Espagnole sauce

“ A pickled walnut chopped, or a gherkin or two, go admirably with mutton or pork chops. In short, this is just where71 imagination and brains will tell in cooking, and little essays of invention may be tried with profit. But beware of trying too much; make yourself perfect in one thing before venturing on another.
Espagnole, or brown sauce, is simply a rich stock well flavored with vegetables and herbs, and thickened with a piece of roux or with brown flour.
White Sauce is one of those things we rarely find perfectly made; bad, it is the ne plus ultra of badness ”

“ Also, said of a poached egg put in a thick white sauce, then covered with egg yolk and bread crumbs, and fried.
à la vinaigrette (ä lä vē-nē-gret ́) .—With vinaigrette sauce.
al buon vino non bisogna frasca (It.) , (äl bwôn vē ́ nō nōn bē zô ́ nyä fräs ́kä) , good wine needs no bush.
à l’envi (ȧ läN vē ́) , with emulation.
à l’espagnole (ä lā-spä-nyōl ́) .—Made savory with espagnole sauce; specifically, served with a garnish of onions, garlic, green peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and minced ham cooked together, and bound with espagnole sauce. ”

“ Australian wines may be used in all recipes where wine is mentioned: Harvest Burgundy for red, and Chasselas for Chablis.
No. 1. Espagnole, or Brown Sauce
The chief ingredient of this useful sauce is good stock, to which add any remnants and bones of fowl or game. Butter the bottom of a stewpan with at least two ounces of butter, and in it put slices of lean veal, ham, bacon, cuttings of beef, fowl, or game trimmings, three peppercorns, mushroom trimmings, a tomato, a carrot and a turnip cut up, an onion stuck with two cloves, a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, parsley and marjoram. ”

“ The Spaniards are as little of a dinner-giving people as the Italians. Though every Spaniard tells you, with asseverating protestations, “Mi casa sta à la dispocion di usted,” yet this means nothing whatever, for assuredly you are never destined to eat or drink within his four walls, unless it be a cup of cold water. The only national dishes of any note in Spain, are the olla and the puchero, and neither would be relished by Englishmen of well-educated palates.
Germany has little to teach us in the way of cookery. On the banks of the Rhine they dress a carp well, with both sweet and sour sauce ”

“ Among vegetables garlic and onions take the chief place, and form an indispensable part of the diet of all Spaniards; besides these, tomatoes and Spanish pepper are the principal garden crops. Among the vegetable products not yet mentioned the most important are the mulberry, grown in almost all provinces, but principally in those bordering on the Mediterranean, and above all in Valencia, the chief seat of the Spanish silk production and manufacture; tobacco, which is also imported, hemp and flax, grown chiefly in Galicia and other northern provinces ”

“ But then oil has a double debt to pay, because Spaniards make no butter. At all events the food is plentiful, and “St Bernard’s sauce” will cover a multitude of deficiencies; for appetite is a blessing that is seldom lacking to the traveller in Spain!
After dinner, the Café. And a Spanish café is a most noteworthy assemblage. It is comparatively empty in the evenings, for the Spaniard’s homing instincts are much more strongly developed than the Frenchman’s, and he seldom quits his house and his family circle after dark. ”

“ Melon is not included in the dessert of three dishes; this fruit is not eaten in the north of Spain at the dessert, but is introduced after soup. The dinner, it must be admitted, is sufficiently abundant; but, considering the low price of provisions, it is not cheap. The only one of these dishes which a stranger can eat, is the most truly Spanish among them,—the puchero,—because it is the only one in which there is neither oil nor garlic. The tariff also provides for the traveller’s comfort in bed; this is charged at four reals (10d.) ”

“ The fish of the Mediterranean seem brighter colored than other fish. Like wet jewels the red mullet, like silver the turbot, like many-colored enamels the big variegated conger eels the Romans liked so well. Gibraltar, which produces nothing, is splendidly victualled. The beef comes from Morocco, the vegetables from Spain, the fruit from every Mediterranean port. At the fruit stalls were bunches of Spanish grapes, long, purple, white, hanging thick overhead, a background for Barbary baskets filled with citrons, persimmons, cocoanuts, apples, and pears. ”

