It may be cold up North, but down in the Gulf they are fishing--scudding
among the Florida Keys in a little white sailboat, landing for lunch
on a strand as snowy as the northern streets, where the shimmering
distances of white sand are paved with shell and pearl, and the tide
thrums out its old song under the palms. And fish? Two-hundred
and fifty pounds is the average day's catch for a small sailboat
cruising among the Florida Keys.

Yet, when all is said and done, the catching of fish is a matter
of luck--a gambler's chance,
[Page 5]
if you will have it so. The cooking, in unskilled hands, is also
a lottery, but, by following the appended recipes, becomes an art
to which scientific principles have been faithfully applied.

Having caught your fish, you may cook him in a thousand ways, but
it is doubtful whether, even with the finest sauce, a pompano will
taste half as good as the infantile muskellunge, several pounds under
the legal weight, fried unskilfully in pork fat by a horny-handed
woodsman, kneeling before an open fire, eighteen minutes after you
had given up all hope of having fish for dinner, and had resigned
yourself to the dubious prospect of salt pork, eggs, and coffee
which any self-respecting coffee-mill would fail to recognize.

All of which is respectfully submitted by

O.G.