tongue of old England.[103-*]

Let your sauces each display a decided character; send up your plain
sauces (oyster, lobster, &c.) as pure as possible: they should only
taste of the materials from which they take their name.

The imagination of most cooks is so incessantly on the hunt for a
relish, that they seem to think they cannot make sauce sufficiently
savoury without putting into it every thing that ever was eaten; and
supposing every addition must be an improvement, they frequently
overpower the natural flavour of their PLAIN SAUCES, by overloading them
with salt and spices, &c.: but, remember, these will be deteriorated by
any addition, save only just salt enough to awaken the palate. The lover
of "_piquance_" and compound flavours, may have recourse to "_the
Magazine of Taste_," No. 462.

On the contrary, of COMPOUND SAUCES; the ingredients should be so nicely
proportioned, that no one be predominant; so that from the equal union
of the combined flavours such a fine mellow mixture is produced, whose
very novelty cannot fail of being acceptable to the persevering
_gourmand_, if it has not pretensions to a permanent place at his table.

An ingenious _cook_ will form as endless a variety of these compositions
as a _musician_ with his seven[104-*] notes, or a _painter_ with his
colours; no part of her business offers so fair and frequent an
opportunity to display her abilities: SPICES, HERBS, &c. are often very
absurdly and injudiciously jumbled together.

Why have clove and allspice, or mace and nutmeg, in the same sauce; or
marjoram, thyme, and savoury; or onions, leeks, eschalots, and garlic?
one will very well supply the place of the other, and the frugal cook
may save something considerable by attending to this, to the advantage
of her employers, and her own time and trouble. You might as well, to
make soup, order one quart of water from the _Thames_, another from the
_New River_, a third from _Hampstead_, and a fourth from _Chelsea_, with
a certain portion of _spring_ and _rain_ water.

In many of our receipts we have fallen in with the fashion of ordering a
mixture of spices, &c., which the above hint will enable the culinary
student to correct.

"PHARMACY is now much more simple; COOKERY may be made so too. A
prescription which is now compounded with five ingredients, had formerly
fifty in it: people begin to understand that the materia medica is
little more than a collection of evacuants and stimuli