bills of fare may be of service to persons who order dinners from professional cooks.
It is exceedingly difficult and often entirely impossible to give models of bills of fare that can be executed easily. Tastes, and means, and skill, and servants, and accessibility to the market all differ. So, then, in order to help my readers, as much as possible, I shall give them three bills of fare instead of one, so that they may select according to their own taste and to the amount of money they wish to spend.
When I speak of the amount of money to be spent, I do not mean that money alone can make a good dinner; far from it; a clever cook can prepare an elegant dinner with one fifth of the money that is often spent by a poor cook to prepare only indigestible and tasteless dishes.
Let my readers bear in mind that the best cook in the world cannot prepare a good dinner in a few hours; therefore, let them make their bills of fare two or three days in advance, in order to enable the cook to do the work properly. There are many dishes which are much better when made in advance; and, moreover, if thus timely prepared, they cost less.
I do not need to say that the preparing of a perfect bill of fare requires both skill and study. The art is to so arrange the different courses that there shall always be maintained a nice balance between them. The savage falls to on whatever is first set before him, and proceeds to gorge himself. But the civilized man, the gastronomer, observes fixed laws in the order of his dishes: he never overloads his stomach and dulls his palate by partaking too much of one dish or set of dishes; but always so arranges the succession of dishes that the taste is constantly diverted and stimulated by variety. As I have before this said, a dinner, no matter how grand it may be—whether it is designed for two, or two hundred persons—is composed of seven kinds of dishes—potage, hors d'œuvres, relevés, entrées, rôtis (or, roast pieces,) entremets, and dessert. Of course, infinite variety may be obtained under this general division. But the order is fixed by sound gastronomical laws, and cannot be changed without injury to health, or the impairing of the pleasure of the repast.
Here, in advance, I may say something about wines. No kind of drink should be taken before eating. I protest against "cocktails," "bitters," etc. But after the soup, let us have our light claret, or German wine. Mix it with water, if you care more for your good digestion than for momentary gratification. A glass of Madeira it is well to take just before the rôti. With the rôti, a superior and richer wine (Chateau Margaux, for instance) is drunk (mixed with water, by the gastronomer). With the dessert comes champagne, which, of course, is not diluted with water. Our din-
