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

of my services in the East, more than repays me for my very humble duties.[33] * * * * * In accordance with my aforementioned promise, having already gathered so much matter for this narrative work, I find myself compelled to reserve what I have so carefully collected for another work, already mentioned in a note at the foot of preceding page, in which I shall insert only the dishes most renowned in each country, and thus render them practical everywhere. I have, during my six months’ travels since leaving the Crimea, personally visited and become acquainted with the cookery of Russia, Turkey, Germany, Greece, Malta, Italy, and France, also that of its great provincial towns--of the latter till now unknown to me. They all enjoy a high reputation for peculiar dishes so much esteemed by the real gourmet. With Strasbourg, my culinary peregrinations closed. I addressed to the local paper of that antique and interesting city the following letter respecting the production of its delicious _foies gras_ and erroneous Inquisitional Romance:-- ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE “COURIER DU BAS RHIN.” It has been said and generally credited in England and in France, that the enormous development of the fat livers is obtained by a system of torture inflicted by the Strasburghers upon the unfortunate goose, the protecting bird of the Capitol. A certain English publication states, “they are confined in dark cellars, nailed to the floor by the feet before a slow fire which is kept constantly burning, and they are then crammed to repletion, so much so that the first cramming keeps the digestive organs in action for weeks. This system of torture, worthy of the mysteries of the Spanish Inquisition, dries up the frame of the poor bird to a skeleton, and thus the liver acquires its enormous development under the combined influence of cramming, want of exercise, and the constant slow heat.” “I am happy,” says Monsieur Soyer, “to show there is no truth in this statement, and, from personal observation while at Strasbourg, to be able to contradict those absurd fables so long credited in England.