Banquets of the nations

After steeping well in clean water, put some chicken livers in a pan with some good stock, seasoning well with aromatic spices. Stew very slowly. Take equal weight of boiled pork fat with some more seasonings, including pepper and salt, and pound all together to a smooth paste. Make up into nicely shaped squares, and serve neatly on a dish. Yen hwang kwa. (Pickled Cucumbers.) Take some small cucumbers, and cut into two-inch lengths, and pour over while hot some strongly spiced vinegar. When cool, bottle and cork tightly. Yen woa t'ang. (Bird's Nest Soup.) Although this is almost exclusively a Chinese dish, it is not altogether unknown in this country, the nests being imported in small quantities, and commanding large prices. After they have been steeped and thoroughly washed there is really nothing but a gelatinous mass which is without flavour or virtue, so that gourmets think that substituting Irish moss for the nests makes a much more delicate soup, and appeals more readily to the European palate. Take a quarter of a pound of Irish moss, soak in two waters till all bitterness is extracted, and boil with plenty of meat or fowl stock and the usual vegetables till cooked, season with pepper and soy (it must not be sweet browning, which is usually sold under that name) . Strain and clear, then add along with the bones the pounded flesh of a couple of fowls, taking care not to lose any of the juice. Boil for a quarter of an hour. Add more seasoning, if required, and again strain and clear with the white of an egg and some of the pounded raw fowl. If birds' nests are used, take three and put them into boiling water, and steep for forty-eight hours, then wash again in cold water, so that they are perfectly clean. Then proceed as above. Hai Shen. (Sea Slugs.) Soak, wash, and clean in several waters, then sprinkle with a seasoning of soy, pounded cloves, mace, and pepper ; put them into a stew-pan with strong chicken gravy CHINA (North-West) and a small piece of lean ham ; sherry and port in equal quantities to cover them ; put the lid on the stew-pan, and stew till very tender. Take them out, lay them on a hot dish, and keep hot. Add to the gravy in the stew-pan a chopped anchovy, a thickening of flour, and a little sesamum oil, seasoned with a point of garlic, a little thyme, and bay leaves ; boil it well, strain it through a sieve, add a few drops of lemon juice, and then pour it over the slugs. Serve hot, garnished with bread sippets, scraped horse-radish, and also with boiled rice. If the sea slugs cannot be got, a good substitute is to take some skinned and filletted eels, cut in pieces about three inches long, and cook as directed above. Chu sun. (Bamboo Shoots.) Boil the tender shoots for fifteen minutes, then steep for fifteen minutes in cold water, Drain and dress with nut oil and soy, or drain thoroughly a tin of shoots and empty them into a dish and use the foresaid dressing. Chi tan kao. (Sponge Custard.) Make a sponge cake and cut into fancy shapes about the size of a five-shilling piece, then cover with a thick custard flavoured with vanilla or lemon. (Sponge Cake) . Beat in a pan over hot water three eggs with one teacupful of pounded fine sugar till very light and stiff. This will take at least twenty minutes. Now add half a