49*^ The Book of tjie Horse. 



The nominal dinner-hour may be fixed at seven or eight o'clock, not earlier than six, but 

 the whole menu should be capable of being set on the table in due rotation within thirty minutes 

 a ter the hunters are heard tramping into the yard to the accompaniment of a deep-sounding 

 table-bell. 



To carry out this theory of fox-hunters' dinners, it is evident that large dishes of such 

 boiled fish as cod, salmon, or turbot, or large joints of meat, that require a quarter of an 

 hour to the pound weight to roast, are quite unsuitable. The unfortunate cook who has 

 jjrepared a turbot and Dutch sauce, with a fine haunch of mutton to follow, for a seven o'clock 

 dinner, will find these pieces de n'sistance, with their vegetables, completely spoiled at eight 

 o'clock, and the same fate would await ill-chosen entrees. 



It may be taken for granted, that however late the hungry hunters arrive, half an hour 

 is the very least time in which they can exchange their hunting for their dining clothes. So 

 short a time as thirty minutes will only be made to suffice where a very long ride and arrival 

 home long after the nominal hour of dinner has made the manipulation of hair-brushes and 

 the tying of cravats a secondary consideration. But whatever the time allowed between the 

 arrival of the sportsmen and putting the first dish on the table, the bill of fare should be 

 fitted to it. 



I have assumed that, even where the party consists entirely of men, the wholesome rule 

 is insisted on that at the least no one shall sit down in his hunting-dress. 



At the celebrated hunting hotel, the Haycock, Wansford, in the good old times, it used 

 to be the rule that e\'ery one should dress for dinner, so that there should be no room for 

 the eccentricities of the lazy and slovenly ; and it proved to be a very good rule. 



The first course should be soup — a clear soup — because a potage is more easily digested 

 than a puree, which is thickened with flour of some kind. 



Formerly it might have been necessary to swell these pages with bills of fare ; but, in 

 the present day any lady who is her own housekeeper, and any housekeeper who is fit to 

 take charge of a bachelor's hunting-box, ought to be able to construct menus for every hunting 

 day that no amount of unpunctuality will spoil. 



There are, no doubt, very good sportsmen who are perfectly content with a soup prin- 

 cipally composed of hot water, grease, pepper, and wine ; fried fat chops from long-woolled 

 sheep, following a cod-fish boiled to rags. There are others who do not object to a perpetual 

 course of steak-and-kidney pudding or Irish stew, or who can satisfy the sacred pangs of 

 hunger on a cold joint, accompanied with potatoes boiled to starch ; but these lines are 

 addressed to those who like to dine, as distinguished from mere eating, once a day. and 

 are not content, like schoolboys and ploughboys, with anything, so long as there is plenty 

 of it. 



English cooks do not, as a rule, understand making soup with flavour and without grease. 

 For sportsmen there is nothing better than the French pot ait feu, which is ahva}'s at the 

 side of the fire simmering day and night. But if the cook is not strong in this department, 

 the Aberdeen tinned soups leave little to be desired by any reasonable person. 



The fish to follow the soup must be either fried, or stewed, or broiled. Frying soles, or 

 any other suitable fish, cut into small pieces, is only a matter of minutes, which may be done 

 while the soup' and glass of dry sherry are being discussed. The entrdes (one should be 

 enough) must be selected from the list of those which may be prepared all ready and cooked 

 within twenty minutes. This li.st includes cutlets, larks, and rissoles of various kinds. A 

 small braised joint of beef or mutton will stand stewing for an unlimited period, and form 



