“"Vol-au-vent!" sings the waitress. "_Vol-au-vent!_" chants the counter in a bass as heavy and with as wide a range as Chaliapine's. "VOL-AU-VENT!" roars the kitchen with the despair of tears in the voice; and "V o l-a u-v e n t!" wails the lost soul beyond the Styx. By half-past seven it is no longer a restaurant; it is no longer a dinner that is being served. It is a grand opera that is in progress. The vocalists, "finding" themselves towards the end of the first act, warm up to the second, and each develops an individuality. I have often let my Vienna steak get cold while listening and trying to distinguish between the kitchen lift-man and the cook. Lift-man is usually a light and agreeable baritone, while the cook has mostly a falsetto, with a really exciting register. This grand opera idea affects, in turn, the waitresses. To the first-comers they are casual and chatty; but towards seven o'clock there is a subtle change. They become tragic. They are as the children of destiny. There is that Italianate sob in the voice as they demand _Poulet roti au salade_! as who should cry, "Ah, fors e lui!" or "In questa tomba...." They do not serve you. They assault you with soup or omelette. They make a grand pass above your head, and fling knife and fork before you. They collide with themselves and each other, and there are recriminations and reprisals. They quarrel, apparently, to the death, while M'sieu and Madame look on, passive spectators of the eternal drama. The air boils. The blood of the diners begins to boil, too, for they wave napkins and sticks of bread, and they bellow and scream defiance at one another. They draw the attention of the waitress to the fact that there is no salt on the table; what they seem to be telling her is that the destinies of France are in the balance, the enemy is at the gates, and that she must deliver herself as hostage or suffer dreadful deaths. Everything, in fact, boils, except the soup and the coffee; and at last, glad to escape, you toss your shilling on the table and tumble out, followed by a yearning cry of "Une salade--une!"”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1494. Take, for 6 persons, the roes of 2 carp; [Footnote: An American writer says he has followed this recipe, substituting pike, shad, &c., in the place of carp, and can recommend all these also, with a quiet conscience. Any fish, indeed, may be used with success.] bleach them, by putting them, for 5 minutes, in boiling water slightly salted. Take a piece of fresh tunny about the size of a hen's egg, to which add a small shalot already chopped; hash up together the roe and the tunny, so as to mix them well, and throw the whole into a saucepan, with a sufficient quantity of very good butter: whip it up until the butter is melted! This constitutes the specialty of the omelet. Take a second piece of butter, _à discrétion_, mix it with parsley and herbs, place it in a long-shaped dish destined to receive the omelet; squeeze the juice of a lemon over it, and place it on hot embers.
Sources: The passage is from Thomas Burke, Nights in London, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — navy cloth, teapot stamp.