Standard Paper-Bag Cookery

There should be no impression left. If fish is fresh the eyes are bright and the gills red and the scales not easily rubbed off. Never lay fish directly on artificial ice, say the fishermen, as the ammonia used in the freezing affects them injuriously. Shell fish are not so apt to spoil as the other fish. The wood cookery dishes will be found of great value in cooking all kinds of fish in paper bags. In many cases the flavor of the fish is improved and the fish can always be taken from the bag with ease and served whole if desired. =Clam Pies.=--Line little tins or moulds with paste and put in a layer of raw clams with a seasoning of butter and pepper. Dredge with flour, add a spoonful or two of clam juice, cover with the paste, cut a hole in the top, brush with beaten egg, slip into the bag, fasten and bake twenty minutes. =Roast Clams.=--Scrub the shells clean and slip in the bag. As soon as the shells open, remove carefully and pour off the extra liquor in as many small cups as you have persons to serve. Put a cup of the juice to which a bit of butter and dusting of pepper has been added, in the center of a soup dish, and arrange the clams around it. With an oyster fork, the clams may then be removed from the shell, dipped into the liquor and eaten. Serve very hot with quarters of lemon. =Crabs, Soft and Hard.=--While soft shell crabs are too expensive for the purse of moderate depth, the hard shell crustacean is always in order and greatly to be desired. Crabs, like all other shell fish, are best when fresh from their native waters, and the individual who can do his own crabbing and then eat the fruits of his labor with the flavor of the sea still with them, has nothing more to be desired from a gastronomic standpoint. In most markets crabs may be found both alive and boiled. If alive, keep them in cold water