"The finest landscape in the world is improved by a good inn in the foreground."

Samuel Johnson.

Strictly speaking, there exists as yet no general high-class English or American cuisine, beyond the natural alimentary resources of these countries, supplemented by the efforts of foreign cooks. There are certain native dishes of merit in England, to be sure, and there is a so-termed Southern and Eastern kitchen in the United States where not a few dishes are admirably prepared. But the art of baking bread and of pastry-making, as well as that of frying, is, alas! lacking to a great extent in both countries, while the entrÉe is still largely an uncertain quantity with the housewife. There is a lack, likewise, both in England and in America, of a proper understanding of sauces, and this is the more to be regretted on the score of their appetising qualities, the variety they impart to the flavour of viands, and, where the properties of the numerous seasonings and condiments are thoroughly understood, the beneficent effect they lend to digestion.

It were misleading, however, to decry the old-fashioned American home kitchen. Smile as ye may, ye devotees of the Gallic art, the New World has its dishes that are not to be despised. What fonts of delectation well not forth from the apple-, the mince-, and the pumpkin-pie! And what caressing sapors linger not in the buckwheat cake and nectar of the maple grove, the corn and the sweet-potato "pone," the corned beef and cabbage, and even the corn-on-the-cob itself, if of the "Country Gentleman" or "Stowell's Evergreen" variety! The planked shad, the clam chowder, the terrapin À la Maryland, the plebeian pork and beans, and the more recent pÂtÉ of oyster-crabs and lobster À la Newburgh surely need no one to sound their praises. The Fuligula vallisneria of the Chesapeake occupies so exalted a plane that it is sufficient to lift one's hat at the mere thought of him; and then reflect how admirably the ruffed grouse, the prairie-chicken, or a celery-fed redhead may supply his place when occasion requires. And has not America contributed the potato, the tomato, and tobacco, and taught the world how to cross a continent in a dining-car! That the English are jealous of American products cannot be doubted when one remembers the remark of Sydney Smith, who was asked by one of his friends why he did not visit America. "I fully intended going," was his reply, "but my parishioners held a meeting and came to a resolution that they could not trust me with the canvasback ducks; and I felt they were right, so I gave up the project."

No better cookery, independent of any special school, is to be met with than that of the superior restaurants and hotels of the American metropolis and numerous clubs within and without its confines. The cookery of the capital of the United States, as it exists in many of the better restaurants and in private houses where Southern dishes are especially well prepared, is deservedly celebrated. The New Orleans kitchen has also its ardent admirers; but outside of New York the restaurants of San Francisco are perhaps the most famous and cosmopolitan. Receptive and creative, America has learned from all, and added to acquired knowledge the results of her own inventive genius. The era of fried steak, saleratus biscuits, and "apple floating-island" has happily long since passed, and already in many instances an American dinner has come to be recognised as among the very best it is possible to obtain. A well-prepared ChÂteaubriand is no longer confined to the CafÉ Riche, or a bisque d'Écrevisses to Voisin or to LapÉrouse. In none of the useful arts has progress been more marked in this country during the past decade. Even in remote New England villages a leg or a saddle of mutton is rarely sent to table with all its juices and excellences dissipated, as one commonly finds it on the tables volantes of the prominent English restaurants. And for the omnipresent "greens" of Great Britain in winter—the Brussels sprout, distended to thrice its size and deprived of all its pristine delicacy by crossing it with the cabbage—there are with us countless vegetables to choose from.

Luxuriant diversity, in fact, is a marked characteristic of American cookery, whatever faults may be found with its methods as frequently practised. Yet, the too lavish multiplicity of dishes, usually at the expense of quality, which has characterised the breakfast and dinner of the average hostelry conducted on a fixed charge is disappearing, and hotels on the European plan are becoming more in request yearly. The cooking-school, likewise, is rapidly contributing its share towards the evolution of eating, wherein wholesomeness and variety are properly regarded as a means of health, enjoyment, and longevity.

The luxuries of a few years ago have become necessities now; and one notes on every hand the better physical development produced by improved alimentation and an increased understanding of the laws of hygiene. No nation possesses so wide a field for administering to its most minute wants at all seasons and under all conditions. The woods, the waters, and the plains vie with one another in their contributions to the table. If we have not the truffle, we have the mushroom. If we are without the turbot and sole, we have the whitefish, the shad, the flounder, the bluefish, the weakfish, the striped-bass, the frost-fish and pompano—the choice from ice-cold to tropical waters, the range from the Atlantic to the Pacific—with oysters unequalled in delicacy and cheapness; while we not only grow vegetables in profusion, but in infinite variety and of superlative excellence. When one thinks of the oysters, with their rank, tinny, fishy flavour and their high admission fee, that do duty in England and on the Continent alike, one may trebly appreciate the delicate Blue Point, the Narragansett, Glen Cove, Millpond, Lynn Haven, Cherrystone, Rockaway, Shrewsbury, and the many other tributes of the "deep sea" wherein the very essence of the ocean seems concentrated. Of wholesome fruits the supply and kinds are boundless, while animal food in nearly all its forms is nowhere found in greater perfection. Nor is furred and feathered game lacking to minister to the wants of the invalid and shed its graces on the board of the epicure. The poor may have their ice as well as the rich; and with her vast granaries America can provision the globe with the staff of life. Her territory is unlimited and its fertility unsurpassed. He who wills may possess his plot of garden ground, and, like Marvell, reckon the lapse of time by the ripening of his fruits and the blossoming of his flowers. In time, perchance, an American judge may rise to emphasise the sentiment of Henrion de Pensey, the French magistrate, who thus expressed himself to three of the most distinguished scientists of their day: "I consider the discovery of a dish which sustains our appetite and prolongs our pleasures as a far more interesting event than the discovery of a star, for we have always stars enough; and I shall not regard the sciences as sufficiently honoured or adequately represented amongst us until I see a cook in the first class of the Institute."

