On Food and Cooking

Lombardy mustard, and raisins, whole
currants, and grind sweet powder and
whole anise, and fennel seed. Take all
these things and cast them together in a pot
of earth, and take some when you wish, and
serve it forth.
With the 19th century, English vegetable
cooking became ever simpler until it almost
always meant boiled and buttered, a quick and
simple method for homes and restaurants
alike, while in France the elaborate
professional style reached its apogee. The
influential chef Antonin Carême declared in
his Art of French Cooking in the 19th Century
(1835) that “it is in the confection of the
Lenten cuisine that the chef’s science must
shine with new luster.” Carême’s enlarged
repertoire included broccoli, truffles,
eggplant, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, these
last fixed à l’anglaise, dites, Mache-Potetesse
(“in the English style, that is, mashed”). Of
course, such luster tends to undermine the