The cult of the chafing dish

Place a pint of small Brussels sprouts in the Chafing Dish with two pints of boiling water, slightly salted. Boil for ten minutes ; take out the sprouts, drain them and put them aside to keep hot. Then make the following sauce in the Chafing Dish. Two tablespoons of butter melted, one tablespoon flour, pepper and salt, and sufficient bouillon to make the mixture of the consistency of thick cream. Heat this to boiling, stirring it well. Just before serving, add the juice of a whole lemon. Pour the sauce over the hot sprouts, and serve very quickly. Both this and the previous recipe are adapted from a most excellent book on the cooking of vegetables : " Leaves from our Tuscan Garden," by Janet Ross. Haricot Beans. Put a pint of young green shelled haricot beans into the Chafing Dish with two pints of boiling water. When half cooked add salt and pepper and a tablespoon of butter. Take out the beans, drain them, and replace them in the dish with another tablespoon of butter, a little chopped parsley, more salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Toss them about well in the Chafing Dish and hot up for eight minutes. Fried Parsley. Indispensable for flavourings. Wash the parsley thoroughly, pick off the stalks, leaving the large heads. Dry it very carefully as, if it is left at all damp, it will never become crisp. Put the parsley in the Chafing Dish with a tablespoon of olive oil or butter. As soon as the oil or butter ceases bubbling, take out the parsley and let it dry on a piece of paper. The parsley should remain quite green ; if it is brownish it is a sign that it has been fried too long. Green Peas. A pint of shelled peas, a tablespoon of butter, pepper and salt, and a good squeeze of lemon ; put all these in the Chafing Dish. Add a cupful of milk and hot up for ten minutes, then strain and serve. Avoid mint, green or otherwise. Chestnuts. Shell a score of chestnuts, cover them in the Chafing Dish with boiling water, and in four minutes take them out and remove the skins. Return them to the boiling water, add a cup of milk, pepper and salt, and simmer until quite tender but not soft. " Behold, the earth hath roots ; The bounteous housewife Nature, on each bush Lays her full mess before you." — Timon of Athens, It has been made plain, I trust, that it is not necessary to rely solely on the dampsodden vegetables of the pre-historic cuisine. It is just as easy to cook them nicely as otherwise, and a deal more satisfactory. The bounteous housewife Nature overwhelms us with her treasures of root and sap, and it seems almost an outrage to neglect the opportunities so lavishly offered to us. I have just described a score or so of the plainer methods of cooking vegetables, simply as an indication of their possibilities, but the enterprising Chafer will find as he progresses in the art (and Chafing grows upon one like any other hobby) that there are dozens of others which lend themselves readily to his, or her, deft manipulation. The grandfather of Charles Darwin was a poetofparts,andinhis"Phytologica" he says : " Oft in each month, poetic Tighe ! be thine To dish green broccoli with savoury chine ; Oft down thy tuneful throat be thine to cram The snow-white cauliflower with fowl and ham !" This is wise advice, because the green broccoli is far better than the white.