40 MORE POT-POURRI 



meant a prescription, and it always seems to me a slight 

 affectation when I see it in a cookery book. I believe 

 'receipt' to be quite as old and good a word used in this 

 sense. In an old cookery book of mine, which was 

 written by a lady and published in 1770, the word is 

 spelt 'receipt.' 



I take a great interest in cooks, and am always most 

 anxious to help them, having agreed from my youth 

 upwards with Owen^ Meredith's delicious lines in 

 'Lucile' : 



We may live without poetry, music, and art; 



We may live without conscience, and live without heart ; 



We may live without friends ; we may live without books ; 



But civilised man cannot live without cooks. 



He may live without books what is knowledge but grieving ? 



He may live without hope what is hope but deceiving ? 



He may live without love what is passion but pining ? 



But where is the man that can live without dining ? 



There have been some complaints about the cooking 

 receipts not being exact enough. I had tried them all 

 myself, and with success, with several cooks, but I do 

 not deny they were intended for those who understood 

 cooking sufficiently to refer to more detailed books when 

 they felt themselves to be ignorant. I shall continue to 

 refer to ' Dainty Dishes' (by Lady Harriet St. Clair) as I 

 did before, and without it my receipts are incomplete. 

 Cooks differ very much in how they follow receipts. 

 Some try to do it literally, but without judgment as 

 regards increasing or decreasing quantities according to 

 the number for whom they have to cook. Other cooks 

 accept a receipt with the distinct conviction that their 

 own way is far the best, and naturally then the new 

 receipt does not turn out very satisfactorily. A good 

 many cooks carry out a receipt very well the first time, 

 and then think they know it by heart, and in a high- 



