Potato or purée forms
Sauces
Sausages
Bacon
A cook who has a desire to ornament her dishes can make an infinite variety of garnishings by combining various things, or by changing the form and arrangement of any one of them. Most of the articles used are within the reach of all. It is even not necessary to buy articles especially for this purpose, for odds and ends left over, or those standard stores always in the larder, will afford enough material tastefully to ornament the dishes.
It must be borne in mind that decorations should not be such as will embarrass the carver.
VEGETABLES
With very few exceptions, vegetables should be served au naturel. Meats require all the aids of skilful handling and tasteful adornment. Vegetables, on the contrary, have great beauty in themselves, and the art of the cook cannot rival that of nature. Therefore a few sprigs of parsley so arranged as to give a finish to the dish are ordinarily sufficient garnishing. In those cases, however, where the vegetables lose form and color in cooking, the skill of the cook may be employed to restore these qualities as far as possible. The more a cabbage can be made to look like itself, the more attractive it will be. This, at first thought, may seem a difficult thing to do, but the boiled vegetable can easily be placed in a cup made of the outside green leaves of the cabbage, and so, in a measure, present its own beautiful form and color. Illustration [No. 4] shows a plain boiled cabbage mixed with a white sauce and so arranged.
NO. 4. SAVOY CABBAGE LEAVES HOLDING CREAMED BOILED CABBAGE.