Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/423

 soups ; for salt can be added to taste, but can never be taken away.

" Don't eat with your ears ; by which I mean do not aim at having extraordinary out-of-the-way foods, just to astonish your guests ; for that is to eat with your ears, not with the mouth. Bean-curd, if good, is actually nicer than birds'-nest ; and better than sea-slugs, which are not first-rate, is a dish of bamboo shoots. . ..

"The chicken, the pig, the fish, and the duck, these are the four heroes of the table. Sea-slugs and birds' - nests have no characteristic flavours of their own. They are but usurpers in the house. I once dined with a friend who gave us birds'-nest in bowls more like vats, holding each about four ounces of the plain-boiled article. The other guests applauded vigorously ; but I smiled and said, '/ came here to eat birds' -nest, not to take delivery of it wholesale'

" Don't eat with your eyes ; by which I mean do not cover the table with innumerable dishes and multiply courses indefinitely. For this is to eat with the eyes, and not with the mouth.

"Just as a calligraphist should not overtire his hand nor a poet his brain, so a good cook cannot possibly turn out in one day more than four or five distinct plats. I used to dine with a merchant friend who would put on no less than three removes [sets of eight dishes served separately], and sixteen kinds of sweets, so that by the time we had finished we had got through a total of some forty courses. My host gloried in all this, but when I got home I used to have a bowl of rice-gruel. I felt so hungry.

" To know right from wrong, a man must be sober. And only a sober man can distinguish good flavours from

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