I hope you won’t want to spoil the taste of any of these dishes by having sweets after them, in the way of fancy cakes, etc. If you do, you may choose them for yourselves. I’ll have none of them.
MARCH
“So comes a reckoning when the banquet’s o’er,—
The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.”
THERE couldn’t be a better time than the present in which to have a smoke-talk, mesdames. There, there, now, pray don’t be alarmed; I’ve no notion of passing round any of the popular brands of cigars. Neither would I so much as offer you cigarettes, albeit the latest scientific utterance has pronounced them harmless.
No, our talk shall be of some of the smoked and salted viands that, while they may not perhaps come under the head of delicacies or indelicacies of the season, are decidedly appetizing, and quite worthy of having considerable attention given to the best ways and means of serving them.
Salt Fish with Cream
And haven’t you been saddened hundreds of times when reflecting upon the disregard of details that makes of a dish of salt-fish and cream nothing but a pasty and altogether horrid mess? But a dish of salted cod becomes delicacy itself if the fish is shredded while raw, all skin and bone removed, washed several times in cold water and cooked in plenty of fresh water; then it should be drained and covered with cream, which has been heated and thickened with an egg or two beaten up well in a tablespoonful or so of cream; add a dash of cayenne, to give it a zest, and you have prepared for breakfast or luncheon a dainty that will quite justify you in fancying yourself for the rest of the day. And that’s a wonderfully comfortable state of mind in which to find oneself.
Salt Fish with Brown Butter