Eating like P. G. Wodehouse – the ultimate Anatole menu from The Code of the Woosters
by Victoria Madden
After an amusing discussion at Baker’s Daughter blog on food in books and eating the Enid Blyton way, and a prompt from that witty Wodehouse fan the Old Reliable Ashokbhatia, I have polished up my A level French and scoured the internet to bring you this Wodehousian feast. Aficianados will recall it is the menu put together by Bertie in The Code of the Woosters after he anticipates being jugged in lieu of Aunt Dahlia:
‘Bertie! Do you mean this?’
‘I should say so. What’s a mere thirty days in the second division? A bagatelle. I can do it on my head. Let Bassett do his worst. And, ‘ I added in a softer voice, ‘ when my time is up and I come out into the world once more a free man, let Anatole do his best. A month of bread and water or skilly or whatever they feed you on in these establishments will give me a rare appetite. On the night when I emerge, I shall expect a dinner that will live in legend and song.’
‘You shall have it.’
‘We might be sketching out the details now.’
The Code of the Woosters (1938)
What they ‘sketch out’ is a series of dishes of the most luxurious kind, several of which are swiped from a 1903 Christmas menu by the great French chef Escoffier which I found in a Google Books excerpt from Feast and Folly: Cuisine, Intoxication and the Poetics of the Sublime by Allen S. Weiss (2002). (I also found a fascinating article on Escoffier and his influence on modern professional cooking.)
It’s been surprisingly difficult to track down what all these dishes actually consist of: I found several plaintive queries from other readers of The Code of the Woosters and several attempts to guess from others again. I did find a scan of Escoffier’s classic 1903 Guide to Modern Cookery, which kept me absorbed for quite a while, but if some other Wodehouse fan has already worked out Bertie’s menu in full, then Google isn’t finding it.
It’s been made all the more difficult as Escoffier had a habit of giving his dishes names that gives little clue as to their constituent parts – a dish of Nymphes was an attempt to get the English to eat frogs’ legs – so any further suggestions, corrections or additions will be gratefully received.
But enough of this; your dining companions – and your dinner – await:
Le Diner
*******
Hors d’oeuvres
Caviar Frais
Fresh Caviar*
Cantaloup
Orange fleshed sweet melon
*******
Soup
Consomme aux Pommes d’Amour
A rich clear tomato soup
********
Fish
Sylphides a la Creme d’ecrivesses
Lobsters with a sauce of crayfish (small fresh-water lobsters), crab and mussels, baked in an open puff pastry case with brandy and cream**
*******
Entrees
Mignonette de poulet Petit Duc
Chicken breasts cooked in Madeira with asparagus tips, morels and truffles**
Pointes d’asperges a la Mistinguette
Asparagus tips with a ? sauce named for a famous female French entertainer of the 1890s
Supreme de foie gras au champagne
Breast sized pieces of goose liver pate (cooked?) with champagne
Neige aux Perles des Alpes
An egg dish? scattered with small sweets made from Chartreuse liqueur
Timbale de ris de veau Toulousaine
Veal sweetbreads in a noodle pastry case served with an Allemande sauce (a thickened mushroom veloute) and garnished with truffles***
Salade d’endive et de celeri
A salad of endive leaves and celery (intended as a palate cleanser)
********
Entremets
Le Plum Pudding
A rich spiced pudding full of dried fruits
L’Etoile au Berger
Layered sponge with frangipane (almond flavoured) cream
Benedictins Blancs
??
*******
Ices
Bombe Nero
A sphere made from layers of vanilla ice-cream with caramel, and vanilla mousse with chocolate truffles, on a punch biscuit base, covered with lightly browned meringue and served flaming with rum****
********
Petit Fours
Friandises
Tiny delicate sweet confections
*************
Savoury
Diablotins
Very small poached Gnochi (Italian potato dumplings), sprinkled with grated cheese and a very little cayenne pepper, grilled and served hot****
***********
Dessert
Fruits
A selection of fresh fruit from the Brinkley Court hot-houses
* I found a cross-reference for this in a Georgette Heyer detective novel. A cheaper form of caviar was available in the thirties, salted in tins to last longer, but fresh caviar was considered to have a far superior taste.
** The Russian Wodehouse Society
*** The International Wine and Food Society
**** The Foods of England Project – Escoffier’s Guide to Modern Cookery 1903
You have solved a great mystery. Thank you so much for deciphering the exotic menu. Mouth watering, indeed!
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Would you mind this piece being re-blogged, please?
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Of course! I’d be delighted to have the puzzle of Bertie’s menu brought to the attention of a wider readership – what mystifies me, in turn, is that I can find no indication of anyone having tried to solve this before.
Perhaps your readers can fill in the ‘Blanc’s ??
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Let us hope so!
Shall re-blog in a few days, please.
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I was in Seattle when this popped up originally and I somehow missed it. What a delight to discover it now. I began looking into this some time ago. I recall being baffled by sylphides and not getting much further. Do you think you’ll attempt to recreate any of the dishes?
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Very flattering, but I’m no Anatole! Quite good at cakes though.
All a bit grand overall for my tastes and budget – though the ‘Bombe Nero’ does sound rather nice. Perhaps dishes for a particularly important Annual Luncheon at the Wodehouse Society? – Editor
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Nor I. The only thing on the menu I’d be absolutely confident of managing is the cantaloupe, which pretty much takes care of itself.
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Reblogged this on Plumtopia and commented:
If you were lucky enough to receive the gift of Wodehouse this Christmas, you may wish to heed a few words of advice from the author before diving in on a Wodehouse reading binge. In his introduction to The World of Jeeves omnibus (1967), Wodehouse warns against reading too much Bertie and Jeeves in one sitting. Instead he advises taking the stories in measured doses, and prescribes the following menu for a day’s reading:
Breakfast
Toast.
Marmalade.
Coffee.
Soft-boiled egg.
JEEVES AND THE HARD-BOILED EGG.
Luncheon
Hors d’oeuvres.
Cauliflower au gratin
Lamb cutlet.
JEEVES AND THE KID CLEMENTINA.
Dinner
Clear soup.
Halibut.
Chicken en casserole.
Savoury.
JEEVES AND THE OLD SCHOOL CHUM
Before Retiring
Liver pill.
JEEVES AND THE IMPENDING DOOM.
The World of Jeeves (Introduction) 1967
Such willpower does not come easily to us all. If you’re a glutton for food as well as literature, why not extend this feast to include some of Anatole’s mouth-watering dishes? In this piece, Victoria Madden has applied her schooling in the French language to decipher Anatole’s menu from The Code of the Woosters for our enjoyment. Happy browsing, and indeed sluicing!
HP
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This is wonderful! Now if only there were links to recipes…
::licks lips::
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A scan of the Escoffier cookery book containing a number of these recipes is at
http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/book1903escoffier.htm
– Editor
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This is absolutely wonderful!
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