The bachelor and the chafing dish

influence he revealed the skill of a sculptor, colorist, and draughtsman, three accomplishments that he considered indispensable in a cook. Ude was the kitchen director of the famous Crockfords of London. He was a good cook and a bombastic author. His famous axiom was that it was easier to compose an oratorio or an opera than to create a new entree, and that a cook was a greater artist than a Royal Academician or a professor of music. Soyer was also an extravagant and exaggerated writer on culinary topics. Apart from his services to the English troops during the Crimean war, he is mainly remembered by his hundred-guinea dish, to produce which a hundred turkeys had to be killed, of which each supplied only the two dark-meat lumps on each side of the rump, called by the French le sot l'y laisse. Francatelli’s 1 Modern Cook ’ has become a classic through the ease with which his recipes are susceptible of practical application. He was Queen Victoria’s chef and the innovator in reducing the number of dishes served at dinners of the time. Gouffe was a culinary artist of the first class. His book is a standard grammar of the French school of cookery, and no work treating of superior domestic and higher cookery has surpassed it in practical exactness and painstaking minuteness.” L Envoi. “ Dixie’s dishes are quoted, or rather misquoted, so often that I am emboldened to take up my pen in defence of my country,” said a Southern woman to a writer in the Sun. “ ‘ Hog and hominy ’ have been declared our staff of life ever since Mason and Dixon marked their boundary line between the two sections, whereas hog and hominy only play their part in special seasons, known in Dixie as 1 hog-killing time.’ “ How the collection of that savory season lingers in memory ! The yards and yards of delicious sausages, the backbones and spare ribs, the hog's head cheese and brains, the tenderloins and pigs’ feet, and the saucy-looking little roast pigs with red apples in their mouths. Then the old smokehouses, hung around with sugar-cured hams, which, baked brown, garnished with cloves, and served with champagne sauce, were always vis-avis with the roast turkey or canvas-back ducks at a dinner of any importance. “And our big, yellow, sugar ‘ yams,’ how they are outraged by being spoken of as ‘ boiled sweet potatoes ’ ! Who ever heard of a Southerner eating boiled sweet potatoes ? He would just as soon think of eating a boiled owl. They are baked, or roasted in their jackets, from which they easily The Bachelor and the Chafing-dish. slip, when properly cooked, and are covered with a delicious saccharine coating. The only time they are boiled is when they are to be converted into croquettes or candied. The latter method is in this style : “Parboil the potatoes, cut them lengthwise, lay in baking dish, sprinkle thickly with brown sugar and powdered cinnamon, and cover liberally with lumps of butter. Pour over water enough to moisten the sugar, and bake in an oven, basting frequently with the rich sauce that will soon form.