The Decadent Cookbook (18 page)

As I made my way back to London later that afternoon, it occurred to me that despite the old man’s morbid fascination with decay and corruption, he ate extremely well. I, however, was looking forward to the piece of fresh fish my housekeeper had promised me.‘

Having specified the need for two earthenware pots on the stove each boiling separately, Mr Ford continues:

“Place into No.1 garbanzos (chick peas) which have been placed to soak overnight, add a good piece of beef, a chicken, a large piece of bacon. Let it boil once quickly then let it simmer; it requires four or five hours to be well done. Meanwhile, place into no 2, with water, whatever vegetables are to be had, lettuces, cabbage, a slice of gourd, of beef, carrots, beans, celery, endive, onions and garlic, long peppers. These must be previously well washed and cut, as if they were destined to make a salad; then add red sausages, or chorizos, half a salted pig’s face which should have been soaked overnight. When all is sufficiently boiled, strain off the water and throw it away. Remember constantly to skim the scum off both saucepans. When all this is sufficiently dressed, take a large dish, lay in the bottom the vegetables, the beef in the centre, flanked by the bacon, chicken and pig’s face. The sausages should be arranged around, en couronne; pour over some of the soup of No.1 and serve hot.“

Soak the legs and breasts of six young rooks in salt water overnight. Drain them and place in a pie dish, adding a few pieces of fat bacon cut into chunks. The meat is then covered with stock and seasoned with salt and pepper.

For the pastry, take 1lb flour, cut and rub in ½ lb of fat, add pepper and salt to season, followed by 4 ounces each of currants and stoned raisins. Add sufficient water to make a stiff paste and turn on to a floured board. Roll out to about ¾ inch thick and place on top of the pie dish. Cover the pie with greaseproof paper and tie it down in a pudding cloth. Place this in a large pan of boiling water and cook it for three hours.

Strolling through the gardens of the Palais Royal in Paris, sometime in the 1850s, one would no doubt have come across a number of heart-warming sights - a paterfamilias in a black frock coat sits on a bench watching his three pretty children playing with the kitten he has just given them. A young lady, dressed expensively and impractically in white, bends to pick up her yorkshire terrier and adjust the bow on the top of its head. And amid these scenes of bourgeois rectitude one might well have caught a glimpse of the extravagant figure of poet and novelist, Gérard de Nerval. He was unmistakable, less for himself though than for his little pet, which he dragged along at the end of a length of pale blue ribbon. Literally ‘dragged’, because his little pet was a lobster.

De Nerval had close links with the Decadent movement. His writings, much admired by Baudelaire and Gautier, were often the product of bizarre imaginings and exotic situations. However, poor Gérard spent most of his working life engaged in an unequal struggle against poverty and madness. He finally brought it all to an untimely close at the end of a rope, dangling from a lamp post in the rue de la Vieille Lanterne. History does not record what happened to his pet, but no doubt at some point it was plunged live into a pot of boiling water and eaten.

Of course, had one wandered up to any other pet owners in the gardens of the Palais Royal at that time and suggested, for example, that the Mademoiselle’s adorable little terrier or the sweet fluffy kitten that Monsieur’s children are playing with so gaily might be as tasty as de Nerval’s pet, these suggestions would have been greeted with the utmost horror. Accusations of Monster! Degenerate! Ogre! and the like, would have rained down on one’s head.

Interestingly, however, no more than a decade and a half after the death of de Nerval, two cookbooks were published in Paris which contained recipes not only for the preparation and cooking of dog, but of cat as well. Indeed, according to Henry Labouchère, who was staying in the French capital during the autumn and winter of 1870, dishes of cat, dog and rat had begun to appear quite regularly in Parisian restaurants. The following are some of the observations he recorded on this matter:

Cats have risen in the market - a good fat one now costs 20 francs. Those that remain are exceedingly wild.

This morning I had a salmis of rats - it was excellent - something between frog and rabbit. I breakfasted with the correspondents of two of your contemporaries. One of them after a certain amount of hesitation allowed me to help him to a leg of rat; after eating it he was as anxious as a terrier for more. The other, however, scornfully refused to share in the repast. As he got through his potion of salted horse which rejoiced in the name of beef, he regarded us with horror and disgust. I remember when I was in Egypt that my feelings towards the natives were of a similar nature when I saw them eating rat. The older one grows, the more tolerant one becomes. If ever I am again in Africa I shall eat the national dish whenever I get the chance. I was curious to see whether the proprietor of the restaurant would boldly call rat, rat on my bill. His heart failed him - it figures as a salmi of game.

