Bluefish are good now, too; they are excellent, really, and a bluefish at its best is hard to beat. Have you ever tried cooking them in the oven? Have them split, you know, as for broiling, then put them into a well-greased baking pan. Have ready half a cupful of melted butter with the juice of an onion in it and likewise the juice of a lemon, with a reasonable amount of salt and of cayenne pepper. Before the fish goes into the oven moisten it well with the prepared butter, and baste with the butter every ten minutes while it is in the oven. When it is of a good even brown it is done. Now, don’t serve with the bluefish cooked in this way potatoes of any sort or kind. Have cucumbers, hothouse, of course, and have them fried. Cut them into thick slices and remove the seeds; then soak them in equal parts of ice-water and vinegar, well salted, for one hour. Take them out, drain and wipe dry and fry in boiling lard until a light brown. They are not only good when served with bluefish cooked in this way, but they are appetizing bits to accompany pork or lamb chops when you are serving them with a brown sauce.
So much for to-day’s fish story. As for meat, anybody can get good meats at any time of the year if they will go to a man who knows how to cut them, and won’t insist on dickering with him about the price.
Domestic ducks are now in good condition. You might get one of them and try preparing it in some new way to be used, if it’s a success, on Thanksgiving Day. Say stuffing it with mushrooms; use one can of mushrooms to three heaping cupfuls of stale bread-crumbs; one-half a cupful of melted butter, with salt and pepper. If the stuffing appears to be too dry moisten it with a bit of milk. Split the mushrooms and use all their liquor; if the duck is too small to require the full amount you may add some of the mushrooms to the giblet gravy to be served with it.
And there is plenty of material in market for green salads; there are celery and lettuce, the stand-bys; watercress, escarolle, romaine, and chicory. Try this latter some time soon, using a plain dressing of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper for it, with bits of Roquefort cheese sprinkled over it. If any among you object to eating this cheese because of its odor, rest easy, for you may have at hand a counteracting force in the Bar-le-Duc currants. They do, as you probably are aware, put the finishing touch to almost any sort of dinner, but when particularly strong cheese has been served they are nothing short of a godsend.
To the ordinary reader the name of Bontoux conveys nothing; to the Parisian of a generation or two ago it was synonymous with all that was delightful in the way of food and drink. The shop over which Madame Bontoux presided remains in the Rue de l’Échelle, but Madame, herself, has been gathered to her forefathers. Originally she had been a cordon bleu, and in the early forties opened a small establishment in the Rue Montesquieu, which establishment, if I mistake not, is mentioned in Sue’s “Seven Cardinal Sins.” Thence she moved to the Rue de l’Échelle, where she died. Acting on the whim of the moment, she would sell her wares only to those whom she liked, and those whom she did not like might offer her a hundred times their value in vain. The Rue de l’Échelle being near the Comédie Française, Rachel, who was a gourmet of the first water, frequently went to the shop after rehearsals. One afternoon she went in while one of the shopmen was busy packing a hamper for Nicholas I. Among the delicacies there were a dozen magnificent quails on a skewer. “I want those,” said Rachel in the imperious way she adopted now and then. “You will have to want, my little woman,” replied Madame, shaking her head in her enormous bonnet, which seemed a fixture; no one had ever seen her without it. Then Rachel toned down. “I will give you ten francs apiece for them,” she said. “Not for ten crowns apiece,” came the retort, and in a voice which left the great actress no doubt as to its meaning.
Rachel was disappointed, and rose from her chair to go. Just when she had reached the door an idea flashed on her. She turned round and began to recite the famous lines from Corneille’s “Horace.” The effect was electrical on the shopman, who dropped the quails. Madame Bontoux was not so easily impressed. She kept shaking her head just as if to say “You may save yourself the trouble, my girl;” but all of a sudden, when Rachel brought out the last line—
“Moi seule en être cause et mourir de plaisir,”
she jumped up. “Give her the dozen quails and a pheasant besides.” Wonderful to relate, the enormous bonnet had got pushed on one side.
Now, there’s a very pretty question to be discussed at your dinner table o’ Sunday night: Were those birds à bon marché for Rachel, or did Madame Bontoux, in the language of to-day, “get the best of the bargain?”