open, they are dead, and unfit for food. The small-shelled oysters,
the Byfleet, Colchester, and Milford, are the finest in flavour.
Larger kinds, as the Torbay oysters, are generally considered only fit
for stewing and sauces, and as an addition to rump-steak puddings and
pies, though some persons prefer them to the smaller oysters, even
when not cooked. Of late years English oysters have become scarce and
dear; and in consequence the American Blue Point oysters find a ready
market.


12. Beef.

The grain of ox beef, when good, is loose, the meat red, and the fat
inclining to yellow. Cow beef, on the contrary, has a closer grain and
whiter fat, but the meat is scarcely as red as that of ox beef.
Inferior beef, which is meat obtained from ill-fed animals, or from
those which had become too old for food, may be known by a hard,
skinny fat, a dark red lean, and, in old animals, a line of horny
texture running through the meat of the ribs. When meat rises up
quickly, after being pressed by the finger, it may be considered as
being the flesh of an animal which was in its prime; but when the dent
made by pressure returns slowly, or remains visible, the animal had
probably passed its prime, and the meat consequently must be of
inferior quality.


13. Veal

should be delicately white, though it is often juicy and
well-flavoured when rather dark in colour. Butchers, it is said, bleed