What to eat, how to serve it

flower tender ; tie it in a piece of net before putting it in the boiling water ; cut the clusters apart, and arrange them, stems downward, in a pudding dish ; pour a cup of drawn butter over them, season with pepper and salt, sprinkle with fine bread or cracker crumbs, and bake until of a good brown. Coffee Jelly, — Two cups clear strong coffee, one cup sugar, one cup boiling water, half-cup cold water, half-box gelatine. Let the gelatine soak in the cold water an hour ; stir the sugar into it, and pour over both the boiling water and the hot coffee ; strain into a mould. When cold, turn out in a glass dish, and serve with whipped cream. WHAT SHALL WE BAT? THE cook-book of the olden time gave its recipes with a generous disregard of cost. Such items as a ham boiled in wine were not unusual, and the quantities of costly materials demanded were on a Gargantuan scale. Even in the average French culinarymanuals economy can hardly be said to be conspicuous, except by its absence, although Gallic cooks have a w^orld-wide reputation for the wonderful results they can produce by a small expenditure. Even in this day, when economy is honored and studied, in the recipes that appear in print as written by women living in some parts of the South, there is a call for what to Northern ideas seems a reckless profusion of eggs, butter, and cream. The lavishness of these demands is often quite out of keeping with the common opinion of the straitened circumstances supposed to have prevailed of late years in that section of the country. The general impression these recipes give was voiced by a New England woman, who, after reading a collection of recipes from the pen of a wellknown Southern writer, exclaimed, " Well, 1. can't afford to cook like that ; but I presumd she has always had plenty to do with." In spite, however, of some instances of this kind which indicate extravagance, the general trend in culinary guide-books of the day is towards economy. Tracts, pamphlets, octavos, and quartos are published, giving directions for preparing a dinner for five persons at a cost of twenty-five cents, of fifty cents, of seventy-five cents, of a dollar. The Sunday and weekly newspapers have columns devoted to the same theme, and the countless household magazines with which the reading public is almost snowed under all spare a corner for the discussion of the same momentous topic. It may be noted, en passant, that this sudden interest in dietetics is responsible for many of the literary aspirations now current. Women who had never thought of meddling with pen and ink except WHAT SHALL WE EAT? in their private correspondence rush into print for the purpose of describing a dinner which will cost only twenty-seven and twothirds cents, and, encouraged by success in one or two efforts of this kind, fondly imagine themselves possessed of talents which ought to bring them in a competency. Far be it from the woman who has herself known housekeeping cares and struggles, who has mourned over small leaks and sought diligently the best methods of " making sixpence do the work of sevenpence halfpenny," as an English writer puts it, to deride any endeavors to teach housekeepers how to best use slender means with happy results. But a word of warning may not be amiss concerning certain features of most of the directions thus given. Here it is : If an appetizing dish is to be made at small cost, care in preparation mvst supplement cheap materials. There has been a great deal said and written about the folly of always purchasing the best cuts of meat. Hundreds of pages have been printed demonstrating satisfactorily — 16 241