It is very remarkable, that in France, where there is but one religion,
the sauces are infinitely varied, whilst in England, where the different
sects are innumerable, there is, we may say, but one single sauce.
Melted butter, in English cookery, plays nearly the same part as the
Lord Mayor's coach at civic ceremonies, calomel in modern medicine, or
silver forks in the fashionable novels. Melted butter and anchovies,
melted butter and capers, melted butter and parsley, melted butter and
eggs, and melted butter for ever: this is a sample of the national
cookery of this country. We may date the art of making sauces from the
age of Louis XIV. Under Louis XIII. meat was either roasted or broiled:
every baker had a stove where the citizen, as well as the great lord,
sent his meat to be dressed; but, by degrees, they began to feel the
necessity of sauces.

It appears that the great wits of the age of Louis XIV. had not that
contempt for cookery which some idealists of our days affect to have.
Boileau has described a bad repast like a man who has often seen better;
he liked the pleasures of the table, which have never been incompatible
with the gifts of genius, or the investigations of the understanding. "I
cannot conceive," says Doctor Johnson, "the folly of those, who, when at
table, think of every thing but eating; for my part, when I am there I
think of nothing else; and whosoever does not trouble himself with this
important affair at dinner, or supper, will do no good at any other
time." Boswell affirms that he never knew a man who dispatched a dinner
better than the great moralist. But what avails it to defend cooks and
gourmands? It is an axiom in political economy, according to Malthus,
that _he who makes two blades of grass grow, where before there was but
one, ought to be considered as the benefactor of his country, and of
mankind_. Is not this a service which the epicure and the cook every day
do their country? Addison thought differently from Johnson on this