Now is not this a recipe worth studying?
If variety has any claim to one's attention, this
mixture ought to stand high in our consideration.
Every kind of herb or plant seemed fit for
"sallet," according to our accomplisht cook. If
he had recommended hay-seeds or thistlebuds
we should not have felt surprised.
Purslan, cloves, jilly-flowers, rampons, ellick-
sander buds, samphire, charvel, cucumber,
boild collyflower, burnet, burrage, endive,
lettice, fruits of all kinds, everything that
grows, in short, mingled together, and mixed
up with salt, sugar, oil and vinegar. A most
catholic, taste, to say the least of it; but
really more sensible than our silly daintiness
which permits a wide wealth of food to rot at
our feet because of some absurd, prejudice or
most unworthy ignorance. Yet, at first sight
—and at first taste too, one would imagine—
much of the material of that day would be
unpalateable. For who would dream of
shell-bread ?—positively muscle-shells!—
muscle-shells "toasted in butter melted, when
they be baked, then boiled in melted sugar,
as you boil a simnell (the present name
for a certain Shrewsbury cake); then lay
them on the bottom of a wooden sieve,
and they will eat as crisp as a wafer."
The rest of this shell-bread is made of a
quarter of a pound of rice flower, a quarter
of a pound of fine flower, the yolks of four
new laid eggs, a little rose-water, and a
grain of musk; make these into a paste, then
roul it very thin, and bake it in great muscle-
shells (we have already had the receipt for
the management of these). There is a
receipt, too, for bean-bread, which is made of
aniseeds, musk, and blanched almonds; why
called bean-bread is difficult to say.

These cinnamon toasts are not bad. " Cut
fine thin toasts, then toast them on a gridiron,
and lay them in ranks in a dish, put to
them some fine beaten cinamon, mixed with
sugar and some claret, warm them over the
fire, and serve them hot." Here are French
toasts, too, tolerable in their way: " Cut
French bread, and toast it in pretty thick
toasts on a clean gridiron, and serve them
steeped in claret, sack, or any wine, with
sugar and juyce of orange." Do you want a
sauce—or souce, as our accomplisht hath it
—for a hare?

"Beaten cinamon, nutmegs, ginger, pepper,
boiled prunes, and corrans strained, muskified
bisket; bread beaten into powder, sugar
and cloves, all boild up as thick as water-
grewel."

Another sauce much like this is to be
"boild up to an indifferency; " and another
is to "have a walm or two over the fire."
Mustard is to be ground in a "mustard
quern, or a boul with a cannon-bullet," and
made into little loaves or cakes to carry in
one's pocket. Then, there are odd ways of
making vinegar. You are to take bramble
bryers when they are half ripe, dry them,
and make them into powder; with a little
strong vinegar, make little balls, and dry
them in the sun, and when you will use
them, take wine and heat it, put in some of
the ball, or a whole one, and it will be turned
very speedily into strong vinegar. This is a
good pendant to the mustard cakes. At this
rate a man might carry his whole store-closet
in his pocket. In making vinegar you are
to put your firkin full of good white wine
in the sun, "on the leads of a house or
gutter." Or you are to put into this firkin, a
beet-root, medlars, cervices, mulberries,
unripe flowers, a slice of barley bread hot out
of the oven, or the blossoms of cervices in
their season: dry them in the sun in a glass
vessel, in the manner of rose vinegar; fill
up the glass with clear wine vinegar, white
or claret wine, or set it in the sun or in a
chimney by fhe fire. .There are sugar or
honey sops to be met with in Cumberland to
this day. Very delicious, and uncommonly
bilious eating. Then, there is " broth for a
sick body;" and to "stew a cock against a
consumption;" and "to distill a pig good against a
consumption;" and another " excellent broth
or drink for a sick body," and immediately
following, another " strong broth for a sick
party," and an excellent restorative for a
weak back, of, " the leaves of clary and nepe,
fried with the yolks of eggs, and eat to
breakfast.

We might multiply Robert May's oddities
in his Art and Mystery of Cooking, until
we had given every recipe in his book.
They are all in the same style as those
we have copied. Cumbersome, quaint,
profuse, coarse, they are fit for the time which
countenanced the gross practical jokes and
rough pleasures of the Trophy and Triumph
we have spoken of; but, there is also a lordly
lavishness about them that brings up pleasant
pictures of the baronial magnificence of olden
times, and somewhat shames the smaller, if
more elegant hospitality of to-day. Live
frogs, live birds, and live snakes, are not the
most pleasant guests at a dinner-table; but, the
open-handed desire to show honour to their
friends, and to give happiness and pleasure,
was some counterbalance to the coarseness of
our ancestors. Passing by the bad taste
which took delight in such vandalisms, we
might perhaps find some useful hints in our
old cookery-book. Certainly we might learn
one good lesson—how to make use of every
available article of food; how to multiply
our present resources, and turn into nourishment
and use, material now left wasting by
the side of men dying of hunger.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN VOLUMES
OF

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,
WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE.

Price of the Set, thus bound in Five Double instead of Ten
Single Volumes, £2 10s. 0d.