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The nest is usually so sparse and flimsy an affair that you can see through its coarse mesh of sticks from below, the fledglings lying as on a grid-iron or toaster; and it is, moreover, occasionally so much higher in the centre than at the sides that the chicks tumble out of bed and perish. Still, it is a beginning in the right direction.
According to the well-authenticated legend of the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, the Saint, as he lay upon the grid-iron, conscious that he had been sufficiently done on one side, begged the cooks, if it were a matter of indifference to them, to turn him on the other. Common humanity demanded compliance with so reasonable a request. We fancy that we hear Mr.
Broiled fish, broiled chicken, broiled ham, broiled steaks and chops, are always satisfactory. The grid-iron made St. Lawrence fit for Heaven, and its qualities have been elevating and refining ever since. Nothing can be less healthy or less agreeable to the taste at a summer dinner than fried food. The frying-pan should have been thrown into the fire long ago, and burned up.
In one I saw a disemboweled horse savagely spurred on by his rider at a bull-fight. In another, an aged philosopher was dissecting a living cat, and gloating over his work. In a third, two pagans politely congratulated each other on the torture of two saints: one saint was roasting on a grid-iron; the other, hung up to a tree by his heels, had been just skinned, and was not quite dead yet.
I have a fainter recollection, sometimes, of the relics; of the fragment of the pillar of the Temple that was rent in twain; of the portion of the table that was spread for the Last Supper; of the well at which the woman of Samaria gave water to our Savior; of two columns from the house of Pontius Pilate; of the stone to which the sacred hands were bound, when the scourging was performed; of the grid-iron of Saint Lawrence, and the stone below it, marked with the frying of his fat and blood; these set a shadowy mark on some cathedrals, as an old story, or a fable might, and stop them for an instant, as they flit before me.
For such a man waits a crown of enduring bays. Slices of this savory ham, fried in a skillet the truth of history forces the reluctant confession that the march of progress had not yet brought the grid-iron and its virtues to the mountains a hot pone of golden-yellow meal, whose steaming sweetness had not been allowed to distill off, but had been forced back into the loaf by the hot oven-lid; coffee as black and strong as the virile infusions which cheer the hearts of the true believers in the tents of the Turk, and cream from cows that cropped the odorous and juicy grasses of mountain meadows, made a breakfast that could not have been more appetizing if composed by a French CHEF, and garnished by a polyglot bill-of-fare.
Take a neck of beef, or any other piece; cut off some slices, and fry them with butter 'till they are very brown; wash your pan out every time with a little of the gravy; you may broil a few slices of the beef upon a grid-iron: put all together into a pot, with a large onion, a little salt, and a little whole pepper; let it stew 'till the meat is tender, and skim off the fat in the boiling; them strain it into your dish, and boil four ounces of vermicelly in a little of the gravy 'till it is soft: Add a little stew'd spinage; then put all together into a dish, with toasts of bread; laying a little vermicelly upon the toast.
Then stretch out the Ribs, and open the Belly, as wide as may be; then strew into it what Pepper and Salt you please. After this, take a large Grid-Iron, with two or three Ribs in it, and set it upon a stand of Iron, about three Foot and a half high, and upon that, lay your Hog, open'd as above, with the Belly-side downwards, and with a good clear Fire of Charcoal under it.
Then mix these well together, and make two Puddings of them, tied up in Cloths well flour'd; boil them six Hours, and serve them with Sugar and Butter in Cups. This will cut very firm, and not taste at all greasy. And if you save one cold, cut it in Slices, and lay it upon a Grid-Iron, under Beef while it is roasting, and it eats very well with Beef Gravey hot. To make a Venison Pasty.
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