THE CULT OF THE
CHAFING DISH

“What does cookery mean? It means the knowledge of Medea, and of Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices, and of all that is healing and sweet in groves, and savoury in meat. It means carefulness and inventiveness, watchfulness, willingness, and readiness of appliances. It means the economy of your Great-grandmother, and the Science of modern chemistry, and French art, and Arabian hospitality. It means, in fine, that you are to see imperatively that every one has something nice to eat.”

RUSKIN

The·cult·
of·the·
Chafing·
Dish·
BY·
FRANK·
SCHLOESSER·
LONDON
GAY·AND·BIRD
1905

To

THE ONLY WOMAN

WHO COULD TURN

ME FROM

BACHELORDOM

CONTENTS

THE·CULT·OF·THE·CHAFINGDISH···

CHAPTER·1·THE·CHAFING·DISH

“There does not at this blessed moment breathe on the Earth’s surface a human being that willna prefer eating and drinking to all ither pleasures o’ body or soul.”—The Ettrick Shepherd.

Every bachelor has a wife of some sort. Mine is a Chafing Dish; and I desire to sing her praises.

My better half—I love to call her Chaffinda, and to dwell upon the doubled consonant—is a nickel-plated dish on a wrought-iron stand, with a simple spirit-lamp wherewith to keep herself warm. I bought her at Harrod’s Stores for twelve shillings and ninepence—and she has sisters.

It has been borne in upon me that many quite nice folk may be glad to learn something of the possibilities of Chaffinda. Whether married or single, there are moments in the life of nearly every man and woman when the need of a quick, hot, and light little meal is worth much fine gold. To such I would politely address myself.

The ordinary domestic cook is a tireless enemy of the Chafing Dish. She calls it “fiddle-faddle.” Maybe. But inasmuch as it is clean, economical, speedy and rather simple, it would naturally not appeal to her peculiar sense of the culinary art.

To bachelors, male and female, in chambers, lodgings, diggings, and the like, in fact to all who “batch”; to young couples with a taste for theatres, concerts, and homely late suppers; to yachtsmen, shooting-parties, and picnickers; to inventive artists who yearn for fame in the evolution of a new entrée; to invalids, night workers, actors and stockbrokers, the Chafing Dish is a welcome friend and companion.

It has its limitations, of course, but they are few and immaterial, and its obvious advantages and conveniences far outweigh its trivial drawbacks. At the same time it must be remembered that it is a serious cooking apparatus, and by no means a mere toy.

It is quite erroneous to imagine that the Chafing Dish is an American invention. Nothing of the sort. The earliest trace of it is more than a quarter of a thousand years old. “Le Cuisinier Français,” by Sieur François Pierre de la Varenne, Escuyer de Cuisine de Monsieur le Marquis d’Uxelles, published in Paris in 1652, contains a recipe for Champignons à l’Olivier, in which the use of a Réchaut is recommended. A translation of this work, termed “The French Cook,” was published in London in 1653, and the selfsame recipe of Mushrooms after the Oliver contains the injunction to use a Chafing Dish; moreover, the frontispiece, a charmingly executed drawing, shows a man-cook in his kitchen, surrounded by the implements of his art; and on the table a Chafing Dish, much akin to our latter-day variety, is burning merrily. This was in 1653. The Mayflower sailed in 1620.

So much for the antiquity of the Chafing Dish. At the same time our mitigated thanks are due to America for its comparatively recent reintroduction, for until quite lately, in Great Britain, its use was practically limited to the cooking of cheese on the table. The Chafing Dish is much esteemed across the Atlantic, although one is forced to admit that it is sometimes put to base uses in the concoction of unholy stews, which have not the natural flavour of fish, flesh or fowl, or even good red herring. Still, if the Americans are vague in their French nomenclature, unorthodox in their sauces, eclectic in their flavourings, and over-lavish in their condiments, yet they have at any rate brought parlour cooking to a point where it may gracefully be accepted as an added pleasure to life.

When two or three are gathered together, and one mentions the magic word “Chafing Dish,” the second invariably chimes in with “Welsh Rabbit.” This is an error of taste, but excusable in the circumstances. Chafing Dishes were not created for the exclusive canonisation of Welsh Rabbits, although a deft hand may occasionally play with one in a lightsome mood. There are other and better uses. All the same, a fragrant and delicate Rabbit is not to be despised, although it must not be made conceited by too great an elevation into the realms of high cookery.

My Chaffinda has at least seventeen hundred and four different charms, therein somewhat exceeding the average number appertaining to her sex, but it would require volumes to mention them separately, and it must suffice to indicate roughly a few of the more prominent.

I suppose that every nation has the cooks that it deserves, and, if this be accepted as an axiom, the general degeneration of the Plain Cook of the middle classes amply accounts for the growing cult of the Chafing Dish. The British school of cookery, in its mediocre form, is monotony exemplified. Too many broths spoil the cook; and hence we derive our dull sameness of roast and boiled.

Sweet are the juices of diversity, and whilst there is no reason for the Chafer to elaborate a sauce of thirteen ingredients, the cunning manipulation of three or four common articles of the domestic store-cupboard will often give (intentionally or otherwise) surprising results. This I shall hope to explain more fully later on.

Imagination and a due sense of proportion are as necessary in cooking as in any other art—more so than in some, for Impressionism in the kitchen simply means indigestion. Digestion is the business of the human interior, indigestion that of the doctor. It is so easy to cook indigestible things that a savoury cunningly concocted of Bismuth and Pepsine would seem an almost necessary adjunct to the menu (or Carte Dinatoire, as the French Revolutionists called it) of the budding Chafist.

But the demon of indigestion may easily be exorcised with a little care and thought. Three great apothegms should be borne in mind. Imprimis: Never worry your food; let it cook out its own salvation. Item: Use as few highly spiced condiments as possible; and, lastly, keep to natural flavours, juices, and sauces.

Much modern depravity, for instance, I attribute to the unholy cult of Mayonnaise (or Mahonnaise, or Bayonnaise, or Magnonaise, according to different culinary authorities). At its best it is simply a saucy disguise to an innocent salmon or martial lobster, reminding the clean-palated of an old actor painted up to look young. I once knew a man who proposed to a girl at a dance-supper simply because he could not think of anything else to say, and suddenly discovered that they both hated Mayonnaise. I have no reason to suppose that they are unhappy.

At the same time I am in no wise against trying new dishes, new combinations of subtle flavours, if they do not obliterate the true taste of the basis. An experimental evening with Chaffinda, when one is not sure how things are going to turn out, is, I find, most exhilarating, and a sure cure for the blues. But I am fain to admit that on such occasions I always provide a chunk of Benoist pressed beef as a stand-by in case of emergency.

There is nothing final about the Chafing Dish.

Another point about having a wife in the shape of a Chafing Dish is somewhat delicate to explain. Coarsely indicated, it amounts to this. Continuous intercourse with such a delicious, handy and resourceful helpmeet tends to a certain politeness in little things, a dainty courtesy which could not be engendered by the constant companionship of a common kitchen-range. Chafing-Dish cookery bears the same relation to middle-class kitchen cookery that the delightful art of fencing does to that of the broadsword. Both are useful, but there is a world of subtle differentiation between the two. The average rough and tumble of the domestic saucepan contrasts with the deft manipulation of the miniature battery of tiny pans.

And politeness always pays; moreover, it is vastly becoming. I gave a little tea-party recently to some dear children. Some of them were twins. Edith, a female twin of nine, asked me to help her to some more blackberry jam. “Certainly, Edith,” I said; “but why don’t you help yourself?” The maid was even politer than she was hungry: “Because I was afraid I should not take enough.” And thus we learn how things work among manikinkind.

There are some who delight in the flavour of onions. I do myself—but then I am a bachelor. Politeness and onions form one of life’s most persistent inconsistencies. His Most Gracious Majesty King George IV., it is recorded, attempted to kiss a royal housemaid, who said: “Sir, your language both shocks and appals me; besides which, your breath smells of onions!” And again, in a Cambridge dining-room, a framed notice on the wall stated: “Gentlemen partial to spring onions are requested to use the table under the far window.”

Nevertheless, the benefits of onions toward the human race are probably not less than those attendant on the discovery of steam. It is a vegetable whose manifold properties and delights have never been properly sung. As a gentle stimulant, a mild soporific, a democratic leveller of exaggeration in flavour, a common bond between prince and peasant, it is a standing protest of Nature against Art.

On my wall, as I write, hangs a delightful oil study of a clump of onions in flower, which the deft artist aptly dubs Le Fond de la Cuisine. Dr. William King said that “Onions can make even heirs or widows weep”; and the “Philosopher’s Banquet,” written in 1633, seems to meet the case excellently:

“If Leekes you like, but do their smelle disleeke,

Eat Onyons, and you shall not smelle the leeke;

If you of Onyons would the scente expelle,

Eat Garlicke, that shall drowne the Onyon’s Smelle.”

I would not go quite as far as the poet, but I confess to a weakness for chives. A judicious touch to many salads and made dishes is very desirable. Chives are to onions as the sucking-pig is to pork, a baby scent, a fairy titillation, an echo of the great Might Be.

Charles Lamb had a friend who said that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple dumplings. In the plural, mind you, not the singular. Appetites have vastly changed since then, probably not for the better, but the test even to-day seems adequate and noteworthy. I do not propose to recommend either onions or apple dumplings as Chafing-Dish experiments, but merely adduce them as worthy examples of the toothsomeness of simplicity.

The late lamented Joseph, of the Savoy and elsewhere, once said in his wisdom, “Make the good things as plain as possible. God gave a special flavour to everything. Respect it. Do not destroy it by messing.” These are winged words, and should be inscribed (in sugar icing) above the hearthstone of every artist in pots and pans.

The Chafing Dish is a veritable Mephistopheles in the way of temptation. It is so alluringly easy to add just a taste of this or that, a few drops of sauce, a sprinkling of herbs, a suggestion of something else. But beware and perpend! Do not permit your culinary perspective to become too Japanesque in the matter of foreground. Remember your chiaroscuro, take care of the middle distance, and let the background assert its importance in the whole composition. “I can resist anything—except temptation” is the cry of the hopelessly weak in culinary morality.

Lest I should be hereafter accused of contradicting my own most cherished beliefs, let me hasten here and now to assert that condiments, esoteric and otherwise, were undoubtedly made to be used as well as to be sold; and I am no enemy of bolstering up the weak and assimilative character of—say—veal, “the chameleon of the kitchen,” with something stronger, and, generally speaking, of making discreet use of suave subtleties to give completeness to the picture. But the watchword must always be Discretion! To those who muddle their flavours I would commend the words of the Archbishop in Gil Blas: “My son, I wish you all manner of prosperity—and a little more taste!”

