If you have a large centre-dish of trifle, with
whipped cream on the top, a few hundreds and thou-
sands sprinkled over it set it off. Now good whipped
cream is rather beyond the powers of an ordinary
cook, so if you happen to live near a really good
pastrycook’s, you will find it a good plan to have a
man come round just before supper and supply the
whipped cream, but make the rest of the trifle at home.
A Nice Little Supper. 103
It is an exceedingly expensive dish to order, and,
owing to wine, brandy, and liqueurs being requisite in
its composition, one of the very last dishes desirable
to order. Even pastrycooks will often spoil the ship
for the sake of a ha’p’orth of tar, in respect of wine.
To wit, mock-turtle soup. Order a glass of sherry at
a pastrycook’s with your mock-turtle, and throw half
of it into the soup, and see what a difference it makes.
In fact, as a rule, if you give a cook wine for cooking
purposes, they drink the wine themselves, and manage
the cooking without.
As a few last words of advice, in ornamenting your
table, as well as in amusing the children, don’t forget
the crackers.
io4
IX.— SPRING DISHES.
Perhaps no season in the year is more eagerly
welcomed than that of spring — earth’s great annual re-
surrection from death unto life ! How beautiful the
first really spring morning ! A warm, balmy air, a deep
blue sky without a cloud, and bright sun lighting up
like diamonds the water-drops on the fresh green
grass, o’er which the feathery cobwebs drift for the
first time in the year, the very spiders, in their wondrous
instinct, preparing to set their houses in order, to
welcome to their hearts the new-born fly.
The whole earth seems, like a huge chrysalis, to
burst forth from its uniform-coloured shell, and vie
with the butterfly’s wings in beauty and variety of
colour. Spring is, of all times of the year, the brightest,
and the freshest, and the most beautiful !
“ The rose is fairest when ’tis budding new.”
Nor does the change of food come less acceptably
than the change of scene. A moderate enjoyment of
the good things of this world is perfectly justifiable,
or our palates would never have beeji created ; and
while green hedges and fresh bright flowers delight
String Dishes. 105
the eye, a new set of dishes, rendered doubly welcome
by a year’s abstinence, delight the palate.
Who is there so lost to taste as not to appreciate
the first dish of fresh green peas or new potatoes ? —
genuine healthy-grown ones, not forced, which latter
are barely better than those preserved in tins. Then,
again, the first piece of bright-red salmon, when it is
well cooked ; or the nicely-browned forequarter of
lamb, with good wholesome English mint sauce with
it — i.e. mint moistened in vinegar, and not a pint of
vinegar to a small pinch of mint. ✪ Fresh Green Peas
Page 41 · 1 recipe record on this page
Presented as published in 1880. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
If you have a large centre-dish of trifle, with whipped cream on the top, a few hundreds and thousands sprinkled over it set it off. Now good whipped cream is rather beyond the powers of an ordinary cook, so if you happen to live near a really good pastrycook’s, you will find it a good plan to have a man come round just before supper and supply the whipped cream, but make the rest of the trifle at home.
A Nice Little Supper. 103
It is an exceedingly expensive dish to order, and, owing to wine, brandy, and liqueurs being requisite in its composition, one of the very last dishes desirable to order. Even pastrycooks will often spoil the ship for the sake of a ha’p’orth of tar, in respect of wine. To wit, mock-turtle soup. Order a glass of sherry at a pastrycook’s with your mock-turtle, and throw half of it into the soup, and see what a difference it makes. In fact, as a rule, if you give a cook wine for cooking purposes, they drink the wine themselves, and manage the cooking without.
As a few last words of advice, in ornamenting your table, as well as in amusing the children, don’t forget the crackers.
io4
IX.— SPRING DISHES.
Perhaps no season in the year is more eagerly welcomed than that of spring — earth’s great annual resurrection from death unto life ! How beautiful the first really spring morning ! A warm, balmy air, a deep blue sky without a cloud, and bright sun lighting up like diamonds the water-drops on the fresh green grass, o’er which the feathery cobwebs drift for the first time in the year, the very spiders, in their wondrous instinct, preparing to set their houses in order, to welcome to their hearts the new-born fly.
The whole earth seems, like a huge chrysalis, to burst forth from its uniform-coloured shell, and vie with the butterfly’s wings in beauty and variety of colour. Spring is, of all times of the year, the brightest, and the freshest, and the most beautiful !
“ The rose is fairest when ’tis budding new.”
Nor does the change of food come less acceptably than the change of scene. A moderate enjoyment of the good things of this world is perfectly justifiable, or our palates would never have beeji created ; and while green hedges and fresh bright flowers delight
String Dishes. 105
the eye, a new set of dishes, rendered doubly welcome by a year’s abstinence, delight the palate.
Who is there so lost to taste as not to appreciate the first dish of fresh green peas or new potatoes ? — genuine healthy-grown ones, not forced, which latter are barely better than those preserved in tins. Then, again, the first piece of bright-red salmon, when it is well cooked ; or the nicely-browned forequarter of lamb, with good wholesome English mint sauce with it — i.e. mint moistened in vinegar, and not a pint of vinegar to a small pinch of mint.
Records on this page
Fresh Green Peas