Devils
It is the great fault of all devilry that it knows no bounds. A moderate devil is almost a contradiction in terms; and yet it is quite certain that if a devil is not moderate he destroys the palate, and ought to have no place in cookery, the business of which is to tickle, not to annihilate, the sense of taste. Devils are of two kinds -the dry and the wet. The dry devil is a Carbonade, scored, peppered, salted, mustarded or otherwise spiced; the wet devil is a Bernardine Salmi. See Salmi.
Sauce à la Diable. - The French cooks' idea of the devil is that he has a passion for shalots. Mr. Masson has written an essay on the Three Devils-namely, Luther's, Milton's, and Goethe's. There is room for yet another essay, yea, a volume, on the Frenchman's idea of the devil, much given to the onions of Ascalon. Take three or four shalots, and mince them well with a clove of garlic, a faggot of sweet-herbs, and as much pepper as may be dared; simmer all for half an hour in brown sauce and red wine, pass it through a tammy, and know of a surety that this will much rejoice all French devils.
DILL is a plant which, like anise, caraway and coriander, was supposed to be a good stomachic. Dill-water is still to be found among the bottles of the apothecary. It was also, like fennel, a good deal used in soups and sauces. That we should now make very little use of it in the kitchen is probably no great loss to us; but it is certainly a mystery. It is impossible to tell many a time how reputations grow and how they pass away. By all the rules of human conduct dill ought to be the most prized herb in the English kitchen garden; and yet it is of the smallest account. William the Conqueror had a cook named Tezelin, who one day served him with a white soup called dillegrout. The monarch was so pleased with its exquisite flavour that he sent for the cook and made him for his dill soup Lord of the Manor of Addington. When a great work of art is thus rewarded we might expect that the fame of it would live for ever, that all the cooks of England would bear it in mind, and that it would still be fashionable. But such is the caprice of fame and fortune, there is probably not a living creature in England who has ever tasted dill broth, and the name of Tezelin is known but to a very few. There are monuments in Westminster Abbey to heroes who have achieved less than the Lord of the Manor of Addington.