All the animals in the zoological gardens have been killed except the monkeys; they are kept alive from a vague and Darwinian notion that they are our relatives, or at least relatives of some of the members of the government, to whom, in the matter of beauty, nature has not been bountiful.

In the rue Blanche, there is a butcher who sells dogs, rats and cats. He has many customers, but it is amusing to see them sneak into the shop after carefully looking around to make sure none of their acquaintances is near. A prejudice has arisen against rats because the doctors say that their flesh is full of trichinae. I own for my part I have a gulity feeling when I eat dog, the friend of man. I had a slice of spaniel the other day - it was by no means bad, something like lamb, but I felt like a cannibal. Epicures in dog flesh tell me that poodle is by far the best, and recommended me to avoid bulldog, which is coarse and tasteless. I really think that dogs have some means of communicating with each other and have discovered that their old friends want to devour them. The humblest of street curs growls when anyone looks at them. Figaro has a story that a man was followed for a mile by a party of dogs barking fiercely at his heels. He could not understand to what their attentions were due until he remembered that he had eaten a rat for breakfast. The friend of another journalist who ate a dog called Fox, says that whenever anyone calls out ‘Fox’ he feels an irresistible impulse which forces him to jump up.

Cat, dog, rat and horse are all very well as novelties, but taken habitually they do not assimilate with my inner man. Horse, doctors say, is heating: I only wish it would heat me.

Now, it is perhaps only fair to point out that Henry Labouchère, despite his very gallic sounding name, was in fact an Englishman, and a journalist, and his observations of daily life in the French capital were made at a time when it was being besieged by the Prussian army. And, admittedly, by January 1871 the Prussians had succeeded in starving the citizens of Paris into surrender. So it is not altogether surprising that there was such a trade in the sort of creatures which did not normally grace the tables of the Parisian bourgeoisie. However, given that the flavour of dog is strong but not disagreeable and is comparable to mutton, venison or goat, the question remains as to why this taboo is still so firmly in place?

At this point, Mademoiselle would no doubt scoop her little darling protectively into her arms and state that the consumption of dog is the practice only of barbarous peoples.

Like the ancient Greeks, for example? This is how Porphyrus, the third century Greek writer, explains the origins of eating dog:

‘One day, a dog was being offered in sacrifice at a temple. When a piece of the victim fell to the floor, the priest picked it up in order to replace it on the altar. However, the meat was very hot and the priest burnt his fingers. Naturally, without thinking, he put his fingers to his mouth and found that the juices on them tasted good. After the ceremony was over, he ate half the dog and took the other half home to his wife. From then on, after each sacrifice, the priest and his wife feasted on the victim. Word of this soon spread all over town; everybody tasted it and in a very short while roast dog was to be found at all the best tables. To begin with, people used puppies in their cooking as their meat was naturally more tender; later, when there was a shortage of these, larger dogs were used.’

Or perhaps Mademoiselle was referring to the ‘barbarous Chinese’? The Han dynasty (202 B.C. to 221 A.D.), perhaps the greatest of the Chinese dynasties, saw the appearance of a book of ritual, known as the
Li-chi
. The
Li-chi
contained eight delicacies which could be prepared for the elderly on ceremonial occasions. One of the recipes cited involves taking the liver of a dog and coating it in a thin layer of its own fat. The fat-covered liver is then moistened and roasted. At the last moment the liver is removed from the roasting dish and placed directly in the flames. This sears it and produces a crackling effect. It sounds delicious.

Another of the great civilisations, the Aztecs, raised a breed of hairless chihuahuas especially for eating. When the Conquistadors arrived and found dog on the menu, they were of the same opinion as Mademoiselle, that this was evidence of the worst form of barbarism. They, the Spaniards, used dogs as befits civilised and Christian men - to hunt down fugitive Indians and tear them to pieces.

Quite frankly, between the ancient Greeks, the Chinese and the Aztecs, it is difficult to conceive of more noble origins for a particular culinary practice!

Meanwhile, Monsieur, quickly gathering his children and their kitten about him, would argue that however others may behave, we Europeans do not eat dog. They are unclean and are carrion-feeders. Monsieur’s argument would cut little ice with the Alpine Swiss who eat dried dog meat and have a recipe called
Gedorrtes hundefleisch
. Or with the people of Vicenza where cat was a standard dish, until the arrival of the supermarket.