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ON CARVING.

You reproach me for not having said a word about carving; I have not done so, as I think that is an accomplishment which our sex need not study, but at the same time it is well to know a little of it. It is rather difficult to give you a correct description without drawings, but a few general remarks may be useful.

Cut Beef, Veal, Ham, Tongue, and Breasts of Poultry, with a sharp knife, very thin; Mutton, Lamb, and Pork rather thicker.

Never rise from your seat to carve ; never cut across the grain of the meat, that is, not across the ribs of beef, as I have seen some persons do, and Mr. B. tells me is often done at clubs, but it is only those do so who do not know how to carve or appreciate the true flavour of the meat.

Never place a fork through the back of a fowl, in order to carve the leg and wings, but run the knife gently down each side the breast, detaching the leg and wing at the same time, which is greatly facilitated by the use of the Tendon Separator-one of which I purchased at Bramah's, in Piccadilly; it is the greatest boon ever conferred on a bad carver: the directions for using it are given with it. If it was more generally used, there would be no more birds flying across the table in the faces of guests; no more turkeys deposited in a lady's or gentleman's lap; no more splashing of gravy to spoil satin dresses; but all would be divided with the greatest facility, and in the most elegant manner, and the poultry would look much better at table.

Never cut up the body of poultry at table, that should always be left; but game should be cut up, as many epicures prefer the backbone. For a sirloin of beef, the under part of the loin should always be cut when hot, and the upper part cut straight from the backbone towards the outside of the ribs ; by this plan you will not spoil the appearance of the joint.

Ribs of Beef should be carved in the same way, cutting thin and slanting. Round of Beef: cut a slice half an inch thick from the outside, and then carve thin slices, with a little fat.

Aitch-bone, the same.

Fillet of Veal, the same.

Loin of Veal, carve as the Sirloin of Beef, serving some of the kidney and fat to each person.

Shoulder of Veal; begin from the knuckle, cut thin and slanting.

Saddle of Mutton will, if properly carved, serve a great many persons; instead of cutting a long slice the whole length, put your knife under the meat and cut it away from the bone, then cut it like thin chops, serving lean and fat together; according to the usual plan, a saddle of mutton will serve

but few people, and the flavour of the meat is not so good as when served this way.

Necks and Loins: the bones should be severed by a small meat-saw, and not a chopper, and the bone cut through when serving, and carve slanting. Haunches are usually carved by making a cut near the knuckle, and cutting a slice from that through the loin; but by a plan I have adopted, I find that the meat eats better, and the joint goes farther, I carve it like the leg and saddle, that is, I cut a slice out of the leg part and a slice from the loin, and serve together. This is more economical, but would not do for venison.

Lamb.-For Leg and Shoulders, proceed as for Mutton. The ribs, when well prepared and the bones properly separated, carve into cutlets, and serve with a piece of the brisket.

Quarter of Lamb: the ribs should be sawed through, and the bones disjointed previous to cooking. The shoulder should be then nicely removed, the seasoning added; then divide the ribs and serve one part of the brisket to each person.

Pork proceed like the Mutton.

In carving a Ham, remove a thick slice, of about one inch, flat cut slantways from the knuckle-end--a Tongue, begin three inches from the tip, and cut thin slanting slices.

LETTER No. XXVI.

THE SEPTUAGENARIAN EPICURE.

MY DEAR ELOISE,-Having now arrived at the conclusion of our labours, during which you have in many instances thought me rather severe, and perhaps too exigeant in my remarks, especially about the selection, preparation, and cooking of food in general, which even to the last I must maintain, that for want of judgment and a little care, the greatest part of the nutrition of our aliments is often destroyed, which constitutes a considerable waste, being of no good to any one, but an evil to everybody; and when you consider the monstrous quantity of food our fragile bodies consume in this sublunary sphere during the course of our life, the truth of my observation will be more apparent, and make you agree with me that in every instance people ought really to devote more time, care, and personal attention to their daily subsistence, it being the most expensive department through life of human luxury. I shall, for example, give you a slight and correct idea of it, which I am confident you never before conceived. For this I shall propose to take seventy years of the life of an epicure, beyond which age many of that class of "bon vivants” arrive, and even above eighty, still in the full enjoyment of degustation, &c. (for example, Talleyrand, Cambacérès, Lord Sefton, &c.); if the first of the said epicures, when entering on the tenth

