Cooking for profit

Next Webster laid aside his toga and hovered around the fire, knife and salt-box in hand, watching the shad that he had prepared in the way he knew would best suit Sam's taste. Sam ate three mouthfuls rapturously, and exclaimed: 'Fore God, Mr. Webster, I neber have tasted planked shad before !' Webster yielded gracefully the palm to Sam, outdone by him in compliments as well as in cooking." "PLANKED" SHAD. Every little hotel and eating house fronting the Delaware at Gloucester has its specialty of " planked " shad. The fish, fresh from the stream, is cut in twain, fastened by tenpenny nails to a thick oak board, slanted toward a hot wood fire, duly basted and finally served at table on his oak gridiron. That the prince of American fishes, served under these conditions and flanked by asparagus and kindred dainties, is at his best, goes without further saying. Daniel Webster, I have heard, used to plume himself more on his ability to "plank" a shad than on his highest oratorical flights. But if I may venture a personal opinion against so famed an authority, the planked shad is not, after all, decidedly better than the same fish cooked prosaically on the domestic gridiron. He is fresher from the water, he is surrounded by the poetic novelty of odd cookery and service, and appetite is sharpened by the keen, watery air. Take these concomitants away, and the planked shad would lose half his fame. THE REAL VIENNA BREAD. Viennese bread is celebrated. It may interest you to know something about it. The excellence of the bread is attributed in Vienna to three reasons — the oven, the men and the yeast. I think another may be added, and that is the dry climate. An ounce of yeast (three decagrammes) and as much salt is taken for every gallon of milk used for the dough. The yeast is a Viennese specialty, known as the "St. Marxner Pressheffe," and its composition is a secret. It keeps two days in summer and a little longer in winter. The ovens are heated by wood fires lighted inside them during four hours; the ashes are then raked out and the oven is carefuU}' wiped with wisps of damp straw. On the vapor thus generated, as well as that produced by the baking of the dough, lies the whole art of the browning and the success of the " semmel." "Yes," said Chef Ranhoffer, of Delmonico's, "we have a great demand for quail. We sold one hundred a day and more before the season ended. We could have given Mr. Walcott a quail cooked differently every day in his match, thus agreeably relieving the monotony of his feat. A person w^ould hardly believe this statement, but quail can be cooked in thirty-four different ways, at a cost to the eater of from seventy-five cents to two dollars for a single bird. We make them into soups, pies, stews and salmis, and add all kinds of sauces. In France a delicious way of cooking them is to wrap them with leaves and a piece of lard, bathe them in wine, and pour tomato sauce over them after they are cooked. Sometimes they are cooked with bay leaves, or they are treated in Spanish fashion and cooked with rice dressing. They can be stuffed like a regular fowl and treated with sauces until they are a luxury to the palate, and the diner will crave for a repetition." CREAM OR FONDANT.