'HELEN -CAMPBELL HELEN CAMPBELL’S BOOKS. THE EASIEST WAY IN HOUSEKEEPING AND COOKING. Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes. l6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB. A Story for Girls. l6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50. MRS. HERNDON’S INCOME. A Novel. l6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50. MISS MELINDA’S OPPORTUNITY A Story for Girls, l6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00; Paper covers, price, 50 cents. PRISONERS OF POVERTY. Women Wage-workers — Their Trades and Their Lives. l2mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00; Paper covers, price, 50 cents. PRISONERS OF POVERTY ABROAD. 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00 ; Paper covers, price, 50 cents. ROGER BERKELEY’S PROBATION. A Story. l6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00; Paper covers, price 50 cents. Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed , postpaid, on receipt of ’by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston Keep Your Mouth Shut. A POPULAR TREATISE ON MOUTH.* BREATHING, Its Causes, Effects, and Treatment, By FRED. A. A. SMITH, M.D. Of the Cheltenham (England) Hospital. With an Appendix on Opthalmia in Chil- dren, by Dr. Smith, and on the Prevention and Cure of Opthalmia in New-born Children, by Dr. Swan Burnett, of Washington, D.C. 16mo. Cloth. Price, 50 cents. Sold by all Booksellers. M ailed, postpaid, on receipt of price bv the Pmftshers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. This is a reproduction of a book from the McGill University Library collection. Title: In foreign kitchens : with choice recipes from England, France, Germany, Italy, and the North Author: Campbell, Helen, 1839-1918 Publisher, year: Boston : Roberts Brothers, 1 893 The pages were digitized as they were. The original book may have contained pages with poor print. Marks, notations, and other marginalia present in the original volume may also appear. For wider or heavier books, a slight curvature to the text on the inside of pages may be noticeable. ISBN of reproduction: 978-1-77096-091-6 This reproduction is intended for personal use only, and may not be reproduced, re-published, or re-distributed commercially. For further information on permission regarding the use of this reproduction contact McGill University Library. McGill University Library www.mcgill.ca/library In Foreign Kitchens Choice l&eripes FROM ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, AND THE NORTH. By HELEN CAMPBELL, AUTHOR OF “ THE EASIEST WAY IN HOUSEKEEPING AND COOKING,’ “ PRISONERS, OF POVERTY,” ‘’THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB,” “mrs. herndon’s income,” “miss melinda’s OPPORTUNITY,” “ROGER BERKELEY’S PROBATION.” BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1893. Copyright, 1892, By Helen Campbell. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. A WORD TO THE READER. While foreign cook-books are accessible to all readers of foreign languages, and American ones have borrowed from them for what we know as “ French cookery,” it is difficult often to judge the real value of a dish, or decide if experiment in new directions is worth while. The recipes in the following chapters, prepared originally for The EPICURE, of Boston, were gathered slowly, as the author found them in use, and are most of them taken from family recipe- books, as valued abroad as at home. So many requests have come for them in some more convenient form than that offered in the magazine, that their present shape has 11 A WORD TO THE READER. been determined upon, and it is hoped they may be a welcome addition to the house- keeper’s private store of rules for varying the monotony of the ordinary menu. Boston, November, 1892. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER FIRST. ENGLAND. Beefsteak Pudding, 8, 14. Cheshire Cheese, 8. Chops, 10. Devonshire Cream, 11. Yorkshire Tea-cakes and Hams, n. English Pastry, 11. Apricot Puffs, 12. English Storerooms, 14. English Lodging-houses, 15. English Kitchens, 16. CHAPTER SECOND. FRANCE. Brillat Savarin, 25. American Beefsteak described by Mark Twain, 26. French Economy, 27. Paris Kitchens, 18. French Fuel, 29. European Din- ners, 30. French Cookery, 31. Carving with a Hatchet, 32. Charcuteries, 33. Garnish, 34. French Housekeeping, 35. CHAPTER THIRD. GERMANY. Hotel Cookery, 48. Travelling Americans, 50. Con- tinental Housekeepers, 50. Family Recipes, 50. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS. Grossmutter's Training, 51. The Frau Rath , 52. Goethe’s Room, 53. Continental Breakfasts, 54. German Cows, 55. German Dinners, 56. Ger- man Desserts, 58. Fruit and Food, 58. German Cook, 59. A German Storeroom, 60. CHAPTER FOURTH. ITALY. Italian Abstinence, 77. Italian Fireplaces, 78. An- gelo, 87. Italian Housekeepers, 88. Risotto, 89. Italian Storerooms, 90. CHAPTER FIFTH. NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. “ Feats on the Fiord,” 98. A Norwegian Dinner- Party, 99. Table Service, 100. Norwegian Pud- dings, 101, A Christmas Party, 102. Bret, 103. Suppers, 104. Bonders , 105. Bonder Houses, 106. Norwegian Kitchens, 107. Bonder Dinners, 108. Grod and Vellig, 109. INDEX OF RECIPES. ♦ Page Beef, Entree of, with Macaroni 95 Beef Tongue au Gratin 44, 1 1 1 Birds in a Form 95 Cakes, Banbury . 22 Yorkshire Tea-cakes 24 “ Normandy Spice Bread 44 “ Queen Charlotte’s Cake 22 Cauliflower in a Form 69 Charlotte Apple 45 “ Norwegian 115 “ Swedish US Chartreuse of Partridges 43 Cheese, Little Souffles of 43 Chestnut Souffle - 45 Cream, Devonshire 23 “ Mould of, with Wood Strawberries . . 75 “ White Wine 75 Crocante 97 Fritters, Cream . . 46 Junkets, Devonshire 24 Macedoine of Fruits 47 Nalenskis 1 1 5 Noodles 73 “ Mould of, with Ham 74 Normandy Spice Bread 44 Pancakes with Veal or Ham 72 Pan-forte of Siena 96 Pates of Lamb 41 “ Burgundian 42 VI INDEX OF RECIPES. Page Pasties, Game 20 “ of Grouse 7 ° Partridges, Entrbe of 94 Pot-au-feu 40 Polenta with Gravy 94 Potting of Beef 17 “ “ Chicken and Pigeons 18 Pudding, Beefsteak 19 Rabbit, Jugged 18 “ Jellied 65 Ragout of Ox-tail 38 Ravioli 92 Risotto 93 Rogrod 1 13 Salads, Sour Jelly for 62 “ Herring 63 “ Jellied, of Poultry or Game 64 “ White Mayonnaise 67 “ Swedish 1 1 3 Sauce h la Diable 64 Soups, Bouillabaisse 37 “ Cabbage, Norway no “ Consomme with Cream of Egg ... 39 “ Cream of Barley 36 “ Lamb Broth with Ravioli 99 “ “ “ with Summer Squash . . 91 “ “ “ with Parmesan Paste . . 92 “ Purbe of Chestnuts 37 “ Swedish Fish Soup 109 Srasis (Russian) 112 “ with fine herbs (Polish) 112 Varenikis, Sweden and Poland 114 Veal scalloped with Herring 67 “ German Curry of 7 1 Watrouskis 114 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. ENGLAND. * I 'HE American who seeks to gather from modern English literature some theory as to how an Englishman really lives is sadly divided in his conclusions. On one side he reads of the roast beef of old England,” its plum-puddings and mince-pies, and the va- rious dishes of Christmas-time. These, with many another dainty, crossed the sea with the Virginia settlers, who were chiefly Tory and held to old fashions; but for New England they were allowed no place, since the Puri- tan considered mince-pies synonymous with the other tools of the Prince of Darkness, and plum-pudding equally so. Irving re- vived their memory for us, and made them, with other hearty cheer, an essential element of English cookery. This side still remains ; 8 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. but the modern English novel, with which America is so flooded that small place re- mains for her own, refuses to admit that refined people can tolerate such heavy feed- ing, and places the French cook in the fore- ground as the chief essential to any proper place in society. Certainly the French cook has had an ameliorating influence on English cookery; and it needed it, since, in spite of certain most excellent national dishes, the English- man’s chief need remained, — beef and beer, — and he desired to see his joint smoking before him, and to cut with his own hands the mighty slices dear to his soul. The taste still lingers. The Englishman cares as much for quantity as quality; and in one of the old inns near the Temple — the dim rooms haunted still by the shades of the men who once sat there: Johnson, Goldsmith, Lamb, and that host of worthies — they served weekly the pudding which has made it famous. This inn or coffee-house is the “ Cheshire Cheese,” and the pudding is the beefsteak-pudding which all Americans who seek out every trace of old London make ENGLAND. 9 haste to taste. It is a mighty pudding, and boiled in a mighty caldron, a hundred pounds of beefsteak entering into its composition, and the whole, when the thirty-six hours of boiling are over, demanding all the strength of two strong men to bear the pewter platter on which it rests to the waiting guests. Its way to them lies down several steps, and last winter (1886?), on one of the regular days, the bearers, staggering under the steaming weight, slipped suddenly and fell, the pud- ding receiving one of them in its deepest in- terior, where he sat till extracted by his companions, soaked in gravy and burned most seriously. An actual howl of disap- pointed hunger went up from the throng, too indignant at their loss to sympathize for a moment with the unlucky waiter. Only the beggars were the gainers, and they hov- ered about the old coffee-house for many days thereafter, hoping for another catas- trophe of the same nature, smacking their lips as they recalled a flavor quite beyond anything life had ever before offered. The great English hotels give one very small hint of English cookery, and in large IO IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. boarding-houses the story is the same; while if one knows private life in England and vists in country houses, he finds that the French order prevails, and real English dishes remain in the background. English meats are of a quality unknown even to the highest order of American butcher, since we have, as yet, no system of feeding expressly for market such as prevails in England. It is true that one finds much American meat, and even more from Australia; but it is la- belled so, and brings far less price than the native meat. Nowhere but in England can one find such mighty chops, an inch and a half thick, firm and fine in grain, tender as chicken, and served spluttering hot from the gridiron, with their accompaniment of mealy potatoes in demi-toilette, since the skin is cut from each side only. The English cook has mastered a potato, a thing the French cook has never learned; but his power stops at a potato in its jacket. For mashed po- tato in its perfection, as well as for baked, America has the palm, meaning always by America the land of good housekeepers. The bad ones are ignored. ENGLAND. 1 1 For London, or for any great English town or city, the story is much the same; and for really English dishes, aside from their fine-flavored bacon and chops, which are everywhere alike, one must go into the heart of the country. Devonshire cream and junkets and Devonshire biscuits are found in perfection only on their own soil; and so is it with Yorkshire ham, and pie, and many another Yorkshire dainty, always of huge proportions, since Yorkshire men are also huge and sweep everything before them. A Yorkshire tea-cake is on a scale for a giant’s tea-party, and words fail before the Yorkshire ham, which has even found its way to Paris, and holds its own majestically amid galantines and pates , unmindful of the frivolous paper iacework in which it is embedded. Each county glories in certain immemo- rial dishes, which must be eaten just there, and there are towns whose chief association is always with some special dainty. Bath buns, Shrewsbury pancakes, Banbury cakes and all the long list, — who does not think of them instantly as the names are men- 12 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. tioned ? They are all a little disappointing; but this is said quite under one’s breath, since they are historical and venerable, and part of the established order of things, and at any hint of change or betterment the foundations of society would shake. Privately, the American avows to himself that they are heavy and sticky, and, on the whole, peculiar; but they are historic, and that is enough. The Englishman wants fullest conscious- ness of every ingredient in his cake. No melting in the mouth for him. There must be substance; and substance he gets, since flour seems to have been kneaded in till no more could be absorbed, and the cake or bun, after the first day, is bullet-proof. So is it with English pastry, till the lighter hand of the French cook has taught them what flakiness means. Dripping is the favorite shortening for all ordinary cakes and pies, and suet for dumplings, and thus comes a solidity of structure which, to the Englishman, means a substantial money’s- worth. His bread is of the same order. Not once in the length and breadth of Eng- ENGLAND. 13 land was the light, sweet, tender bread of good American housekeeping to be discov- ered. In toast it was fairly good, but as bread and butter, a thing to be tolerated, since bread must be, but never heartily enjoyed. But a properly toasted English muffin or crumpet, as well as a tea-cake, is so good that one forgives the bread; and there are firm little pasties enclosing pigeons or game, delicious in flavor, and good hot or cold. Potted meat, game, and fish are put up in the most perfect fashion, potted pigeons being something to remember with joy, and imitate if possible, and English jams and sweetmeats are all choice and deli- cate. Who does not remember the tragedy of the apricot puff in the “Mill on the Floss,” and Tom’s renunciation of the half with most jam in it, eaten blissfully by Maggie, with no thought of the reproach for greedi- ness awaiting her. The English schoolboy rejoices in such puffs. In fact, apricot seems the symbol for the utmost charm in any tart or puff, and Thackeray learned to treat all his boy friends to apricot omelette after beefsteak pudding, — a combination at which he himself shuddered. 14 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. Beefsteak pudding holds a place quite in- comprehensible to the American eater, who finds it only indifferently good. But Mary Lamb made it for the evening’s entertain- ment, and the group of immortals ate it for supper, imbibing afterward much punch as a corrective. Ruth Pinch, too, made her debut as cook with the same dish, whose remark- able success is given at length in “Martin Chuzzlewit,” its author’s presence in the Temple precincts seeming no less real than that of Lamb himself. Dickens loved good eating, and one may disentangle from his web of story many a famous English dish. The English storeroom is the synonym of comfort and abundance. Nowhere else are such rows on rows of jam and marmalade pots, such store of pickles, and preserves, and potted meats, and cordials, and essences of all good things, unless it be in the Swed- ish and Norwegian homes. For them, how- ever, is a rougher abundance, since fruit is less easily obtained. But it is the northern climate that develops the storeroom, and the housekeeper in a great house would consider her profession dishonored were the shelves ENGLAND. 