Elme Francatelli
The South American Gentleman's Companion· Charles H. Baker
What Shall We Have To-Day? • X. Marcel Boulestin
A King's Confectioner in the Orient· Friedrich Unger
Skuse's Complete Confectioner· E. Skuse
The Gentle Art of Cookery • Hilda Leyel and Olga Hartley
All About Genoese, Petits Fours, Glaces and Bon Bons • H. G. Harris and S. P.
Borella
Foods· Edward Smith
ALEXANDRE DUMAS'
DICTIONARY OF CUISINE
EDITED BY
LOUIS COLMAN
El
Routledge
~~ Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published in 2005 by
Kegan Paul Limited
Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© Kegan Paul, 2005
All Rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electric, mechanical
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from !be publishers.
ISBN: 0-7103-0839-6
ISBN: 978-0-710-30839-9 (hbk)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Applied for.
Contents
Editor's Introduction
I
A Few Words to the Reader
7
Dedication: A Letter to Jules Janin 22
One More Word to the Public
34
Jhe Dictionary
Jf from Absinthe to Asparagus 38
13
from Babirusa to Butter 49
C
from Cabbage to Curlew 73
D
from Dinner to Ducks 101
£
from Eagle to Essence 106
1=
from Falcon to Fumet of Partridge 117
g
from Garlic to Guinea Hen 126
'J-f
from Halcyone to Hydromel 132
J
from Ice to Ice 140
J
from Julienne to Juniper 141
X
from Kangaroo to Kidneys 143
£.
from Lamb to Lobster 147
.?vf
from Macaroni to Mdtton 162
o
from Olives to Oysters 175
P
from Panther to Potatoes 183
Q from Quail to Quail 200
R
jrom Rabbit to Roasts 201
S
from Salad to Sweet Potato 212
'J
from Tarragon to Turtledove 241
'V
from Veal to Vuillemot, Denis-Joseph 257
rw
from Water to Woodcock 264
Z
from Zest to Zest 273
Index to Recipes 275
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Editor's ']ntroduction
Under a portrait of Alexandre Dumas in Katherine Bitting's great
Gastronomic Bibliography the caption reads: "A noted author and
gourmand who wrote novels and stories because he needed the
revenue but produced his masterpiece, the Grand Dictionnaire de
Cuisine, because he loved the work."
Bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix, a contemporary of Dumas)
commented knowledgeably: "Assuredly it is a great accomplishment
to be a novelist, but it is no mediocre glory to be a cook. Novelist or
cook, Dumas is a master, and the two vocations appear to go hand in
hand, or, rather, to be joined in one."
Elizabeth Robins Pennell, herself neither hermit nor ascetic,
said of the Grand Dictionnaire that it was "more exciting and thrill
ing than Monte Cristo or Three Musketeers. The anchorite in the
desert could not dip into it without hailing the first camel, abandon
ing his dates and dry bread, and making straight for the nearest town
in search of the materials for the master's dishes."
Culinary and gastronomic literature since the 1870S is full of
references to Dumas' culinary skill and to his Dictionary. The latter
is quoted and paraphrased as frequently as Dumas himself quotes
and paraphrases others. Carrying the recognition of his authority
perhaps to excess, a recent cookery book by a literary avant-gardiste
credits Dumas' Dictionary with four recipes, none of which are to
be found there. One of the most hard-working and ubiquitous of
1
2 Alexandre Dumas'
culinary journalists quotes a nonexistent "headnote" from the
Dictionary to make a point in the eternal Lobster Americaine vs.
Lobster Armoricaine controversy. This is fame raised to the pitch
of legend.
Almost unobtainable in Frenchl and nonexistent in English,
Dumas' Great Dictionary has had a continuing influence on culinary
and gastronomic literature and practice for eighty-five years.
The circumstances that led to the writing of this book are related
by Dumas in his dedicatory Letter to Jules Janin, beginning on p.
22. Janin was a well-known novelist, journalist, and dramatic critic.
The manuscript was delivered to Dumas' publisher and friend,
Alphonse Lemerre, in March 1870. It was only partly set in type
when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and publication was
suspended. Dumas died the same year.
After the peace, D. J. Vuillemot, himself the subject of an
article in this book (see p. 262), corrected and revised manuscript
and galleys and saw the book through publication as Le Grand
Dictionnaire de Cuisine in 1873. In 1882, the Petit Dictionnaire de
Cuisine was published by Lemerre. It consisted of the recipes only.
All the comments, history of and anecdotes on food and eating, and
all the introductory matter were eliminated. This strictly utilitarian
work was kept in print well into the twentieth century.
In the present edition the exigencies of modem publishing have
happily coincided with modem requirements for a readable, useful,
entertaining, and not over-redundant book. Mainly, recipes have
been retained on the basis of their curiosity and usefulness, while
the total bulk has been greatly reduced.
Here the reader will fmd recipes that impart a notion of the
cooking of the periods covered, recipes that contain ideas that appear
novel today, recipes that may never again be practical in original
form but from which many others have sprung and will, subject to
the imagination of the reader, spring.
While the recipes have been transcribed and translated without
significant change, to preserve the atmosphere, the lusty enthusiasm,
lExcept in abbreviated form.-Eo.
Dictionary of Cuisine 3
and the fount of ideas of the original, obviously much had to be
eliminated. Let me give examples to indicate the editorial principles
followed. In the historical portions there has been considerable con
densation. Several purple pages on the history of the barbarian in
vasion of Europe have been left out, but not the reference that makes
a historical and culinary point. Some anecdotes that have become
pointless in the course of eighty-five years have been omitted.
I have eliminated many, but not all, recipes dealing with in
gredients - Mediterranean fish, for instance - unobtainable in
England. However, in the case of fish, the recipes given are, for the
most part, applicable to fish available nearly everywhere.
Recipes for bakery products have been largely eliminated. While
a capon today may not be quite the same as it was to Dumas, because
of developments in breeding and feeding, it is still essentially a capon,
and an old rooster is still an aged cock. The same recipes hold. But
many other ingredients, especially those used in baking, are com
pletely different, though they still carry the same name. For exact
measurements, imperativ.e in baking, identical, standardized ingre
dients are essential. French flour in 1964 is completely different from
English flour in 1964, and both are different from French flour in
1870•
Another editorial guide used here is obvious. This book, today,
is not intended as a basic cookery book for an untaught bride.
Innumerable new cookery books, for just this purpose, appear
annually, and many standard ones are in wide circulation. Where a
recipe of Dumas' is available in standard cookery books, it was
considered expendable here.
No attempt has been made to adapt recipes in the sense of
kitchen-testing with modem ingredients and restating the results.
The basic culinary science is there. These recipes are the grandparents
of those you see in current popular magazines. Making them readily
available can revitalize the art of cooking, especially now, when the
virtues of the turning spit, the charcoal grill, and even the smoke
oven are coming back into use after so many years of neglect.
Adaptation by the reader-cook can result in fifty recipes for each one
given here. Each variation will have its usefulness, its virtues.
Adaptations are easier now, with the availability of such machinery