oo anxious perseverance to penetrate
the mysteries of palatics may diminish the _tact_, exhaust the power,
and destroy the _index_, without which all her labour is in vain."

Therefore, a sagacious cook, instead of idly and wantonly wasting the
excitability of her palate, on the sensibility of which her reputation
and fortune depends, when she has ascertained the relative strength of
the flavour of the various ingredients she employs, will call in the
balance and the measure to do the ordinary business, and endeavour to
preserve her organ of taste with the utmost care, that it may be a
faithful oracle to refer to on grand occasions, and new
compositions.[53-*] Of these an ingenious cook may form as endless a
variety, as a musician with his seven notes, or a painter with his
colours: read chapters 7 and 8 of the Rudiments of Cookery.

Receive as the highest testimonies of your employers' regard whatever
observations they may make on your work: such admonitions are the most
_unequivocal proofs_ of their desire to make you thoroughly understand
their taste, and their wish to retain you in their service, or they
would not take the trouble to teach you.

Enter into all their plans of economy,[53-+] and endeavour to make the
most of every thing, as well for your own honour as your master's
profit, and you will find that whatever care you take for his profit
will be for your own: take care that the meat which is to make its
appearance again in the parlour is handsomely cut with a sharp knife,
and put on a clean dish: take care of the _gravy_ (see No. 326) which is
left, it will save many pounds of meat in making sauce for _hashes_,
_poultry_, and many little dishes.

MANY THINGS MAY BE REDRESSED in a different form from that in which they
were first served, and improve the appearance of the table without
increasing the expense of it.

COLD FISH, soles, cod, whitings, smelts, &c. may be cut into bits, and
put into escallop shells, with cold oyster, lobster, or shrimp sauce,
and bread crumbled, and put into a Dutch oven, and browned like
scalloped oysters. (No. 182.)

The best way TO WARM COLD MEAT is to sprinkle the joint over with a
little salt, and put it in a DUTCH OVEN, at some distance before a
gentle fire, that it may warm gradually; watch it carefully, and keep
turning it till it is quite hot and brown: it will take from twenty
minutes to three quarters of an hour, according to its thickness; serve
it up with grav