Such a benefactor was the Vice-President of the United States, General John C. Breckinridge, the story of his discovery having been thus related at a recent dinner at Chamberlin's, in Washington, by one of a coterie of men who were in their political and social prime in the early sixties. The month was March, and at nearly every table planked shad was being served. "I wonder," said the raconteur, as he held up his glass of Forster-Jesuiten-Garten to the light and savoured its adorable bouquet, "if any of these people who are smacking their lips over that delicious dish know that they are indebted for it to General John C. Breckinridge. It was from him that the people of this part of the country gained their knowledge of how to plank shad, and from here it has spread out to every place where shad can be obtained.

"It was Breckinridge's custom, beginning with the first warm Sunday in April and continuing till the middle of June, to drive slowly along the picturesque road that skirts the north bank of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal until he reached the Guard Locks, fifteen miles up, at the Great Falls of the Potomac. In the buff-bodied carryall would be stowed away a two-gallon demijohn of Kentucky's best, lemons, sugar, mint, a large cheese, and pounds of soda-crackers. Besides the negro driver he would at times have a friend along, most frequently that only social intimate of President Buchanan, 'Gentleman Bob' Magraw.

"When Breckinridge reached the falls he would walk into the little house which served the double duty of keeper's home and public inn, shake hands with everybody, have a word of pleasant banter with the landlady, hand her a five-dollar gold piece by way of compensation for the diversion of business from her protected to his free-trade entertainment, and then map out the day's enjoyment.

"The farmers and farm-hands for miles around could be relied upon to be on hand to catch the fish. The shad could not ascend the river beyond this point, and the water was fairly alive with them. Fifty or more would be taken in a short time. While this work was going on, Breckinridge, who never fished, would throw himself upon the grassy bank of the canal and listen to the playing of the violin by one or the other of two brothers named West, who were possessed of wonderful skill with the bow, the negro field-hands often joining in a dance. At noon the shad would be properly planked, under the personal supervision of Breckinridge, and put before a red-hot fire, and in a few minutes the royal feast would begin, right where they were cooked, the landlady supplying plates, knives, and forks. When the appetite was satisfied, another season of lounging would follow, when one of the two brothers would resume his playing on the violin. As the sun got low in the heavens, Breckinridge would start back to town, after telling them all to come around the next Sunday. The love of these country people for Breckinridge knew no bounds; they worshipped him, and he was thoughtful of them.

"Well, John C. Breckinridge was, as you all know, a candidate of the Southern wing of the Democratic party for the Presidency in 1860. We remember the result of that gigantic struggle. The section where those pleasant Sundays were spent in another year became a battle-ground, and the placid fishers scattered far and wide. A new generation has sprung up and another war been fought, and the name of Breckinridge is forgotten in that region; but the art of planking shad as taught by him not only lives but spreads abroad each year."

Thus, at least, runs the story. But it has also been stated that the art of planking should be credited to the Swedes, who are said to have brought the fish-plank with them among their household effects, when, in 1634, they settled on the banks of the Delaware, a river famous for its wild duck and shad. The planking of fish has equally been attributed to the American aborigines, who subsisted to a great extent on the spoils of the woods and waters. The shad itself, at any rate, is an indigenous product; and there are those who maintain that it is not improved by planking, but is best when simply broiled to a turn over the charcoal, with parsley and butter sauce and a filet of lemon.

