Originally entrees were often, and indeed at first almost always, called hors d'oeuvre, or, as one might paraphrase it, "by the way dishes"; not included in the actual menu, but simply trifles brought in "to amuse the guests" whilst waiting for the serious parts of the dinner, termed releves, or removes, as we call these main dishes for want of a better word. Hors d'oeuvre were at first both hot and cold, but gradually that name was restricted to the cold trifles sent in as a whet to the appetite; whilst the word entree was used for the hot dishes. For this word there is no actual equivalent in our language, though some people do call them side-dishes and made-dishes. To translate it literally we must call these, "brought-in" dishes, a somewhat awkward term, but one which derives some meaning from the fact that entrees were brought in with all their accessories, such as sauce, garnish, etc, on the same dish; and though fashion has since permitted the addition of sauces to be handed round (to allow of variety of tastes) with many little dainties that are properly served dry, the name of entrees has been retained.

The uncertainty as to their name also extended to their position on the menu, which wandered about, first appearing before, then after the soup; then they were placed, as they still are often in France, after the joint, whereas in England the fancy obtained of making them serve as an introduction to the joint or releve. Much may be said for both services, though personally the French method appeals to me most, for two reasons. First, the keen edge of the hungry diner's appetite being taken off by the solid releve, he is better able to appreciate the delicacy of the little dishes which constitute an entree; in the second place, in England joints are generally roasted, so that if the joint is served after the entrees two roasts clash, the roast game, or rot, of the second course coming on top of the equally roasted joint, a collision which is avoided by the French system.

We have so modified the old way of serving food that we have considerably reduced our dinners, and indeed a good many of us would shudder and give up in despair were we expected to work our way through the solid bill of fare of former days, when everything was doubled, if not (in the case of entrees and sweets) actually quadrupled. Now a dainty dinner will often consist of soup or fish, one or perhaps two entrees, a roast bird of some kind, a sweet (preferably iced), and a savoury, "and there an end," as Pepys has it in his most fascinating diary, which, by the way, is a storehouse of quaint culinary and gastronomic ideas.

Another fancy has arisen amongst us, and that is the taste for cold dishes, a fancy which, however, chiefly affects the temperature of the smaller or "kick-shaw" part of the meal, such as entrees, sweets, and savouries. Now there is a good deal to be said for this fancy, from the point of view of the economic housewife with a limited kitchen staff.

Cold dishes can be prepared beforehand, while there is leisure to bestow the time and care such dainty trifles demand if they are to be a success, and please remember that unless an absolute success, in however simple a way, such things do not justify their existence. What should we think of a woman who tried to atone for the inferior material and bad cut of her dress by a quantity of discordant and carelessly adapted trimming ? Such a sight is not uncommon one ruefully admits, but still I repeat my question, what would be our opinion of the wearer were we in the Palace of Truth ? Yet many a woman who would shudder at such barbarous dressing is guilty of taste just as deplorable in the service of her table. If cookery is to be even decent, much more "high class" (to use the jargon of the day), both material and preparation must be good. A sloppy sauce redolent of the cruet stand, with a plentiful sprinkling of black shoe leather cut in snippets, encircling some badly trimmed thin loin chops smothered in greasy bread crumbs, is not improved by being called "cotelettes a la Perigueux," or any other high sounding name evolved from a half forgotten cookery book or the imagination of the person entrusted with the menu.

Difficult though such "good cooks" may find it to believe, those who consume (or try to do so) these weird dishes would gladly exchange them for a plain but carefully cooked chop and a floury potato.

Little dishes, such as entrees, may be an actual economy, and are certainly a pleasant relief, especially in hot weather, from the heavy, solid joints popularly supposed to constitute our national fare; but before allowing her cook to send such things to table the mistress should take care that her cordon bleu has mastered the foundations of her profession. She should be taught the difference between a chop and a cutlet; that between steak and a fillet of beef; the various ways of cooking meat, such as boiling, frying, roasting, stewing, broiling, braising, etc, and also be taught approximately to gauge the appearance, more or less, of a dish from reading a recipe. For this purpose the four great sauces should be distinct entities to her, and she should be able perfectly to differentiate between bechamel and veloute, or between brown and Espagnole (or Spanish) sauce. Now this is no recondite matter in reality. Veloute is sauce made precisely like melted butter, only using plain and fairly colourless stock instead of water, with the result that veloute if properly made has always a soft creamy tinge; thus distinguishing it from bechamel, which is prepared by using either milk alone or white stock and milk mixed, instead of the water of melted butter.

For brown stock you allow the flour and butter, which is the basis of the sauce, to colour till it is of a soft light brown (be careful it does not burn or cook too quickly, as in this case it would have black spots through it, and all but certainly acquire a bitter taste that no subsequent dosing with wine, Harvey, or Worcester sauce will either remove or even disguise), and then dilute it with dark-coloured nicely flavoured stock. White sauces depend for their flavour a good deal on the little additions made to them in the process of finishing off, as they are developed into their separate divisions; but brown sauce must taste fairly strongly of good, well flavoured stock, though no actual distinctive flavouring must be permitted when it is simply to serve as the foundation of richer and more intricate sauces, such as poivrade, brown Italienne, etc. Espagnole, on the contrary, is of itself a somewhat strongly flavoured sauce, a slice or two of lean ham or bacon, a sliced tomato, and a few sprays of parsley, thyme, bayleaf, etc., being allowed to fry with the initial butter and flour, or roux, as it is technically called.