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

Padischah Mahmoud, and has now retained it seventeen years with his present Sublime Majesty. Independent of the private kitchen of the Sultan, he has under his command in the various palaces about six hundred men cooks, and had in the time of Sultan Mahmoud upwards of one thousand. Having expressed a wish to become acquainted with some of the principal Turkish dishes, and the way in which the dinner was served, he not only gave me the required information, but invited me to a dinner, “_à la Turc_,” at the new palace of Dolma Batchi. We were only four guests, including himself; above seventy small dishes formed a luxurious bill of fare, which, after the Turkish fashion, were partaken of quickly, as the Moslems only taste a mouthful of each dish which may take their fancy. He then informed me that the repast we had partaken of was the _fac-simile_ of the dinner daily served up to his Majesty the Padischah, who always takes his meals alone, and as no bill of fare is made, every dish in the Turkish cookery code must be prepared daily throughout the year, and only varies in quantity according to the abundance or scarcity of the provisions to be obtained in the various seasons, so that his Sublime Majesty may find everything he may desire within his Imperial call. Further details upon this subject I shall give when I publish my other work, which will be entitled “The Culinary Wonder of all Nations.” The Armenian cookery turns very much upon the Turkish style, while the Greek has a type of its own, which, I regret to say, is far from meeting with my approbation, though in high Greek families I have partaken of most excellent dinners; but the Turkish dishes were always the most satisfactory, the common cookery of the Greeks being sloppy and greasy, while, _per contra_, the Turk has studied the art of preserving the essence of all the provisions employed, which method will at all times produce a palatable as well as a nutritive food. Prior to my departure, which will