Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book: A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping

taut running-gear of muscles, nerves and digestive apparatus. She cries, “’Ware meat!” peremptorily. However deaf we may be to the Church’s behest, we can not afford to disregard the Great Mother’s. The breaking up of winter, the general letting down of physical energies and the abundant supply of food precisely adapted to the season’s needs, form a “coincidence” that the most stupid must perceive. The like principle of demand and supply might, one might imagine, be recognized in the matter of breakfast foods. Fish, rightly cooked, tempts the appetite and does not overload the stomach. Another recommendation which should have weight with commuters and “hustlers,” is that the yielding fibers require less strenuous mastication than those of steaks, chops and rashers. The truism that as a nation we are inordinate flesh-consumers is tattered by much wear. Since vegetarianism comes as a hard lesson to the mass of our race, and the exacting palate demands more definite flavors than those of eggs in any form, resort to crustacean and finny delicacies should follow as a matter of course and of common sense. Shad Sturgeon is known in England as the “Queen’s Own Fish.” Hiawatha names him as the “King of Fishes.” The American epicure has transferred this title to the more delicately flavored salmon. If a vote of native-born gourmands of all ranks of society were taken, I think the shad would be the elect favorite—the dainty queen of fishes, the more royal for the wealth of roes that bespeak her prime. Planked shad Have your fish cleaned and split down the back. Wash and wipe dry. Have ready a clean oak or hickory plank, about two and one-half inches in thickness and of such a length that it will go easily into your oven. Set it in the oven until it is heated through. Rub your shad on both sides with an abundance of butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lay it, open side up, on the hot plank and fasten it firmly into place by putting a tin tack at each of the four corners. Lay the plank