Sidney Smith thought Heaven must be a place where you ate pâté de foies gras to the sound of trumpets. There is a late Georgian ingenuousness about this which is refreshing. The liver of the murdered goose and the scarlet sound of brass! Nowadays a Queen’s Hall gourmet would compare the celestial regions to a continuous feast of Cailles de Vigne braisées à la Parisienne to the accompaniment of Tschaikowsky’s “Casse Noisette” suite, which is more complicated, but perchance not less indigestible.

The typical crude British cookery, if carelessly performed, is a constant menace to its disciples. If well cooked there is nothing more wholesome, save perhaps the French cuisine bourgeoise, but—“much virtue in your If.” As a matter of fact, in nine households out of ten, in the middle-middle classes (and the upper too) the fare is well-intentioned in design, but deadly in execution, with a total absence of care and taste.

There is a curious old book, probably out of print nowadays, which deals tenderly, if severely, with the shortcomings of British cookery. It was published in 1853, and is called “Memoirs of a Stomach, written by Himself.” A typical passage runs: “The English system of cookery it would be impertinent of me to describe; but still, when I think of that huge round of parboiled ox-flesh, with sodden dumplings floating in a saline, greasy mixture, surrounded by carrots, looking red with disgust, and turnips pale with dismay, I cannot help a sort of inward shudder, and making comparisons unfavourable to English gastronomy.”

This is fair comment, and brings me back to the advantages of the Chafing Dish. An old German fairy tale, I think one of Grimm’s, says: “Nothing tastes so nice as what one eats oneself,” and it is certain that if one cooks so as entirely to satisfy oneself (always supposing oneself to be a person of average good taste), then one’s guests will be equally satisfied—if not more so.

In dealing with Chaffinda we may, after a minimum of practice, be almost certain of results. If one is naturally clean, neat and dainty in one’s tastes, then one’s cooking should display the same characteristics. One’s individuality shines forth in the Chafing Dish and is reflected in one’s sauces. Chaffinda conveys a great moral lesson, and, as a teacher, should not lack in honour and reverence.

The late Prince Consort, being on a visit, wrote to a friend: “Things always taste so much better in small houses”; if one substitutes small dishes for small houses the Prince predicted the Chafing Dish.

The kitchen is the country in which there are always discoveries to be made, and with Chaffinda on a neat white tablecloth before one, half a dozen little dishes with food in various stages of preparation, a few select condiments, an assortment of wooden spoons and like utensils—and an inventive brain—there are absolutely no limits to one’s discoveries. One is bound by no rule, no law, no formula, save those of ordinary common sense, and though it might be too much to expect to rediscover the lost Javanese recipe for cooking kingfishers’ or halcyons’ nests, the old manner of treating a Hocco, or the true inwardness of “the dish called Maupygernon”; yet there are illimitable possibilities which act as incentives to the enterprising.

There is a Chinese proverb to the effect that most men dig their graves with their teeth, meaning thereby that we all eat too much. This is awfully true and sad and undeniable, and avoidable. The late Lord Playfair asserted that the actual requirements of a healthy man for a seven-day week were three pounds of meat, one pound of fat, two loaves of bread, one ounce of salt, and five pints of milk. What a contrast to the chop-eating, joint-chewing, plethoric individual who averages five meals a day, and does justice to them all! Sir Henry Thompson says: “The doctors all tell us we eat too fast, and too often, and too much, and too early, and too late; but no one of them ever says that we eat too little.”

The proper appreciation of Chaffinda may ameliorate this, for in using her one speedily becomes convinced of the beauty of small portions, an appetite kept well in hand, and the manifold advantages of moderation. It is easy to feed, but nice eating is an art.

Bishop Wilberforce knew a greedy clergyman who, when asked to say grace before dinner, was wont to look whether there were champagne glasses on the table. If there were, he began: “Bountiful Jehovah”; but if he only espied claret glasses he contented himself with: “We are not worthy of the least of Thy mercies.”

Of course growing children and quite young grown-up folks require proportionately more food than real adults, for they have not only to maintain but to build up their bodies. But to such the Chafing Dish will not appeal primarily, if at all, and they may even be found impertinent enough to look upon it as a culinary joke, which it is not.

Chaffinda hates gluttons, but takes pleasure in ministering to the modest wants of the discerning acolyte, fostering his incipient talent, urging him to higher flights, and tempting him to delicate fantasies.

“Do have some more; it isn’t very good, but there’s lots of it.” So said a friend of mine to his guests about his half-crown port. This is the sentiment of the man who knows not the Chafing Dish. “Lots of it” is the worst kind of hospitality, and suggests the quantity, not quality, of the cheap-jack kerbstone butcher. Little and good, and enough to go round, is the motto of the tactful house-husband. A French cook once said that it was only unlucky to sit down thirteen at table if the food were but sufficient for twelve.

There is such a deal of fine confused feeding about the ordinary meals of even a simply conducted country house that imagination boggles at the thought of the elaboration of the daily menus. With four, or possibly five, repasts a day, few of them chaste, most of them complicated, a careful observer will note that the cook has been listening to the pipings of the Great God Sauce, and covers natural flavours with misnamed concoctions which do nothing but obliterate nature and vex the palate.

There are some few houses, great and small, town and country, where the elemental decencies of the kitchen are manfully preserved, where wholesome mutton does not masquerade as Quartier d’Agneau à la Miséricorde, and the toothsome lobster is not Americanised out of all knowing. To such establishments, all honour and glory.

But to those whose means or opportunities do not permit of a carefully trained cook, a home-made artist, I would in all diffidence recommend the cult of the Chafing Dish, whose practical use I now propose to discuss.

CHAPTER II·PRELIMINARIES·

“Tout se fait en dinant dans le siècle où nous
sommes,

Et c’est par les diners qu’on gouverne les
hommes.”—Ch. de Monselet.

Chaffinda’s cooking battery is small, but select. The Chafing Dish proper comprises the stand and lamp, and the dish, called the “Blazer,” which has an ebony handle; and there is an ingenious spirit diminisher which enables one to reduce the flame to a minimum, just enough to keep the flame simmering, or to put it out altogether. A second, or hot water pan, belongs to the outfit, and an asbestos toast-making tray may be bought for a trifle. In addition, a couple of green or brown dishes of French fireproof china, an egg-poacher, a marmite, and perhaps a casserole, all of which are best from Bonnet in Church Street, Soho, will come in very usefully. To these may be added the usual complement of plates and dishes and several wooden spoons of different sizes; a fish-lifter is also desirable, so is a strainer, and a pair of graters come in very handily. This practically completes the gear of the budding Chafist, though additional items may be added from time to time as occasion demands.

The makers of the Chafing Dish sell a useful methylated spirit can, with a curved spout to fill up the asbestos wick. It will be found that a good filling will burn for thirty to forty minutes, which is ample for all ordinary purposes. Much of course depends on the quality of the spirit used, and, further, the wick will only become thoroughly saturated after half a dozen usings, and will subsequently require rather less spirit. I have found that water boils in the “Blazer,” or handled Chafing Dish, in about ten minutes, and instructions on bottled or preserved food, soups and the like, must be slightly discounted. Thus if one is told to boil for twenty minutes, it will be found that fifteen minutes in the Chafing Dish will be ample in nearly all cases.

As this is mainly a true story of my own personal adventures among the pots and pans, I can hardly do better than describe the first dish I tried my ’prentice hand upon, with the devout wish that all neophytes may be as successful therewith as I was.

Beef Strips.

The experiment, the preliminary exercise, if I may so term it, has no name, although it savours somewhat of the Resurrection Pie, unbeloved of schoolboys. Let us call it Beef Strips. Cut three thick slices from a rather well-cooked cold sirloin of beef, cut these again into strips a quarter of an inch wide and about three inches long. Take care that they are very lean. Chop up half a dozen cold boiled potatoes (not of the floury kind) into dice. Put the beef and the potatoes into the Chafing Dish. Light the lamp and see that the heat is steady, but not too strong. Add at once a good-sized walnut of butter, a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, salt and pepper. For at least ten minutes turn over the mixture continually with a wooden spoon until it is thoroughly heated. Turn it out on to a hot dish, and garnish with half a dozen tiny triangles of toast.

This is a simple luncheon or supper dish which takes little time, and—to my taste at least—is appetising and satisfying. Like all Chafing-Dish preparations, it can be cooked on the table, with no more protection than a tray under the wrought-iron stand, and a square of coloured tablecloth upon your white one to receive possible splashes or drops.

Jellied Ham.

Now for exercise number two, which I have christened Jellied Ham, and commend as a dish very unlikely to go wrong in the manipulation.

Get your flame steady and true, and put a small walnut of butter in the dish. When it is fluid, add a good dessert-spoonful of red currant jelly, a liqueur glass of sherry, and three drops of Tabasco sauce. Drop into this simmering mixture a few slices of cold boiled ham cut thin and lean, and let it slowly cook for six to eight minutes. If you wish to be extravagant, then instead of the sherry use a full wine-glassful of champagne. It is by no means necessary to eat this with vegetables, but if you insist on the conjunction, I would recommend a purée of spinach, directions for which appear hereafter.

This Jellied Ham is an agreeable concoction, which I find peculiarly soothing as a light supper after having seen an actor-manager playing Shakespeare. This is, however, after all only a matter of taste.

It has always seemed to me that different forms of the drama require, nay demand, different dinners and suppers, according to the disposition in which one approaches them. For instance, before an Adelphi melodrama, turtle soup (mock if necessary), turbot and rump steaks are indicated, whereas a musical comedy calls for an East Room menu, and an Ibsen or G. B. Shaw play for an A.B.C. shop or a vegetarian restaurant respectively. But I only hint at the broad outline of my idea, which is capable of extension to an indefinite limit.

Vegetarian meals do not appeal to me. There is a sense of sudden and temporary repletion followed shortly afterwards by an aching void, which can only be assuaged by a period of comparatively gross feeding. Besides, judging from the appearance of my vegetarian friends (in whom maybe I am unfortunate) they often seem so much to resemble some of the foods they eat as to render themselves liable to be dubbed cannibals. But this is probably mere prejudice.

Minced Chicken or Game.

To resume the cult of Chaffinda. Here is another dish which I recommend to the beginner. It is a simple mince. Take any remains of chicken or game, pheasant for choice, and mince it (or have it minced) small, but not too small. Never use a mincing machine. Put the mince aside, and mix in the Chafing Dish the following sauce: a full walnut of butter, a tablespoon of flour, and a pinch of salt and pepper; add gradually about a tumblerful of milk. Keep continually stirring this and cook it well for five minutes, adding three drops of Tabasco sauce and half a tablespoon of Worcester sauce, also a squeeze of a lemon. When it is thoroughly amalgamated throw in the mince and let it get hot without burning. Serve it with toast or very crisp biscuits.

