The thorough good cook

Self and partner occasionally try precisely such a relish at home ; only, instead of putting the mincemeat into skins, we stone some olives and dexterously stuff them with the mixture, serving them at the beginning, and not at the end, of the repast, on little discs of thin toast, delicately endued Avith anchovy butter. A mince, as we ordinarily understand it, is practically a* "sausage" at largo," that is to say, emancipated from its skin, served hot Avith a little gravy, and in most cases accompanied by a poaclied egg, and garnished with sippets round tlie dish. Alexandre Dumas the elder, in his "Dictionary of Cookery," defines minces as minutely chopped meat with a border round it of chicory, prepared with cream, and says that minced roebuck should make its appearance at table with a purée of mushrooms ; but we do not habitually mince venison in England. We hash it, and the French have no exact equivalent for our hash. To minced beef, Alexandre very properly assigns a sauce piquante. Here is the recipe, not from Dumas, but from my own culinary pharmacopoeia : — Two tablespoonfuls of chopped onions in a stew-pan, with four of good malt vinegar (see that you get it) and a small piece of glaze ; boil together a few minutes, then add a pint of brown sauce and half a pint of broth; stir quickly over a sharp fire till the sauce adheres to the back of the spoon; then add a teaspoonful of chopped mushrooms and a tablespoonful of chopped gherkins ; it is now ready to use. This sauce must be seasoned rather highly with Nepaul pepper, and salt, and a little sugar. Don't pour it over your minced beef, which should be served not very moist, and accompanied by the usual poached eggs; but have your sauce separately in a boat. Some ladies will not tolerate the chopped gherkins, the onions, the pepper. When boiled beef is minced, the French call it a miroiton, a term which they also apply to stewed fruit. Cheese. David, we all know, carried loaves and cheese to his brethren, and perhaps the cheese gave him additional vigour when he encountered Goliath of Gath. I suppose there has rarely been a period in the world's history, since it has had any history to speak of, when cheese has not been eaten in some fonn or another : but I maintain that although we English people consume every year an enormous quantity of cheese, we are miserably behind foreign nations in employing this succulent and wholesome article of food in our cookery ; and it is for this reason that I have given some cheese recipes.*