“ Spain is a country which is no happy hunting ground for a gourmet. The restaurants in Barcelona one can rely on, Madrid comes next in honour, and the rest, to use a sporting term, are "nowhere," the customary table-d'hôte dinner at the restaurants of a small town consisting of Caldo, then the universal stew, then Arroz à la Valencia, rice, chicken, and tomatoes, and finally quince marmalade. ”

“ The basis of the Spanish salad may be—nay, is—the same as in other lands: tomato, cucumber, lettuce, beans, potatoes. But to these is added pepper—not miserably dried and powdered, but fresh and whole, or in generous slices—and behold! a new combination is created, a new flavour evolved. And it is a flavour so strong, yet subtle withal, so aromatic and spicy, so bizarre and picturesque—dream-inspiring as the aroma of green Chartreuse, stimulating as Cognac of ripe years—that the wonder is its praises hitherto have not been more loudly sung, its delights more widely cultivated. ”

“ Pork, in its various phases—bacon, ham and sausage—is the meat par excellence of provincial Spain, occupying the same elevated position in the department of gastronomy as English beef, Welsh mutton, and Irish potatoes. Judging from the Continent generally, an Englishman is apt to fancy that a rasher is a delicacy confined to the British Isles; but before he has been long in Spain, he will discover the truth of Ford’s eulogium: “The pork of Spain has always been unequalled in flavour. ”

“ In Valencia cows' milk is as great a luxury as ginger-beer in Yucatan. The milk of goats and mares is the staple commodity—that of cows, when it is to be procured, being advertised about the town on placards at a heavy price to tempt the rich, in the same manner as one sees rare wines announced in London. In fact, to the common herd of mortals, Spain is not a land flowing with milk and butter. Oil, however, is universal, being found in cakes, in pastry, in soup, in fact in every dish, betraying its presence even in the very air itself. ”

“ Our breakfast consisted of soup composed of garlic and eggs, of the inevitable tomata tortilla, and of roasted almonds and oranges, washed down with Val-de-Peñas, which was tolerably good, although thick enough to be cut with a knife, smelling horribly of pitch, and of the colour of mulberry syrup. Spain is certainly not peculiarly brilliant in its cookery, and the hostelries have not been sensibly ameliorated since the time of Don Quixote ”

“ Very jolly groups of Spanish artisans does one see in the open shops at noon, gathered around a table. The board is chiefly adorned with earthen jars of an ancient pattern filled with oil and wine, platters of bread and sausage, and the ever fragrant onion is generally perceptible. The personal qualities of these men are quite unknown to us; but they have an air of good-fellowship which gives pleasure. ”

“ The salted butter of American creameries, made to keep for months, is wholly unknown in Spain, Spanish butter being a soft mass, and always eaten unsalted. But with his strong garlic and his fine fragrant tobacco, the Spaniard hardly demands or appreciates the refinements of food, and his tobacco is of the best, coming from the Spanish plantations in Cuba, and is very cheap, as it enters the country free of duties.
Sunny Spain: Sewing and Reaping in Winter
HOUSEWORK, among the sun-basking, siesta-loving Spaniards, seems to be not the formidable, systematic matter that it is made in America. ”

“ With much elegance of form, his meagre person shows that he is the denizen of a dry climate, which, every Spaniard will tell you, gives a peculiar compactness of structure to all its products: the wheat of Spain makes more bread, its beef and mutton are more nourishing, its wines have more body, and the men more enduring vigor than those of other countries. Certain it is that Spanish troops have often proved great marchers; yet of all nations they have the slenderest legs, and indeed they never use their own when they can substitute those of horse, mule, or burro. ”

“ From the varied character of her products, Spain is of all European countries naturally the most self-sufficing. Her north-western provinces furnish her with cattle in abundance; no finer wheat is grown than that on the central plateau, and it could easily be produced in quantity more than sufficient for her wants; wine, oil, and fruits she possesses in superfluity; even sugar is not wanting in the south ”

“ In Madrid, and generally in Castile, there is somewhat more luxury in the table, though the Spaniards as a nation, may justly be characterized as abstemious, and little addicted to the pleasures of the table. The olla or puchero, is not the sole dish that graces the tables of the middle and upper classes in Madrid: there is generally a stew of some kind added, and dinner is always followed by cakes, sweetmeats, and fruit ”

