is? Simply a faggot of vegetables, named after a notorious cuckold of noble birth in the time of Louis XV. Two carrots, two onions, two shalots, two bay-leaves, a sprig of thyme and a clove of garlic. Mince very small, with half a pound of fat bacon, half a pound of raw ham, pepper and salt, and a little butter. Add a sufficiency of white wine. In this mixture cook two dozen crayfish for twenty minutes, continually tossing them about till red, when take them out to cool. Shell them, all but the claws, which should be pounded in a mortar and mixed with butter. The flesh of the tails is reserved to be put in the soup at the last minute; the body-flesh goes back into the _mirepoix_, to which two quarts of broth are now added. Add the pounded shells to the soup, simmer for an hour and a half, strain, heat up, add a piece of butter, the tails, a seasoning of cayenne, and a few _quenelles_ of whiting. _Vol-au-vent Financière._--This always reminds me of the fearful threat hurled by the waiter in the "Bab Ballads" at his flighty sweetheart: "Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu oses, Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère: Je lui dirai d'quoi on compose Vol-au-vent à la Financière!" Make your crust--light as air, and flaky as snow, an you value your situation--and fill with button mushrooms, truffles, cock's-combs, _quenelles_ of chicken, and sweetbread, all chopped, seasoned, and moistened with a butter sauce. Brown gravy is objectionable. Garnish the _Vol_ with fried parsley, which goes well with most luxuries of this sort. There are some words which occur frequently in French cookery which, to the ordinary perfidious Briton, are cruelly misleading. For years I was under the impression that _Brillat Savarin_ was a species of filleted fish (brill) in a rich gravy, instead of a French magistrate, who treated gastronomy poetically, and always ate his food too fast. And only within the last decade have I discovered what a _Pré Salé_ really means. Literally, it is "salt meadow, or marsh." It is said that sheep fed on a salt marsh make excellent mutton; but is it not about time for Britannia, the alleged pride of the ocean, and ruler of its billows, to put her foot down and protest against a leg of "prime Down"--but recently landed from the Antipodes--being described on the card as a _Gigot de pré salé_? The meals, like the ways, of the "Heathen Chinee" are peculiar. Some of his food, to quote poor Corney Grain, is "absolutely beastly." _Li Hung Chang_