Practical home cookery

An ingenious baker once solved the following problem : — How to make a very small goose into a very large one. He purchased the smallest and cheapest that could be found, and substituted it for the smallest one sent to him to bake. By the simple method of making each person have the next smallest goose to the one he sent, the baker retained for himself the finest of the lot. But we will now soar into the more aristocratic region of mock-turtle soup and boiled codfish, roast sirloin of beef, boiled turkey and oyster sauce, plum pudding and mince pies. At least, we think we have heard of such dishes at this season of the year as being occasionally used. However, one word of warning. The following awful catastrophe actually occurred : Scene — A dinnerparty. Time — Soon after Christmas. Host — A nephew, with a wife and very large family. Important Guest An uncle, rich — very rich ; a bachelor ; elderly, but irritable. At the moment the covers are taken off, he rises from the table, wrath written on his brow : “ I will stand it no longer ; give me my hat. This is the twelfth day running I have had roast beef and boiled turkey. 1 11 stand it no longer ! ” Exit in a rage. Now, as I have said before, there is such a demand for mock-turtle soup about Christmas-time that calves’ heads have been known to fetch a guinea apiece ; but every housekeeper knows how exceedingly expensive they are at this season. The change, however, of real turtle soup for mock is in the opinion of most people a change for the better, and we will fulfil the promise we made in another chapter, and describe as clearly as we can how to make real turtle soup from the dried turtle flesh, at a less cost than mock-turtle soup can be made from calves’ head when the latter is very dear. The first thing to be done is, of course, to purchase some of the dried flesh, which is generally about ten shillings a pound, and can be obtained from any of the large London provision merchants — and is occasionally kept by the better-class grocers. Now the general fault that we have found people express in regard to cookery-books, is that they invariably describe how to make such large quantities that the recipes are only adapted to hotels. It is evident, too, that if a cook can make three pints of soup, she could make three gallons. We will therefore describe how to make a small quantity of turtle soup — viz. three pints, which, by-the-bye, is amply sufficient for ten people, or even more. Let those who doubt this — and they will be many — go at once, and see how many ladlefuls there are in a pint ; the average is five. Now, at the commencement of a good dinner one ladleful is ample for each person. Three pints of soup would therefore give fifteen people one help each, but of course it would not do to have only just enough. Beau Brummel once said that he would never speak to a man again who came twice for soup ; but he would be a brave man who would risk no one asking for more, when the party is a family one at Christmas-time, and the soup real turtle.