reverence paid to rank, and the horror of all things which, as poor
Corney Grain used to say, 'are not nice,' I reckon the Sunday
sirloin, cooked and served, one and indivisible as the typical
fetish of the great English middle class. With this fact before my
eyes, I can assure you I did not lightly lay a hand on its
integrity. My friends, you have eaten that sirloin without knowing
it. You may remember that yesterday after lunch the Colonel was
loud in praise of a dish of beef. Well, that beef was a portion of
the same, and not the best portion. The Manzo in insalata, which
pleased the Colonel's palate, was that thin piece at the lower end,
the chief function of which, when the sirloin is cooked whole,
seems to lie in keeping the joint steady on the dish while
paterfamilias carves it. It is never eaten in the dining-room hot,
because every one justly prefers and goes for the under cut;
neither does it find favour at lunch next day, for the reason that,
as cold beef, the upper cut is unapproachable. I have never heard
that the kitchen hankers after it inordinately; indeed, its
ultimate destination is one of the unexplained mysteries of
housekeeping. I hold that never, under any circumstances, should
it be cooked with the sirloin, but always cut off and marinated and
braized as we had it yesterday. Thus you get two hot dishes; our
particular sirloin has given us three. The parts of this joint
vary greatly in flavour, and in texture as well, and by
accentuating this variation by treatment in the kitchen, you escape
that monotony which is prone to pervade the table so long as the
sirloin remains in the house. Mrs. Sinclair is sufficiently
experienced as a housekeeper to know that the dish of fillets we
had for dinner last night was not made from the under cut of one
sirloin. It was by borrowing a little from the upper part that I
managed to fill the dish, and I'm sure that any one who may have