at breakfast, we drink cafe au lait — one part of" coffee to three parts of boiling milk. After lunch and after dinner, and altogether against the advice of my medical attendant, I drink black coffee without milk and with a little snofar. At luncheon I take no ^yet it verre with m}?- coffee ; after dinner I have a liqueur glass of green Chartreuse with my cafe noir, and it does me good. My medical attendant says that it does not. My medical attendant may go to Hong-Kong ; and I have not the slightest doubt that when he dines at the ^Esculapian Club he never fails to take his petit verre with his coffee. I remember dining once with no less than nine doctors ; they all ate turtle soup, they all took curry, they all drank champagne and port afterwards, they all had liqueurs with their demie- tasse, and they all smoked. I w^as not present, either at the 2^ost-morterii or at the inquest. It is amusing to read what some old culinary authorities have to say about coffee. Worth}^ Dr. Kitchiner, in his "Cook's Oracle" (1827), observes that coffee, as used on the Continent, serves the double purj)ose of an agreeable tonic and an exhilarating beverage, without the unpleasant effects of wine ; but as drunk in England, it debilitates the stomach, and produces nausea, being usually made from bad coffee served up tepid and muddy, and clrowned in a deluge of water, sometimes deserving the title given to it in "The Petition against Coffee, a black, base, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking puddle-water." For making coffee, the doctor recommended — nearly seventy years ago, you will remember — the use of the " German filter," which was only a simple percolator ; and he adds that not less than four shillings a pound must be paid for the coffee, and that at least an ounce should be alloAvcd for two breakfast-cups. As to making cofl'ee in the ordinary coffee-pot, the old- fashioned mode of boiling and clearing the liquid, it is .simply abominable. I have read one recipe Avhere you are 70 THE THOBOUGH GOOD COOK. told that before you make your coffee you should put it into a basin and break into it an eyo- — white, yolk, shell and all. This compost being put into the pot, it is to be boiled w^ three times. It will then, says the prescriber of this nastiness, be as clear as amber, and '•' the egg will give it a rich taste." Sometimes the dried skin of sole or cod- ti§h, scraj^ed, washed, and dried, and cut in pieces an inch square, was used for settling the coffee, and isinglass Avas another favourite "clearer." I once kncAv a cook who main- tained that the only possible way of clearing coffee was to throAv a \\\e coal into the pot after its final boil. That cook, I am sure, came to a bad end. Ices. I once asked good old Lady Combermere, the relict of the famous Field-Marshal of that name, and who lived to be nearly ninety, and ])reserved almost to the last her brilliant mental faculties, whether she could remember the period when ices first became popular in English society. She replied that, so far as she could recollect, both water and cream ices became fashionable about 1817 ; but that they were at first somewhat mistrusted by the heaii moiide, in- asmuch as they made its stomach ache.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

at breakfast, we drink cafe au lait — one part of" coffee to three parts of boiling milk. After lunch and after dinner, and altogether against the advice of my medical attendant, I drink black coffee without milk and with a little sugar. At luncheon I take no ^petit verre with my coffee ; after dinner I have a liqueur glass of green Chartreuse with my cafe noir, and it does me good. My medical attendant says that it does not. My medical attendant may go to Hong-Kong ; and I have not the slightest doubt that when he dines at the Aesculapian Club he never fails to take his petit verre with his coffee. I remember dining once with no less than nine doctors ; they all ate turtle soup, they all took curry, they all drank champagne and port afterwards, they all had liqueurs with their demietasse, and they all smoked. I was not present, either at the post-mortem or at the inquest. It is amusing to read what some old culinary authorities have to say about coffee. Worthy Dr. Kitchiner, in his "Cook's Oracle" (1827), observes that coffee, as used on the Continent, serves the double purpose of an agreeable tonic and an exhilarating beverage, without the unpleasant effects of wine ; but as drunk in England, it debilitates the stomach, and produces nausea, being usually made from bad coffee served up tepid and muddy, and drowned in a deluge of water, sometimes deserving the title given to it in "The Petition against Coffee, a black, base, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking puddle-water." For making coffee, the doctor recommended — nearly seventy years ago, you will remember — the use of the " German filter," which was only a simple percolator ; and he adds that not less than four shillings a pound must be paid for the coffee, and that at least an ounce should be allowed for two breakfast-cups. As to making coffee in the ordinary coffee-pot, the oldfashioned mode of boiling and clearing the liquid, it is .simply abominable. I have read one recipe where you are told that before you make your coffee you should put it into a basin and break into it an egg — white, yolk, shell and all. This compost being put into the pot, it is to be boiled three times. It will then, says the prescriber of this nastiness, be as clear as amber, and '•' the egg will give it a rich taste." Sometimes the dried skin of sole or codfish, scraped, washed, and dried, and cut in pieces an inch square, was used for settling the coffee, and isinglass was another favourite "clearer." I once knew a cook who maintained that the only possible way of clearing coffee was to throw a live coall into the pot after its final boil. That cook, I am sure, came to a bad end. Ices. I once asked good old Lady Combermere, the relict of the famous Field-Marshal of that name, and who lived to be nearly ninety, and preserved almost to the last her brilliant mental faculties, whether she could remember the period when ices first became popular in English society. She replied that, so far as she could recollect, both water and cream ices became fashionable about 1817 ; but that they were at first somewhat mistrusted by the beau monde, inasmuch as they made its stomach ache.

The thorough good cook