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Aspic of Oysters

Prepare the oysters as for salad by scalding them in seasoned vinegar and oyster liquor. Prepare some green aspic jelly (ravigote jelly) by boiling some green celery leaves done, draining dry, pounding, mixing with clear aspic and then straining it again. Cool the green jelly in the smallest flat dishes-it is to form foundations to lay the oysters on.

Boil some eggs hard and chop the yolks for border ornament. Now place about four oysters diagonally side by side in the smallest flat dish, and pour over enough clear white or amber jelly, highly seasoned with pepper sauce and lemon juice, to nearly cover them. When all are cold slip the shapes of green jelly from their dishes by means of a knife and place them bottom side up on the dishes they are to be served in, then the shape of oysters on that and ornament with the minced yolks or tiny leaves of heart lettuce. "Alleys of scarlet tomatoes, purple mulberries, grapes, lemons, oranges, quinces, pumpkins, 'melons; gourds of all shapes, sizes, and colors, green and pinky and yellow and violet; pearly rice from the fields about Mantua; and unground maize, like beads of clouded amber. Flowers are in profusion-roses, camellias, and autumn violets; besides mountains of mulberry leaves for silk-worm breeders, pine cones for firing, flat baskets piled high with wrinkled olives, and sacks of shining brown chestnuts. "Giving smile for smile, greeting for greeting, La Giulietta meanwhile makes her modest purchases; lettuce and cress and sweet fennel for salad; lentils and a handful of tawny fungi for soup; a little pat of fresh butter wrapped in mulberry leaves; and the proffered morsel of stracchino for Uncle Stefano's supper."--An Italian Market-place.-Lord Bracken-bury. "Another species of fennel, called finocchio by the Italians, is also used for the same purposes, and as a flavoring for soups."--Bazar. "In a corner, far away from any group of talkers, two mules were standing, well adorned with red tassels and collars. One of them carried wooden milk-vessels, the other a pair of panniers filled with herbs and salads. * * * * Nevertheless our stranger had no compunction in awaking her, but the means he chose were so gentle that it seemed to the damsel in her dream as if a little sprig of thyme had touched her lips while she was stooping to gather the herbs."--An Italian Market place.--Romola. "Would you kindly get those Soissons haricots fetched, which I see at the end of the table. * * * * I beg also your favorable notice for the small marsh beans, sometimes called English beans; when still green they are a dish for the gods."--Savarin. `It is said that we are indebted to Alexander the Great for the introduction of this bean into Europe, for while marching on his victorious route in India his eye fell upon a field of these plants. They appeared to him very inviting, and finding them good for food he highly recommended them to his countrymen." "The Romans preserved them with vinegar and garum, and they were handed round at the beginning of a feast to excite the appetites of the guests." "About Bari? Surely-a seaport on the Adriatic coast. You may see plenty of Bari trading vessels at Ancona and Venice. Our neighbor Sacchi, who understands the wholesale business as well as any man in town, gets all his oil from Bari. Being brought by sea to Venice, it comes cheaper than the oils of Florence and Lucca, which have to be brought across the Apennines. Don't you know the proverb, 'Bari for oil, Trani for figs, Otranto for pretty women?'"--Lord Brackenbury.