HISTORY AND COOKERY 85 



boil for twenty minutes. Drain them and serve with a 

 simple sauce. 



Instead of being served as a plain vegetable, the 

 boiled artichokes may be mashed with a little butter, 

 well-beaten egg, pepper and salt, placed in a buttered 

 pie-dish, surmounted with a layer of grated cheese, and 

 baked. Or the artichokes, when nearly boiled, may be 

 cut into quarter inch slices, dipped in butter, and fried 

 to a pale brown colour, which will take from five to ten 

 minutes. Artichokes may be baked in butter (an ounce 

 to six tubers) in a hot oven, the time occupied being 

 from twenty-five to forty-five minutes. Keep well 

 basted and season with salt and pepper. 



Onions and Leeks 



In his " Queen of the Air," Ruskin attributes the 

 degradation of peasant life very largely to the use of 

 the rank-scented onion and garlic. This doctrine is, of 

 course, merely ridiculous, but it is in accordance with our 

 national traditions, for throughout English literature we 

 find frequent references to the grossness of the odours 

 of these herbs. One recalls Bottom's directions to the 

 clowns : " Most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, 

 for we are to utter sweet breath " ; and Hotspur's : 

 " I had rather live with cheese and garlic in a windmill." 

 But it was in no carping spirit of criticism that the 

 Israelites muttered regretfully, "We remember the 

 garlic we did eat in Egypt," and indeed, onions and 

 garlic were highly ranked both as delicacies and as heal- 

 alls many thousand years before the birth of Christ. So 

 sacred was the position of the onion in ancient Egypt 

 that Juvenal evidently had the idea that it was con- 

 sidered too sacred to be eaten. 



" Porrum et caepe nefas violare, aut frangere morsu." 



