MEATS. 471 
with a pieman once, Sir, and a wery nice man he were: regular 
clever chap, too! make pies out of anything, he could! ‘ What 
a number of cats you keep, Mr. Brooks,’ says I, when I got 
intimate with him. ‘ Ah,’ says he, ‘I do, a good many,’ says 
he. ‘You must be wery fond of cats,’ says I. ‘ Other people 
is,’ says he, winking at me. ‘ They aint in season, though, till 
the winter,’ says he. ‘ Not in season?’ says I. ‘No,’ says he; 
fruits is in, cats is out.’ ‘Why, what do you mean?’ says 
I. ‘Mean?’ says he. ‘Mr. Weller,’ says he, a squeezing my 
hand very hard, and vispering in my ear, ‘ don’t mention this 
’ere again, but it’s the seasonin’ as does it; they’re all made 
of them noble animals,’ says he, a pointin’ to a wery nice little 
tabby kitten ; ‘and I seasons ’em for beefsteak, weal, or kidney, 
’cording to the demand; and, more than that,’ says he, ‘I can 
make a weal a beefsteak, or a beefsteak a kidney, or any one 
on ‘em a mutton, at a minute’s notice, just as the market changes, 
and appetites vary.’” Veal, though not of an exciting nature, 
is nevertheless difficult to be digested by most persons, and 
should not be permitted in complaints of the stomach. At the 
same time it is the most delicate in flavour of all meats, though ( 
sometimes provoking nettlerash, or other outbreaks on the skin. 
In The Newcomes (Thackeray) we read of “the famous Veal 
cutlets which Miss Martha Honeyman used to prepare with 
her own hands, to be offered on the shrine of Colonel Newcome 
when he posted down from London to pay her a flying visit.” 
Again, Lear relates in his Book of Nonsense :— 
*“ There was an old man of Three Bridges, 
Whose mind was distracted by midges ; 
He sat on a wheel, eating underdone veal, 
Which relieved that old man of Three Bridges.” 
On January Ist, 1661, Pepys “supped with Mr. Pierce, the 
purser, and his wife, and mine, where we had a calf’s head 
carboned, but it was raw: we could not eat it; and a good hen. 
But she is such a slut that I do not love her victuals.” Lemon- 
juice, and a stuffing of herbs, aid the digestion of Veal. “ Good 
Veal stuffing !—reflect !—is in itself a triumph of culinary 
instinct ; so bland is it, and yet so powerful upon the gastric 
juices! Did I call Veal insipid ? But it is only so in comparison 
with English beef, and mutton. When I think of the ‘ brown’ 
on the edge of a cut of really fine Veal!’ (Henry Ryecroft). 
Ignotus, the physician, has commended Veal broth maigre 
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