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Introductory Instructions

INTRODUCTORY INSTRUCTIONS.

Mark Twain says: "We eat to live and not live to eat." The gospel of good cooking needs many evangelists. In the outset I want to tell you its foundation stone. It is this: to make real good things you must make them of real good things. Poor cooking can spoil the best material, but not even the best cooking can make things that are initially bad, good. It cannot redeem soured fruit, wilted vegetables, stringy blue meat, scrawny fowls nor milk and butter below grade. Neither can it freshen aged eggs, lighten clammy flour nor add one jot or tittle to third-rate flavoring. This ought to go without saying, but I find people hug- ging the idea that anything will do to cook, if you only know how. This is the point of wisdom to buy and cook only the best; not always the most expensive-sirloin and porterhouse steaks are always high, but the same prime animal that supplies these cuts supplies other less expensive cuts of a good quality for their grade-always be sure that whatever you get is the best. It is better to have good bread than poor cake-you can never make good cake out of stale eggs, inferior flour and bad butter; you can never make good biscuit or light rolls out of clammy flour-so you see the gospel of good buying precludes the gospel of good cooking. Just here let me say one thing for Flora flour. I have used it constantly for ten years and yet have the first failure to make in cake, bread or rolls from its use. I consider it one of the best flours on the market, and can conscientiously recommend it. Economy is a leading aim with me, therefore I warn all housekeepers against the extravagance of buying unfit things. There is another point: The wisest of us cannot im- prove on nature; the closer we keep to her actual flavors the better food we serve. Of course we can combine flavors, thereby giving the species of variety. Right here I am 5 glad to state that the combination of Webb's orange and vanilla will give the most delightful flavor to any cake or pudding you may wish to make. Webb's lemon is also superior in quality. Dish gravy or pan gravy well served cannot be improved upon-this for roasts of course. Broiled things-fish, mut- ton and so on-need sauces rich and smooth, and as you love your kind, let them never taste of the rancid fat, the uncooked flour nor the milk that went into their making. The fat we use in cooking should be one of the most important considerations. I would like to mention here one which in my work I have found especially good and particularly satisfactory, namely, Crisco, made by the Proc- ter & Gamble Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio. I have used it for frying with exceptionally good results because the food absorbs so little and when properly handled there is no objectionable smoke. Crisco is purely vegetable, and for that reason, as well as the fact that it melts at a point considerably below the body temperature, it is quite healthful and readily digested. It makes delicious pastry and can be used in the most deli- cate cooking in place of butter, in cakes with lovely results. When using Crisco as butter in cooking, add extra salt in the proportion of one level teaspoonful to one cup of Crisco. Let me urge you to use it wherever you are now using butter or lard. Try one Crisco spice cake and you will at once realize its possibilities. After we have selected the best material and prepared it in the most appetizing manner, then comes another im- portant feature to consider, and that is the cooking of all of these things. If you possess a National steel range, made by Phillips & Buttorff Co., Nashville, Tenn., you can make perfect all of the good and delicious dishes you are able to prepare. This house also keeps all of the model house- hold utensils that are necessary to make your kitchen sani- tary, convenient and attractive. There could never be a more delightful finale to a meal than a cup of Maxwell House Blend Coffee, made by Cheek- Neal Coffee Company, Nashville, Tenn. 6