Cassell's dictionary of cookery

There is one little appetiser, so pretty and yet so efiective, and so admirably adapted to commence a dinner, that I will describe it. First cut out some small round pieces of stale bread the size of small draughtsmen, and fry them of a nice golden-brown colour in some lard, and allow them to get cold. Next stone some olives neatly, and fillet and carefully wash some anchovies. Roll uj) the filleted anchovies into a little ball, and fill the stoned olives with them. Nextand place a little drop of mayonnaise sauceout the size of the top of the little finger in the centre of each round of fried bread, and place the stoned olive filled with the filleted anchovy on it on end ; the mayonnaise sauce, if made properly, viz., as thick as butter, assisting to keep the olive upright. Then place on the top of the olive another little piece (very small) of mayonnaise sauce. The whole should be eaten at one mouthful. The mingled flavour of the anchovy and olive, moistened as it is with the mayonnaise sauce, is exceedingly delicious, the crisp fried bread assisting to bring out the flavour. These pretty little appetisers may be handed round, and a little highly-flavoured aspic jelly may be placed by way of garnish on the dish with them. "We next come to the soup, which we presume the cook to have prepared the day before it is wanted. As a rule, it will always be found best to have clear soup, i.e., if only one soup is supplied. A thick soup at the commencement of dinner is too heavy, and is apt to spoil the appetite for what is to follow. For instance, thick mock-turtle or thick ox-tail soup are admirable for lunch, but at dinner are far better clear than thick. Should there be two soups, of course one should be clear and the other thick, but, as a rule, even then the thick soup should be in the form of a white soup or a bisque, rather than a thick soup that owes its thickness to brown roux. Clear turtle is far superior to thick, both in flavour and in the fact that it does not take away the appetite so readily. Next follows the fish. If only one is served at dinner, regard should be had to what goes before and what follows after. For instance, a rich soup had better be followed by a plain fish. Indeed, the great principle to be constantly borne in PRINCIPLES SERVING DINNER. mind in ordering a dinner is to avoid a succession of ricli things, and also to avoid a repetition of the same flavour. For instance, it is obvious to any one how exceedingly disagreeable three dishes running would be as follows : — Bisque of lobster for soup, turbot and lobster sauce for fish, and lobster patties for an entree. Still, it will often be found that cod-fish and oyster sauce are immediately followed by oyster patties. Some repetition of flavour during a dinnei-, is, however, unavoidable. Suppose, then, in a dmner where there are four entrees, you have lobster sauce with the fish, the same lobster that made the sauce, will in addition make a very nice dish of lobster cutlets. Warn, however, the servants in handing the entrees to hand round the lobster cutlets last of all, so that there is a choice of three difierent dishes between the lobster sauce and the lobster cutlets.