_Cottager's Procerus Pie._--Cut fresh agarics in small pieces, and cover the bottom of a pie-dish. Pepper, salt, and place them on small shreds of fresh bacon, then put in a layer of mashed potatoes, and so fill the dish, layer by layer, with a cover of mashed potatoes for the crust. Bake well for half an hour, and brown before a quick fire.
_A la Provençale._--"Steep for two hours in some salt, pepper, and a little garlic; then toss in a small stew-pan over a brisk fire, with parsley chopped, and a little lemon-juice."--_Dr. Badham._
_Agaric Ketchup._--Place agarics of as large a size as you can procure, but which are not worm-eaten, layer by layer, in a deep pan, sprinkling each layer as it is put in with a little salt. The next day stir them well up several times, so as to mash and extract their juice. On the third day strain off the liquor, measure, and boil for ten minutes, and then to every pint of the liquor add half an ounce of black pepper, a quarter of an ounce of bruised ginger-root, a blade of mace, a clove or two, and a tea-spoonful of mustard-seed. Boil again for half an hour; put in two or three bay leaves, and set aside till quite cold. Pass through a strainer, and bottle; cork well, and dip the ends in resin. A very little Chili vinegar is an improvement, and some add a glass of port wine, or a glass of strong ale to every bottle.
Care should be taken that the spice is not added so abundantly as to overpower the true flavour of the agaric. A careful cook will keep back a little of the simple boiled liquor to guard against this danger: a good one will always avoid it. "Doctors weigh their things," said a capital cook, "but I go by taste." But then, like poets, good cooks of this order must be born so; they are not to be made.
_Pileus_ cylindrical, obtuse, campanulate, fleshy in the centre, but very thin towards the margin. The external surface soon torn up into fleecy scales, with the exception of a cap at the top. _Gills_ free, linear, and crowded. Quite white when young, becoming rose-coloured, sepia, and then black, from the margin upwards. They then expand quickly, curl up in shreds, and deliquesce into a black inky fluid which stains the ground. _Stem_ of a pure white, four to five inches high, contracting at the top, and bulbous at the base; hollow, fibrillose, stuffed with a light cottony web. The bulb is solid and rooting, the ring is movable.