ROUND THE TABLE

present day these, as well as most vegetables, can be bad in perfection preserved in tins and at a moderate expense.

It is better, when practicable, to avoid boiling arti- chokes in iron saucepans ; and, indeed, this rule applies to all vegetables containing acids which will act upon iron. An earthen pot or a tinned copper pan should be used, or, if you will have iron saucepans they should be lined with white enamel.

Cardons a la Moelle is one of the standing dishes of the Paris restaurants. In England this vegetable is very little known. Cardoons are mentioned in seeds- men's prices current, but in greengrocer's shops they are seldom if ever seen. A very fair substitute for them, which, if it does not possess all the delicacy of taste of the real cardoon, has at all events the advantage of being very cheap — so cheap, in fact, that it is to be got for nothing — is to be found in the stalks of green artichokes, which often are sent to market with a foot or more of it attached to them — English-grown ones especially. How these artichoke stalks can be made into a dish closely resembling cardoons — which are themselves a kind of artichoke — with this difference, that the leaves proper are very thick, and, being banked up like celery, grow very white and tender. The stalks or ribs (cotes) of these are eaten, and not the bud, so to speak, as with the green artichoke.

This is how to proceed with the stalks of these same English artichokes to make a very good dish of what most people would look upon as vegetable refuse. Cut the stalks in lengths of four or five inches, scrape off them — as you would off a carrot — their outer fibrous envelope, and as you finish each piece put it into a basin containing cold water and the juice of a lemon. When

VEGETABLES.

they are all ready, let them be boiled in water with salt and lemon juice for a few minutes. Then drain them again, and place them in cold water and lemon juice to wait till it is time to dress them for table. This pro- cess may be reversed, the parboiling taking place first, and the scraping afterwards. Cardoons are treated thus. But for artichoke stalks I prefer scraping them first.

The usual formula for the preparation of cardons d la mo'elle is as follows ; and artichoke stalks may be treated in the same way.

Put into a saucepan a few pieces of bacon cut small, as well as some carrots and onions, one bay leaf, a few sprigs of parsley, some whole pepper, and a few cloves. Add enough water to cover the pieces of bacon and vegetables, and set the saucepan to boil until the whole water is nearly evaporated, stirring the mixture at the latter stage of the process to prevent it “ catching.” Then add as much hot water as you put in at first ; skim carefully, and strain through muslin. The liquor is called blanc : it will keep several days, and is very useful to dress artistically many vegetables besides cardoons.

Having successfully prepared your blanc — lay your cardoons or artichoke stalks (previously scraped and parboiled) in a saucepan, with a few slices of lemon minus the pips and the peel ; salt if necessary, and pour in a sufficient quantity of blanc to cover them, letting them simmer till done quite tender. Now set them up in a dish, and pour over them a well-reduced sauce Espagnole in which you have incorporated two or three ounces of beef marrow dissolved au bain mane — i.e., in a vessel standing in another containing boiling water ; then serve with bread sippets fried in butter.

Another way is to lay the marrow on the bread sippets