Epigram
"I have been dining," said a French nobleman to one of those wealthy but often ignorant tax-farmers who used to be called financiers in France-" I have been dining with a poet who regaled us at dessert with a choice epigram." The financier went home to his cook, and asked him, "How comes it that you never send any epigrams to my table?" The next day the cook sent to table an Epigram of Lamb. -Poetical epigrams are generally written in alternate verse ; and epigrams of lamb consist of alternate cutlets. One set of cutlets are of the ordinary kind, cut from the neck, and fried plain in clarified butter: the other kind are made out of the breast of lamb, which is brazed, boned, pressed between two dishes, and when cold carved into cutlet shapes, with a bit of bone stuck into each at one end to complete the likeness. These cutlets Essence are breadcrumbed before they are fried. To serve them, pile in the centre of the dish a garnish of asparagus points, of peas, or of Macedon; arrange round it alternately the plain cutlets and the breadcrumbed ones, and let them be convoyed to table by a boatful of Béchamel.
Epigram of Fowl. - Here the fillets of fowl supply the place of the plain cutlets; the legs, boned and brazed, are made into breadcrumbed ones, and the sauce is Supreme, with the same garnish as for lamb; or else the Toulouse relish supplies the place of garnish and sauce.