dishes on
stems. The patterns and colours are also subject to changes of fashion;
some persons selecting china, chaste in pattern and colour; others,
elegantly-shaped glass dishes on stems, with gilt edges. The beauty of
the dessert services at the tables of the wealthy tends to enhance the
splendour of the plate. The general mode of putting a dessert on table,
now the elegant tazzas are fashionable, is, to place them down the
middle of the table, a tall and short dish alternately; the fresh fruits
being arranged on the tall dishes, and dried fruits, bon-bons, &c., on
small round or oval glass plates. The garnishing needs especial
attention, as the contrast of the brilliant-coloured fruits with
nicely-arranged foliage is very charming. The garnish _par excellence_
for dessert is the ice-plant; its crystallized dewdrops producing a
marvellous effect in the height of summer, giving a most inviting sense
of coolness to the fruit it encircles. The double-edged mallow,
strawberry, and vine leaves have a pleasing effect; and for winter
desserts, the bay, cuba, and laurel are sometimes used. In town, the
expense and difficulty of obtaining natural foliage is great, but paper
and composite leaves are to be purchased at an almost nominal price.
Mixed fruits of the larger sort are now frequently served on one dish.
This mode admits of the display of much taste in the arrangement of the
fruit: for instance, a pine in the centre of the dish, surrounded with
large plums of various sorts and colours, mixed with pears, rosy-cheeked
apples, all arranged with a due regard to colour, have a very good
effect. Again, apples and pears look well mingled with plums and grapes,
hanging from the border of the dish in a _neglige_ sort of manner, with
a large bunch of the same fruit lying on the top of the apples. A
dessert would not now be considered complete without candied and
preserved fruits and confections. The candied fruits may be purchased at
a less cost than they can be manufactured at home. They are preserved
abroad in most ornamental and elegant forms. And since, from the
facilities of travel, we have become so familiar with the tables of the
French, chocolate in different forms is indispensable to our desserts.

ICES.

510. Ices are composed, it is scarcely necessary to say, of congealed
cream or water, combined sometimes with liqueurs or other flavouring
ingredients, or more generally with the juices of fruits. At desserts,
or