15 to show any serious gaps. In the elder days the house-mistress and the daughters did most of this with their own hands ; but no such power is in the present generation, save here and there in those who have taken up the South Kensington system, and are seeking to revive a knowledge of cookery among the better classes, with a hope that an example may thus be set which the poor will follow. In the innumerable lodging-houses of London (and it is in these that it is usually most comfortable to live), chops, steaks, bacon, and eggs are always well cooked. Beyond this, with, perhaps, the roasting of a fowl, knowledge does not go, and the weary round repeats itself with the monotony of an American boarding-house and its eter- nal “beefsteak and mutton-chops.” The lodging-house system itself is admirable, the most comfortable possible form of living for the stranger; and if one chooses to market for one’s self, variety is quite possible, though never with the range known to the American at home. It is in private and well-appointed homes 1 6 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. that the storeroom becomes so important a fact, and that one may learn many a secret hid away in the yellow leaves of manuscript books that have come down many a genera- tion. Nothing more complicated than many of these forms can well be imagined, but in the mass of rubbish one finds now and then a treasure quite worth the long search. The English city kitchen is even more depressing than the American basement, and the burning of soft coal makes an eternal conflict with saucepans. Everything which touches the fire is black and sticky and not to be handled, and yet the average cook clings obstinately to his open grate, which has every fault a kitchen fire could possibly possess, and sniffs suspiciously at the new ranges and the American kitchen stoves gradually making their way into England. Even with the grates, however, good cookery is possible, and is found now and then ; but the American settles definitely at last that, aside from perfect meat, America has the advantage in every point. What it is quite worth while to add to our list is the array of potted meats and certain pasties and special ENGLAND. 1 7 dishes, and these are given in full detail, often from the manuscript pages which em- balmed them, and which smell still of the lavender and rosemary which generation af- ter generation has laid between the spotless linen in whose folds the book has rested. CHOICE DISHES FROM ENGLAND. Potting in General. — The essential points in any potting, whether of meats, game, or fish, are that the portion should be cooked to the utmost point of tenderness, pounded to a paste, and mingled with enough of the gravy for flavor, while not so much as to soften, or prevent its keeping. Any cold meat or fish can be potted, but it is easier to do enough at once for several small jars. Whatever is used must be freed from all skin and gristle, chopped fine, and then pounded to a paste, which after seasoning and packing in jars is again heated. In a cool place they may be kept a fortnight or even longer. Potted Beef. — Two pounds of lean beef, freed from fat and gristle. Put it in a small covered stone jar; set it in a saucepan of 2 1 8 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. boiling water and let it boil four hours. Remove the beef, cool it, chop fine, and then pound smooth in a mortar. Season this paste with a teaspoonful each of salt and made mustard, a saltspoonful of pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. Add also a saltspoonful of powdered clove, if liked. Add the gravy that ran out, and half a teacupful of melted butter. Pack in small stone or earthen jars; place them in a steamer and steam for one hour. Then press the meat in each down firmly and cover with a thin layer of melted hot butter. With remains of cold roast, boiled, or braised beef, proceed in the same way. Potted Chicken or Pigeons. — To each pound of the cooked meat allow quarter of a pound of melted butter, half a teaspoonful each of white pepper and powdered mace, one tea- spoonful of salt, and a pinch of cayenne. Proceed as with the beef, and add, if liked, two or three slices of cold boiled ham with the fat. Jugged Hare or Rabbit. — This is a delicious method, requiring one hare or fat rabbit, ENGLAND. 19 one pound of lean beef, one onion stuck with six doves, half a pound of butter, one lemon, half a pint of sherry or port wine, half a teaspoonful of pepper, two teaspoon- fuls of salt, a pinch of cayenne. Wash the hare, cut in pieces, dredge with flour, and fry in the butter, which must boil when they are put in. In the mean time, the beef should have been chopped and treated as for beef- tea. Lay the pieces of hare in a stone jar; add the onion, the lemon peeled to the pulp and then cut in half, and the juice of the beef. Cover the jar; set in a kettle of boil- ing water and boil two hours, or till the hare is very tender. Just .before it is served pour in the wine, and add one tablespoonful of corn-starch dissolved in cold water. Let all boil for five minutes, then serve with red- currant jelly. Small forcemeat balls are usually added half an hour before it is done. If the hare is old, four hours’ boiling will be none too much. Beefsteak Pudding. — Sussex . For this a good suet crust is made with milk, rolled in a sheet half an inch thick, and used to line 20 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. a Sussex pudding-dish, which is merely a large, shallow, flaring bowl, holding about three pints. Preserve enough crust for cover. To fill it take two pounds of good steak from the round and cut in small pieces, two kidneys, each cut in eight pieces, half a can of mushrooms, and a dozen or so oysters. Put in a layer of steak; dredge with flour and season with salt and pepper; for the entire pudding, a large teaspoonful of salt and half a one of pepper. Fill the dish in this way. Moisten the edge of the crust and press down the cover firmly; tie the bowl up in a cloth which has been wrung out from hot water and floured; put it in boiling water and boil for not less than four hours. Send to table in the dish with a napkin pinned around it. Oysters and mushrooms may be omitted, and a minced onion sprinkled between the layers. Pigeon or Game Pasties. — Lincolnshire and Oxfordshire. For these pasties, which are baked in meat-pie moulds which open and allow the form to be taken out, make a crust of one pound of flour, half a pound of butter, ENGLAND. 21 half a pint of water, the yolks of two eggs, and a teaspoonful of salt. Work all this into a firm paste, and line the buttered mould, re- serving part for the cover. For a pie of this size, remove the larger bones from four pigeons; season the inside of each one well with a mixture made of one large teaspoonful of salt, half a one each of pepper, clove, and mace. Spread on each a layer of good forcemeat and lay in the mould, filling in with more forcemeat and bits of veal and ham. Wet the edges and pinch together, ornamenting the top with a cluster of pastry leaves placed over the hole made in the cen- tre of the crust. Put in a moderate oven, after brushing it over with yolk of egg, and bake four hours. In the mean time boil the bones and trimmings in one quart of water till reduced to half a pint, seasoning it highly, and pour it into the pie through the hole in the top. These pies are eaten cold, and often truffles or mushrooms are added. Small ones are made with one pigeon and forcemeat, and game of any sort can be used, enormous- ones being often served. 22 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. Banbury Cakes. — For the old manuscript rule as made three hundred years ago, set a sponge with one pint of sifted flour, one teacupful of warm milk, and half a cake of yeast, or two spoonfuls of liquid yeast with half a teaspoonful of salt. Let it rise in a warm place till very light, then add half a pound of strained honey, one pound of cur- rants, washed and dried, half a pound of can- died orange and lemon peel cut fine, half an ounce each of powdered cinnamon and all- spice. Beat all together thoroughly. Roll a sheet of puff paste a little more than an eighth of an inch thick, and cut in oval shapes about four inches long, putting a large teaspoonful of the mixture on each. Flatten with the rolling-pin when the edges have been well pinched together, dust with sugar, and bake in a hot oven to a pale brown. Queen Charlotte’s Cake. — Make a sponge precisely as above, and when very light add half a pound of butter beaten to a cream, with quarter of a pound of powdered sugar, four eggs, and a cup of flour, with half a ENGLAND. 23 pound of candied peel cut fine, and a tea- spoonful of powdered cinnamon. Add a small cup of blanched almonds cut in bits; let it stand half an hour, and then bake for one hour in a moderate oven. While still hot, prick holes with a sharp knife and pour in a syrup made of one cup of sugar and a large tablespoonful of water, boiled together five minutes. Cover the top of the cake with harlequin comfits, or dust it thick with powdered sugar, the comfits, however, being the old way. Devonshire Cream — This delicious cream, sent to the London market in small square tins, is eaten by many an American in Co- vent Garden, and is made as follows : The milk should stand twenty -four hours in win- ter, and twelve in summer, and then is put on the stove till it is almost at boiling-point. It must not boil, but must show small rings and look thick. The slower it is done the better. It is not to be skimmed till the following day, and is then what is known as “clotted cream.” 24 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. Devonshire Junkets. — One pint of new milk, a cup of clotted cream, one tablespoonful of brandy, and one of prepared rennet, half a cup of sugar, and quarter of a nutmeg grated. Make the milk warm, but not hot, add brandy, sugar, and rennet, and set in a cool place. When firm, spread the cream over the top, dust with powdered sugar, and serve cold. Yorkshire Toasted Tea-Cakes. — Make a sponge with three pints of sifted flour, one teaspoonful of salt, one pint of warm milk, one teacup of butter melted in it, and half a cake of yeast dissolved in a little warm water. Let this rise very light, add a beaten egg, and enough flour to knead into a smooth dough. Make this into flat cakes the size of a plate; let them rise an hour, and bake in a moderate oven. Do this the day before using. When used, split in two, toast on each side, butter each side, pile them in layers, cut like a pie, and serve very hot. They can also be eaten fresh, and are then buttered hot; but toasted tea-cakes are regarded as more distinctively Yorkshire. FRANCE. 25 FRANCE. CO deep is the conviction that France v '“‘* alone knows the secret and deepest meaning of good cookery, that the attitude of the newly arrived foreigner is well-nigh reverential, and he accepts whatever is offered with perfect and unhesitating faith ; “ To doubt would be disloyalty; To falter would be sin ” And this conviction lingers long after fact has demonstrated that though France may know much she does not know all, and that America, too, has her rightful place, and her national dishes. Brillat-Savarin himself, the apostle of good cookery and the best type of epicure, gave many pages to the glorification of the American wild turkey, as well as sundry other American delicacies, and the most de- 26 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. termined disbeliever in our possibilities as cooks sighs at last for certain home dishes. Taking beefsteak as the illustration, Mark Twain, who grows even pathetic in his long- ing for a “real breakfast and dinner,’’ wrote of it : — “ They have the beefsteak in Europe, but they don’t know how to cook it. Neither will they cut it right. It comes on the table in a small, round pewter platter ; it is the size, shape, and thickness of a man’s hand with the thumb and fingers cut off. It is a little overdone, it is rather dry, it tastes pretty insipidly, it rouses no enthusiasm.” This is painfully true if one has in mind such a porter-house steak as may be found on many American tables: “a mighty one an inch and a half thick, hot and spluttering from the gridiron; dusted with fragrant pepper; enriched with little melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable freshness and genuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining the gravy; archipelagoed with mushrooms; a township or two of tender yellow fat gracing an outly- ing district of this ample county of beef- FRANCE. 2 7 steak, the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the tenderloin still in its place. ” To a Frenchman such a picture is bar- barism pure and unadulterated, and a French cook would feel that every theory of the art of eating had been set aside. The fat of beef he considers a gross production quite unfit for any purpose but frying, and to this end he cuts off every scrap. The long bone goes into the soup-pot, and from what Mark Twain calls the outlying district — the long, thin, uneatable strip, a part of all porter- house steaks — he evolves a ragout or made- dish of some sort. This principle runs through everything. Till the French cook has caught the American spirit of lavish- ness, and become indifferent as to prices and quantities, his or her business in life is to first extract the utmost possibility from every article on the menu for the day, and then present it in the most attractive form. The huge roasts of England dismay and disgust. A dinner is a question of small portions for each, and the average French- man eats less than the Englishman, and both 28 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. far less than the German, who is the heavi- est of feeders. To the American who faces for the first time a French kitchen in Paris, or any of the larger cities of France, the prospect is a discouraging one. Even in the best houses in the new part of Paris it is allowed small space. The old-fashioned New England kitchen, broad, sunny, and spotless, would take in well-nigh a whole modern apparte- ment. The Paris kitchen — and this is written after an inspection of many — is just large enough to allow of limited movement. Often it is unlighted save from another room, and it has absolutely no space for storage of any sort. The chief feature is the great chimney, with the tiled table, or framework, in which from four to six various- shaped openings for the charcoal fire are found. There is no need to think of bak- ing, since the baker sends every form of bread and roll known to his craft ; no demand for a great fire by which a joint might roast, since a joint is not part of a civilized menu. Braising, boiling, stewing, fricasseeing, — ■ anything that deals with moderate quan- FRANCE. 29 tities, — can find perfect preparation on these various openings. Fuel is the heav- iest item of family expenditure, and each bit of charcoal must do its utmost. They have even a curious form, invented specially for the pot -an- feu, which requires long, slow simmering; a roll of compressed coal-dust which has been mixed with sawdust and a little tar, and burns steadily and very slowly for hours. There are half a dozen sizes of charcoal, from tiny bits up to the size we know, and a form of kindling called btiches, — inch-long bits of wood dipped in some inflammable preparation and dried. One of these is lighted, and as it blazes up, half a dozen others are ranged carefully about it, a little fine charcoal and some larger bits are laid, and over all goes a black funnel, known as le diable, whose business it is to act as blow-pipe or bellows. This is the simple and ordinary form of French kitchen, and is found even in large houses. Gas is also a good deal used, and with it an oven for browning and baking; while in the English quarter English ranges are often set, the rent being in proportion 30 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. to the horror at the innovation. The Eng- lishman is the determined enemy of any customs save his own, and if he brings his family to Paris brings also his relish for the form of cookery which the French cook can never comprehend. Naturally there are many English who conform, and even more Americans, but save for those who consider every foreign form as always and indis- putably better than their own country can produce, there is always a longing for some hint at least of American cookery and methods of serving. Mark Twain, who seems to have gone hungry through all Europe, sums up the ordinary dinner, — a French one, since their cooks are every- where : — “ The European dinner is better than the Euro- pean breakfast, but it has its faults and inferiori- ties ; it does not satisfy. The American comes to the table eager and hungry ; he swallows his soup. There is an indefinable lack about it somewhere. Thinks the fish is going to be the thing he wants ; eats it, and is n’t sure. Thinks the next dish is perhaps the one that will hit the hungry place ; tries it, and is conscious that there was something wanting about it also. And thus he goes on. . . . FRANCE. 