Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/644

 be only occasionally introduced. The toast of "national institutions" would mostly insure to the chairman and managers of the dinner an opportunity of obtaining two good speakers from different interests in reply—say, one for Justice and the other for Religion; one for Parliament or the Services, and the other for Science or Literature, and so forth. Thus all the varied elements of our national life would receive in their turn a due share of attention from the great mass of public diners, and better speeches would probably be secured than by the present mode.

I confess this is rather an episode; but the subject of "toasts" is so interwoven with the management of the public dinner that I have ventured to introduce it. I even dare to think that the proposition may be not unlikely to receive the support of "the chair," the duties of which, with a long array of toasts, are sometimes excessively onerous; only more so, be it recollected, in degree than those, of a humbler kind, which are entailed on many of the guests who are compelled to assist.

In concluding this imperfect sketch of the very large subject indicated by the title of my paper, I desire to express my strong sense of its manifold shortcomings, especially by way of omission. Desiring to call attention, in the shortest possible compass, to a great number of what appear to me to be important considerations in connection with the arts of selecting, preparing, and serving food, I have doubtless often failed to be explicit in the effort to be brief. It would have been an easier task to illustrate these considerations at greater length, and to have exceeded the limits of a couple of articles; and I might thus perhaps also have avoided, in dealing with some topics, a tone in statement more positive than circumstances may have warranted. Gastronomic tastes necessarily differ, as races, habits, digestive force, and supplies of food also differ; and it becomes no man to be too dogmatic in treating of these matters. De gustibus non est disputandum is in no instance more true than in relation to the tastes of the palate. Still, if any rational canons are to be laid down in connection with food and feeding, it is absolutely necessary that something more than the chemical and physiological bearings of the subject should be taken into consideration. With these it is unquestionably essential for any one who treats of my subject to be familiar; but no less necessary is it to possess some natural taste and experience in the cultivation of the gustatory sense; just as a cultivation of the perception of color and a sensibility to the charm of harmoniously combined tints are necessary to an intelligent enjoyment of the visual sense and to the understanding of its powers. Hence the treatment of the whole subject must inevitably be pervaded to some extent by the personal idiosyncrasy and predilections of the individual. It is this fact, no doubt, which, operating in relation to the numerous writers on cookery, has tended to produce some of the