ug. The dish of cod I gave you, and which you liked so much, may be
seen on the table of the poorest household in Holland and Flanders at
least once, sometimes twice, a week, especially in North-Brabant, where
the good Catholics scarcely ever eat anything else on Fridays. The
sauce, which they call a mustard-sauce, would naturally be better if
made with butter, but you could not taste the difference if the cook
takes care to sprinkle a little saffron in her fat or marrow. Saffron is
a great thing in cooking, and still our best chefs know little or
nothing about it. But for the saffron, you would have detected a slight
odour of musk in the entree you took to be larks. You may almost
disguise anything with saffron, except dog's-flesh. Listen to what I
tell you, and in a month or so, perhaps before, you'll admit the truth
of my words. The moment horseflesh fails, the Parisians will fall back
upon dogs, turning up their noses at cats and rats, though both are a
thousand times superior to the latter. In saying this, I am virtually
libelling the cat and the rat; for 'the friend of man,' be he cooked in
ever so grand a way, is always a detestable dish. His flesh is oily and
flabby; stew him, fry him, do what you will, there is always a flavour
of castor oil about him. The only way to minimize that flavour, to make
him palatable, is to salt, or rather to pepper him; that is, to cut him
up in slices, and leave them for a fortnight, bestrewing them very
liberally with pepper-corns. Then, before 'accommodating' them finally,
put them into boiling water for a while, and throw the water away.

"No such compromises are necessary with 'the fauna of the tiles,' who,
with his larger-sized victim, the rat, has been the most misprized and
misjudged of all animals, from the culinary point of view. Stewed puss
is by far more delicious than stewed rabbit. The flesh of the former
tastes less pungent than that of the latter, and is more tender. As for
the prejudice against cat, well, the Germans have the same prejudice
against rabbit, and while I was in the Foreign Legion there was a
Wurtemberger, a lieutenant, who would not touch bunny, but who would
devour grimalkin. Those who have not tasted couscoussou of cat, prepared
according to the Arabian recipe--though the Arabs won't touch it--have
never tasted anything."[86]

[Footnote 86: The Arab _kuskus_ generally consists of a piece
of mutton baked in a paste with the vegetabl