The spirit of cookery

and is advised in all cookery-books, particularly as regards pies, puddincjs, ragoiUs, and stetvs. We have never found any advantage to pie or pudding accruing from the practice. Eggs communicate very little taste by their yolks, none by their whites. Neither do they, inversely, acquire much taste in the pie, and the white is generally hard, while the yolk not rarely crumbles. We suspect that the eggs were possibly introduced with a view of somewhat increasing the nutritive value of a dish which — e.g., pigeon pie — was, as regards the particular ingredient of pigeon, but small when compared to the volume. Or we may surmise that the eggs were introduced with the view of diversifying the aspect of the contents of the pie when they appear on the plate of the diner, and were thus intended to act more upon the eye than the palate. On the whole, our consideration terminates adversely to the introduction of eggs in pies, and we come to the result that well-selected quenelles of forcemeat, including such as contain a good deal of yolk as a binding material, are preferable to eggs or yolks, of whatever kind. We name the ingredients of the principal pies, which govern their appellation : Beefsteak ; mutton ; veal and ham ; chicken and ham, simple and compound ; pigeon with grouse with beef ; p>artridge with veal ; gihlet of goose with veal ; rabbit ; hare ; sea pie, or compoiond lark pie — i.e., larks with veal or beef ; fieldfare or blackbird compound pie with stuffing and beef ; woodcock or snipe pie with forcemeat. There is a distinction brought into the foreground in some recipes, between forcemeat and farce, which has not been upheld or mentioned anywhere. Forcemeat is a composition of meat mainly, with only as much of other ingredients as is necessary to bind it ; while farce may, but need not, contain any meat at all, and may consist exclusively of spiced panada with egg liaison. Fish pies derive importauce from the Friday abstinence from meat. The most frequently used materials are eel, salt cod with fish farce, and many others. Pdt6s or raised pies, pies in cases, pasties, are distinguished ' from the pies previously mentioned by their meat being contained in cases made of paste altogether, and ornamented in various fanciful ways. Case and pie are therefore produced independently of each other, and are united only for the last purpose of being sent to table. If the case be edible in a manner, it is certainly not generally eaten by those who consume the contents. Of this experience the potter has availed himself, and has made pie-cases of clay, coloured and ornamented just like those made of paste, and has thereby relieved cooks from a large amount of unquestionably useless labour. The construction of elaborate pie-cases of paste has been considered an art for a long time, but was never carried to such development as in the early part of the present century. We know from Careme’s works that he was employed for long periods by Paris piitemakers, pcbtissiers, to elaborate new designs for such cases, and much of his reputation as a cook rested upon • the external appearance of these cases, and the effects they produced when seen on the table.