A guide to modern cookery

obviating the absurdity of placing such preparations as are indiscriminately called Bisque, Purée, Cullis, or Cream under the same head. Logically, each preparation should have its own special formula, and it is impossible to admit that one and the same can apply to all. It is generally admitted that the terms _Veloutés_ and _Creams_, whose introduction into the vocabulary of cookery is comparatively recent, are peculiarly well suited to supplant those of _Bisque_ and _Cullis_, which are steadily becoming obsolete, as well as that too vulgar term _Purée_. Considerations of this kind naturally led me to a new classification of soups, and this I shall disclose later. I shall not make any lengthy attempt here to refute the arguments of certain autocrats of the dinner-table who, not so many years ago, urged the total abolition of soups. I shall only submit to their notice the following quotation from Grimod de la Reynière, one of our most illustrious gastronomists: “Soup is to a dinner what the porch or gateway is to a building,” that is to say, it must not only form the first portion thereof, but it must be so devised as to convey some idea of the whole to which it belongs; or, after the manner of an overture in a light opera, it should divulge what is to be the dominant phrase of the melody throughout. I am at one with Grimod in this, and believe that soups have come to stay. Of all the items on a menu, soup is that which exacts the most delicate perfection and the strictest attention, for upon the first impression it gives to the diner the success of the latter part of the meal largely depends. Soups should be served as hot as possible in very warm plates, especially in the case of consommés when these have been preceded by cold hors-d’œuvres. Hors-d’œuvres are pointless in a dinner, and even when oysters stand as such they should only be allowed at meals which include no soup. Those hors-d’œuvres which consist of various fish, smoked or in oil, and strongly seasoned salads,