It is a great point, also, if little dishes can be served for family use instead of the wasteful, extravagant joint, which leaves so much cold meat to be disposed of; for cold meat is not so nourishing as fresh cooked meat, nor when rewarmed is it so wholesome. One great drawback which many people feel to such substitutes, is the cost of the materials required; for cookery books, as a rule, speak so lightly of quarts' of cream, and 'dozens' of eggs and oysters, as to cause them to be given up in despair. But the following recipes are designed to show that no considerable expense need be incurred in making little dishes, and that the real secret of good cookery lies in the skill and care with which the most ordinary material is turned to ac

count.

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Many parts of fish and meat, although of prime quality, are unfit for perfectly plain cooking, are consequently to be had at a moderate cost, and may be made into elegant and delicious dishes. But supposing the question of expense to be satisfactorily settled, there will probably remain the formidable one-how to get such little dishes

properly cooked.

You will very likely be told

that French dishes take so much time that it is impossible to get them done. To this it may be answered that the days are of pretty much the same length in England as in France, and it is rather the patience and tact of our neighbours which are wanting in us, and which give them their immense superiority in culinary matters.

It would, of course, be ridiculous to expect a cook to send up a dinner of many dishes in a totally different style to that to which she had been accustomed; but if she were allowed every day to prepare one or more of the dishes in the following bills of fare, she would soon grow used to a better style of cookery, and find no difficulty in serving a perfect little dinner' for a party.

No doubt there is, as a rule, too great a preponderance of solid meat at the principal meal of the middle-class family. A joint of meat with but a moderate allowance of vegetables, and perhaps a pudding to follow, is the usual every-day dinner. Now there are few stomachs which are not unduly taxed by the quantity of animal food required to

stay the cravings of hunger, and it is beyond question that there are from this cause an increasing number of young dyspeptics.

It is not, as has been said, a question of expense to provide a more varied diet. With management the cost is very small. Broth, with some such addition as rice balls, or any of the Italian pastes, a dish of tasty, well-prepared macaroni, of eggs, savoury rice, or even savoury oatmeal pudding, should always precede the meat when fish is too dear. Thus, by greatly diminishing the need of so much exclusively animal diet by providing fitting substitutes, the digestive organs and the purse are both saved. Some recipes for dishes which may usefully precede the pièce de résistance of a family dinner are given at the end of the book.

So far from there being any real difficulty in procuring the morceaux required for the little dishes in the following menus, they are precisely those which may be most easily and cheaply obtained. But it will not do, if economy is an object, to order them from the butcher or fishmonger. Ten to one if they will send the weight or cut asked for, and

ten to one also if any other will answer. The Spanish proverb, he who wants a thing goes for it, he who would miss a thing sends for it,' should be borne in mind by all housewives and cooks. True artists are always most careful about the kind and quality of the material they use, and it is only by going to market and choosing for yourself that you will get the right thing. The system of sending for orders' is unknown in France. Everybody goes to market there, and here lies another secret of the national success in cookery.

Certainly not the least important consideration is that of the relative wholesomeness of food cooked in what may be called the Anglo-French manner (real French cookery will probably never obtain popular favour with us) and of English cookery. For the first it is contended that it is light, digestible and appetitive, that it utilises every scrap of material, frequently makes comparatively insipid substances delicious, renders them far more nutritious, and is consequently more economical than plain roasting and boiling. There are few among us who cannot vouch for its being often so very plain

as to deprive meat, fish, and vegetables, wherever possible, of their flavour and succulence.

It has been said when things are at their worst they begin to mend; let us hope, then, our culinary miseries have culminated, and that, with the establishment of a national school for cookery, a new order of things may gain ground. It is altogether impossible to overrate the importance of establishing a school of practical instruction which must have the effect of spreading a knowledge, not only of scientific, but of simple cookery, based on proper principles. It is scarcely second in importance to the foundation of a new school of medicine; for this could only aspire to the cure of disease, whereas it is the highest attribute of good diet to prevent it.

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A learned antiquary, Dr. Samuel Pegge, writing early in the last century, says: Cookery was ever reckoned a branch of the art medical; the verb curare signifies equally to dress victuals and to cure a distemper, and everybody has heard of Dr. Diet and Kitchen Physic.' He goes on to say that in older times cooks were often physicians, and were held in high reputation even in Athens. Close upon