**^ -SK'- ^' -'A'- ***** A>«^ - > *<>". »* ,A <> *< -N *%*§^v^* V. 1 • A>*v - .0 V ^ *o . 4 * A * ++ • A>*^ - A < \ V . t * O - ^% 4 > ^6* ^o^ %/ V^V ^"^V V^V %^ Js ^\ l W§w : &***+ \1||R ; ^\ °Ww< : ^ / THE V rr\ mitjts nnh Jk\rtp&. COMPRISING SPECIMENS OF FRENCH, ENGLISH AND AMERICAN MENUS, WITH TRANSLATIONS AND COMMENTS. # Showing haw tD rnakB up hotel Bills of FarB with all the diffErsnt varistiES of soups and ccnsamines in proper rotation, and a nEW sat of entreES or rnadB dishES for Every flay, Being a part of the "Oven and Kange" Series originally published in the Daily National Hotel Reporter. JESSUP WHITEHEAD. -s3 CHICAGO 1883. PRICE, 50 CENTS. Advance pages of the Hotel Book of Soups and Entrees, so much enquired after, have been printed and are now ready in pamphlet form, price 50 cts. This and Hotel Meat Cooking both together for one price $1.50; or, the American Pastry Cook, Hotel Meat Cooking, and Soups and Entrees, all three for S3-50. As this pamphlet is printed only to accommodate friends oi the work, if you already have bought the preceding bound volumes it will be sent you on receipt of a few postage stamps to pay expenses. NOTICE. — These pages are a part of a book that is not finished, but is valuable as far as it has progressed. They are issued in this form to meet the inquiries that we receive by almost every mail. The numbers referred to in the trans- lations and comments on bills of fare are contained in the two bound volumes, the American Pastry Cook and Hotel Meat Cooking. The former has the receipts from Number 1 to 820, and the latter to number 1 156, besides a large amount of matters interesting to the hotel community that are not numbered. Sometime in the future the entire series of hotel books complete will all be bound in one volume to be called The American Cook, at a price considerably higher than the present, probably at $7.50 for the volume. Chicago, December, 1883. THE V m oitijB nnh Jbirq*& COMPKISING SPECIMENS OP FRENCH, ENGLISH AND AMERICAN MENUS, WITH TRANSLATIONS AND COMMENTS. Showing how to make up hntBl Bills of FarH -with, all thB different varieties nf snups and consommes in prnper rotation, and a new SBt nf entrees nr made dishes far every day. Being a part of the "Oven and Eange" Series originally published in the Daily National Hotel Reporter. S °l : yt-9?~-o JESSUP WHITEHEAD. N CHICAGO! 1883. X* s ** Entered according to Act of Congress, in the years 1877, 1879 and 1880, by Jessup Whitehead, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. RIGHT OF TRANSLATION RESERVED. Soups, Entrees § Bills of Fare. 1161. The Failure of French Cookery. If there be anything still in existence deserving the distinctive name of French cookery it has sin- gularly failed of making itself understood among English speaking people, although it has had a hundred years of careful importation and nursing among them, with every possible advantage from the example of royalty and the fashionable world and the ceaseless iteration of the press of the su- periority of the French in this department. It is a hundred years in the United States since French manners and methods were taken up sedulously with the intention of complimenting distinguished friends and visitors from that nation, while French communities have existed both on the north and south: still French cookery remains as much an unknown system as ever and has made no percept- ible impression. R is mentioned as an example of progress and culture in a journal of recent date that whereas some ten years ago only fifteen wealthy New York families employed French cooi*s, now there are a hundred and fifty — a great rate of progress, truly, both numbers show after the cul- ture of a hundred years, and even with that the employment Qf French speaking cooks does not nec- essarily imply the adoption of French cookery pure and simple. Fashionable London and indeed all fashionable England employed French cooks because it was un- fashionable to do otherwise from fifty to seventy- five years ago, but instead of the people being eager to adopt so excellent a system the results to the contrary were unconsciously stated a few weeks since in a London paper called the Hotel World, and the article was copied entire in the New York Gastronomer with evident approbation that the English cooks know really nothing about cooking and that the hotel keepers who wish to set good viands before their guests have still to pro- cure their cooks from France. And yet there is, as there has been since Queen Anne's time, an incor- porated cook's company in London, and the truth of the newspaper article might be challenged, but that it suits our purpose to accept it as a staie- mentoffact. But what has French cookery been doing all this time that it has not been universally adopted? The inference offered for our acceptance is that the people are too stupid to learn to cook. The samebewailment of American ignorance and stupidity is constantly to be met with when the subject of cooking comes up and the same invidious comparisons between us and the French in this re- gard. But what has French cookery been doing all this time that with all its immense advantages it has not reformed us all and made us French in our methods and tastes and skill through and through, from one end of the land to the other? These two peoples have not been too stupid to seize upon and improve every other good system and every useful idea of any other people, and even without the ability to acquire French cookery two great nations still eat and live and flourish. As between two parties perhaps the fault lies in the lack of worth in the system itself. Possibly there is nothing now left of what was once known as French cookery except a Babel of meaningless terms, and French speaking cooks are superior only because they are trained in countries where their calling is considered as respectable as any that can be named and are therefore good cooks without reference to their peculiar methods. But assuming that there is such a thing and that it is a system of great ex- cellence we ought to know why it has failed to make itself generally understood. It is an accepted axiom that all permanent re- forms begin at the bottom, but the attempted re- form of French cookery began at the top. Whether it was worth adopting or not it was necessary first to understand it, and to do that a certain degree of education has always been a requisite, and those who had the education did not do the cooking and have rarely been sufficiently interested in a matter of no pratical value to them to study the subject, 310 while the real cooks always have been as they prob- ably always will be among those having the least ornamental education such as a knowledge of foreign languages and the biographies of foreign celebrities. Even when French cookery is understood it is found to be only partially applicable through the differences in taste between different nations of people. After all that has been said in favor of French cookery and the little mention of German, the fact is plain that the latter has the greater hald upon the people of this country through a similar- ity of inherited tastes for bread and all farinaceous articles and dairy products in preference to spiced meats and wine. So much having been written vaguely upon these subjects a little useful exper- ience of our own may serve to point the meaning. The writer chanced to be employed at that recept- ive time of life when what we learn is never for gotten in a community where the cooking was strictly and thoroughly a la Provencale — tor even in France itself the styles vary in different sec- tions — where it was regarded as a serious mis- demeanor to set anything on to cook in water; it must be weak and sour wine for many things, broth for others, their own juices or'gravies only for others. Roast beef plain was never seen, but the nearest approach to it was the entre-cote or choice middle ribs of beef thrust full of strips of carrot, turnip, celery and bacon and stewed with wine and herbs until it was extremely well done. Butter was but little used, but the stewed okra seasoned with olive oil hung in ropes of slime from the spoon and black and blue beans and peas were similarly seasoned. A leg of mutton was stuck full of fine shreds of garlic and stuffed with minced ham, onions and herbs and cooked like the beef; a boiled fowl was filled with onions before cooking and a paste of onions highly seasoned was spread upon it when done. Beefsteak plain was never thought of, but it was always covered and even simmered in a sauce pungent with pepper or curry, garlic, onions, tomatoes and a dozen different herbs, and the brown sauce itself was as highly spiced as English plum pudding or American mincemeat. This was all skillful cookery and required training in the cooks to do it, yet the skill and training would be thrown away on such a dinner for an average American company. It is not a part of the business before us to deride the style de- scribed. Some people like all such dishes and therefore they are found among the hotel entrees, but they are exceptions, and a national system cannot be founded upon exceptions. The intelli- gent French, it is said, adopted plain roast beef underdone from the example of the English. The intelligent French cook in this country modifies his methods to suit the tastes of the people as he dis covers them, but in just the same degree he leaves distinctive French cookery behind and furnishes a reason why it is not understood and appreciated by the native cooks. Diverse Schools. French cookery is incomprehensible because the French cooks themselves follow several different authorities, and our Francatelli is altogether out of date with them and one of the smallest author- ities among them. It is very rare that any of Francatelli' s terms are now met with in really French menus, and to see them in the bill of fare of any hotel is almost a sure sign that there is some other sort of a cook trying to be French. It is true that a few of the names of dishes are to be found the same in all books, such as a la Richelieu, a la chasseur, a la Perigeux, and so forth, but still there are so many that are to be found in one and not in the others that any one who is acquainted with them all can generally tell from a menu which authority the cook is most familiar with. The French speaking cooks of San Francisco, for in- stance, seem to show by their menus the greatest acquaintance with the terms of the cuisine classique, those of the Eastern summer resorts indicate Jules Gouffe. It may be seen from the mere statement of these facts that if the use of a name for a dish is to con- vey a description of it the diversity of masters baf- fles the intention, for a cook may understand Ca- reme and be well up in Francatelli and still be un- able to describe the dishes of another who follows Bernard, or may compose his menus for years from the dishes of Urbain-Dubois, and still pick up a menu containing terms and dishes he knows nothing about from Jules and Alphonse Gouffe. Besides the cooks in the most prominent positions are continually setting out, what are by couriesy called new dishes. And supposing that these diff- erences could be cleared up by means of the cooks meeting in conventions, as has been proposed, the utter uselessness of ever reaching an agreement would still be felt in the impossibility of making the general public for whom cooks exist — even the French public itself, understand any better than before. Too Extravagant. The French cookery that we hotel cooks have been expected to know originated as the pastime of kings and princes at a period before the age of great inventions and when the rich idlers had nothing better to think about than to imitate the profligacy of the ancient Romans and vie with each other in the costliness of their banquets. It was a merit in a cook to make a dish expensive and 311 the extravagant character of the whole system thus stamped upon it is still an integral part of it and unfits it for the adoption of a businesslike people. The expedients resorted to to make the common food of humanity unnaturally costly by cooking it in rare wine and garnishing it with other articles costing more than their weight in gold were not so permanently injurious as a certain vagary of those days which led to a sort of worship of the reduced essence of meat as holding all that was worth hav- ing in the food, an elixir of life; a sort of hidden principle of nutrition that was to be extracted in some degree from vegetable • ubstances as well, but when extracted whether from truffles or fish or birds or meats, all that remained was regarded as practica- bly worthless. It was a passing notion of the wise men of their generation — like the blue glass theory of a few years ago in this country, but less tran- sient — that contained enough of truth to make a lasting impression. It made the cooks extremely important as the extractors of these precious elix- irs. It led to extremes of extravagance It led to the invention of numbers of new dishes which French cookery is still encumbered with, little bet- ter than a heap of rubbish now; dishes denominated a V essence, the essential characteristics of which are that they are composed of the concentrated ex- tracts of something or other, as likely as not of larks or ortolans, or it may be only wild boars head, but useless now because the fictitious value these essences once had has passed away. For the customer of a cafe to value such things at their former value — these dishes that made the cooks who composed them famous — it would be necessary for him to be imbued with the beliefs of the times of the dawn of modern chemistry, when it was thought to have been discovered that the principles of life lay in the gravy. This exaggerated estimate was imbibed even by Brillat-Savarin, probably in his youth, and an ex- ample of it has been already quoted in this book in connection with the articles on roast beef and gravy. Our people esteem the natural gravy most highly but it is for its real value, as they value "the sweet taste of the wheat" in good bread, and not for any imaginary qualities. It is now known by those even of the least physiological education that man cannot live on condensed essences, but the stomach requires a certain bulk of food along with the nourishment. An instance in illustration of what is above set forth is furnished by an admirer of that system of cookery as follows: The Prince of Soubise, wishing one day to cel- ebrate a fete, which was to finish off with a supper, gave orders that the bill of fare should be shown him beforehand. Next morning, at his levee, the steward made his appearance with the document handsomely ornamented, and the first item which caught the eye of the Prince was, "fifty hams." '■Hullo, Bertrand!" said he; ' you must be ou t of your senses! Fifty hams! do you intend feast, ing all my soldiers ?" "No your highness; one only will appear on the table, but the others are equally necessary for my espagnole, my blonds, my 'trimmings,' my — " "Bertrand, you are robbing me, and I can't let this item pass." "Ah, monseigneur," said the artist, scarcely able to restrain his anger, "you don't know our re- sources. Give the order, and those fifty hams which annoy you, I shall put them into a glass bot- tle no bigger than my thumb." . "What reply could be made to an assertion so pathetic? The Prince smiled, nodded assent, and so the item passed." When "the artist" said he eould put the fifty hams into a bottle no bigger than his thumb he meant that he -;ould extract the essence of them and put it into such a bottle and as that would be all that was really of any value according to the craze of that time, the meat remaining might as well be consid- ered as out of existence, it was all the same as noth- ing. And the Prince so greatly admired his skill, according to the craze of that time, that he smiled approving'y. Impracticable . The French cookery that we hotel cooks have been expected to know ; that we have gained higher pay for pretending to practice, is the same now that it was in the time of the Prince of Soubise It is founded upon "espagnole," "blonds" and es- sences that take large quantities of meat to make. The French cook who is thoroughly imbued with the teachings of that system delights in the most costly dishes, and for every economical method he may be obliged to adopt he makes an apology to the genius of his art. It is in the impracticable nature of the pystem itself that it could not be adopted nor even understood by any set of people governed by business principles. Our familiar Francatelli, the book which most cooks possess, and which we borrow the big words from to terrify our hotel guests with and make them feel small and cheap because they don't understand French as we do — the book that cooks learn some things from, but which none can work by, is as irreconcilable with any practice that hotel-keepers can permit as the "artist" Bernard, of the anecdote, himself could have been. In order to obtain this precious espagnole, blond and veloute, presumably for about twenty-five per- 312 sons — only the sauces for the dinner, it is to be ob- served, and not the dinner itself — Francatelli tells us ve must use the following amount of material: 40 pounds of white veal, or 2 legs. 40 pounds of gravy beef. 40 pounds of leg of beef and knuckles of veal. 1 pound of fresh butter. 1 pound of lean ham. 3 wild rabbits. 2 hens. 1 pound of glaze (reduced essence of meat). Some essence of mushrooms Some chicken broth. Some blond of veal. Butter and flour thickening, vegetables and herbs. When we have used up all that material — not to name that which has gone beside to make the pound of glaze, the chicken broth and the blond of veal and the essence of mushrooms — and gone through processes occupying two or three days, we shall have as a result some indefinite amount — supposably two or three quarts — of sauces and about an equal amount of precious soup stock ready to begin to make a soup with. Is there any- thing strange in the fact that French cookery has failed to take root among us? ^rancatelli's book is practically the only medium there is for English speaking cooks to learn this French nonsense through, but although bearing the deceptive title of the "Modern Cook," it was really written about fifty years ago, and is out of date with those who can read French. So to make good our statement that the principle of French cookery is the same to-day that it was in the time of the Prince of Soubise and his maitre d'hotel Bertrand we will quote the directions for ma ; ing the pame fundamental sauces from Jules Gouffe, so late as 1871. We are first to have ready five gal- lons of good soup stock, that has consumed in the making already an incredible amount of meat and poultry, and then we are to take for the new be- ginning: 12 pounds of veal without bone. 4 pounds of gravy beef. 2 young hens. 2 pounds of fresh butter — the 5 gallons of stock. Vegetables, herbs, flour, seasonings. Gouffe is sufficiently definite in his statements of amounts. When we have have used up the above material and condensed the product we shall pos- sess 3 quarts of brown sauce and 3 quarts of white sauce. Only this and nothing more. It may be left to the common sense of the cook to make use of the solid meat veal and the hens after this first use for making sauce, but there is no direction to do so, and no encouragement for it is expressly stated in these words : "It is a mistake to think that by over-cooking the meat the consomme or sauces will be improved thereby; when thoroughly cooked, all nutriment is extracted from the meat This, although dated so late as 1871, is the same old worship of the gravy. The meat is nothing; the sauce is everything. But the common sense of a people rises above the theories of the ancient alchemists and modern cranks. The workingman who finds it necessary to lay out so large a propor- tion of his earnings in butcher's meat would laugh such a theory to scorn; and for hotel men a system based upon such ideas is simply absurd and im- practicable. Every hotel cook repeats the current remarks, "Oh, you can't work by Francatelli," or, "It would break up any hotel in the world to follow Francatelli." And yet they must read it; there is nothing else. If they could read further they would make the same remarks about all the French authorities. They read and then stumble along, doing as circum- stances compel them, the best way they can. But French cooks who have been trained have these impracticable notions drilled into them and are not always so accommodating as to lay them aside for money-making considerations. Two little instances occur to mind that will serve to show how this irreconcilable system con- flicts with hotel keeping interests. This one was a "French John," so called, who became second cook in a flourishing hotel, and on the second forenoon was required to make a tomato sauce. A small quantity only was wanted, a ten cents worth in cost, perhaps; a little sauce made in an omelet pan to go with an unimportant entree. There would not be more than a dozen orders called for. It did not require the expenditure of more than a few minutes' time when there were many larger matters needing attention. But John took the solid end of a good ham, a two quart can of tomatoes, a pound of butter, some onions, bay leaves and other sea- sonings and a saucepan of soup stock, which he set about boiling down to glaze, while the three pounds of ham was boiling in the tom'ttoes, likewise being condensed. For John was a conscientious disciple of the -French culinary masters: the word sauce was one of immense meaning to him, and he thought the hour or two devoted to that one opera- tion was worthily spent. The head cook, however, disapproved of the whole thing, and when at last a little of the precious sauce had been laboriously forced through a "tammy," and it proved to be scorched at the bottom and almost worthless, he sharply remonstrated, and poor John got upon his dignity. "What you want?" said he. "I cook French. I no make-it you shlop, I make-it you i i good things. If you want-it shlop for sauce get 313 your pan-washer to make it; I'm a French cook." And so he folded up his jacket and left. All the sympathy goes with John in a case like this, be- cause he will not make "shlop," and will not be cheap. We understand that very well, and he is welcome to it, for the system he works under is utterly impracticable just the same. All French cooks are not so unreasonable, for they do not all live up to