chance of boiling over, or any such like accident.
With regard to the frying fat to be used opinions
differ; oil is, of course, the favourite friture abroad,
but its price is somewhat prohibitive over here,
though, like every other fat, it can be used more
than once. It, however, does not lend itself to
economical use in the way other fats do, as once
burnt there is no way of re-clarifying it. Jewish cooks
often use pure cotton seed oil, which is much cheaper
than good olive oil, but this, unless very refined,
has a distinctly objectionable smell when cooking,
which renders its use in particular households
undesirable. Next to oil undoubtedly comes beef
dripping, a medium objected to, however, greatly by
many so-called “high class cooks,” partly through
ignorance, partly through a dishonest fear of loss,
as such persons appear to consider the sale of the
household dripping a perquisite quite compatible
with a character for honesty! However, considering
so great a culinary authority as M. Gouffé considers
it a distinctly praiseworthy frying medium, recom-
mending the collection of all dripping from roast
meat, and next to this the rendering down of good
beef suet for frying purposes, it hardly becomes less
competent authorities to reject this substance as
“impossible,” as I have before now heard it called
by a haughty but ignorant soi-disant cordon-bleu.
I may add a fact that may surprise a good many
British housekeepers, and that is that the same high
kitchen oracle utterly condemns the use of lard, as
always carrying with it the risk (if not actually the
inevitable certainty) of greasiness in whatever is