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

I afterwards addressed the following letter which appeared in the _Times_:-- M. SOYER AT CONSTANTINOPLE. _To the Editor of the Times._ SIR,--In reply to no end of inquiries from persons meeting me in the streets of Pera, Bujukderé, Therapia, the Isles des Princes, &c., as to what I am doing in Turkey now the whole of the army has gone, and as every one here seems so anxious, probably others may feel interested, it has struck me, sir, to inform you personally why I remain here. In the first place, Constantinople and its vicinity are far from being destitute of vital interest, and those who have only seen its beauty from the Bosphorus, and then at first sight condemned the interior of this gigantic city of Constantine, have seen nothing, and are utterly incompetent to speak of it, much less to write upon the curiosities, manners, customs, and way of living, of this singular and almost unknown people, though lodged nearly in the centre of Europe. Thanks now to my last visit to Constantinople, which time nor duty did not admit of before, I now know it and its neighbourhood as well as London, and much better than Paris. I am pretty well acquainted with Turkish institutions, as well as manners and habits, which indeed deviate so much from our fashions that they cannot prove uninteresting to relate, if not to follow. Though so many authors have written upon Turkey, they have yet left me several virgin pages, and those pages are upon the national cookery of the Moslem people. They have many dishes which are indeed worthy of the table of the greatest epicure, and I shall not consider my Oriental mission terminated to my satisfaction till I see in the bills of fare of France and England their purée de volaille au ris, tomates, et concombres, and purée de Bahmia aromatisée à la crême, by the side of our potages à la Reine, Tortue, Jullienne, and Mulligatawny; near our whitebait, red mullets, turbot, and salmon, their fried sardines, bar fish, gurnet, sturgeon, red mullets aux herbes, oyster pilaff,