That was why his friends set so much store by his gastronomic opinion--he was a great judge of food, he had it both from his Irish mother and his Cumberland father; he knew good meat when he saw it, as that astute friend of his, the Hertfordshire butcher already mentioned, would tell him; and no one appreciated this more than the late Lord Burnham. They both agreed that plain fare was always the finest--_but_ it must be of the best. A cold sirloin must be served uncut, yet the host of those memorable week-end parties at Hall Barn always knew whether it would be “prime” _when_ cut and would beg Joe to keep a good portion of his appetite for the tasting of it. Neither of them gave the first place to made-dishes, though Joe could enjoy these when perfect--as they were at that bountiful table. The made-dishes of unknown cooks he always mistrusted, especially when he had reason to fear that the dinner would be of what he called “the green-grocer’s and pastry-cook’s” class; and I remember his wicked assertion that his “inside was rattling like a pea in a canister” with all the tinned food that he had eaten at one such entertainment. Alas, that he should have been condemned to some of it, through war necessities, at the end of his life! He would take pains sometimes in instructing me and our own humble cook in the concoction of some new dish from a good receipt; but nothing was to be spared in the cost of the necessary ingredients: the soup, fish or _entree_ must be made “of the best,” not forgetting that the “pig and onion were the North and South poles of cookery;” and, I think, he might have added also the oyster. His Christmas turkey was almost always boiled, after his mother’s Irish method, stuffed with oysters and served with fried pork sausages and a lavish oyster sauce or a _vol-au-vent_ of the same; latterly the oysters always came in a barrel from our kind friend “Bertie” Sullivan. Yes, his friends esteemed him highly as a food expert; there is a letter from Edward Burne-Jones (quoted, I think, by Joe) in which he begs him to order the dinner for some entertainment of his own. “Oh, dear Carr, save my honour,” he writes, “I know no more what dinner to order than the cat on the hearth--less, for she would promptly order mice. Oh, Carr, order a nice dinner so that I may not be quoted as a warning of meanness ... yet not ostentatious and presuming such as would foolishly compete with the banquets of the affluent. O, Carr, come to the rescue!” This dear friend cared comparatively little for the pleasures of the table, but Joe was even privileged to pass on one of his receipts to an acknowledged _gourmet_: it was the simmering of a ham half the time in stock and vegetables, and the remainder in champagne--or, failing that, in any good white wine; and as for his salads, he was famed for them.