Practical home cookery

There is something sacred in the very name of home to every true-born Englishman, and, as we should naturally expect from the hallowing influence of this holy season of the year, home seems doubly sacred on Christmas Day. How many thousand families throughout the land are united but once a year ! what efforts, too, do some make, so that on their great annual holiday they may once again find shelter under the old and loving parental wings ! But let this year anticipate the day’s festivities, and Christmas Eve find us once again reunited round the fire, on which the log is heaped and crackles brightly. For no one, unless by abject poverty compelled, would have a poor fire on Christmas Eve. The fresh-cut holly glistens on the wall, the curtains are drawn, and the grey-haired, bright-eyed old man, as he glances round the circle, his voice too full almost to speak, yet feels an inner comfort difficult to describe — a feeling partly of thankfulness, partly of resignation, as he looks forward to the fast-approaching time when the places that know him now shall know him no more for ever. For it has been well said that children, though they increase the cares of life, yet mitigate the remembrance of death. But such a good old-fashioned circle round the fire on such a night would not be complete without a steaming bowl of something hot, to drink a toast in memory of yet another happy gathering in the old house at home. So, while the party assembled listen to the distant sound of the waits, or perhaps to the still preferable music of the bird of dawn — which recalls one of the brightest gems that have dropped from the pen of our greatest poet — we will, after repeating the lines, step down-stairs, and brew a bowl of bishop : — “ Some say that ever, ’gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long : And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad : The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike. No fair)' takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time.” Bishop, a good old-fashioned drink, whose nose has, so to speak, been somewhat put out of joint by mulled claret since that beverage has become so cheap, is best made as follows : — First take a small lemon, and at this season of the year they will be easily obtained white and new. First wash the lemon in a little warm water, and then stick into it a dozen or more cloves, and make the lemon hot by placing it in a plate in the oven, or better still, by suspending it