Yet a hundredfold more important than the shad and his left-bower, the cucumber, is the vegetable that may be placed almost side by side with bread in the value it contributes to the sustenance of mankind—the potato, which the world owes to the western hemisphere, and whose introduction produced so great an economical revolution among the peoples of the earth. And were the potato itself lacking, the Apios tuberosa, or ground-nut, with its violet-scented blossoms—a tuber in use by the aborigines—would stand ready as a substitute, and yield innumerable varieties under cultivation. Although the early history of the potato is obscure and has been the subject of much discussion, the great botanist De Candolle states that its true home is Chili, where it grows wild; that before the discovery of America its cultivation was diffused from Chili to New Grenada; that it was introduced about the latter part of the sixteenth century into Virginia and North Carolina, and, finally, was imported into Europe between 1580 and 1585, first by the Spaniards and afterwards by the English at the time of Sir Walter Raleigh's voyages to Virginia. The first potato was planted on Sir Walter's estate in Cork, and employed for food in Ireland many years before it became familiar to England, the esculent still remaining the truffle of the Emerald Isle. Gerarde, long before the Lyonnaise or pomme soufflÉe was dreamed of, defines two varieties—the Sisarum Peruvianum, or skirret, of Peru, and the Battata Virginiana, or Virginian potato. In his "Great Herbal" the qualities of the "battata" are thus set forth: "The temperature and virtues be referred to the common Potatoes, being likewise a food, as also a meate for pleasure, equall in goodnesse and wholesomenesse unto the same, being either toasted in the embers, or boyled and eaten with oyle, vinegar and pepper, or dressed in any other way by the hand of some cunning in cookerie." The origin of the sweet potato is more doubtful, a number of authorities holding to its American and others to its Asiatic origin, though Brazil is usually credited as being the land of its genesis.

During the old colony days of the eighteenth century catfish and waffle suppers were in great repute in the taverns on the picturesque Schuylkill near Philadelphia, these being still popular, though planked shad is more commonly called for. The turtle was a great favourite with our epicurean forefathers, who were accustomed frequently to hold turtle feasts or, as they were then termed, turtle frolics. Returning sea captains from the West Indies were expected to bring home a turtle for this purpose, together with a keg of limes, lime-juice being considered the best of all tart accompaniments for the punch-bowl. Of these feasts, with their accessories, a travelling clergyman named Burnaby gave this account in 1759:

"There are several taverns pleasantly situated upon East River, near New York, where it is common to have these turtle feasts. These happen once or twice a week. Thirty or forty gentlemen and ladies meet and dine together, drink tea in the afternoon, fish, and amuse themselves till evening, and then return home in Italian chaises, a gentleman and lady in each chaise. On the way there is a bridge, about three miles distant from New York, which you always pass over as you return, called the Kissing Bridge, where it is part of the etiquette to salute the lady who has put herself under your protection."

No wonder that, with such delightful privileges, the days of our roistering greater-grandfathers were referred to as "the good old colony times."

It has been properly held that austerity of diet, though not always productive of austere morals, invariably leads to an acerbity of temperament inimical to social and artistic development, that poor food is a begetter of dyspepsia, and that in dyspepsia lurks crime. A well-nourished nation becomes a progressive nation, and poor nourishment results in intemperance and maleficence. The mobile human face, first to show the effects of the emotions and the passions by its lines, is no less indicative of meagre or improper alimentation. "Both in mind and body, where nourishment ceases vitality fails," and hence a perfect cuisine must prove the best of doctors if supplemented by the adage, "Know thyself, obtain a sufficiency of sleep, and exercise abundantly in the outer air." As to the ideal cuisine, this may be briefly defined as that which supplies an abundant variety of the best procurable material prepared in the most wholesome manner, in distinction to innumerable mixed and highly spiced viands, which assuredly have their place, but which require to be employed with precaution. The merit of the best American cookery consists in its comparative simplicity.

Writing in 1852, Count d'Orsay complained that even then the culinary art had greatly deteriorated in Paris, and had been transferred to England. At the time referred to, the FrÈres ProvenÇeaux, Philippe, and the CafÉ de Paris were the most famous restaurants at the French capital, VÉry, VÉfour, and the CafÉ Anglais having declined in favour. His remarks concerning England applied of course to the nobility, who could outbid the titled classes of France, as to-day America in its turn is enabled to command the greatest culinary skill. A similar complaint was made by Nestor Roqueplan in 1866 in "Le Double Almanach Gourmand":

"The French cuisine has lost much of its originality and special characteristics. We no longer find places devoted to the Flemish kitchen, others to the Normandy, Lyonnaise, Toulousian, Bordelaise, and ProvenÇale kitchens. But France nevertheless is still the country where eating is found at its best."

That French cookery, or, to speak more correctly, Parisian cookery, has deteriorated of recent years there would seem to be abundant evidence. Or is it that such retrogression is owing to the advances in other countries, and that the Parisian cuisine suffers more from such comparison than from any real falling off in merit? Certain it is that the alien who is capable of judging will charge it with having become too rich and highly spiced, if not too careless. There are those who go so far as to say that its future will lie chiefly in the speech of the menu, that none of the strange spellings of "rosbif" will change the nature of the viand, the same remark applying to the cut which is called a "biftek" everywhere save in the land of its origin and in the United States. The fact is that the French, in many arts, unjustly claim a taste so superlative as to be unattainable by other nations, and that French cookery has been tacitly accepted as unparalleled on the same principle that a titled personage is supposed to possess superior accomplishments. Yet French must necessarily remain for all time the classic language of the bill of fare.

