The spirit of cookery

The varieties of products of the cabbage tribe require much consideration on the part of a culinary writer. Brmsels-sprouts and cauliflower are mostly overboiled in common practice, and assume a mashy condition, which spoils both their appearance and taste. They must be boiled only just so much as is necessary to constitute them done, and yet must have left a certain consistency, which the French describe as croquant, as we have stated above when speaking of asparagus. Brussel-sprouts are best with gravy when hot, but when cold are suitably accommodated with oil and vinegar. Cauliflower associates well with white, or Dutch, sauce ; a more accomplished form is obtained with the aid of a fondue, consisting of bechamel or veloute, with Parma cheese, butter, yolk, glace, and spices, all stirred in a casserole, and poured over the cauliflower. Let this be gratinated in the oven until it shows a light colour, and the result will be much approved of. Savoy cabbage is suitable for many excellent preparations, particularly of the savoury quality, and with forcemeat— stewed or braised with broth, or stewed with a garnish of braised duch, or baked with forcemeat, which is well disposed of in the interior of the excavated heart of the savoy head. Even a schistose arrangement may be given to this dish by alternating layers of savoy-leaves with strata of farce, and rolling the whole in an elongated cylinder, which also admits of easy trenching with a knife. The common green cabbage is also boiled and stewed, or braised with farce (a la ravioli) ; the forcemeat may be placed into the interior of the head, and the whole tied up in a napkin and boiled, or merely held together with twine and braised. The savoury preparations unite best with the natural flavour of cabbage. Red cabbage can only be made acceptable by stewing ; it is never eaten plain-boiled ; it yields an a.greeable pickle by treatment with boiling vinegar. A little wine added to the stewed red cabbage gives it an agreeable flavour ; some add puree of apples, others a roux ; a little vinegar is not amiss ; also a coulis gives richness to the dish. It should be very well done, and improved by being warmed up. It is very tasty, but should be eaten in moderate quantities, as it requires considerable nervous energy for its easy assimilation. Fermented white cabbage, German Sauer-kraut, was weU known to the ancient Romans, and in the treatise on cookery of Cato of Utica occurs a prescription for its preparation ; one of the rustic writers of antiquity has such great faith in its peptic powers that he gives a kind of polytrophic advice, namely, to eat a plateful of sauer-kraut for dessert, which would make such quick work of the digestion of the dinner just had, that another meal could be eaten immediately afterwards. The white cabbage is the largest of all varieties of kales, and produces heads up to five pounds in weight. To prevent it from opening at the top, and to keep it close and white, it is, if intended for winter use, planted in June, and not taken off the field until late in September or October. When thus grown it produces in its tissue more sugar than any other kind of cabbage, namely, 2-3 per cent., besides 2'6 per cent, other non-nitrogenous matters, mainly SAUER-KRAUr