Unless spinach is very carefully prepared and neatly arranged it is most unappetising alike to sight and taste. As it is one of the most wholesome vegetables, it deserves careful treatment. Required: Two pounds of spinach. Salt and pepper. One ounce of butter. Crescents of carefully fried bread.

(Sufficient for four.)

Remove all the stalks and stringy fibres from the spinach. Wash it in several waters, then put it, while it is still very wet, in a large saucepan, but add no other water. Boil it quickly until it is tender, keeping it well stirred. Next drain all the water from it, pressing it well, then rub it through a wire sieve; or, if this is not possible, chop it very finely.

Spinach is one of the most wholesome of the green vegetables. A little trouble spent on its preparation is therefore well worth while

Melt the butter in a stewpan, put in the spinach, with salt and pepper to taste, make it thoroughly hot. Pile it up neatly in a hot vegetable-dish, smoothing it over with a knife.

Decorate it with neat crescents of fried bread. To make this, cut a slice of stale bread barely a quarter of an inch thick, stamp it out into pretty crescent shapes - this can be done with a small round cutter - fry them a golden brown in frying fat from which a blue smoke is rising, and drain them well on paper.

Cost, 8d.