Still, the preparation of food continues to be better understood by the average practitioner in France than in any other country. For, as in angling it is "not so much the fly as the hand directing it that secures the trout," so in cookery it is less the recipe than the fine perceptivity of the artist that achieves the perfect dish. So far as America is concerned, it is less the want of capable chefs than the scarcity of good female cooks that is to be deplored. A competent cuisiniÈre is becoming more and more uncommon, and by the average servant cooking is too often considered a mere function to be performed with as little trouble and as much despatch as possible. Besides the lack of proper training, crass ignorance is too frequently a factor which the housewife has to contend with in those who profess to have a perfect understanding of the art of the kitchen.

A new cook had come, and there were to be smelts with a tartare sauce to follow the soup.

"Can you make a good tartare sauce?" asked the mistress; "if not, I can show you."

"Oh, yes; I've often made one."

In due time the fish, shorn of heads and tails and flanked by a very yellow sauce with a strange taste, made their appearance, and were promptly returned to the kitchen.

"Surely, you don't call this a tartare sauce, which is always cold. Besides, where are the chopped pickle, the onion, the capers, the parsley? And what gives it such a queer taste?"

"But this is a hot tartar sauce, mum; I asked for the 'tartar,' and the maid gave it to me; I supposed you wanted a cream-of-tartar sauce."

The corrective for such a state of things is difficult to prescribe, unless it be a better understanding on the part of the housewife and the establishment of cooking-classes in all female schools. Another remedy might be to imitate the French of two hundred years ago, and provide an entertaining illustrated text-book for children, artfully designed to foster a love of gastronomy. Thus, in a work of this nature entitled "Roast Pig," the text is freely interlarded with appetising pictures of viands and table scenes, accompanied by such maxims as these: "A well-minced ham is fine eating, but not without something to drink"; "pÂtÉ of venison and craquelins are not intended for naughty children"; "damask prunes are delicious to eat for those who deserve them"; "venison is better in a pÂtÉ than with any sauces, if it is well seasoned and accompanied with wine."[32]

The excellence of the morale of a work of this nature cannot fail to impress itself on those of mature years whose incentive to learning in youth was more often the ruler and the rod than sugar-plums and wine. But while the advantages of such a method for moulding the youthful taste are to be extolled, it presents the objection that much valuable time must elapse before the results would become tangible, and hence its benefits would accrue too late save for the younger generation and its successors.

It were well, withal, in furtherance of the advance of the art, if a society were formed for the suppression of the filet, the consommÉ with whipped cream, and also the sweetbread in its usual form, which are so frequently employed in "company" dinners, the bill of fare of which is left by the housewife to the cook or the purveyor who is engaged for the day. In such cases the guest often needs no menu to know what is forthcoming—the lukewarm Blue Points, the flavourless broth, the overdone halibut, the tasteless tenderloin and green peas, and the half-mixed salad deluged with tarragon vinegar. As for the wines, one may be reasonably sure of a woody-tasting sherry, a sour and watery "claret," and a still more asperous brut champagne that is doled out, when appetite has waned, to chill the dessert and render the sweets the more indigestible. Not that this menu is the general rule by any means in the United States, but it is of far too frequent occurrence, and should be placed under ban—a charge that concerns the host and hostess alike. For whatever difficulty the mistress may experience in procuring trained culinary skill, a simple bill of fare, daintily served, is always at her command; while there can be no excuse on the part of the master for presenting a sharp brut champagne at the end of the repast, if indeed it be presented at all; and as for a reputable Bordeaux, if such be not in his cellar, it is or should be obtainable at his club. Where champagne is permitted to diffuse its sunshine, it goes without saying it should be of irreproachable quality and dealt out with a liberal hand. To stint in Ay or Sillery is as unpardonable as to ice one's Burgundy. The host should watch the various brands attentively from year to year, noting their improvement or deterioration, judging them by their quality only, and choosing them irrespective of their vogue or the plaudits of those who may not be capable of judging.

The introducer of the dry flint cracker in place of fresh bread to go with the cheese, though never definitely ascertained, is said to have been a dentist who in this wise succeeded in obtaining many wealthy patients. A person who is guilty of offering hardtack to his friends may be expected to pour a mayonnaise dressing over his cucumbers and beat up his lettuce and tomatoes in a salad. To serve cheese with the salad is a syncretism, besides being a great injustice to the roast to which the salad rightly appertains. The absence of butter which is often noticeable at formal repasts has no raison d'Être. It is wanted at most dinners, particularly for corn, baked potatoes, etc., and is always needed for bread; its non-employment in Europe is only a consequent of economical custom. A vice it were seemingly useless to protest against, so universal is the practice, is the serving of raw fruit after a hearty dinner. As long as courses are presented in a tempting way, so long will the unthinking majority continue to taste them, even if it be fruit,—"gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night,"—- after the final sweets. The only one who has exclaimed against this custom, to the writer's knowledge, is the Ettrick Shepherd in the "Noctes": "As for frute after fude, it's a downricht abomination, and coagulates on the stomach like sour cruds."

