The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-09-06 00:00:00

COOKERY AND THE WORKING
CLASSES.

On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Buckinaster, who still
indefatigably continues to lecture twice every day at
the International Exhibition on cookery, received •
number of the members of the Waking Men's Club
and Inatitute and their families In his little theatre at
South Kensington, for the purpose of giving them a
teats of his quality with regard to the art of which he
is so erudite a professor. Invitations were issued for
300 persons, as many as the lecture room would hold;
but not quite • hundred availed themselves of the op-
portunity, although forming • very attentive and ap•
preciative audience.

In onening his lecture Mr. Buckmaster told how he
had yielded to the earnest proposal of Mr. Hodgson
Pratt to undertake the taskeof giving information on
"the subject of cookery as adaptable to the working
clue—a subject of very great interest and importance.
Coming to the practical part of his lecture, Mr.
Buckmaster said that he thought of dealing with Indian
meal and macaroni ; but there were primary difficulties
in regard to those substances, and he had deemed it
beaks begin with teaching the construction of an article
of food in use all over France and Belgium, known as
the "pot-au-fen," the cooking of tripe, and potatoes
boiled and fried. It should here be stated that all
preparations had been made for illustrating the lecture
by action; the fires, brasiers, stew-pans, and materials
for the proposed dishes were at hand and half a dozen
active, neat young women, looking picturesque in their
light gowns, aprons, and white muslin " mob caps,"
were in attendance. As soon as directions were given
to prepare theP" pot-an-feu," they began to flit about,
and at every command of the lecturer deftly manipu-
lated the food substances, placing them in the proper
culinary vessels, suggesting recollections of that
"neat handed Phyllis " who made ready "savoury
messes" according to the Ideal of the poet. While they
were chopping and mingling materials Mr. Buokmester
went on to show how a good, wholesome slinnercould be
obtained for a small charge of money. He urged that
soups and stews made from meat or fish were most whole-
some and nutritious. For the purpose of his illustra-
tions on this occasion he had bought for the "pot-en.
fen" meat and bone for which he gave sixpence-half.
penny, being pickings from the small bits which
butcher, always have for 'ale; vegetables, fivepenos—
potatoes, herbs, and bread—the total costa of all the
material being Is. 34., and with this he would make a
'ripply of excellent soup for five persona. Here' by
the direction of Mr. Buckmaster, the cooks put the
bone and meat into a large saucepan, with two quarts
of water, adding Potatoes, salt, parsley, garlic, leek,
hernt onion, and pepper, and this was put on to boil.
While this process was going on the substance known
as tripe was brought forward, its merits discuseed, and
a portion prepared and subjected to the process of
cooking. This and cow-heel were spoken of es most
palatable, though, as they were very easily di-
gested, taking not more than an hour and • half,
as compared with four, five, and six hours for different
kinds of meat, they were not quite so nutritious. All
this time onions were being chopped fine, and the tripe
cut into small narrow pieces—a mode of preparation
different from that noisily adopted, though the reason
for this was to be found, doubtless in the greater
quickness and facility of cooking. It was placed in •
stew-pan, water and milk, and for thickening, flour,
ninetard, • little loaf sugar, and pepper, were put in.
lioth dishes being now in • state of ebullition,
but requiring some little time to be brought to
an edible state, the lecturer dwelt upon cookery
as an art or • science, its application Po food, and
the advantages of well-cooked food, especially if eaten
with good temper and cheerfulness. (Cheers.) We
people in England, he said, had never mastered the
science of cookery. and had not the benefit of palatable
food, which was always the most nutritious. He ex.
floated a genuine French '" pot-au- feu," and showed
how it was • receptacle, a sort LI stock-pot for every
eatable scrap, whether meat, bone, or vegetable, and
always Simmering by the fire. With these practical
and a-me amusing remarks, the time was whiled away
until the " pot.ao.fen " was ready; and beaks of it
were handed round to the persons assembled, which
seemed to be liked by every one. After another in-
terval the tripe was announced to be fit for consump-
tion, and this, with boiled and fried potatoes, was
served round. The dish was pronounce Ito be excel-
lent, and there was obvioutsly a general opinion that
the experiments were sue assful, this opinion bring
openly expressed by several of the male members of
the audience.
The proceedings closed with a hearty vote of thanks
to Mr. Buckmaster.

