always been of the same opinion as Sir Hans, and believe the only
reason why it is the least esteemed spice is, because it is the
cheapest. "What folks get easy they never enjoy."
[92-||] If you have not fresh orange or lemon-juice, or Coxwell's
crystallized lemon acid, _the artificial lemon juice_ (No. 407) is a
good substitute for it.
[92-#] The _juice_ of the SEVILLE ORANGE is to be preferred to that of
the LEMON, the flavour is finer, and the acid milder.
[93-*] The erudite editor of the "_Almanach des Gourmands_," vol. ii. p.
30, tells us, that ten folio volumes would not contain the receipts of
all the soups that have been invented in that grand school of good
eating,--the Parisian kitchen.
[93-+] "_Point de Legumes_, _point de Cuisiniere_," is a favourite
culinary adage of the French kitchen, and deserves to be so: a better
soup may be made with a couple of pounds of meat and plenty of
vegetables, than our common cooks will make you with four times that
quantity of meat; all for want of knowing the uses of soup roots, and
sweet and savoury herbs.
[93-++] Many a good dish is spoiled, by the cook not knowing the proper
use of this, which is to give a flavour, and not to be predominant over
the other ingredients: a morsel mashed with the point of a knife, and
stirred in, is enough. See No. 402.
[93-Sec.] Foreigners have strange notions of English taste, on which one of
their culinary professors has made the following comment: "the organ of
taste in these ISLANDERS is very different from _our delicate palates_;
and sauce that would excoriate the palate of a Frenchman, would be
hardly _piquante_ enough to make any impression on that of an
Englishman; thus they prefer port to claret," &c. As far as concerns our
drinking, we wish there was not quite so much truth in _Monsieur's_
remarks, but the characteristic of the French and English kitchen is
_sauce without substance_, and _substance without sauce_.
To make CAYENNE of English chillies, of infinitely finer flavour than
the Indian, see No. 404.
[95-*] We tried to make catchup of these by treating them like mushrooms
(No. 439), but did not succeed.
[96-*] "A poor man, being very hungry, staid so long in a cook's shop,
who was dishing up meat, that his stomach was satisfied with only the
smell thereof. The choleric cook demanded of him to pay for his
breakfast; the poor man denied having had any, and the controversy was
referred to the deciding of th
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