31 There is here and there an American who will say he can remember rising from an European table d'hote perfectly satisfied ; but we must not over- look the fact that there is also here and there an American who will lie. “ The number of dishes is sufficient, but then it is such a monotonous variety of unstriking dishes. It is an inane dead level of 1 fair to middling.’ There is nothing to accent it. Perhaps if the roast of mutton or of beef — a big, generous one — were brought on the table and carved in full view of the client, that might give the right sense of earnest- ness and reality to the thing ; but they don’t do that, — they pass the sliced meat around on a dish ; and so you are perfectly calm, — it does not stir you in the least. Now a vast roast turkey, stretched on the broad of his back, with his heels in the air, and the rich juices oozing from his fat sides, — but I may as well stop here, for they would not know how to cook him. They can’t even cook a chicken respectably, and as for carving it, they do it with a hatchet.” Here speaks the voice of many wandering Americans, who reflect at intervals on American oysters, on roasted potatoes and fried chicken, and buckwheat cakes, and green corn, and corn-bread, and many an- other missing dish. But when old habits 32 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. are put aside, one finds that the new ones have their own excellencies. The last line of Mark Twain’s charge, that, as to carving their chicken, they “do it with a hatchet,” holds one of the best features of Continental methods. At home, in fricassee, or stew, or fried, the breast is usually left in one piece, and only one or two secure any; whereas, abroad, a sharp cleaver, part of every kitchen furnishing, cuts it neatly in four, or, if large enough, six pieces, and thus all may share the delicacy. The long back- bone becomes in the same way much more manageable; and this is true of all poultry or game used in salmi , or made-dish of any sort. One result of the tiny kitchens, and the absolute absence of space for stores, is that nothing is kept on hand. French thrift shows itself here as in everything else. Charcuteries, or cook-shops, furnish every form of cold meat, galantine, etc., while an order provides any hot dish desired. Less pretentious ones have cooked vegetables, hot at fixed hours, and sold in portions at any time. In fact, food of every nature whatever FRANCE. 33 divides itself, as it were, instinctively into “portions,” — a fact a little galling to the American, not accustomed to have it defined just how much is his legitimate share. The French housekeeper leaves no margins, and there is never perplexity as to what shall be done with this or that, since there is but just enough, and even not quite enough to fully' satisfy. If a friend comes in at break- fast or dinner, a charcutier is always near, and “portions” can appear instantly. But the actual fact is that the friend doesn't come in. French hospitality means a stated invitation, and the utmost resources of the house. It does not mean any informal good times, in which a friend runs in to lunch, or an informal breakfast. The French- woman holds up her hands in horror as she hears of such methods. “ Another example of American profuseness. No wonder they have no dots for the daughters ! ” she cries, and shakes her head over this mysterious nation. In turn, the American can never become accustomed to an economy which seems even pinching, and in the exasperation at many of its phases fails to become pos- 3 34 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. sessor of a thousand useful suggestions in this very direction. For much that makes the charm of dishes served in the French fashion, with “gar- nish ” of many varieties, the American is too busy. The cook in the middle-class family, that is, the family owning comfortable income, but not great wealth, must usually fill several other places also, and an hour or two spent in cutting flowers and leaves from tur- nips and carrots, or numberless little balls from which mounds of garnish are made, would be sheer robbery. But till she has learned the secrets of the French stock-pot, of frying daintily so that not an atom of grease remains on cutlet, or chop, or cro- quette, or fritter, and of using scraps and the left-over portions of meat, etc., she can never be really a cook in the best sense of the word. Here the Frenchwoman has every advantage over the American, and knows many secrets which have not found their way into the cook-books. She has her tradi- tions, too, — family dishes handed down from mother to daughter, and used on festival occasions. FRANCE. 35 But she is content to let the confectioner and baker provide her sweets and ices, and thus the French kitchen is relieved of one burden. In short, the slightest of demands is made upon it. No washing; no ironing; no bread, nor biscuit, nor sweets of any order, save as a few jellies or creams may be made. Household labor is reduced to a fixed system. Everything falls into line, and the French housekeeper knows nothing of the uncertainties and responsibilities of her American sister. Be it said, also, that she misses many of her pleasures, and might, in turn, take a lesson or so. Being born to the unexpected, and facing new combina- tions and complications every day of her life, the American housekeeper has a hun- dred resources where the Frenchwoman has one. She is, moreover, the most ready of hostesses, and even if the first course in an American dinner is, as an ill-natured Eng- lish traveller put it, “roasted mistress,” it makes small difference in the sum of enjoy- ment, though the wear and tear of nerves is a serious side of the matter. With the trained service which is on the way, and 36 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. with the happy future in view when washing- day shall find its proper place in the family laundry, the future necessity for every block of houses, the American housekeeper of the next generation may hope for something of the ease known to the Continental one, and find some time for studying the phases of really scientific housekeeping. The French cook will not solve her problems, since, with all his knowledge, he cannot boil a potato properly, and loses his head alto- gether at certain American demands. But he can tickle the palate in many a myste- rious fashion, and some of these mysteries we hold in readiness for our readers. CHOICE DISHES FROM FRANCE. Cream of Barley Soup. — Melt in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter; add a heaping one of flour, and cook for three minutes, stirring steadily. Then add a teacupful of pearl-barley and cook two minutes longer. Add very slowly one pint of boiling water and one of milk, stirring till all are blended, and boil for one hour very gently. Then FRANCE. 3 7 rub it through a sieve, return to the fire, and add three pints of chicken or veal stock and one tablespoonful of corn-starch dissolved in a little cold water. Boil up once and serve very hot. Puree of Chestnuts. — For this delicious soup take one quart of large Spanish chestnuts, boil them twenty minutes, and when cool peel them and remove all the skin. Put them in a saucepan, and boil them half an hour in one quart of water, with a teaspoon- ful of salt, one of sugar, and a slip of lemon- peel. Then rub them through a sieve, add two quarts of chicken or veal stock highly seasoned; boil for fifteen minutes more, and then bind with one tablespoonful of corn- starch dissolved in a little cold water. Add a tablespoonful of butter and serve very hot. Should a very thick ptirie be desired use three pints of chestnuts. Bouillabaisse a la Provencale. — At Marseilles and other points where this dish is to be had in perfection, several sorts of fish are gener- ally used, all, however, of the more delicate 38 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. varieties. With us, cod, fresh mackerel, and small pan-fish, or any fine-grained fish, will answer. Allow three pounds, mince two white onions and one parsnip very fine, and fry them in oil to light-brown. Put in the fish, which should have been cut in small pieces, and fry them also a light-brown. Add two large cut tomatoes, a bit of garlic, the pulp of a lemon without the seeds or skin, a half-teaspoonful of powdered saffron, and some sprigs of parsley and laurel-leaf. Add one quart of boiling water and a tea- cupful of white wine; cover closely and cook for twenty minutes. This is served in two ways ; poured at once into a soup- tureen all together, or the fish separated from the bouillon and served separately. The former is the usual method, and in this case dice of bread are cut, browned in the oven, and put in the bottom of the soup-tureen. It is sometimes thickened slightly with a tablespoonful of flour or corn-starch, treated in the usual way. Ragout of Ox-Tail. — Cut an ox-tail in pieces as for soup, rejecting the end, and parboil FRANCE. 39 for twenty minutes. Put in cold water and let them lie for half an hour. Then melt two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan; put in the pieces of tail, which must have been well rolled in flour, and let them fry carefully till a light-brown. Add two glasses of white wine, one teaspoonful of salt, five pepper-corns, a bit of garlic, a strip of orange-peel, a calf’s foot which has been washed and parboiled, and a bouquet of sweet herbs. Add half a pint of boiling water, cover closely, and stew slowly, for four hours. Brown two dozen button onions in a little butter; add them to the ragout; cook a few minutes longer, and serve. The gravy should be skimmed, but not thickened. Consomme with Cream of Egg. — For two quarts of clear consommd allow eight eggs. Break them into a deep plate and beat them to a foam. Add half a pint of milk, half a teaspoonful of salt, one of sugar, and a pinch of mace; beat all together, strain through a fine sieve ; butter an earthen mould and pour in the mixture, setting it in a saucepan of boiling water. It must cook, very slowly, 40 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. about twenty minutes. When perfectly cold cut in small squares and put in the tureen of boiling consommd. Onion Soup, with Eggs and Cream. — This is a delicious soup, and made as follows : Six white onions cut fine, and fried light-brown in a spoonful of butter. Then add a quart of boiling water and one pint of milk : season with one teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of pepper, a pinch of mace, and a teaspoonful of sugar. Boil very slowly for an hour, and strain ; then beat four eggs to a foam, and add one cup of cream, and one tablespoonful of corn-starch dissolved in a little cold water; boil up once and serve with dice of fried bread. Pot-au-Eeu. — This is neither the plain boiled beef of England nor the braised beef we have learned to like, but better than either, always provided that the rule is care- fully followed. A cheap cut answers every purpose, but a piece from the round is pre- ferred. Take four to six pounds of lean beef, put in an earthen saucepan, and cover FRANCE. 41 with three quarts of cold water. Bring to a boil and skim carefully. Add a tablespoon- ful of salt and three pepper-corns, and boil very slowly for three hours. Then add two onions sliced and browned in a little butter, two leeks, one large parsnip, two turnips, two small carrots, quarter of a cabbage, a stalk of celery, and a bay-leaf. Boil all very slowly, for two hours longer. Then take up the beef ; pile the vegetables neatly about it; strain the broth, pouring a little over the beef, and serving the remainder as soup. The dish is improved by adding any remains of poultry or roast meat. It should not be boiled to rags, but cooked so slowly that it retains shape and flavor. Pates of Lamb. — Take eight of the best small lamb-chops ; mince the lean fine, and then pound in a mortar. Add to this one third of the amount in finely minced bacon, one teacup of fresh bread-crumbs, half a tea- spoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of pepper, a pinch of cayenne, a pinch of mace, and a grate of lemon -peel. Line ten medium-sized patty-pans with good puff-paste; put a thin 42 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. layer of the mince on the bottom, then a bit of truffle, and another layer of the mince. Cover with the paste, and bake slowly in a good oven. While the patties are still hot pour into each a spoonful of highly seasoned stock through a hole in the lid. They may be served hot or cold. Burgundian Pate. — For this will be required the breast of two chickens, which must be pounded fine. Add to this one large cup of fresh bread-crumbs, half a teacup of melted butter, half a teaspoonful of salt, a pinch of cayenne, and five beaten yolks of eggs. Take six livers and six gizzards; clean and cut them in small pieces, and cook them one hour in good stock. Then add a cupful of chopped ham, and the same amount of cooked mushrooms; boil a few moments, and then allow all to cool. Oil a low pat6 mould; line it with puff-paste; fill it with the mix- ture ; cover with an ornamented lid, and bake slowly in a moderate oven. Cover with a paper if it browns too quickly, and when done pour in a little rich stock through a hole in the lid. Serve hot or cold. FRANCE. 43 Chartreuse of Partridges. — Stew two par- tridges, and at the same time a small summer cabbage with two sausages, half a teaspoon- ful of salt, and a pinch of cayenne. Cut one carrot and one turnip in thin rounds; boil till tender in salted water. Butter a tim- bale mould, which should be not very high. Cover the bottom with the carrots, turnips, and sausages, in slices. On these lay the partridges, and cover all with the stewed cab- bage. Lay a buttered paper over the mould, and let it cook in a slow oven for an hour. Then reverse on the dish on which it is to be served; see that there is no fat or juice to make it unsightly, and serve very hot. Little Souffles of Cheese. — Boil one pint of rich milk, and add one teaspoonful of butter, one small cup of fresh bread-crumbs, and cook for five minutes, stirring all the time. Then add six beaten yolks of eggs, one cup of Parmesan cheese, one teaspoonful of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Beat the six whites very stiff ; mix, and put in small oiled patty-pans, and bake in a quick oven for about fifteen minutes. Serve at once before they fall. 44 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. Normandy Spice Bread. — One pint of mo- lasses and one pint of honey boiled for five minutes and skimmed. Add to this one cup of butter, and let it get partly cool. Then add a teaspoonful each of cinnamon, anise, coriander, and the grated rind of a lemon. Mix with flour enough to make a smooth dough ; knead it into a ball and let it stand a day before using. Chop a pint of mixed candied fruits and add to the paste; roll it about an inch thick; make into little balls, set them a little apart on a baking-sheet, and bake them a light-brown in a quick oven. Beef Tongue au Gratin. — The tongue for this purpose should have been rolled before boiling, so that when cool it can be sliced without any waste. Take the remains, slice and cut in strips and heat in a little good stock. Mince fine three onions; fry brown in a spoonful of butter; stir in a teaspoon- ful of flour; add a glass of white wine, a pinch of cayenne, and half a teaspoonful of salt. Cook slowly for ten minutes. Lay the tongue on a gratin dish ; cover it with the onion and sauce ; add a cupful of mush- FRANCE. 