ance for a race down the red lane,
without assuming the form of a frog or a spider; or pork, without being
either "_goosified_" or "_lambified_" (see No. 51); and game and
poultry in the shape of crawfish or hedgehogs; these travesties rather
show the patience than the science of the cook, and the bad taste of
those who prefer such baby-tricks to nourishing and substantial plain
cookery.

I could have made this the biggest book with half the trouble it has
taken me to make it the best: concentration and perspicuity have been my
aim.

As much pains have been taken in describing, in the most intelligible
manner, how to make, in the easiest, most agreeable, and economical way,
those common sauces that daily contribute to the comfort of the middle
ranks of society; as in directing the preparation of those extravagant
and elaborate double relishes, the most ingenious and accomplished
"_officers of the mouth_" have invented for the amusement of profound
palaticians, and thorough-bred _grands gourmands_ of the first
magnitude: these we have so reduced the trouble and expense of making,
as to bring them within the reach of moderate fortunes; still preserving
all that is valuable of their taste and qualities; so ordering them,
that they may delight the palate, without disordering the stomach, by
leaving out those inflammatory ingredients which are only fit for an
"iron throat and adamantine bowels," and those costly materials which no
rational being would destroy, for the wanton purpose of merely giving a
fine name to the compositions they enter into, to whose excellence they
contribute nothing else. For instance, consuming _two_ partridges to
make sauce for _one_: half a pint of game gravy (No. 329,) will be
infinitely more acceptable to the unsophisticated appetite of
Englishmen, for whose proper and rational recreation we sat down to
compose these receipts; whose approbation we have done our utmost to
deserve, by devoting much time to the business of the kitchen; and by
repeating the various processes that we thought admitted of the smallest
improvement.

We shall be fully gratified, if our book is not bought up with quite so
much avidity by those high-bred epicures, who are unhappily so much more
nice than wise, that they cannot eat any thing dressed by an English
cook; and vote it barbarously unrefined and intolerably ungenteel, to
endure the sight of the best bill of fare that can be contrived, if
written in the vulgar