CULINARY REFLECTIONS ON REFORM. 



" QUOT Galli totidem Coqui," has been, from old time, the meri- 

 torious characteristic of Frenchmen ; while, with us, the office of a 

 cook is degraded in public estimation in exact proportion to its in- 

 trinsic importance. In the days of Charlemagne the director of the 

 kitchen was ever one of the prime ministers of state ; conferences were 

 held over the gridirons ; cutlets were inserted in protocols ; national 

 boundaries were indicated by the'cleaver ; and dispatches were given 

 and received, while the under secretary of state for foreign affairs 

 basted the loin which the head of his department had just before 

 spitted. In those days Kitchiner and Mrs. Rundell would have ac- 

 quired immortality; while Ude, uniting the philosophy of cookery to 

 the art of dressing meat, might, not unhappily for the nation, have 

 been elevated to the premiership : and, if reform had been peremp- 

 torily suggested, he would, with consummate skill and prudence, have 

 concocted a system seasoned to the national taste having due and 

 professional regard to the rights of corporate bodies, and the pre- 

 servation of the constitution. He happily would not have set before 

 us a dish of calf's head without brains, but with an overwhelming 

 garnish of tongue; but rather have afforded us that well-esteemed, 

 plain, and wholesome joint, so congenial to the British palate, from 

 which we may rise satiated, but not palled ; nor left us to the peni- 

 tence engendered by mock turtle, which, if it tickle the palate, is of 

 most difficult digestion. Had reform looked backward to a better 

 age, and derived instruction from experience, instead of speculating 

 on undefined futurity, it might have been well with us; and, as it 

 has been decided by medicine and philosophy, that the mind takes its 

 tinge from the stomach, and that the moral character is influenced, if 

 not wholly directed, by the aliments supplied to the physical man, 

 and the manner of their preparation ; if by study and inquiry we can 

 ascertain any important departure, in our own age, from the culinary 

 rules of our forefathers, surely it will be far more reasonable to ascribe 

 the actual outcry for reform and change to novel modes of refection, 

 than to render confusion worse confounded, by reference to Magna 

 Charta and King John, Lord Chatham and the American war the 

 fair humanities of the first French revolution, or the late glories of 

 Lafayette and the barricades, which, happily, have as much to do 

 with the question as Mr. Manners Sutton or Mr. Alderman Anybody 

 without manners at all. The cause of public excitement and agita- 

 tion once ascertained, the remedy would be easy. A Secretary of 

 State's warrant, for the search and seizure of Cayenne, -wherever it 

 may be found, as mediately provocative to treason a proclamation 

 for the apprehension of Mulligatawney, as tending to the disturbance 

 of the public peace a general outlawry of curry, whiskey, gin, and 

 spices, as inimical to church and king, and wholly subversive of the 

 constitution, should at once appease the popular fever, and restore us 

 to tranquillity while " the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the 