45 rooms cut in bits, a little minced parsley, and two tablespoonfuls of fine bread-crumbs. Brown in a hot oven for ten minutes, and serve. The same method may be used for cold roast beef. Apple Charlotte. — Peel and core ten fine apples, and mince them fine. Melt in a saucepan a piece of butter the size of an egg and one cup of sugar, the grated rind of half a lemon, and half a teaspoonful of cinnamon. Stew in this syrup till they are soft — about twenty minutes. Mash fine; add two table- spoonfuls of apricot marmalade and let it cool. Butter a large charlotte mould; cut thin strips of rather stale bread, dip them in melted butter and line the mould, letting each lap a little. For the bottom, cut the bread in points, and lay them in the shape of a star or rosette. Fill the mould with the apple, cover with a large slice of but- tered bread, and bake in a moderate oven for forty minutes. Turn out on a plate and dust with powdered sugar. Chestnut Souffle, — One quart of chestnuts boiled twenty minutes, and then carefully 4 6 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. peeled. Cook them one hour in a cup of milk and then rub them through a sieve; add a cup of sugar, a pinch of mace, half a teaspoonful of salt, and a few drops of va- nilla. Beat the yolks of five eggs to a foam and stir in; beat the whites stiff, and add at the last moment, putting all in a buttered mould and baking in a quick oven about fifteen minutes. Serve at once to prevent falling. Cream Fritters. — One quart of milk, one cup of sugar, one large spoonful of butter, half a teaspoonful of salt, a cupful of blanched and chopped almonds, and a table- spoonful of orange-water. Boil the milk, and thicken with a tablespoonful of corn- starch dissolved in a little cold water. Add the sugar, etc., and boil for five minutes. Then stir in the six beaten eggs; spread about an inch thick on an oiled platter, and allow to cool, When cool, cut in strips an inch wide and three long; roll carefully in fine crumbs, dip in beaten egg, and then again in crumbs, and fry in boiling lard. Drain on brown paper, dust with powdered sugar, and serve hot. Very delicious. FRANCE. 4 7 Macedoine of Preserved Fruits. — Take six green-gages, six apricots, a cupful of pre- served cherries and one of strawberries, and three bananas cut in bits. Two oranges may also be added. Have ready one quart of wine jelly or an orange jelly, and pour it an inch in depth in a glass dish. When cold and set, add the fruits, and pour over the rest of the jelly. Let all stand on ice for some hours, and serve in the dish. 48 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. GERMANY. TT is a fashion with some Americans who A have taken a three months’ scamper over the Continent to express profound contempt on their return for any methods but their own. They have passed from one hotel to another, each owning its French cook, and none giving any real idea of the actual cui- sine of the country, the family habits, or even the special dishes honored as national. Hotel cookery in any case has much the same flavor the world over, and the larger the hotel the more absolute the sameness of this flavor. Even in a longer stay, and in a possible housekeeping for one’s self, there is little or no attempt to handle the resources of the country as the native does, and to discover what it is worth while to adopt and what to reject. There is continual wrestle to fit the strange order of things with an Ameri- GERMANY. 49 can custom, or even to discard the new alto- gether and insist on cleaving absolutely to the old and familiar. And it must be ad- mitted that the old has many advantages; that the American formed under different skies and far different conditions has needs recognized by brethren across the sea, and must be allowed much that to them is not only unnecessary, but unknown. Chronic dissatisfaction comes to be the atmosphere of travelling Americans, indignant at the frequent assumption that we are a nation of barbarians where food is concerned, and more indignant at the placid acceptation of this statement as true by those Americans who have denationalized themselves, and re- gard their own country as quite too crude and unformed for intelligent beings to tolerate. Between these two extremes the American who considers whatever good thing the world may hold as his by right, wavers for a time, finding each side an enemy to any real knowledge of what is sought. To se- cure such knowledge one must escape from all Americans save those of like mind, and this, when more and more thousands are 4 50 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. each year crossing the sea, becomes more and more difficult. But it can be done, and is done, and the housekeeper on the Continent, of whatever nationality, who dis- covers a real desire on the part of the Amer- ican to know and understand the reason of varying methods, gives every detail with charming frankness, and glows with pride as she brings out family receipt-books, and describes the gradual evolution of some family custom, or some famous dish. There are formulas so sacred that she would not share them with her own countrywomen, yet gives them readily to this stranger, who cannot be suspected of any desire to rival or outshine her. Best authority of all is the old housekeeper, the Grossmutter, who, serene in her sheltered corner, recounts the triumphs of her day, and the quantities and qualities unknown to these degenerate descendants. She holds the unwritten tra- ditions; formulas fastened in the mind by many repetitions, and regarded as part of her personal wealth. “How did you learn?” I asked one of these authorities, a stately dame quite sev- GERMANY. 51 enty, who held tenaciously to every old cus- tom, and regarded a French menu with a species of horror. “ How did you learn ? Did the cooks teach you their secrets? ” Deep disdain sat on the old lady’s coun- tenance. “ The cooks ! Lieber Gott ! what have cooks to do with such? It is my mother, the blessed one, who has taught me, and she has received it from her mother, and so goes it always, — from mother to daughter, from mother to daughter ever.” “ But does not the cook know also ? What is the cook for ? ” “ The cook is for her own work, but never for such high things. Oh, the cook, too, may know a secret, but not these. For we think always one thing. Who would honor a guest most, or most please the Hausvciter , so must she with her own hands the high dish prepare, and then is it more geschmcik - voll, — what you will call of more relish. The cook is always for what must be; for all preparation that needs always much time; for all that is rough; yet even that must one know, else how shall one properly 52 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. scold? To scold well, and justly, needs always to know why one must so do; else how could it serve any turn but for the cook to laugh secretly in a sleeve, as you say? No cook of mine laughed ever in a sleeve. All knew that I knew well.” Thus the old lady, whose cheeks had flushed, and whose eyes flashed with their ancient fires as she looked back on this per- spective of cooks; the Frau Rath, still, widow of a famous counsellor, and certain that all old days were better than any possi- bility in the new. A son had gone to America, and found place and honor there. A daughter had followed. There were many grandchildren, at whose republican opinions the old lady shook her head, too indignant often for words. But they, too, cared for the old customs and listened to her with delight ; and she forgave them and talked on, certain that such traditions would go far toward undoing the baleful effects of revolutionary theories of life. In the mean time the oldest daughter, her successor and administrator, kept the house on its old footing; and so I found it, when rare good GERMANY. 53 fortune made me, for a time, an inmate, and the room which had once been occupied for many weeks by Goethe became mine. The long windows opened on a deep balcony, lined and roofed with thick growths of vines; a sofa and little table were here, and the still, green spot knew no sound save the twitter of a swallow darting suddenly across, or the soft note of a brooding bird. The busy town, with all its life, its throng of students, its workmen in many crafts, seemed far away, yet the opening of a door brought it all before one. The house shared in the quiet of the old room. In the great drawing-room, arranged in German fashion, — the sofa the post of honor, and a circle of chairs about it, — rows of family portraits looked down on their descendants, and in the dining-room were more, bewigged and powdered, serious and decorous, but all well fed and comfortable. Why not, when the Hansfrau had made it the business of her life to keep them so, and they had co- operated with her, to any extent, hardly possible to their descendants, although the average German stomach has possibilities beyond that of any other people ? 54 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. The Continental breakfast simplifies work for all housekeepers, since it is invariable in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Farther north it takes on certain American or English characteristics, and becomes the substantial meal that the North demands. But for the countries mentioned, coffee and bread, or rolls, begin the day, the coffee kept hot over a spirit-lamp, and taken when wanted by the various members of the family. The Frau Rath had hers served punctually at eight, but did not appear to her family till noon. Butter was allowed as a concession to English prejudices, but regarded as an innovation, and on this hint of what an American calls breakfast, the morning’s work was done. “It is the shadow, the sham, the base counterfeit of a breakfast; the bread is cold, tough, unsym- pathetic, — always the same tiresome thing; the butter is also a sham, — tasteless, no salt in it, and made of goodness knows what. It never satisfies, and it never will.” Thus Mark Twain, with much more of the same sort ; and the American is forced to agree with him at breakfast, since much GERMANY. 55 German milk and cream are of the thinnest and bluest, and give no richness to the often equally poor coffee. The ordinary German cow is worked in harness many hours a day, and loses all resemblance to the placid, cud-chewing, sleek animals whose only business in life is the production of milk yellower and richer than anything known to average Germans as cream. Dairies, however, are by no means unknown, the broad meadows of the Oden- wald and other points giving room for dairy farms which send out excellent butter and cheese; but much of the milk supply for towns comes from the unlucky cows whose life passes in harness. Any deficiencies of breakfast are made up at the one-o’clock dinner, at which the Frau Rath frowned as another innovation, since the old fashions called for a species of hot luncheon at eleven, practically the second breakfast of the French, and dinner at two, with coffee at four, and hot supper at seven. Modern capacity being less than the ancient, and common-sense having demonstrated that five meals a day give time for nothing else, 5 6 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. the one-o’clock dinner has absorbed the dishes of the hot breakfast. The menu followed the usual order of soup, fish or fish salad, entree, with a vege- table, a roast and two vegetables, salad, and dessert. But the soups were strong and rich, with noodles or much thickening of rice and mixed vegetables. The fish had special sauces, some of them with strange German flavors, but savory and delicate; the entree was no mere accident, — a slight suggestion between courses, — but of elaborate con- struction; a beautifully browned form of pas- try, which enclosed pigeons, or birds, or some unusual preparation of veal, in a sauce, and always with potato-snow, or some other delicate form of this universal acccompani- ment. Or it was a mould of cauliflower treated in the same fashion, with noodle dumpling, in the heart of each a teaspoonful of highly seasoned mince; or a platter of rolled pancakes, also with mince, and ac- companied by tiny carrots stewed in butter, and always delicious. Nothing prettier than the jellied fish salad could well be im- agined, the clear jelly showing the little fish, GERMANY. 57 the stars and rounds of ruby beet and golden carrot, and the green parsley wreath adorn- ing all ; a creamy mayonnaise sauce being sent around separately. Or it was cro- quettes with vegetable-marrow, served in a white sauce, and all so savory and enjoyable that the roast as it appeared seemed rather a superfluity, — never to the German eaters, however, who went on with ardor to the very end, taking long draughts of beer, and fill- ing the wine-glasses, as they emptied, with the light Rhine wines. Expectation centred about the dessert, which, whether cream, jelly, or cake of some nature, appeared always with its border of flowers and leaves. There were many un- familiar cakes, baked in large, round moulds, with a layer of fruit pressed in the top before baking, — a compromise between pie and cake. The creams held always wood straw- berries or chopped fruit of some sort, and there were many forms of blanc-mange, or jelly, in which fruit juice was used for the liquid portion, as, for instance, currant juice with corn-starch or gelatine, and a white sauce poured over it. That each one should 58 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. eat all, and more than all, that was possible, was the chief thought of the Frau Rath, who watched the plates anxiously, and felt it a personal offence if a dish remained untried. At four o’clock coffee was served in the drawing-room or on the terrace, and at seven came supper, — practically dinner on a smaller scale, since hot roast of some kind, with salad and a vegetable, and stewed fruit of some sort, was always served. Cakes, sweetmeats, and various adjuncts of the American supper were never seen. Tea was a mockery, wine and beer taking its place for most. Fresh fruit was frowned upon as unhealthy, and served only as a compote ; and fruit at or before breakfast the Frau Rath declared to be simply rank poison. Grapes were for wine, and not to be wasted in other ways, though, as a “cure,” people might sometimes take them. But good meat and vegetables, with plenty of wine, beer, and coffee, were true food, such as made good fighters and good scholars ; and a dinner, to be truly a dinner, must have not less than three forms of meat, all prepared in the richest manner. GERMANY. 59 Naturally the cook was a busy woman; but she did nothing else. Service is cheap; a boy was her assistant in all parings and choppings and poundings, and two other servants, with duties as sharply defined, performed the other household duties. The event of the day for the Hausfrau was her morning’s marketing, — a hand-to-hand con- flict with the crowd in the open market-place, into which the women thronged, every one known to her, and submitting to the inevi- table beating-down with a calmness born of the fact that she knew, and they knew, that the price in the beginning had been double or treble the actual value. The same process made part of the interview with the butcher, big and burly like his order the world over, and prepared for any amount of brow-beating from the “Gnadige Frau.” This was city housekeeping, made easy by the markets and shops ; but even in the country the order is much the same, since no one is so remote from towns, large or small, as to be deprived altogether of a market. The country housekeeper lays in a larger supply of dried or potted meats and 6o IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. fruits, but her storeroom seldom shows such elaborate array of jam-pots and pickle-jars as marks the English housekeeper. This, however, is matter of individual conviction. The Frau Rath made a few very rich sweet- meats only for special occasions. Her next neighbor, on the contrary, a charming and highly cultivated woman, delighted in rows of jars in the pretty blue and gray stone-ware which the American longs to carry home, and had innumerable receipts for varieties of pickling, drying, and preserving. Much sweet is, however, generally regarded as per- nicious, save the light dessert, and thus small time is given to their preparation. Meat and beer are the important elements, and who has not these is felt to be unhappy indeed. Nevertheless, a vegetarian society flourishes and increases ; and there are hints that the fogginess of German thought, on some points, is due to too much heavy feed- ing, and that the German menu needs recon- struction as much as some phases of German manners. With this we have here nothing to do, our main point being to demonstrate that good cooking in Germany can be found GERMANY. 