The Cook's Decameron: A Study In Taste

Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes

By

Mrs. W. G. Waters

"Show me a pleasure like dinner, which comes every day and lasts an
hour." -- Talleyrand circa 1901



To

A. V.

In memory of Certain Ausonian Feasts



Preface

Montaigne in one of his essays* mentions the high excellence
Italian cookery had attained in his day. "I have entered into this
Discourse upon the Occasion of an Italian I lately receiv'd into my
Service, and who was Clerk of the Kitchen to the late Cardinal
Caraffa till his Death. I put this Fellow upon an Account of his
office: Where he fell to Discourse of this Palate-Science, with
such a settled Countenance and Magisterial Gravity, as if he had