their books; we purposely mention two who did, to show how it works. The other was a head cook, an ideal French chef, soft mannered, educated and polite, who could give a reason for what he did. He was extrava- gant in the use of material to a degree worthy al- most of Urbain-Dubois, the Kaiser's cook himself. The hotel was doing a good business and could stand a good deal of expense, still there were some items that pinched with an uncommon pressure. One of these was butter. The proprietors were already educated up to the point of buying none but perfectly sweet butter, and it so happened that such an article at that time and place cost thirty- to forty cents per pound. A forty-pound tub of it was rolled into the kitchen every morning for the cook to use, and it seldom proved sufficient for the day. Another i em was the wines and liquors, which this chef, working strictly up to rule, would not accept at all unless they were by the quart dipperful. Common wine for marinading and stewing and baking in, Maderia, Port and Sherry for soups and ragouts; rum and brandy for sauces. Sixteen dollars a day for cooking butter and about the same sum for liquors, in a hotel of no great size, made the proprietors murmur a long time, and at length they spoke to the chef about it. Couldn't he manage to run with less? The chef put on a dejected look, shrugged his shoulders and spread out the palms of his hands — "Yes, if you want to live common, but, if you want to be first-class — !" That was enough to quell the proprietors. Of course they wanted to be first-class. They did not stop to say it, but silently retreated. But a short- time after they mustered up courage once again. Better not to be so thoroughly first-class than to be bankrupt, and the accomplished chef took his departure. He would have been a most valuable man in his position, if he had not been pursuing an impracticable system. "Where it once Flourished. French cookery considered in its ornamental character also is a thing of the past. The sudden tbange to the fashion of serving dinner a la Russe killed it. The system which used to tyrannize jver all who could not speak the language, hail is b°,ad severed from its trunk by that swift, stroke as neatly as in the story we read, where the blade was so keen the person decapitated did not know that it had passed through his neck until he began to move about and found his head was loose. The allusions we often hear from "old-timers" to the splendor of the tables of the southern river steamboats of from thirty to fifty years ago are no part of the common peurile praise of "good old times." but relate to a time when everything orna- mental in French cookery and French terms that now seem so nonsensical really was brought into full practice and exhibition. The peculiar condi- tions that made it practicable then and not now, on the river, resulted from there being then plenty oi very wealthy travelers and no railway in that part of the country for them to travel on. They made their regular winter visits to New Orleans. The steamboats were the only means of conveyance. Whole families of the planters went at once and returned at once, and they were about a week, on an average, on board the boat each way. The swiftest steamers that set the finest tables secured the greatest numbers. There would be from two hundred to five hnndred of the wealthiest, or at least the most extravagant class of people; there were bands of music on board, and grand balls were frequent, when perhaps the passengers from another steamboat of even speed going the same way would come on board as guest*, to be returned to their own boat at some landing toward the morn- ing. There was then nothing too good or too ex- pensive for some of the captains to put on their tables. That was the time for display. It came to an end with the completion of the first northern railroad to New Orleans, and the steamboats changed in character from race-horses to mere beasts of burden. Twenty-Four Entrees a Day. The style of serving dinner then was to set one table the entire length of the cabin, and the dishes that composed the dinner were set upon the table in their entirety, in chafing dishes kept hot by alcohol lamps. To make a good show on such a table, as many as twenty-four entrees might be wanted, perhaps twelve different ones and two of each kind, or eight different and three of a kind, and dishes of vegetables to match. The people at table saw everything whether they chose to partake of it or not, and there was reason enough for building up, ornamenting and naming dishes then. The waiters took up each dish in turn, while the captain or steward was carving and serving the roasts, and offered them to each person, and helped those who accepted from the dish as they went along. The names of dishes meant something then to the coo!>s and stewards, for as every different named dish of fowl had a different division of the joints, a different way of building up in the dish and different color and ornamenta- 314 tion, one standing at the end of the table could tell whether a dish of fowl was a fricassee a la St. Lambert, or a fricassee a la Romaine, and whether another was a turban or a chartreuse, and whether a fish was a la Chambord, or a la Chevalier e. But i those dishes had been kept in the kitchen and served individually nobody could have seen where the name came in. That is what makes the French names so senseless now. You may take a certain number of breasts of chicken and buildup a turban of fillets of fowl, ajid it is a turban — a definite something with a name. But if you serve it out of sight, in the carving room, you cannot persuade anybody that it is a piece of turban; common sense says it is a piece of chicken. To give the names of these dishes that are never seen is like winking at your girl in the dark; you may know what you are doing but nobody else does. At least half the French names of dishes were swept out of use when the individual style and small dishes and small tables came in vogue. No More Sugar Toys. So with centre pieces and ornamental gum paste temples. In ancient times it was the custom to set images of the favorite deities on the banqueting tables, to bring good luck. The French changed it for the plateau, a centre piece of almost any orna- mental form, a vase or fountain or church set on a bed of moss, or something of the sort, not of eata- ble materials, and from that came the chateaux in sugar rock work and the Chinese pagodas in gum paste. But now the only centre pieces at the finest banquets are banks jf flowers and the op- portunities for displaying ornamental meat dishes and sugar work occur but seldom when there is a set supper for a party or a ball. This has swept away another feature of the old-time bills of fare, for except when the cooks get up banquets for themselves so that they may once and again have the joy of showing these things which they love so much but which nobody else wants, there are no more grosses pieces and pieces montees. "The Tables Fairly Groaned." Under that old method of setting the long table for dinner both in hotel and steamboat and sum. moning the people by bell or gong all to come and eat and see at once, there were strong reasons for doing many things iu the way of producing variety that seem useless and silly now. There was the very extended table to be filled and after the meat dishes were removed, as many more of pastry and dessert were required to replace them, and if there was to be three stands of meringues, three of custard in cups, and three of charlotte russe, and so forth, if the pastry cook was skillful enough there was no reason why the charlottes should not be different in form and ornament, the custards all have a dif- ferent topping and the meringues be white, rose- colored and chocolate instead of all alike, since they would be seen all down the table on account of their being on raised stands. In the hotels the finest dinner of the week was on Sunday, on steamboats it was the last dinner of the trip. A boat would perhaps be three or four days from New Orleans to Memphis, or six or seven to St. Louis, or Louisville or Nashville or Huntsville or Tuscumbia ; and the steward starting out with his ice chests full of provisions, had his Mobile Bay oysters, soldered in tin cans at New Orleans, packed down in ice that came from Maine in sailing vessels; his terrapins, turtle and best fishes, such as pom- pano and Spanish mackerel, all laid out and appor- tioned for each dinner that was to come. The first day out was common, the second day's dinner bet- ter, about the third dinner the extras began to show up, and in getting ready for the last two dinners of the trip the cooks and pastry cooks would work all night doing ornamental work, and when the boat was in port they had two or three days with noth- ing to do but a dozen officers to cook for, and the fine cakes and gum paste businesses on hand would do to start the return trip dinners with. False Standards of Excellence. The cooks who were eminent among their fellows for their skill in building up ornamental entrees and cold dishes to set up on high on these long tables for all to see'; the cooks who had the largest assortment of ornamental silver skewers and who could cut the most marvelously fine roses and lilies out of beets and turnips ; the pastry cook who could build the most architecturally correct churches of gum paste, with gelatine windows, and who had the most molds wherein to cast horses and things in either sugar or mutton tallow found their occupa- tion gone under the new fashion of serving dinner at small tables and carving the meats in the pantry or kitchen, and each one had to throw away enough of that kind of knowledge to set up half a dozen cooks under the modern manner. Still the French cooks grieve over this state of things. There is nothing finer than a boar's head a la St. Hubert, for a cold dish, or a fillet of beef a la Godard, for a hot one, but the names relate solely to the manner of decorating and the ornamental stands they are served upon, and when either article is sliced up St, Hubert and M. Godard both vanish and the dishes are resolved into their original elements of pig's head and beef. But this is so difficult for cooks — and indeed a good many others — to realize, there is such a deceptive glamour about these p'ay things that kings and nobles have patronized and former fashions have cherished that a false standard of 315 culinary excellence is set up, that is unfair all around. The hotel keeper of the present day says in ef- fect, to his cook, when he opens his house ; " Now, I can bring plenty of customers to my hotel, but I depend upon you to keep them." And if the cook does such good cooking that he does keep them and the house fills up and overflows, he does that which makes money for cooks and all concerned. But on account of the false standard set up by French cookery the mass of cooks never think that kind of success a merit, but they ask about another one, what has he ever done ? and who ha^ ever seen his work ? They mean has he ever laid an ornamental cold fish in a dish on a bed of moss made by color- ing butter green and pressing it like vermicelli through a seive, or has he ever made a castle out of pressed head cheese. These were paying accomp- lishments forty years ago, but they are only play business now. They are so much more of the French system swept away by the ruthless hand of time. There is an association of French-speaking cooks called the Universal Society of Culinary Art, that seems to be a sort of international trades union with missionary, or perhaps propagandist tendencies, that has its headquarters in this country in New York and branches in all the principal cities. It ought to do good in teaching cookery, and perhaps it will. The prospect would be better if there were but one such union, but there is another association of French cooks in New York beside, and, it seems that the two are not in harmony. The leading motive of both is, however, the same. Like the children in the promised laud, they have spied out the United States and found it a goodly land for cooks and they are going forth to possess it and its milk and honey. Before they can succeed in this laudable enter- prise, however, they must learn to speak United States when they talk of cooking or eating, for the people of this country positively will not go to the trouble of learning French words as a prelimi- nary to getting their dinners, when they can have as good as they want without. They must not tell the domestic cooks who may be their pupils to vanner a sauce when they mean to skim until it is bright, nor say bardez-le when they mean cover it with bands of bacon, because these cooks have not gen- erally made much progress in their French lessons at college. In the early editions of Francatelli the directions to daube a piece of meat were very fre- quent, but none of the English wanted their meat daubed, it was a '• nasty " word to them, and ac- cordingly in the later editions the word almost en- tirely disappeared, and larded has taken its place. The domestic cook books of this country that have had the largest sales, reaching to the hundred thousand copies, and which have done good, have not required a French education for their under- standing, for there is no more mention of a French name or dish or sauce in them than if such a nation was not in existence, and, which must seem most incomprehensible to French cooks who regard them as the very foundation for everything, they do not tell how to make espagnole and veloute, nor even mention them ! And still we claim to be a civilized people. One of the officers of this Universal society, a very good friend of the writers, was talking one day about this association and its objects. He himself is a regularly trained cook. When, a boy, he was called upon to choose what trade he would follow, he chose to be a cook, as much as a matter of course, as he would have chosen to be a printer or a carpenter or a builder or a bookkeeper, for that was in Europe. He said they had about four hundred members in New York. We replied that four hund- red cooks were not many to cook for a million and a half of people. He said they they had forty members in Chicago. We thought that forty were not many in a city of six hundred thousand. "But," he said, "we are going to train cooks enough for all these small hotels and for all the private families who can afford to employ them — we shall train them from the beginning — we shal teach them to make espagnole and veloute." One does not naturally continue a subject with a friend, on which there can be no possible agree- ment, and the conversation was dropped. Espagnole and veloute will never be taught to any considerable extent in this country, because they will never be adopted nor wanted nor understood. Ever since the time of Ude, the cook or maitre d' hotel of Louis XV, and Becharnel somewhat later, and Careme, who cooked for King George, III, the French cooks have been trying to teach these two sauces to the Anglo-Saxons, and probably not one in a hundred thousand persons knows what they are to-day. They are, as we have already shown, a brown stock sauce .and a white one, made by con- suming about ten pounds of meat to produce a pint. Emplo3 r ers will not have them. They are not wanted. There is extravagance enough in dress and furniture and building, but in this country extravagance does not extend to the culinary operations. What remains? Well, all the essential part of cookery remains under the rubbish. There is an excellent hotel system already in existence, but it has never been put in a book. There is good cook ing going on in thousands of places, but in an indi- vidual go-as-you-please sort of way. One cook knows a half dozen soups and a dozen entrees and another knows the same number that are all differ- 316 ent, and we propose to bring them together These cooks who could not follow out French directions because they were inpracticable have nevertheless found something in them. Some dishes have been adopted from the Italians, some from the Germans, some from the Mexicans and Spaniards, some from the French Creoles, and a great number from "home cooking." A writer in a leading magazine just recently extolled the (rue Maryland cookery as being unsupassed in the world, although simplicity itself, and the remark might be applied to more than one state or section. They will be dis- appointed who are looking for a book of entreos that will furnish them with a bran new set of French names longer and harder than any other cook ever had, but, whenever in the following pages we happen to know what the foreign name of any dish used to be we will tell you. There is to be no pulling down of the cook's occupation, but a building up. But there are many deep rooted wrong ideas to be encountered. A Frightful Example Here is a cook who has sent us three of his best Sunday bills of fare. He is such a cook as hotel keepers are willing to pay fifty or sixty dollars a month to. He is perfectly satisfied with himself and his bills of fare, and thinks his hard to beat, and the only thing in the world he would be willing to learn would be some more French terms, because each of his bills has twelve entrees and only half of them are outfitted wilh French a la's, and then the stock gave out and the other five or six had to come out in common English. The entrees are in the same number that used to be required to set along those extended tables we have referred to, and this man does realize that he is behind the times, and two or three would be better now. Of his twelve entrees four are of the pudding order being "Spanish cake with lemon sauce, macaroni and cheese, Welsh rarebits, and charlotte of peach- es," forgetting that nobody wants them and the pastry part of the dinner too. Then, in all three of the bills the entrees are nearly the same over again. He has what was evidently noix of veal ala something — one of the stock dishes from Franca- telli — changed into "knuckle of veal," and it is in all his bills. Perhaps, when he used to write it noix the printers boy used to run over out of breath asking what that word was, and the waiters did not know how to call it— such is the preposterousness of the whole business — and has construed it noix — nux — knucks — knuckles, and probably thinks that is what it is. If he is wrong in any of these par- ticulars there is no book and no person to tell him and the like of him any better, and for this reason we have taken up our task. 1162. Common Sense About Entrees. Entrees seem more intelligible if one has gradu- ated from a cooks' college — when called by their other name, made dishes, in contra distinction from the plain roasted and boi'ed meats. About all the pleasure there is in meat cooking is to be found in making the entrees and soups, as they call for taste and skill, and there is a certain sort of delight, such as every good workman finds in his occupa- tion, in the perfect fit of every article of provision to the place where it is wanted, either large or small, either prominent or unimportant, to keep up an even average in the bill of fare. Thus, when you have good meats or fowls or turkeys in the roasts the entrees are but of little consequence, any trifles that do not cost much will do, but when the plain meats are unattractive put in the best your skill can furnish of made dishes. Entrees were so called because they were the first to enter the dining room, according to French usage. Then, as now, at small dinners of more or less ceremony the entrees took the place that the plain roast meats occupy in the hotel dinners. Though not with us the leading dishes they are very necessary as a means of making use of many pieces of meat and other articles that could not be used in other ways. One of the first thoughts, ap- parently, that a hotel keeper has in regard to cut- ting down the expenses of the table is that he will cut off the entrees, but perhaps that is what he can least afford to do. It depends, however, upon whether they are made an item of expense or a means of saving by the coo's, and whether they are really valuable dishes or only things crowded in to make a huge bill of fare. 1163. Knowledge of Cookery Requisite. These made dishes render life a burden to cooks who have not learned to consider them in a true light, they know no reason for them; there is a certain lot of padding to be done to fill the bill and it seems that the markets are never big enough and never well enough furnished to supply materi- als to make entrees; but, on the other hand it seems mere pastime when you get the business down to the proper focus. Then you find the made dishes are the means of saving you trouble with the goods you already have on hand. American hotels are the only perfect schools of cookery for that reason. There are ladies lecturing in the cities about how to choose meat, and telling that the worse parts of the animal are the better, but they can never give point or meaning to such statements until they ob- serve how admirably skillful cookery converts the unpromising odds and ends of raw material into finished dishes in really good hotels. We may even 317 make some tilings that we know will not be called for, merely to keep up the usual number when everybody i3 feasting on some specialty of the day. At the same time it is found that among the many guests of a hotel there will be a few who will choose viands that the majority would laok upon with aversion. 