Concerning a highly important topic--"The Health of Cooks"--the "Almanach" discourses at length with its accustomed force and originality: "The index of a good cook should ply without ceasing from the saucepans to the mouth, and it is only by thus momentarily tasting his ragoûts that he may determine their precise point. His palate, therefore, must be extremely delicate, virginal, as it were, so that the least thing may stimulate it and advise it of its faults. "But the constant fumes of the fires, the necessity of drinking frequently, and often poor wine, to moisten a parched throat, the vapours of the charcoal, humours and biliousness, all tend to impair the organs of taste. The palate becomes crusted, as it were; it has no longer either that tact or finesse, that exquisite sensibility on which depends the susceptibility of the taste; it finally becomes excoriated and as insensible as the conscience of an old judge. "Le seul moyen de lui rendre cette fleur qu'il a perdue, de lui faire reprendre sa souplesse, ses forces et sa délicatesse, c'est de purger le Cuisinier, telle résistance qu'il y oppose; car il en est qui, sourds à la voix de la gloire, ne voient aucune nécessité de prendre une médecine lorsqu'ils se portent bien." Supplementing his essays on the health and the duties of the chef and the requirements of the cuisinière is his treatise on the maître-d'hôtel, wherein the qualifications of a steward are most minutely set forth. Of all those whose labours have for their object the satisfaction of our appetite and promotion of the culinary art, the profession of the steward, he insists, calls for the greatest number of virtues and the widest knowledge. A good maître-d'hôtel should be at once an excellent cook, a fine _dégustateur_, a clever purveyor, a skilful servitor, an exact calculator, a good conversationalist, and an efficient and polished agent. He should be familiar not only with the theory of the cuisine in all its ramifications, but, if necessary, be able to turn his knowledge to practical account. For how may he command the respect of the cook who is under his orders if he does not thoroughly understand his art? How may he regulate the conduct of the chef, control his ragoûts, and direct his work according to the principles of the art and the special tastes of his employer if he is not a very fine critic?