More than three-quarters of the quantity sold in London, and of the finest quality, are produced in English soil, and are in reality supplied to the London markets by our village labourers at a very low price but as this is known to few, and as the public imagine that a cheap English production must be inferior to an expensive foreign one, so the wholesale dealers will continue to sell them at immense profit as a foreign importation. Nor need we cross the Channel or rub up our long-forgotten French in our desire either to discover for ourselves the habits and history of the truffle, or to import so many pounds at a cheaper rate for if these rough, black-looking vegetables could speak, they would astonish their admirers by declaring themselves, in broad vernacular English, to be natives of Wilts, Dorset, and Hants. But where the vender chooses to feign ignorance in order to prove the foreign growth of this curious vegetable from which he derives so large a profit, my readers will, if they consent to follow me, be admitted into the mysteries of the trade. Nor will the vender allow that truffles are natives of England, or that any can be found to equal the French. These French truffles are in such request the French cooks, ma’am, can’t get on without them.” ![]() We can never himport them for less than eight shillings the pound in the best of seasons, and indeed we might run them up for as much again. In vain, however, does she remonstrate with the truffle-dealer the answer is always, “We can’t sell them hany cheaper, ma’am, even to our best customers. But to those to whom economy is an object, truffles are almost unknown, nor will the prudent manager admit them to her table unless she can secure them at reduced prices. There are few connoisseurs in gastronomy who will not, as soon as the season arrives, ransack Covent Garden Market for truffles, and, regardless of expense, consider themselves fortunate in obtaining such a dainty for eight or ten shillings the pound.
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