1164. Different Tastes to Suit. While most people will choose the plain roasts we ave known some German merchants and their families who never ate any but stewed meats. It mattered but little in which of twenty different forms the stewed meat appeared so that it teas stewed. If there was no such entree in the list these good customers were deprived of their din- ner. The roast meats are the dearest and stewed meats and pot-pies are the cheapest, consequently it is a merit to make them good. It is a source of pride to a cook because it is a proof of skill, when the plain meats are left alone and the entrees are all consumed. We knew an Italian cook once who made macaroni in some form almost every day and had succeeded in bringing it in great request, and the boys, and the steward too, quizzed him about serving so much macaroni because he was Italian. But he went to figuring and showed that his deli- cious specialty cost the house less than two cents a dish, and then we all looked upon his proceeding in a different light, for almost all in the house were eating it. 1165. Variety The real difference between dishes of the same character cannot always be great and it is not neces- sary they should be. There is something monotonous about writing out a bill of fare every morning and a feeling that we are repeating the same words week after week never giving the people anything new. There is no need to account for it, it simply is so as»every cook knows who has to tell the stew- ard what dishes he is going to make for dinner. This is what causes the anxiety to acquire more French terms. The real remedy is to learn more dishes. Hotel-keepers themselves who do not go deeply into the daily routine sometimes question the necessity of so many changes, but the stewards who write the menus — in some hotels where there is luncheon, dinner, and five o'clock dinner served, three menus in one day — know that there are nev- er dishes enough to select from. People in private houses who have a salad per- haps but once a week or never except at a party, eannot see the use of our having five or six differ- ent styles of putting, say a shrimp salad on a dish. But if they had to serve salads at three meals each day, and two or more kinds at each meal they would discover in a few weeks that it would be dif- ficult to show up anything to a banquet or party supper that had not already become an old story. It is the same in cultivating many kinds of fruits and flowers. We have peaches, grapes, strawber- ries, and they are good enough, and still growers go on producing new varieties; and no matter how good and sufficient one person's residence may be a thousand others will build theirs all some different way. "Variety is the spice of life." But the solid comfort to a cook of knowing all the ways can be better illustrated in this manner : When the breakfast meats have been cut and laid ready, with the pork chops to be breaded, you have two briskets of pork left over and as they will not do for roast pork you plan the dinner bill with these pieces for the leading entree, stuffed and rolled. When that question is settled and the other made dishes are decided upon and the bill of fare as good as finished, here begins a game of '-ten little In- juns" with your meat. It loses one slice and an- other slice until your dinner bill is all broke up again. The breakfast cutlets give out and a cut or two comes off the pork roll until there is not enough left to serve in that style, and you conclude to slice it and fry in flour and serve with tomato sauce. Another portion goes and you have only enough left for a meat pie ; the remainder of that brisket is called for and the half of what you originally had will answer only for a brown stew eked out with potatoes. Another call and another and at last there is barely enough left to serve as season- ing for another dish and the bill of fare must be made all over again. 1166. Knowing How Much to Prepare. It must seem like an assumption in any case to say in advance how much of any article to be of- fered will be ordered and consumed by a given number of people at a hotel table, but still every cook learns by experience to make a very close guess. There are scores of contingencies, of course, that throw the calculations out and require "gump- tion" in the cook to make allowance for them. There is nothing more provocative of disgust with the whole catering business than to have to begin before the meal is half over answering the demands with "it is all out," except the other extreme of having all the pans and saucepans left at the end of a meal full of fixed up messes that nobody wants or ever will want. A cook can never learn how to avoid both diffi- culties without seeing for himself at the end of every meal just what has been eaten out clean and what has been passed by unnoticed. Generally speakingall dishes containing chicken in any form, turkey, oysters and eggs will be or- 318 dered by the hundred dishes when curries and other highly flavored articles are only called for by the tens. A very much disappointed cook we once knew had made a hundred lobster cutlets as one of his entrees for two hundred persons. He was from the seashore where he had been used to seeing such dishes held in great estimation, for people often go there with the intention of feasting on sea products who never care for them at home. The cook had destroyed a good many lobsters to make his flattened croquettes with the lobster claw in each one like the bone of a lamb chop and he dished them very handsomely with sauce and trimmings. But at the end of the dinner there had been no more than twelve or fifteen orders for his cutlets that had cost him hours of labor, and he looked at them as a model maker might gaze on a machine that won't work, and shrug- ging his shoulders he said, '-Well, I suppose I may eat my cutlets myself" He never made any more. 1167. How People Order Dinner. There is no natural division in an American plan dinner where Pioman punch or an equivalent for it can be introduced, although any sort of form may be instituted by mutual consent ; and there is no pro- priety in placing the game in the bill of fare any- where but in the list of roasts at the top. The home coterie at the tables at one end of the dining-room, can order their dinners in courses from the ordinary hotel bill of fare, if they choose to do so, and in as many courses as they please without regard to the arrangement of the dishes in the menu. It is a matter between themselves, the inside steward and head waiter and does not con- cern the carver or the cook, because the dinner lasts long enough in any case and when a waiter comes for a set of late orders of game it is all the same whether it is a party taking game as a subsequent course or a new party taking game instead of roast beef for their entire dinner. It is not like the whole company setting down at once, all reaching the Roman punch course at once, and all taking game and salad simultaneously The hotel is still an inn. There is a natural way that people left entirely unconstrained order their dinner, which perhaps is not to be accounted for, but is instinctive, and the vast majority feel the more comfortable in a hotel the more easy it is made for them to fall into the natural course. Their ways and manners are formed elsewhere; the hotel is not to form them anew, but to accommodate them in their own pre- dilections. It we set out the glass of frozen punch in the middle of the dinner for the average trans- ient guest, when ice cream is afterwards offered at the finish, there is a great probability that he will remark he has already had ice cream. There may be a laughing in the sleeve somewhere, but no certain- ty that the hotel is getting the best of it ; there are so many more people than there are hotels, and they have so much more time to prolong the laughter. In the natural course people want no "waits" between the soup and fish. Where there is a bill of fare, they inevitably order these together. Where there is no bill and the dinner is " called off" by the waiters, the "call " should be arranged accord- ingly. Then they look over the whole bill, and it makes no difference where you may have placed the game and salads, even at the very bottom, they order then whatever they want in the way of meats, game, entrees, salads and vegetables all at one time. As a rule, a person does not call for more than one kind of plain meat, and if he takes a slice of venison or other game, he will not order beef or mutton likewise, as if he should take meat now and more meat in another course afterwards, but having his one cut he will choose with it one or two of the made dishes and one or two or perhaps three vege- tables. The exceptions are when one kind serves as a relish for another, as when boiled ham or pork is ordered to eat with chicken ; and where, again, no roast meat at all is ordered but the dinner made of some favorite entree, like a bird pie. Then there comes a natural pause in the dinner and the "wait" between that and the third and last division is not annoying to any but business men, who have but a few minutes to devote to the troublesome necessity of dining. 1168. The Use of Sweet Entrees. And that shows the use of having a sweet entree, and accounts for the common practice. It seems natural to end the dinner with a sweet, yet one half the customers of some hotels think they can not wait long enough to take the third course, and every one has inbred home manners enough not to order pudding and pie with his meats, when it is that some trifle of a rice cake with jelly or a fruit fritter goes right to the spot and answers every re- quirement. It is ordered with the meats and other entrees, despatched in the last two minutes and the merchant is free to hurry back to the store and let his clerk go to dinner, while those who live to eat take their new set-out of cakes, ice creams and fruits at their leisure. We have already remarked that there is a good American system already in existence. It only wants pruning and shaping. The "sweet entree" is a part of it, and by diligent search a fair reason why has been found. But one is enough, and no conceivable reason can be adduced for having more 319 than one at once, and there is no reason even for that one when it is a dinner of leisure and every person will remain to partake of the abundant third course, of pastry and pudding, and creams and fruits, cheese and coffee. 1169. Vegetable Entrees. It is stretching the meaning of the word consid- erably to speak of entrees of vegetables, yet such is the practice, and it must be considered in the sense of made dishes of vegetables Then it is per- fectly intelligible. For vegetables appear in two ways, either plain, like ordinary stewed tomatoes, or as garnishes or made dishes, like tomatoes stuffed and baked. These vegetable garnishes gave names to a number of dishes under the old style, or would have given names if there had been sufficient common sense in them for ordinary people to grasp. Thus, a piece of beef or rather meat in a dish with greens around it, was beef a la Flamande — that is in Flemish or Dutci style ; with maccaroni around it, it was a la Milanaise — or in the style of the people of Milan in Italy ; if it had sourkraut it was a V Allemande — or German style ; if with dumplings in the dish it was a V Anglaise or in English style ; if with beets, it was a la Polonaise — in the style of Poland ; with stuffed and baked tomatoes around, it was a la Provencale — in the style ot the south of France ; with a general variety of vegetables in the same Hsh, like the New England boiled dinner, it was a la Jardiniere — the gardener's style ; with the same vegetables cut small and mixed together, it was a la Macedoine — with a mixed garnish ; and from these simples the plan ran on to all sorts of mixed sauces and ragouts. They are all out of fashion now. These names only held goooVwhen the dish was set on the table whole. When a man orders beef on one dish and greens on another and puts them to- gether he knows he is eating beef and greens, and all who sit around the table may know it at a glance, but there is no possible way of making thom see the sense of calling it beef a la Flamande, especially as they do not know how Flamande should be pro- nounced. The use of having these made dishes of vegeta" bles among our entrees is precisely this : Two per- sons will order roast goose from the carving stand. One likes onions with it and orders baked onions — which he finds on the same among the entrees ; the other does not and eats his portion with spinach or peas. Surely there is something comical in the fact that all the common cooks and all the domestic cooks and housekeepers are setting dishes a la Flamande, a V Allemande, a la Provencale and the rest of it on their tables every day. and have not the remotest suspicion of the fact, while the cooks of the hotels who handle the big words without knowing their meaning, don't come within a mile of what they think they are doing. It is to be distinctly understood, then, that vege- table entrees are proper to be made at certain times. Besides those mentioned they are such dishes as spinach with poached eggs, stewed mush- rooms on toast, asparagus points in crusts, stuffed onions, fried cabbage and many more, which help in making an intelligible bill of fare and a sensibly arranged dinner. 1170. The Rule of Entrees. Highest number needed daily in any hotel, 5. Necessary for the smallest hotel, 2. 1st. A Leading Entree— something to be carved — highly seasoned meats — braised and stuffed rolls — fowls stuffed with onions — or birds too dear to be served in large portions, as roasts. 2nd. A Stewed Meat Entree — including fricas- sees with borders, and all sorts of meat pies. 3rd. A Vegetable Entree — including macaroni and spaghetti, cheese polenta and beans. 4th. A Minced Entree — such as minced ham, minced veal, brains, croquettes — trifles of various sorts to suit peculiar tastes — fish entrees for Fri- day. 5th. A Sweet Entree. Every practical steward and cook well knows that no very strict rule can be closely followed, because of the first necessity of using to good ad- vantage the articles of provision that may be on hand, yet those who find their daily perplexity in composing the dinner bill of fare find it an immense assistance to bear such a rule in mind. The smallest hotels need two or three entrees, not only to make a more excellent dinner, but in order that small quantities of good things, like chicken and sweetbreads, may be served in patties and cro- quettes, when they will not make a large dish. 1171. Osmazome. Another name for it is beef tea ; another is blood gravy. To come as near as possible to describing a half- imaginary substance by showing the real we should ay that osmazome is the meaty part of beef tea divided from the clear or watery portion. This is the essence of meat that we incidentally referred to some pages back as having had so much to do with the construction of that world's puzzle called French cookery. Osmazome is defined in one of the old books as a product of the muscular fibre of meat, which gives the characteristic flavor of soup and broth, and was formerly supposed to be a def- 320 inite substance. The time referred to was -when one of the old French kings had to be nourished on beef tea and the royal doctors gave it a Greek name and proclaimed it as a new scientific discovery for fear the common people would begin to suspect that the king was like themselves. The news from the palace was not then conveyed to every house by cheap newspapers, and the cooks and attendants were very proud to have it to say that His Majesty and a few of the most favored courtiers were nour- ished with the supreme essence and strength and concentrated nutriment of the most expensive meats, in shcrt, with osmazome, which was by far too costly for the common people, and a thing which, indeed, was not intended for their concern. It is to the aged weakness of Louis XIV., that we owe the cordials of spirit and sugar delicately flavored, noyeau, orgeat, curacoa, vermouth and many more. " For, feeling sometimes the difficulty of living, which often appears after sixty, they made him a cordial by mixing brandy with sugar and scents — the germ of the art of the modern liquorist." In such manner doubtless commenced the excessive refine- ment of sauces and food essences. New beauties and new properties were discovered in a gravy. There was a peculiar fascination in the idea that the entire strength of an ox was in the osmazome contained in its carcass, and that it could all be served up in one bowl of soup. There was the ex- ultation of unapproachable superiority in the reflec- tion that the commonalty in order to obtain a small modicum of the precious substance would have to go through the laborious process of eating the ox itself, piece by piece. We read that a Canon Chev- ier used to keep a padlock on the stock boiler, and, that many cooks used to be dismissed for abstract- ing the first soup — the beef tea — and filling up with water again, so valuable was it considered. "For," says our authority, "it is osmazome which consti- tutes the real merit of good soups. It is osmazome which, passing into a state resembling caramel, gives meat its reddish tinge, which forms the crisp brown on roasts and which yields a flavor to vanison and game. It is derived principally from full- grown animals, with reddish or dark flesh ; and it is scarcely every found in veal, sucking pigs, pul- lets, or even the best-fed capons. This explains, by the way, why your real connoisseur has always in poultry, preferred the dark meat." Now, the reader who goes along with us will probably learn more of the motives and real merits of French cookery than were ever presented to him to see before, for the world never lets any real excellence be forgotten. Covered up out of sight by the royal press and courtly euphemisms we shall find the first rudiments of good cooking. The cordials and liqueurs have a certain excellence of their own, they are nice for old people and sugar- and-water drinkers, yet if all the fine writers should advise all the people to drink them if they wished to show that they were cultured and not too stupid to learn French excellences, the people would go on taking no notice whatever and drink- ing something else precisely as they act in regard to the special exaltations and refinements of cook- ery. We have to separate the real from the fanci- ful. The commonest cook in the commonest hotel, who does the bad cooking that everybody knows is bad ; that even common and stupid people under- stand is bad — the cook who crowds a lot of all kinds of meat into one baking pan and slings it into a warm oven long before it is needed and lets it warm up gradually, sees this valuable osmazome trickling out of the meat in red drops all over the surface for perhaps an hour or more before it becomes hot enough to cook the outside and stop it ; and who lets these drops of essence run into the pan and bake there, and adds to them by constantly thrust- ing a fork into the meat and drawing fresh streams, is indeed doing a very French way of drawing out this supreme essence, but the grand difference is that while the French system allows that meat so treated is spoiled and is willing it should be in order to obtain the osmazome, which will be espagnole when it is flavored and finished, this un- learned and unskilled c>ok that we are supposing will throw the gravy away and serve up the meat ; will have spoiled the meat for nothing, and will not know that it is spoiled. As we do not value osma- zome with the exaggerated estimate of the French system and only need a small amount for the gravy for our robust people instead of drawing out all he can in that careless way he should strive to keep it all in the meat, and after he has done his best to prevent its oozing out it will be found that enough has escaped to make a little commonplace espagnole or pan gravy in spite of all he could do. 1172. Espagnole— Brown Sauce. We took occasion to remark, some way back, the extraordinary esteem in which some dishes were held by customers of cafes who brought their imag- inations to bear to give an exalted character to a rather commonplace spread. Here, now, is a story gravely told as showing the superlative excellence of a great man's cookery as if it were an art not to be compassed by ordinary mortals. Many a cook, at the present moment, who sends in tenderloin steaks with plenty of natural gravy by the hundred a day and receives no special notice for it will fail to see why this young fellow should be so choked with wonder at the sight that he could hardly speak at all. This is the anecdote : "The Vicomte de Vaudreuil, when appointed charge d' affaires of France to the Court of St- James's, brought over with him a young cook, an eleve of the highest schools of the cuisines of Paris. 