The only objection I know to this mince is that all cold birds, especially cold pheasant, are so excellent that it seems almost superfluous to hot them up. But there are occasions when the gamey fumes from Chaffinda are very alluring, and, after all, it is poor work eating cold cates at midnight, however tempting they might be at breakfast.

Our forebears were unanimous in their praise of the lordly long-tail. In a letter from Sidney Smith to “Ingoldsby” Barham, the worthy cleric says: “Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your kind present of game. If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is that of roast pheasant and bread sauce; barndoor fowls for Dissenters, but for the Real Churchman, the Thirty-Nine times articled clerk, the pheasant! the pheasant!”

Toast.

It should perhaps be mentioned that the making of toast on the Chafing Dish is the easiest of functions. The asbestos tray, already referred to, is placed over the flame, and on the metal side the bread in rounds, triangles, or sippets; a few minutes serve to toast the one side adequately, and on being turned over it can easily be browned through. Mrs. Beeton is loquacious on the art of toast-making, and lays down divers rules, but she knew not Chaffinda. A modern essayist who discourses learnedly and most sensibly on toast, makes a remark in his chapter on breakfasts, which although not entirely germane to my subject, is so true and, to my thinking, so characteristic, that I cannot refrain from quoting it. He is referring to marmalade. “The attitude of women to marmalade,” he says, “has never been quite sound. True, they make it excellently, but afterwards their association with it is one lamentable retrogression. They spread it over pastry; they do not particularly desire it at breakfast; and (worst) they decant it into glass dishes and fancy jars.”

How true, how profound, how typical!

But this is wandering from the point, which is cookery, not casuistry. Women are never out of place in connection with the good things of the table, although they do not often aspire to the omni-usefulness of the well-meaning, if ill-educated, lady who applied for the position of nurse to one of the field hospitals during the Boer war, and mentioned as her crowning qualification that, “like Cæsar’s wife, I am all things to all men.”

Mutton Cutlets.

After this little digression it will be well to turn to more serious things—cutlets, for instance. Obtain from the butcher a couple of well-trimmed mutton cutlets, and from the greengrocer sufficient green peas that, when shelled, you will have a breakfast-cupful. Melt a walnut of butter in the Chafing Dish. Into the melted butter drop a tablespoonful of flour and a sprinkling of chopped chives. A teaspoonful of Worcester sauce and three drops of Tabasco, together with salt at discretion, will suffice for flavouring, and care must be taken that the mixture does not boil. Put in the cutlets, and when they begin to turn brownish add the peas, and half a cupful of milk. About fifteen minutes should cook the meat through if your spirit flame be strong, otherwise it may take somewhat longer. A very good substitute for Worcester sauce, in this connection, is Sauce Robert, which it is unnecessary to manufacture, as it can be bought ready made, and well made too, of the Escoffier brand. With certain meats it is an excellent condiment.

By the way, in some very old cookery books Sauce Robert was termed Roe-Boat sauce, an extraordinary orthographic muddle. An omelette was likewise known as a “Hamlet.”

This suggests the somewhat too sophisticated schoolboy’s description of Esau as “a hairy, humpbacked man, who wrote a book of fables and sold the copyright for a bottle of potash.”

It may be deemed superfluous, and in that case I apologise beforehand, to insist on the most scrupulous cleanliness in dealing with the Chafing Dish and its adjuncts. Not only should the dish itself be kept spotless and thoroughly scoured, but the stand, the lamp, the implements, and the glass and china should be immaculate. Servants are easily persuaded to look after the cleaning process, and do it with a certain amount of care, but it can do no harm to understudy their duties and add an extra polish all round oneself. It gives one, too, a personal interest in the result, otherwise lacking. I recommend the use of at least three dishcloths, which should be washed regularly and used discreetly. The Chafist who neglects his apparatus is unworthy of the high mission with which he is charged, and deserves the appellation of the younger son of Archidamus III., King of Sparta. Cleanliness is next to all manner of things in this dusty world of ours, and absolutely nothing conduces more to the enjoyment of a mealet that one has cooked oneself than the knowledge that everything is spick and span, and that one has contributed oneself thereto by a little extra care and forethought.

A word of warning here. Never use “kitchen butter,” or “kitchen sherry,” or “kitchen eggs,” or “kitchen” anything else; use the very best you can afford.

An armoury of brooms, brushes, scrubbers, soap and soda is in no way necessary. A couple of polishing cloths and a little, a very little, of one of the many patent cleaners is all that is required. A clear conscience and plenty of elbow-grease does the rest.

The British equivalent of the continental charcutier is of inestimable service to the Chafist. At his more or less appetising emporium, small quantities of edibles can be purchased which are excellently well adapted for the cult of Chaffinda, especially if one be inclined towards the recooking of cold meats, instead of the treatment of them in a raw state. Both have their advantages—and their drawbacks. It is a general, but totally inaccurate, belief that meat once cooked needs only to be hotted up again. Nothing could be more fatal to its flavour and nutriment. A certain amount of the good juices of the meat must inevitably have been lost during the first process, and therefore great care must be taken in the second operation to tempt forth, and, in some cases, to restore the natural flavour. Cold cooked meat needs long and gentle cooking, a strong clear flame, without sudden differences in temperature, and it may be taken as a general rule that cold meat needs practically as long to cook as raw meat.

Browned Tongue.

For example, take half a dozen slices of cooked tongue, spread on each of them a modicum of made mustard, and let each slice repose for about two minutes in a little bath of salad oil (about enough to cover the bottom of a soup plate). Put the slices one on top of another until they make a compact little heap. Put the heap of tongue between two plates, so as to expel the superfluous oil. Let it remain thus for half an hour. Then put a nutmeg of butter in the blazer, dismember the heap of tongue, and put the slices into the frizzling butter and turn them until they are brown. A little sauce, Worcester, Robert, or Piquant, may be added to suit individual taste. Serve very hot, with sippets of toast.

I have ventured to christen this dish Browned Tongue, which is simple and descriptive, but every Chafist is entitled to call it what he likes. There is little, if any, copyright in Chafing-Dish titles. Alexandre Dumas, author and cook, protests against the mishandling of names: “Les fantaisies de saucer, de mettre sur le gril, et de faire rôtir nos grands hommes.”

Personally I object to cooking simple fare and then dubbing it à la Quelque chose. Outside the few score well-known, and, so to say, classic titles of more or less elaborate dishes, which are practically standardised, there seems to me to be no reason to invent riddles in nomenclature when the “short title,” as they say in Parliamentary Bills, is amply descriptive.

It has been my ill-fortune to be introduced, at an otherwise harmless suburban dinner, to a catastrophe of cutlets, garnished with tinned vegetables, and to be gravely informed, on an ill-spelt menu, that it was “Cutelletes d’Agneau à la Jardinnier,” which would be ludicrous, were it not sad. Then how often does the kind hostess, without a punitive thought in her composition, write down Soufflet when she means Soufflé?

But mistakes are easily made, as witness that popular sign of a French cabaret, particularly in the provinces, Au Lion d’Or. If you look carefully at the signboard, you will find a man asleep, the punning name of the hotel implying Au lit on dort.

But the whole question of Menus (Bills of Fare, if you please), and their mistranslation, is too vast to enter upon here, alluring though the subject may be. The language of the restaurant cook, save in especial instances, is as bad, although in a quite different sense, as that of the Whitechapel Hooligan. At the same time, it is absurd to insist upon the literal translation of the untranslatable. “Out of works” for “Hors d’œuvres”; “Soup at the good woman” for “Potage à la bonne femme”; “Smile of a calf at the banker’s wife” for “Ris de veau à la financière”; and, lastly, “Anchovies on the sofa” for “Anchois sur canapé,” are all well enough in their way, but hardly an example to be followed, although they make “very pretty patriotic eating.”

It would be ridiculous to run away with the idea that because certain folk misuse the language, French should be henceforward taboo at our dinner-tables. Such a notion is ignorant and impossible. But the Gallic tongue should be used with discretion and knowledge, and if the enterprising Chafist invent a new dish of eggs, there is no law to forbid his naming it Œufs à la Temple du Milieu. It would only show the quality of his erudition and his taste. There seems no particular reason why we should not replace Rôti by Roast, Entrée by Remove, and Entremet by Sweet—except that it is not done; it is an affectation of humbug, of course, but the greatest humbug of all humbugs is the pretending to despise humbug.

Alderman’s Walk.

On revient toujours à son premier mouton—that is to say, let us get back to Chaffinda. The next dish on the experimental programme is “The Alderman’s Walk,” a very old English delicacy, the most exquisite portion of the most exquisite joint in Cookerydom, and so called because, at City dinners of our grandfathers’ times, it is alleged to have been reserved for the Aldermen. It is none other than the first, longest and juiciest longitudinal slice, next to the bone, of a succulent saddle of mutton, Southdown for choice, and four years old at that, though this age is rare. Remove this slice tenderly and with due reverence from the hot joint, lay it aside on a slice of bread, its own length, and let it get cold, thoroughly cold. Then prepare in the Chafing Dish a sauce composed of a walnut of butter, a teaspoon of Worcester, three drops of Tabasco, three chopped chives, and an eggspoon of made mustard. Stir these ingredients until the amalgamation is smooth and complete. Then take the bread, which should have absorbed a good deal of the juice from under the Alderman’s Walk, cut it into strips, and lightly toast the strips. Drop the meat into the sauce, and let it cook for eight minutes, turning it once, that is, four minutes for each side. Slide it out on to a hot dish, put the toast round it, eat it in a hurry, and thank your stars that you are alive to enjoy it. This is a dish which has few equals and no superiors. It is simple, innocent, toothsome, satisfying, and several other things.

Something like it, but lacking its artistic severity, may be found in Alexandre Dumas’ Great Dictionary, but it is complicated with eccentric accessories; there is a turbulent confused foreground to it which effectually conceals the mutton, but then, of course, poor Dumas, although he knew and appreciated, could rarely obtain the real Southdown.

At the time that the great author was overwhelmed with commissions for novels, after the enormous success of “The Three Musketeers” and other masterpieces, he was commonly understood to put books in the market which were written by Auguste Maquet, and merely signed by himself. Dumas, as is well known, was a great amateur cook, and in fact prided himself more on his dishes than on his novels. One day he invited the famous Aurelien Scholl to dinner, and put before him a salmon mayonnaise which he—Dumas Père—had made with his own hands. “Taste that, Scholl,” he said, “and tell me how you like it.”

Scholl tasted it and made a wry face. “Really, Dumas,” he replied, “I think it must be by Maquet.”

