e cooked every morning for the establishment, and all
scraps were diligently collected, and given alternately to the poor
of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The
writer acquaints us that, when the Protector entertained the French
ambassador and the Parliament, after the Sindercome affair, he only
spent L1,000 over the banquet, of which the Lady Protectress managed
to save L200. Cromwell and his wife, we are told, did not care for
suppers, but contented themselves with eggs and slops.

A story is told here of Cromwell and his wife sitting down to a
loin of veal, and his calling for an orange, which was the sauce he
preferred to that joint, and her highness telling him that he could
not have one, for they were not to be had under a groat.

The Mansion House still retains the ancient usage of distributing the
relics of a great feast afterwards among the poor, as Cromwell is said
just above to have made a rule of his household. It was a practice
highly essential in the absence of any organised system of relief.

The reign of Charles II., which witnessed a relationship with France
of a very different character from that which the English maintained
during the Plantagenet and earlier Tudor rule, was favourable to the
naturalisation of the Parisian school of cookery, and numerous works
were published at and about that time, in which the development of
knowledge in this direction is shown to have taken place _pari passu_
with the advance in gardening and arboriculture under the auspices of
Evelyn.

In 1683 we come to a little volume entitled "The Young Cook's
Monitor," by M.H., who made it public for the benefit of his (or her)
scholars; a really valuable and comprehensive manual, wherein, without
any attempt at arrangement, there is an ample assemblage of directions
for preparing for the table all kinds of joints, made dishes, soups
and broths, _frigacies_, puddings, pies, tarts, tansies, and jellies.
Receipts for pickling are included, and two ways are shown how we
should treat turnips after this wise. Some of the ingredients
proposed for sauces seem to our ears rather prodigious. In one place
a contemporary peruser has inserted an ironical calculation in MS. to
the effect that, whereas a cod's head could be bought for fourpence,
the condiments recommended for it were not to be had for less than
nine shillings. The book teaches us to make Scotch collops, to pickle
lemons and quinces, to make Fr