321 This young culinary aspirant to fame, shortly after his arrival in London, obtained permission of his master to go and witness the artistic operations of that established cordon bleu, Monsieur Mingay, the cook to Prince Esterhazy, who had been brought up under the Prince Talleyrand's famous chef, Louis, and previously under that most bleu of all cordons, the great Careme. On the elevens return, the Vicomte, hearing that his cook was in a state of astonish ment from something he had witnessed in Prince Esterhazy's kitchen, summoned him to his presence, and said, ' What is this culinary miracle, which I have heard astonishes you, and casts into the shade all other triumphs of the art?' Vatel's follower replied, ' Oh, Monsieur le Vicomte, when I entered the cuisine at Chandos House it was near the time of the prince's luncheon, for which his excellency had ordered something which should be very sim- ple and easily digestible, as he was suffering from languor. The chef, Mingay, accordingly cut from under a well-hung rump of beef three slices of fillet, and rapidly broiling them, he placed the choicest-looking in the middle of a hot dish, and afterward pressing the juice completely out of the remaining two, he poured it on the first ! Oh, monsieur, how great the prince ! how great the cook!'" To couch so simple an affair, in such marvelous language, seems extremely silly unless we remem- ber that those were the days of what we have ven- tured to term the worship of the gravy. However, we commend anew this old anecdote to those chefs who discourage the broiler by calling him "only a broil and fry cook." We have at hand a letter just written by a traveler in the southern states in which he says dolefully that a good beefsteak can not be had south of Mason and Dixon's line. Prob- ably he should have excepted a few of the hotels, but if it be all true the false notions about what constitutes good cooking are to blame for it. The French cooks do not think it their mission to teach how to cook the beefsteaks that the whole nation wants, but to teach espagnole and veloute and dishes a la moonshine. The filet a la Chateaubriand is very much like the Prince's beefsteak, above described, it being either a thick steak for one or two, or a whole tenderloin for a party, cooked inside of the two other steaks, the gravy from which is pressed and poured over the fillet. There are seasonings and other addi- tions, but that brings us to espagnole It was the meat gravy that made such a dish valuable and does so yet. It was the imaginary excellence of the gravy that made it a wonder and the wonder has passed away. It makes but little difference how the gravy or meat essence may be obtained. If you broil a few small but thick beefsteaks rare done and pile them on a warm dish the blood gravy will run in the dish, perhaps a cupful. But, considering that rather insipid you manage to add to it a flavor of soup vegetables by adding them and some water and boiling until the water has all evaporated and you strain off the espagnole. That is the original pure article as Littre, the great French lexico- grapher, defines it, but the cooks have gone a little further and improved the flavor with the savor of roast meat. The same gravy as that from your dish of steak is obtained as beef tea in a bottle. You cut or chop some lean beef, put it in a bottle without any liquid added, set the bottle in a saucepan of cold water over the fire and let it heat up gradually. In an hour you can pour out the cupful of beef tea, the juice of the meat; rich but insipid and needs vegetables and seasonings to make a sauce of it. These are illustrations of the result to be arrived at, but the real way, on a large scale, as directed by Groffe, Francatelli and the others is to put the vegetables and other seasonings in with the meat in a saucepan with butter spread on the bottom and the kinds of meat selected for their fitness, draw- ing the gravy by slow heat — much as we have described as very bad roasting of our home cooks — allowing the gravy so drawn to become light brown on the bottom, then pouring off the butter and fat from the meat and putting in broth instead, and when the gravy (or glaze as it has then become) has dissolved thickening it with flour baked brown in butter, straining, simmering and skimming it until bright and velvety in appearance. That is the espagnole of the books. Put a dozen ladlefuls in a dozen different saucepans and add different articles to eaeh and you have a dozen different sauces and ragouts. This has all been done in a saucepan on top of the fire because in past times there were no such ranges as we use at present and the baking pans with their [nicely roased meats were not there to work with. But the evident richness of the gravy that is found on the bottom of the pan in which a lot of turkeys or chickens have been roasted to per- fection has forced that kind of sauce into use through the mere operation of common sense and we wish to say in the plainest language possible, for the benefit of those who need to be benefited by the assurance that this pan gravy is to all intent) and purposes and in all essential respects the same thing as espagnole. We mean not only from the pans of poultry, but of all roast meats, although beef well roasted will furnish the least. The differ- ences of the ways of proceeding arise from the old ways being intended for saucepan cooking and open roasting fires, and the new way being for closed ranges. It is observable that all the cooks now who put their directions in print, acknowledge this 322 pan gravy as brown sauce, and we know for a fact that espagnole, as it used to be, is made in but very few places. There can be a most detestable article made and used as brown sauce and so also there is often a most execrable cspagnole, scorched and vile ; it is a matter of intelligence and skill in both cases. Some kinds of meat make a light reddish and pleas- ant looking brown sauce, other kinds are dark and dull. In order to insure a rich sauce put in some shanks of veal and other trimmings to cook slowly in the pan before it is time for the roasts to go in, and after the roasts come out use soup stock that has vegetable seasonings in it to make the gravy Or brown sauce with, instead of putting in water. The full and particular directions have been already given in the different articles on " How to Roast Meats." Read Nos. 1022, 1062 and 1063. 1173. Blond— Veloute— White Sauce. It is not necessary to add much to what is already written to make this plain to any comprehension. We have instanced beef tea or gravy for brown sauce and other meats are added to give color and richness, such as veal and wild rabbits. But it was noticed that fowls and veal yielded a natural gravy that had no color and their extract flavored in the boiling was thickened with a mixture of flour and butter not browned and that was and is veloute. In common practice take the broth in which chick- ens have be.en boiled, add to it a shank of veal and celery and other soup vegetables and boil down until it is condensed and rich, thicken, not too much ; strain, simmer and skim it and that is white sauce. Boil down thicker yet, then add boiling cream to bring it to its former consistency again and a little butter, and that is Bechamel — named for a noted cook. These have also been given plain directions in farmer articles 1174. Soup Making. The operation of hotel soup making has a good deal of similarity to that pleasing trick of parlor magic in which a dozen empty glasses are placed ready, and out of the same bottle the operator pours into one of them red wine, into another white, an- other brandy or ale, another milk and so forth ; the changes of color being caused by the different chemicals the glasses have heen rinsed with pre- viously, and other chemicals contained in the bottle. In making the dai'y soups the stock boiler is our bottle, and the soup pots with their different con- tents the glasses. 1175. Clear Soups. There are two divisions in which soups are classed, the thick soups or potages and the thin clear soups or consommes. In some hotels one of each class appears at every dinner. You can make as many clear soups as you can full soups and of the same material. There can be a turtle soup almost like gravy and again a clear turtle which you can see the bottom of the tureen through, it is so transparent, although rich, and every square- cut piece of meat and turtle egg shows clean and distinct. You can make a green pea soup thick as cream, and also again make a clear consomme with green peas in it whole, that neither settle to the bottom nor float on top. because the consomme, al- though clear as oil, is rich and dense. So you can have these clear soups with rice in whole grains, or tapioca, barley, vermicelli, macaroni, alphabet pastes, vegetables cut in shapes, asparagus points, cauliflower in little flowrets, and custards both white and yellow, also small quenelles or meat- balls, always in small proportions, and it is not much out of the way to compare them in appear- ance to gold fish in a globe of fresh water, because in these consommes there must be no crumbs and specks, each article being cooked separately and washed free from flour and scraps before being put into the clear finished consomme. These clear soups may also be of different colors, such as green colored with spinach juice, brown or amber with the color from roasted fowls, or clear white, or beet juice pink. However the amber or brandy color is the best. 1176. Pull Soups. It helps, when the daily question comes up, "What kind of soup shall we have? " to have a list of the different varieties in mind like this : 1. Gravy soups — brown meat soups, such asbeef> ox-tail, mock turtle, mulligatawney, etc. 2. Cream soups, such as French cream, cream of barley, etc. 3. Puree soups — many different sorts made by thickening with a paste of something pounded through a strainer, from puree of partridge or chicken to puree of potatoes or beans. 4. Fish soups for Fridays. 5. Vegetable soups --variations of all the others, like chicken with cauliflower, and Scotch broth with mutton in dice and barley, etc. All these varieties of soup are made out of the same stock, generally, but in the best fixed estab- lishments there will be two boilers of stock, one with the meats rich in osmazome — the beef tea kinds— the other with the white meats. The im- practicables tell us to purchase several different kinds of meat suitable for the different varieties of soup, as might be proper if there were but one din- ner to be prepared, but as in every place where cooking goes on constantly there must always be a large amount of soup material on hand, instead of choosing the kinds of meat we choose which are the most suitable soups to make at the moment When the stock is mostly of beef make the gravy 323 soup.3. When veal predominates make veal soups, fish soups and mock turtle. Sometimes, once a week perhaps, there will be an excess of lamb and mutton ; then keep out all the fat possible and make barley, turnip, tomato and vegetable soups and Scotch broth, for all of these are best made with a portion of mutton in the stock. And when there is but little soup material of any sort on hand and the stock is not rich is the day to make a cream soup or one of oysters or clams that takes milk instead of stock. 1178. The Stock Boiler. It is an object to have plenty of stock and plenty of room in the stock boilers to make it, and also to be careful with it, not to make more soup than is needed, because instead of throwing away the large quantity it should be condensed to greater richness, and whatever stock can be saved from the soup is wanted to be boiled down to put into the gravy pan instead of water to make the rich espagnole that French cookery sets so much value upon — the beef stock for that, the chicken and veal stock for the white sauce. You may not have use for more than a quart of sauce of those kinds, yet it will take three or four quarts of stock to boil down to make it of the best quality. It is against all the science of cookery to let the stock boiler be in too hot a place and boil hard. That is the objection brought against the steam stock boilers in some places; the cooks say they can not regulate them and the stock goes on at a gallop- French authorities say the stock should only " smile " — meaning to simmer gently. Some of the largest public establishments have two regular stock boilers, steam-heated, that hold from 80 to 100 gal- lons each and another one or two of about 60 gal- lons for boiling chickens and turkeys, hams, corned beef, and tongues. Commonly the rule is that there must be thirty gallons of room in the stock boiler for every fifty persons a house entertains. Room for the soup material and the water; room for the false bottom that holds the meat up from burning, and room to prevent boiling over. Thirty gallons is about the size of a flour barrel ; forty-five gallons is the capacity of a whisky barrel. In a house that entertains 200 people the moveable stock boiler that has to be set on top of the range becomes a rather troublesome affair. It is seldom large enough for true economy. If made of galvanized iron, double bound, it lasts but a few months. The only durable kind is made of thick copper and they take two men to handle them. Generally there has to be two and it requires considerable good management to keep them from monopolizing the top of the range at the wrong times. 1179. Management. Setting on the stock boiler comes immediately after the meat cutting and th° pieces and soup bones should not have to lie over till the next day to lose their best flavor through exposure and dry- ing. Drop them fresh cut into the clean boiler and fill up with cold water, remembering olways thnt cold water draws out the juices of meat to enrich soups and stews and hot water seals up the meat and shuts them in. Read directions about the soup material at No. 992 — page 262. Set the boiler on the range to heat up gradually. If a large one and full it will be slow enough to reach a boil no matter on what part of the range it is placed. Skim it as soon as the boiling begins. The best flavored soup is that for which the stock simmers only six hours. There may be a pleaScint tasted bouillon or beef broth taken off when it has cooked only one hour, but not much of the nutri- ment is then obtained, and again a sort of meat porridge after twelve hours' boiling when every- thing is dissolved but the bones, but this is only a cheap and nutritious food and has no delicacy of taste left. Six hours' slow boiling, as above remarked, is a good rule to go by. Then there is a difficulty to be met. If you set the boiler on in the afternoon, it simmers along until after supper and the fire is allowed to go out, the boiler remains there [warm possibly for ten hours or eight or at any rate six, before the fire again raises it to a heat that prevents spoiling. In that lukewarm condition it is very likely to acquire a bad taste that even the French name that you will give the soup next day will not quite cure. Beside that, the meaty particles settle to the bot- tom when the boiling ceases and by the time the fire is made in the morning there is a compact coat- ing that is extremely liable to burn sooner than the stock will boil. These things can be prevented, but it is the care and watchfulness required that makes really good cooks so scarce. Still, certain times and rules may be established in the kitchen by observing which even the most heedless helper may do all that is required. Where there is night cooking going on or a night watch, it is a simple matter to take the boiler off the range when it has boiled long enough, or, what is better, to draw off the stock at the faucet, having first taken off the two quarts or two gallons — as the case may be — of clear fat from the top, and letting it cool and settle in the new vessel. But where there is no such night attendance the way is to set the boiler on late enough so that it will not much more than boil before the fire is done with ; then, instead of letting the fire out keep a slow one with coal dust to maintain the simmering heat for several hours. In the morning before the fire is started, if you draw off the clear stock at the faucet near the bot- tom of the boiler, you will see what is meant by 324 clear consomme ; it will be almost clear enough for ordinary clear soups as it is, and will be more or less like melted jelly in appearance according to the degree of ricbness. When half of it has been drawn off and the gravy portion begins to show take another pan or boiler to hold it for making the strong soup and brown sauce — but make both lots hot as soon as possible, if you can not make them ice cold instead, for fear of souring. It is a rule, then, that whoever builds the fire in the range in the morning must first draw off the stock and take down the boiler. As another precaution against spoiled stock avoid putting into the boiler any essence of meat or chicken broth or anything else that has salt in it, because salt starts fermentation as soon as the temperature is right. It is one of the hard conditions of living in this mean world that there can be no real excellence without labor either of hands or head or both. When you read of a great cook who gets three thousand dollars a year and apparently (according to the favorite way of telling it) does nothing but wear a gold watch and draw his salary, you may be sure that in reality he is going around establish- ing rules for preventing things going wrong and seeing to it that the rules are observed, and the same sort of capable man in a lesser position avoids the mishaps by attending to the precautions himself. A cook receives half his salary for making every article good and the other half for preventing any- thing from ever going to the table bad ; some can not or don't want to be efficient in both directions, consequently they never get above half pay 1180. Good Soups. A few months ago the writer stopped at a hotel one day for dinner, and at the same table there was a little party of three who had been in the house probably a week or two. One of the ladies was immensely amused at some- thing. In a half aside she said to her neighbor: "Why, it's only hash !" "Oh," expostulated the elder lady, "youshould'nt order those things, they always turn out that wa ." "How strange," — said the other; "the bill of fare gives it such a grand name — see, a la Mont morenci. I thought it was something good." " There is one thing to be said for this house," — the other replied — "you can always depend upon the soups. I had never imagined that they could be made so enjoyable." The reputaiion of the table was saved in that instance by the soup when a la Montmorenci had nearly ruined it. Evarybody takes soup. The exceptions are so few a not to be worth counting. The motive for having two soups at once is to suit all tastes, for some can not indulge in the rich gravy soups with impunity, and ihey take the light consomme; others object to cream soups and purees that they take away the appetite for dinner, and others again dis- like tomato soups or other special kinds and they take the alternative of the consomme with peas or rice. To follow up the refinements of soup-making, however, takes up lots of time. A cook who knows what he is trying to do can stand an hour over the soup-boiler, clarifying, skimming and improving it, and one soup is all that can be attended to in most of the busy kitchens. It is found that if that one soup is made good invariably not only do most of the special aversions gradually fade away, but many people pay it the silent compliment of making a dinner of soup and only one more course, it may be fish, or an entree, or pastry, but soup always. Although in favor of two soups each day where it can be compassed we give but one at a time in the following examples, the different kinds alternating so as to be suitable to put two days together. The wonderful increase in the common affection for the tomato flavor has to be recognized in the fullest degree. It seems singular that a vegetable which was, in the memory of some still living regarded as poisonous and grown only for an orna- ment, should have become of the first importance, although still an object of dislike to many. Cooks should take care to treat it only as a flavoring as they would some herbs, and not use it in more than one dish each meal and it need not then be offen- sive to any, while they may be pleased who like it in sauces, in clam chowder, and even in turtle oup. First Day. Green Turtle Soup. Larded Fillet of Beef. Potted Breast of Chicken in Form. Steived Mushrooms in Oroustades. Blanquctte of Siveetbreads and Oysters. Cream Fritters, glazed. 1181. Green Turtle Soup. Any tolerably good cook now can make a meat soup of beef and veal and add canned turtle to it, with wine and lemon and he makes a turtle soup that is good in a general way without being quite the proper thing. It is doubtful, however, whether any one ever made the genuine old aldermanic green turtle soup by directions alone without ex- ample. It is called so because made of the green sea turtle, but it has also a green tinge imparted by the "puree of turtle herbs" and the use of these and the different cooking of different parts of the turtle, 32C the preparation of flour thickening and the quenelle making all take up six or eight different saucepans and make the matter hopelessly obscure without a plentiful sprinkling of the reasons why. The green tinge can not be insisted on, and indeed is rarely seen because, of the herbs, sweet basil is practically unknown in this country and thyme, marjoram and savory are to be obtained by the many only in their dry state. However, a large proportion of parsley can be used, a small amount uf green chives and green onions and very young celery leaves just raised from the seed. Every cook should know that when these are but just dipped in boiling water they turn to a deep green, but if long cooked they lose their green color. That is the sense of some of the complex instruc- tions. Ude was so particular he picked all the little leaves off the herbs to be scalded and pounded for coloring at last and boiled the stalks alone in the soup for flavor. Sweet basil has the flavor of cloves and that spice is the substitute for it. There are four kinds of meat in a turtle, and the fins furnish another, and, beside the desire to give to each plate a sample of each kind, they cook in different lengths of time — the fat in half an hour — the soft white meat in an hour ; the coarse meat and fins in two or three hours, the shells and bones in six hours, and the skillful preparation of the soup requires that none of the parts that go in the plates be "boiled to rags," but all neat and trim. Hence the cooking different parts in different ves- sels, each with some seasonings, and bringing all the parts, liquors and all into the one soup at last. A cook who is crowded for time and range room if he knows the object of certain proceedings can often take a short-cut to reach the same result with half the trouble, precisely as in cooking a mixed lot of fowls you put the hardest to cook at the bot- tom and the chickens at top where they can be taken out as soon as done and kept on a dish until the others are finished. Turtle soup is expected to be a plate full and as thick with meat and quenelles (or turtle eggs) as an oyster stew is with oysters. Some of the noted turtle soup makers persist in calling the soup itself the sauce, regarding the pieces of meat as the prin- pal part. Probably a good many cooks have met with the remark that "it is no longer the fashion to put quenelles or egg balls in turtle soup," but they should not take any notice of it. A noted cook wrote that along with his directions a hundred years ago and a thousand " made-up " cook books have copied both the directions and the remark since then ; but meantime the fashions have been changing back and forth and egg balls are very much in fashion now if the cook has only the time and the skill to make them. For soup for fifty persons you require : A 50-pound turtle. 5 gallons of soup-stock — about 2 pails. 4 onions — J pound. 1 teaspoonful whole cloves. Same of allspice. 2 blades of mace. 2 bay leaves. Herbs, either green or dry. 1 pound of slices of raw ham. 1 pound of fresh butter — 2 cups. 12 ounces of flour — 3 cups. Salt, pepper and cayenne. 2 lemons. 