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Cookery Among the Ancients (L'art qui contient toutes les)

"L'art qui contient toutes les élégances, toutes les courtoisies, sans lesquelles toutes les autres sont inutiles et perdus; l'art hospitalier par excellence qui emploie avec un égal succès tous les produits les plus excellents de l'air, des eaux, de la terre."-FAYOT.

OOKERY is naturally the most ancient of the COOKE arts, as of all arts it is the most important.

Whether one should live to eat, is a question concerning which the epicure and the ascetic will hold widely varying opinions; but that one must eat to live, will scarcely admit of controversy. The man who is wise in his generation will be inclined to choose a happy medium. Or perchance the French axiom that we only eat to live when we do not understand how to live to eat, may somewhat simplify the matter. As it is largely through food and drink that man derives his highest mental efficiency and physical well-being, as equally through improper diet accrue countless bodily disorders, it would appear that the proper choice and preparation of aliments and the selection of beverages should receive the profound consideration of every one.

In few of the arts has progress been more apparent during modern times. The mechanic has improved its accessories until the utmost perfection would seem to have been attained, medicine and chemistry have endeavoured to determine what elements of our daily dietary are injurious to certain individuals or to all, volume after volume has been written upon the subject, while the grand army of cooks has been busy in inventing new combinations or in resurrecting forgotten recipes. And yet the digestive ills of humanity have continued to multiply, even though there are over sixscore ways presented by a single author of serving the rabbit, and a competent priest of the range can utilise the egg in hundreds of different forms.

Is it that with greater variety in our aliments, a greater number of ailments is a necessary sequence, and that as mankind increases in culinary knowledge digestion decreases in power? It is an olden adage that too many cooks spoil the broth; and it may be worthy of consideration whether a superfluity of dishes is not responsible to a considerable degree for the furtherance of various stomachic maladies. Or, on the other hand, is it that with the trebled facilities of locomotion supplied by modern science, and the closer confinement of indoor pursuits, the cause may F. Ba Sculpt