It is very necessary to be a good judge of fish, and as freshness is the most essential point, the observation must first be directed to it. Fish may be kept on ice for a considerable time and still be fit for food, but in such a case is always flavourless. Fresh from market fish is stiff and never cleaned and does not yield readily to the pressure of the finger. Except in stormy weather, when fish is scarce and fishmongers are obliged to keep it from day to day, it ought always to be cheap in the evening, and if the means for preserving it indicated in our recipes are used, it will be perfectly good for the next day.

Bacon is an expensive article unless well chosen. The meat of small pigs is unprofitable in every sense of the word, the lean is hard and indigestible, the fat when broiled runs away, and when boiled lacks that fine flavour and marrow-like quality peculiar to the flesh of full-grown hogs. Good bacon has fine thin skin, is large and plump, the fat white and lard-like when scraped, and there and there tinged with red. The lean is a brilliant red, interlined with threads of fat. The bones of good pork and bacon are large and well developed, and those of the latter are particularly valuable in making soups and gravies, as they yield, without so much salt, all the flavour of ham. Another point to observe in choosing bacon is the aroma imparted to it by the system of curing adopted by the best houses in the trade, and which is never found in inferior brands.

The certainty that butter sold in shops is rarely un-adulterated should make housekeepers very cautious in the choice of it. There are a number of scientific and some simple tests which can be applied for the discovery of the various sophistications and adulterations, but as a rule they take too much time, and in the hands of non-professional analysts must always be attended with some degree of uncertainty. For everyday application we must therefore fall back on simple domestic tests. The presence of too much salt is at once detected by the taste, of water or butter-milk in undue quantity by pressing the butter in a cloth. In good butter very little of these last is obtained by the operation.

A little practice will enable anyone to detect the presence of beef or mutton fat. Butter which contains either of these does not melt so readily as when it is pure. If animal fat is present it is almost certain that when dissolved small pieces of skin will be found in the butter-When pieces of thread are found in dissolved butter, it is a sign it is adulterated with rag pulp.

So little terrors have the Adulterations Acts for the purveyors of butter, that specimens of this, sold lately as the "best fresh," at two shillings the pound, have given to these rough domestic tests unmistakable evidence of the presence of animal fat and rag pulp. When the highest market price is paid for an article it is shamefully fraudulent to sell such substitutions as these, and it is to the lasting disgrace of the English dealers that they have destroyed the trade in pure Dutch butter by sending over to Holland tallow and every description of fat, to be there-refined and returned to this country as butter. This-abominable stuff can be manufactured and sold here at a lower price than pure Dutch butter, and thus one of our most valuable food supplies is diverted, if not altogether lost. We cannot afford to be indifferent in this matter, because butter, in its pure state, and when fresh is a valuable food, and less likely to disagree with the digestive organs than any other fats, and is by far the most agreeable of them to invalids and consumptive persons. The dislike which is usually shown to butter having a rancid taste springs from the fact - even when not known or recognized - that such butter is unwholesome; the peculiar flavour arising from the decomposition, or as some say, fermentation, of the milk remaining in the butter. This flavour can be removed so as to make the butter fit for cooking purposes by clarifying, that is, pouring boiling water on it. When the butter is cold after this operation, it must be broken up, well washed in cold water, and then be melted at as low a heat as possible, after which it must be freed from all moisture, and kept in water slightly salted, and changed every day.

To keep fresh butter sweet, put it into a pan of water, mixing a teaspoonful of tartaric acid to every half-gallon. Change the water once a week, or oftener in very hot weather. It is a great luxury to have butter firm in hot weather, and this can easily be effected by placing over it, on a soup-plate, an inverted flower-pot covered with a cloth, and pouring water on the plate, so that evaporation may constantly go on. Several cheap and good inventions are sold for this purpose, and they save some little trouble and time in their application. Butter which has been exposed to a high temperature is apt to disagree with the digestive organs, and hence many people are afraid to eat sauces and melted butter. But if the method indicated in our various recipes is followed, namely, never to boil sauces after adding butter, they may be eaten without fear, for by merely dissolving it butter does not lose the fatty acids which give it flavour and make it digestible.

The price of butter is now so high that, wherever possible, other fat should be substituted for it. Beef-suet is, not even for families, so much used as it should be, and the reason of this is, that cooks for the most part chop instead of scraping or shredding it. If properly prepared, fine fresh suet may be so used for piecrust, delicate puddings, such as "Bread and Butter," and some others, like "The Beatrice," without anyone being able to detect the flavour. It goes twice as far as butter, and a pudding with an ounce of shred suet will eat as nice as if made of more than two ounces of butter. Beef-suet mixed with an equal quantity of pig's flead (sometimes called leaf), and melted at a low heat, is far better than inferior butter for the nursery and school-room, and the cost about half that of the latter.