Turkey is undoubtedly one of the best gifts that the New World has made to the Old.

The truffle is not a positive aphrodisiac, but it can upon occasion make women tenderer and men more apt to love.

I am a strong partisan of second causes, and I believe firmly that the entire gallinaceous order has been merely created to furnish our larders and our banquets.

At the time I write, the glory of the truffle has now reached its culmination. Who would dare to say that he has been at a dinner where there was not a pièce truffée? Who has not felt his mouth water in hearing truffles a la provencale spoken of? In fine, the truffle is the very diamond of gastronomy.

The centuries last passed have also given the taste important extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations, of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have given us flavors hitherto unknown.

Food is all those substances which, submitted to the action of the stomach, can be assimilated or changed into life by digestion, and can thus repair the losses which the human body suffers through the act of living.

Cooking is one of the oldest arts and one which has rendered us the most important service in civic life.