Nor may the wineless dinner be passed unnoticed, at which unfortunate guests sometimes find themselves unwittingly present with no means of escape. To those who are unaccustomed to their glass of claret or other vinous beverage at home its exclusion may not materially signify, though at a protracted repast there are not a few among such who find it a great aid to digestion. In the case of those who are habituated to it its absence becomes of serious moment, much the same as if a meal were deprived of salt or the post-prandial cigar were proscribed. In vain may the unfortunate guest attempt to philosophise on the virtues of abnegation as he contemplates his glass where the gold gleams without, instead of sparkling from within, and he mournfully recalls the couplet of Monselet and the dinners that are past:

The least that the dinner-giver could do who may be intent on restricting the product of the vine, out of respect for those whose happiness it befits him to consider,—aye, for which he is directly responsible during the entire period they remain under his roof,—would be to apprise his guests on their invitation cards that his filet was to be accompanied by water. Then any possible uncertainty would at once become a certainty, and no one need be ensnared. Otherwise his dinner must border too closely on the very questionable form of entertainment tendered by the fox to the stork. "Let no man," says an old writer in "Blackwood's," "who has been so unfortunate as to be accustomed to drink water be afraid all at once to begin to drink wine. Let him without fear or trembling boldly fill a bumper to his most gracious majesty the king—then the Duke of Clarence and the navy—then Wellington and the army. These three bumpers will have made him a new man."

The fact that the host may not be a wine-drinker himself is no reason why he should select a dinner-party as the field for enforcing his views on hydropathy. And if from sentiment or through physical reasons he prefer water, no one assuredly will question his right to abstain from vinous beverages. There was an old gentleman, it is related, who was fond of entertaining his friends, and who gave them wine of the very best. He himself would drink with them, but only from a particular decanter which was placed before him. An inquisitive neighbour at his table contrived to help himself from the same bottle, and discovered that, under a colourable imitation of sherry, his host was drinking cold tea. He was a total abstainer from principle, but he was too courteous a gentleman to flaunt his conviction in the face of his guests or to reflect upon the weakness of his friends by confessing himself superior to them.

Above all things, an invitation to dine should convey on its face the spirit of a refined, broad-minded hospitality and an assurance of perfect creature comforts, embodying in the fullest measure the sentiment expressed by ChÂtillon-Plessis, "Se soigner en buvant d'excellents vins et en mangeant d'excellents mets, voilÀ la bonne, la vraie mÉdication!" (To care for one's self by drinking excellent wines and by eating excellent dishes,—this is the proper, the true medication.) In all instances where the entertainer may be opposed to serving wine, it were better to dispense with the dinner and substitute a tea or a reading in its stead. A wineless dinner is justifiable only where every guest is a professed teetotaler and has become inured to Oolong and sparkling waters.

An editorial in the London "Spectator" deals summarily with such alleged entertainers, terming them "would-be hosts."

"What!" [exclaims the writer] "shall a man be invited to a feast? shall he don his white tie with care and take his way through the inclement weather to his friend's home, determined, though weary and jaded with his daily toil, to shine at his best, and repay with the blithest company his friend's entertainment? and shall he be offered lemonade to drink? It is enough to curdle the milk of human kindness in his breast forever. Or iced water? Why, it would throw a chill upon the warmest good will, and freeze the speech even upon the lips of a lover. The man is neither a wine-bibber nor a sot. But he is accustomed to drink his glass of wine, even as he is accustomed to eat his dinner, and one is as necessary to him as the other. Well, we do not imagine that he dines with him twice."

The Sunday two-or three-o'clock dinner is a barbarism which calls loudly for suppression—a custom that has no justifiable motive, inasmuch as the only pretence for its existence is of questionable benefit to the servants, who are obliged to share equally the penalty visited upon every one by whom it is tolerated. As well establish a weekly custom of a Saturday banquet at midnight in order to allow the cook a full afternoon for visiting. For what are the inevitable results? Accustomed to the dinner in the evening and the luncheon at noon, for which the machinery of digestion is set in perfect accord, the stomach is called upon to fast on the day devoted to rest until long after the period for the performance of its regular offices—to be surfeited with excessive ingestion at a time when appetite is ravenous and the secretory organs are unable to perform their customary functions. Gluttony and subsequent lethargy are a necessary consequent, followed by a disturbed state of the digestion perhaps for days afterwards. The pathological deduction of irregular eating is a simple one. The stomach, having supplied its secretions at the accustomed time, waits but a brief period before it allows such secretions to be absorbed when deprived of the aliments that aid in the production of fresh supplies. After a few such experiences the secretions diminish in amount and in activity, even when food is introduced in the digestive tract, and stomachic disturbance is an inevitable sequence. It will thus be manifest that the Sunday-afternoon dinner and late Sunday supper become the greatest of all invitations to gastric disorders, and that the master and mistress of the well-regulated household should firmly resent this almost universal imposition. No one knows better than the physician the serious ailments caused by Sunday engorgement and irregular eating. And yet no one in this respect remains more passive to his own welfare or that of his patients.

