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Now Prince Talleyrand, besides being himself one of the daintiest men in Europe, had to entertain, as minister of foreign affairs, the diplomatic corps, and a large number of other persons accustomed from their youth up to artistic cookery. Carème proved equal to the situation. Talleyrand's dinners were renowned throughout Europe and America.
"Asie's cooking prevents my ever thinking a dinner good, however famous the chef may be, where I happen to dine. However, Careme did the dinner to-night, as he does every Sunday." Lucien involuntarily compared Esther with Clotilde. The mistress was so beautiful, so unfailingly charming, that she had as yet kept at arm's length the monster who devours the most perennial loves Satiety.
'You should have tried the cold turbot with oil and capers. 'Your man had better stick to buttered eggs, in my opinion. 'Say, porridge! 'No, I'll be hanged if I think he's equal to a bowl of porridge. 'Careme might have confessed to the same!
I remembered now having come across a passage in Massillon's Petit Careme, some two or three years before, during a varied course of French reading at the library of the British Museum, an old haunt of mine long previously to my ever knowing Min; and this passage occurred to me in my present condition, expressing a want I had long felt, and which I was now all the more bitterly conscious of.
People do not dine as luxuriously in the country as they do in Paris, but they dine better; the dishes are meditated upon and studied. In rural regions we often find some Careme in petticoats, some unrecognized genius able to serve a simple dish of haricot-beans worthy of the nod with which Rossini welcomed a perfectly-rendered measure.
Accordingly, I solemnly knotted the linen apron about her waist; and she rushed into the kitchen, where she proceeded at once as we discovered later on to prepare various dishes unknown to Vatel, unknown even to that great Careme who began his treatise upon pieces montees with these words: "The Fine Arts are five in number: Painting, Music, Poetry, Sculpture, and Architecture whereof the principal branch is Confectionery."
When the allied kings celebrated their triumph in Paris at a grand banquet, it was Carème who, as the French say, "executed the repast." His brilliant success on this occasion was trumpeted over Europe, and after the final downfall of Napoleon he was invited to take charge of the kitchen of the English Prince Regent.
A very remarkable case in point is Marie-Antoine Carème, whom a French writer styles, "one of the princes of the culinary art." I suppose that no country in the world but France could produce such a character. Of this, however, the reader can judge when I have briefly told his story. He was born in a Paris garret, in 1784, one of a family of fifteen children, the offspring of a poor workman.
How Ude and Careme would have disdained this kind of cookery! It is questionable whether hanging is not a better use to put a man to than cooking news. Sir Henry Wotton defined an ambassador as an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth. This kind of purveyor, however, does not lie for his country, but for a party or a person.
Then the virtuous wife would be a Homeric meal, flesh laid on hot cinders. The courtesan, on the contrary, is a dish by Careme, with its condiments, spices, and elegant arrangement. The Baroness could not did not know how to serve up her fair bosom in a lordly dish of lace, after the manner of Madame Marneffe. She knew nothing of the secrets of certain attitudes.
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