ORDERING DINNER.
THE mythical personage who committed suicide because the life before him presented itself as nothing but a series of dressings and undressings had certainly no better reason for despair than the average house-mistress. "A man would die," says Bacon, "though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over ; " and a woman who says to her- self, "I shall have to order dinner three hundred and sixty- five times a year for perhaps forty years," has indeed reason for "a weariness." No doubt this is an exaggeration. If the annual holiday be spent at an hotel, a handsome slice comes at once off the sum-total, and the London dinner-giving hostess smiles probably with a great benevolence, as on the morning of her feast she remembers that she has saved six, eight, or ten fellow-sufferers from ordering their own dinners that night. But these are only palliatives, and the monotonous fact remains that day after day the door of the dining-team will after breakfast close upon the mistress of the house, she will descend to the kitchen, look, if she is a conscientious woman, round the larder, and finally sit down with a clean slate in front of her, and devise a repast at once nutritious, light, economical, appetising, and varied from day to day. Nothing could be easier, thinks the average male. "You ought to have one of those almanacs, my dear, with a menu on it for every day. You just pull off a sheet in the morning while you're shaving—well, dressing then—and—there you are !" Unfortunately this is not so. No almanac that ever was compiled can know what is left over from the day before in any individual larder on July 25th. Turning up that date in a menu-book before us, we find amongst other things straw- berry meringues. Now this year strawberries were over on July 25th, which shows that to be of any use at all these almanacs should be the joint-production of a chef de cuisine and either the editor of "Old Moore" or the head of the Meteorological Department, whichever is thought the more reliable of these authorities. The other items of the dinner on this special day include boiled soles, fillet of beef, galantine of fowl, and French beans and butter, the whole being led up to by soup a la reine, the foundation of which is made by two whole cold roast chickens being pounded up and mixed with cream. "Here's luxury, here's richness," as Mr. Squeers would say.
Indeed items such as the above are too apt to occur in the ordinary cookery-book, and to embitter what should otherwise be an entertaining and profitable pastime to the housewife. Mr. Stevenson, plagiarising his sentiment from Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," tells us that he can voyage cheer- fully in an atlas, and it should be a gay and useful pastime for the lady of the house to dine in cookery-books. But as long as it is disagreeable to be reminded of the superior riches of other people, so long will this Barmecide's feast be dismal and unsatisfactory. Fancy the poor lady to whom the 3s. 6d. July fowl is a rare luxury being told to take two of them- " What, all my pretty chicks F "—and pound them up for soup. Or, again, imagine the arrival in a small house of the annual brace of partridges sent by the uncle who has a little shooting. It is an event of great importance, and the question of how the birds are to be cooked calls forth all the inventive genius of the mistress of the house. In the hope of finding something original, she turns to a book just published, entitled "New High-Class Cookery, with Game Recipes" (William Clowes and Sons). There she finds the stern order that one of her precious partridges is to be cut up and the flesh pounded to make a stuffing for the other one. Looking in the same book for a nice light receipt for cold fish fitted for this hot weather, she finds the following, called by the sonorous name of "Dariole de Sammon h la Moscovienne." "Take one and a half pounds of cooked salmon, e;yhteen oysters, three large truffles, one hard-boiled egg, tea-speonful each anchovy paste and tarragon vinegar, half-gill cream, pint aspic jelly, six filleted anchovies, a few slices of cucumber, cayenne, salt, &c." It is the custom in some cookery-books, for artisans, to put the average coat of each dish after the receipt, and we confess that we should like to see the little- bill which would be presented with the above. It will of course be objected that books like the one mentioned are not intended for middle-class households,—they are reserved for really good families, families where a first-class cook is kept, and if the small people use them at all, it is- only on occasions when "company" is expected, and when a chef is "had in" to cook the dinner. After exclaiming, with- the immortal Mrs. Gashleigh, "Never in a Christian house- hold shall such sinful waste be permitted," we are tempted to ask why it is that " good " cookery is always held to mean "rich" and "wasteful" cookery, and why, under any cir- cumstances, such gluttonous piling of flavour upon flavour and luxury upon luxury should be termed "high-class" ? The sum-total of the bill may be of no importance to the giver of the feast, but none the less is it certain that every piece of food which is wasted makes one less piece of food to, go round. And, leaving this more serious aspect of the subject, the real science of cookery is the extraction of delicate flavours,—certainly not the piling of one flavour and ingredient on to the top of another until the form and taste of the original substance are disguised beyond hope of recog- nition. An absurd example of this over-flavouring was. furnished by the gardener of the present writer, who objected in the spring to the cook gathering mint, because, he said, "There wouldn't be none left by the time the peas come on." Why the British public should decree that the real taste- of the pea should be lost by peas being boiled with a large- piece of pungent mint in the water, it is difficult to under- stand. But it is of a piece with the yard-long list of in.. gredients to be found at the head of the receipts in the new- high-class cookery-book alluded to above.
There are, of course, many books which would prove more- useful for every-day dinners than the one we have mentioned. But it is a pregnant fact that most of these set forth the cookery of some foreign country. Yet though the aim of " smart " British cookery is to pile up expensive ingredients,. to colour hot-meat dishes brown as mahogany with rich gravies, and to make cold entrees resemble as nearly as possible varie- gated blocks of marble, the housewife may still find books ini which, under the flag of France, Italy, or Germany, she may learn how to order small well-cooked meals. France will give her stews, sorijies, and vegetable entremets ; Italy what are called farinata ; for her cakes she had better go to Ger- many; whilst at any rate for her "roasts" she may trust her native country. If she is a wise woman she will have certain, dishes which she will only allow to appear in summer and certain others in winter. Apart from the climatic necessity for this, a favourite dish which has not been seen for six- months is greeted by the forgetful male as a splendid inspiration,—on the part of the cook. For to the cook will go all the praise, and in many ways this is quite just. There is a long gap between the most skilful ordering of dinner and the producing of the meal "every dish in his order." Indeed, this due sequence of course after course is a matter as to which the plainest of cooks deserves the respectful wonder of her mistress. Some years ago the- present writer cooked a dinner, of which the individual ingredients were pronounced excellent. Bat candour forces the admission that twenty minutes was the shortest interval, between any two courses. No one, however, expects the com- poser to be able to perform his own opera, and the house- mistress may be well content to call the daily tune and to. leave the execution to the kitchen orchestra. Her resources for the chief item in her bill-of-fare consist of only two- animals—for even Elia cannot now persuade us to eat roast pork for dinner—and for the major part of the year of about three or four birds. To these latter the ingenious Swiss inn- keeper, wishing to impart variety, at any rate, to the menu,. adds another, which he calls " Poulet sauvage," and which from its toughness would appear to be a very fearful wild- fowl. Fortunately, however, though the animals are only two, the meats figure as four, for veal and lamb will afford a welcome change from their elderly parents. Avoiding, on the one hand, the waste of luxury, and, on the other, the worse
waste of bad cooking, worse because, the cost being equal, the result is less agreeable, let the housekeeper set to valiantly at her morning task. Her occupation may be wearisome, it is certainly not monotonous. For who shall call it monotonous daily to produce out of sameness—variety
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