The thorough good cook

another for toad-in-the-hole: although, I may hint to him, in connection with the last-named dainty, that on the Continent I have frequently met with a mutton cutlet baked or fried in batter, but served singly, and called a cutlet "a la Nelson." He seems equally well acquainted with our dry and buttered toast, with chicken-and-ham sandwiches, and even with water-zootje, which, he aptly observes, may, in the case of salmon, be served cold as well as hot. I dissent, however, from my esteemed confrere when he says that a mayonnaise sauce should be served apart, with cold waterzootje of salmon. If the zootje, or the liquor in which the salmon has been boiled, with a diversity of herbs, have a glass of white wine added to it, it Avill need no kind of sauce at all beyond cayenne or Nepaul pepper. Many of these hundred and fifty recipes for turning the scraps to account arc familiar to English plain cooks ; but there are many more which will be of the nature of a revelation to British housekeepers. Hasli. " In the name of the Prophet — Hash ! " It should, of course, properly be " figs," but that does not matter, since the Turks make very nice hashes of lamb and poultry ; but the hash with which I have to do is the dish popular in English middle-class households, and even more widely patronised in the United States, where, in the Norths at least, the colloquial name for what is laiown in England as a " Qfentecl boardinsj- establishment " is a " hash-house." It is a sufficiently curious fact, to begin with, that although the word hash is undeniably derived from the French Jiachi'^, and Molioro speaks of a glutton who devoured two partridges and half a leg of mutton en hachis, the specitic term rarely appears in modern French bills of fare: and, indeed, old French cookery-books, in their recipes for a hachif^, prescribe what seems to be a kind of stew of meat, cut up very small, mingled with sausage-meat, chopped parsle}^ and onions, and served with a garnish, sometimes of fried eggs, and sometimes of tomatoes. The French kitchen also comprises hoidettes of very finely chopped meat, herbs, and seasoning, which are browned in a stewpan and served with a rich sauce, into the composition of which garlic largely enters. These hoidettes would seem to be cousins - german to the American dainties known as " hash-balls," which are composed of minced cold roast meat, mixed with cold boiled potatoes chopped; seasoned with pepper and salt, and a little gravy, made into balls, covered with egg and bread crumb, and fried a light brown in butter, lard, or dripping, As regards the British middle-class hash, it is tittinsr that I should briefly give my own personal experiences of the matter — experiences which go back more than fifty years. My mother, who had a large family to keep on very slender means, had all her children, boys and girls alike, systematically and jn-actically taught to cook. She was a West Indian, and in the old slave-owning da^-s the West Indies were a paradise of good cookery. She was the widow of an Italian gentleman, and there are very few Italians who do not interest themselves in culinary matters. I was a sickly, nervous child, and could not stand the fierce heat of a kitchen range. The most arduous culinary labour which I ventured to undertake was the cookinoo