FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   >>  
dislike garlic, and could not touch anything with it in. Yet those very people will take Worcestershire sauce, in which garlic is actually predominant, with everything they eat; and think none but English pickles eatable, which owe much of their excellence to the introduction of a _soupcon_ of garlic. Therefore I beg those who actually only know garlic from hearsay abuse of it, or from its presence on the breath of some inveterate garlic eater, to give it a fair trial when it appears in a recipe. It is just one of those things that require the most delicate handling, for which the French term a "_suspicion_" is most appreciated; it should only be a suspicion, its presence should never be pronounced. As Blot once begged his readers, "Give garlic a fair trial in a _remolade_ sauce." (Montpellier butter beaten into mayonnaise is a good _remolade_ for cold meat or fish.) Curry is one of those things against which many are strongly prejudiced, and I am inclined to think it is quite an acquired taste, but a taste which is an enviable one to its possessors; for them there is endless variety in all they eat. The capabilities of curry are very little known in this country, and, as the taste for it is so limited, I will not do more in its defense than indicate a pleasant use to which it may be put, and in which form it would be a welcome condiment to many to whom "a curry," pure and simple, would be obnoxious. I once knew an Anglo-Indian who used curry as most people use cayenne; it was put in a pepper-box, and with it he would at times pepper his fish or kidneys, even his eggs. Used in this way, it imparts a delightful piquancy to food, and is neither hot nor "spicy." Few people are so prejudiced as the English generally, and the stay-at-home Americans; but the latter are to be taught by travel, the Englishman rarely. The average Briton leaves his island shores with the conviction that he will get nothing fit to eat till he gets back, and that he will have to be uncommonly careful once across the channel, or he will be having fricasseed frogs palmed on him for chicken. Poor man! in his horror of frogs, he does not know that the Paris restaurateur who should give the costly frog for chicken, would soon end in the bankruptcy court. "If I could only get a decent dinner, a good roast and plain potato, I would like Paris much better," said an old Englishman to me once in that gay city. "But surely you can." "No; I have
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   >>  



Top keywords:

garlic

 

people

 
presence
 

suspicion

 

things

 

chicken

 

Englishman

 

prejudiced

 

pepper

 
English

remolade

 
Americans
 
average
 
Briton
 
travel
 

taught

 

rarely

 

kidneys

 

cayenne

 

imparts


delightful

 

generally

 

piquancy

 

dinner

 

potato

 

decent

 

bankruptcy

 

surely

 
costly
 

uncommonly


careful

 

island

 

shores

 

conviction

 
channel
 
horror
 

restaurateur

 
fricasseed
 
palmed
 

leaves


endless
 
recipe
 

require

 

appears

 

inveterate

 

delicate

 

handling

 

begged

 

readers

 

pronounced