1 pint of Madeira. It is expected to make three gallons of soup after reduction by boiling. The turtle will have been cut up the night before) (see No. 1017) t'ae meat laid on dishes, the fat in ice water in the refrigerator, and the shells in pieces. Peel off the horny covering that has been loosened by the previous scalding. The stock will have been prepared also in the usual way over night with care that it contains only beef, veal and fowl for the ingredients. Very early in the morning draw off the stock from the faucet clear — the fat will not come, but remains higher up in the boiler. Put the turtle shells at the bottom of a clean boiler, cover with the clear stock, boil, skim off all that rises, and then lay in the pieces of turtle meat. Let simmer a good while at the side of the range with the lid on. Take out the glutinous part3 first and the others as they become tender. If in haste, you will have to put them in ice water in order to get the meat separated from the bone — but perhaps you can let them cool on dishes in the refrigerator. Cut all the cooked turtle meat you have obtained into neat squares and keep it ready for the finish, but put the bones and head back in the boiler to make the soup richer, and at the same time put in the season- ings, that is, one of the onions, all the spices, the peel of half a lemon, a little black pepper and if you have no green herbs but parsley you can put in a small teaspoonful each of powdered thyme and savory and keep the parsley for greening at last. Along in the middle of the morning or two hours before dinner, prepare the flavored thickening in this way: Cover the bottom of a large saucepan with the slices of raw ham, put in a pound of butter and then three or four onions cut in slices, and let them stew in the butter with the lid on. In a short time they cease stewing and begin to fry which must be immediately stopped — put the flour in, stir all up and either set the saucepan a short time in the oven with the door open or let cook on the top with care not to let the flour get more than a very pale color. When that is done dip some soup into it, stirring it smooth, until the saucepan 326 is full when the whole mixture of ham, onions, but- ter, baked flour and soup may all be turned back into the boiler to save room and the use of so many vessels, there to continue boiling gently for half an hour. Then strain the soup through a fine strainer into the regular soup pot, let it simmer and the but ter will rise and can be skimmed off. Put in the juice of a lemon with a spoonful of cold water and scum will rise and can be skimmed off, making the soup bright Add the salt, little cayenne and then the turtle meat and green tat (if any when a larger sized turtle is used) already cut in inch squares. Scald and pound the green herbs already mentioned through a seive and add them for greening, but if it can not be green make the soup a rich brown in- stead. Add the juice of another lemon and the wine in the tureen. The turtle eggs, if any, should be stewed separ. ately in a little soup and added last. Egg balls for a substitute can be made either with hard-boiled yolks pounded with a raw yolk to bind them, or with any kind of white meat pounded and mixed with yolks, and can have parsley mixed with them enough to make them green — all matters of individ. ual fancy. So also are the additions to the soup of a pinch of curry powder, a spoonful of anchovy sauce or minced lemon peel or mushroom liquor. They are not essential and had better be left out. Live turtles range in price from 8 to 20 or 25 cents per pound. The clear meat in them is but a small proportion of the gross weight. 1182. Larded Fillet of Beef. Having taking out the fillet as shown at No. 989, shave down the suet so that there will be a covering of it about as thick as a steak left on the meat- Then raise the edge of the fat, separate it from the fillet and lay it over without detaching the other edge, so that it will be ready to cover the fillet with again after the larding is done. The skin of the upper surface should be raised along with the fat and should be scored across to prevent drawing up in the oven. Prepare half a pound of strips of fat bacon or pork, lhe pork is better because milder it a piece firm enough to bear inserting can be found. Cut in slices, then in strips, about half a finger's length, a little thinner than a common pencil, all alike in thickness and with one end slightly tapered to enter the larding needle easily. Roll them in white pep- per and salt. Commence at the thick end with the larding. Insert a strip of bacon in the end of the larding needle, using another needle to assist, and draw it through the top part of the meat pinched up for the purpose. One end of each strip so in- serted will be left leaning backward and the other forward on the surface. Insert six or more in an even row across. One inch forward insert another row, so alternating that the ends will fall between those of the first row. Keep on till near the end. Cut off the thinnest part of the fillet. Cover the larded fillet with the sheet of fat. Make a long and narrow baking pan hot in the oven with a tablespoonful of salt and ladleful of drip- pings and water enough to keep the pan from burning. Put in also a slice of turnip, carrot and onion and stalk of celery and the meat scraps trimmed from the fillet. Have the oven hot, put in the fillet and roast with the fat covering it half an hour. Then take of the fat, baste the fillet with the contents of the pan and allow about fifteen minutes more for the larding to brown handsomely while you baste it several times, causing a glossy surface to dry upon it. A gravy will flow from the fillet quite copiously w'aen it is cut, which should be mixed with the made sauce at the time of serving. To make the sauce let all the remaining moistnre dry out of the' pan, so that the clear grease can be poured off without the gravy, which will be found stic ing to the pan. Add a ladleful of stock and liquor from a can of mushrooms. Boil up, thicken slightly, strain into a saucepan, boil aud skim, and then add a little wine and cayenne. Carve in small slices laid well up to one end of the individual dish with a spoonful of sauce at the other ; or, for a large dish send it in entire, with a border of the finest button mushrooms obtainable, made hot in the sauce. 1183. Potted Breast of Chicken in Form. Avail yourself of the fancy shapes of stamped tin patty pans for individual entrees of a delicate sort. The oval or long diamond form with scolloped sides are the best, but any sort from a plain muffin ring up will do, if small. Provide 24 of these small molds. 4 large chickens. 1£ cupfuls of bread panada. | cupful of butter. i cupful minced salt pork. 2 whites of eggs. 1 tablespoonful of minced parsley. White pepper or cayenne, salt, nutmeg. 1 pint of cream sauce. £ cupful finest green peas. Tender chickens only can be used this way Take off the breasts raw with a small knife. Divide each side into three, the small fillet that lies next the breast bone makes one, the larger part of the breast split lengthwise makes two more. Each chicken fur- nishes, therefore, six of these bands of white meat. When they are trimmed along the edges and free from skin and sinew butter the small molds and lay a fillet smooth side down in each and keep them cold until the forcemeat is ready. Boil the remaining parts of the chickens about an 327 hour, pick oft" all the meat free from skin and except any that may be very dark, mince it fine and then pound it to a paste. Add the panada (No. 962), the seasoning of minced pork and half the butter and the parsley, and white of eggs whisked light, and salt and pepper. Pound all together. Then fill the prepared molds with the forcemeat, placing a little on each side of the breast of chicken at first carefully, not to let the meat be pushed from the center, press in well and level off. Steam in the vegetable steamers or bake, set in a pan of water about half an hour. Turn them out as they are ordered, fresh and with the juice that will have formed upon them. Pour a spoonful of smooth cream sauce around and sprinkle a dozen green peas with a fork, for ornament. 1184. Stewed Mushrooms in Crou- stades- Empty a can of small button mushrooms without the liquor into a bright saucepan with an ounce of butter and let them become hot. Throw in a tea- spoonful of minced parsley and add a few spoonfuls of the sauce from the fillet of beef. Cut ten slice 3 of bread with a scollop cutter in oval shape to fit the small dishes, and half an inch thick, and mark the shape of a lid around with a knife point, not cutting through. Fry light colored and drain. Lift out the lid piece and as they are called for serve a spoonful of the mushrooms and sauce in each croustade. The piece removed need not be replaced. Let there be sauce enough for a spoon- ful in the dish to moisten the crust. 1185. Blanquette of Sweetbreads and Oysters. 4 calves' sweetbreads. 2 dozen oysters. 1 pint cream sauce. Lemon juice, cayenne, salt. Mashed potato borders. Boil the sweetbreads until tender, in water, sea- soned with salt, pepper and vinegar. Take them up, trim and cut in neat squares like large dice. Put the oysters in a deep strainer and dip them in the sweetbread liquor one minute to shrink them, turn on to a plate and cut them in halves Mix sweetbreads and oysters together by shaking in a small saucepan with a squeeze of lemon and dust of cayenne and cover with boiling cream sauce just be- fore wanted. Form rings of mashed potato on the dishes with a cornet and serve the white fricassee piled in the center. The sauce should salt the whole. You can form a thin potato border handsomely with the cheese scoop that they gouge out a pineapple cheese with. Blanquette is from blanc, white, like blanch and blank, and means a white dish. 1186. Cream Fritters. Called beignets de bouillie by the French, and bouillie (not bouilli) means pap or baby food. We can not help it, however, if the grown people cry for them, glazed with transparent wine sauce. The English have a better name, which is palm tree pudding, in allusion perhaps to the appearance of a number of the spike shaped pieces arranged in order in a dish when all is served at once. It is a sort of sliced custard breaded and fried, made of 1 quart of milk. 6 ounces of sugar. 6 ounces of mixed corn starch and flour. 7 yolks of eggs. 2 ounces of butter. Flavoring. Salt. Boil the milk with the butter and salt in it. Mix the sugar in the starch and flour dry and dredge and beat them into the boiling milk. Let it cook slowly at the side of the range about ten minutes. Stir in the yolks of eggs and take it off. Flavor with lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg or vanilla and let it get cold in a buttered pan. Roll the slices in egg, then in cracker meal, fry in lard, serve warm with the sauce No. 490, made thick enough not to run off, and simmered until it has become quite trans- parent. Study of Notable Menus. Banquet given in London complimentary to a popular tragedian, July, 1883. Covers laid for 520 guests. The words in quotation marks are but allusions to certain plays. MENU. POTAGES. Tortue Claire a la " Rialto." Bisque a la " Prince de Danemark," POISSONS. Saumon d' Ecosse. Filets de Soles, sauce " Matthias." ENTREES. Mazarine de Volaille a la " Courier de Lyon." Chaudfroid de Cailles a la " Richelieu." RELEVES Quartier d'Agneau. Aloyau de Boeuf. Selle de Mouton. REMOVES. Poulardes Bardees. Caneton aux Cressons. Salade a la " Doricourt," ENTREMETS. Mayonnaise de Homard. Tartelettes de Peches. Creme a la '' Bon Voyage." Gelee a la "Benedick." Gateaux "Freres de Corse." Pouding Glace. DESSERT. 328 TRANSLATION. Soups.— Clear turtle (No. 1187) —Bisques are soups thick with a paste of fish or birds and choice morsels of the meat. Fishes.— Scotch salmon, as in this country we say Kennebec or California salmon— Fillets of soles with a sauce (No. 967). Entrees. -Mazarine of fowl— same sort of article as No. 1183. probably large form— Chaudfroid of quails. No. 1191 is a chaudfroid, but we have no such word ; styles of putting up various. Releves.— Quarter of lamb— Sirloin of beef- Saddle of mutton. Removes.— Chickens roasted in bands of bacon like No 1055— young ducks with cress (No. 1072) — Salad. Entremets.— Lobster in mayonnaise (No. 746)— Peach tartlets (No. 72)— Cream (No. 180)— Jelly (No, 208)— Cakes, Iced pudding (No. 127). The banquet was served by a catering firm. The floral decorations were elaborate and the affair was a pronounced success. Second Day. Clear Turtle Soup. Lamb cutlets with vegetables' Potted pigeons with jelly. Stuffed tomatoes. Minced quail in border. 1187. Clear Turtle Soup. A 40-pouud turtle — or selected meat kept over from a larger one of a previous day. 4 gallons of soup stock. 2 onions. 1 can of mushrooms. A bunch of chives and parsley — good handful. 1 teaspoonful of whole cloves. 1 bay leaf, a blade of mace. 1 pound raw ham. 1 pound of raw beef. Salt and cayenne. 8 whites of eggs. 2 lemons. 1 cupful Madeira. It is expected to make 2 gallons of soup after reduction by boiling and clearing. Have a good rich stock ready prepared, draw it off clear and without grease. Lay the slices of ham on the bottom of a clean boiler, place the turtle shells on that and cover them with the stock. Boil snd skim off, then put in the turtle meat and let simmer gently about two hours, looking at it frequently and taking out the meat as it appears to be done and putting it away to become cold, after which take the bones out and return them to the boiler, along with the onions, spices and herbs and the rind of half a small lemon and the mushrooms or liquor from a can. Two hours before dinner strain off the soup into a deep jar or pail, let stand one-half hour and skim off the top. Pour it without sediment through a fine strainer into a large saucepan and proceed to clarify it. Squeeze in the juice of a lemon, then add the whites of eggs mixed with a cup of cold water and the piece of raw beef chopped like sausage meat. Set it on the fire and when the egg is well cooked in it pour it through a napkin, laid inside a strainer, twice. Put in such pieces of turtle as will not float and eggs or egg-balls pre- viously cooked and free from fragments. If any green fat simmer the pieces in soup separately and add a piece in each plate. Wine and thin quarter slices of lemon to be added just before serving. Let the soup be amber colored. It is troublesome to have this soup ready too long before dinner as a skin forms on top that may necessitate another straining if the clear appearance is to be preserved- It will be a great inconvenience should the clear soup be so excessively rich that it will not run through the napkin or jelly strainer after boiling with the beef and white of egg, especially if the trouble happen when time is short till dinner, Read the remarks concerning aspic jelly at No. 735, and avoid the extreme of glutinous richness if clear soup is to be made. 1188. Lamb Cutlets with Vegetables. 12 lamb chops. 1 peck of spinach — or other greens. 24 small new potatoes. 1 small cauliflower, 4 ounces of butter. Little white sauce. Prepare the chops as for broiling ; pepper and salt them, dip both sides in a little butter on a plate and lay them in a baking pan that they will just fill. Boil the spinach green; take it up before it is quite done, drain on a seive and press the water away from it, then rub it through a strainer with a little sauce mixed in to help it through Mix ^he green pulp with an equal amount of butter sauce. Have the new potatoes ready steamed and the cauli- flower picked apart in branches. Cook the chops on the top shelf in a hot range about six or eight minutes, serve one to a dish with the gravy that collects upon them, the green sauce under them and the vegetables as ornaments at either side. 329 1189. Potted Pig-eons with Jelly. 12 pigeons. 1 pound of sausage meat. j pound of butter. 1 pint of broth. 2 tablespoonfuls vinegar. Pepper, salt, spice. £ cupful currant jelly. Flour and water paste. Clean the pigeons, split in halves down the back and breast, wipe dry, dredge with pepper and salt and ground allspice. Place a spoonful of sausage meat inside and press the two halves together again. Spread a cup of butter on the bottom of a s mall earthen jar, lay the pigeons close pressed down in the jar, put in a cup of broth and little vinegar. Cover the top with a lid of plain flour and water paste. (See No. 1042). Set in the oven in a pan of water early in the morning and let bake three or four hours. Dish up out of the jar with- out disarranging the stuffing and sauce with the jelly mixed with gravy. They should be very tender. Half a bird to an order is sufficieut at a plentiful dinner. 1190. Stuffed Tomatoes 20 tomatoes — large and smooth. 5 cupfuls of fine bread crumbs — not pressed. 2 tablespoonfuls finely minced onions. Same of minced fat bacon. 1 teaspoonful of salt. Same of pepper. Same of sugar. 1 egg- In case bacon is not rt Cheese. Coffee. COMMENTS. Oysters — On shell (No. 864) — it is said that raw oysters are served at this table all through the sum- mer, seven to a plate, ^rices high, business vast, all on a lavish scale. Soups — Green turtle (No. 1181) — Con°omme printaniere or spring soup or with green vegetables (No. 1197). Bouchees — or patties to serve in this place are always small and generally made of two flats of fine puff paste with a teaspoonful of minced chicken, very highly seasoned, inclosed between them like No. 242, but the edges, wetted, are only pressed lightly together and not pinched. There are vari- ous other forms of patties and cases used. Fish — Boiled salmon (Nos. 920 and 922) and gar- nished with truffles and crayfish or prawns in the sauce — Parisian potatoes (No. 953) — Spanish mack- erel (Nos. 883, 886, and sauce 880) — cucumber salad (No. 772) — the cucumbers are usually sliced, allowed to lie sprinkled with salt to draw the water, drained and shaken up with oil and vinegar. Entrees —Tenderloin or fillet (No. 1182) with small but'on mushrooms in sauce poured over the slices wheu served — chicken pie (No. 1193) — lambs' fries (No. 1194) — geese livers in cases (N». 1195) — peaches with rice (No. 1196). Sorbet — Moscovite or Russian — Sorbets is the French word for frozen punches, or ices that con- tain wines and liqueurs. Meats and Vegetables — See index. Cold Dishes — Boned capon with truffles — galant- ine as at No. 785 with the white meat inlaid with strips of black truffle and the trimmings of truffles mixed in the forcemeat. Truffles come in. cans of various graded sizes, beginning at a dollar for about two ounces. Other cold meats and salads, see in- dex. Pastry — A.pple cream pie as at No. 50, or 52, or 53, with meringue on top (No. 42) — custard pie (No. 58) — plum pudding (No. 331) — champagne jelly (Nos. 202 and 203)— Vanilla ice cream (No. 84) Cardinal punch, red frozen punch made with port wine poured over a roasted orange, and sugar and W ater — for a red punch, see No. 135 — boiled cust- ard (Nos. 499 and 77) probably served in cups, very cold for those who are afraid to eat ices. Fourth Day. Clear Spring Soup. Stuffed loin of mutton. Small fillets of beef in glaze. Egg plant fried plain. Curried tripe — Italian. Apple fritters with sauce. 333 1197. Clear Spring Soup. The distinguishing feature is the addition of asparagus heads and green peas to a proportion of any other commoner kinds of vegetables in a clear consomme. We have no English word for consomme but broth and that does not express the same meaning Broth is the liquor in which meat has been boiled, consomme is the same liquor strained clear, per- haps clarified like jelly. It is pronounced in three syllables, though some old English books of cookery speak of " consumes " of meat and fowl in a very vague and misty manner. Consomme printaniere is one of the favorite varie- ties because of the handsome appearance of the vegetables when skilfully cooked green (No. 741). But these clear soups are not called for at table as much as the stronger kinds. Two gallons of clear soup is plenty where three of theothers would be consumed. Take 2 gallons of consomme. 1 cupful of very green peas. 1 heaping cupful of asparagus heads. Same of little trimmed flowrets of cauliflower. Same of carrots, turnips and onions scooped out in shapes with a potato scoop, or else cut in neat dice shapes. The stock (which is but a grand broth of several kinds of meat) will have been seasoned in the boiler already with soup herbs and vegetables. When it is drawn off clear in the morning and strained through a silk sieve, it will be clear enough for this purpose. An hour before dinner bring it to a boil and skim it from the side. Season with salt and little cayenne, add a tablespoonful of burnt sugar both for color and mild flavor. Cook the vegetables separately, drain them out of the water into the tureen and pour the consomme to them 1198. Stuffed Loin of Mutton. This is loin of mutton or lamb sliced down to the bone, a highly seasoned mince (salpieon) pressed in between the slices, tied to keep shape andbiked tender. For the meat you need four of those pieces that lie between figures 1 and 2 in the side of mutton at No. 997, and a boiled neck of mutton beside. For the stuffing take 1 cupful of cooked meat finely minced. 1 cupful of raw meat same way. 1 slice of ham, or meat from a cooked knuckle — also minced. 1 tablespoonful minced onion, a clove of garlic and a bayleaf, both minced, a teaspoonful of black pepper and same of salt. After thoroughly mixing these, taking care to have a small proportion of fat meat included, spread a little between the cuts, draw a twine around from end to end, crowd the pieces close together in one pan, cover with oiled paper and bake not less than two hours with frequent basting. Make gravy in the pan as at No. 1062. To serve, take the slices from the bone, each with its portion of stuffing, and the strained gravy pour over. The pieces of mutton named above always accum- ulate in the hotel meat house because they will not make the shapely chops that are so much coveted aud there is not sufficient demand for plain roast mutton. And yet the meat of this cut is of the best. If cooked with any of the savory stuffings that make chickens and turkeys good and roast"d long enough to make them tender without drying them out they are soon brought into use. Half cooked meat mixed with half raw will set and hold the herbs and seasonings and be g^od, but if all cooked meat must be used an egg and little bread crumbs must be added to bind it together. 1199. SmaU Fillets of Beef in Glaze. This simplest of dishes and prime ftivorite with the lovers of stewed meat we find among the dish s (■f Queen Victoria's dinners as " Les petits filets de boeuf dans leur glace " Sometimes it turns up in a menu as " Escalopes de boeuf en demi glace," because the natural gravy of the pieces of beef is boiled down to the condition known as half glaze. Fillet in this case does not mean tenderloin, but only a strip or band of meat, or, it is called a scollop if cut like very small steaks. Take 3 pounds of lean scraps of beef. 2 quarts of water. 1 teaspoonful of black pepper. 