The seven-o'clock theatre dinner, while less obnoxious than the Sunday evil, is nevertheless a positive discomfort and a direct incentive to flatulence and dyspepsia. It should likewise receive the stigma of public disapproval, and either be entirely abolished, out of comfort both to hosts and guests, or set at a sufficiently early hour to ensure their well-being and that of the audience it invariably disturbs. In any event, a formal repast of this nature can scarcely be partaken of with a sense of comfort, and it were better for all concerned if a supper after the performance were substituted.

To be regretted also is the growing tendency of adjourning the evening dinner-hour. Six o'clock, the hygienist will maintain, is the latest period in the day at which those who set a proper value on their health should begin to dine. It will be claimed, notwithstanding, by many who may be directly concerned, that this is too early for invited guests to assemble at table—that the toiler in the business mart may not always call his time his own. Let the hours of the business man and the professionalist be shortened, so that life may contain a broader margin. There still remain but twenty-four hours in the day, and the existing hours of business are too long and do not enable the majority to regulate the conditions of life properly. Let us not be ever hastening on, as though the goal were to be attained only by whip and spur!—"the wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure, and he that hath little business shall become wise."

The ideal hour for dining would be half-past six, with fifteen minutes' grace at the utmost, when one need neither sit down in a half-famished condition nor be sent to bed with an overcharged stomach. Seven o'clock certainly is as late as one may dine with comfort. A deferred dinner means either a too substantial luncheon or a distressing feeling of "goneness," which frequently makes itself unpleasantly audible long before the announcement that dinner is served; while lateness in dining implies additionally an insufficient interim between the dessert and the night's repose. No period of the day begins to be as tedious as that which is often mistakenly extended for the benefit and encouragement of the unpunctual. Would that the laggard who thus mars the comfort of others might feel the true force of Boileau's stricture: "I have always been punctual at the hour of dinner, for I knew that all those whom I kept waiting at that provoking interval would employ those unpleasant moments to sum up all my faults." To wait for tardy guests, it cannot be emphasised too strongly, is to try unwarrantably the temper of the remainder of the company and jeopardise the excellence of the repast. All such stumbling-blocks to the perfect advance of gastronomy, however, will doubtless be removed in time, and the pleasures of the table eventually be realised to their fullest extent in America.

Again, turning from the state of cookery in this country to that in England, it must be admitted that advancement has been far less manifest. "In general," a French writer remarks, "the English are little inclined to epicurism; it is apparent that their palate is not apt to appreciate the finish, the delicacy of a dish artistically prepared." It cannot be said that this stricture is entirely just, despite existent conditions. Neither may it be charged that the general state of English cookery is entirely the result of supineness on the part of a considerable portion of those whose interests are most affected; for the travelled Briton is the first to complain of the sameness and lack of progress which characterise his native kitchen. With abundant material and the best of meats and fish, there is little variety and a conspicuous want of daintiness in the English bill of fare; while even in the capital the English restaurants, with few exceptions, are scarcely to be commended. One must perforce suppose that these conditions are more the outcome of the national conservatism—the tendency to "let well enough alone"—than that they are not realised by a certain portion of the community. The Englishman is the last one, however, to stint at his table, whereon the ample roast invariably figures, and whatever may chance to be served appears in generous profusion.

Nor can one imagine a more delightsome host than the cultured Briton, who was first to proclaim the virtues of old-vintage champagnes, and who is still willing to undergo the martyrdom of gout for the sake of an after-glass of port which may not be equalled elsewhere. And if the English table be designated as "heavy" compared with that of the United States, it must be considered that climate has much to do with the form of a nation's alimentation. The national roast beef and ale are a fuel for the body in a land where fogs and mists prevail, and where the heating of dwellings and buildings is often inadequate. The chop-house is essentially English, and so far as its bill of fare extends its merits are unquestionable. The Englishman will also say, and his claim cannot be disputed, Is there a better substantial soup than turtle, or even ox-tail and mulligatawny? is any friture equal in delicacy to that of whitebait? and is not the English beefsteak incomparably superior to the larded filet of the French?

But turtle and turbot and beef and ale need not necessarily preclude the lighter forms of nutrition which the British lack, or that minute attention to detail without which the cuisine must languish. It is true that the kitchens of the very wealthy are presided over by skilled foreign chefs, as is the case in most other countries, and that my lord and my lady do not lack for the most exquisite refinements that the disciples of CarÊme can contribute. A rich ancestral English country-seat, shaded by its immemorial elms and limes, with its splendid conservatories and gardens, its game-preserves and trout and salmon waters, is perhaps the best expression of refined and luxurious hospitality to be found; and here, assuredly, the table does not yield in bounty and munificence to any in the world. Outside of comparatively few dishes, however, there is but little to commend in general English cookery; and it would seem that what else is specially characteristic and also good consists largely in the cold pieces, such as game-, pigeon-, and rabbit-pie, spiced beef, the lordly venison pasty, and similar comestibles. That there is no such thing as fine modern English cookery the Englishman will be first to acknowledge. Broadly speaking, all which is good is old, and all which is modern is French.[33] The cooking of vegetables is notoriously poor, and variety in preparation is as limited on the ordinary table as the variety of the vegetables themselves during a major portion of the year. The seedsman and the market-gardener cannot be held accountable, for the seedsman produces excellent varieties in profusion, many of which are grown in this country, and market-gardeners abound who must raise them. And no gardener may excel, if equal, the Englishman, whether his operations extend to the kitchen-or the flower-garden. But where are his vegetables to be met with in perfection of variety and perfection of cooking?—a question that becomes almost as great a problem as was the universal absence of male birds among the chaffinches or the mysterious disappearance of the ring-ouzels to Gilbert White.

