new methods of wholesale cookery is an abomination, and to
escape from them a matter of difficulty. We have to secure an ancient
roasting-jack and a large clear fire in our own kitchen, and to
instruct our cook--since no woman has taught her what she ought to
know--in the art of roasting and grilling, in the preparation of
Yorkshire pudding, in the mystery of the marrow-bone and the proper
and distinct use of garlic, onions, shalots, chives, chervil,
tarragon, marjoram, basil, other herbs, and divers peppers, and
finally to train her in the supreme accomplishment of the seasoning of
a salad.

Maybe that the present established relations of our appetites to the
time-honoured savours, by which the ancient Jews sought to propitiate
the Deity, are destined to be superseded. On the other hand it is
quite possible that all the juggling of modern "machine" cookery is a
false step, and injurious to digestion and health. It is not unlikely
that there is no relish which has so sure a hold on the digestion of
European man, no appeal to the cerebral mechanism controlling the
liberation of his gastric juices, which is so infallible as that
emanating from "well and truly" roasted or grilled meat.

It is not easy to account for the present neglect of decent cookery
and the triumph of the sham French cookery (for it is not French at
all!) which is at present foisted on a long-suffering public. Probably
the enormously increased number of visitors to foreign resorts and of
frequenters of restaurants in London have led to huge enterprise in
"catering," and to a monopoly which has driven out of existence the
smaller establishments, where alone the artist-cook can flourish. But
it seems that the neglect of decent cooking is also due in this
country to a racial incapacity and indifference which leads both men
and women to despise "taking pains" about small things, and brings
them into the world devoid of the desire to carry out with skill those
small enterprises on which much of the sweetness and gaiety of life
depends.

Even in the time of Charles II the skill and seriousness of French
cookery as compared with our own was recognised. The high reputation
of Scotch cooks at the present day seems to be due to an inheritance
of traditions from the days of close association of the Scotch and
French Courts. Up to nearly 100 years ago roasting was as usual a
method of cooking meat in Paris as in London. There were "rotisseries"
in Paris in th