In this article, M. Escoffier, chef of the Carlton Hotel, gives some valuable information on the art of cooking. High in his profession as he is, the advice of M. Escoffier on the cooking of that homely vegetable the potato will be followed by numbers of our readers.

If the art of cookery could be definitely defined, and its canons fixed once and for ever, there would be little to say about it. But everything is unstable in these days of "progress at any cost," and social customs and modes of life alter so rapidly that a few years suffice to completely change usages which at their inception seemed likely to outlive the age.

The art of cookery is subjected to these changes in a marked degree. It is but twenty years since ancestral English customs began to give way before newer methods. A demand for something new in cookery arose. And in the wake of the demand came the supply. Palatial hotels were built, sumptuous restaurants were opened, and both offered their customers luxuries hitherto undreamt of. From the modern habit of dining and supping at restaurants, and consequently partaking of novel dishes prepared by master hands, has sprung the desire for progress and imitation of such productions in everyday home life.

New-fangled habits had to be met by new methods of cookery, better adapted to the particular environment in which they were to be practised. The admirable productions popularised by the old masters of the culinary art of the preceding century did not blend with the light and frivolous atmosphere of restaurants, nor the correspondingly lightened trend of home cookery. The pompous splendour of bygone dinners was superseded by a desire for "light" food of a foreign order. Such dinners as our great-grandfathers enjoyed, which were indeed veritable ceremonies, possessing their ritual and traditions, have passed for ever. They do not harmonise with modern, rapid service, or modern fickle appetites, which demand some exquisite chef d'oeuvre, souffle in name and nature.

Circumstances ordained that I should be one of the movers of this revolution in culinary art and service, and that I should manage the kitchens of two establishments which have done most to bring it about. It must, however, be borne in mind that the changes which have transformed kitchen procedure during the last twenty-five years cannot all be classed under the head of "new" recipes. Apart from the fundamental principles of the science, which we owe to Careme, and which will last as long as cooking itself, scarcely one old-fashioned method has escaped the new moulding required by modern demands. They are all old favourites masquerading in new frocks.

A few years ago, in the preface of a book

I compiled on modern cookery, I said that,

"Judging from the rate at which things are going, the publication of a fresh selection of recipes may become necessary, and 1 hope to add a few more original creations to those I have already had the pleasure of seeing adopted, despite the fact that the discovery of new dishes grows daily more difficult!"

Novelty is the universal cry - novelty by hook or by crook. It is an exceedingly common mania among people of inordinate wealth to exact incessantly new, or so-called new dishes. Sometimes the demand comes from a host whose luxurious table has exhausted every resource of the modern chef's repertory; sometimes from a hostess anxious to outshine friends with whom she has dined when returning their hospitality. Novelty! It is the prevailing cry; it is imperiously demanded by everyone, high or low, rich or poor.

And for all that, the number of alimentary substances is comparatively small, the sum of their combinations is not infinite, and the amount of raw material placed, either by art or Nature, at the disposal of a cook does not grow in proportion to the whims of an intolerant public.

But the chef who has had the felicity to succeed in turning out an original and skilful dish which produces a vogue cannot, even for a time, claim the monopoly of his discovery, or derive any benefit therefrom.

Most inventors are protected by law. But the chef has absolutely no redress for plagiarism on his work. On the contrary, the more it is liked and appreciated, the more will people clamour for his recipes.

One of the most popular and most badly cooked of foods is the potato. Potatoes, in England, are served disgracefully on an average both in restaurants and private houses. In restaurant cooking this is excusable, as the secret of cooking potatoes - either fried, saute, or boiled - lies in eating them immediately they are cooked. In other words, to cook them freshly for every customer, which is a practical impossibility. But in private houses this excuse does not hold good, and I contend that the badly cooked potatoes are only the result of ignorance.

The average "little cook" thinks that potatoes are the easiest things in the world to cook - and to spoil. The result is that not one household in twenty knows what a really well-cooked potato is.

In this article I want to try to give a few hints on cooking potatoes, and a few recipes that are well within the scope of the simplest menage. In restaurants, as I have said, we suffer under the great disadvantage of having to cook and keep hot a vegetable which should go straight from the saucepan to the dinner-table. But we do our best by using the right materials in the right way, and employing all our art in keeping them hot to serve potatoes in a perfect form.