t need of it. (See No. 229.)

Our neighbours the French are so justly famous for their skill in the
affairs of the kitchen, that the adage says, "as many Frenchmen as many
cooks:" surrounded as they are by a profusion of the most delicious
wines and most seducing _liqueurs_, offering every temptation and
facility to render drunkenness delightful: yet a tippling Frenchman is a
"_rara avis_;" they know how so easily and completely to keep life in
repair by good eating, that they require little or no adjustment from
drinking.

This accounts for that "_toujours gai_," and happy equilibrium of
spirits, which they enjoy with more regularity than any people. Their
stomach, being unimpaired by spirituous liquors, embrace and digest
vigorously the food they sagaciously prepare for it, and render easily
assimilable by cooking it sufficiently, wisely contriving to get the
difficult part of the work of the stomach done by fire and water.

_To salt Meat._--(No. 6.)

In the _summer_ season, especially, meat is frequently spoiled by the
cook forgetting to take out the kernels; one in the udder of a round of
beef, in the fat in the middle of the round, those about the thick end
of the flank, &c.: if these are not taken out, all the salt in the world
will not keep the meat.

The art of salting meat is to rub in the salt thoroughly and evenly into
every part, and to fill all the holes full of salt where the kernels
were taken out, and where the butcher's skewers were.

A round of beef of 25 pounds will take a pound and a half of salt to be
rubbed in all at first, and requires to be turned and rubbed every day
with the brine; it will be ready for dressing in four or five
days,[111-*] if you do not wish it very salt.

In _summer_, the sooner meat is salted after it is killed the better;
and care must be taken to defend it from the flies.

In _winter_, it will eat the shorter and tenderer, if kept a few days
(according to the temperature of the weather) until its fibre has become
short and tender, as these changes do not take place after it has been
acted upon by the salt.

In frosty weather, take care the meat is not frozen, and warm the salt
in a frying-pan. The extremes of heat[111-+] and cold are equally
unfavourable for the process of salting. In the former, the meat changes
before the salt can affect it: in the latter, it is so hardened, and its
juices are so congealed, that the salt cannot penetrate it.

If you wish it