' He kept it wrapt up in the
tablecloth in his lap during the time of dinner, from an avidity to have
one entertainment in readiness when he should have finished another;
resembling (if I may use so coarse a simile) a dog who holds a bone in
his paws in reserve, while he eats something else which has been thrown
to him.
The subject of cookery having been very naturally introduced at a table
where Johnson, who boasted of the niceness of his palate, owned that 'he
always found a good dinner,' he said, 'I could write a better book
of cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book upon
philosophical principles. Pharmacy is now made much more simple. Cookery
may be made so too. A prescription which is now compounded of five
ingredients, had formerly fifty in it. So in cookery, if the nature of
the ingredients be well known, much fewer will do. Then as you cannot
make bad meat good, I would tell what is the best butcher's meat,
the best beef, the best pieces; how to choose young fowls; the proper
seasons of different vegetables; and then how to roast and boil, and
compound.
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