The thorough good cook

This censor forgets that coals are cheap at the pit's mouth, and that a collier's wife whose husband's wages do not exceed twenty-five shillings per week can afford to keep a much better " open " fire than can be maintained by the working man's wife in places where there are no collieries. Moreover, the wife of the working man, whether he earns his livelihood above or below ground, should be taught to broil a chop as thoroughly as she should be instructed in the art of boiling a potato. The gridiron should be greased with a piece of fat before the chop is placed upon it, and the fire should be a perfectly clear one. The chop or steak should be frequently turned while it is cooking; and if an excessive amount of fat falls into the fire, the blaze should be at once abated by a handful of salt. If these details are properly attended to, I fail to see where the contingency of smoke and soot occurs. The recipes for cooking plain mutton chops are curiously numerous ; and Dr. Kitchiner, in his " Cook's Oracle," tolerates both the broiling and frying of chops, giving, in the case of the grill, the sensible advice to the cook to set the gridiron slanting, to prevent the fat from dropping on the coals and so making a smoke. In a culinary manual, published less than twenty years ago, both the broiling and the frying of chops are prescribed. In the first instance, the cook is directed to brush the cutlet over lightly with claritied butter to preserve the juice. The chop is to be turned four times, and when half-done it is to be seasoned with a mixture of salt and j)epper. It is to be served on a hot dish with a thin slice of butter on the chop, and a tablespoonful of mushroom catsup or Chili vinegar ; and, finally, it may be garnished with sliced lemon. When chops are fried, they are not to be dressed au naturel, but are dipped in egg and bread-crumbs, and to the butter in the frying-pan must be added a small quantity of stock or gravy There is not much to be said against this mode of dressing chops, but most lovers of the delicacy would, we should say, regard the prescription of Chili vinegar in lieu of mushroom catsup as rank heresy ; and although the garnish of sliced lemon may look as pretty as a border of parsley to a dish of sandwiches, the lemon is clearly an impertinence. The chop, let me repeat, should be neatly trimmed, very thick, with a proper allowance of fat, and so cooked that in the centre of the chop there should be a stratum of underdone meat : a fount of natural gravy. As some epicures do not object to a little very finely minced shallot being sprinkled over their chop, so others are partial to chops with tomato sauce, an addendum which has become very rare in these days, when we have come to appreciate the excellent qualities of the " love-apple," and eat the delicious fruit-vegetable either hot and stuffed, or raw as a salad. Unless the mutton chop is partaken of in a grillroom, where it comes straight from the gridiron to the table ■of the guest, an experienced gastronome will not be satisfied unless his chop is served on a hot-water plate ; for fat is a treacherous substance, and has a fatal tendency to get cold before the meat to which it belongs is half eaten.