During the limited season, let us admit, there are some vegetables which may not be surpassed, like green peas and beans, cauliflower, asparagus, and many varieties of lettuce, especially Cos, which cannot be grown to equal advantage under our hot summer sun. It is unfortunate that potatoes are cooked only in about one way, for few potatoes can compare in flavour with those raised in England. All such vegetables as demand continuous midsummer heat for their perfect maturity, together with late-ripening varieties of fruits, are necessarily raised at a disadvantage in most portions of Great Britain. Yet it would seem that the frowns of Vertumnus were far less responsible for this dearth of variety than the apparent apathy of the nation itself or those who are principally responsible for its alimentation—the cook, the epicure, the restaurant, and the housewife.

Thus, in so simple a matter as the pumpkin-pie, which one occasionally meets in the southern and southwestern shires, it is hardly surprising that it is held in slight estimation when one reflects that the material is cut up in pieces, and then, with half apple and half pumpkin, a pie is made similar to the ordinary English apple-pie, and this in a climate where a pumpkin of good quality may not be grown out of doors. Contrary to general opinion, pumpkin-pie is not an American but an old English dish improved upon by the New England housewife. Three hundred years ago, when known as the "pompion," they were made into pies by cutting a hole in the side, extracting the seeds and filaments, stuffing the cavity with apples, and baking the whole.

The nectarine, peach, and apricot, as raised under glass in England or grown as espaliers in favoured localities, are always superior, while the glass-grown "pine" nowhere else reaches such perfection. Superlative, too, is the glass-grown muskmelon—netted, ribbed, and laced; spherical, oval, and globe-shaped; green-fleshed and scarlet-fleshed; and melting, juicy, and delicious. But some will ask, what can be more delectable than the scented orange-scarlet flesh of our own "Surprise," or the Hymettus sweetness that is hived beneath the wattled ribs of the little "Green Nutmeg"? The watermelon, with its great, luscious, rosy core, like corn and the sweet potato and its varieties, is not to be grown in England.

Of hardy fruits America is the chosen home, unless it be of the grape for wine-making, wherein France reigns supreme. And of all districts where soil and climate unite to second the skill of the horticulturist, there is perhaps none in which nearly all the finer species and varieties of fruit attain such superiority, combined with keeping qualities, as in the smiling garden of the Empire State—the Genesee Valley of New York. Excellent fruits are raised in France and southern Germany, but only to a limited extent compared with our own country. To the French we are indebted for many of the finest varieties of pears, though these are rarely seen in France itself. Fruit in Europe is always dear and often difficult to obtain. Yet in the noted Parisian restaurants it is a rare occurrence when one cannot obtain a couple of peaches for twenty-five francs, or revel in a melon for thirty, much the same as pineapples may be obtained in London at a guinea apiece.

It will readily be conceded that the fish and meats of the French and Germans are usually much inferior to those of the English—the veal of Germany and the PrÉ-SalÉ mutton of France excepted. But, unlike the continentals, the English fail to make the most of their opportunities and better materials. A contemporaneous English writer thus alludes to the state of cookery and this lack of progress in his own country:

"The adage 'God sends meat and the devil sends cooks' must surely be of native parentage, for of no country is it so true as of our own. Perhaps had it not been for the influx among us of French and Italian experts we should not have progressed much beyond the pancake and oatmeal period. But foreign chefs limit their efforts to those who can afford to pay them for their services. The middle classes do not fall within the pale of their beneficence. The poor know them not. So it happens that even as I write the greater part of the community not only cannot afford professional assistance in the preparation of their meals, which goes without saying, but from ignorance expend on their larder twice as much as a Parisian or an Italian in the same rank of life, with a very indifferent result. There are handbooks of instructions, it is true, both for the middle and for the lower classes. These books are at everybody's command. But they are either left unread, or, if read, they are not understood."[34]

Let it not be supposed by the stranger to the table of London that one may not dine there to advantage, or that the criticisms as to strictly English dinners apply to all hostelries and to many first-class restaurants of the capital where the French haute cuisine prevails. London has likewise numerous Italian restaurants whose table d'hÔte is not to be despised—if one knows where to find them. But even in those restaurants whose specialty is French cookery the menu is singularly incommensurate in variety to the varied native products, both in vegetable and animal foods. Even the delicious sole and turbot, however well prepared, become a weariness through constant iteration, while petite marmite and croÛte-au-pot are so frequent as to cause one to yearn for Julienne with inexpressible longing. No doubt, with a trained and old-time diner who knows his London thoroughly, one might happen on not a few gastronomic oases whose good English cheer would cause even the fog of the metropolis to melt into golden sunshine.