Having been thus trained by the recipes here given, it seems reasonable to suppose that the Chafist is able, after a profound study thereof, to appreciate the possibilities of the Chafing Dish, and may therefore be permitted to dip as he listeth into the various recipes which follow, none of which are complicated or expensive, and most of which require little, if any, previous preparation. At the same time I would most earnestly beg the Chafist carefully to rehearse all his impromptu effects, and never to leave anything to chance. Always have your condiments, your garnishings, your “fixings,” as the Americans say, ready to hand. Let the manipulation of the Chafing Dish partake of that Art which conceals Art—simply because everything is foreseen, and nothing postponed till the last moment. Let your parsley be ready chopped, your toast ready cut, your lemon duly cleaned, your spare dishes hot and ready, and, lastly, your apparatus in thorough working order. You may then proceed in all good faith and earnestness.

CHAPTER·III SOUPS·

“Soup is to a dinner what a portico is to a palace, or an overture to an opera.”

Grimod de la Reynière.

“While there’s life there’s soup,” said an irreverent parodist, but as a matter of fact the reverse of the proverb would be more true, for, of a verity, while there’s soup there’s life. There can be no complaint of having dined badly, or even insufficiently, if one has begun with a plateful of good soup; good, mind you, with some strength and body to it, for the coloured hot water that masquerades too often as soup is unworthy and despicable. But soup that has character, individuality, and belies not its name, is to the nice eater almost a meal in itself.

There are practically no soups beyond the scope of the Chafing Dish, albeit some of the more elaborate bisques, a bouillabaisse (an that be a soup), and a pink Bortsch, have not come within my experimental experience. The ordinary French consommé, which may be likened to our gravy soup, is practically the foundation of most clear soups. One meets on different bills of fare with a score of variations on the theme, such as Printanier, Brunoise, Paysanne, Julienne, Mitonnage, Croûte au Pot, Faubonne, Macédoine, Chiffonade, Flamande, and many more, but they are really only a matter of flavouring and vegetable decoration upon a foundation of good stock. An old French cookbook, dated 1822, lies before me, which contains one hundred and two recipes for soups, but the first one mentioned, the Potage au Naturel, is the Mother Soup of all the rest.

The veritable chef has his store of Mother Soup, and that is his kitchen Stock Exchange whence practically all his varieties emanate.

The Chafing Dish votary cannot construct his own Mother Soup and keep up his own stock-pot, but he can use the many excellent preserved soups, in bottles and boxes, which nowadays are absolutely equal to those which are self-manipulated or home-made.

I have tried many brands, and really think that there is not very much to choose between them. For ordinary use I lean to the Maggi preparations, the “Cross-Star Soups.” They are in tablets, each sufficient for two persons, and the White Haricots, Onion, Tapioca, Chervil, Sago, Semolina, Lentil, Parmentier, Sorrel, Barley, Rice and Julienne are quite excellent.

The method of procedure is simplicity itself. The tablet is broken into fragments in a cup or a bowl and mixed into a thin paste with a little cold water. Then heat a pint of water in the Chafer to boiling, pour in the mixture, and let it cook gently, not boiling, for fifteen to twenty minutes. Each tablet has its own particular directions on the wrapper, and I have found that they apply equally to the Chafing Dish, except that the time required is rather shorter than that mentioned, owing to the greater heat. The flavour of the soups can be enhanced by a few drops of sauce, a sprinkling of Paprika pepper, half a wineglass of sherry, or a dash of Tabasco; but this is a matter of individual taste. The tapioca, sago, and semolina soups are particularly good, and I do not find that they require the addition of any salt, although this again is a purely personal affair. A beaten-up raw egg put into the soup and well stirred up just before serving makes it richer and suaver, but is by no means necessary.

By the way, in cooking soups, as indeed in all Chafing-Dish cookery, I cannot too earnestly insist upon the use of wooden spoons for all stirring manipulations. Metal spoons, even silver, are abhorrent to the good cook. Wooden spoons are clean, cheap, and thoroughly efficient. The fancy-dress-ball cook (“Cordong blew” he generally calls himself) always wears one in his apron, but if he only knew it, the wooden spoon (apart from examination awards) is his surest title to honour as a true maître de bouche. The Spanish Estudiantina also wear a wooden spoon in their black tricorne hats, but this, I understand, only means that they are poor and hungry, and glad to dip their spoon in any one’s mess of Puchero, in order to enjoy a square meal.

Pea Soup.

Pea soup is a great invention. Not the Purée aux Petits Pois (good as that may be) of the chefiest of chefs, but the plain, good, thick, flavoursome pea soup which is as nourishing as it is soothing and satisfying. I find that Chaffinda’s favourite is Brand’s Consolidated Pea Soup, which sounds like a gold mine, but is really a sort of Erbswurst, only better. It is sold in dainty little tins at an absurdly cheap price. One little tin makes two good platesful. It is prepared by mixing the contents to a thick paste with water. To this paste add a pint of cold water, put it all in the Chafing Dish, and boil it for about twelve to fifteen minutes until it gets thick. To make it even better, add a sprinkling of dried mint and a handful of toast dice, browned with butter, and you have a feast for hungry gods on a cold day.

Another way: instead of using mint and toast, cut half a dozen thin slices from a Brunswick sausage, peel off the rind and drop them in the soup when it is half cooked. The mixture is very toothsome.

Turtle Soup.

From small things to great: from the common and strictly garden pea to the Aldermanic and luscious turtle. Most turtle importers make their own preserved turtle, which is sometimes good and always expensive. For Chafing-Dish purposes I prefer the Concrete Turtle Tablets made by Levien and Sherlock, of 68 Harbour Street, Kingston, Jamaica. They are to be had at the Army and Navy Stores. Each little cake is enough for two moderately greedy people, and costs one shilling.

Put in the Chafing Dish a good pint of water, which bring to the boil; add salt and pepper (Paprika for choice) to taste. Cut the turtle tablet into pieces, or if it is too hard, as is often the case in winter, break it up into eight or ten lumps. Throw these into the boiling water and keep on stirring until they dissolve and the soup becomes clear. This takes some little time, but it is worth waiting for. Add a squeeze of lemon juice, a wine-glass of sherry, and a teaspoon of Worcester sauce. Give a final stir to these ingredients, and serve it up steaming hot.

There is extraordinary reviving power about a basin of good turtle soup, and, as I think I have shown, it is quite a mistake to deem it an expensive luxury. Abraham Hayward, Q.C., in his inimitable book, “The Art of Dining,” which were originally Quarterly Review articles on Police Magistrate Walker’s “Original” (1835), says that “Turtle Soup from Painter’s in Leadenhall Street is decidedly the best thing in the shape of soup that can be had in this or perhaps in any other country.” And if an Alderman, a Queen’s Counsel, a Police Magistrate—and Chaffinda—agree on this point, who shall say them nay?

The student of mid-Victorian ballads will remember, too, the touching allusion to turtle soup in “Ferdinando and Elvira,” by one Bab, where the hero searches for the cracker-motto poet, and at last unearths him at a confectioner’s where he has ordered soup:

“‘Found at last!’ I madly shouted. ‘Gentle
pieman, you astound me!’

Then I waved the turtle soup enthusiastically
round me.”

But this was, on reflection, probably mock turtle soup, no bad thing either, vide Alice’s interview with the Gryphon. It lives, when cold, in a basin, and is set hard and is therefore wavable.

American soups are not to be despised. On the contrary, they make most excellent good eating—or drinking; which is it? do we eat or drink soup? An American book of etiquette says, “Never chew your soup, always swallow it whole.”

Anyhow I have tried, and found good, Clam Chowder, Clam Broth, Chicken Gumbo, Okra, Terrapin, and Vegetable Soups. They are in tins, against which I confess I am prejudiced, but as yet I am totally unpoisoned, and I am told that there is a possibility of their being shortly put up in bottles. Each tin has full instructions, and these are quite applicable to the Chafing Dish, care always being taken not to boil the soup, but to heat it gently and continuously. The Clam Chowder and Clam Broth are both quite excellent, of a distinct individual flavour, cheering, and, I opine, wholesome. They have a peculiar cachet of their own, and lend a certain Transatlantic originality to an otherwise banal Chafing-Dish luncheon.

These and other American provisions I procure from Jackson’s in Piccadilly. They are well “packed,” and adapt themselves excellently to unexpected calls on a limited larder. Their variety is infinite, and their flavour remains good and true. Tinned Broadway in London is a pleasant experience. There are other American delicacies, to which reference will be made in due course, which adapt themselves admirably to Chafing-Dish idiosyncrasies. Columbus’ patent egg is not the only culinary innovation from the New World, but the average British cook is so ignorantly conservative and abhorrently Chauvinistic that she dreads novelty as she dreads the Devil.

Poor Man’s Soup.

Poor Man’s Soup, as the French call it, is a very restorative dish after a bad day on the Stock Exchange, although there is little of the Poor Man about it save the name.

Put a finely-shredded onion and a walnut of butter in the Chafing Dish and fry to a light brown colour, then add a heaped teaspoonful of flour and stir well; pour in a pint of stock, add pepper and salt to taste. Peel and slice a potato and scatter it in the soup; let the mixture come to a boil, and then allow it to simmer for ten minutes. Just before serving stir into it the yolk of an egg, well beaten up, and a dozen sippets of dry toast. This is a soothing and easy soup, but it requires the stockpot, unless you make use of one of the many varieties of concentrated bouillon or beef-tea, which certainly save a lot of trouble.

Palestine Soup.

Another simple soup, which moreover has the advantage of not requiring stock, is Palestine or Jerusalem Artichoke soup. By the way, we misname this vegetable strangely. It was imported into Great Britain from Italy, and being the tuber of a variety of sunflower, is there termed Girasole, because the flower turns to the sun. We, in our insular ignorance, corrupted Girasole to Jerusalem, and then, wishing to refine the latter word, committed a further solecism by calling the soup made therefrom Palestine soup. Could any little exercise in culinary etymology be more ridiculous, or more typical?

Pick out six good-sized Jerusalem artichokes, boil them in the Chafing Dish with a pinch of salt; when quite soft, put them through a fine sieve and place the extract on one side. Then put a pint of milk in the dish and boil it with a teaspoonful of Paprika pepper, two cloves and a dash of nutmeg, and a couple of sprigs of parsley. Let it boil up for a minute and then strain it, and also put it aside. Melt a walnut of butter in the dish and stir into it a dessert-spoonful of corn-flour, to which add the strained milk, and, lastly, the artichoke extract, keeping the spirit-lamp flame low, so that the mixture shall not boil. When it has simmered for five minutes and become thoroughly amalgamated the soup is ready to serve, and very good it is, or ought to be, if the cooking has been artfully and carefully carried out.

Creçy (Carrot) Soup.

Carrot Soup is not only excessively nice and nourishing, but it has also a curious historical interest. The best French carrots come from the neighbourhood of Creçy, and Carrot Soup is therefore generally known as Creçy Soup. Now the famous battle of that name, where Edward the Black Prince won his three-feather badge and motto of Ich Dien, was fought on Saturday, August 26, 1346, and Court gossip relates that to this day the Prince of Wales has Creçy Soup for dinner every 26th of August. I am unable to verify the statement, but trust that it may be true; anyway it is a pretty fable.

