" With such cooking, a monkey might eat his own father."

ESCABECHE

Don't ask me what that means - I won't tell. But try it for your fish course some time, when the mercury goes up into the eighties, and if a better name occurs to you, you're at liberty to use it. Parboil two pounds of halibut, schrod, or any firm white fish. Cut in fillets and place in a salad bowl. Mix in a small bowl a tablespoonful of vinegar, three of olive oil, salt, cayenne, bits of orange peel cut thin as thin can be, a teaspoonful of onion juice, a sliced green pepper, and, if you have them handy, a bay leaf and a sprig of thyme to give an added bouquet. Mix well, pour over the fillets, garnish with sliced orange, and pop into the ice box to await the serving.

FISH SAUCES. These two particular sauces were invented especially for bachelors, and they're quite new. For chile sauce, one must mash to a paste a clove of garlic, finely minced, and two red peppers which have been softened in boiling water and rubbed through a sieve. Add a bit of the water, salt, and one table-spoonful of vinegar. In the blazer have sizzling hot a cupful of olive oil and stir the pepper pulp into this. Whatever fish you elect to have, cut in fillets and cook, closely covered, in this sauce. For the other, which we will call after Pittsburg Phil, take a cupful each of tomatoes, onions, and green peppers from which the seeds have been removed. Scald and skin the tomatoes, and skin the peppers by blistering on a hot stove. Chop all together, adding salt and enough olive oil to moisten. This is not to be despised as an accompaniment to cold beef, although it is perhaps at its best with fish. Try it on Barracuda, Spanish mackerel, Ouananiche, or even the plebeian cod, and report the result in your Sunday newspaper's Woman's Page.

SARDINES A L'INDIENNE. Would make a man bow down before a Hindu god. This is how M. Mookerjee of Calcutta serves them to his English friends. Into the chafer put a pat of butter and stir in the yolks of four beaten eggs, salt and cayenne to taste, and a teaspoonful of chutney. When it forms a smooth paste, mash with it some trimmed sardines from which the oil has been wiped, dip in eggs and bread crumbs, and after saute - ing in hot butter, dish up on thin strips of toast.

TURTLE STEAK. Should a man be so fortunate as to have sent up from Maryland with his birds a small terrapin, then shall he call himself blessed and ask in three or four of his intimes for a quiet game. No matter what the losses, this turtle steak will amply repay the loser and make the smile of the winner expand like Sunny Jim's. After melting two spoonfuls of butter in his blazer, the host, who meanwhile has the champagne cooling and the plates heating, will stir into the chafing dish a tablespoonful of mushroom ketchup, two tablespoonfuls of currant jelly, a gill of port, a dash of cayenne - why do they always say "dash"?—and some salt. In this simmer the steak until tender, and, as a crowning touch, stir in the juice of half a lime. Piping hot should be the plates, the inevitable toast, and the steak. With the champagne of the right coolness and the steak of the prescribed hotness, even Sam Bernard wouldn't know, I'll wager, just when one should cry "Sufficiency!"

CANNED SALMON. Who would ever dream that the plebeian canned salmon could be transformed into a morsel of such surpassing richness that it was immortalized by no less a person than Thackeray himself? Yes, canned or " tinned " salmon was in style as long ago as that, my friends. And this is how the jovial litterateur did it for himself and his gifted friends:

A gill of olive oil should be popped into the blazer with a tablespoon of chopped onion, a minced clove of garlic, two cloves, six peppercorns, and, when browned, a can of canned salmon in its liquid. Now add salt, bay leaf, a few slices of lemon, a pinch of curry powder, a pint of tomato pulp, a gill of Niersteiner, and water enough to cover the fish. Simmer twenty minutes, then pour into a deep dish that has been lined with toast, and call it " Bouillabaisse."

CRABS A LACREOLE. Melt in the hot water pan a large spoonful of butter and cook in it for five minutes a small onion and a small sweet Spanish pepper, minced fine. Stir while frying and add half a pint of strained tomato juice, a gill of chicken broth or canned chicken bouillon, some celery salt, and four soft shelled crabs nicely cleaned and cut in half. Simmer seven minutes - no longer - and serve on delicately browned toast.

BOSTON CLAMS. Did they originate at the Somerset Club or the Puritan? It's immaterial which, but this is how they're done: Cut in dice three or four slices of fat salt pork and fry crisp in the chafer. Add some soft clams, freed from the tough part, salt and pepper to taste, and saute them in the pork fat, serving on slices of hot Boston brown bread.

FINNAN HADDIE as served at the Hotel Essex in Boston owes its reputation to its creator, Rudolf Zutter. The skin is removed from the finnan haddie and the bones removed, after which it is parboiled in salt water. It is then cut in pieces about an inch square. Equal quantities of leeks, celery, and green peppers finely chopped are sauted in butter till tender, then the pieces of fish and two sliced boiled potatoes are added and the whole covered with cream. Salt and white pepper are used for seasoning, and it all boils together. If a little cream sauce is at hand, it may be thickened with that. If not, the beaten yolk of an egg stirred in improves it and thickens it slightly. Finish with small dots of butter and a sprinkle of chopped parsley.

HERRING OMELETTE. Speaking of fish, did you ever eat a savory herring omelette? It's a specialty of the Manhattan Club of New York. Skin and bone one fat smoked bloater herring and cut in thin pieces. Place in a saucepan with a tablespoonful of butter, paprika, chives, and parsley. Stew slowly and add a quarter-cup thick cream and four egg yolks; then take off the stove. Beat the four egg whites stiff and mix all together, then shuffle and fold as an omelette in a buttered pan, place in a hot oven three minutes, and then serve.

A UNION GRILL would not go badly on a yachting trip or for a hot bite after the theater. It is simplicity itself, and this is how it is done: Clean a pint of oysters and drain off all the liquor possible. Put the oysters in the chafing dish, and as the liquor flows from them remove with a spoon and so continue until the oysters are very plump. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve on whatever biscuit you fancy. And don't forget to add two tablespoonfuls of melted butter when seasoning them.

THORNDIKE OYSTERS. The Thorndike Hotel in Boston has an oyster recipe invented by its chef which is really a delicacy. Two tablespoonfuls of butter are melted in the chafer, and a pint of oysters, drained of the liquor, is added to cook until plump to bursting point. Then over them is poured a quarter-cup of thin cream and two egg yolks are stirred in to thicken it. With salt, black and cayenne pepper, and a slight grating of nutmeg, the trick is done, and zephyrettes on hot plates are brought on for the serving.

CLAMS A LA RIALTO. Who pleads guilty to Clams a la Rialto? William Faversham or Francis Wilson?

Upon my word, I can't remember, but don't let either say he hasn't received proper credit, and here goes: Chop fine three dozen little neck clams. Put a tablespoonful of butter in the chafing-dish, add the clams with their juice and season them with a teaspoon of minced chives, two teaspoons of chopped parsley, and a little pepper. After boiling about five minutes add one tablespoon of walnut catsup and then stir in soft bread crumbs to absorb the liquor, add another tablespoon of butter, and serve very hot. This is warranted to make any leading lady sweet tempered, even after failing to find her name in foot-high letters on the billboards.