An omelette is sometimes a picture--" "I've seen omelettes that looked like one of Turner's sunsets," acquiesced Burns.
"Precisely; and when Turner puts down in one corner of his canvas, 'Turner, fecit,' you do not object, but if the cook did that with the omelette you wouldn't like it." "No," said Burns; "but he might fasten a tag to it, with his name written upon that." "That is so," said Homer; "but the result in the end would be the same.
The tags would get lost, or perhaps a careless waiter, dropping a tray full of dainties, would get the tags of a good and bad cook mixed in trying to restore the contents of the tray to their previous condition.
The tag system would fail." "There is but one other way that I can think of," said Burns, "and that would do no good now unless we can convey our ideas into the other world; that is, for a great poet to lend his genius to the great cook, and make the latter's name immortal by putting it into a poem.

Say, for instance, that you had eaten a fine bit of terrapin, done to the most exquisite point--you could have asked the cook's name, and written an apostrophe to her.

Something like this, for instance: _Oh, Dinah Rudd! oh, Dinah Rudd_! _Thou art a cook of bluest blood_! _Nowhere within_ _This world of sin_ _Have I e'er tasted better terrapin_.
_Do you see_ ?" "I do; but even then, my dear fellow, the cook would fall short of true fame.

Her excellence would be a mere matter of hearsay evidence," said Homer.
"Not if you went on to describe, in a keenly analytical manner, the virtues of that particular bit of terrapin," said Burns.

"Draw so vivid a picture of the dish that the reader himself would taste that terrapin even as you tasted it." "You have hit it!" cried Homer, enthusiastically.