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 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