The Life of the Fly 



tory of the stewpan, the doubtful mushroom 

 can be eaten without fear. 



But this, you will tell me, is a system of 

 cookery fit for savages : the treatment with 

 boiling water will reduce the mushrooms to a 

 mash; it will take away all their flavour and 

 all their succulence. That is a complete mis- 

 take. The mushroom stands the ordeal ex- 

 ceedingly well. I have described my failure to 

 subdue the cepes when I was trying to obtain 

 an extract from them. Prolonged boiling, 

 with the aid of bicarbonate of soda, so far 

 from reducing them to a mess, left them very 

 nearly intact. The other mushrooms whose 

 size entitles them to culinary consideration 

 offer the same degree of resistance. In the 

 second place, there is no loss of succulence and 

 hardly any of flavour. Moreover, they be- 

 come much more digestible, which is a most 

 important condition in a dish generally so 

 heavy for the stomach. For this reason, it is 

 the custom, in my family, to treat them one 

 and all with boiling water, including even the 

 glorious imperial. 



I am a Philistine, it is true, a barbarian car- 

 ing little for the refinements of cookery. I am 

 not thinking of the epicure, but of the frugal 



man, the husbandman especially. I should 



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