5 2o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cheese completes the repast. Such a meal contains within its limits 

 all that can be desired for daily enjoyment and use. If well and lib- 

 erally served, it is complete in every sense of the word. Dessert and 

 its extent is a matter of individual taste ; of wines, coffee, and liqueurs 

 I shall speak hereafter. 



A word about hors-d'oeuvres. It is well known that the custom 

 exists to a very wide extent among Continental nations of commenc- 

 ing either mid-day dejeuner or dinner by eating small portions of cold 

 pickled fish, vegetables, of highly-flavored sausage thinly sliced, etc., 

 to serve, it is said, as a whet to appetite. This custom reaches its 

 highest development in the zakuska of the Russian, which, consisting 

 of numerous delicacies of the kind mentioned, is sometimes to be 

 found occupying a table in an anteroom to be passed between the 

 drawing-room and dining-room ; or, and more commonly, spread on 

 the sideboard of the latter. The Russian eats a little from three or 

 four dishes at least, and " qualifies " with a glass of strong grain-spirit 

 [vodka) or of some liqueur before taking his place at the table. 

 Among these savory preliminaries may often be found caviare in its 

 fresh state, gray, pearly, succulent, and delicate, of which most of the 

 caviare found in this country is, speaking from personal experience of 

 both, but as the shadow to the substance. 



I have no hesitation in saying, after much consideration of the 

 practice of thus commencing a meal, that it has no raison d'etre for 

 persons with healthy appetite and digestion. For them, both pickled 

 food and spirit are undesirable, at any rate on an empty stomach. 

 And the hors-d'oeuvres, although attempts to transplant them here are 

 often made, happily do not, as far as I have observed, thrive on our 

 soil. They have been introduced here chiefly, I think, because their 

 presence, being demanded by foreign gastronomic taste, is supposed 

 to be, therefore, necessarily correct. But the active exercise and 

 athletic habits of the Englishman, his activity of body and mind in 

 commercial pursuits, all tend to bring him to the dinner-table wanting 

 food rather than appetite, and in no mind to ask for " whets " to in- 

 crease it. Among idle men, whose heavy lunch, liberally accompanied 

 with wine and not followed by exercise, has barely disappeared from 

 the stomach at the hour of dinner, a piquant prelude as stimulus of 

 appetite is more appreciated. Hence the original invention of hors- 

 dceuvres ; and their appearance in a very much slighter and more 

 delicate form than that which has been described, still to be observed 

 in connection with the chief repasts of the Latin races. The one plate 

 which heralds dinner, indigenous to our country, is also one of its own 

 best products the oyster. But this is scarcely a hors-d'oeuvre. In 

 itself a single service of exquisite quality, served with attendant graces 

 of delicate French vinegar, brown bread and butter, and a glass of 

 light chablis for those who take it, the half-dozen natives occupying 

 the hollow shells, and bathed in their own liquor, hold rank of a very 



