But I would be willing to wager the price of a whole “catch” of codfish that I can tell you of a bran new way to bake one. Read and see for yourself. Have the size that seems to find most favor in your family and fill it with a forcemeat made by mincing to paste a pound of raw codfish. Add to it half a pint of cream that has been just boiled, that’s all, and thickened with two eggs. Season with salt, a chopped onion—chopped so finely that it is of a paste consistency and fill the fish with the mixture. For pepper let me suggest that you use paprika in preference to any other brand. Cook till the fish is done and serve with any rich sauce that appeals to you.

Any or all of the foregoing recipes may be applied to haddock, as you probably suspect—if you know anything at all about fish.

You don’t know, you housekeepers of America what a jolly good reputation you’ve got to live up to unless you happen to have read G. W. Steevens’s clever book, “The Land of the Dollar,” in which he says of our national breakfasts: “First you have fruit—wonderful pears that look like green stones and taste like the Tree of Life. Then mush, so they call oatmeal porridge, or wheatmeal porridge or hominy porridge, a noble food with the nectarous American cream. Then fishes and meats, sausages, and bacon and eggs. Then strange farinaceous foods which you marvel to find yourself swallowing with avid gust—graham bread, soda biscuits, buckwheat or griddle cakes with butter and maple treacle. It is magnificent; but it is indigestion. All the same, I look forward to the day when America shall produce an invention that will let me go across the Atlantic every morning for breakfast. I shall take a season ticket.”

Now let my humble pen chip in two or three things that shall help you to live up to this estimate of you.

Sweet Corn Croquettes

Suppose you are having a dish of fried eggs after a manner described later on in this book. Go still further, and see fit to have some croquettes also. Do you know just what they should be? If in doubt let them be of canned sweet corn. Mix with half a can of the corn two-thirds of its quantity of mashed potatoes, salt and a good generous bit of melted butter. Then form into croquettes, dip in beaten egg and crumbs and fry to a fine color in hot fat.

Sublimated Hash

Or, as second choice, you might like hash instead of the eggs fried. Now, look here; you know me well enough by this time, I hope, to believe that when I suggest hash it is none of the commonplace minces that you shun at the table of your very best friend. Of what I have to say in the line of hash you won’t be overdoing the thing if you refer to it for evermore as a “sublimated hash.” See for yourself: Chop an onion and fry it in a good bit of butter till it is tender and likewise brown. Then put into the butter two cupfuls of diced cold mutton, diced not chopped, and one cupful of diced cold boiled potatoes. Pepper and salt to your fancy. Then put in four tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce and have ready some chopped parsley for sprinkling over the dish when it is served.

Rice Muffins