To make Carrot Soup, cut up three or four fair-sized carrots into thin round slices, put them in the Chafing Dish with a wineglass of sherry, two cloves, a sprinkling of nutmeg, and a good bunch of parsley; pour over it a cupful of stock and let it nearly boil, but not quite. When the carrots are quite soft and almost pulpy, mash them well in a soup-plate and, discarding anything hard in the mixture, replace it in the Chafer with two more cups of stock, a teaspoon of sugar, and just before it boils drop in a walnut of butter, and take it off the flame. Toasted dice are the usual accompaniment, and the soup, if well concocted, is very hard to beat for honest, toothsome fare.

The menus of three Buckingham Palace dinners tell me that his Majesty the King partook of Bisque d’Ecrevisse on May 30, 1902, of Clear Turtle or Cold Consommé on June 2, and of Consommé Riche on June 13. The second of these quotations is from the interesting programme of the fare offered to the members of the Jockey Club at the King’s Derby Dinner, one item of which was Cassolettes à la Jockey Club, presumably a creation of his Majesty’s chef, Monsieur Ménager.

President Loubet was less lucky when he went on his visit to Algiers in April 1903. After a review of ten thousand native horsemen at Krieder, he was tendered a native banquet by the chiefs, which began with Locust Soup. But even this is not so unappetising as the recipe of a Monsieur Dagin, an entomologist, for Cockroach Soup. It is made thus: “Pound your cockroaches in a mortar; put them in a sieve and pour in boiling water or beef-stock. Connoisseurs prefer this to real bisque.” Possibly; but I do not recommend it for the Chafing Dish.

On the other hand, real bird’s-nest soup is a great luxury. As Consommé aux Nids d’Hirondelles it occasionally appears on a menu; and the Chinese, I understand, call it Yen-War-Gung. There is a subtle taste of the sea in the gelatinous lining of the swallow’s nest, which is exquisite and delicate. The Japanese make a soup from black seaweed, but I cannot speak of it from experience. There lies before me a curious Latin menu of a feast given by, or to, certain German professors whose culinary Latin seems to me to be a trifle canine. Two lines of it read “Sorbitio cum globulis jecoralibus et lucanicis,” and “Jus et linguis bovinis factum cum panificio.” These I take to mean liver soup with sausage, and ox-tongue soup with bread.

But esoteric food-stuffs are more interesting for their quaintness than for any intrinsic merit, and I prefer to turn to the degustation of a Potage Germiny, for instance. This is the invention of the great Casimir, of the Maison d’Or, who has placed it on record that “the happiest day of my life was the day on which I invented the Potage Germiny. It is made of sorrel, the yolks of eggs, and cream. It was for a dinner given by the Marquis de Saint-Georges, the author of ‘Les Mousquetaires de la Reine.’ I had racked my brains to discover something wonderful, unique; and finally I evolved the potage. When the Marquis had tasted it he sent for me. I never saw a man more moved. He threw his arms around me and exclaimed in unutterable accents: ‘Casimir, this is not a soup; it is a masterpiece!’”

This is a veritable human document.

William the Conqueror had a cook called Tezelin, who one day served him with a white soup called Dillegrout. His Majesty was so pleased that he made Tezelin Lord of the Manor of Addington. Good cooks were appreciated thenadays. But we have lost the recipe for Dillegrout.

Attempts have often been made to cook according to ancient recipes, but rarely with success. The curious in these matters may be referred to Smollett’s observations in “Peregrine Pickle” on certain experiments to cook practically according to the recipes of Apicius. They ended disastrously.

A last word on soup. The French cuisine bourgeoise (the best in the world) believes in good strong meat for its soups, and not, as we erroneously suppose, makes shift—and good shift too—out of any odds and ends; “any old thing,” as the Americans say. On the contrary, pour faire sourire le pot-au-feu (delightful expression!) you must have good material, and plenty of it.

CHAPTER·IV·FISH·

“In a restaurant, when a waiter offers you turbot, ask for salmon, and when he offers you a sole, order a mackerel; as language to man, so fish has been given to the waiter to disguise his thoughts.”—P. Z. Didsbury.

The fish of Great Britain is, beyond all manner of doubt, the very best in the world. It is, therefore, only right and proper that its original flavour should be preserved by simply boiling or frying it, and eating it with what some of the old cook-books call its “Analogies,” which presumably means its traditional accompaniments: lemon, brown bread and butter, and so much as may be of its own liquor, or a Court Bouillon of the simplest. There are so many ways of spoiling fish that the Chafer can never go far wrong if he rejects all but the most primitive, although it is not necessary to revert to the aboriginal braising upon the hot ashes of a nearly extinct wood fire, without the intervention of any implement of stone or earthenware whatever. This method is, however, still in practice to-day in many parts of Portugal (and possibly elsewhere) before the doors of the houses of the wage-earners, and in the taverns of the commoner folks.

Without going to extremes, there is a decent self-respecting kind of cookery, to the value and charm of which the great Carême refers in his “Cuisinier Français” (1828), and which he calls, appropriately enough, le genre mâle et élégant.

The genius of Carême, however, occasionally led him to a state of self-appreciation which is supreme in its bathos. He says, for instance, in a kind of retrospect of his contributions to the culinary art: “I contemplated from behind my ovens the kitchens of India, China, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany and Switzerland, and I felt their ignoble fabric of routine crumbling under my critical blows.” These are, indeed, “prave ’orts!”

Herrings are extraordinarily healthy—and cheap. They are caught by the million—who also eat them; and whether fresh or dried, raw or salted, they are one of Nature’s delicacies. Fresh herrings offer the largest amount of nutriment for one penny of any kind of animal food. A fresh herring weighing 4½ ozs. contains 240 grains of carbon and 36 grains of nitrogen; and a dried herring weighing 3 oz. contains 269 grains of carbon and 41 grains of nitrogen. It is obvious by this what smoking will do by decreasing weight and increasing nutriment.

Red herrings are by no means to be despised, though it is a mistake to imagine that they are caught in a state of redness. In that fine old book, “The Yarmouth Fisherman,” which is not much read nowadays, piscator says to the tourist: “Sir, we lay ourselves out to oblige all the gents that come from London, but we cannot make a red herring swim.”

Thereanent is a quaint signboard outside the Schifferhaus in the old Hanseatic town of Lübeck, one of the most beautiful taverns in the world, and the haunt of old sea-dogs since the sixteenth century. The signboard represents a fisherman and two amateurs angling from a boat; the former has caught a fine kipper and the latter are looking supremely disgusted. The legend under the picture runs: “One Cannot Please Everybody.”

Kippers and their kin have never lacked admirers, and it is on record that the Emperor Charles V. made a pilgrimage to the tomb of the venerable Dutchman who is supposed to have invented pickled herrings.

Fried Herrings.

To come from herrings in the abstract to herrings in the concrete, try this in Chaffinda: Two very fresh herrings, very clean and dry. Fry them in three tablespoons of oil or two of butter, with a squeeze of lemon, salt, pepper, six peppercorns and a tablespoon of vinegar. After they have cooked for eight minutes put the fish aside in a hot dish. Then cut a good-sized Spanish onion into rings, fry these in the oil left by the herrings till they are of a dark brown colour, taking great care not to burn them. When ready, which should be in about six minutes, heap them round the herrings and serve with quarters of lemon. This is a lordly dish, and if properly concocted it leaves you in that state that you will love all mankind—and even tolerate the Chinese.

Dean Nowell, or Noel, a clerical Izaak Walton, and Dean of St. Paul’s (1507-1602) said that the only thing wrong with the herring was that it preferred the sea to the river. The Dean angled much in the Ash at Hadham; he wrote the Church Catechism, invented bottled beer (by accident), and fished for perch and souls. Peace be to his!

There are as many ways of cooking the herring as there are days in the year; even Bismarck invented one, but there are other fish in the sea which demand Chaffinda’s attention, and however enticing the subject may be, it will not do to linger over it.

The lordly salmon was not always so honoured in its exclusiveness as it is to-day. In our grandfathers’ time it was still frequenting the Thames, and London servants, when engaged, used to stipulate that they were not to be fed on it more than twice a week.

Chafed Salmon.

This is as good a way as any of treating the salmon in the Chafing Dish:

Put two tablespoonsful of butter in the pan and when it is melting stir in gradually a tablespoon of flour, and keep on stirring till it is smooth; add a wineglass of water, the juice of a whole lemon, a small onion cut in rings, and the yolks of two eggs, hard-boiled and mashed up. When all these ingredients are well mixed, put in a thick slice of previously boiled cold salmon, simmer it for eight minutes. Tinned salmon, of the very best brands only, may also be used, and the result is fairly satisfactory, but tinned goods are of course only a pis aller at best.

They do say that the Devil never goes to Cornwall because they put everything into a pie down there, and he is afraid he might be put into one too. I heard of Stargazer Pie in Cornwall, and imagined that it referred to the Riviera fish which is not succulent—indeed, barely edible. But I learned that Stargazer Pie is really Pilchard Pie, the heads of the fish popping up through the crust.

Cod Pudding.

A good Cornish way of cooking cod is to make a pudding of it, which is quite chaffable. Use a thick slice of cold cooked cod. Remove skin and bones and flake it up smallish with a couple of forks. Put it in the Chafing Dish with two tablespoons of butter and one of chopped onions; hot it up, and whilst heating (lower the flame before actual boiling) add gradually enough milk to make the fish of the consistency of mashed potatoes; add pepper and salt, and serve it with sippets of toast. It will like you much.

Souchet of Sprats.

Now for sprats; a good supper dish, and eke for breakfast too, because they are so fat that no butter or oil is required, but plenty of salt and pepper. Buy a pint of fresh sprats, soak and dry them very carefully, handling them as little as possible. Cook them as a water souchet or Zootje, an old Dutch method, formerly much honoured at Greenwich fish dinners, and originally made of flounders. But flounders are not convenient for a Chafing Dish, so you must perforce fall back on sprats. Don’t slip!

Cut off the heads and tails of the sprats and put them into the pan with a cupful of thin bouillon, three sprigs of parsley, half a sliced carrot, and plenty of salt and pepper. Let this boil up for ten minutes. Take it off; strain the liquor, return the fish to the pan with three more sprigs of parsley and another sliced half carrot. Boil up again for five minutes this time. A squeeze of lemon and a glass of sherry to be added just before serving, of course with the sauce round the fish.

It has always been said, although it is scarcely provable, that fish, owing to the phosphorus, is good as a brainmaker. A visitor at a Devonshire fishing village asked the parson what was the principal diet of the villagers. “Fish mostly,” said the Vicar. “But I thought fish was a brain food, and these are the most unintelligent folk I ever saw,” remarked the tourist. “Well,” replied the parson, “just think what they would look like if they didn’t eat fish!”