61 in spite of Julian Hawthorne’s declaration, in his “Saxon Studies,” that “to be a thor- ough German cook requires only a callous conscience, a cold heart, a confused head, coarse hands, and plenty of grease.” CHOICE DISHES FROM GERMANY. Whoever has once eaten any of the jellied salads to be found at good German tables wonders always thereafter why anything so good should be quite unknown to America at large. They are quite as much a delight to the eye as to the palate, and, since they can be varied indefinitely, should commend themselves to the housekeepers who sigh for new possibilities of combination. These sour jellies are of two orders, one made in the old-fashioned manner, from calves’ feet, which German matrons insist give a jelly unrivalled by any form of gelatine. But calves’ feet mean much unnecessary work, and no better result actually, and so the form with gelatine is given, — a form which can be used with either fish, flesh, or fowl, though specially adapted to fish. 62 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. Sour Jelly for Salads. — Take three to four pounds of shin of beef or of the neck, choos- ing the leanest portion, and put over the fire in an earthen or enamelled soup-kettle. Add three quarts of cold water and a tablespoon- ful of salt, and cook for an hour without skimming. Then take out the meat, and dip it in hot water to free it from every particle of hardened scum ; strain the broth through a fine gauze strainer and return to the kettle, which should also be wiped clean. Put in the meat and add a small head of celery, four white onions with a clove stuck in each, a strip of the yellow peel from a lemon, a tablespoonful of white pepper-corns, two bay- leaves, and a teaspoonful of the best white vinegar. Let all boil slowly together till the meat and vegetables are in shreds, or about three hours, reducing the liquid to three pints when strained. Pass it through the finest gauze sieve, and add to it a package of gelatine, Cooper’s or Cox’s, which has been soaked half an hour in a cup of white wine and water, or water alone. Let it boil up once with the broth, and then cool, using it just as it is ready to set, but will still GERMANY. 63 pour easily. This is the most savory form, and makes a dish of the heartiest order. For a lighter form one uses two quarts of water and the vegetables and seasoning of the first one, omitting the meat, and boiling all for tw r o hours; while for the most deli- cate of all, poultry is used, and a slice of veal, — the latter form being preferred for a jellied salad of chicken or game. Sardine or Herring Salad. — Take a large round mould, a pudding-dish answering the purpose, and lay in it a dozen large boneless sardines, the tails pointing to the centre. Between the heads arrange delicate rounds of boiled beet and carrot, with very small sprigs of parsley, and pour over the whole just enough of the sour jelly to set them. When it is firm add more ; enough to make a mould an inch and a half thick, to be turned out when firm and needed. If her- ring are used, take the boneless tinned her- ring; cut in filets and arrange in the same way. Eels cut in small narrow strips make a delicious salad for those who like them. In short, any sort of fish may be used, 64 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. salmon being especially good ; but the pret- tiest salads are those where small fish can be used, arranged in a circle. With this salad is served a sauce of sour cream, or a mayon- naise. The latter will be best liked by Americans, though the sour cream sauce has its own merits; while still another is used which is as good with cold meat as with fish, and is given here. Sauce a La Diable. — Rub four hard-boiled yolks of eggs, fine, with the yolk of a raw one, and four tablespoonfuls of the best oil. Add two teaspoonfuls of mustard, half a teaspoonful of white pepper, the grated zest of a lemon, a spoonful of grated onion, with a teaspoonful of salt and one of sugar, then add slowly a cupful of red Rhine wine ; beat well, and it is ready to serve. Jellied Salad of Poultry or Game. — Cut the meat, chicken or birds, in strips, and lay it in a marinade of equal parts of oil and vinegar. The meat of a good-sized chicken will require two tablespoonfuls of each. Salt and pepper it lightly, and let it lie for an hour or two. Then arrange in a mould, GERMANY. 65 as with the fish salads. Stoned olives, capers, button mushrooms, and slices of hard-boiled egg and cucumber pickle can be used. Cover with the jelly, and serve with a mayonnaise. Small birds are used whole, set in a circle, with rings of hard-boiled egg about each one, and covered with the jelly. Serve with a garnish of celery or parsley leaves. Jellied Hare. — This is a delicious dish of the same general order, and a great favorite in winter, since, once prepared, it will keep a fortnight or more perfectly well, and thus two or three moulds can be made at once. Cut up young and tender hares, using only the hind quarters, and reserving the rest for broth or fricassee. Lay the pieces in an earthen soup-kettle, and cover with three pints of water to which a teacupful of wine vinegar has been added, with a table- spoonful of salt, two teaspoonfuls of pepper- corns, four white onions sliced and fried brown in butter, and half a lemon cut thin. Boil all for one hour. Then take out the meat, strain the broth through a gauze sieve, 66 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. and add enough good beef broth to make two quarts. Soak a packet of gelatine in a cup of warm water, add to this and boil up once, setting aside to cool. While the hare is cooling, a farcie of calf’s liver is to be made as follows : — Boil a calf’s liver half an hour; chop it fine and rub it through a sieve. Add to it half a pound of finely chopped boiled ham, two hard-boiled eggs cut fine, a cupful of bread-crumbs or rolled zwieback, two table- spoonfuls of melted butter, and half a tea- spoonful of pepper, with one of salt. Blend all thoroughly, put it in an oiled tin, and bake till brown in a steady oven. When cold, cut it and the meat of the hare into strips. Oil a large round jelly-mould; pour in the liquid jelly about half an inch thick, and let it become quite firm. Lay on a layer of hare’s flesh, and then of the farcie , and barely cover with the jelly, which must set before another layer is added. Fill the mould in this way, ending with jelly. For an evening entertainment garnish the jelly, when turned from the mould, with three- cornered thin slices of red beet, interspersed GERMANY. 67 with parsley leaves and small cubes of the remaining jelly. It is served with or with- out sauce, but usually with a plain mayon- naise, or the sauce a la Diable. A rather troublesome dish, but one dear to epicures. White Mayonnaise. — This sauce is merely the ordinary mayonnaise, in which care has been taken to use white-wine vinegar, the palest mustard, and white pepper. Blend as usual and just before using add to a cup- ful of the sauce the whites of three eggs beaten to a stiff foam. It is served with jellied fish salad, and is one of the most delicious of German sauces. Scalloped Veal, with Herring. — Extraor- dinary as this combination sounds, the result is a most excellent little entree , served in the genuine scallop-shells to be found in Ger- man shops. For six persons take one pound of cold roast veal, one smoked herring soaked half an hour in warm water, a slice of cold boiled ham, the yolks of three hard- boiled eggs, and mince all finely together. Add then a teacupful of rolled zwieback or 68 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. fine bread-crumbs, half a teaspoonful of salt and a pinch of red pepper, an onion minced fine and fried golden-brown in a spoonful of butter, and a teaspoonful of tar- ragan vinegar. Blend all together; oil the scallop-shells, and bake twenty minutes in a hot oven. The same mixture, cooked for five minutes in a cupful of strong broth, makes a very good filling for small patties, and it can also be baked as a large scallop, by buttering a quart dish, and putting a layer of the mixture and then one of crumbs, ending with crumbs dotted with bits of butter. This is less savory than the first, and less distinctly German. Pigeons or Birds in a Form. — For this the pigeons are first stewed in rich bouillon to which a little red wine is added, and when they are tender a thick, smooth sauce is made, of two orders. The first demands a pint of the broth, — and not more than this should remain, — a spoonful of butter, a cup of strained tomato, and a large spoonful of flour, with a pinch of red pepper. Blend the flour with a little cold water, and pour GERMANY. 69 into the boiling sauce. Butter or oil a round tin with straight sides ; sprinkle finely- rolled zwieback over it, and line it with a sheet of thin pastry. Lay in the pigeons or birds close together, with a handful of button-mushrooms and a little chopped pars- ley. Pour the sauce over them, cover with a sheet of paste, wetting the edges to make them adhere closely, and bake till brown. Then turn out on a round platter, and serve very hot. For the second form of sauce, add to the pint of gravy a cup of thick sour cream and two beaten eggs, putting in the spoonful of flour first, and stirring in the eggs at the last. This flavor of sour cream is a very popular one, but the American will prefer the first form, which is an excellent one. Chicken can be treated in the same way, but it is better for pigeons and game. Cauliflower in a Form. — For this a rich sauce is made with a cup of strong, highly seasoned bouillon, a cup of sour cream beaten smooth, a spoonful of flour lightly browned in one of butter, and a beaten egg. 70 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. Mace is often added. Line a mould pre- cisely as for the pigeons. Cut the cauliflower in bits and lay in it, pouring the sauce upon it, and baking and serving in the same manner. Often, however, no paste is used, and the mixture is simply covered with bread or zwieback crumbs, and browned quickly in a hot oven. A Pasty of Grouse. — This is a Swabian dish, but adopted everywhere because of its excel- lence. The grouse are cut in pieces, and browned lightly in butter. They are then stewed half an hour in strong bouillon, to three pints of which is added a pint of red wine, six button onions, two bay-leaves, a shaving of lemon and a blade of mace, and a cup of cut-up truffles or mushrooms. In the mean time chop fine one pound of raw veal and half a pound of ham, and make a farcie with this; a cup of bread-crumbs, half a teacupful of melted butter, a pinch of red pepper, and two raw eggs. Line a pasty- form with good paste quarter of an inch thick. Put in a layer of the farcie , and then the grouse, alternating till the mould GERMANY. 71 is full, and pouring a little sauce on each layer. Cover with a thick puff paste, and bake in a slow oven. Good, cold or hot, but generally served hot as an entree. If it seems at all too dry, more wine can be added, or a cup of hot bouillon be poured through the opening in the lid. For this purpose a round hole is always made in the lid, and covered with some ornament or flower in pastry, which is easily removed. German Curry of Veal. — Three pounds of lean veal cut in small pieces, and fried in butter after having been rolled in flour. Fry afterward three large onions cut small. Then put all in a saucepan or earthen soup- pot; add a teaspoonful of salt, cover with a quart of fresh milk, and stew very slowly for two hours. Half an hour before it is done, add two teaspoonfuls of curry powder, and at the last thicken with a large spoon- ful of flour, making the liquid, which should be reduced to less than a quart, a smooth, thick sauce. The rice for this curry is boiled twenty minutes, the water being then poured off, and the rice allowed to steam ten n IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. minutes. A cupful of the sauce is then mixed with it, and it is placed high about the edge of a platter, the veal being poured in the centre. This is the most delicate form of curry, and one hardly to be improved. Pancakes, with Minced Veal and Ham. — These were the German pancake, corresponding rather to our fritter or doughnut. Veal and ham were minced and highly seasoned, much as in the preparation for scallops, and a teaspoonful was allowed to each pancake. These were made of a cup of sour cream, two eggs, a little salt, and half a teaspoonful of soda, in a little water, with flour enough to roll into a dough. This was cut into small, thin rounds, a teaspoonful of the mixture laid on each, the edges wet, and another laid over it, the edges being closely pressed together. They are dropped like doughnuts into frying fat, and served very hot. Still another form, served like the first as an entree with salad, is to roll this dough very thin, cut it in small squares, lay the mince on each, and wet the edges, laying GERMANY. 73 another square as cover, and pinching both firmly together. They are then dropped into well-salted boiling water, and in two minutes are done. Any form of minced and highly seasoned meat was used for these, from beef to chicken. Noodles. — Having paused in the midst of this writing to watch a trained German cook making noodles, it is evident that the re- ceipt will hold a sympathetic quality, which, in fact, is the characteristic of all given, since all have come from just such sources. Noodles, as made by the American cook, have generally been a failure, the reason being that salt was kneaded in. This, it seems, makes them sticky when cooked. For the true noodle, use from two to six, or more, eggs, according to the amount de- sired. Put a pile of sifted flour on the board, make a hole in the centre, break in one egg', and stir in flour till stiff enough to handle. It must then be kneaded till not a particle of moisture can be seen on cutting it, using plenty of flour. Roll it then into a sheet as thin as paper, and lay 7 4 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. it to dry on a clean cloth, in the sun or near a fire. An hour is all that is necessary, and often the first sheet is dry before the last has been rolled out. It is then folded sev- eral times and cut in narrow strips a finger long, which can be kept some time. For the usual dish, served with meat, have a kettle of well-salted water, boiling fast, and drop in the noodles. Five minutes is sufficient to cook them, and they are served with browned butter poured over them, and sometimes a little grated cheese. A Mould of Noodles, with Ham. — For this the noodles made from one egg will suffice. Boil them as directed. Butter a quart mould thickly, sprinkle fine crumbs over it, and line it with the noodles, which should have been allowed to cool. Then put a layer of chopped ham, highly seasoned, a layer of noodles alternating till the mould is full. Beat two eggs light; add a cupful of milk, and pour all into the mould. Cover it with a plate, and bake an hour. Then turn out in the centre of a platter, and make a circle of spinach, or of finely cut sour-krout about GERMANY. 