The Decadent Cookbook (34 page)

Carathis, alarmed at the signs of her mutes, advanced to the stair-case; went down a few steps, and heard several voices calling out from below; “You shall, in a moment have water!” Being rather alert, considering her age, she presently regained the top of the tower; and bade her son suspend the sacrifice for some minutes; adding, - “We shall soon be enabled to render it more grateful. Certain dolts of your subjects, imagining no doubt that we were on fire, have been rash enough to break through those doors, which had hitherto remained inviolate; for the sake of bringing up water. They are very kind, you must allow, so soon to forget the wrongs you have done them; but that is of little moment. Let us offer them to the Giaour, - let them come up; our mutes, who neither want strength nor experience, will soon dispatch them; exhausted as they are, with fatigue.” - “Be it so,” answered the Caliph, “provided we finish, and I dine.” In fact, these good people, out of breath from ascending fifteen hundred stairs in such haste; and chagrined, at having spilt by the way, the water they had taken, were no sooner arrived at the top, than the blaze of the flames, and the fumes of the mummies, at once overpowered their senses. It was a pity! for they beheld not the agreeable smile, with which the mutes and negresses adjusted the cord to their necks; these amiable personages rejoiced, however, no less at the scene. Never before had the ceremony of strangling been performed with so much facility. They all fell, without the least resistance or struggle: so that Vathek, in the space of a few moments, found himself surrounded by the dead bodies of the most faithful of his subjects; all which were thrown on the top of the pile. Carathis, whose presence of mind never forsook her, perceiving that she had carcasses sufficient to complete her oblation, commanded the chains to be stretched across the stair-case, and the iron doors barricaded, that no more might come up.

No sooner were these orders obeyed, than the tower shook; the dead bodies vanished in the flames; which, at once, changed from a swarthy crimson, to a bright rose colour: an ambient vapour emitted the most exquisite fragrance; the marble columns rang with harmonious sounds, and the liquified horns diffused a delicious perfume. Carathis, in transports, anticipated the success of her enterprise; whilst her mutes and negresses, to whom these sweets had given the cholic, retired grumbling to their cells.

Scarcely were they gone, when, instead of the pile, horns, mummies and ashes, the Caliph both saw and felt, with a degree of pleasure which he could not express, a table, covered with the most magnificent repast: availed himself, without scruple, of such an entertainment; and had already laid hands on a lamb stuffed with pistachios, whilst Carathis was privately drawing from a fillagreen urn, a parchment that seemed to be endless; and which had escaped the notice of her son. Totally occupied in gratifying an importunate appetite, he left her to peruse it without interruption; which having finished, she said to him, in an authoritative tone, “Put an end to your gluttony, and hear the splendid promises with which you are favoured!” She then read, as follows: “Vathek, my well-beloved, thou has surpassed my hopes: my nostrils have been regaled by the savour of thy mummies, thy horns; and, still more by the lives, devoted on the pile. At the full of the moon, cause the bands of thy musicians, and thy tymbals, to be heard; depart from thy palace, surrounded by all the pageants of majesty; thy most faithful slaves, thy best beloved wives; thy most magnificent litters; thy richest loaden camels; and set forward on thy way to Istakhar. There, I await thy coming: that is the region of wonders: there shalt thou receive the diadem of Gian Ben Gian; the talismans of Soliman; and the treasures of the pre-adamite sultans: there shalt thou be solaced with all kinds of delight. - But, beware how thou enterest any dwelling on thy route; or thou shalt feel the effects of my anger.”

The Caliph, notwithstanding his habitual luxury, had never before dined with so much satisfaction. He gave full scope to the joy of these golden tidings; and betook himself to drinking anew. Carathis, whose antipathy to wine was by no means insuperable, failed not to pledge him at every bumper he ironically quaffed to the health of Mahomet. This infernal liquor completed their impious temerity, and prompted them to utter a profusion of blasphemies. They gave a loose to their wit, at the expense of the ass of Balaam, the dog of the seven sleepers, and the other animals admitted into the paradise of Mahomet. In this sprightly humour, they descended the fifteen hundred stairs, diverting themselves as they went, at the anxious faces they saw on the square, through the barbacans and loop-holes of the tower; and, at length, arrived at the royal apartments, by the subterranean passage. Bababalouk was parading to and fro, and issuing his mandates, with great pomp to the eunuchs; who were snuffing the lights and painting the eyes of the Circassians. No sooner did he catch sight of the Caliph and his mother, than he exclaimed, “Hah! you have, then, I perceive, escaped from the flames: I was not, however, altogether out of doubt.” - “Of what moment is it to us what you thought, or think?” cried Carathis: “go; speed; tell Morakanabad that we immediately want him: and take care, not to stop by the way, to make you insipid reflections.”

Morakanabad delayed not to obey the summons; and was received by Vathek and his mother, with great solemnity. They told him, with an air of composure and commiseration, that the fire at the top of the tower was extinguished; but that it had cost the lives of the brave people who sought to assist them.

“Still more misfortunes!” cried Morakanabad, with a sigh. “Ah, commander of the faithful, our holy prophet is certainly irritated against us! it behoves you to appease him.” - “You will have leisure sufficient for your supplications, during my absence: for this country is the bane of my health. I am disgusted with the mountain of the four fountains, and am resolved to go and drink of the stream of Rocnabad. I long to refresh myself, in the delightful vallies which it waters. Do you, with the advice of my mother, govern my dominions, and take care to supply whatever her experiments may demand: for, you well know, that our tower abounds in materials for the advancement of science.”

