ny Frenchmen as many
cooks:" surrounded as they are by a profusion of the most delicious
wines, and seducing _liqueurs_ offering every temptation to render
drunkenness delightful, yet a tippling Frenchman is a "_rara avis_."

They know how so easily to keep life in sufficient repair by good
eating, that they require little or no screwing up with liquid stimuli.
This accounts for that "_toujours gai_," and happy equilibrium of the
animal spirits which they enjoy with more regularity than any people:
their elastic stomachs, unimpaired by spirituous liquors, digest
vigorously the food they sagaciously prepare and render easily
assimilable, by cooking it sufficiently,--wisely contriving to get half
the work of the stomach done by fire and water, till

"The tender morsels on the palate melt,
And all the force of cookery is felt."

See Nos. 5 and 238, &c.

The cardinal virtues of cookery, "CLEANLINESS, FRUGALITY, NOURISHMENT,
AND PALATABLENESS," preside over each preparation; for I have not
presumed to insert a single composition, without previously obtaining
the "_imprimatur_" of an enlightened and indefatigable "COMMITTEE OF
TASTE," (composed of thorough-bred GRANDS GOURMANDS of the first
magnitude,) whose cordial co-operation I cannot too highly praise; and
here do I most gratefully record the unremitting zeal they manifested
during their arduous progress of proving the respective recipes: they
were so truly philosophically and disinterestedly regardless of the wear
and tear of teeth and stomach, that their labour appeared a pleasure to
them. Their laudable perseverance has enabled me to give the
inexperienced amateur an unerring guide how to excite as much pleasure
as possible on the palate, and occasion as little trouble as possible to
the principal viscera, and has hardly been exceeded by those determined
spirits who lately in the Polar expedition braved the other extreme of
temperature, &c. in spite of whales, bears, icebergs, and starvation.

Every attention has been paid in directing the proportions of the
following compositions; not merely to make them inviting to the
appetite, but agreeable and useful to the stomach--nourishing without
being inflammatory, and savoury without being surfeiting.

I have written for those who make nourishment the chief end of
eating,[17-*] and do not desire to provoke appetite beyond the powers
and necessities of nature; proceeding, however, on the purest epicurean
princ