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The Eighth Day: Englishwoman

With some of you I am sure I have succeeded, and a book containing the recipe of every dish we have tried will be given to every pupil when we break up." "I think the most valuable lesson I have learnt is that cookery is a matter for serious study," said Mrs. Sinclair. "The popular English view seems to be that it is one of those things which gets itself done. The food is subjected to the action of heat, a little butter, or pepper, or onion, being added by way of flavouring, and the process is complete. To put it bluntly, it requires at least as much mental application to roast a fowl as to cut a bodice; but it does not strike the average Englishwoman in this way, for she will spend hours in thinking and talking about dressmaking (which is generally as ill done as her cooking), while she will be reluctant to give ten minutes to the consideration as to how a luncheon or supper dish shall be prepared. The English middleclasses are most culpably negligent about the food they eat, and as a consequence they get exactly the sort of cooks they deserve to get.