75 it, and serve hot. This mould is also partic- ularly nice made with minced veal or chicken. White-Wine Cream. — German sweets of every order are innumerable, but eaten in small portions, meat in all forms being looked upon as the first necessity, and sweets considered unwholesome. But there are various delicious forms, and this light wine cream is especially so. One quart of white wine, half a pound of sugar, the juice and grated rind of two lemons, and a heaping spoonful of corn-starch dissolved in a little cold water. Bring wine and lemon, with the sugar, to boiling-point, add the corn-starch, and then the well-beaten yolks of seven eggs, which must not boil, but blend per- fectly. Let it cool, and just before serving beat the seven whites to a stiff foam, stir into the cream, which should be ice-cold, and serve with macaroons. Mould of Cream with Wood Strawberries. — This most delicious cream is sufficient for eight or ten persons. One large cup of ;6 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. sweet cream or half milk and cream, half a packet of gelatine soaked in a small cup of warm water, one large cup of fine sugar, and a cup of strawberry- juice with eight eggs. Bring the milk to boiling-point, add sugar, juice, and gelatine, and boil up once. Beat the eggs smooth and add slowly till all is smooth. When it is quite cold, but not yet hardened, beat in half a pint of sweet cream which has been whipped stiff, and a cup of wood strawberries, and put in a large oval mould to harden. Serve with a garland of leaves and flowers about it. ITALY. 77 ITALY. T T OW shall one write of housekeeping, or cooking, or any sober phase of daily life and work, when the word “ Italy ” itself means a dream into which, with the hearing, one straightway falls, and remem- bers no more anything but blue sky and shining sea, and vineyards climbing every hill, and dusty olives spreading crooked branches, as gnarled and twisted as old New England apple-trees? These serious faces, lightened for a moment by the sweet Italian smile, wear so seldom the look of placid, animal contentment found in the heavier feeders of more northern peoples — they are so abstinent — that one forgets to ask what they eat ; and seeing them content with the flask of wine, and often only the bit of black bread with it, settle that maca- roni is the only luxury, and actual dinners quite unknown. And, if it chances that 78 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. one’s way has lain off railroad lines, and nights have been spent in little villages, one finds no vestige of modern improve- ments, but a kitchen still after the old fashion. In such a kitchen the fireplace is of the purest order of Italian architecture; in other words, quite invisible for the smoke which rises from a fire built on a stone platform three or four feet high, big enough to roast an ox if need be, about which all the family gather in chill autumn evenings, since this is the only point where warmth is to be had. One can cook by this fire, it is true, but the demand upon it by its owners is of the slightest, and a formal dinner or supper evolves itself with difficulty. But the hun- gry traveller, who has learned at last that a chicken is always possible, gives an order with confidence that something will pres- ently be forthcoming, and is not disap- pointed. In the mean time, there is the upper floor of the rambling house, where one finds a big sdla , all windows and doors, the big doors opening into big bedrooms with brick floors, and often only the rafters for ITALY. 79 ceiling. The doors yawn, the windows bang, the horses are stabled under the bed, and the cows below the other side of the room, and the family share their quarters amicably with pigs and hens and geese. But it is all friendly, and, after a fashion, comfortable ; and at last is served precisely such a dinner as Dickens ate, in precisely such a house, almost fifty years ago, and then wrote : — “ There is something with a vegetable or some rice in it, which is a sort of short-hand or arbi- trary character for soup, and which tastes very well when you have flavored it with plenty of grated cheese, lots of salt, and abundance of pepper. There is the half fowl of which this soup has been made. There is a stewed pigeon, with the giz- zards and livers of himself and other birds stuck all round him. There is a bit of roast beef the size of a small French roll. There are a scrap of Parmesan cheese and five little withered apples, all. huddled together on a small plate, and crowding one upon the other, as if each were trying to save itself from the chance of being eaten. Then there is coffee, and then there is bed.” This is the dinner provided when one is supposed to have English tastes; but if one 8 o IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. leaves the matter altogether to the mistress, savory Italian dishes are the result, and one finds that good eating is not a forgotten art, and that Italian cookery has its own very distinctive features. Storm-stayed in these very quarters, the next day gave us a cabbage soup in which part of the cabbage was served as salad with the sweetest oil and purest wine-vinegar, while the rest, chopped fine, thickened a soup in which much rice and some grated cheese were discernible. Then came pig’s kidneys, delicately fried with dice of salted pork; then a pair of chickens boiled and with a sauce; and last, a great stew, savory and steaming, of bits of meat of all orders, truffles, potatoes, little dump- lings, and garlic. Fruit, cheese, coffee, — all good, ended the meal in which no vege- tables had appeared save the cabbage and those in the stew. This is the first glimpse of Italian house- keeping, — a housekeeping in which past and present are jumbled. The Italian who has catered for generations of English tour- ists disgusted with any customs but their own, seeks to follow these customs as far as ITALY. 8l possible, and keeps his national dishes out of sight. But if he discovers that the tour- ist is American and not English, his expres- sion changes. He expands and beams, knowing that his labor is sure of recogni- tion, and that his own methods are the ones desired. Then appear the really national dishes, — macaroni in its many forms; deli- cious risottos , also of several orders; mines- tra; and so on through a list which is more savory than ordinary French cooking, and has as its only fault a freer use of oil than the American palate likes. This is true of salads and a few sauces. But the frying in this sweet olive oil is of the most delicate order, both small fish, polenta , and many forms of croquettes being treated in this way, while the Italian stew puts the French pot-au-feu altogether out of countenance. The foreigner learns soon to enjoy polenta , a form of corn-meal mush thicker than the hasty-pudding of our youth, and eaten uni- versally by Italians, either in its first state, or cut in thin slices after it has cooled, and fried a golden brown in sweet olive oil. 6 82 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. These cook-shops are met at every turn. Fuel is costly, and the price of prepared food but the merest trifle beyond its value uncooked; and thus many a family relies altogether upon these shops, from which ascends the smell of ever-boiling broth bubbling in huge caldrons. In the win- dows are mountains of smoking-hot, golden polenta; heaps of fried minnows, crisp and brown ; mounds of rice ; great dishes of stewed snails, dear to all Italians, and the usual treat for festa days. Roast poultry are there also, and liver and other less defi- nable mysteries. Here come the gondo- liers and bargain for dinner with the cooks, whose huge ladles indicate what may be skimmed from these bubbling depths. In less pretentious shops may be found a deli- cacy peculiar to Italy, — the clotted blood of poultry of any order, fried in slices with onions; and another true Venetian dish, but found in Naples also, squasetto, a thick broth made of entrails and scraps beyond the art even of the sausage-maker, and loud with garlic. There are for every window, high or low, heaps of crullers fried in oil, and ITALY. 83 each season has its peculiar dainties. Dur- ing carnival it is whipped cream ; St. Mar- tin’s shows regiments of gingerbread war- riors; while Christmas has mandorlato , a candy made of honey and thick with almonds, and a mysterious confiture , — a thick con- serve of fruits, yellow and stinging with mustard. Stalls rise magically in the streets on every holiday, for the making and frying of these crullers, and there are innumerable fruit-stalls odorous with roast apples and pumpkin, chestnuts, boiled beans, and cab- bage. It is a land, it would seem, where everybody cooks and nobody eats; since, in spite of this profusion, abstinence is the universal habit, and a family will break- fast on coffee and a roll, dine on three simple courses, and sup on an ice taken at a cafe. But the cook-shops thrive, and this because so little cooking is done at home, dinner often being sent in from them or the slightly more formal trattoria , or restaurant, usually excellent and cheap, a dinner of five courses for three persons seldom going beyond eighty cents, or, at most, a dollar. This 84 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. cooking is Italian or French, as one may- elect. Now and then the Italian chimney has its share, and a flavor of smoke may be discerned, the miracle being that it is not al- ways there, since smoke and Italian chimneys have been synonymous from the beginning. An ingrained incompatibility exists, and apparently has always existed, between the Italian and fire of any sort. It is certain that the sun appears to him the only legiti- mate source of heat, that he would cook by it if he could, and that hot ashes in a copper holder, the forerunner of our grandmother’s foot-stoves, are his notion of a desirable method of keeping warm in winter. The newer houses claim to have chimneys con- structed on the English principle, but the Italian is utterly aghast at the amount of fuel demanded by both Americans and Eng- lish. The kitchens are arranged after the French fashion; that is, the chimney holds a stone table with various openings for char- coal fires. But the general effect is far more cheerful and ample; there is more light, more space, and quite as good a sense of order. ITALY. 85 The Italian housekeeper, like the French, is freed from much that burdens life in America. Baking of every kind is done outside, the bakers in Rome and Florence furnishing excellent graham bread and rolls of a better quality than anything yet known to the American baker. The laundry is also quite removed, and washing and ironing days are unknown. The French system of “portions” is only here and there followed; but cook-shops are everywhere, and in the market, the fruit and vegetables of the sea- son, as well as every housekeeping need, from a beefsteak to a dish-cloth or duster, can all be supplied. Necessarily, then, unless the kitchen is fitted with an English or American range, baking must be dispensed with. Roasting is accomplished excellently well by means of spits; but the Italian cook prefers stew- ing or braising, this last method being one of the very best for preserving the juices and flavor of the meat, while reducing the most obdurate quality to tenderness. When browning is demanded, the “ salamander comes into play; this being a box-shovel 86 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. filled with hot coals. If this is not to be had, a shovel made red-hot answers the same end. All this and much more was learned in a Roman kitchen, where through the wide window one saw roses climbing high, and heard the nightingales at evening. It was not American housekeeping, since Angelo presided, — Angelo born in Ravenna, and drifting to Rome as so many do; Angelo the ever-ready, with his gentle eyes and swift silence of service, and a voice so sweet that it could hardly speak too often. Cook, waiter, major-domo in general, how he cared for the two Americans who played at house- keeping in those charmed days in Rome! A great child in simplicity and gentleness, yet so wise for all emergencies ! How he guarded the family purse, making every penny do its utmost! How his face fell if by any chance he feared full satisfaction had not been given, and how it lighted at every little recognition ! Italian servants are counted as thriftless, untrustworthy, and dishonest, but this is much as one takes them. It is certain that they love a bargain, ITALY. 87 that they take advantage of each other where they can, and laugh over it when the gain is on their side. But my own experi- ence, as well as that of many others, proves that when once trusted they are loyal to a degree. For Angelo — and there are many of his type — there had been from the beginning a complete adoption of all the small inter- ests as his own. He was not only cook and general care-taker, but knew all the shops; where the best filagree silver, the clearest photographs, the most genuine bronzes, and so on, were to be found. He shopped or marketed, or even turned guide, as occasion demanded, and in each and all of these offices did such service as money never pays. He doubled with merriment over the early struggles with the language, for he spoke no English, save a charming “ Good-morn- ing, my ladies.” One may read Dante, yet be quite unable to discuss an omelette or order the dinner properly in Dante’s lan- guage, but no one knows genuine Italian housekeeping till this is mastered. The housekeeper’s day is much like the 88 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. Frenchwoman’s. Our next neighbor, an Italian advocate’s wife, busied herself in much the same fashion. The cook Assunta, long in her service, knew the family tastes, and scarcely needed assistance; but the mistress prepared special dishes now and then, chiefly compotes and light sweets. But, like the French, the larger portion of the people eat little sweet, save perhaps in ices taken at the cafes, dessert being most usually simply fruit and cheese. Mistress and maid went together to market, pausing on the way for five minutes’ devotion in one or another of the innumerable churches, and issuing for the season of profound ex ; citement which marketing in Italy always affords. Instant destruction for everybody concerned is the stranger’s first feeling as the voices rise to a shriek and arms fly and madness seems to rule. But it all ends placidly, and the dinner has a better flavor for having been fought for. The early coffee or chocolate is taken with a roll or two, and the mid-day meal is like the French second breakfast, almost a din- ner, the dinner proper being at six or seven. ITALY. 89 But the Italian is more abstinent than the Frenchman, and often lives in the simplest fashion. Great joints or masses of anything are repugnant to him. He delights in made dishes, in his own macaroni, and in stews of many orders, and the bill of fare holds many savory dishes, — above all, the many forms of risotto , a preparation of rice, in which the grains are first browned in butter and then boiled so perfectly that each grain holds its shape. With this, bits of chicken, or meat, or fish, are mingled, according to the kind required, and a sauce added, the whole being formed in a mould before serv- ing. Often this makes the second breakfast, with a flask of wine and a bit of cheese. Poultry predominates, and is a part of nearly every dinner, Italian beef being taken chiefly from oxen whose long years of service have made it durable, but hardly eatable save after long cooking. The store-room has little or no place in Italian housekeeping. Supplies are bought from day to day, and to have them on hand would deprive both cook and mistress of the most interesting portion of the day, — the 90 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. squabble with shop and market people. Custom has so settled every phase of house- keeping, that it moves in lines smoothed by the wear of centuries. The mistress scolds, but it is simply a habit. She is well served, and she knows it, and the Italian servant is the family friend, sharing the family for- tunes, and trusted and beloved to the end. When will the day come when this word can be said of America, or when care-ridden housekeepers will learn that certain phases of co-operation in the matter of laundry and bakehouse, would end forever much that now makes American housekeeping the most difficult role filled on the earth by civilized and intelligent women? CHOICE DISHES FROM ITALY. Lamb Broth with Ravioli. — Piedmont. Make a broth of three pounds of neck of lamb, and any bones of roast lamb, three quarts of water, a tablespoonful of salt, half a tea- spoonful of pepper, a minced turnip, some sprigs of parsley, and two minced onions fried lightly in a tablespoonful of butter. ITALY. 