98 COACHING. 



heartily concur in this — is an attempt to trans- 

 mogrify native dishes into Continental ones by 

 what the newspaper advertisements term " a 

 professed woman cook," who is as fit to send up 

 a well-dressed filet de volaille a la Parisienne, 

 a Maintenon cotelette, or a Vol au vent a 

 la financiere as she would be to play a 

 match of polo at Hurlingham, or to take the 

 part of the Countess in the " Mariage de 

 Figaro.^' 



The plain and perfect English dinners in 

 bygone days generally consisted of mutton broth, 

 rich in meat and herbs ; fresh-water fish in 

 every form, eels stewed, fried, boiled, baked, 

 spitch-cocked, and water-suchet ; the purest 

 bread and freshest butter ; salmon and fennel 

 sauce; mackerel brought down by coach from 

 the Groves of London, with green gooseberries, 

 and the earliest cucumbers ; a saddle of South- 

 down, kept to a moment and done to a turn ; 

 mutton chops, hot and hot; marrow-bones; 

 Irish stews ; rump-steaks tender and juicy ; 

 chicken and ham, plum-pudding, fruit tarts, 

 trifles, and gooseberry-fool. Then the produce 

 of the grape — no thin, washy claret, at eighteen 

 shillings a dozen ; no fiery port, one day in 



