Has gastronomy progressed since the time of Brillat-Savarin? Replying to this question, Charles Monselet, writing in 1879, states that he "looks in vain for the tables that are praised or the hosts that are renowned. Where are the great cooks? What names have we now to oppose to those of Carême and Robert? Shall I speak of official cookery, of ministerial dinners? These are not the dinners to which people go to eat. There especially the cook is more proud of a Chinese kiosk on a rock in coloured and spun sugar, which no person dare touch, than of a carp _à la Chambord_ treated in a masterly way. Since the days of Cambacérès official cookery has ceased to exist." The similarity of dinners complained of by Walker and Thackeray during a previous era he refers to as existing in Paris: "That which you eat yesterday in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, you will eat to-morrow in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. At the end of the week you recognise that you have merely changed your knife and fork. This poverty of imagination, this absence of research are unworthy of a country such as ours."
Apart from his neglect to mention the labours of his distinguished gastronomical predecessor, Savarin is also open to censure for failing to thank the Italians for their admirable lessons in the science of cookery, including that of frying in oil, which he particularly specifies as so desirable with trout "caught in running brooks that murmur far from the capital." To this day the Italian remains a great confectioner and pastry-cook, while an Italian maestro is a delight of the _haute cuisine_, his methods possessing much originality and holding nothing in common with the greasy dishes and their superabundance of garlic which one meets in the average inn and in many of the restaurants of the land beyond the Alps.
Upon one subject, it is to be regretted, we have not been advised by the philosophic and analytic mayor of Belley, who is silent concerning the physiology of the cocktail, or any form of beverage composed of spirits, taken before dinner. During La Reynière's era, on the occasion of a grand dinner the rule was the so-called _coup d'avant_, the _coup du milieu_, and the _coup d'après_--the three spirituous graces, as it were, of an elaborate repast. Here was a lost opportunity for the "Physiology," which might have formulated a hygienic chapter apart from the Meditations on thirst and drinks. Unquestionably, there are reasons for and against the use of a liquid stimulant before the principal meal. The true gastronomer, and all those who are careful of their health, without which the best dinner may not be enjoyed, will at any rate eschew all strong alcoholic beverages until evening. The question of a stimulant before the dinner will then be one for individual consideration. Its daily use may scarcely be commended, particularly if it be followed by wine: one who is in possession of good health should not require a fictitious goad to appetite. Where a carefully planned dinner is in question, however, the dry cocktail--one, and one only--taken ten minutes before the moment of sitting down at table, is undoubtedly a stimulus to appetite and provocative of good-fellowship. It pitches the company in a pleasant key at the onset, and imparts a zest and an _allégresse_ to the first part of the repast that were otherwise lacking. Then, if the sparkling wine be not postponed too long, and the dinner itself be meritorious, the host and hostess may rest secure, without a shadow of solicitude regarding its success. Impelled by its own geniality, the company will take abundant care of itself, and the stream of conversation and ripple of anecdote flow freely along, unimpeded by the boulders of formality or the aridity engendered by a dearth of joyous fluids.