Note 209 — Chapter XII

I must make a reservation in favour of Northumberland, where I have fallen upon persons who did know how to boil. They spoke of “seasoning” the water, and of things being spoilt that were “knocked about” in the pot. Here was the apprehension of the two points to be kept in view, that the water be not hungry so as to exhaust the meat, that the bubbles should not be generated at the bottom of the pot so as to scorch it and harden the fibre. Any one born with the instinct of a cook, will, however bred in prejudice, from these two hints, gain all that is requisite. He who has not these instincts, will not learn how to boil if a waggon load of cookery books were shot over him. Strange it is, that the only people who have not a conception of boiling, should alone persist, generation after generation, in sending up to table vegetables and fish plain boiled! Fish, however, differs from flesh in this, that the hotter it is boiled the better; thus oil or butter, which rises to 600° before boiling, is best for it.