We have endeavoured throughout this book to give chiefly directions about
those dishes which will replace meat. For instance, the vast majority of
pies and puddings will remain the same, and need no detailed treatment
here. Butter supplies the place of suet or lard, and any ordinary,
cookery-book will be found sufficient for the purpose; but it is in dealing
with soups, sauces, rice, macaroni, and vegetables, sent to table under new
conditions, that we hope this book will be found most useful.

As a rule, English women cooks, especially when their title to the name
depends upon their being the mistress of the house, will often find that
soups and sauces are a weak point. Do not despise, in cooking, little
things. Those who really understand such matters will know how vast is the
difference in flavour occasioned by the addition of that pinch of thyme or
teaspoonful of savoury herbs, and yet there are tens of thousands of
houses, where meat is eaten every day, who never had a bottle of thyme at
their disposal in their lives. As we have said, if we are going to make a
great saving on meat, we can well afford a few trifles, so long as they are
trifles. A sixpenny bottle of thyme will last for months; and if we give
up our gravy beef, or piece of pickled pork, or two-pennyworth of bones, as
the case may be, surely we can afford a little indulgence of this kind.

A few words on the subject of fritters. When will English housekeepers
grasp the idea of frying? They cannot get beyond a dab of grease or butter
in a frying-pan. The bath of boiling oil seems to be beyond them, or at
any rate a degree of civilisation that has not yet passed beyond the limit
of the fried-fish shop. The oil will do over and over again, and in the
end is undoubtedly cheaper than the dab of grease or butter thrown away.
There are hundreds of men who, in hot weather, would positively prefer a
well-cooked vegetable fritter to meat, but yet they rarely get it at home.
Fruit fritters are also very economical--orange fritters, apple fritters,