Many old dishes still exist in the English provinces on which much store is set in their respective localities, as, for instance, a certain pudding, rarely found outside of Derbyshire, called Bakewell pudding, after the little town on the Wye, which is also celebrated for its trout. Although the ancient recipe for this, handed down from one generation to another, is said to be possessed only by the landlady of the Chesterfield Arms in Bakewell, it is asserted that a successful imitation may be made as follows: Line a pie-tin with puff-paste and fill the centre with these ingredients—first layer, lemon cheese; second, raspberry jam; third, lemon cheese. Then strew on the top blanched sweet almonds and strips of candied peel of lemons, oranges, and citrons. Bake for about twenty minutes in a brisk oven, and dust very lightly with fine sugar.

Of the innumerable forms of preparing the cutlet, the following recipe can at least lay claim to originality, and is thoroughly English: The cutlets should be cut from the neck of mutton, then egged and breadcrumbed, finely minced tongue or ham having been mixed with the crumbs. Fry a delicate brown. For the centre of the dish use the whites of three eggs steamed in a cup. Place in a saucepan gherkins, mushrooms, ham, and tongue cut into small bars, adding to this a sauce of good brown gravy, with a dessertspoonful each of red-currant jelly, Harvey's sauce, mushroom ketchup, and tomato sauce. For the quality of this recipe the writer cannot vouch further than to observe that, like its predecessor, it emanates from the daintiest of feminine fingers of Wargrave, where the excellence of the contributor's kitchen is equalled only by the beauty of her flower-garden.

The universal employment of bottled sauces, such as Worcester, Halford, Harvey's, etc., and pungent condiments, like gherkins, mustard, chow-chow, and ketchup, would seem to be more or less necessary in England, owing to the monotony of her roast beef and mutton and the extensive use of cold meats, poultry, and game. Harvey's sauce, mentioned among the ingredients of the above-mentioned recipe, owes its origin to this circumstance: During the middle and later years of Mr. Meynell's mastership of the hounds in the celebrated Quorn country there often appeared in the field Captain Charles Combers, who was born at Brentwood in 1752, and who was more familiarly known as "The Flying Cucumber" from the manner in which he put his horses along. On one occasion, when on his way to Leicestershire, he stopped, as was his wont, at Bedford to dine at the George, then kept by a man named Harvey, where he ordered a steak; and when it was served Combers requested Harvey to let his servant bring from his buggy a quart bottle which contained an admirable sauce. Having poured some of it into his plate and mixed it with the gravy of the steak, he asked Harvey to taste it, and the host pronounced it to be a most excellent relish. "Well, Mr. Harvey," said Combers, "I shall leave the bottle with you to use till my return, only be careful to reserve enough for me." On the next day Harvey had to provide a wedding dinner and introduced the sauce, which afforded such general satisfaction that several smaller parties were made up, and the contents of the bottle were soon exhausted.

In due time Captain Combers returned, and, having been told that no more sauce remained, said: "Never mind; I can make some more from my mother's recipe; and, by-the-bye, I will give you a copy of it." He was as good as his word. Harvey made it in large quantities, sent it to the different shops in London, advertised it as "Harvey's Sauce," and by its extensive sale realised a large income. He subsequently sold the recipe for an annuity of £400 or £500, which he received for the remainder of his life.

Among old English dishes, "Bubble and Squeak" is the fanciful name applied to fried beef or mutton and cabbage,—

for the preparation of which widely varied recipes are given in the vade-mecums of English cookery. Kitchener even set the lines to music, and furnished a sauce for the dish. Such a dish illustrates the excellent digestion of the English. To the French it would be impossible, and a German would think twice before attempting it. But this were harmless compared with an English green sauce for green geese or ducklings, the prescription for which reads: "Mix a quarter of a pint of sorrel-juice, a glass of white wine, and some scalded gooseberries. Add sugar and a bit of butter, and boil them up."

To cavil is easy, however, and in matters relating to cookery it were well to bear in mind the philosophic lines of King, a contemporary of the late lamented Mrs. Glasse:

And if English cookery and English restaurants leave much to be desired, one should not forget that the art is still far from having attained perfection in the United States, where the stranger in like manner might find ample cause for complaint, particularly in the poor and slipshod cookery of the hostelries of its country towns. Certainly all who have visited in England will recall the generous hospitality of its people, the almost homelike comfort and cleanliness of its inns, and a service that may not be equalled by that of any other nation. When to these are added the glories of the English countryside—the idyllic setting amid which many a repast has been savoured—one may well overlook any trifling lapses of the cook, in view of enchantments that must ever be retained in tender recollection.