Now, although a vast quantity of wretched meat is sold in the Indian market, I think that people who are willing to pay a good price, and whose servants are not unusually dishonest, can generally get fair beef and mutton at the large stations of this Presidency. A really bad servant will, of course, cheat you with greater cruelty in buying your meat than in anything. At some places the beef is better than the mutton, and vice versa, but I think that, if not haggled with over his prices, a batcher is generally to be found w^ho can supply you with eatable meat. Owing to the calamity which befell us in 1877, and the two previous seasons of scarcity, our market has, for the past few years, been hardly as well supplied as it formerly was ; never- theless, good meat is to be got. The comparative scarcity, however, of eatable meat is in a srreat measure due to ourselves. If the butchers were certain of sales at remunerative prices, they would pro- duce a far better article than they do, but when people grumble at an extra anna charged on a seer of well-fed meat, you can scarcely expect much improvement. The expenses attending sheep-feeding are pretty well proved by the statistics of the old-established mutton clubs in the mofussil. The members, it is true, get capital meat, but it costs them, first and last, very nearly what it would in England. Native graziers can hardly be expected to turn out equally good mutton at a cheaper rate. Setting aside the joints that you occasionally get when a stall-fed ox has been slaughtered, or a gram-fed sheep cut up ; and without considering the exceptionally good meat of mutton clubs, it is the duty of the chronicler of these " jottings" to treat of the average produce of the country, and to endeavour to provide his readers with a 104 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. few useful hints as to the cookery thereof. Let us there- fore take the ordinary joint of beef or of mutton which Ramasamy brings daily from bazar for " Master and Mrs. only" : — the diminutive sii'loin, the ribs scarcely larger than the loin chops of a Leicestershire sheep, the three- and-a-half pound leg of mutton, or the wizen loinlct, — and let us assume that the meat, though small, is faii-ly good, — what shall we do with it ? In a country where it is impossible to keep cooked meat, the fact of a joint being small, need hardly be considered a drawback, but we have before us a good deal of bone in proportion to the meat, and very little fat. I say boldly that plainly roasting such a fragment is a mistake. L^nless the joint be of a fair size, and above the average as to fat like the saddle, or the specially fine sirloin we buy for a dinner party, I would never roast it. The morsel can ill afford to lose the little gravy it possesses which the stab of the spit is bound to draw, and which we rarely see sent to table, for Ramasamy appreciates it as an adjunct to his curry.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Now, although a vast quantity of wretched meat is sold in the Indian market, I think that people who are willing to pay a good price, and whose servants are not unusually dishonest, can generally get fair beef and mutton at the large stations of this Presidency. A really bad servant will, of course, cheat you with greater cruelty in buying your meat than in anything. At some places the beef is better than the mutton, and vice versa, but I think that, if not haggled with over his prices, a batcher is generally to be found who can supply you with eatable meat. Owing to the calamity which befell us in 1877, and the two previous seasons of scarcity, our market has, for the past few years, been hardly as well supplied as it formerly was ; nevertheless, good meat is to be got. The comparative scarcity, however, of eatable meat is in a great measure due to ourselves. If the butchers were certain of sales at remunerative prices, they would produce a far better article than they do, but when people grumble at an extra anna charged on a seer of well-fed meat, you can scarcely expect much improvement. The expenses attending sheep-feeding are pretty well proved by the statistics of the old-established mutton clubs in the mofussil. The members, it is true, get capital meat, but it costs them, first and last, very nearly what it would in England. Native graziers can hardly be expected to turn out equally good mutton at a cheaper rate. Setting aside the joints that you occasionally get when a stall-fed ox has been slaughtered, or a gram-fed sheep cut up ; and without considering the exceptionally good meat of mutton clubs, it is the duty of the chronicler of these " jottings" to treat of the average produce of the country, and to endeavour to provide his readers with a few useful hints as to the cookery thereof. Let us therefore take the ordinary joint of beef or of mutton which Ramasamy brings daily from bazar for " Master and Mrs. only" : — the diminutive sirloin, the ribs scarcely larger than the loin chops of a Leicestershire sheep, the threeand-a-half pound leg of mutton, or the wizen loinct, — and let us assume that the meat, though small, is faii-ly good, — what shall we do with it ? In a country where it is impossible to keep cooked meat, the fact of a joint being small, need hardly be considered a drawback, but we have before us a good deal of bone in proportion to the meat, and very little fat. I say boldly that plainly roasting such a fragment is a mistake. L^nless the joint be of a fair size, and above the average as to fat like the saddle, or the specially fine sirloin we buy for a dinner party, I would never roast it. The morsel can ill afford to lose the little gravy it possesses which the stab of the spit is bound to draw, and which we rarely see sent to table, for Ramasamy appreciates it as an adjunct to his curry.

Culinary jottings