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By Root 2201 0

little pieces are swimming in their own fat, start pouring it off through a very fine strainer or thick cloth. Then put the residue back to cook again until nothing is left but the little frizzled pieces of fat, which are called grattons and which are used by the country people to give a savoury flavour to certain kinds of coarse bread and pastry doughs, and which are also sometimes still made into a rough sort of pâté and into rillettes. The fat from round the kidneys of the pig is considered to make a specially fine fat for cooking, and in its rendered state is known as axonge. Goose fat and beef kidney fat are rendered down in the same way. All fats should be stored in covered jars in a cool and dry place.

Salpicon May be one of a score of mixtures comprising flavouring vegetables, herbs, ham, veal, fish or meat but always cut into very small dice and bound into a thick white or brown sauce. Used as a stuffing, or as a garnish for little tartlets or vols-au-vent.

Sarrasin, Farine de Buckwheat flour, used especially for Breton pancakes.

Sarriette SAVORY A herb sometimes used in France in the bouquet garni, in sauces and in stuffings. It has a slightly bitter taste, which seems to me to detract from, rather than to enhance, the flavour of broad beans, a vegetable with which it is traditionally associated in French cookery.

Sauge SAGE Occasionally used in French cookery but never in the large quantities in which it goes into stuffings for pork and duck in English cookery. Like rosemary, it can be a most treacherous herb, overpowering and spoiling the flavour of the food with which it is cooked.

Saumure The brine in which foods are salted or pickled. It may vary in composition from a simple salt and water solution to a mixture flavoured with aromatic herbs and spices, vinegar or wine, saltpetre, peppercorns and so on.

Seigle, Farine de RYE FLOUR Used for coarse country bread and for pain-d’épice.

Sel-épicé Spiced salt is a composition of various ingredients, mixed and pounded together in the following proportions:

20 oz. salt

oz. cloves

oz. nutmeg

6 bayleaves

oz. cinnamon

oz. peppercorns

oz. of dried basil

oz. coriander

‘After having been pounded, everything must be pressed through a silk sieve; the residue, if there is any, must be returned to the mortar and once again pounded, for the exact proportions of each ingredient contained in this seasoning, the fruit of a thousand experiments and of fifty years of experience, do not allow for any loss; sieve once again, stir the mixture so that all the ingredients are equally blended, and pack into tins, which it is essential should be hermetically closed.’—Recipe from Le Cuisinier Durand, 1830.

Although the decimal system of weights and measures had been in official use in France since the Revolution, many cooks evidently continued to use the old measurements of ounces and pounds, and a small measure called a gros, which is a little less than 4 grammes, or the eighth part of an ounce.

Sel gemme ROCK SALT

Sel gris Coarse, only partially refined, rock or sea salt used for cooking and for brines. Also called gros sel.

Sel marin SEA SALT One or other of the many grades of only partially refined but unadulterated salt appear to me to be essential both for cooking and for the table. If you have no salt-mill, it is easy enough to pound up a little at a time with a pestle and mortar, and the flavour it gives is so superior to that of powdered salt that, to people who have grown accustomed to pure salt, it is a deprivation to return to food flavoured with the “free-running” type of table salt, which is mixed with extraneous substances, harmless though these may be.

Sel raffiné Refined, although not necessarily adulterated salt for the table.

Semoule SEMOLINA FLOUR.

Serpolet WILD THYME.

Sucre candi CANDY SUGAR, SUGAR CRYSTALS.

Sucre crystallisé GRANULATED SUGAR.

Sucre en pain LOAF SUGAR.

Sucre en poudre, sucre semoule CASTER SUGAR.

Sucre glace ICING SUGAR, CONFECTIONERS’ SUGAR.

Sucre