"No professional cook can tell you what it was that made English food lapse in the 19th century," she said.

I may send away to Knollwater for their cooks, too, tell them.

But as any professional cook will tell you, cooking is about techniques, not recipes.

"Forget confusion," a cook tells me at the end of service.

Another cook tells me about one evening's service when the orders trickled in.

When the cook told her everything was ready she went into the women's room and began to pull the big bell.

The cook told her that the next day, she would boil Fundevogel in it.

"You guys sure picked your time," the one-armed cook in charge told Else.

The cook told him to go to culinary school.

Hazel asks what is in it, but the cook won't tell them.