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300 COOKERY the art. The chief cook and his subordinates were officers of high consequence in the train of William the Conqueror. The monasteries of England were soon after famous for their luxuries, and in the reign of Henry II. the fri- ars of St. Swithin complained to the king that the abbot had withdrawn three of the thirteen courses usually accorded them. Chaucer in his "Canterbury Tales" often mentions the good fare and skilful tastes of the clergy. In 1541 Archbishop Cranmer determined to regu- late the culinary expenses of the clergy by an edict, and limited the archbishops to six dishes of meat (or of fish on fish days), the bishops to five, and the lower orders to four or three. The number of fowls and fish to be served in a dish was also detailed. The English nobility began to rival the Romans in expensive enter- tainments soon after the return of the crusa- ders, who during their travels had been made acquainted with oriental luxuries. Among the choicest dishes of that era was the peacock, generally served with the feathers of the tail unplucked and spread out to their fullest ex- tent. In the reign of Elizabeth the medieval style of cookery attained its zenith. Cooks were then classical scholars, and the heathen divinities were represented at every festival. Shortly after the Elizabethan period, a con- siderable alteration took place in the domestic economy of the nobility. Early hours and stricter habits were enjoined. In France, the Gauls when first discovered subsisted chiefly on acorns and roots. Conquered by Caesar, they speedily acquired the habits of their vic- tors; and the Normans early attained great proficiency in the arts of luxury. In the lat- ter part of the 14th century flourished the celebrated Taillevant, chef de cuisine for Charles V. and VI., from whom we have the recipe for a famous dish of that epoch called galimafree : " Dismember a chicken, and cook it with wine, butter, verjuice, salt, pepper, nut- meg, thyme, laurel, and onions. When suffi- ciently cooked, add to the gravy some cameline" (a sauce composed of butter, cinnamon, gin- ger, allspice, grains of paradise, bread crumbs, and aromatic vinegar). Spices being very ex- pensive at that period, a great consumption was made of them through vanity. In the reign of Louis XII. a company of sauciers ob- tained a monopoly for making sauces ; and a company of rotisseurs, for cooking meats on the spit. French cookery was of a sumptuous character in the reign of Louis XIV., and the tab^e of the king rivalled in delicacy that of the great Conde, over which presided Vatel, who in despair at the tardiness of a dish com- mitted suicide, and whose eulogy was written -by Mme. de Sevigne. In the reign of Louis XV., especially under the regency, flourished Sabatier, Robert, Laguipierre, and other mas- ters of the art, who introduced salutary im- provements. Small supper entertainments, models of delicacy, savor, and elegance, and without superfluous show, came into fashion, and the great houses established what was termed the petite cuisine, which is still flourish- ing. The era of the revolution threatened to abolish with the privileges of the nobles the refinements of cookery, and famed culinary artists found themselves suddenly turned into the street. They instituted restaurants, which were received with favor by the citizens, and in which the art made progress under the di- rectory and the consulate, till it was revived with new splendor in wealthy houses under the empire. Among the most illustrious recent French cooks are Boucher, Lasnes, Leiter, De- launy, Borel, Very, Soyer, and Careme. The last converted the art into a science, made taste yield to chemistry, and the kitchen be- came instead of a workshop a laboratory. His works on the art of cookery are unrivalled. The natural elements of food are found through- out the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The principal processes are boiling, roasting, frying, broiling, and baking. The great object in cooking meats is to retain as much as possible of their natural juice. Hence, when boiled they should be plunged at first into boiling water, that their outer part may contract and become impenetrable. On the other hand, the meat for soup should be put into cold water and gradually heated. It has been ob- served that hard water is better for boiling mutton, and soft water for vegetables. By boiling mutton loses one fifth of its weight, and beef one fourth ; by roasting they each lose one third. Frying is the least healthful of all the operations. Broiling, by which the surface is suddenly browned and hardened and the juices retained, is the most eligible style for those who wish to invigorate themselves. Baking renders meat very savory and tender, not only by retaining the juices, but also by not permitting the escape of the fumes ; but it causes greater retention of the oils, and there- fore renders meats less easily digestible. The size and other conditions of a joint, or rather piece, are to be skilfully considered in cooking it. There are four principal French sauces, V Espagnole, la veloutee, I 1 Allemande, and la Bechamel, two of them brown and two white, forming the bases of almost every other sauce. Among national dishes are the roast beef, beef steak, and plum pudding of England, the salt beef of Holland, the Sauerkraut of Germany, the caviare of Russia, the pilau of Turkey, the polenta and macaroni of Italy, and the garlan- sos and olla podrida of Spain. An acquaint- ance with the arts of cookery may be obtained from the cookery books, which abound through- out the civilized world. The oldest of these in modern times that has been preserved dates from the second half of the 14th century ; it is entitled Le menagier de Paris, and was written by citizen of that city named Le Sage. Moral counsels are mingled in it with very full and curious culinary details. Another book by Taillevant, royal cook of France, dates from about 1392, and passed through eight editions