New potatoes should be cautiously dealt with, since they contain an appreciable quantity of solanine — a vegetable alkaloid very bitter and acrid, and highly poisonous. I have heard, too, that what is called Elbe sherry is distilled from potatoes. So the tuber Avhich I so heartily detest has its potable as well as its edible properties. I candidly admit that my dislike for this particular vegetable has become, in my mind, somewhat of a craze. I happened to belong to a very delightful little club in London Avhere you have the advantage, if you choose to avail yourself of it, of seeing your dinner cooked. This club has amongst its CHATS ABOUT COOKE BY. 45 members a goodly number of accomplished gourmets, and I fear I have been designedly teased into a state of exas- peration by references among my friends to a boiled potato. It is to me what the red rag is to a bull. The potato as an article of food in England, is, com- paratively speaking, a modern innovation. We ha^'o heard all about Sir "Walter Raleigh's plantations in Ireland ; but I prefer to read how Raleigh, having planted potatoes in his garden at Youghal, was the cause of bitter disappoint- ment to his gardener, who, on tasting the apples of the fine American fruit, found them very nasty. He subsequently discovered that the tubers were edible, and he was there- upon desired by his master to " throw away the useless weeds." Would that ho had thrown them away for good and all ! Moreover, at the period when Shakespeare spoke of "the sky raining potatoes," they were never used as an accom- paniment to butcher's meat, or poultry, or any other favourite dish. Gerard, the Elizabethan herbalist, who had himself procured the plant from Virginia, especially recommends it as the basis for delicate conserves and restorative SAveet- meats, with the assurance that its flatulent effects may be infallibly corrected by having the roots sopped in wine ; adding that, to give the tubers the greater grace in eating, they should be boiled with prunes. Wishing, however, to be altogether impartial, and trans- posing the old proverbial axiom, I fully recognise the fact that what ma}' be one man's poison may be another's meat. Thus, for the benefit of those Avho like potatoes, I have given a few recipes for the dressing of them, Avhich I think will be serviceable."^ Let me add here another mode of dressing potatoes as they have, for a hundred 3-ears past, been served at Lyons, in France. Cut your potatoes in slices of the circumference of a halfpenny, but twice as thick as * Soe Index to Recipes. 46 THE TIIOBOUGJI GOOD COOK. that coin. Put half a pound of butter in a saute-pan with thirty button onions cut in rings. Place on the fire, and when the onions take a golden colour, ])ut in your potatoes, seasoned with chopped parsley, salt, lemon -juice, and a good pinch of black pepper✪ Dressed Potatoes. Stir while they fry ; when they become a deep yellow, serve. Eggs. Victor Hugo was accustomed to say that there were few things more inherently equivocal than an egg, and that he never broke the shell of one without a dim apprehension that the unex23ected might suddenly make its appearance. It is certain that very strange things have from time to time come out of eggs, in addition to the chicken Avhich they should normally produce.

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New potatoes should be cautiously dealt with, since they contain an appreciable quantity of solanine — a vegetable alkaloid very bitter and acrid, and highly poisonous. I have heard, too, that what is called Elbe sherry is distilled from potatoes. So the tuber Avhich I so heartily detest has its potable as well as its edible properties. I candidly admit that my dislike for this particular vegetable has become, in my mind, somewhat of a craze. I happened to belong to a very delightful little club in London Avhere you have the advantage, if you choose to avail yourself of it, of seeing your dinner cooked. This club has amongst its CHATS ABOUT COOKE BY. 45 members a goodly number of accomplished gourmets, and I fear I have been designedly teased into a state of exas- peration by references among my friends to a boiled potato. It is to me what the red rag is to a bull. The potato as an article of food in England, is, com- paratively speaking, a modern innovation. We ha^'o heard all about Sir "Walter Raleigh's plantations in Ireland ; but I prefer to read how Raleigh, having planted potatoes in his garden at Youghal, was the cause of bitter disappoint- ment to his gardener, who, on tasting the apples of the fine American fruit, found them very nasty. He subsequently discovered that the tubers were edible, and he was there- upon desired by his master to " throw away the useless weeds." Would that ho had thrown them away for good and all ! Moreover, at the period when Shakespeare spoke of "the sky raining potatoes," they were never used as an accom- paniment to butcher's meat, or poultry, or any other favourite dish. Gerard, the Elizabethan herbalist, who had himself procured the plant from Virginia, especially recommends it as the basis for delicate conserves and restorative SAveet- meats, with the assurance that its flatulent effects may be infallibly corrected by having the roots sopped in wine ; adding that, to give the tubers the greater grace in eating, they should be boiled with prunes. Wishing, however, to be altogether impartial, and trans- posing the old proverbial axiom, I fully recognise the fact that what ma}' be one man's poison may be another's meat. Thus, for the benefit of those Avho like potatoes, I have given a few recipes for the dressing of them, Avhich I think will be serviceable."^ Let me add here another mode of dressing potatoes as they have, for a hundred 3-ears past, been served at Lyons, in France. Cut your potatoes in slices of the circumference of a halfpenny, but twice as thick as * Soe Index to Recipes. 46 THE TIIOBOUGJI GOOD COOK. that coin. Put half a pound of butter in a saute-pan with thirty button onions cut in rings. Place on the fire, and when the onions take a golden colour, ])ut in your potatoes, seasoned with chopped parsley, salt, lemon -juice, and a good pinch of black pepper. Stir while they fry ; when they become a deep yellow, serve. Eggs. Victor Hugo was accustomed to say that there were few things more inherently equivocal than an egg, and that he never broke the shell of one without a dim apprehension that the unex23ected might suddenly make its appearance. It is certain that very strange things have from time to time come out of eggs, in addition to the chicken Avhich they should normally produce.

The thorough good cook