ON THE COOKING OF FISH. 271 



CHAPTEE XIV. 



ON THE COOKING OF FISH. 



I WILL now touch, briefly on a branch of my subject 

 which appears to me to be one of no little importance : 

 I allude to the cooking of fish generally. Upon our 

 methods of cooking the better sort of fish, save as 

 regards the waste committed when cooking them, I 

 need not touch. A Blackwall dinner is, of itself, evi- 

 dence sufficient that our great cooks know the art 

 to some extent ; but it is our little cooks that fall so 

 terribly off from that which they should be. 



Take the subject in its broad sense, what can be 

 worse than the cookery of the great mass of the 

 poor? Literally, they know nothing about cooking; 

 and the producing of simple, palatable, wholesome, 

 and inexpensive dishes is a profound mystery to 

 them. Many points of distinction have been set 

 forward between savage life and what is termed 

 civilization. Perhaps none is so characteristic and 

 striking as the preparing of food, or " cookery," in the 



