THE ART OF COOKING GAME. 435 



jealous eye, and in most persons is the very first to strike the 

 alarm at the presence of gross or badly-cooked food ; and it has 

 been most justly remarked that "he that would have a clear head 

 must have a clean stomach^ 



If such be the foct, and no one certainly will dispute it, how 

 necessary is it that we should not only regard the quality of our 

 food, but that we should have an eye to the proper preparation 

 of it by the Cook, before receiving it into so important an organ 

 as the stomach. AVe do not now address our remarks to those 

 whose health is so robust, and whose habits and associations in 

 life have been such, as to force them to remain happy and con- 

 tented with the coarsest fare, and whose stomachs consequently 

 have attained the vigor of an Ostrich or the capacity of an Ana- 

 conda ; for such individuals, we know full well, would naturally 

 accuse us of over-refinement and ridiculous nicety. Neither do 

 we wish to encourage or uphold in their effeminate opinions 

 those delicate and Epicurean dandies who cannot enjoy a meal 

 beyond the vile precincts of an eating-house, or the luxurious 

 saloons of a club-room, or whose pampered stomachs are never 

 sated, save when tempted with all the niceties that the markets 

 can produce, artistically concocted into savory steics^ outlandish 

 fncandeaux, greasy ragoCds^ high-sounding fricassees^ and gamy 

 salmis. 



Such fellows as these latter, whose brains, what little they 

 may possess, as well as their hearts, are located in their bellies, 

 are objects rather of our commiseration, and wholly beneath the 

 notice of any sensible man, save that, like Peacocks at the Grand 

 congregation of the feathered race, they serve the purpose, occa- 

 sionally, of adorning a dinner table, of amusing the good-natured 

 host by their senseless friponnerie^ or perhaps, by the staleness 

 of their wit and the dulness of their speech, of setting off' the 

 more cultivated ye?<a: d'' esprit of some favored hon compagnon. 



In fact, we have an utter abhorrence for a man in good health 

 who cannot "rough and tumble it," in perfect good-humor, for a 

 few days, when circumstances seem to require it, whether it be 

 to repose one's wearied limbs even upon a shaggy buffalo robe, 

 under the wide canopy of a starless heaven, or to stretch them 

 on the soft and downy feathers of a luxurious bed, surrounded 

 by all the gaudy trappings of an ambitious Upholsterer; whether 