2 teaspoonfuls of salt. Caulflower in branches, or small new potatoes for a border. The meat is the small lot of choice loin pieces that are not large or shapely enough for steaks (No. 992). Cut them into strips like fingers. Put them on three houiM before dinner with cold water enough to cover them and the salt and pepper in i and let stew slowly. Skim oif the fat There is nothing to add, nothing to do, but let the liquor boil down to rich gravy, so rich that it stays on the pieces of meat and makes them shine, and dish them up that way with potatoes scooped in ball shapes or something else to border the dishes. The cook who makes the entrees ought to be the one to dish them up, or else his second must be fully intelligent of the purpose and method. One-half the merit of the cooking done by a master of it, over the common, lies in the manner of placing the viands on the dishes. If you tumble a pile of meat 334 on a dish in a disorderly way the little niceties of shaping, glazing, coloring, garnishing, and strain- ing and smoothing sauces into a velvety (veloute) appearance count for nothing; but if it is only three pieces of beef scraps stewed tender and savory with 'heir own natural gravy they should placed be in order, perhaps diagonally, in the dish, with the little garnishing accompaniment of whatever it may be, either siring beans cut in diamonds, or green peas or the like p'aced in two straight lines, also diagonally, across the ends. It is impossible to ex- plain the whys and wherefores of these trifles. But each dish becomes an ornament to its p'ace and the entire course is an invitation in itself. There must be^a'natural aptitude in the cook to understand this feature of the diuner making and then through all the necessary hasie of the operations of serving dinner somehow that effort at tasteful display makes a distinct impression. 1200. Egg Plant Fried Plain Slice the egg-plant without paring into quarter- inch thicknesses, throwing away only the end par ings. Boil the slices a few minutes in salted water to extract the strong taste, drain them and while still m dst dust with pepper, dip both s'des in flour aud fry (saute) them in frying paus on the top of the range in a little clear drippings and send them in fresh done and brown. 1201. Curried Tripe— Italian. 1 pound of tripe — already cooked. 1 cupful of gravy. 1 small onion. 1 teaspoonful of curry powder. 5 hard-boiled eggs. 10 slices of bread. Black pepper and cayenne. Cut the onion across and across and shave it in little bits into a saucepan with a bastingspoonful of the clear tasteless fat frjm the top of the stock boiler and fry until it begins to brown. Sprinkle a rounded teaspoonful of curry powder over the onion, cut the tripe in shred's size of macaroni and two inches long and put it in and shake up over the fire until it is yellow-coated with curry. Add a little black pepper and cayenne and hot meat gravy enough to make it like a thick stew. Cut ten thin slices of bread to the shape of a long leaf, dip one side in the fat in the meat pan and toast lightly on the top shelf of the range. When you dish up put one of these pieces on the edge partly projecting outwards, the spoonful of tripe heaped in the dish and two-quarters of boiled egg cut lengthwise, at the other etid. 1202. Apple Fritters with Sauce. There is the widest difference in quality between apple fritters made in the usual rough and ready way and some others of the best possible sort, s ill while thirty or forty persons out of every fifty are found to take these with apparent satisfaction we will not be the first to complain, but will only sug- gest that they cook through in half the time with- out burning the bat er almost black if care is taken to ascertain that the apples are of ai easy cooking kind; for there are kinds that will never be done through. Take. 8 or 10 apples. 2 cupfuls of flour — J pound. 1 cupful of milk or water. 2 eggs. Pinch of salt. 1 tablespoonful melted lard. Same of syrup. 1 teaspoonful baking powder. It is well worth while to always mix the batter by measure as it wastes time and is unsatisfactory to have to doctor it over again. Wash the apples and dry them, cut in slices with- out paring and throw away only the end pieces. If good apples the slices should not be very thin. Put, the flour and all the rest into a pan and stir rapidly together and beat the ba'ter thus made un- til it is smooth. Drop in the apple slices, take them up coated with batter and drop from a spoon into a saucepan of hot lard. Fry sbout 8 minutes. Break off the rough fragments as you dish them and pour over a large spoonful of pudding sauce or No. 477. They are more elegant with the apples pared and cored and then sliced into thick rings. Study of Notable Menus. Says a newspaper: "Very s mple was the menu of the dinner at Dantzic, when the emperors of Germany and Russia met. It was this: Potage tortue, a l'Anglaise. Turbot et saumon garnis. Filet de boeuf, braise. Legumes. Filets depoulets, aux truffes. Chaudfroid de cailles. Salade. Glaces. Compote, Dessert. A glass or two of champagne, and the meal was over. To the dread of bombs their imperial high- nesses do not mean to add the horrors of dyspepsia," TEANSLATION. The simplicity is rather apparent than real, the fewest possible words being used to indicate the dishes served which are: English turtle soup, two 335 kinds of fish, turbot and salmon, both garnished or decorated perhaps very elaborately, and of course differently cooked, a braised tenderloin of beef with some sort of accompaniment not men- tioned. Vegetables are bunched together in one word, "legumes." Fillets of fowls with truffles, in some shape, ^hut whether as truffle sauce or other- wise not indicated. The favorite "chaudfroid" of quails occurs here again. Salade has but one word, Ices, which may have been various, the same. Compote may have been a work of art in the shape of a combination of fruits in syrup with cream in a border mould or with cake. Dessert, is but the title head for an unknown quantity contributed by 'terers, confectioners, cheesemakers and others. Fifth Day. Cream of fowl soup. Ribs of beef with Yorkshire pudding. Larded sweetbreads with green peas. Celery and cheese — Italian. Peach fritters. 1203. Cream of Fowl Soup. This following is the generally received Potage a la Reine, but it should be known that there are several variations. A case has been known of a fashionable city restaurateur who sent for a noted cook from a leading eastern hotel that he might have the advantage of the best skill obtainable in his business, only to find that they differed on such points as whether potage a la Reine should be made with almonds or not, to a degree of positiveness that soon put an end to the engagement. There have been almond cream soups always, Spanish, Italian, and French, sweet, gras and maigre — native to countries where almonds were plenty, the latter mixed with oatmeal instead of chicken, but the Queen soup or potage a la Reine in present use seems to have originated with Ude, since he gave out what he termed his improved receipt for making it, set- ting aside his first way, and does not use almonds. Still there were others who thought they improved it, and Bi-hop, a Windsor Castle cook, gives us an especial "potage a la Queen Victoria" that does con- tain the paste of pounded almonds, as well as that of chicken and hard boiled yolks of eggs. An- other calls that "puree of fowl a la <"elestine," after a stage celebrity of that time, while he adopts Ude*s potage a la Reine and calls it "puree of fowl, a la Reine." These points are of interest to stewards and cooks, and may remind them of how two knights, in the fable, fought over the question of what the shield was made of that they found set up by the highway and one of them had seen only the side that was made of gold and the other the opposite side that was made of silver. To make the soup take 3 gallons of chicken or veal broth, Meat of 4 fowls, or 3 quarts when cut up, 1 quart boiled rice, 1 small onion, 2 heads of celery, 2 blades of mace, 1 quart of cream — or milk and some butter, Salt and cayenne. It is frequently the case that there is an abund- nnce of chicken broth on hand when fowls have been boiled for dinner the previous day. Set it on to boil with the bones of the fowls and if necessary a veal shank to make it richer, the onion, celery and mace and no other vegetables or seasouings. Mince the chicken meat fine, then pound it and the rice together in a mortar, thin it down with hot broth and force it through a seive. Boil the cream separ- ately. At time to dish up strain the chicken broth into the puree, stirring all the while. Season with salt and cajenne and add the boiling cream. The soup should not be allowed to boil after the differ- ent parts are mixed together. Any kind of rich soup or stew liquor will curdle cream or milk if they are boiled together. This and similar cream soups will generally curdle slightly while keeping hot in the tureen, but not to a degree that makes much differ- ence provided it is not allowed to boil and then settle, 1204. Ribs of Beef with Yorkshire Pudding. It would be a very popular dish if better under- stood. According to the original usage it should be beef roasted on a spit with the pudding in a tin reflecting oven underneath catching the gravy and baking at the same time, and the next way to that is to set the meat on a trivet or frame standing in the dish of pudding and both baked together, the pudding being of course saturated with the gravy and drippings. But this requires the steady and moderate heat of a brick oven. Either way, it must be seen, a dish is made that is very different from what some restaurants offer with the same name, which is a square of tough pudding as dry as a piece of bread, made long before the meal, and thrust into the side of a dish of meat as if for a superfluous sort of ornament only. It can be served almost iu the original style with almost its original softness and richness by cooking the rib ends of beef carefully as directed at No 1022, and the Yorkshire pudding at No. 408, and put the latter in to bake only fifteen minutes before time to serve, and only half an inch deep in the pan. Then serve a square or oblong cut in the dish that cut of beef rib without bone, and the wiseb 336 gravy obtainable frjm the roast beef poured over them. Yorkshire pudding made from the receipt above referred lo is rich enough for anything, even for pudding wiih sweet sauce. 1205. Larded Sweetbreads with Peas. For 24 dishes take 12 selected calves' sweetbreads. 1 pound of salt pork or bacon. 2 quarts of chicken or veal broth. 2 ounces of butter. Seasonings; mashed potatoes. 2 cans of French peas. Take sweetbreads large enough to be split in two. Wash them and steep in cold water. Boil about 15 minutes in soup stock with a dash of vinegar in it — which helps to keep them white — then take them out and press them between two pans until cold. At the same time set the chicken stock on the tire to boil down to half the quantity. Cut the pork into thin strips. Split the sweet- breads and lard them with it in regular order, drawing the strips through. Trim the edges to an even shape. Butter the bottom of a shallow saucepan and lay in the sweetbreads with the remaining trimmings of salt pork and piece of onion, turnips and celery, bruised pepper corns, and enough of the reduced broth, to fill the spaces without floating the sweet- breads. Let simmer with the lid on about half an hour. Then take them up into another vessel; add the remaining broth to the gravy, strain it into anoiher saucepan and not thicken it but skim and then boil it, down to clear glaze and pour it over the sweet- breads just before dishing them up. Part of these preparations can be gone through the previous evening wheu the dish is for dinner. When to be served spread mashed potatoes thinly in a large dish and cut out flats, place one in each dish with an egg-slice or knife, setting it with a diagonal slant across the dish, a sweetbread on top, and green peas in a similar slanting line at each end of the dish. 1206. Baked Celery and Cheese— Italian. A two-quart panful of celery cut small. 2 cupfuls of grated cheese. \ cupful of butter or roast meat fat. 2 cupfuls of brown sauce. Pepper and perhaps salt. 1 cupful of cracker meal. Cut the celery in pieces an inch and a half long and split to about twice the size of macaroni and boil 15 minutes in salted water. Drain, put in a buttered small baking pan, sprinkle in the cheese, and pepper liberally; pour over good well-flavored brown sauce, or the gravy without fat from the roast meat pan, sift cracker meal over the top and bake it long enough for the cheese to be melted in it and the flavors well mingled. This can be made a very excellent dish aud one in great request with a good qmlity of cheese and gravy not too salt. Serve in flat dishes with or without a fried crust or toast. The baking is not essential, but when the oven is crowded it wi 1 be almost as good gently simmered on top. 1207. Peach Fritters. Take ripe freestone peaches raw, peel and cut them in halves. • Mix up a batter the same as for apple fritters at No. 1202, and use the peaches the same way. Serve with wine or any other pudding sauce. Study of Notable Menus. Banquet at the Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago, John B. Drake, proprietor, September 1883. Given by the citizens in honor of a visiting Lord Chief Justice. Covers laid for 400 "The entire apartment was decorated in as pro fusely rich a manner. It seemed as if the gardens of the West had been despoiled to furnish floral trophies for the occasion. The chandeliers were draped with smilax, the entrance was gorgeously festooned. The brilliance of electric lights flooded the apartment, and the strains of music, now giy and now patriotic, crept through the" perfume-laden air and added melody to splendor." MENU. Blue Points. Green Turtle Soup. Boiled Kennebec Salmon. Sliced Tomatoes. Fillet of Beef, with Mushrooms. Lima Beans. Young Turkey, with Jelly. Baked Stuffed Tomatoes. Sweet Potatoes. Sweetbreads Larded. Green Peas. Peach Fritters, Claret Sauce. Pate of Chicken. Champagne Sherbet. Roast Prairie Chicken. Broiled Snipe. Dressed Celery. Chicken Salad. Brandy Jelly. Biscuit Glace. Cake. Tutti Frutti. Fruit. Coffee. Roquefort. The Steward of the Grand Pacific Ho'el is James F. Atkinson; Chief Cook, Constance Wolff; Pastry Cook and Confectioner, Pierre Caluori. 337 COMMENTS' The Chicago Times Baid: "The dinner was elegant- ly served in courses; it was an English dinner given to >m Englishman. The hill of fare was the acme of good taste; i 1 was printed in good Anglo-Saxon so that everybody could read it without hiring an in- terpreter." Sixth Day. Coney Island clam chowder. Fricandeau of minced veal. Pork tenderloin with cabbage. Celery in cream. Poached eggs — Andalusian. Farina cake with jelly. 1208. Clam Chowder Style. Coney Island The clam chowder so popular in the restaurants as a lunch dish is more" jf a stew than a soup, being thick with clams and potatoes; a large plate of it makes a hearty meal for a person. It is conse- quently unsuitable to serve as soup at hotel dinners unless modified by the addition of more liquid. The following makes an available soup without materi- ally changing its character: 2 quarts of clams and their liquor — or three large cans. 6 quarts of soup stock. 2 quarts of raw potatoes cut in pieces. Butter size of an egg. 2 cupfuls of sliced onions. 2 large slices of raw ham. 1 quart of tomatoes chopped small. 2 teaspoonfuls mixed thyme and savory. 12 cloves, 1 bayleaf, parsley. 1 tablespoonful each of black pepper and salt. The different articles should be made ready sep- arately and placed conveniently for use. Have the c'ams scalded and then cut in pieces and the liquor saved. Cut the potatoes in large squares and slice the onions. An hour before dinner put the butter and ham in a saucepan together and the onions on top and set over the fire. Stick the cloves in a small onion ad- ditional and tie that up with the bayleaf and pais- ley and throw in and also the p wdered or minced herbs, and put, on the lid and let stew slowly. In about 15 or 20 minutes, or before the contents begin to brown, put into the same saucepan the soup stock, clam liquor, tomatoes, potatoes, pepper and salt, ami let cook until the potatoes are done. Then take out the soup bunch and ham, put in the cl.ms and let boil up once before it goes into the tureen. It is expected that the potatoes will sufficiently thicken this chowder, but they should not be al- lowed to boil so much as to disappear altogether. 1209. Fricandeau of Minced Veal. Africandeau is defined as meaning something pleasant, to the taste, also as stewed veal, also, a person food of dainties. The dish following has become known to some extent under the name. The more elaboratelarded, stuffed and braised fricandeau will be found further on. Take. 1 pound or quart of raw veal, minced. 1 pound or three pints of cooked veal same. 1 small onion. 2 bay leaves, savoiy.. 1 cupful minced ham. 4 thin slices of bacon. 1 teaspoonful each of salt and pepper. Let one-fourth of the meat of both kinds be fat. Shave all dark outside from the cooked meat before mincing it. Fry the onion cut up small in a spoon- ful of drippings and when it begins to brown mix it with the meat and all the o'her ingredients except bay leaves and bacon. Press the meat — which is 'ike sausage — into a 8-quart pan of a deep and nar- row shape, smooth over, lay the bay leaves and ba- con slices on top and bake in a slow oven about an hour. Turn it out, cut carefully in slices like roast' meat, and serve with a brown meat gravy poured under. 1210. Pork Tenderloin with Cabbage. Select 4 large tenderloins — they weigh nearly a pound each — boil them in stock well salted for about an hour; take up and let them cool. At the same time cut a head of summer cabbage in quarters, take out, the hard stem and boil the cabbage about 45 minutes or until tender. Drain it then, season and chop it. Cut the tenderloins into round slices (scollops). When you have taken up one kind of your roast din- ner meat let the pan dry down on top of the range until it begins to fry and the gravy sticks to the bottom and then put in the sliced tenderloin and let the pieces get a bright glaze and slight touch of brown on both sides. Dish up cabbage in the dish with two or three slices of tenderloin pressed down edgewise, as in a border, and a spoonful of light-colored brown sauce. 1211. Celery in Cream. Cut celery in lengths a little shorter than aspar- agus, split the bioad stalks to make them all of one size, tie in bunches, boil in salted water about half an hour, then drain and lay in a bright baking pan, removing the twine at the same time. Make a cup- ful of cream sauce (No. 931) and pour it over the celery and keep hot on the top shelf in the oven where it will get a yellow bake ou top without cook- 338 ing and drying. Serve on flat dishes, the celery placed as it lay on the pan. 1212. Poached Eggs— Andalusian. One form of ocufs a la religieuse or religious peo- ple's eggs for Friday dinners. Stew down some strained tomatoes with finely minced onion in it to a thick puree, and brown sauce likewise in equal quantity and mix them together and add pepper sauce to make it pungent. Have ready some beets in vinegar and cipers. Poach eggs as they are called for, in good shape as shown at No. 1139; put a spoonful of the thick sauce or puree in a flat dish and a poached egg in the middle and ornament with shapes stamped out of pickled beets, and capers. 1213. Farina Cake with Jelly. 3 pints of milk or water. 10 ounces of farina — 2 cups small. 1 cup of sugar. Butter size of an egg. 3 eggs. Pinch of salt. Boil the milk (or water) with half the sugar in it, sprinkle in the farina like making mush. Let it cook slowly at the back of the range balfanhour or more, Mix in the butter and eggs. Pour it into a pan that will not soil the botom — a bright tin pan will do — about an inch deep. Bake 10 min- utes, then take it out of the oven and dredge the remaining sugar over the top. Bake it again and the sugar will melt into a crisp glaze. Dish up squares or oblongs with a teaspoonful of bright jelly in the dish. Study of Notable Menus. The following was printed in the Daily National Hotel Reporter at the time, it is valuable as an ex- ample of the most advanced methods of setting out a banquet: On December 3d the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly gave a breakfast at the Hotel Brunswick, Boston, in h; nor of the seventieth birthday of Oli- ver Wendell Holmes, the famous author and poet. The banquet hall of the Brunswick was a fl >wer garilen. Six long tables occupied the centre of the flo r. Four of these werearranged lengthwise with the room, while the other two were placed at right angles to them, one at each end of the room. The space betweeu the tables and the windows looking out upon the street was filled with palm trees of huge size, placed in tubs of earth, which were in turn placed upon blocks or pedestals. The decora- tions, exc'usively floral, were very elaborate. The four large mirrors on the side walls of the hall were tastefully hung with festoons of smilax intermingled with flowers of various kinds. The mantels were also profusely filled with rare flowers and plants, while the tables themselves were so c >vered with roses, carnations, camellias and other fl »wers that it seemed doubtful at first how the courses could be served. Two large baskets of flowers were set at the end of each table, and at the corner of each were strewn, in apparently loose piles, a lot of flowers. It looked as if a careless elbow might dis- arrange and upset these fragrant heaps, but a closer inspection showed that their stems were neatly tied together. Tuis is said to be the latest Boston wrin- kle in the arrangement of flowers. In the centre of the top and bottom tables were immense oblong baskets of flowers, from which delicate trails of smilax, with here and there a bright colored flower, ran gracefully in and out among the silver dishes. Thegues's enjoyed the following MENU. Fillet of sole, tartar sauce. Stuffed Saddle-Rock oysters, roasted. Omelette, with chicken livers. Cutlets of chicken, French peas. Fillet of beef larded, with mushrooms. Potato croquettes, tomatoes. Broiled woodcock, on toast. Roast quail, stuffed with truffles. Dressed celery. Creams and ices, Cakes. Fruits. Coffee. COMMENTS. The sole, we believe, is not found in American waters, although other flat fishes of a similar sort, such as plaice and flounders, are; and it is frequent- ly written in a menu as English sole; the circum- stance of their having to be imported enhancing the flavor of the viands for an exceptional occa-ion. They are filleted, whenever, after skinning, the bone is taken out and then maybe cooked either by bread- ing and frying, rolled up in coils — as would very likely be the way where -\ large number were to be served — or by broiling. Tartar sauce is, or used to be, only another name for mayonaise, with certain seasonings added as stated at No. 903; but in this country a hot tartar sauce has come into use which is but slightly different from Hollandaise — being a rich yellow, like softened butter, the method of making it is at No. 904. Stuffed oysters (Nos. 812 and 813) for a large party might be finished as a pan roast (No.841) after stuffing. Omelette wi h chicken livers as at No. 1150. Chicken cutlets are some- times flattened croquettes with a bone inserted to make the [imitation of the shape of a lamb chop breaded, but it is more than likely these were a differentand better aiticle, the cuts of chicken with 339 the trimmed joints, either broiled or fried as at No. 1217. Concerning the fillet of beef an American writer on dinner-giving remarks: "Cue sees a fillet of beef a' aim st every dinner party. 