Common-Sense Papers on Cookery

far more common than many persons imagine. Again, too, with regard to the ornamental part of cooking—_i.e._, the art of making dishes look nice and tempting—there are hundreds of fairly good plain cooks, as they are called, who seem quite incapable of grasping the simplest idea of the subject. It is in this matter of taste, often, that the mistress will find her influence most beneficial, as her superior education will, as a rule, enable her to grasp ideas far more quickly than the uncultivated mind of the domestic. For instance, we most of us know the difference between a cold roast pheasant, perfectly plain, placed on a dish, and the same bird glazed and decorated with bright green parsley and cut lemon, and some of its feathers stuck in it in an artistic manner; yet there are, especially among ignorant countrywomen, many who would fail to see much difference. It is in this respect that the French are so far superior as a nation to the English, though probably the _highest_ class English cooks are better than the best French. Compare, for instance, a French pastrycook’s window in Paris, and one of a similar class in London. In the above directions, recollect that there was some stock made. Now this stock, if it was required, would make a little soup in a few minutes; the addition of a little extract of meat, and a good pinch of vermicelli, being all that would be required. Suppose therefore your husband had committed that dreadfully thoughtless act, bringing home a friend unexpectedly to dinner—you would really have nothing to be ashamed of. The dinner would consist of some vermicelli soup, a dish of rissoles, a dish of mince and poached eggs, ornamented as we have described, and by simply ordering a savoury omelette to follow—very few men care about sweets—you would probably be rewarded after the guest’s departure with an inquiry as to where you got all those things for dinner from. On the other hand, think of the cold leg of mutton—such an inartistic thing when it has been cut into—or