With ducklings tender and toothsome, as they should be in this month,
it is plainly seen that the next course is capable of being a _pièce
de résistance_ at a far more stately affair even than the one which we
are considering. But if they are roasted in the ordinary way known to
every housekeeper in the land, stuffed with bread crumbs, highly
seasoned, and have a giblet sauce, quite an extraordinary flavor will
be given them if, just before serving, half a pint of pitted and
quartered olives are added to the sauce. It's only a trifling addition
to the old way, you see, but the improvement is so great you will
wonder that every one doesn't know of the gastronomical harmony
existing between duck and olives. Now, the flavor of the ducks is so
rich and altogether satisfying that it takes only the simplest and
mildest-flavored vegetable to complement this course. And nothing will
answer the purpose better than cauliflower. If they are cut into
pieces of uniform size, they cook in a much more satisfactory manner,
and they should boil as gently as possible; do not add the salt to the
water till they are nearly tender. When taking them up, drain well,
and over all pour melted butter thickened with browned bread-crumbs,
and send to table. I fancy you will find them more to your liking
served in this way than in the old rutty way of so many cooks, namely,
with a white sauce, which varies in different households from a fair
quality of flour paste to a very rich and fairly cloying concoction of
cream and melted butter.
There is nothing like a simple salad to prepare one's palate for the
sweets which come at the last, and with hothouse cucumbers now in
evidence and lettuce always with us, the making of a salad is a
delight in more ways than one. It is not so many years ago that we had
to pay from thirty-five to fifty cents each for cucumbers at this
season of the year, but the large number of cucumber hothouses near
every city is fast bringing this desirable vegetable to a state where
it will be known as an all-the-year-round commodity.