The European cookbook for American homes (from Italy, Spain, Portugal and France)

Wash and dry fish, rub with garlic, and then with salt and pepper, inside and out. Lay in buttered baking dish. Arrange peeled and chopped tomatoes on top so as to cover. Dot with parsley and butter, and bake 20-25 minutes. Flanders HERRING SALAD TRAWLER STYLE (Salad de Filets de Harengs a la Chalutiere) 3 smoked herring 2 gherkins, minced Milk Vinegar 1 teaspoon French mustard Pepper 3 tablespoons olive oil Freshly cooked beets Chopped shallots Marinate the herring in milk until plump. Fillet them, and shred the fillets coarsely. Mash the roe or milt; mix with mustard, oil, gherkins, vinegar, and pepper to taste. Beat together and pour over the herring, stirring until well mixed. Pile in the center of a plate and decorate with hot cooked beets, sprinkled with shallots. Serve as an appetizer. A hot potato salad may take the place of the beets. The provinces of Flanders and Artois (with the English channel ports of Boulogne, Calais and Dunkerque) mark the extreme North by pushing right into Belgium. With these two foreign influences, British and Belgian, we find this bordercooking exhibiting tastes quite un-French. The herring salad above illustrates this well, with its liberal dose of mustard a F Angleterre and the sugar beets of Belgium. The gherkins also bring in the teutonic influence of Holland and Germany, which has made the neighboring territory of Alsace-Lorraine debated ground for so long. Beer takes the place of wine in the cooking of Flanders. Beer soup is just her dish, or eels simmered in the light Northern malt; Flemish red cabbage too, boiled in beer. Instead of cognac the drink is gin of Wambrechies, often mixed with coffee, and sometimes Montruil hard sparkling cider added to both. The mainstay of the whole section is hochepot, a hot pot into which everything goes, from sheep's trotters to pig's ears, cabbage and parsnips, of course, and never forgetting the leeks. Sauce Flamande is the standard dressing, made of cabbages, turnips, carrots, lettuce, sugar, salt and pepper boiled all together in meat broth. Garniture Flamande is small onions glazed, lettuce braised, carrots saute and mashed potatoes. A curious crossbreed, again showing a cross of English with the French is "rosbif de mouton," as though there could be such a thing as roast beef of mutton. Beef is almost British in popularity here, although beef tongue is purely Latin, being cured with honey and herbs at Valenciennes. Other specialties are spiced Flemish goose, cookies flavored with aniseed (and here even an old Spanish custom enters) and Flamiche Flamande, an open-face cheese sandwich, Maroille cheese on flat Flemish buns. Languedoc CODFISH BRANDADE (Morue en Brandade) % pound salt cod Cream 1 cup olive oil Juice 1 lemon 1 shallot, minced Salt and pepper 1 gadic clove, minced Nutmeg Rounds of bread