91 Boil slowly three hours; strain and take off the fat. It can be made the day before. For the ravioli, mince very fine the meat of a small chicken, roast or boiled. Season high with salt, pepper, and a pinch of mace; add two thirds the amount of fresh bread- crumbs, and bind all with two beaten eggs and a spoonful of melted butter. Take half a pound of plain pastry and divide it into two portions. Roll one very thin into an oblong shape, keeping the sides as straight as possible. On this arrange at equal dis- tances a teaspoonful of the mixture; roll the second piece of pastry the same size, and lay upon this, having first moistened the spaces between the mixture with water. Cut through the two layers and press the edges together, dropping each into boiling salted water and cooking ten minutes. Lay them in the soup-tureen, pour the boiling broth upon them, and serve. Lamb Broth and Summer Squash. — Naples. Make a broth as above, ready for serving. Chop two summer squashes fine and fry ten minutes in a large spoonful of butter, sea- 92 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. soning to taste with salt and pepper. Butter a shallow pudding-dish, and cover the bot- tom with slips of bread dipped in broth. Grate over them a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. On this bread put the minced squash and cover with another layer of bread prepared in the same way. Bake in a quick oven till brown, and serve a large spoonful of it with each plate of soup. Ripe cucum- bers may be treated in the same way. Soup with Parmesan Paste. — Any clear soup can be used for this, two quarts being sufficient. For the paste, take a small cup of grated Parmesan cheese, one of flour, a saltspoonful of salt, and a pinch of cayenne. Beat four eggs and add the flour, etc. , slowly, with half a cup of cream or rich milk. It should be a rather thin batter. Have the soup boiling, and let this batter run through a small, very coarse sieve into it. It will make long strings, which must boil ten minutes. Ravioli. — For the genuine ravioli paste, take one pint of sifted flour, five eggs beaten ITALY. 93 to a cream, half a teaspoonful of salt, and two spoonfuls of warm water. Knead this till it is a firm, glossy dough, and let it stand half an hour. Prepare a delicate mince, as in the first rule given, but when half the ravioli paste has been rolled out, put only half a teaspoonful on it, at equal distances, letting them when cut be no longer than a finger. Boil ten minutes in salted water, and put in layers in a vege- table dish, grating a little Parmesan cheese on each layer and pouring on it a spoonful of melted butter. Mask the top with some spoonfuls of thick tomato sauce, and serve very hot. This paste is also rolled thin, cut in ribbons, and boiled five minutes in salted water, then served with grated cheese and melted butter, or a cupful of rich gravy or tomato sauce. Risotto. — Wash half a pound of rice and dry it well. Melt a spoonful of butter in a saucepan and put in the rice, stirring it now and then till it is a light-brown. Add to it three pints of broth, well-seasoned, and a minced onion fried brown in a little butter. 94 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. Cook very slowly till the rice has absorbed the broth, — about three quarters of an hour. Add to this a pinch of red pepper, a cup of tomato sauce, a spoonful of melted butter, and two of grated cheese, and serve very hot. For the American palate the cheese may be omitted if tomato is used. The risotto is often varied by adding dice of cooked meat or chicken. Polenta with Gravy. — Simple as this dish is, it will be found an excellent one as a veg- etable for cold days. Have ready three pints of boiling water, with a teaspoonful of salt, and as it boils add a spoonful of butter and about a pint of fresh, coarsely ground semoule or Indian meal. Sift in slowly, stirring constantly, and boil twenty minutes. Have ready, hot, a cup of good gravy and one of tomato sauce ; put a layer of the polenta in a dish, then sauce and gravy and a little grated cheese. Fill the dish in this way and serve hot. Entree of Partridges. — Three young par- tridges, cleaned and washed. Heat a cup of ITALY, 95 olive oil in a saucepan; add a bit of garlic; put in the partridges, and let them cook five minutes. Then take them out, and fry in the oil two small minced onions, a small carrot, some sprigs of parsley, and a bay leaf. Season with a pinch of pepper and half a teaspoonful of salt. Fry five min- utes, then put in the partridges; add one pint of good broth, and stew for twenty minutes. Strain the broth, return to fire, and thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour. Pour over the birds and serve. Entree of Veal or Beef, with Macaroni. — One pint of finely chopped meat ; one each of stewed tomato and boiled macaroni. Mince two small onions very fine, and fry in a spoonful of butter; then mix with the tomato, adding a pinch of cayenne and half a teaspoonful of salt. Butter a pudding-dish and put a layer of bread-crumbs, then a layer each of meat, of macaroni, and of tomato. Alternate in this way until the dish is full, ending with bread-crumbs. Dot with bits of butter, and bake half an hour till a bright brown. 96 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. Italian sweets are almost identical with the French. Ices are the favorite form, and but little pastry is eaten. Special cakes are made for special seasons, but they are all troublesome, and scarcely need more than mention here. The favorite combina- tion is honey and almonds, with flour enough for a dough, and endless variations are made on this. Dessert is, as a rule, fruit and a bit of cheese, and sweets have small place in the daily bill of fare. The rules for tarts, puddings, etc., are almost identical with the French. Pan forte, of Siena. — This compromise between cake and candy is found everywhere in Italy, but Siena claims to make it a trifle more perfectly. Bring to boiling-point in a saucepan one pint of strained honey; add one pound of almonds, dried in the oven and pounded to a coarse meal; three-quarters of a pound of filberts treated in the same way; half a pound of citron, chopped fine; one teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon, and half a one of pepper; half a pound of grated chocolate. Mix this with semolina (about ITALY. 97 a pint), and let it cool. When cool, turn on the pastry-board ; add semolina enough to make a firm dough; roll it half an inch thick, and cut in round cakes or in squares, baking them in a moderate oven till brown. A choicer form is to use almonds, roasted and ground fine, instead of semolina. Crocante. — This, is a delicious confection and easily made. Blanch one pound of sweet almonds and cut them lengthwise in fine strips. Melt in a saucepan one pound of loaf sugar, with a tablespoonful of water, and add a piece of butter the size of an egg, and the nuts. Boil very slowly, stirring steadily till a golden brown; then pour into a buttered pan, and cut when cool into small strips. 7 98 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. T ONG ago, in the days when children’s books were few, — and one sometimes wishes that these days might return, since in them the children knew Scott well and Oliver Optic not at all, — there came a little book, “ Feats on the Fiord,” read with delight by young and old. It is a well-nigh forgotten bit of work by Harriet Martineau, so true to nature that Norwegians would not believe that it had not been written on the spot, and it held the first picture of Norwegian house- keeping that made much impression on English minds. With Frederika Bremer’s “ Home ” came its pendant for Sweden, and thenceforward the reader of the two remem- bered pretty fashions of doing things, and wondered what the unfamiliar dishes might be like. Never had the making of butter and cheese a lovelier setting than that given in the story NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. 99 of Norwegian home-life, nor is there to-day- in all the throng of books any truer picture of that wonderful Norwegian scenery. So when the time came that Norway was to become a part of one’s personal experi- ence, a certain sense of familiarity went with one, and bits of the little story continuously came up before the mind. Of journey and scenery and all the small adventures of the way, when finally attempted, I say nothing. It is with the first dinner-party that we have to do, — an event charming but most per- plexing, since of our band of pilgrims not one knew a word of Norwegian. Yet as everybody spoke French with varying de- grees of fluency, and several knew English, intercourse was perfectly possible, though hampered by the fact that the first gentle- man brought forward by our host, a shy and blushing little man, affirmed to have English at his tongue’s end, began his conversation with, “ Good-by, Miss,” and continued with equal facility till released by a young lady who saw that something was wrong. It was she who was our guardian angel, and who, when at 8 P. M. the doors of the dining-room 100 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. were thrown open, followed us, prepared to smooth away all difficulties. They were many. As the chief guests of the evening, we were forced to precede the eighty others; and as the signal was given found ourselves impelled forward, the ladies flocking behind, while the gentlemen re- mained seated in the drawing-room. What to do was the problem. Three sub- stantially covered tables faced us, but no chairs were before them, and we stood help- less till the guardian angel stepped forward, saying in a whisper, “You must do as I do; we all help ourselves.” Down the table at intervals were piles of plates, knives, forks, spoons, and napkins. We took one of each, and fled back to the drawing-room, where the servants had, in the mean time, arranged numbers of tiny tables. Here we seated ourselves, to find that the gentlemen had suddenly disappeared, and were comfortably seated in the dining-room, having the first choice of the various dishes, which were afterward brought out to us. A delicious soup with forcemeat balls came first, and then a bewildering variety of made- NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. 10 1 dishes, but no vegetable but potatoes. The chief waiter took us in charge, and often took our forks from our hands in order to transfer some especially dainty bit from the dish he carried to our plates. Course after course of these made-dishes followed, and at last came an almost equal variety of puddings and cakes. There was no pastry; but these puddings and cakes were marvels of richness, yet delicate also. Norwegian cream is like the Alderney, thick and smooth ; is used profusely, and eggs also, with a lavishness appalling to the English or American housekeeper, many puddings made requiring twenty or thirty. Various wines were served, and shortly after the dinner began toasts were proposed, the host first drinking Velkommen to all ; and then, our names being given, with Velkommen til Norge (“Welcome to Norway”). Then followed an interminable list, and at the end every- body advanced to the host and hostess, shook hands, and said, Tak for tnaden (“ Thanks for the repast”), receiving the answer, Vel bekommen (“ May it agree with you ” ). Then everybody bowed to everybody, till 102 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. we felt like Chinese mandarins. When cof- fee came it was the same, and we separated at last with the form which must never be for- gotten, Tak for idag (“ Thanks for to-day ” ). So ended the dinner; but the same form was repeated on meeting any of the guests at any time thereafter: Tak for sidst (“ Thanks for last time ") ; and this is as customary and inevitable among the peasants as among the cultivated. Games had followed the dinner, — button, the slipper, etc., — in which bish- ops and other dignitaries joined, with the abandon of children ; and at nearly midnight came a supper of sweets, ices, and fruits, more coffee, and the accompanying thanks, and then good-night. Later in the season we were invited to a Christmas party, and after the tree had been rifled, followed the national Christmas supper known as bret. Bret is the Norwegian word for tray, and three trays enter, borne by men-servants. The first holds an endless variety of cakes, big and little. The second has many glass dishes filled with preserved raspberries, cur- rants, cherries, etc. They pause before you, NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH, IO3 and now comes a ceremony agonizing to the self-conscious Briton, and hardly less so to the American. You rise, for etiquette demands this, and face the second tray, in the midst of which stand two glasses, one filled with spoons, the other with clean hot water. From the first tray you take a cake, from the second a spoon, which you insert in the nearest plate of jam, carrying the result to your mouth. The same spoon you then insert in the plate next in order; and so you go through the list, etiquette demanding that each shall be tasted. Every one watches the operation, which must be gone through with calmly, deliberately, and yet with as fully apparent enjoyment, else the hostess is hurt. The ceremony ended, the spoon is placed in the glass of water, the next guest takes his turn, the third tray approaches, and from it you take a glass of mead, — such mead as the Vikings drank, — and fall back in your chair to enjoy your cake and its accompaniment. Presently, as bret progresses through the room, the spoons are all in the water, which has grown murkier with every additional one ; 104 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. and now the process is reversed, the partakers of bret selecting their spoon from the glass of water, and replacing it, when used, in the empty one. Is this the supper? By no means. Atn this meal is announced, the chief feature of which appears to be fried fish. There are innumerable dishes that pass from hand to hand, all of which must be tasted. On my plate, at one time, the attendant had accumu- lated for me fish, cold ptarmigan, cabbage stewed in cream with sugar and nutmeg, hard-boiled egg, cold ham, preserved cher- ries, and boiled potatoes. Milk, tea, wine, and beer were all handed me, but I was al- lowed to select. Then came rice porridge eaten with cream and jam, and a series of toasts. This might have been thought the end, but at i P. M. bret again appeared ; and the party broke up at 3 A. M., after games and dancing, apparently ready for more bret , coffee, or anything that might appear. At the next dinner-party but eighteen or twenty were present, and here the company were seated together. Soup, which is always excellent, was served ; then ham cut in bits NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. 