And oh, how
often and how bitterly, in my transatlantic household tribulations, have
I deplored that her apron had not fallen on my shoulders or round my
waist! Whether she derived this taste and talent from her French blood,
I know not, but it amounted to genius, and might have made her a
pre-eminent _cordon bleu_, if she had not been the wife, and _cheffe_,
of a poor professional gentleman, whose moderate means were so
skillfully turned to account, in her provision for his modest table,
that he was accused by ill-natured people of indulging in the expensive
luxury of a French cook. Well do I remember the endless supplies of
potted gravies, sauces, meat jellies, game jellies, fish jellies, the
white ranges of which filled the shelves of her store-room--which she
laughingly called her boudoir--almost to the exclusion of the usual
currant jellies and raspberry jams of such receptacles: for she had the
real _bon vivant's_ preference of the savory to the sweet, and left all
the latter branch of the art to her subordinates, confining the exercise
of her own talents, or immediate superintendence, to the production of
the above-named "elegant extracts." She never, I am sorry to say,
encouraged either my sister or myself in the same useful occupation,
alleging that we had what she called better ones; but I would joyfully,
many a time in America, have exchanged all my boarding-school
smatterings for her knowledge how to produce a wholesome and palatable
dinner.
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