In America the lobster is a frequent victim of the Chafing Dish, and there are many and diverse ways of torturing his succulent flesh therein. I will give three recipes of a more simple nature, all of which have been tried and proven not guilty of indigestion. I should premise, however, that to my individual taste a lobster is only really good in two ways. First, plain boiled and eaten cold with a vinaigrette sauce; and, secondly, as a simple salad with lettuce and perchance a stray tomato. However, there may be others with different tastes, and to such I commend the following:

Buttered Lobster.

First, Buttered Lobster. Beat up two egg yolks with two tablespoons of butter until it makes a smooth cream; add a wineglass of milk or cream, a pinch of black pepper, and half a teaspoon of Paprika. Put it in the Chafing Dish with the meat of a lobster cut into inch pieces, add the coral. Let it simmer for ten minutes, keeping the flame well under control.

Polly Lobster.

The next recipe is called Polly Lobster, and it is toothsome. Cut up the lobster into inch lumps, put it in the dish with two or three tablespoons of salad oil, according to its size; add three or four whole onions, a small bunch of chives, pepper and salt, a wineglass of sherry, and three quartered tomatoes. Let it boil up for a couple of minutes, squeeze a lemon over it, and serve.

Flattered Lobster.

The last variation on the lobster theme is somewhat elaborate. It is termed Flattered Lobster, the reason being, I opine, because of the many added attractions to the crustacean’s native simplicity. It is not quite orthodox perhaps, but extraordinarily nice. Cut up the meat of a large lobster into cubes. Make a mixture of two tablespoons of Worcester sauce, the same of vinegar, a wineglass of claret, a dessertspoon of made mustard (French for choice), salt and Paprika to taste. Put the lobster in the Chafer and pour the mixture over it, adding a tablespoon of butter and the like of flour. Let it all heat up gently and slowly; that is, begin with a full flame and reduce after five minutes. Then pour in a liqueur glass of brandy, and heat it up again with full flame for eight minutes, stirring it all the time. The result is surprising.

A fish story which is not without charm is told of a seaside village school of very rough fishing lads. The teacher gave them this sum to do: “If two herrings cost three half-pence, what would thirty cost?” After ten minutes’ hard work he noticed one of the boys had filled his copy-book full of figures. “Well, Jim, what’s your answer?” “Please, teacher, ’alf a crown.” “Wrong, Jim, try again. If two herrings——” “Wait a bit, teacher,” the lad interrupted, “’errings you said. ’Ow silly of me; I was a-reckoning of ’em like ’addocks.”

Prawns lend themselves most kindly to Chafing-Dish cookery, and can be treated in sundry appetising ways. Fresh prawns are of course quite the best, but the Barataria canned article is not to be despised, if they be carefully washed before using; and there are one or two brands of bottled prawns which cook excellently.

Digestive Prawns.

Shell two dozen prawns, put them in the Chafing Dish with half a pint of milk, half a teaspoon of Paprika, a pinch of salt, and a sprinkling of nutmeg. Keep stirring till near boiling-point, then lower the flame; add a glass of sherry and two beaten eggs; simmer for eight minutes, and then serve on toast.

Prawn Wiggle.

The next is an American recipe and rejoices in the name of Prawn Wiggle. Melt three tablespoons of butter in the dish, and two tablespoons of flour mixed with a teaspoon of salt and a good pinch of pepper. Stir up and then pour in gradually half a pint of milk. As soon as the sauce thickens add a cupful of prawns and a cupful of cold cooked green peas. Mix up well and simmer for eight minutes. The pink and green form a delightsome colour blend, suggesting certain well-known racing colours, and the combined flavours are most delicate. But why “wiggle”? Well, why not?

Prawns on the Grass.

Prawns on the Grass is recommendable, easy, and decorative for the supper-table. Butter lightly the bottom of the Chafing Dish, half fill it with carefully prepared cooked cold spinach; on this put a dozen prawns, two eggs, hard-boiled and cut in quarters; arrange these symmetrically, add pepper, salt, and a cupful of milk. Cover up and let it simmer steadily for ten to twelve minutes. Serve in the Chafing Dish with sippets of toast.

It is impossible to treat here of the delectable crayfish, crawfish, and langouste; they are all cookable and easily digested. Best of all, perhaps, are the Oder Krebse, and the Swedish Kräftor, with their delightful and unique flavour and sweetness, but they must be eaten near where they are born in order to be appreciated.

In the company of chaste Chaffinda it is easy to enjoy a maigre day, for she deals so delicately with fish that one is almost tempted to envy the days of “Cecil’s Fast.” It will be remembered that Lord Burleigh introduced a Bill to enjoin the eating of fish only on certain days, on all creeds alike, in order to restore the fish trade.

It would be highly improper to devote a chapter to fish without referring to Vatel committing suicide on his sword (or was it a skewer?), but the story is as stale as the fish would be when it did arrive after all. A century ago his memory was rather painfully honoured by roasted slices of cod on a spit, the dish being called à la Vatel.

To many worthy folk, painters in particular, the magic word trout immediately suggests Varnishing Day at the Paris Salon, and déjeuner at Ledoyen’s. Trout with green sauce is the staple traditional dish of the day. A couple of years ago I had the curiosity to inquire how much was eaten, and the maître d’hôtel gave me the following figures: 250 lbs. of trout; 15 gallons of green sauce; 120 chickens; 80 ducks; 40 saddles of lamb; 170 bundles of asparagus; and 100 baskets of strawberries. Besides this, the usual thousand and one odds and ends of a miscellaneous carte du jour. Painters have proverbially good appetites.

Oysters.

Purposely, and of malice prepense, I am carefully omitting all mention of the cooking of oysters in any shape or form. I consider it néfaste—almost sacrilegious. Our natives are so exquisitely succulent, so absolutely perfect in their delicacy, that to paint the lily or to gild refined gold were pickaninny peccadilloes compared to the cooking of the oyster. It is different, I believe, in the United States of America, where there are various kinds of oysters, some requiring, almost demanding, cooking to render them palatable. Transatlantic cookery books are full of oyster recipes, in many of which the true oyster flavour must be entirely obliterated by the superadded condiments. This may be a question of gastronomic supply and demand. But my humble Chafing Dish shall not be defiled by the torture of the innocent bivalve. Dixi!

Trout in Small Broth.

To return to trout. The fresh-water fish, the darling product of the stream, cannot be too respectfully approached, whether from an angling or a culinary point of view. Izaac Walton, in his inimitable charm and wisdom, has much to say thereon. Unfortunately his methods are impracticable in a Chafing Dish. I find the best way to treat a trout is with a Court Bouillon. This is how to make it: Mix a glass of sherry, a tablespoon of vinegar, a glass of water, two bay leaves, a dozen peppercorns, a bunch of parsley, a sliced onion, and a pinch of salt. Amalgamate these materials thoroughly. Have your trout well cleaned and dried. Pop him into the Chafing Dish and cover him with the Court Bouillon. Let it cook slowly but steadily for twenty minutes. Then eat it with thanks and praise.

Smothered Turbot.

Here is a good way of preparing the remains of turbot. It is called Smothered Turbot, and is founded on an old Hastings fishwife’s recipe. Butter the inside of the Chafing Dish; spread thereon a layer of bread crumbs, chopped mushrooms, parsley, cut-up lemon peel, pepper and salt. Break up the cold cooked turbot small and make a second layer thereof. Add two tablespoons of butter, and then another layer the same as the first. Heat up and keep at a good heat for twelve minutes. Serve it in the Chafing Dish.

Sardines in a Hurry.

Sardines are one of the handiest of standbys for the Chafist. But get the best brands and smallish fish; the large ones are apt to suggest pilchards, which, although good in their way, are not sardines.

Sardines in a Hurry are done thusly: Take the sardines out of the box carefully on to a plate, pour boiling water over them, and drain it off at once. Take off all the skin, bone them, and cut off the tails. Prepare thin strips of hot buttered toast, put a sardine on each strip, pepper and salt it, pour over it a modicum of plain melted butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. Put them into the Chafing Dish and hot up for five minutes.

Waldorf Sardines.

Another very good if not quite as simple a way of preparing them is Waldorf Sardines. Pour boiling water over a dozen sardines, wiping off the skin with a clean fish-cloth and removing the tails. Put them in the Chafing Dish with one tablespoon of olive oil and heat thoroughly for eight minutes. Put them aside on a dish and keep them hot. Now put another tablespoon of olive oil into the pan, and when sizzling add a cupful of water. Stir until it gets thick, then add a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, half a teaspoon of Paprika, and a pinch of salt. Take the dish off the flame. Add the beaten yolk of an egg, one teaspoon of vinegar and the same of French mustard. Stir the sauce. Heat up the sardines again, and pour the sauce over them. As a supper dish, say after a Royal Institution lecture, or something equally improving, this gives one what the late George du Maurier called “a sense of genial warmth about the midriff.”

Creamed Smelts.

A rather more subtle but curiously refined concoction is Creamed Smelts.

Clean and dry a dozen smelts in a cloth. Dip them one by one in thick cream, or, wanting that, in milk thickened with flour; then dredge them with flour so as to make a paste coating all over them. Put two tablespoons of butter in the Chafing Dish, and when sizzling put in the fish with a squeeze of lemon and a glass of sherry. They will be ready in eight minutes. Sprinkle fried parsley over them before serving.

The delicate faint perfume of the smelt has been likened to that of the cucumber, violets and verbena. It is quite unique among fish, and has a charm that is all its own. This method of cooking preserves this peculiarity. Some other methods do not. Avoid buying sand-smelts (Atherines). They are very similar to the real thing, but lack the characteristic perfume, and they are neither as delicate in flavour or taste.

Kedgeree.

All Anglo-Indians, and many who have never been nearer India than South Kensington, know the virtues of kedgeree, kadgiori, kitchri, kegeree, kitcharee, kitchery, or even quitheri. It is spelt and made in forty-seven different ways, every one of which is strictly authentic, and, according to different authorities, the One and Only way. This is Martin Harvey Kedgeree.

Boil two cupfuls of rice, and strain it well. Mix in it two chopped cold hard-boiled eggs, any cold remains of cooked fish, flaked and salted; add a tablespoon of butter, the same of milk, a teaspoon of Paprika, and half a teaspoon of salt. Toss it all about in the Chafing Dish thoroughly, and then hot it up for ten minutes. Squeeze a lemon over it just before serving. Kedgeree is by no means solely a breakfast dish. It comes in handily at all times, but never argue about kedgeree with an Anglo-Indian. It is fatal to the kedgeree. It gets cold—and then vois que c’est triste pour vous, as Mephistopheles sings when he looks at Siebel’s hand.