105 was passed, and tongue with kraut. Then came a course of boiled lobsters ; then as- paragus ; then salmon ; then chickens and mutton cut up and handed by the servants; and last, custards, fruit, and cake, the courses having each a wine served with it. The cooking here, as elsewhere, seemed that of a nice German family, and had the same gen- eral arrangement. Delicious pudding came between the other courses; sour preserves were served with game, and the dessert was fruit and nuts as with us. The favorite pre- serve for eating with meats is mulberry — moltibeer — jam, made from a small, acid berry growing close to the ground. A pud- ding of reindeer’s milk was served, this being made richer with cow’s milk, and with a peculiar flavor to which a stranger is not accustomed. These were all state affairs, with so much drinking that one wondered how keeping sober could be possible. Later came a quiet family dinner, in the house of a small landed- proprietor, known as a Bonder. The Bonder is a farmer, and is somewhat after the order of the English yeoman. In this case there io 6 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. had been more education than usual, and the mode of life was modelled on that of all proprietors. This Bonder was tall and strong and dark, — a natural prince in look and manner, though he wore the red woollen cap of the farmers. As each door opened he stepped back and bowed, throwing open one at last which showed us a large, uncarpeted room. The furniture was a singular mixture. On each side of the great room were beautiful carved cabinets and tables — a little gilding here and there. The middle of the room held a common deal table with immense legs, and in the corner were small tables and set- tees, also deal, such as furnish an English country alehouse. A tall clock like our old- fashioned New England clocks, stood by the door. A decanter filled with cordial was brought in, and a small glass poured out for each ; and finding that we were interested, the host took us through the house. There were many bedrooms, since hospitality is a Norwegian virtue, — some very plain, others with elegant curtained beds and handsome furniture. In the storerooms and attics were NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. IOJ the winter coats, bearskins, and firs, reindeer- boots and high-water boots. Blankets and comfortables were in piles, with sleds for the snow. There were high stacks of round oat- meal cakes, a foot and a half in diameter, for the laborers, birch-bark for tanning, spinning- wheels for weaving, etc., for on these farms all trades are carried on. The kitchen was a separate house, as, in- deed, were some of the other offices, this par- ticular farm having seven, all grouped about the central one. One side had beds for the servants. In the corner was a stone range, overshadowed by a low roof, which carried off the steam and flame of cooking. There was a sort of tin tub for baking bread, and great vats for boiling. The next little house was devoted to preserved meats, smoked and salted, reindeer ham and tongues being a specialty. The great barn, built on a sidehill, with two or three entrances to each story, and ar- rangements for sliding hay and grain to the stalls beneath, was empty, all the cattle hav- ing been taken up to the saetters, or moun- tain pastures, this being on the second visit io8 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. in the summer. In the lower story was the cattle stable, each stall being made of two large slabs of slate ; while the barn itself was elevated on little stone supports, to prevent, as much as possible, the entrance of lemming rats, the most voracious and destructive of the order. Dinner was served in a large dining-room, opening from the drawing-room. A dish of sour-milk soup and another of meat soup came first; then sturgeon, followed by quail and pancakes, and one kind of wine only, with cakes and coffee at the end. At another dinner, later, we had soup made of raisins and prunes, boiled salmon and potatoes, some made-dish with claret, and a simple dessert, — berries eaten in soup-plates with much milk. As each person ended dinner, the nap- kin was folded, laid on the table, and the plate placed upon it. At supper, Sunday- cakes were served, these being made of rich cream, and baked like waffles. For the work- people, a thick porridge was made by mixing sifted barley-meal with boiling water, and stirring with a stick. This was then put in a large wooden bowl, which was placed on the NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. IO9 table, and round it the men gathered, each with a short wooden spoon and a wooden bowl of sour milk, digging out lumps of por- ridge and eating them with the milk. This is grod , a national and most unpleasant dish, since it is not boiled. Vellig is much better, for the barley-meal for this is boiled in milk and eaten with cream ; but in all these por- lydges there is not boiling enough to suit the English taste. As a whole, the cooking, though excellent in some points, falls far below the French standard, and the amount eaten is a perpetual amazement even to the heartiest Englishman. CHOICE DISHES FROM NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. A Swedish Fish-Soup. Take one dozen small pan-fish ; skin and bone them. Boil the heads and bones in two quarts of water, with a tablespoonful of salt and a handful of dried mushrooms. Egg and crumb the pieces of fish, and fry in boiling lard, letting them drain on brown paper. Pare and chop fine a red beet, two onions, and half a dozen leeks, and a parsley root. Cut fine, also, half a I IO IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. small white cabbage. Cook these separately, in salted water, for half an hour. Strain the fish broth upon them; put the fried fish in the tureen and pour broth and vegetables upon them. Small dumplings are often added, and sometimes part of the fish is minced fine and mixed with them. Cabbage Soup (Norway). Two pounds qf beef shin or brisket, half a pound of salt pork, four onions, a root of celery, four quarts of water, and a teaspoonful of salt. Boil three hours, then strain the broth and take off the fat. Melt a spoonful of butter in a saucepan, add a minced onion and a small white cabbage cut fine. Stir and cook five minutes ; then add a pint of the broth, and cook one hour. Then cut the meat in small squares, thicken the broth with a large table- spoonful of flour, put the cabbage and meat in a tureen and pour the broth upon it, and serve very hot. Salmon Pasty (Norway and Sweden). — Two pounds of salmon cutlets, cut thin, breaded, and fried brown in butter, and left to cool. NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. Ill Take two pounds of fresh pike or other fish, mince fine, and add a teaspoonful of salt, a pinch of cayenne, the juice and grated rind of a lemon, two beaten eggs, and a spoonful of melted butter. Mix all well together. Line a large meat-pie mould with good pastry, spread a layer of the minced fish upon it, and then the salmon, with mushrooms, shrimps, and oysters in between. Cover with the rest of the pike, rounding it up in dome-shape, and lay on a thick lid of pastry, making a small hole in the centre, and covering it with some leaves of pastry. Bake one hour in a moderate oven, and then pour into the hole a cupful of white sauce or rich fish-broth. Serve hot or cold. Beef au Gratin (Polish). Cut cold braised or roast beef into slips the size of a finger. Mince four large onions fine, and fry a light brown in good butter. Add a tablespoonful of flour, and, by degrees, a cup of broth, and some two or three sprigs of minced parsley. Take an earthen dish, or gratin dish, lay the beef in, the pieces crossing each other like a cob-house, and on each layer put a spoonful 1 12 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. or two of the onions and broth. Cover all with a layer of bread-crumbs, dot with bits of butter, and bake in a quick oven till brown — about fifteen minutes. Srasis (Russian). Chop fine two pounds of lean beef and a quarter of a pound of suet; mince the onions and a bit of garlic, and mix all together with two teaspoonfuls of salt, half a one of pepper, and some sprigs of minced parsley. Roll in bread-crumbs and cook in a braising-pan, with a very little broth, for one hour. Serve with a border of mashed potato. Srasis with Fine Herbs (Polish). Cut veal cutlets, cut very thin, into squares, and on each square put a layer of forcemeat made as follows: Mince fine two onions, a handful of fresh mushrooms, and some sprigs of pars- ley, and add a cup of fresh bread-crumbs, a spoonful of melted butter, half a teaspoonful of salt, a pinch of cayenne, and two beaten eggs. Put a^thin layer of this on each square; roll tight and tie. Fry them brown in butter. Then pour over them a cupful NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. 1 1 3 of broth, cover closely, and stew one hour. Half a cup of red wine is often added. Take out the rolls ; remove the thread ; thicken the gravy with a teaspoonful of flour, and pour over them. These are excellent. Rogrbd. This is a favorite dish in both Norway and Sweden, and can be made of any acid fruit juice. Take three pints of currant juice, three pints of water, one pound of sugar, and half an ounce of stick-cinna- mon, and bring to a boil. Take out the cin- namon, which can be used many times, and had better be in a little bag. Add to the boiling juice one and a half pounds of arrow- root or one pound of soaked sago, adding it slowly and carefully that it may not lump, and stirring steadily. Boil for fifteen min- utes ; then turn into teacups or small moulds, and serve when cold and firm. Eat with cream and sugar. Swedish Salad. Cut enough cold chicken in small bits to fill a teacup. Take the same amount of beef-tongue, of smoked salmon, and of filets of cooked sole. Cut two boiled 8 1 14 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. carrots in bits, four cold boiled potatoes, a cupful of string-beans cut in bits. Pour over these vegetables a spoonful of oil and two of vinegar mixed, with a teaspoonful of salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Let them lie in this for an hour; mix with the meat; add four spoonfuls of mayonnaise dressing, and pile in the salad bowl, garnishing with slips of pickled beet. Watrouskis. Grate a cupful of any delicate cheese, and add a spoonful of butter, a pinch of mace, and a salt-spoonful of salt. Add to this one whole egg and two yolks, with one spoonful of flour. Beat till smooth. Roll puff-paste thin, and cut in small rounds. Wet the edges and lay round them a strip of thicker paste. Fill them with the mixture, and bake in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes, or till a golden brown, Varenikis (Sweden and Poland). Prepare cheese as in the above rule. Roll a thin sheet of puff-paste; lay on the mixture in teaspoonfuls. Moisten the paste between them in regular lines, lay on another sheet, NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. 1 1 5 and press down on the lines. Cut them in squares; see that the edges are well pressed together, and drop into boiling salted water, cooking for ten minutes. Serve very hot, pouring a little browned butter over them. Nalenikis. These are precisely the same thing, but instead of boiling they are dropped in boiling fat, after having been dipped in a fritter batter, and fried brown. Dry for a few moments in the oven and serve hot, on a napkin. Swedish Charlotte. Cut a small sponge- cake in thin slices, and cover each with whip- ped cream flavored with rum. Put them together again in the shape of the loaf ; cover with a meringue made of three whites of eggs beaten stiff, a cup of powdered sugar added, and a few drops of vanilla. Brown in a slow oven, and serve cold. Norwegian Charlotte. For this elaborate and most delicious charlotte will be needed a stale, round loaf of sponge-cake ; quarter of a pound of almonds blanched and pounded, II 6 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. with a tablespoonful of rose-water, to a smooth paste ; quarter of a cocoanut grated fine ; two whites of eggs beaten stiff, and two tablespoonfuls of sugar added; one cup of rich boiled custard, and one cup of sweet cream, whipped to a froth. Mix the almonds with half the prepared white of egg, and the cocoanut with the other half. Cut the cake in horizontal slices, half an inch thick, right across the loaf. On the bottom slice put some almond cream, on the next the cocoa- nut, and coat all but the top slice, pressing all together firmly. Now with a large bis- cuit-cutter or sharp knife cut out the centre of the cake down to the bottom slice, which must not be cut Leave the sides about an inch thick. Put the cake cut out in a bowl with the custard, and rub smooth. Then add the whipped cream, with a spoonful of orange- flower water, and fill the centre of the cake. Ice it with three whites of eggs beaten stiff, one cup of powdered sugar, and the juice of a lemon, and set it on ice till wanted. THE END. MEMORANDA. MEMORANDA. MEMORANDA. MEMORANDA. MEMORANDA. MEMORANDA. MEMORANDA, MEMORANDA. MEMORANDA. MEMORANDA. “Among all the Cook-Books this will certainly take its place as one of the very best?' — The Christian Union. MRS. LINCOLN’S BOSTON COOK-BOOK. WHAT TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO IN COOKING. By MRS. D. A. LINCOLN, AUTHOR OF “CARVING AND SERVING.” With 50 Illustrations. One handsome \2mo volume of 600 pages , neatly half bound. Price, $ 2.00 . “ It is the trimmest, best arranged, best illustrated, most intelligible manual of cookery as a high art, and as an economic art, that has appeared.” — Inde- pendent. “ It is exactly fitted for use as a family authority, in that it is the work, not of a theorizer, but of a woman who knows what she is talking about. It is the very common-sense of the science of cookery.” — Extracts from Sallie Joy White's Letters in Philadelphia and Portland papers. “ The recipes are practical, and give just those facts which are generally omitted from books of this sort, to the discouragement of the housekeeper, and frequently to the lamentable disaster and failure of her plans. 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It is a book which ought to be in every household.” — Philadelphia Press. ■■ ♦ Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook-Book is kept on sale by all booksellers everyivhere. If you cannot readily obtain it, enclose the amount, $2.00, directly to the Publishers, -who will mail it, post-paid. ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. THE t Peerless cook book. , VALUABLE RECEIPTS FOR COOKING, . . COMPACT AND PRACTICAL' ■ . By MRS. D. A. LINCOLN, Author of “ The Boston Cook Book," "'The Boston School Kitchen Text Book," “ Carving and Serving etc. l6mo, PAPER COVERS, 15 CENTS. 4QO choice: receipts. The name of Mrs. D. A. Lincoln on a book of household advice is sure to stamp it with success. Thousands of women all over the land owe her a debt of gratitude for her “Boston Cook Book;” and now thousands more, whose lack of means have prevented them from owning that unequalled volume, may rejoice in the possession of the Peerless Cook Book. This little collection contains over four hun- dred valuable recipes. A few of these are taken from her “Boston Cook Book ; ” but most of them are new, and all are of the most useful and practical description, bearing the mark of the positive genius which Mrs. Lincoln possesses for culinary composition. — The Beacon. Mrs. D. A. Lincoln’s “ Boston Cook Book ” has been widely recog- nized as one of the very best manuals of its class, and her new venture in the same field, the Peerless Cook Book , which is issued in paper at 1 a low price, will find a host of friends because of its eminently prac- tical character. — Christian Union. Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers , ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. : .■»■.>!>' s- V > « ?5 aS -•; & -i '-pi '• •. gaK B mm 1 ' -* V >, .V S > j && i$£p& „.. iili m ■iju -•;. • • d £&%il£ *$&**■ Ifgljjs :r, ” r - r ,;•> •;/,, 2» K ft .;>; * ^ *0* S$& *1® .•# >«!■"■•• * 5 . 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