Riz de veau

[James Smith]

--- Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
....
>    THE COOK, 24 August 1885, pg. 9, col. 2:
>
>    _KITCHEN ENGLISH IN FRANCE_
>    The use of English in the kitchen in France is as
> bizarre as the use of French in the kitchen in
> England or America.  The simple ginger snap is set
> down grandiloquently in the bill of fare of an
> American summer hotel as _gateaux de gingembre_.
> And a recent bill of fare at the Grand Hotel in
> Paris offered "Irisch-stew, a la francaise"--truly a
> marvelous dish.  (...) Hitherto we have held as
> legendary, only, the translation of _riz de veau a
> la financiere_ as "smile of the little cow in the
> style of the female financier"--but, after this,
> nothing is impossible.
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This may have been the source for Ambrose Bierce's
entry in The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

"RAREBIT, n.
      A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless,
who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may
be solemnly explained that the comestible known as
toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that
riz-de-veau a la financiere is not the smile of a calf
prepared after the recipe of a she banker."

     *************************************
Or was this perhaps an oft repeated witticism of the
epogue?


=====
James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
SLC, UT                        |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.

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