The beef so surly quarrels with the 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:
"Good nature will some failings overlook,
Forgive mischance, not errors of the Cook;
As, if no salt is thrown about the dish,
Or nice crisp'd parsley scatter'd on the fish;
Shall we in passion from our dinner fly,
And hopes of pardon to the Cook deny,
For things which Mrs. Glasse herself might oversee,