"By boiling dripping with onions, garlic, and spices; a good table-spoonful of this gives a nice taste to water, and you add every kind of vegetable you can obtain, and eat it with brown bread steeped in it. The very poor abroad almost live on it, and those who are better off take a sou from those who have no fire, _pour tremper leur soupe_; and surely on a cold day this hot mess is more acceptable to the stomach than cold bread and cheese." "You seem very fond of onions with every thing." "Yes; they make every thing taste well: now _crevettes_, what you call shrimps, how good they are with onions!" "How! onions with shrimps!--what an odd combination! Tell me how to dress this curious dish." "When the shrimps are boiled, shell them, take a pint or a quart, according to your family; make a rout, adding pepper; jump (_sautez_) them in it, adding, as they warm, minced parsley; when quite hot, take them off the fire, and stir round among them a good spoonful of sour cream. _Pois de prud'homme_ and _pois mange-tout_ are dressed the same, leaving out the flour and pepper." "I don't know what _pois_ you mean." "The _prud'hommes_, when they first come in, are like lupin-pods, and contain little square white beans. You do not shell them till they are quite old, and then they are good also, but not nearly so good or so wholesome as in the green pods. The _pois tirer_ or _mange-touts_ are just like every other pea--only as you can eat the pods, you have them full three weeks before the others are ready, and a few handfuls make a good dish: you must take the string off both, as you do with kidney-beans, unless when young." "I suppose you eat the white dry beans which are to be bought at the French shop here." "No, never: they don't agree with me, nor indeed are they very digestible for any but strong workers." "How should they be dressed?" "Steeped from five to twelve hours; boiled till tender; then jumped with butter and parsley in a pan after draining well; and milk and an egg stirred in them off the fire, or what is much better, a little sour cream or thick buttermilk. They eat well with roast mutton, and are much more delicate than the red beans, which, however, I have never seen sold in this country." "Do you drink tea?" "I would do so were I confined to the wishy-washy stuff people of my rank in England call coffee--bad in itself, and worse prepared." "How do _you_ manage?"