The tower but ill-suited Morakanabad’s taste. Immense treasures had been lavished upon it; and nothing had he ever seen carried thither but female negroes, mutes and abominable drugs. Nor did he know well what to think of Carathis, who, like a cameleon, could assume all possible colours. Her cursed eloquence had often driven the poor mussulman to his last shifts. He considered, however, that if she possessed but few good qualities, her son had still fewer; and that the alternative, on the whole, would be in her favour. Consoled, therefore, with this reflection; he went, in good spirits, to soothe the populace, and make the proper arrangements for his master’s journey.

William Beckford,
Vathek
.

Decadence begins with world-weariness, ennui, weltschmerz. It usually ends in madness, damnation, or a desolate return to the confessional. But even before the final crisis, a contradiction is reached: no matter how exotic or exquisite an experience might be, it always becomes dull with repetition. So the Decadent pushes on, trying new, ever-riskier sensations. Then these grow stale too. He becomes a kind of Sisyphus, heaving the boulder of his boredom up the long mountain-slope of experiment, only to have it crash to the bottom again the moment he reaches the peak.

So, after you’ve tasted the most bizarre and the rarest dish, what next? The answer in Huysmans’ eyes was to turn to the spiritual - fasting, mortification and prayer. D’Annunzio, like Baudelaire, thought he might find it - the ultimate, unique, unrepeatable experience - in death. But these solutions are too grim. A third way seems more appealing. It was sketched out by that great Victorian painter, traveller and master of tomfoolery, Edward Lear.

In August 1847, Lear was travelling around the region of Calabria, Southern Italy. On the fourth of that month he found himself in the small town of Staiti. There he had been recommended to one Don Domenico Musitani, ‘the chief man of the place’. Lear writes:

‘Life in these regions of natural magnificence is full of vivid contrasts. The golden abstract vision of the hanging woods and crags were suddenly opposed to the realities of Don D. Musitani’s rooms, which were so full of silkworms as to be beyond measure disgusting. To the cultivation of this domestic creature all Staiti is devoted; yellow cocoons in immense heaps are piled up in every possible place, and the atmosphere has to be conceived rather than described.’

The following day, Lear and his companion set out to do some sightseeing and sketching in the area.

‘Staiti has its full share of Calabrian mystery in its buildings, caves and rocks, and employed our pencils far and near till noon, when we returned to our hosts to find dinner laid out in one of the bedrooms, all among the silkworms as before. Nor did the annoyance of a small tribe of spoiled children and barking dogs add charms to the meal.

But the ‘vermi di seti’ were our chief horror; and so completely did silkworms seem the life and air, end and material, of all Staiti, that we felt more than half sure, on contemplating three or four suspicious-looking dishes, that those interesting lepidoptera fomed a great part of the ground work of our banquet - silkworms (plain boiled), stewed chrysalis and moth tart!’

Later in the same month of August, Lear had moved on to the town of Stignano, which he describes as ‘oppressive’. There he found lodgings with a rather intimidating family called Caristo. During the course of his stay, however, he was inadvertently presented with a dish which seems to have quite taken his fancy.

‘… the most remarkable accident during our stay was caused by a small juvenile Caristo who, during the mid-day meal, climbed abruptly on to the table, and before he could be rescued, performed a series of struggles among the dishes, which ended by the little pickle’s losing his balance and collapsing into the very middle of the macaroni dish! …

One sees in Valentines, Cupids on beds of roses, or on birds’ nests. But a slightly clothed Calabrese infant sitting in the midst of a hot dish of macaroni appears to me a perfectly novel idea!’

Among Lear’s uncollected prose pieces is the following, dated September 1859.

‘For a long time I fed on an immense leg of mutton - far, far larger than any leg of mutton I ever saw before or since.

But one day, I remembered that I had gone to the window to see a Circus Company go by, and attached to that there was an elephant. And I then had the horrid recollection that the Circus had long since returned (I saw it pass by) but the elephant never had.

From that moment I felt what that large leg of preposterous mutton really was,
e non mangiar avante -
and I did not eat any more!

On the whole I do not recommend dead elephant as daily food!’

Nonsense has been defined as ‘Decadence under the sign of the comic’. If that’s the case, surely some of the most decadent dishes ever conceived are the recipes in Lear’s
Book of Nonsense
. Here they are.

Take 4 pounds (say 4½ pounds) of fresh Amblonguses, and put them into a small pipkin.

Cover them with water and boil them for 8 hours incessantly, after which add 2 pints of new milk and proceed to boil for 4 hours more.

When you have ascertained that the Amblonguses are quite soft, take them out and place them in a wide pan, taking care to shake them well previously.

Grate some nutmeg over the surface and cover them carefully with powdered gingerbread, curry powder, and a sufficient quantity of Cayenne pepper.

Remove the pan into the next room and place it on the floor. Bring it back again and let it simmer for three-quarters of an hour. Shake the pan violently till all the Amblonguses have become of a pale purple colour.

Then, having prepared the paste, insert the whole carefully adding at the same time a small pigeon, 2 slices of beef, 4 cauliflowers and any number of oysters.