lemon-juice, or artificial lemon-juice, (see No. 407*),
&c. which are expected at all well-served tables.

Cooks, who are jealous of the reputation of their taste, and
housekeepers who value their health, will prepare these articles at
home: there are quite as many reasons why they should, as there are for
the preference usually given to home-baked bread and home-brewed beer,
&c.

N.B. The liver of the fish pounded and mixed with butter, with a little
lemon-juice, &c. is an elegant and inoffensive relish to fish (see No.
288). Mushroom sauce extempore (No. 307), or the soup of mock turtle
(No. 247), will make an excellent fish sauce.

On the comparatively nutritive qualities of fish, see N.B. to No. 181.

FOOTNOTES:

[86-*] When the cook has large dinners to prepare, and the time of
serving uncertain, she will get more credit by FRIED (see No. 145), or
stewed (see No. 164), than by BOILED fish. It is also cheaper, and much
sooner carved (see No. 145).

Mr. Ude, page 238 of his cookery, advises, "If you are obliged to wait
after the fish is done, do not let it remain in the water, but keep the
water boiling, and put the fish over it, and cover it with a damp cloth;
when the dinner is called for, dip the fish again in the water, and
serve it up."

The only circumstantial instructions yet printed for FRYING FISH, the
reader will find in No. 145; if this be carefully and nicely attended
to, you will have delicious food.

[86-+] They had salt-water preserves for feeding different kinds of
sea-fish; those in the ponds of Lucullus, at his death, sold for
25,000_l._ sterling. The prolific power of fish is wonderful: the
following calculations are from Petit, Block, and Leuwenhoeck:--

_Eggs._
A salmon of 20 pounds weight contained 27,850
A middling-sized pike 148,000
A mackerel 546,681
A cod 9,344,000

See _Cours Gastronomiques_, 18mo. 1806, p. 241.

[88-*] Fish are very frequently sent home frozen by the fishmonger, to
whom an ice-house is now as necessary an appendage (to preserve fish,)
as it is to a confectioner.

CHAPTER VII.

BROTHS AND SOUPS.

The cook must pay continual attention to the condition of her
stew-pans[89-*] and soup-kettles, &c. which should be examined every
time they are used. The prudent housewife will carefully examine the
conditi