spring of his extraordinary career, had been placed on an eminence, say, the top of Primrose hill, and had had exhibited before his infantine eyes the enormous quantity of food his then insignificant person would destroy before he attained his seventy-first year,-first, he would believe it must be a delusion; then, secondly, he would inquire, where the money could come from to purchase so much luxurious extravagance? But here I shall leave the pecuniary expenses on one side, which a man of wealth can easily surmount when required. So now, dearest, for the extraordinary fact: imagine on the top of the above-mentioned hill a rushlight of a boy just entering his tenth year, surrounded with the recherché provision and delicacies claimed by his rank and wealth, taking merely the medium consumption of his daily meals. By closely calculating, he would be surrounded and gazed at by the following number of quadrupeds, birds, fishes, &c. :-By no less than 30 oxen, 200 sheep, 100 calves, 200 lambs, 50 pigs; in poultry, 1,200 fowls, 300 turkeys, 150 geese, 400 ducklings, 263 pigeons; 1,400 partridges, pheasants, and grouse; 600 woodcocks and snipes; 600 wild ducks, widgeon, and teal; 450 plovers, ruffes, and reeves; 800 quails, ortolans, and dotterels, and a few guillemôts and other foreign birds; also 500 hares and rabbits, 40 deer, 120 Guinea fowl, 10 peacocks, and 360 wild fowl. In the way of fish, 120 turbot, 140 salmon, 120 cod, 260 trout, 400 mackerel, 300 whitings, 800 soles and slips, 400 flounders, 400 red mullet, 200 eels, 150 haddocks, 400 herrings, 5,000 smelts, and some hundred thousand of those delicious silvery whitebait, besides a few hundred species of fresh-water fishes. In shell-fish, 20 turtle, 30,000 oysters, 1,500 lobsters or crabs, 300,000 prawns, shrimps, sardines, and anchovies. In the way of fruit, about 500 lbs. of grapes, 360 lbs. of pine-apples, 600 peaches, 1,400 apricots, 240 melons, and some hundred thousand plums, greengages, apples, pears, and some millions of cherries, strawberries, raspberries, currants, mulberries, and an abundance of other small fruit, viz., walnuts, chesnuts, dry figs, and plums. In vegetables of all kinds, 5,475 pounds weight, and about 2,434 pounds of butter, 684 pounds of cheese, 21,000 eggs, 800 do. plovers'. Of bread, 4 tons, half a ton of salt and pepper, near 24 tons of sugar; and, if he had happened to be a covetous boy, he could have formed a fortification or moat round the said hill with the liquids he would have to partake of to facilitate the digestion of the above-named provisions, which would amount to no less than 10,816 gallons, which may be taken as below:-49 hogsheads of wine, 1,3683 gallons of beer, 584 gallons of spirits, 342 liqueur, 2,394 gallons of coffee, cocoa, tea, &c., and 304 gallons of milk, 2,736 gallons of water, all of which would actually protect him and his anticipated property from any young thief or fellow schoolboy, like Alexandre Dumas had protected Dante and his immense treasure from the pirates in his island of Monte Christo. You now, dearest, fancy that I am exaggerating in every way; but to convince you, and to prevent your puzzling your brain to no purpose, I also enclose you a

⚫medium scale of the regular meals of the day, from which I have taken my basis, and in sixty years it amounts to no less than 59 tons, 5 cwts., 1 quar. 203 lbs. weight of meat, farinaceous food, vegetables, liquids, &c.; out of which I have named in detail the probable delicacies that would be selected by an epicure through life. But observe that I did not count the first ten years of his life, at the beginning of which he lived upon pap, bread and milk, &c., also a little meat, the expense of which I add to the age from ten to twenty, as no one can really be called an epicure before that age; it will thus make the expenses more equal as regards the calculation. The following is the list of what I consider his daily meals:

Breakfast. Three quarters of a pint of coffee, four ounces of bread, one ounce of butter, two eggs, or four ounces of meat, or four ounces of fish. Lunch. Two ounces of bread, two ounces of meat, or poultry, or game, two ounces of vegetables, and half a pint of beer or a glass of wine.

Dinner. Half a pint of soup, a quarter of a pound of fish, half a pound of meat, a quarter of a pound of poultry, a quarter of a pound of savoury dishes or game, two ounces of vegetables, two ounces of bread, two ounces of pastry or roasts, half an ounce of cheese, a quarter of a pound of fruit, one pint of wine, one glass of liqueur, one cup of coffee or tea; at night one glass of spirits and water.

Now that I have given you these important details, perhaps you will give me some little credit for my exaction and severity respecting the attention which ought to be daily paid to the indispensable and useful art of cookery by our middle classes. I shall also observe to you, that those masses of provisions above described in the exposé of sixty years, have been selected, dressed, and served, by scientific hands, every real epicure choosing through life the best cook, and consequently the best of provisions, which, had they have fallen into the hands of inexperienced persons, would very likely have wasted one-third, thereby increasing the expenses, and never giving any real satisfaction to the consumer; therefore let us act in a small way as becomes us, as the wealthy do according to their incomes; let every housekeeper devote more time to the study of domestic and practical economy; and in many instances it will increase their incomes as well as their daily comforts, for as I remarked to you that the pleasures of the table being not only the most expensive part of human luxury, but also the soul of sociability, they require more attention bestowed upon them than is done at the present day.

Fare you well,

HORTENSE.