People who are sufficiently interested in cooking to buy cookery books, are also sufficiently interested in the subject to collect recipes from various sources. They either cut them out of a paper, or a friend may give them a new recipe, and in a short time there is an accumulation of cuttings and odd slips, usually tucked away in various books, or so carefully " put away " that they can never be found. Few people, in fact, are sufficiently methodical—or it may often be that they have not the time—to paste their culinary gleanings in an album.

There is also a washable cover, which I think essential for a cookery book. However careful one may be, cookery books, which are often left lying about in the kitchen while cooking is going on, suffer the sad fate of being much besmirched with spots and stains and greasy finger-marks. But The Memorandum Cookery Book will be an exception to this rule, and will shine conspicuously among your other cookery books.

I hope it may shine in another way too, for I have endeavoured to give entirely new and original recipes— new, at any rate, in this country—for we know little here of some of the famous " classical " dishes of other countries, a few of which I have included in this book. Some of these I have simplified, as I know that in this age of rush few people can—or will—devote much time to cooking. It is, I think, a book which will be useful to the amateur cook as well as to the professional, as I have left nothing to the imagination and have given as far as possible the exact amount of each ingredient to be used, and described how things should be prepared and cooked. You will notice that in nearly all my recipes I have said: " season highly with salt and pepper." This I have done to impress upon English cooks the necessity of making more generous use of these than they usually do. The painful insipidity of average food is largely due to the parsimonious use of these two essentials. Dishes should be seasoned in the kitchen and not in the dining-room, and the salt-cellar and pepper-pot should be mere conventional ornaments, seldom used at table.

Cooking is an art which can only be learnt by those who like it and take an intelligent interest in it, and who are willing to devote a little time to this fascinating form of chemistry—" the chemistry of edibles " would, I think, be an appropriate definition of cooking. If only cooks could be taught to look upon it in this light, if they could but realise that there is a thrill in turning raw, unpalatable materials into delectable food—and a still greater thrill in inventing a new dish, they might cease to consider cooking mere " drudgery".

MARCELLE MORPHY.

Contents

Blue Section. Hors D'Ceuvres

Soups, Potages And Potages Purees

Mauve Section. Fish

Light Entrees

Yellow Section. Meat Dishes

Salmon. Pink Section. Poultry And Game

Green Section. Vegetables And Salads

Buff Section. Sweets, Savouries And Oddments