Take care not to put your meat too near the fire; the larger the joint, the farther it must be kept from the fire*; for if once it gets scorched, the after shew, will be found not only an excellent substitute, but for many purposes are decidedly superior to either butter or lard;) if it is too far from the fire to catch them, you will not only lose your drippings, but the meat will be blackened and spoiled by the foetid smoke which will arise when the fat falls on the live cinders.

* From 14 to 10 inches seem to be about the distance meat is generally put from the grate when first put down: it is extremely difficult to offer any thing like an accurate general rule for this, as it depends so much upon the size of the fire and of outside will become hard, and acquire a disagreeable strong taste; and the fire being prevented from penetrating into it, the meat will appear enough, before it is little more than half done, besides losing the pale brown colour which it is the greatest beauty of all roast meat to have.

If you wish your jack to go well, keep it as clean as possible, oil it, and then wipe it; as, if the oil is not wiped off again, it will gather dust: to prevent this, as soon as you have done with your jack cover it up. Never leave the winders on whilst the jack is going round, unless you do it, as Swift says, that it may fly off and knock those troublesome servants on the head, who will be crowding round your kitchen fire.

Be very careful to place the drippingpan at such a distance from the fire, as just to catch the drippings: if it is too near, the ashes will fall into it, and spoil the drippings;* (which, we shall herethat of the thing to be roasted, till some culinary philosopher shall invent a thermometer to ascertain the degree of heat of the fire, and a graduated spit rack to regulate the distance from it, the process of roasting must remain among those which can only be performed well by very frequent practice.

* Which the good housewife will take up occasionally, as by leaving it all in the dripping-pan until the meat is taken up, it not only becomes very strong, but when the meat is rich and yields much of it, it is apt to be spilt in basting.

The time meat will take roasting will vary according to the temperature of the weather: the same piece will be twenty minutes or half an hour longer in cold weather* than it will be in warm.

It is difficult to give any specific rule for time; but if your fire is made as before directed, your meat skreen is sufficiently large to guard what you are dressing from currents of air, and the meat is not frosted † we cannot do better than recommend the joints; without which, these parts will seldom be done as they should be. The same, and all other kitchen and ironmongery goods, are excellently well made by Brownley, Greek Street, Soho.

* If the meat is frozen, put it into cold water till it is thawed, then dry and roast it as usual; or bring it into the kitchen for two or three hours before you want to roast it, and the warm air will thaw it perhaps better than any other way.

† The tin meat-screens made by Lloyd, furnishing ironmonger, near Norfolk Street, Strand, are infinitely the best; as they also answer all the purposes of a large Dutch oven, plate warmers, warm hearths, etc.; where are also sold, bright block tin concave reflectors, to screw on the ends of the spit: these are very useful and economical, as they not only save fire, but are indispensably necessary to brown the ends of your old general rule of allowing a quarter of an hour to the pound; a little more or less, in proportion as the piece is thick or thin, the strength of the fire, the nearness of the meat to it, and the frequency with which you baste it: the more it is basted, the less time it will take, as it keeps the meat soft and mellow on the outside, and the fire thereby acts with more force upon it.

A large joint should be basted every quarter of an hour, till within half an hour of the time it is done.

It is also a good general rule, when your joint is half done, to remove the spit and drippingpan back, and stir up your fire thoroughly, that it may burn clear and bright for the browning: when the steam from the meat draws towards the fire*, it is a sign of its being done enough; but you will be the best judge of that from the time it has been down, the strength of the fire you have used, and the distance your spit has been from it.

* When the steam begins to arise, it is a proof that the whole joint is thoroughly saturated with heat: any unnecessary evaporation, is a waste of all the best nourishment of the meat;

Just before you take it up, baste it, and dredge it with flour carefully: (if you are very particular about the froth, you must use butter instead of dripping:) (See Receipt to Roast a Turkey:) and send up what you roast with pleasing froth, so presenting an agreeable appearance to the eye, the palate may be prepossessed in its favour at first sight.

Though roasting is one of the most common, and is generally considered one of the most easy and simple processes of cookery, it requires more unremitting attention to perform it perfectly well, than it does to make most made-dishes.

