Now that meat is so dear it is the favorable moment to try a vegetable diet for a time.  One mistake to be avoided in this catering is the putting down of too many dishes of a pulpy character—­food which is soft is excellent with other things, but alone it is neither satisfying nor very nourishing, at least to a person of strong digestion.  All of them should not be white, for instance, and the same rule holds good in other things besides color.  A nice dish for this kind of diet is a vegetable curry, in which all the vegetables are treated like meat and turned out crisp; all the vegetables, too, must be fresh and young for this method of serving, so that anything like stringiness is absolutely impossible.

Crisco is entirely vegetable.

Bean Cutlets

2 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1 tablespoonful flour 1/2 cupful bean liquor Salt and pepper to taste 2 eggs 1/4 lb. dried beans A few cooked mixed vegetables Breadcrumbs

Soak beans in water twenty-four hours, then boil for several hours till quite tender, drain them, preserving liquor, chop them very fine; blend Crisco with flour in saucepan over fire, add bean liquor, beans, salt and pepper, and yolks of eggs; turn out on to a dish and set aside till cold.  Then cut out with cutlet-cutter or shape with knife; dip in beaten whites of the eggs, then in fine breadcrumbs, repeat a second time, and fry in hot Crisco.  Serve on hot platter decorated with a few hot cooked mixed vegetables.  Sufficient for eight cutlets.

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Devilled Bananas

2 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1/2 teaspoonful salt 8 bananas 1 teaspoonful chopped pickles Few grains red pepper, or 1 dessertspoonful chopped chillies

Slice bananas, mix with salt, chopped pickles and red pepper or chopped chillies and put them into hot Crisco.  Cook for four minutes and serve.  Sufficient for eight bananas.

Cauliflower Snow

2 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco 2 cauliflowers 4 poached eggs Salt and paprika to taste Toasted bread

Boil cauliflowers in salted water till tender, then drain and set near fire till quite dry.  Remove all green parts and press flower through a potato ricer upon a hot dish, on which they are to be served.  In no way crush the mass as it falls from the ricer.  Sprinkle over with melted Crisco.  Surround dish with poached eggs, each laid upon square of toasted buttered bread.  Dust each egg with salt and a little paprika.  Serve very hot.

Craigie Toast

3 tablespoonfuls Crisco 4 eggs 4 tomatoes Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 cupful milk Toast 1 teaspoonful chopped gherkin or capers

Skin, seed and chop tomatoes, add eggs well beaten, gherkin, milk, salt and pepper.  Melt Crisco, add other ingredients and stir over fire till thoroughly hot.  Serve at once on toast.  The mixture may also be baked in oven twenty minutes and then garnished with small pieces of toast.  Sufficient for four pieces of toast.