reform will tolerate the sodden, soap-like potatoes, or the flabby, insipid, brown papery-looking stuff, called by courtesy cabbage, which so often does duty as companion to beef, mutton, or pork.  Perhaps, though, the savoury cow or pig throws a halo over all the defects of its surroundings.  Be that as it may, there is need for improvement in many ways, and by this I do not mean more elaboration in dressing or serving, for this is not seldom used to disguise shortcomings which otherwise could not escape notice.  But disguising defects does not remove them, and we should do well to safeguard ourselves by having our food cooked as simply and naturally as possible.

The homeliest vegetables, too, if sound, ripe, and wholesome, are infinitely to be preferred to the rare expensive sorts forced out of season or gathered barely ripe and conveyed long distances to whet jaded palates.  Well, to begin with that vegetable we are supposed to live on,

Cabbage.

This may either be a choice delicacy or an unmitigated abomination.  It should be fresh, green, crisp and tender, and as newly pulled as possible.  Those who have gardens should leave it growing till half-an-hour before cooking.  When it must be kept for some time, see that it is in a shady, cool place, and an hour or two before using; remove any tough or withered leaves, split up the stalk well into the heart, if to be used whole, and lay in a large basin of cold water.  Add a handful of salt and two tablespoonfuls vinegar to each gallon of water.  Although freshly pulled all leafy vegetables should be soaked in this way to remove any caterpillars, slugs, &c., for even eaters of pig and ox have a curious objection to animal food on a small scale.  To cook, have ready a good-sized saucepan with fast-boiling water containing a little salt, and if the cabbage is at all old or tough, a bit of washing soda the size of a hazel nut, to each quart of water.  Drain very thoroughly from the water in which soaking, and plunge into the fast-boiling water.  It is most important that the water should not go off the boil as then the juices would be drawn out and wasted.  Boil steadily with the lid off for 10 to 20 minutes according to age, then lift into drainer on top of the boiling water and cook till tender in the steam.  Serve on hot vegetable dish with some bits of butter on the top.  It should be perfectly tender, yet crisp and of a vivid green.  If at all brown, or dull, or flabby-looking, there is something wrong, either with the vegetable itself or the cooking.  And I am not to give directions for “doctoring” anything that is either unwholesome or spoiled.  A paragraph has been going the round of certain papers lately, giving directions for disguising the flavour of tainted meat, which “few cooks know how to treat so as to render perfectly nice”!  It is to be wrapped in vinegar cloths, &c.—­“boil up, and use it.”  I should say doctor it as you please, but then—­throw it away!