That made-dishes are more difficult, I think really deserves to be reckoned among the culinary vulgar errors: for in these the cook has nothing to do but follow the receipt, and cannot very easily fail: but in plain roasting and boiling it is not easy to repair a mistake once made; and all the discretion and attention of a steady careful cook must be unremittingly upon the alert*.

* A celebrated French writer has made the following obser-vations on roasting:

" The art of roasting victuals to the precise degree, is one of the most difficult in this world, and yon may find a thousand good cooks sooner than one perfect roaster: (See "Alma-ncch des Gourmands " vol. i. p. 37".) In the mansions of the opulent they have, besides the chief cook, a roaster, perfectly independent of the former. All erudite gourmands know these two important functions cannot be performed by one artist, and that it is quite impossible at the same time to direct the operations of the spit, and the stewpan." - Further on the same author observes: "No certain rules can be given for roasting, the perfection of it depending on many circumstances which are continually changing; the age, size, shape, and nature of the pieces, the quality of the coals, the temperature of the atmosphere, the currents of air in the kitchen, the more or less attention of the roaster; and, lastly, the time of serving. For supposing the dinner ordered to be on table at a certain time, if the fish and soup are much liked, and detained longer than the roaster has calculated; or, on the contrary, if they are despatched sooner than is expected, the roasts will in one case be burnt up, in the other not done enough - two misfortunes equally to be deplored. The first, however, is without a remedy; five minutes on the spit more or less, decides the goodness of this mode of cookery; and it is almost impossible to seize the precise instant when it ought to be eaten; which epicures in roasts express by saying, 'It is done to a turn.' So it is that there is no exaggeration in saying, that the perfect roaster is even more rare than the professed cook.

"In small families, where the cook is also the roaster, it is almost impossible the roasts should be well done; the spit claims exclusive attention, and is an imperious mistress, who demands the entire devotion of her slave. But how can this be? When the cook is obliged at the same time to attend her fish and soup kettles, and watch her stewpans and all their accompaniments, it is morally and physically impossible; if she gives that delicate and constant attention to the roasts which they require, the rest of the dinner must often be spoilt; and most cooks will rather lose their character as a roaster, than neglect the made-dishes and ' entremets,' etc. where she thinks she can display her culinary science, than sacrifice these to the roast; the perfection of which, she thinks, will only prove her steady vigilance and patience.

* Our ancestors were very particular in their bastings- and dredgings, as will be seen by the following quotation from "Mays Accomplished Cook." London, 1665, p. 136. - " The rarest ways of dressing of all manner of roast meats, either flesh or fowl, by sea or land, and divers ways of breading or dredging meats to prevent the gravy from too much evaporating.

Dredgings

1. Flour mixed with grated bread. 2. Sweet herbs dried and powdered, and mixed with grated bread. 3. Lemon peel dried and pounded, or orange peel mixed with flour. 4. Sugar finely powdered, and mixed with pounded cinnamon, and flour, or grated bread. 5. Fennel seeds, corianders, cinnamon, and sugar, finely beaten, and mixed with grated bread or flour. 6. For young pigs, grated bread or flour mixed with beaten nutmeg, ginger, pepper, sugar, and yolks of eggs. 7. Sugar, bread, and salt mixed.

Bastings

1. Fresh butter. 2. Clarified suet. 3. Minced sweet herbs, butter and claret, especially for mutton and lamb. 4. Water and salt. 5. Cream and melted butter, especially for a flayed pig. 6. Yolks of eggs, grated biscuit, and juice of oranges.

A diligent attention to time, distance, basting often*, and judicious management of the fire, are all the general rules we can prescribe for roasting in perfection; we shall deliver particular rules for particular things, as the several articles occur, and do our utmost endeavours to instruct our reader as completely as we could find words to describe the process, and teach,

"The management of common things so well,

"That what was thought the meanest, shall excel:

"That cook's to British palates most complete,

"Whose sav'ry skill gives zest to common meat:

"For what, are your soups, your ragouts, and your sauce,

"Compar'd to the fare of old England,

"And old English roast beef!"

* * The time given in the following Receipts is calculated/or those who like their meat thoroughly roasted