Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions

kindly received by the general. He congratulated me in flattering terms upon the good system I had introduced into the kitchen department of the hospitals, of which he was at that time the governor. I felt myself quite at home with the general, who, though an Englishman, could have taught me my own language. He certainly spoke it more fluently than I did myself: I had been so long in England, and had, moreover, employed so many people of different nations--Greeks, Armenians, Turks, French, Italians; and I must not omit two Maltese, who, to render them justice, were worth all my other cooks put together for intelligence and activity--that I began to forget my native tongue. My readers can easily suppose that, amidst such a miscellany of languages, one might easily murder one’s own. General Storks is not only a good French scholar, but has all the tournure and appearance of the French _beau idéal_. After about half-an-hour’s chat upon business and other matters, I left the general, and promised to have the pleasure of visiting him frequently during my stay in Scutari, which was to be about a week--it being then my intention to return to England to regain my health. I visited my first Crimean doctor, Dr. Linton, who had left the Crimea to replace Dr. Cumming. He would hardly condescend to know me, so much had I altered; and I found this to be the case with every one I met. I frightened my cooks when I entered the kitchen. They had heard that I was dead, which I afterwards personally denied; but they did not think it possible I could look so bad. Purveyors, comptrollers, civilian and military doctors, Sisters of Mercy, all consoled me by saying, “I fear you will never get over it, Monsieur Soyer.” “Well,” I replied to some of them, “that’s my business; at all events, I will do my best to deceive you.” Nothing is less likely to restore a man when he is half dead than trying to persuade him that he must succumb. Thanks to my lucky star, I