Next to the Indian, the Chinese is one of the most inventive cooks in the world. I had one once who had been, amongst other things, a pirate, a prison-warder, an actor, and a judge. He had sudden inspirations, and therein lay his weakness. He knew that English folk ate jelly with mutton, so he tried strawberry jam with eggs and bacon, and following the principle of apple sauce with goose, he gave me hot cherry brandy with roast fowl. He was a bad cook, but a most fluent and ingenious liar.

The best-flavoured eels are those that come from the Thames;, they are much better than the Dutch. There are four kinds: the Snig, the Grig, the Broadnosed, and the Sharp-nosed. The last are the best. Izaak Walton says: “It is agreed that the eel is a most dainty dish”—and who shall say him nay? The Greeks went further and called it “the Helen of the dinner-table,” because every guest strove, like Paris, to keep it for himself.

Souchet of Eels.

To make a water souchet of eels follow the directions for sprats, but cut the eels into inch chunks, and boil for half as long again in each case. Some folks think that eels are at their best in a souchet, which has the tendency of bringing out the best flavour of the fish.

Jellied eels and stewed eels, both East End and racecourse prime favourites, are somewhat too rich and coarse for any save the very ravenous, but it is certain that there is a deal of rich, if perhaps somewhat heavy, nourishment in the eel, and its meat is a great delicacy in any form.

Nettled Eels.

Nettled Eels are much esteemed in Normandy. They may be prepared in the same fashion as water souchet, with the addition of a handful of clean washed young nettles, which should be cooked with the fish but taken out before serving. They give a peculiar zest to the dish, which is quite pleasant.

Matelote of Eels.

The classic form of the eel is as a Matelote, originally a marine dish, and quite within Chaffinda’s compass. Have your eel cut into inch-and-a-half lengths, about one pound in all; put a large walnut of butter, or two tablespoons of oil in the Chafing Dish, also a dozen small peeled onions; let them brown thoroughly and frizzle well; add a tablespoon of flour, a teaspoon of Paprika, and half as much salt. Heat up and stir well until it is all thoroughly amalgamated, then put in six small mushrooms, flat or button (fresh of course), add a good squeeze of lemon, and if the mixture is thicker than cream, pour in a little water. Now put in a tumbler (half-pint) of good claret, a couple of cloves, a bay leaf, and a teacup of bouillon. Let the mixture simmer for eight minutes, after which put in the eel and a liqueur glass of brandy, and cook for another ten minutes; then serve very hot. An orthodox variation is to set light to the brandy before pouring it in and if the boiling wine catches fire it gives a peculiar savour. A well-made Matelote is a thing of joy, a combination of harmonies, culminating in one grand Amen. Izaak Walton designates such a dish a “Hogoo.”

Grandfather’s Bloaters.

Finally, here is a dish which is superlative in its simplicity. It is not a Chafing-Dish recipe, but is yet not altogether out of place. It is called Grandfather’s Bloaters. Put two fine bloaters into a soup-plate, pour over them enough whisky just to cover them. Set light to the whisky, and let it burn itself out. The bloaters will then be done—and done exquisitely. The dish is attributed to Charles Sala, the father of the late George Augustus Sala. It reads much more bibulous than it really is. As a matter of fact, it is almost a temperance dish.

CHAPTER·V·FLESH·AND·FOWL

“Alas! how simple to these cates compared

Was that crude apple that diverted Eve?”

Milton (“Paradise Regained”).

It has always been a puzzle to me why folks take flesh and fowl so much more seriously than fish and vegetables. Your fair neighbour at a dinner-party will prattle gaily through soup and fish, of polo or pantomime, according to the season, but as soon as meat or bird makes its appearance she, all unconsciously, dives into deeper topics, and talks of palæontology or premature burial. Why? Of course, if this had only happened to myself, I should know that I was a sepulchral bore, but I find, on inquiry, that it is the experience of nine men out of ten.

In W. H. Mallock’s “New Republic,” some quite nice people find before them at dinner a menu of the conversation expected of them, as well as of the food to be eaten. It was arranged something after the fashion of the bill of fare of a great dinner where the wines are indicated against each course. Thus instead of Tortue Claire—Amontillado, something like this, Crême d’Asperges—Our Foreign Policy, was printed on the card. Mr. Mallock relates that the scheme was not found practicable, but the idea, in itself, seems alluring and full of possibilities. Anyhow, it is obvious to the most casual diner-out that there is a direct, if indefinable, link between cates and conversation, and that the tide of talk ebbs and flows through the menu according to a certain unascertained but more or less fixed law.

The great question of Sauce has broken up many Damon-Pythias friendships, and brought havoc into sundry happy homes. No two people think exactly alike on Sauces. There are so many schools. The Flamboyant, the Renaissance, the Simplicists, the Natural Flavourites, the Neo-Soho, and many others. The only way to gastronomic salvation is to steer a careful course between extremes, and to take that which is best and most expedient from each and every school.

A very refined and intelligent cannibal once had the politeness to ask the future ornament of his stock-pot, “With what sauce would you like to be eaten?” “But I don’t want to be eaten at all,” was the reply. “That is entirely beside the question,” said the cannibal. This rather suggests the famous Green Sauce which La Coste offered to Sir Thomas Dundas, at the Duke of York’s table, with the whispered advice, “With this sauce you would enjoy eating your grandfather.”

Do what we will, we cannot get away from Sauce. It is a necessary if unobtrusive concomitant of the plainest meats. But it can be mitigated, assuaged; and from a loathly disguise it can be transformed into a dulcet accompaniment. “Les animaux se repaissent; l’homme mange: l’homme d’esprit seul sait manger,” said Brillat-Savarin, who achieved much of his literary success by gross flattery of the palates of his friends. Charles de Monselet, the author of “La Cuisinière Poétique,” and a very earnest advocate of simplicity, as against rioting in the stewpans, wrote: “The man who pays no attention to the food he consumes can only be likened to a pig in whose trough the trotters of his own son, a pair of braces, and a box of dominoes are equally welcome.”

At the same time the affectation of simplicity is often grossly overdone. When Lord Byron first met Tom Moore at Samuel Rogers’ rooms in St. James’s Place, the noble lord affected a lack of appetite for anything except potatoes and vinegar, biscuits and soda water; but he made a very hearty meal at his club afterwards. Again, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was certainly not affected, but probably absent-minded, when he felt hungry would dash into the first baker’s shop, buy a loaf, and rush out again, breaking off pieces as he walked, and eating them there and then, his scanty meal being eked out by common raisins, a small stock of which he kept in his waistcoat pocket.

By way of contrast, it is related of George Frederick Handel, the great composer, a man of voracious appetite and exaggerated capacity, that he ordered dinner for three at a tavern, and, being hungry, asked, “Is de tinner retty?” The waiter replied that he was waiting for the company to come. “I am de gompany,” said Handel, “bring up de tinner prestissimo.” This anecdote, probably unveracious, is often attributed to Papa Haydn—which is ridiculous.

Joints and whole birds, save very small ones, are of course out of the question with a Chafing Dish, but steaks, cutlets, disjointed birds, and a thousand varieties of treating flesh and fowl, raw and cooked, are well within its range.

Rump Steak.

Beef steak, or rump steak, is very palatable cooked in the following manner. Give a one-pound steak a thorough beating. Mallets are made for this express purpose, but if such an implement be not available, I have used the head of a poker, wrapped in cloth, with great effect. This drubbing makes the meat tender. Put the steak into the dish with two tablespoons of butter and three slices of lemon. Cook it slowly for twelve minutes. Then pour over it a cupful of bouillon and a wine-glass of claret. Simmer it for ten minutes more with an added teaspoon of Worcester sauce, salt and pepper. Before serving the steak, which ought to be thoroughly tender, squeeze a lemon over it. Onions are, I venture to think, a great improvement, and two of them, cut in rings, may well be added, after the first twelve minutes’ cooking.

The Roast Beef of Old England which has done so much to maintain the reputation of Great Britain on the Continent, is strangely mistreated and man-handled in foreign parts. It is often served saignant or nearly raw, under the mistaken belief that we like it that way. Moreover, in very old French cookery books, roast mutton and roast lamb are gravely designated Rosbif de Mouton and Rosbif d’Agneau respectively. Was this sheer flattery, or ignorance, or both?

Devilled Beef.

Devilled Beef can be highly recommended in this fashion: Three thick slices of cold cooked roast beef, lean. Butter them as though they were slices of bread. Then dose them liberally with the following mixture: One teaspoon made mustard, half a teaspoon black pepper, same of salt, a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, and a tablespoon of vinegar. Cook them in this in the Chafing Dish, until the meat begins to curl up at the edges.

This, although very good, is mere journeyman work and not a “creation.” Did not Aristotle say that a man who eats a dinner is a better judge of it than the cook? That is judgment, however, not creation, and the French cook-artists call their dishes “creations”—like the dressmakers.

A chop, I contend, should only be cooked on a gridiron—grilled, that is to say, over an open fire. Any other treatment is an offence which, in a more enlightened age, would be made indictable. St. Lawrence would rise in his grave and object, were a chop put in a Chafing Dish—and quite right too! St. Lawrence is of course the patron saint of the grill, for is he not said to have been broiled alive on a gridiron? According to the respectable authority of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, his dying words were:

“This side enough is toasted, so turn me, tyrant,

eat,

And see whether, raw or roasted, I make the

better meat.”

Chipped Beef.

One of the best things produced in America, besides buyers of spurious art works and donors of Free Libraries, is Chipped Beef. You can buy it in tins and treat it thus. Put three tablespoons of butter in the dish. When just melted add a tablespoon of flour; stir until smooth. Then add the Chipped Beef, which must have been previously soaked in cold water for ten minutes; let it simmer for eight minutes, then stir in the beaten-up yolks of two eggs, and serve very hot. Every day is Thanksgiving Day when one eats Chipped Beef, and it is a selfish dish to cook, because one wants to eat it all oneself; and the worst of eating is that it takes away one’s appetite—although there is a proverb to the contrary.

But it is always comfortable to be content (or nearly so) on good plain food, instead of on the misguided concoctions of addle-egged and-pated foreigners, which leave one in the position of the unfortunate vultures in the famous Oxford prize poem, who

“Satiated with one horrid meal,

No second rapture for another feel.”

Zrazy.

This is how to make Polish Zrazy in a Chafing Dish. Buy the whole undercut (fillet) of a small sirloin. Cut it into inch slices. Brown two sliced onions in the Dish in a large walnut of butter. Add the meat, a teaspoon of Paprika, salt, and half a dozen cloves. Cover up, and let it hot up to boiling. Do not uncover, as the great thing is to let it steam in its own fumet. Shake the pan now and again, so that it shall amalgamate well. After once boiling up, let it simmer for fifteen minutes, add a good squeeze of lemon, a glass of claret, and serve with the accompaniment of potato salad.

