The model cook-book--the manual that should appeal to all, the vade mecum that would instruct and delight the amateur, that would tell him just what he should know, eliminating all he should not know--is still numbered among things unaccomplished. So long as every chef is jealous of his every competitor, so long as the professionalist writes solely from the standpoint of his elaborately mounted kitchen, with no deference to the requirements of the more modest household, so long as works on cookery continue to be a mere dry digest of the preparation of food, it will not be achieved. They have come nearer to such a work in France. But who may say that even Dumas' sprightly though bulky treatise is perfect, or that any of the voluminous "'Cuisiniers' des Cuisiniers" has indicated the perfect road to happiness? And of the enormous number of books on the subject, how many are not so technical as to be of little service, or so lacking in comprehensive grasp as to fall utterly short of their aim? The perfect cook-book, as near as a cook-book can be perfect, has yet to find its author and its publisher. [Illustration: LE PÂTISSIER FRANÇAIS Facsimile of title-page] It may be assumed, therefore, that it will be written by an amateur--a man devoid of prejudices so far as any rivalry in his craft is concerned, whose sole object will be to write for his own pleasure and the gratification it will afford his readers. For, it will be readily perceived, a cook-book for the professional is one thing; a manual for the amateur, another. To a lucid, delightful style and grace of expression its author will unite the widest familiarity with the cuisine of the past and the present. He will have at his beck and call a culinary library like that of Baron Pichon, an executive genius equal to Carême's, a physiological perceptivity rivalling that of Savarin, a knowledge of the subject in all that relates to its material sense as great as La Reynière's. A man of unbounded capacities, whose appetite can never be appeased, he will himself have savoured the multitudinous dishes he treats of, before recommending them to others of less assimilative capabilities than his own. Thoroughly conversant with hygiene and the constituent elements of foods, he will add, as it were, to the qualifications of a gourmet and epicurean mentor, the knowledge of a physician and chemist, or one who can distinguish the digestive sequents of different articles of diet.