"This kind has a thick and firm texture--you will see that it is cooked long. This other has a fine and tender flesh--you will cook it gently in a hermetically sealed receptacle in order that its light particles, full of life and dainty fragrance, are not dissipated. If your mushrooms contain a fixed and resinous matter, sprinkle them with a dry wine to dissolve this sapid principle. With these plants you may make intoxicating mixtures, unique infusions. Turn to Carême, he will guide you and tell you what wine belongs to such and such kinds--whether Pomard with its fresh taste, or Saint-Georges; whether the delicate and sparkling Aï, or the stomachic Haut-Brion. Read also the witty and elegant pages of M. Joseph Roques." The group of fungi known as mushrooms and toadstools constitutes a valuable accessory, both in themselves and in their properties of accentuating the flavour of other foods; and to those who are capable of distinguishing their many delicious species they may form, through a considerable portion of the year, a marked addition to the variety and pleasures of the table. [Illustration] [Illustration: THE WOUNDED SNIPE From an engraving after A. Couquet, R.A.] [Illustration] SALLETS AND SALADS "First then to speak of Sallets, there be some simple, some compounded, some only to furnish out the table, and some both for use and adornation."--GERVAISE MARKHAM: The English Housewife. To remember a successful salad is generally to remember a successful dinner; at all events, the perfect dinner necessarily includes the perfect salad. The mere process of salad-making is among the most simple of all those that appertain to the table: a little oil, a little vinegar, of salt and pepper each a little, the onion and the mixing, with such other herbs and condiments as the artist may elect. And yet an unexceptionable salad is as rare in the average household as a piece of old Gubbio, or a fine old Ghiordes prayer-rug. Seldom, indeed, is this refreshing dish met with as one usually finds it in France--crisp, tender, and appetising, with none of its ingredients perceptibly dominant in the _liaison_ which, first pleasingly addressing the taste, is afterwards destined to soothe and tranquillise digestion. The reason is not difficult to analyse; the happy touch which is necessary in salads and sauces being largely a matter of individual address and a growth of advanced gastronomy. For in the preparing of salads no formula that is absolute may be given, success depending upon practice, a correct taste, and minute attention to detail. Here, as in everything else that is faultless, care and experience are factors requisite to attainment. But though an infallible recipe may not be laid down, certain broad lines may be specified, the observance of which, with application, will render a good salad possible even to the neophyte.