'That same fillet with mushrjoms,' a frequent diner-out will say. I hope to see it continued, for among the sub- stantial there is nothing more satisfactory." Po- tato coquettes as at No. 951 would be the elegant style for this course. The tomatoes were most likely plainstewed, but stewed down rich. Broiled wood- cock en toast the sime as quail on toast, (No. 1133.) Perhaps the highest effort at luxury among the dishes served was that which required an acquaint- ance with the literature of gastronomy, such as the lit- erary company present on this occasion might be ex- pected to possess for a full appreciation of its meri's, the dish of quail stuffed with truffles. Says Brillat Savarin: Of all kinds of game, properly so-called, the quail is perhaps the chief favorite, giving pleasure not only by taste but by its form and color. Only ignorance can excuse those who serve it up other- wise than roasted or en papilottes (in paper; broiled, twisted up in a sheet of writing paper cut to fit, or boned, and roasted in a paper case), because its flav- or is so easily lost, that if the animal is plunged in any liquid it evaporates and disappears. The word- cock is also a bird well deserving notice, but few know its good points. It should be roasted under the eye of a sportsman, especially the sportsman who killed it.'' It is the stuffing of truffles that makes this a dish out of the ordinary way, for it does not matter that the truffle in itself is not a thing that the generality of people would go wild over, le'as-t or all the truffle that has been canned, kept and trans- po ted acioss the ocean, it is its association in innu- merable anecdotes of great and famous people, their feasts and presents, their dissipation of fortunes in the. purchase of a luxury of which the superlative attraction lay in the exorbitant price it commanded, putting it out of the reach at some periods of any hut the wealthiest individuals. Says the author above quoted: "Whoever says ' truffle," utters a word associated with many enjoyments. The origin of the truffle is unknown; it is found, but how it is produced, or its mode of growth, nobody knows Men of the greatest skill have studied the question; and some felt certain they had discovered the seeds and thus could multiply the truffle at will. Vain efforts and deceitful promises! Their planting pro- duced no crop; and it is, perhaps, no great misfor- tune, for since truffles are often sold at fancy prices, •hey would probably be less thought of if people cculd get plenty of them and at a cheap rate. The glory of the truffle may now (in 1825) be said to have reached is culmination. 1v ho can dare men- tion being aUa dinner ualess it had its piece truffee •? However good an entree may be, it requires truffles 'o set it off to advantage. In a word, the truffle is the very gem of gastronomic materials." The same author in anoiher j/lace outlining his conceptions of what might be regarded as third-class, second-class and first-class dishes, names in the ascending order, respectively, turkey stuffed with chestnuts; turkey .'done" (stuffed) with truffles, and truffled quails with rmrrow. A hotel keeper correspondent of the National JIoul Reporter a few years ago gave his experience in this wise: He said he had read and been interested in the stories about the truffle and the fondness of many noted people for it; had read how the once famous Haytien emperor Soulouque had beggared himself in their purchase: had read of the rich aroma of the truffle that had plunged royal gour- mands in ecstasies, particularly by themethidof filling a quail with one large truffle, closing it and roasting, and serving with no other accompaniment but that which not only permeated the bird, but filled the apartment with perfume, and he purchased some in cans — enough of them for a Christmas feast for many people — and he was disappointed. The truffle as he found it was not that kind of a tuber at all, but tame, flat, almost tasteless. Per- haps another remark of Brillat Savarin's may help to explain the grounds of the difference between ro- mance and reality in this case, without even con- sidering the effect of the canning process, he says : "The best truffles in France come frjm Perigord and High Provence, and it is about January they are in full flavor. Those of Burgundy and Dau- phine are inferior, being lurd and wanting in fla- vor. Thus, there are truffles and truffles as there are 'faggots and faggots.' " The point we wish to make for those who get up banquets is, that a truffled dish, particularly a dish of quail stuffed with truffles, may be a far more in- teresting affair to persons who, like the hotel-keeper correspondent, have read and had their imagina- tions stirred by truffle stories than to those who may have never heard of the existence of such an edible, and therein lies the use or uselessness of truffles at an American feast. In regard to the breakfast in question at the Hotel Brunswick, it has to be re- marked that fresh truffles, and very good ones, are imported in jars, without difficulty, at the time of the principal truffle harvest, which is in December. 1214. Braising— What it Means. Braising is that way of 'cooking meat in a covered skillet or "spider" — or whatever the local name for the covered pot may be — by which the old Virginia and Maryland colored cooks, "to the manor born," make their favorite dishes so surprisingly appetiz- ing both by the odor while the cooking is in pro- gress and by the juicy tenderness of the fowl, pig, turkey or coon, or whatever else it may be when done. It. is the way of cooking in front of an open wood fire over coals drawn out upon the hearth with 340 live conls by the shovelful pi'ed upon the rimmed HA of the oven or skillet, while the odorous steam shoots out in jets from beneath, all around. If it were thoroughly and popularly understood that that is th» meaning of "bra'sed" meats in the hotel bill of fire, it is obvious such dishes would possess an interest for a great many people that they do not now, and, beside?, there w uld be a sort of standard of compa ison to try the success of the hotel in imi- tating home cooking. The trouble evidently is that the word "braise" conveys no meaning whatever connected with edibles to American ears, and still i here is no other, and this happens to be a proper term for the process. The native cooks call it •'smothering," if they give it a name at all, but they also c»ll it smothering to bake a panful of meat in gravy in the oven. In fact there is no name for braise but "cook-it-in-the-skillet," and that designation is a little unhandy for the purposes of a bi'l of fare. Brazier is the English, and braisiere the French proper name for the camp oven or skillet above mentioned, a vessel made to hold burn- ing chare al upn the lid whi'e set upon a bed of live coa's. Braised meats are those cooked in a braisiere. The French braise, with an accent over the last letter, is the same as our braised. For- merly it was always spelled w th a z, and is still so met with sometimes and occasions disputes- The reason for the confusion of methods may be found in attempted spelling reforms and certain lexicographical transmogrifications. The good of the braising process is that it cooks the article in super -heated steam and softens the fibres in a way that baking and roasting cannot effect, and when, at length, the water is all expelled in steam imparts a surface brown without drying the meat. The hotel cook can either carry out the process in proper form or imitate it with a covered vessel set in the oven. Seventh Day. Chicken broth. Braised fillet of beef. Chicken cutlets icith vegetables. Spaghetti and tomatoes — Palermetane. Terrapin in cases, Maryland style. Rice croquettes, sabayon sauce. 1215. Chicken Broth. 2 gallons of chicken st ck. 4 cupfu's of vege ables cut small. 2 cupfuls of chicken meat in dice. \ cupful minced parsley. Salt and white pepper. Strain off the liquor in which chickens have been boiled, or chickens and and turkeys together, into the soup pot. It will be better flavored if there has been a small piece of salt port boiled with them, not enough for decided taste but only a seasoning Skim off all the fat; cut several sorts of vegetables, in very small dice and set them to boiling in the broth an hour before the meal. Cut she chicken in pieces twice as large and add it later, and the pars- ley last. The broth is intended to be thin and simple, but a bastingspoon of mixed starch thicken- ing may be added to give a little substance. Avoid chopping soup vegetables if possible. Chicken meat, at any rate, should always be carefully cut to an even size. White pepper is commom black pepper that has had the outside hull rasped off before grinding. 1216. Braised Fillet of Beef. Cut a pound of fat bacon or firm salt pork into long strips about the size of a common pencil and lard a fillet of beef with them,drawing them through the meat from one side to the other with a large lance larding needle, and in such a slanting direc- tion that the slices of fillet when cut w 11 show the spots of fat all through. Clip off the projecting ends to a uniform length. Put the scraps of bacon into a deep saucepan, the fil!et on them, an onion stuck with cloves, a piece of turnip, celery, carrot, a bay leaf, and parsley, and a pint of soup stock. Cover with a sheet of oiled paper and the lid and simmer at the side of the range about two hours, adding more stock as it is needed but not enough for the meat to float in it. Then take the fillet up on a baking pan and brown it in the oven. Strain the liquur it was braised in, skim off the fat, then boil it down to half-g'aze and pour it over the slices of fillet as they are dished up. Beef thus permeated with the flavor of bacon and vegetables is no longer like plain beef but is suitable to be served in the middle of a dish of cabbage or macaroni, or with dumplings or potatoes in the same dish. The obiecdou against the use of the fillet or ten- derloin of beef for hotel dinners is that it is a scarce cut and is needed in every hotel much more for cutting into steaks for breakfast than for a dinner entree. There may be no such an objection with a few city hotels that have well-supplied markets at hand, but there are other places, particularly plea- sure resorts, in large numbers, where it is impossi- ble to purchase a fillet even for a party dinner with- out buying a whole quarter of beef with it. In such an exigency it may answer every purpose to take a rib roast of beef and cut out the choice portion the whole length, like a tenderloin in shape, lard it and braise it tender. The appearance is the same as the real fillet. The remainder of the rib roast can be used in other ways so that there will not be much loss. 341 1217. Chicken Cutlets with Vegetables. These are the four principal cuts of a chicken — the two legs with all the meat that can be taken off withthem, and the two fir,-t wing joints with aside of i he breast to each. Take them off raw. Chop off the knob ends of the bone , then scrape them up like a lamb cutlet. Simmer the cuts in broth for about ten minutes, then place them in press between two pans with a weight on top. When cold remove the skin and trim them to look like a lamb chop. They will not retain any shape unless partially cooked as stated, and then made cold. Season them, dip in egg and cracker meal and fry in the wire-basket in a pan of hot lard. Only young and tender chickens can be used in this way. To border the dishes cut different sorts of vege- tables in shreds as if for Julien soup, cook them in water and then drain them dry and mix in some cream sauce. Place the cutlet in the middle. 1218. Spaghetti and Tomatoes— Paler- metane. The name of the style has reference to the city of Falermo in Italy. Spaghetti is macaroni in another form; a solid cord instead of a tube. This is a favorite way with the Italians. The dish need not be baked. They sfmply boil the macaroni and then make it rich, not to say greasy, with the other articles and gravy from the meat dishes. 1 pound of spaghetti. 1 cupful of minced cheese. 2 cupfuls of ihick stewed tomatoes. 2 cupfulsof brown meat gravy. Break the spaghetti into three-inch lengths, throw it into boili'g water and let cook tweny minutes. Drain it, put it into a baking pan, mix in the cheese, tomatoes, gravy, and if nece-sary a lump of butter Mix up and let simmer together about t alf an hour, either in a slack oven or on the stove hearth. It will be all ea* en if not, made too strong flavored with tomatoes or too salt — the common mistakes. The gravy and stewed-down tomatoes being already seasoned no more salt should be added to the dish. 1219. Terrapin in Cases, Maryland Style. For 50 cases, 8 to 12 terrapins will be required, depending on the size. They reach to 7 or 8 pounds each in weight, ocassi mally, but yield only a fourth of the live weight of clear meat free from bone, for serving incases. Having prepared the terrapin and stock as directed at No. 803 cut the meat into pieces size of cranberries. Keep the black fat and eggs separate on another dish. Boil down the liquor the terrapin was stewed in, thicken it, strain and re- duce as detailed at No. 805 and add half a pint of Madeira. Take large paper cases, brush them inside very slightly with clear melted butter. Mince the crumb of a stale loaf very fine, partially moisten with spoonfuls of m lted butter poured over and stirred about; then line the bottom of the cases with the crumbs and bake them about three minutes Take them out, neatly fill the cases with terrapin meat, place the terrapin eggs and bits of fat around the edge and pour in the thick reduced sauce. Fifteen minutes before time to serve set the cases in the oven on a baking sheet, and send to table hot. There should belittle cakes of fried hominy served on separate dishes to complete the style. 1220. Rice Croquettes, Sabayon Sauce. 1 cupful of raw rice — J pound. 3 cupfuls of water and milk. Butter size of an egg. Sugar same amount — 2 ounces. 3 yolks of eggs. Little salt, and flavoring of nutmeg. Wash the rice and boil it with two cups of water with the steam shut in. Add a cup of milk when it is half cooked and let it simmer soft and dry at the bac'i of the range. Mash it a little with the spoon; mix in the other ingredients. When cool makeup in long rolls with flour en the hands. Fry in the wire basket in a deep saucepan of hot lard till light brown. Serve with a spoonful of sabayon sauce thick and smooth, No. 493, or 495, which is simpler and good enough with rum added. One quart of cooked rice is equal to the quantity named in the above receipt, but it must be dry and not enriched with butter. The common annoyance in making croque'tes is their tendency to melt and fall to pieces in the fat, or at least come out soft and greasy. It is owing to too much moisture in the mixture; but even the lea«t experienced assistant need not fail if the ingredients are measured. Study of Notable Menus. Dinner at the Leland Hotel, Warren F. Leland, proprietor, Chicago, September, 1883. Given by an eminent lawyer to a visiting Lord Chief Justice. "The ladies' ordinary of the hotel had been trans- formed for the occasion into a bower of beauty. Covers were laid for seventy five persons. The tab'es were arranged in horse-shoe form. The Southern window of the apartment had a curtain literally composed of smi'ax, and on the surface was the motto of the house of Coleridge worked in im- mortelles on a white carnation background, "Qualia Vita Finis Ita" — as the life is so the end. A wreath 342 composed rf white rosebuds was suspended frjm the curtain by a white satin ribbon, and on the window drapery overhead was the motto, ''Dulce est Desipere in Loco" — Sweet it is to play the fool at the right time. Around the entire room streamers in gold letters on a blue background were neatly arranged, bearing the names prominent in English and American jurisprudence. The menu cards and accompanying invitations were of the most elaborate kind and elegant speci- mens of typographical art." MENU. Huitres sur Coquille. Puree de Volaille a la Reine. Boudins a la Richelieu. Caviar. Foies Gras. Filets de Pompano, Normande. Concombres, Pommes Duchesse. RoastBeef al'Anglai e, Yorkshire pudding Selle de Chevreuill. Terrapin en caisse a la Maryland. Supreme de ris d i Veau aux Truffes. Beccasines a la J. inville. Sorbet a la Marquise. Canvasback Duck au cresson. Ce'ery. Glaces. Gateaux. Cafe. The steward of the Leland H tel is Daniel Lace; Chief Cook, Xavier Grosjean; Pastry Cook and Con- fectioner, Henri Born. TRANSLATION. Oysters — On shell. Soup — Puree or cream of fowl, or potage a la Reine, (No. 1203.) Side dishes othors d'oeuvre — Caviar — probably spread on shapes of toast (No. 727)—; foies gras— fat livers, goose livers, roasted in a pan with season- ings, trimmed and sliced cold and ornamented in the dish with aspic jelly. Richelieu puddings; hot side dish to serve in place of patties or bouchees at same time with the soup — boudin is the French word for pudding of the class known as black pudding, liver pudding and the like — the wiley Cardinal Richelieu seems to have been fond of fried onions since all the dishes and ragouts bearing that desig- nation taste of them — this is a little pat of forcemeat like No. 961, but made with pounded chicken in- stead offish, a spoonful of a mixture of light fried minced onions, mushrooms, and truffles inside, egged over the top; ornamented, and eo iked by steaming a short time. Fish — Pompano (No. 902) split and doubtless broiled, with Normandy sauce, a yellow hot sauce like soft butter, sharp with lemon juice, made like Hollandaise with parsley added — cucumbers — duchess potatoes (No. 957). Removes — Beef and Yorkshi e pudding (No. 1204) — saddle of chevreuil, which is roebuck in particular and stands for venison in general. Entrees — Terrapin in cases (No. 1219) — supreme of veal sweetbreads with truffle", same as No. 1226 in the main, subject to the cook's^own style of dish- ing — s ipe with truffle sauce. Vegetables. Punch — a la Marquise — receipt furnished by Mr. Grosjean: 2 qts ripe peaches chopped: H lbs sugar; 3 q's water; 1 qt maraschino; 1 pt kirsch. Roti — canvas-back duck with cre ; s (No. 1072) — the South Kensington authority states the cse about cress with roast fowls or game birds this way: "The fashion of serving bread sauce with roasted turkey or gime is unknown on the con inent, and the French are especially iatolerant of our 'jpanade,' as they term bread sauce. En revanche, the E g- lish will tot accept water-cress as the best accom- paniment to roast chicken, quai's, or partridges. Never hele3S it is a delicious and appropriate accom- paniment, and one we shall do well to adopt, at least by way of a change." Salad — celery. Cakes, ices, coffee, brandy. 1221. Supremes— What they Are. A supreme of fowl takes that name from the sauce supreme that is poured over the meat. The pieces naturaliy enough are built up in s me regular form wheu it is one large dish served fur a party, but it is still supreme of fowl when it is but one fillet trim- med to a pear shape laid on the individual dish, masked over with the rich sauce and ornamented with whatever goes with it at that time — green peas, asparagus heads or black truffles. This is worthy of more than a passing notice be- cause the supreme de volaille is such a favorite, evi- dently, with great people of the Old World; among those who esteem stewed meats above the roast, and who follow the German-French styles of Bernard and Dubois. The reader of this book will find the supreme occurring frequently in the specimen menus in our book of sa'ads. At a dinner for the the two emperors in Potsdam it appears as "Jilets de poulets aux points d' asp erg es, sauce supreme;" for the royal family of Italy it is "poulards aux points d" asperges;" for the imperial family of France it is "supreme de volaille aux points d'asperges;" at a dinner of Presi- dent Buchanan's at Washington it is "supreme de volaille aux truffes;" and it appears thus frequently in every collection of fine bills of fare. As above remarked, these dishes of chicken, or whatever else, take the name of supreme from the sauce of that name, and it is simply the richest wh'te fauce that can be made. It is cream-colored, §43 made by boiling down clear chicken broth to a jelly, boiling down mushrooms in broth to an equal strength, adding white butter-and-flour thickening (roux), boiling, straining, and then some rich cream. The chicken must be first cooked, then made cold so that it can be trimmed to a symmetrical shape, then made hot shortly before it is wanted in sea- soned broth. The sauce is bright aud glossy and just thick enough to remain on a piece of meat and coat it without being quite a paste, then the aspara- gus heads or cut truffles are placed upon or around it in the way to nroduce the most ornamental effect. Eighth Day. Cream of asparagus soup. Calf's head in omelet. Small chicken pies, French style. Macaroni and cheese — Bechamel. Supreme of sweetbreads, with truffles. Pineapple fritters, curacoa sauce. 1222. Cream of Asparagns Soup. This soup can be made at any time of the year, with either canned asparagus or fresh, while the puree of asparagus can only be made properly when the fresh vegetable can be obtained and cooked green for the purpose. This is a nearly white cream soup with asparagus heads and Conde crusts 6 quarts of soup stock. 