“This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men,” says Izaak Walton of a like concoction.

Frizzled Ham.

Do you think you would like Frizzled Ham? I do; and this is how I cook it. Start with half a pound of rather fat ham in thin slices. Put half a tablespoon of butter in the pan, and when very hot add the ham. As soon as it begins to curl at the edges, dust the slices with dry flour, which will soon turn brown. Turn the lamp down and keep simmering. Now mix in a bowl half a tablespoon of vinegar and the same of dry mustard. Pour it over the ham, add enough boiling water to cover the meat, put in three drops of Tabasco, and let it all boil up for a minute.

Ham in Hades.

Another and somewhat similar way of preparing ham, which has been very successful, particularly at supper-time, after, say, a lobster salad, has been christened Ham in Hades.

Make a mixture of a teaspoon of made mustard, a tablespoon of Tarragon vinegar, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of Paprika, a teaspoon of Worcester sauce. Spread this mixture on both sides of half a dozen slices of ham. Put two tablespoons of olive oil in the Chafer. When this begins to smoke, put in the ham and brown it quickly on both sides.

Gallimaufrey.

Gallimaufrey is a very old dish, meaning really All Sorts. Shakespeare calls it Gaily-Mawfrey. A very excellent Modern Gallimaufrey is prepared thus: Three thickish slices of ham with two walnuts of butter in the Dish. Let it cook slowly. Add six peeled and washed Jerusalem artichokes, three sliced carrots, one sliced onion. Let it go on simmering. Now put in a couple of dozen haricot beans, a sprig of parsley, three cloves, a wineglass of sherry, a blade of mace, salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of sugar. Simmer it for twenty minutes, bringing it at last just to the boil. It is then an agreeable stew, which is probably as totally unlike the real old-fashioned Gallimaufrey as anything possibly could be. But that really does not matter.

Gallimaufrey dates back to the time of Master Robert May, who published a memorable cook-book in 1660, which is not without its humours. A real old English banquet, it seems, would not be complete without two pies, the one filled with live frogs, and the other with birds. These are for the particular delectation of the ladies. “They will desire to see what is in the pies; where lifting first the lid off one pie, out skips some frogs, which makes the ladies to skip and shreek; next after the other pie, whence come out the birds, who, by a natural instinct, flying at the light, will put out the candles. So that what with frogs beneath, and birds above, it will cause much delight and pleasure to the whole company.”

They were right merry folk then!

Bubble and Squeak.

Not to know Bubble and Squeak is to admit one’s ignorance of one of the good things of this earth. Chaffinda can tackle it, and in this wise. It is an old Cornish version. There may be others, but there can be none better. The dish needs cabbage, and it is most practical to get a young fresh cabbage, boiled, pressed, and chopped into shreds before you begin the actual cooking. It saves time and trouble. Put a tablespoon of butter in the Chafing Dish, also one chopped onion, and the cabbage. Let it frizzle and absorb the butter. Just before boiling, add gradually a cupful of milk, pepper and salt. As soon as it boils up, take it off and put it aside in a hot dish. Now hot up three underdone slices of cooked cold roast beef in two tablespoons of butter, turning them frequently, so that they shall be well cooked on both sides; add a tablespoon of Worcester sauce and the same of vinegar. Now make a mound of the cooked cabbage, and put the slices of well-done meat around it, upright. You will regret that you did not cook double the quantity.

There are so many kinds of sausages that it is difficult to pitch upon the best for Chafing purposes. Slices of the Brunswick species are excellent in pea-soup. The genuine liver sausage makes good sandwiches. The more elaborate French kinds are akin to galantine. The Italian Bologna and Mortadella have their friends. But, after all, the well-made Cambridge sausage is hard to beat. I plump for the Cambridge variety.

Hodge’s Sausages.

This is a Cambridge recipe for Hodge’s Sausages. Put as many as you think you can eat in the dish with a walnut of butter for every two, pepper and salt, and a tablespoon of Worcester sauce. Then add one sliced apple for each sausage. Take out the cores, but do not peel them. Stab the sausages with a fork to prevent their bursting. Cook for twelve minutes. American apples are good for this dish, and also the homegrown Keswick Codlin, Blenheim Orange, or Hambledon Deux Ans.

There is something peculiarly bucolic about Hodge’s Sausages which may commend itself to the rurally minded. To me, it brings the scent of the hay over the spirit-lamp.

Goulasch.

Another appetising stew is Goulasch. Beat well a half-pound (or larger) steak; cut it into pieces the size of a domino. Put them in the Chafing Dish with two cold cooked potatoes chopped into dice. Pour over the meat and the vegetables two tablespoons of olive oil, and as soon as it simmers add an onion in slices, half a teaspoon of Paprika, salt, and a cupful of bouillon. Cover it up, and let it cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Just before serving drop in half a dozen stoned olives.

So much for beef. The next meat is of course mutton, for which three recipes should suffice. The first is Mutton Steaks, and is adapted from a Welsh recipe. I have a very interesting Welsh cookery book, tersely entitled: “Llyfr Cogino a Chadw ty: yn cynwys Pa fodd? A Paham? Cogyddiaeth.” I am sorry that ignorance prevents my giving anything out of it, but I think that I have got the title nearly right.

Mutton Steaks.

To make Mutton Steaks, cut three slices, each an inch thick, from the middle of a cold cooked leg of mutton. Put them in the Dish with enough water to cover them, pepper and salt, and five small onions. Cover it up and let the meat brown thoroughly on one side, then turn it over and add a walnut of butter and a tablespoon of flour. Do not allow it to boil, but keep it simmering gently for at least fifteen minutes. If raw meat be used, the result is also quite satisfactory, but it is well in that case to replace the water by a cup of bouillon.

Turkish Mutton.

Turkish Mutton, locally termed Etena Jarvat: this is one of those dishes which may fairly be included in Brillat-Savarin’s magistères restoratifs. It is easy enough to chafe.

Cut half a pound of uncooked mutton (from the leg from choice, but not absolutely necessary) into medium dice. Put the meat into the Chafing Dish with salt, pepper and dripping, fat, oil, or butter, according to taste, but oil is preferable. When the meat turns brown, add half a pound of previously cooked and sliced French beans, also half a pint of water or bouillon (latter for choice) and a bunch of simples, either thyme or marjoram, or both. Simmer steadily for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Carrots can be used instead of beans. Just before serving turn up the flame full, and let it come just to the boil.

Mutton Venison.

Mutton Venison is a compromise, and may be recommended as such. We live in an age of compromise, so why not bring it into our cookery? Make an extra strong decoction of bouillon from any good meat-juice, three tablespoons in quantity, mince into it an onion, and put in the pan with a tablespoonful of Worcester sauce, three drops of Tabasco, a glass of claret, a dessert-spoon of red-currant jelly (or guava or blackberry jelly), pepper and salt. When very hot put in about a pound of slices of cold cooked leg of mutton, lean, cut into strips. Let it simmer for twenty minutes. It is not a bit like venison, but distinctly good nevertheless.

Plump and Wallop.

“Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me?

Three plumps and a wallop for ae bawbee.”

This advertisement, it is alleged, was addressed to the good people of Kirkmahoe, who were so poor that they could not afford to put any meat into their broth. A cobbler invested all his money in buying four sheep shanks, and when a neighbour wanted to make mutton broth, for the payment of one halfpenny the cobbler would “plump” one of the sheep shanks into the boiling water and give it a “wallop,” or whisk round. He then wrapped it in a cabbage leaf and took it home. This was called a “gustin bone,” and was supposed to give a rich “gust” to the broth.

Potatoes and Point.

A Boer recipe of much the same description was known in early Transvaal days (long before the War) as “Potatoes and Point.” The poor “Bijwoner” family was served all round with potatoes, and a red herring was hung up in the middle of the room. The elders were allowed to rub their potatoes on the herring, but the youngsters might only point theirs towards the delicacy at the end of a fork. The mere proximity of the highly-flavoured herring was supposed to give the potato a flavour.

Lots of quite worthy folk gorge themselves periodically and keep their children on the border-line of starvation. A certain exaggeratedly selfish family man of my acquaintance, who for economic reasons lived somewhere in the wilds of West Kensington, made it his unholy practice to dine once a month with a couple of boon companions of the same sex at the Carlton or Prince’s, and at the conclusion of a remarkable dinner was wont to blurt out: “By George, I wish I could afford to bring the wife and children here!”

Scouse.

Permit me now to suggest a trial of that very old and famous dish, Scouse. It is prepared in the following fashion: Get one pound of lean, dairy-fed pork, cooked and cold. Cut it into half-inch squares; sprinkle them with flour, salt, Paprika, and dip them lightly in French mustard. Put in the Chafing Dish three chopped onions, half a teaspoon of sugar, one wine-glass of vinegar, three cloves, a blade of mace and a bayleaf. Cover up and let it simmer, not boil, while the quantity of liquid is reduced by one half. Add the pork with half a pint of bouillon, and simmer for another ten minutes.

Young pork, like young veal, is always excellent, but it can be too young. A sucking pig with lacklustre eye and a lemon in its jaws is pathetic and none too appetising. Veal, in England at any rate, is often tasteless and somewhat dull. Not so very long ago, in Ireland, they used to kill newborn calves, bake them in an oven with potatoes, and call the dish “Staggering Bob.”

Kabobs.

Kabobs have probably come to us from India, via the Cape. This is an old Capetown-Malay recipe which is thoroughly reliable. Half a pound of cold veal; the same of lean ham, both cut into slices a quarter of an inch thick; three apples, and three onions. Cut the meat and the vegetables into rounds with a knife or cutter, about the size of a crown piece. Skewer them up on wooden (or, if you are a de Beers shareholder, on silver) skewers, in the following order: (1) a round of veal; (2) a round of apple; (3) a round of ham; (4) around of onion. Sprinkle them with pepper, salt and curry-powder. Put them in the Chafing Dish with a teacupful of bouillon and a walnut of butter; simmer steadily for twenty minutes, then thicken the gravy with a little flour, and serve either with boiled rice, or toast, or both.

Brigands’ Fowls.

Cold fowls lend themselves in a hundred ways to the kind attentions of Chaffinda. Mention of quite a few of these must urge the gastronomer to further experiments and discoveries. Pollio à la Contrabandista: this is the way brigands cook, or ought to cook, fowls. Cut a cold cooked fowl into neat joints. Put them into the Chafing Dish with four tablespoons of olive oil, and heat up until the meat is of a light brown colour, turning the pieces frequently. Then keep the flame lower and simmering all the time; add four tomatoes cut into quarters, two chopped green chillies, one shredded Spanish onion, one tablespoon of Worcester sauce, the same of mushroom ketchup, and four cloves. Let it simmer, closely covered, for at least fifteen minutes. It will then prove a most savoury mess.

Howtowdie.