Home › General Remarks › General Remarks

General Remarks

table, every thing which comes to their hand. They have a notion that there is a divine virtue in being extravagant and thriftless. Thrift and economy they consider mean. Yet a household of this kind, with the full swing of the kitchen and the larder, is too often the sole training that many a woman gets for the duties of a poor man's wife. It should never be forgotten that household service is the only school that many a woman ever passes through, and to many a woman it is a pernicious school. If she has never learned to save in the midst of plenty, she cannot begin to save under the pressure of small means. As she has never had reason for turning small things to account-to make the most of odds and ends-she is often reduced, and reduces her husband to a recurring vicissitude of one day's feasting and three or four days' fasting, with an intermediate day of scraps. And she is utterly ignorant of the thousand ways of dressing vegetables with a little meat or fish, so as to make the absence of a more substantial dish unregretted. And this happens in a million homes in a country which has, on the whole, the finest fish, the richest and most succulent meats, and produces or imports poultry, eggs, and butter to an extent which precludes their excessive dearness at any season. And while this happens with us, the French peasant, with far lower wages, with fewer materials of food, is making savoury dishes and healthy condiments out of the simplest produce of the field and the moor. Who can wonder, then, that while an English army is half-starved, despite numerous appliances and supplies, a French army feeds itself out of the rudest of Nature's gifts? Miss Burdett Coutts and Lord Ashburton, who took the lead which she has so well followed, will have earned the gratitude of the country if they have done nothing more than set people thinking about the amelioration of their cookery, and lead high teachers to consider that the art of feeding is really a science which affects the well-being of some twenty million citizens in England, and may often affect the existence of some quarter of a million soldiers abroad; and our social reformers will do well by following her example, and teaching the people of England that which, to the majority of them, is still a great secret- What food to buy, and how to cook it." No one who is acquainted with the workings of our everyday life in England, among the middle and lower classes, will retuse his cordial assent to these remarks; and few will be able to call upon their experience for instances of much greater knowledge among the mistresses of families themselves. It is true, that almost every housekeeper knows what meat costs, and how many pounds she consumes per week, and also the price of bread, and the number of quartern loaves, which she pays for at certain periods; but she does not know the amount of nourishment required by the younger and older members of her family respectively, nor the best kinds of food for each, nor even the best modes of dressing what she fixes upon in her blind and careless choice. It is with the last of these subjects that we have now to deal, and consequently to examine into the relative advantages of-1st, the proper keeping of food; 2nd, roasting and baking; 3rd, boiling; 4th, frying and broiling; 5th, stewing; 6th, soup-making; besides the art and advantages of preparing what are called made-dishes, sauces, and also pastry, puddings, and other sweets. Prior to these divisions, however, it will be better to dilate at some length upon the duties of the cook in this department. 19. THE GRAND PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICAL COOKERY are universally the same, however they may fall short in practice of ideal perfection. They are-1st, To render food, as afforded by nature, more digestible by art. 2nd, To avoid, as far as possible, any waste of materials in the operation. 3rd, To combine with the most nourishing and digestible kinds of food those which shall render them grateful to the palate. 4th, To take care and please the senses of sight and smell, as well as those of taste. And 5th, To avoid all needless expense in carrying out the above operations.

SECT. 2. THE COOK, AND HER GENERAL UTENSILS. 20. Every cook has constantly to deal with four different elements of calculation, three of which are tolerably constant, and therefore to be depended on, while the fourth is unfortunately somewhat changeable. The first or constant elements are time, quantity, and quality; the second being her own organ of taste and that of her employers. 21. TIME is truly a certain and sure element, always to be depended on as a severe but just master. To the punctual observer of his laws he accords his favours without measure; and, on the other hand, those who break them are as surely punished by a constant and everrecurring series of what they sometimes fancy to be misfortunes. As Napoleon could always manage to assemble his troops on a given spot at a given time, from whatever distance they might have been drawn; so the cook, with a good head for her business, can contrive that all her dishes shall be ready at the same hour, by properly calculating the time they will take to dress, and commencing each in turn according