THE COOKERY OF THE TROUT 253 



appreciation of a plain dish, one should stick to 

 boiling or frying, and that was the opinion of Sir 

 Humphry Davy, who was as much the philosopher 

 with the fish-kettles as over his chemical furnaces. 

 When he had just given elaborate instructions as 

 to the al fresco crimping of the salmon, he says 

 decidedly as to a noble trout, in answer to a question 

 from the inquisitive Physicus, who was always eager 

 for instruction, 'We will have him fried.' And at the 

 dinner afterwards, when he righteously forbade Harvey 

 Sauce for the salmon, he only admitted for the trout 

 a little vinegar and mustard in fact, the elements 

 of an a la Tartare without the onions. And the 

 Ettrick Shepherd, who kept open house above lone 

 St. Mary's Loch, between Ettrick and Yarrow, in a 

 streamland then almost fabulously fischreich, pro- 

 tested at a banquet in Ambrose's blue parlour ' that 

 he devoured dixzens and dizzens every week in 

 the family, maistly done in the pan, with plenty o' 

 fresh butter and roun' meal.' The poet of the forest 

 had the root of the matter in him. So we have had 

 them at many an improvised dinner or supper, in 

 many a Highland or Irish hostelry, having generally 

 taken the precaution of being our own trout purveyor. 

 The Irish bacon might Ix; a trifle rancid, and Irish 

 potatoes are too often impostures, superbly mealy on 



