Read Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer — Complete Page 80

  NOTE 4, p. 180

  We must again have recourse to the contribution to Blackwood's Magazine,April 1817:--

  'To the admirers of good eating, gipsy cookery seems to have little torecommend it. I can assure you, however, that the cook of a nobleman ofhigh distinction, a person who never reads even a novel without an eye tothe enlargement of the culinary science, has added to the "Almanach desGourmands" a certain Potage a la Meg Merrilies de Derndeugh, consistingof game and poultry of all kinds, stewed with vegetables into a soup,which rivals in savour and richness the gallant messes of Camacho'swedding; and which the Baron of Bradwardine would certainly have reckonedamong the epulae lautiores.'

  The artist alluded to in this passage is Mons. Florence, cook to Henryand Charles, late Dukes of Buccleuch, and of high distinction in hisprofession.