“ So much for the wines of Jerez; but sherry, though in British eyes it looms the largest amongst the wines of Spain, and is, in fact, of the greatest intrinsic value, yet represents a mere drop in the ocean as compared with the whole produce of the land. Spain overflows with wine. Hardly a village but has its vineyards and its vintage-time, when the very earth becomes encarnadined, and when the chief care of the peasantry is rather to find casks, goat-skins, or other receptacles wherein to store their redundant crop, than wine to fill them withal. ”

“ Spaniards of all ranks, use fruit, vegetables, fish, and olives, for their principal diet, and oil and garlic are used plentifully in their culinary operations; chocolate is their chief beverage, but at dinner ladies drink nothing but water, and gentlemen a little wine. The fare of the Portuguese peasantry is meagre in the extreme, although, they are, in fact, surrounded with the abundant luxuries of nature ”

“ Still, as of old, Spaniards are temperate in food and drink. "It's as rare to see a Spaniard a drunkard as a German sober," wrote Middleton three centuries ago. They use more water than wine, and although they have a grand appetite for sweets, they take them in comparatively simple forms. The national lack of enterprise is conspicuous even here, for dearly as the Spaniard dotes on chocolate and sugar, Madrid does not make her own chocolate creams, but imports them from Paris to sell, when they are too hard to eat, at a price too high to pay. ”

“ The ball{34} room of the palace is the largest in Europe. All the arts and manufactures seem to have contributed to its splendour.
In Madrid I sampled for the first time the cooking of the country. The untravelled Englishman still clings to the superstition that the visitor to Spain must either starve, or condescend to consume food fried in rancid oil and seasoned with garlic. The fastidious tourist will be fed as well in Spain, both in the cities and the country inns, as in any city or provincial district in Europe. ”

“ Put half a pint of Spanish sauce (Art. 80) , with a glass of sherry, in a saucepan on the fire, boil it ten minutes, then add eight mushrooms, four chickens' livers, which you have previously blanched in boiling water ten minutes, the breast of a cold chicken, some cold smoked tongue, and two truffles, all cut in small pieces. When hot, fill your bouchées, place the small covers on top of each, and serve. Instead of Spanish sauce, Allemande sauce (Art. 81) is often preferred. You may also add four ounces of chicken farce (Art. 11) , which form into small balls, and poach in boiling water. ”

“ Among Spanish wines I far prefer the full-bodied astringent sub-acidity of the common Val de Peñas, beloved of Cervantes. But the Queen of wines is sound Bordeaux. To that Queen, however, a delicate etherous Amontillado might be admitted as Spanish maid-of-honour, preceding the royal footsteps, while the syrupy Malaga from the Doradillo grape might follow as attendant in her train.
From wine to women is an easy transition. ”

“ There is much misconception regarding both Spanish and Mexican cooking, for it is generally accepted as a fact that all Mexican and Spanish dishes are so filled with red pepper as to be unpalatable to the normal stomach of those trained to what is called "plain American cooking." Certain dishes of Mexican and Spanish origin owe their fine flavor to discriminating use of chili caliente or chili dulce, but many of the best dishes are entirely innocent of either. The difference between Spanish and Mexican cooking is largely a matter of sentiment. ”

“ Having now made you acquainted with what is here called the best sort of people, you will probably like to have a sketch of their daily life: take it, then, neither from the first, nor the last of the class.
Breakfast, in Spain, is not a regular family meal. It generally consists of chocolate, and buttered toast, or muffins, called molletes. Irish salt-butter is very much in use; as the heat of the climate does not allow the luxuries of the dairy, except in the mountainous tracts of the north. ”

“ During our stay at Punta del Sauce, several young women (half Indian) brought a poor quality of salt to sell, together with cheese and melons. I gave an old Indian, who was one of our drivers, and who had on several occasions shown me a kindness, a pound of the best salt that I could procure. After tasting it, he put it carefully aside, perhaps with the intention of selling it, as he did not use any on the road. While the patron’s back was turned, Don Facundo, my cook and attendant, sold my meat to a woman of the village for a few ears of corn ”