Our grandmothers had a fashion of inviting home-people and guests to take a pickle, a sliver of ham or of salted fish, oftenest of all, a cracker and a morsel of cheese, "to take the sweet taste out of the mouth "after dinner. For a like reason modern professors and amateurs in gastronomic art are bringing into vogue what, for want of a fitting French phrase, we call "Savories," as a sequel to harmonious luncheons and more stately dinners.

Prominent among these stands the genus Cheese, with its numerous species - patrician, middle-class, and plebeian.

"Remember, they say," quotes the author of that graceful and gracious extravaganza - "The Feasts of Autolycus " - " Remember, they say, 'as well woman with but one eye as a last course without cheese.' "Her essay upon "The Indispensable Cheese" is a prose poem over which the culinary connoisseur lingers with a tenderly smiling mouth that waters meanwhile.

Another and a homelier proverb says of cheese that" it is warranted to digest everything except itself." This, we take it, applies to the heavier cheeses, eaten as pieces de resistance at noonday dinners and hearty suppers rather than to the delicate tid-bits that round off course dinners and efface from tongue and palate the sweet that will be sour presently. Gorgonzola, Roquefort, and Gruyere demand a degree of education in the partaker who would appreciate the flavor of each, de Brie and Camembert must be chosen wisely and eaten sparingly. All are served with crackers, and as savories demand a touch of piquancy, there must be a little devilment in this same biscuit or crackers. Toast and butter saltines, and spread thinly with a coating of anchovy paste, caviare, or pate de foie gras, or the butter maybe sprinkled lightly with cayenne, or paprica, then strewed with grated cheese. Cheese-straws and ramakins may follow a repast that began with fruit or raw oysters. The sandwich also comes into service at this stage of the meal.