The Cook-Book. By "Oscar," of the Waldorf. (Gay and Bird.
15s. 6d.)—One must say, with Celia, "you must borrow me Gargantua's mouth" to eat all the good things described in these pages. Unlike many cookery-books of the present day, there is no descriptive writing in this work,—solid recipes fill it from cover to cover. As the book consists of between eight hundred and nine hundred pages, the amount of ground covered is prodigious. And though, of course, some of the recipes are only to be coped with in the kitchens of millionaires or hotel-pals ces, yet a great proportion of the dishes described would be useful in modest households,—on occasions, at any rate, and when " company " is expected. As to the vexed question of language in cookery, it is not ceitain that M. Oscar Tschirky deals with it successfully. His method is to translate all but the untrans- latable. But there are so many French words absolutely without equivalents in cookery, that an undesirable mixture of tongues is inevitable. Well, then, why give the clumsy English equivalent "such and such style" for the neat French expres- sion "d is"? " Salpicon [a French word, mark] Hunter's style" seems to be an even more objectionable phrase when writing English than " Salpicon I Ia chasseur." And what shall we say of another example on the same page," Ravioles of Game in Consommé" ? Till an English equivalent has been found for the necessary word, an "entrée," it is better to bow to the inevitable and have the whole menu in French.
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