3 quarts of asparagus, raw, cut in pieces, or 2 cans. A small knuckle bone of ham. 1 tablespoonful of sugar. \ cupful of minced onion. 1 blade of mace. 3 quarts rich milk. \ pound of butter — a cupful. \ pound of flour — 2 cupfuls. White pepper and salt. Draw off the soup stock already lightly seasoned with vegetables; set on to boil with the knuckle bone or a slice of ham or dry salt pork, onion, mace and some tvhite pepper. Cut off the asparagus peas, or green ends of the heads, and keep them separate) and boil the rest in the stock about an hour. Meantime take the milk, butter and] flour and make cream sauce of them (No. 931). Then strain the soup into the regular soup pot, rub the asparagus pulp through a strainer into it, put in the cream sauce, salt and the asparagus heads, which, if canned, will be all ready, if not cook them x n the soup about 15 minutes. Have brown crusts ready the same as for bean soup and place a few in each plate. 1223. Calf s Head in Omelet. Split the head carefully, dividing the joints with the cleaver but sawing through the rest to preserve the tongue and brains, which take out and, after washiog, cook the brains and keep them ready. Steep the head in water, wash well, then cook in the stock boiler, allowing from one to two hours, ac- cording to size. When tender take it up into a pan of cold water and remove the bones. Having drain- ed it from the water dredge with salt and pepper, sprinkle with the juice of a lemon, and lay each naif, skin downwards, in a frying pan slightly but- tered. For each half of the head make an omelet of 5 eggs, mix in a fourth their bulk of soup stock, add salt and pepper, beat up and then add the brains, cut small and pour into the frying pan around the calf's head. Bake on the botton of the oven about fifteen min- utes, or until the omelet is, set and light brown. Turn it upside down and out of the pan on to a dish and serve by cutting slices of the meat and omelet together Pour a little veal gravy on the meat. 1224. Small Chicken Pies— French Style. The meat of four fowls. 1 quart of brown buttei sauce. 1 quart of potato bal's (Parisienne). 2 tablespoonfuls of minced parsley. Seasonings. 35 oval flats of puff paste. Cut four pounds of cooked chicken meat into slices an inch long and all of one thickness. Make a quart of sauce by lightly browning \ cup of butter and rather more of flour togethei in the oven, and thickening a quart of chicken broth with it; strain it, add a grating of nutmeg, salt, pepper, parsley, the shred chicken, mix all, and keep hot. Cut thin flats of puff paste about three inches long; brush the tops with egg and water, bake a nice color and when done split -hem into top aud bottom. Cook the potato balls as at No. 953. When time to serve place a bottom crust of pastry in the individual dish, and a good spoonful Of chicken in sauce upon it and the top crust on that and a spoonful of Dotal o balls around. 1225. Macaroni and Cheese.— Bechamel. 1 pound of macaroni. 1 cupful of minced cheese. \ cupful of butter. 5 cupfub of water. 1 bastingspoon of flour thickening. 4 eggs. 3 cupfuls of cream sauce. 344 Salt. Parsley. This is yellow macaroni and cheese baked. with a white parsley sauce for atop layer. Boil the macaroni by itself first, throwing it into water that is already boiling and salted. Let it cook only 20 minutes. Then drain it dry and put it into a pin or ba'dng dish holding three quarts. Chop the cheese, not very fine, and mix it with the macaroni, likewise the butter. Beat the eggs, water and spoonful of thickening together, pour them over the macaroni and set the pan in the oven to bake. While it is getting hot boil a pint of milk and thicken it like cream sauce and add chopped pars- ley. Pour it over the macaroni without mixing anl bake a little color on top. This makes a very attractive dish; the yellow cheese and custard showing up in spots among the white oarsley sauce. 1226. Supreme of Sweetbreads with Truffles. Parboil calves sweetbreads that are large enough to split the flat way and press them between two dishes until c >ld. Draw fine strips of fat bacon through with a small larding needle. Split in halves, trim to shape, simmer in butter and a few spoinfuls of broth, with a li tie lemon juice and bunch of parsley, until done, or about 20 minutes. Place a little foundation of boiled rice (spread on another dish and cut out with a cutter) i i each in- dividual dish, a sweetbread with it and the sauce (No. 1221) poured over. Have ready some b'ack truffles cut in slices and stamped to some shape with a fancy vegetable cut ter. Shake them up in the clear part of melted butter in a pan over the fire, and p'ace the shapes a^ an ornamental border carefully upon the white sauce. 1227. Pineapple Fritters with Curacoa. To make the old style frying batter with ale take: 4 cupfuls of flour. 1 cupful of ale. 2 eggs. 1 tablespoonful of sugar dissolved in the ale. 3 tablespoonfuls of melted lard. Put all in a pan at once and stir up thoroughly. Let stand an hour before using and the ale will make the batter light. Drain slices of canned pineapple from theirjuice. dip in batter and fry in hot lard. Drain, and break off the rough edges. When curacoa is added to a starch syrup (No. 490) it changes the color to a beautiful rose pink. : Study of Notable Menus. Dinner at the Gait House, Louisvile, Ky , A. R. Cooper, manager. Tendered by the Bar Association to a visiting Lord Chief Justice, October, 1883 MENU. She'l Oysters. haut barsac Celery. Consomme Imperial, queen sherry. Broiled Pompano, Venitienne. haut sauterne. Hollandaise Potatoes. Soft Shell Crabs, Chancellor Sauce Supreme of Chicken with Truffles. pape clement. French Peas. Roast Fillet of Beef, Sauce Bernaise. Cauliflower. giesler special sec. champagne punch. Roast Saddle of Kentucky Mutton. " Puree of Turnips and Mashed Potatoes. Roast Grouse, Game Sauce " Pastry. Cheese. Vanilla Ice Cream. Fruits in Season. Cafe. COGNAC VIERGE. COMMENTS. Consomme imperial is a sort of diplomatic broth, appaently, for it was named imperial when France was under the empire, and consomme royal when emperors went out and kings came in — in other words, consomme imperial and consomme royal are the same thing; a brandy-colored clear soup with little egg cus ards floating in the plates. Fish a la Venitienne is the Dubois style of a la Maitre d' hotel* (he refined form of butter, lemon juice aid parsley in combination to form a sauce. These menus are in plain language, however, but something else needs to be named. It is often a matter of regret in presenting these specimen bills of fare that they have to be so entire. ly divested of the attractiveness that the ejagravers and printers have bestowed upon the original card. Our own purpose is fully subserved when it is shown what dishes to choose for any particular occasio i and how they are to be prepared but beyond tha h there is a vast aaiount of ingenuity and ta-te to b) exercised in making a handsom e menu. Thus, the bill of the Grand Pacific banquet, a few pages back, was printed with large script for the principal dishes, and small script for the vegetables and accompaniments, on two fine white cards joined 345 by white satin clasps. That of the Leland was a costly souvenir of the occasion which the guests re- tained. The Brunswick of Boston regularly prints the names of dishes in lines of small capita's and adds the sty'e or accompaniment in small print. The Gait House is preeminent for the variety, as well as beiuty of its menus, everything that is brought out in the way of fine cards and specialties invented for particular occasions being called into requisition for its luncheons, dinners and special parties. These things, of course, constitute an- other department of the business r f preparing a banquet which we can only menti n but not do justice to. Regular dinner bill of the Gait House: TABLE D'HOTE. 6 to 8 p. m. Sunday, November 14th, 1883 eaw oysters. Celery. SOUP. Cream of Celery FISH. Broiled Whitefish, Maitre d'Hotel Sauce. BOILED. Young Cap"n with Egg Siuce. ROAST. Young Pig, Apple Sauce, Loin of Beef, au jus, Young Turkey, Ctanberry Sauce, Saddle of Veal with Dressing. (galt house punch.) SALADS. Potato. Lobster. Italian. ENTREES. Cutlets of Lamb with French Peag, Macaroni and Cheese. Sauce Tomato, Banana Fritters, Sherry Wine Sauce. VEGETABLES. Boiled Onions, Boiled Rice. Stewed Tomatoes, Sugar Corn, Boiled and Mashed Potatoes. PASTRY. Steamed Raisin Pudding, Hard Sauce. Apple Custard Pie. Peach Pie. Assorted Cake. CHEESE. Roquefort, Edam American. DESSERT. Charlotte Russe, Taffy Candy, Strawberry Ice Cream, Fruit in Seas in. Coffee. Galt House, Louisville; Ky, The Steward of the Galt House is Charles Astor Howa-d; Chief Cook, Frank Rhul; Pastry Cook and Confectioner; John Theobald. Ninth Day. Old plantation vegetable soup. Smothered rabbit, country style. Backbone stew, egg dumplingc. Baked corn en Muni. Pumpkin bread. 1228. Old Plantation Vegetable Soup. This plain so'ip lacks the element of mystery which makes the bouilabaisse and garbure of Prov- ence, the olla podrida and gaspacho of Spain, the pilaff of Turkey and the ouka of Russia, — not to in- clude the Mexican stew of green chilies, tomatoes and corn — strike such an impression in print, but as long as a soup is considered in the light of some- thing which people like to eat this one will continue to "take the cake." Not necessary to have any stock but, early in the morning, put into a brge boiler. All the marrow out of aleg bone of beef: 4 gallons of cold water. 1 large fowl, a beef tongue, a chine of fresh pork, three or four pigs fset, a piece of pickled pork — one or two or all of them acceding to what may be on hand at the time, but never put in any mutton. All the soup beef besides that the water will cover. Some more marrow out of the broken bones. Let it stew four hours. Then take out the meat and cut up portions of any kind that is not fat; about a quart; and put it in the soup, also, Onions, turnips, cauliflower, celery, or any vege- tables except carrots and bees — about a cupful of each. 1 pint of tomatoes cut in pieces. pint of corn. pods of red pepper chopped. A small bunch of garden herbs — thyme, mar- joram and parsley. Let boil until the vegetates are done, then add a pint of floui and water thickening and salt to ta c tc. There is a good deal of needless anxiety in some places to remove every particle of grease from the top of the soup, some going so far as to u=e blowing paper and, perhaps, a microscope, to find the most minute particles. They would fail if they were to try to find such a honor of the fat that shines in spots on the surface of a good plate of soup among the people who consume it. Most people like fat beef, fat fowls, fat butter, and seem to be quite tolerant of a little fat — marrow-fat — on their soup that they sup with bread and crackers. However, it is a matter of taste, perhaps of training, and in any case we do not want fat by the spoonful in our tureen. NOTES TO THE SECOND EDITION. The "American Pastry Cook" having met with so much favor that a second edition has become neces- sary, it may perhaps be allowed me to make a state- ment of the simple origin of the book, as much as anything in acknowledgment of the kind encourage- ment of a great number of friends who bought un- doubtedly without any thought of using it. All such books, if worth considering at all, have had a motive, either to introduce foreign methods, found a new school of cookery, teach new extremes of or- namentation, or put into practice the theories of great chemists or of new idea doctors — Leibig, Graham, the vegetarians and the like. The "Oven and Range ' series was not so deliberately planned and if a motive may be claimed in this case it is to make good cooks, such as are always wanted, and to raise the occupation of cooks in America at least to the dignity of a recognized trade. When, a good many years ago, I used to find my- self in positions on sea and river, in hotels and re- taurants where the assistants always coming and going were generally willing enough while they stayed, but could not do good work, I began to see the absurdity of knowing what I wanted done and yet being unable to make others understand, and I began pencilling down weights, measures and direc- tions for them to work by — not pastries alone but a little of everything — and hanging these directions on the nails along with each assistant's portion of the bill of fare for the next meal. All cooks that are worthy of being called such are emulative and try to excel. They "hit it exactly" in making a dish, sometimes, are highly elated and wish they could always have such "good luck." In my own practice whenever any of us "hit it exactly" I simply penciled down how it was done, and kept on changing and improving until I was in a great measure independent of the circumstances of the boys "jumping out;" anybody smart enough to work by written directions could make what I told them. These receipts were necessarily plain, and as necessarily correct and reliable, and they were of great value In course of time there were some hundreds of them and they made a bulky package. Is there any wonder that the thought occurred that they would be more useful in print? Is there any need to explain further why the writer has confi- dence in his book ? Those exact and plainly word- ed receipts, with others of course added, form the 1 Oven and Range" cook books. There has been nothing but pleased surprise, kind words and good reports connected with the circulation of the pastry book as far as it has gone already, the anxiety being expressed in numberless instances to obtain more books of the same sort. The careful plan adopted of making the work reliable in every particular has prevented its being written and finished in haste. Little Desserts. — This book has been taken up with avidity by many outside of hotels, seeking instructions how to make nice sweet dishes, some of whom seem to think they know all they need to learn of meat cooking when they can broil and fry, but who acknowledge the difficulty that prevails everywhere when well-to-do people ask why they cannot have at least a few of the dainty trifles at their private tables that thoy have enjoyed in such profusion at a few very good hotels. It is, briefly, because pastry-cooking cannot be picked up like meat frying, but must be learned. In order to help the matter I will suggest things to be tried. Let those who would not have pies every day and only pies, practice the different cream fillings and make all sorts of delectable forms of pastry of them. I have called some of these conserves because the word cream is worked to death. The articles allud- ed to are pineapple cream or conserve, apple cream, orange conserve or tart filling, lemon conserve or lemon honey, transparent pie mixture, cocoanut and lemon pie mixtures, pastry cream or custard, choco- late cream, cheese curd mixtures, and many more that are in the book but which need not be named. Let it be observed that all of the receipts for mak- ing them are perfectly reliable and they can be taken up and used any time without fear of failure. This will be found a perfect little mine of good things. When they are understood make tarts in patty pans of them, then covered tarts, then cheese cakes, apple shortcake, Napoleon cake, Saratoga shortcake, apple turnovers, mince patties, using the different creams or sweets at different times. Then make the open tarts with meringue on top like lemon pies; make apple shortcakes with meringue or frosting on top or between the layers, and so you can keep on indefinitely. Tjen take notice of the fruit charlottes, the apple and peach charlottes and friar's omelet. Since the book has been published I have seen two of the most accomplished French cooks of this part of the country practicing those articles with others from it with evident interest and satisfaction — for it does W 19 Whitehead's Pbofessional Cook Books. THE American Pastry Cook. "The best receipts for making all sorts of nice dishes ever contributed to the American press." — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. "It is eminently valuable in private houses, but is more particularly intended for use in hotels and cafes. The whole realm of literature has been brought to bear to furnish quotations and the re- ceipts are interspersed with spicy dissertations up- on the ethics of the art of cookery."— Colorado Springs Republic. One of the standard works of the culinary library of modern times, is the "American Pastry Cook," by Jessup Whitehead, and published by the Daily National Hotel Reporter, of Chicago. It is the only comprehensible and practical cook book extant, and should be in possession of all cooks, stewards and restaurateurs.— New York Hotel Mail. PRICE $2.0O. Hotel Meat Cooking. Uniform with the Pastry Cook; a continua- tion of the same series. Hotel Oyster, Fish and Meat Cooking, Meat Cutting and Short Orders. SOUPS, ENTREES, AND BILLS OF FARE. For the first timo instructions for cutting meat as practised by hotel cooks are put in print, and the demand for such a book must be a very large one, when the accuracy of its statements and the sim- plicity of its rneihod becomes sufficiently known. Fish and oysters are treated in every known and many original styles; the directions are clear and concise, and can be used in large restaurants and small families with unfailing success. An interest- ing part of the book is the " Cook s scrap-book," consisting of clippings on subjects interesting to cooks and diners, taken from periodicals and papers at home and abroad. A similar "scrap-book" is also added to the "Herald cooking school" noticed below —Publishers' Weekly, N. Y. (Impartial des- cription for information of the book trade.) PRICE $1.50. The "Oven and range cook-books," take their name from the copyrighted column of the Chicago Daily National Hotel Reporter, in which all of their recipes appeared in weekly instalments. This method of publishing made it necessary for the author to test and prove every statement before submitting it to such connoisseurs as the prof essional readers of a prominent hotel paper. It having been proved that the "Oven and range" recipes are thoroughly satisfactory they have been redn ■■ 1 in quantity and made suitable lor family use. J':- >jg met w.th much favor, they are now e<>) ■ 1 book-form and brought within the men' a one. They possess the great merit of lately definite on every point and full of in the most minute particulars. The nu well selected and afford great variety. — Pi Weekly, N. Y. (Impartial description for h tion of the book trade.) It is a very valuable work, very simple, very practical, excellent in arrangement, and admirably adapted to the wants of the average household — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. The Chicago Herald Cooking School has attracted wide attention. Unlike so many writers on culin- ary topics, Mr. Whitehead is practical, exact, and always intelligible, possessing a raro gift of ex- plaining a subject he thoroughly understands, in a manner so clear that others can readily understand it also.— New York Hotel Mail. Tie Clicap Herald. Gntiii School. A professional cook's book for household use, consisting of a series of menus for every- day meals and for private entertainments, with minute instructions for making every article named All plain and easy. A complete family cook book containing soups, entrees and a little of everything. The same plainness and exact proportions as the hotel books, but smaller quantities. PRICE $1.50. ORDERS SUPPLIED BY THE AUYHO.i. Address, National Hotel Reporter, Chicago. Orders supplied by Jansen, McClurg & Co., Western Wews Company and Warden News Compauv. Cnca^o ■ Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati; Hush K. Hildreth Co..' St. Louis ; International News Co., New York. HICH COMMENDATION FROM "THE COURT JOURNAL OF NEW YORK." The Chicago Hebald Cooking School ; num- ber three of the "oven and range cook books," by Jessup Whitehead. This volume, though issuing from a professional source, is designed, not for the jirofessional cook, but for the mistress of the house, the good wife whose pride it is to minister to the physical well being of her houshold. Though adapted to the preparation of the luxurious menus of the rich.it seems to meet especially the needs of plain well-to-do families. The work was published at first by weekly installments in the Chicago Daily Herald, and has thus had the advantage of the comment and criticism of those who tested its re- cipes as they appeared. We cannot speak from our own knowledge of the merits of these recipes, but we have a good word to say of the literary quality of the work— its neatness and clearness of style, and the precision of its directions. The pinch o' this and the handful o' that, of the old cook books are replaced by exact measure, merits and weights. The book is appetizing and has a readable quality, and indirectly conveys the impression that the art to which it is devoted is well worthv the devout study of the educated and refined mistress ot the family circle. Here and there a little literary and scholarly spicing is thrown in, as where after giving directions lor "the New England boiled dinner," the author notices that Homer, although ho de- scribes with gusto a great number of feasts, and in one place makes Achilles do the broiling for an assembly of kings, never once mentions boiling as a mode of cooking, the inference being that this more delicate and complicated operation was the invention of a more advanced stage of social pro- gress. — New York Home Journal. EXAMPLE LESSONS. These books are all my oivn working recipes that I have practiced as a cook, for ye'irs. In order to show that they are reliable, and to introduce the family book into every neighborhood in this city, I offer to come and show how to make anything that may be desired, in your own kitchen, in a feiv min- utes or few hours as the case may be, without fvss or preparations; t r > either one or two, mistress or mi) id. or a small party, either free to buyers of book or for a small recompense for time occupied. Ihave always found this an interesting matter of practice, and. being myself expert in every department, ran let persons choose whatever they may wish to have ex- plained by example. % ^ •J 'o • » * A °o ,tf ^ «feV* A*> •!* • A^ 0.1* <*> ^J. *j ^ % V ,» ^ 4? * *oV >0* ■S?^ £' *fc * % ^ *>~ **£&7°» ,<<.^x £*$te7°» j*\< ^•6* *♦ «> o„ •; • " * % V °<» * • - • " c <> ♦'TV ■» o • » " A <0 v\ -v > ^ -.1 Vt*' V WtRT 9O0KBINWNC Ccani..lte Pe NovOec 1986 H