th the soup, &c.
while it is hot.

_Obs._ Most of the preparations under this title are a medley of burned
butter, spices, catchup, wine, &c. We recommend the rational epicure to
be content with the natural colour of soups and sauces, which, to a
well-educated palate, are much more agreeable, without any of these
empyreumatic additions; however they may please the eye, they plague the
stomach most grievously; so "open your mouth and shut your eyes."

For the sake of producing a pretty colour, "cheese," "Cayenne" (No.
404), "essence of anchovy" (No. 433), &c. are frequently adulterated
with a colouring matter containing red lead!! See ACCUM _on the
Adulteration of Food_, 2d edit. 12mo. 1820.

A scientific "_homme de bouche de France_" observes: "The generality of
cooks calcine bones, till they are as black as a coal, and throw them
hissing hot into the stew-pan, to give a brown colour to their broths.
These ingredients, under the appearance of a nourishing gravy, envelope
our food with stimulating acid and corrosive poison.

"Roux, or thickening (No. 257), if not made very carefully, produces
exactly the same effect; and the juices of beef or veal, burned over a
hot fire, to give a rich colour to soup or sauces, grievously offend the
stomach, and create the most distressing indigestions.

"The judicious cook will refuse the help of these incendiary articles,
which ignorance or quackery only employ; not only at the expense of the
credit of the cook, but the health of her employers."

N.B. The best browning is good home-made glaze (No. 252), mushroom
catchup (No. 439), or claret, or port wine. See also No. 257; or cut
meat into slices, and broil them brown, and then stew them.

_Gravy for roast Meat._--(No. 326.)

Most joints will afford sufficient trimmings, &c. to make half a pint of
plain gravy, which you may colour with a few drops of No. 322: for those
that do not, about half an hour before you think the meat will be done,
mix a salt-spoonful of salt, with a full quarter pint of boiling water;
drop this by degrees on the brown parts of the joint; set a dish under
to catch it (the meat will soon brown again); set it by; as it cools,
the fat will float on the surface; when the meat is ready, carefully
remove the fat, and warm up the gravy, and pour it into the dish.

The common method is, when the meat is in the dish you intend to send it
up in, to mix half a tea-spoonful of salt in a quarter pint of boiling