Common-sense papers on cookery

In the first place, flowers, like Mrs. Scratchit’s ribbons, make a great show for sixpence. Where there is a good garden, there ought to be no difficulty in making a dinner-table look nice. All that is required is a little taste. It is well to bear in mind, however, that in selecting flowers dark-green leaves and the colour blue or violet should not be forgotten. We will suppose, therefore, the table arranged : the dessert and plenty of flowers, and nothing else, for we do not believe in the modern compromise so often seen — i.e., some dishes placed on the table, as well as the dessert. Now for the dinner. First — say the time of the year be the present — Julienne soup, bright as sherry, with just a taste of tarragon in it ; a turbot or brill, with lobster sauce ; a dish of chicken cutlets, white as snow, with little small green and red leaves in the centre of each, about half an inch long, and a little red lobster-claw representing the bone, served in a silver dish, with aspic jelly piled up in the centre. Another entrde of eggs and spinach — always a prettylooking dish — some lobster cutlets, and some rissoles. Next a haunch of mutton — i.e., a small roast leg of mutton cut outside the room haunch-fashion, parallel with the bone — and red-currant jelly handed with it. Common-sense Cookery. In small households, where a large quantity of cold meat is undesirable, this is far preferable to a large haunch, and of course it is exactly the same thing, so far as taste and appearance are concerned, when cut. Next, by way of game, have some roast larks, served up in little paper cups containing a rich forcemeat. Only one fowl, and that a moderate-sized one, will be necessary to make both the chicken cutlets and the rissoles. We will now calculate roughly the saving in this dinner when compared with the oldfashioned one we have mentioned. In the first place, Julienne soup can be made far cheaper than mock-turtle ; but we will leave the question of the cost of the soup out altogether. Next the fish ; here again the saving only consists in the fact that it is possible to have a small fish when it is not put on the table, but impossible to have only just enough when it is. Now, warmed-up fish is never nice, yet how often do we see a splendid turbot or cod-fish go down, not a quarter of it eaten ! A cod-fish, by-the-by, is not a particularly easy dish for a cook to serve properly done and yet looking really nice. I shall never forget the look of dismay on a certain face when the cover was taken off a remarkably fine cod that had been specially sent down from a famous City fishmonger. The cook, too, was really a good one, and knew that raw cod-fish is simply A Nice Little Dinner. 85 uneatable. Probably the man, in bringing up the fish, had shaken the dish somewhat roughly, or set it down on the table with too much of a bang. However, the whole of the meat had fallen from the bones in a sort of shower on to the dish, and the gaunt skeleton remained alone, an awful sight, like some of those pictures of the desert with the remains of a camel being hovered over by one or two vultures. In fact, it looked so exceedingly ridiculous that nearly every one laughed, in which laughter the host wisely joined. It was indeed a pretty kettle of fish !