In connection with this sullect. the following leader tram
Oh. Dmly News deserves the thonghtful perm .1 of our
reader.,, as • more txttnried kuowle Ire of the art of making
a savoury dish for little molter, would adJ lo the comfort of
many • home :

Mr. Buckmaster's leclures on Cookery in the Inter-
national Exhibition seem to have bec ime a decided
snort-NS, and, in fact, are institution. The theatre of
the Exhibition has been used during the season as a
schoi I of popular cookery, and Mr. Buckmaster has
lectured and illustrated twice a day there. The
lectures have generally been well attended, and some-
times even crow Lid. Many distinguish, d persons
have been preeent, and it has, wo are told, become the
correot thing for Wires to go there and be taucht by
practical exposition the art of boiling a potato and
cooking a cutlet. The late M. &oyez., we believe, con-
sidered the former achievement as the matricides,
thin teat, if we may so call it, for admission to
study in the higher and more pretentietut depart.
meat cf the science of cookery. The lecture of
last Saturday was especially delivered to au audience
made up of members of the Working Men's Club and
Institute and their families, and the instruction was
principally in the making of coup on the pot au/en
principle, the cooking of • dish of tripe, and the best
manner of frying potatoes. All this wan done under
the eyes of the epectatins. Neatly dressed girls went
through the various operations and combinations, and
the results wore hat del round to be tasted iu a suc- '
cession of taste plats!. It is really a hopeful thing
in every sense that such a system of lectures should
have te corns •gopn'ar, not only among those to whose
domestic economy cheap home cookery is all illportant,
but even among classes where the family is not expected
to know anything about the dinner until it comes upon
the table. The wasteful and unwholesome syetesa
which prevails in the hombre of the poorer classes in
this country, where the cooking of food is concerned, I
has almost come to be regarded as a national chars", I
teristic. The Englishman is a very carnivorous animal.
He eats flesh meat as nobody of any other nation does. I
Decidedly he is the better for it, seeing that he can
generally do more work and has a I mger average of life
than most other people. But he might get much more
benefit out of the flesh meat he eats, or, bettor still,
he might have results at lewd as satisfactory out of a
much smaller quantity, if only the home system of
cookery were different. The expense that presses on
him is not eo much in what he eats as in what he
wastes. The principle that nothing is to be wasted is
unknowa in the average household of the humbler
CiAll.te here, and, even, if it were not unknown, the
style of cookery which prevails would render it ins-
possible.
Even among cheeses that can hardly be called poor,
there is the PlllllO lack of flexibility and resource.
" What is Nature ?—ring her changes round,"
grumbles the discontented poet—site is nothing "but
water, trees, and ground ;" or some words to that
eftect. What is dinner to a vast number of British
familirs ? Ring its changes round, and it will prove
to be nothing but hot joint, cold jointeand steak pie,
"The joint" itself is a name and an institution which
are hardly understood in other countries. "On Sunday
we have the j tint, and it comes up cold for supper;
on Monday it comes up cold for dinner."
Such, we suppose, might be the condensed
history of many thoueanda of cuisines belonging to
the lower-middle claws, as it is called. Now
the joint is economic In • certain sense ; at
least, there is • superficial and alluring aspect of
economy about it. It is certainly cheaper than steaks
or chope, to say nothing of such expensive luxuries as
veal cutlets. Besides, it seems the easiest and safest '
kind of cookery. King Alfred himself, after a very
few lemons, might have learnt how to rook a pint.
Anybody can see when beef or mutton is beginning to
burn, or can discover what length of time it ought to
be left in an oven. Therefore the joint is, in a certain
sense, economical and convenient; and fowls, as eaten
in English families!, woe-aide-induct to ineolvency if often
indulged in, seeing that only about half each fowl is
actually consumed, and the rest is gent to prey at fortune.
But there are ways of cooking which would relieve
people from the monotonous despotism of the joint;
would extract from the meat and from the bone all
their full value as food, and make every farthing spent
on the family's dinner pay its due contribution to the
family's maintenance. It is etranze how little use is
made of soup among all the classes who have most need
of its economical and healthful properties. Soup in
England is the luxury of the rich; in many other
countries it is one of the most important dishes of the
poor. Vegetables and fish are not allowed in England
to play newly ea Important a part as they might in
the household economy. The infinite variety of
combinations which a knowledge of cookery can extract
from materials apparently the most simple and
monotonous, appease hitherto to have never entered
into the thought of the British housewife. We are
speaking Low only of dinner. It would be idle to ray
auythiog of breakfast. The most devoted lover of his
country will probably admit that as regards breakfast
England is a failure. We ere almost hopeless on that
sullect. It seems doubtful whether any vinlior of
generations of lecturers could reform the Eng:lab break.
fast table. That a really great people should act upon
the convieffon that man's destiny is to begin every
morning on tea, buttered t nut, iggr, and perhaps thin
bacon, might make one in his more moody moments
almost dePpair of the human race.
For some time—say for the next two oi three genera-
tions—England might he well content if the degenir-
atsd dinner table of the classes who have to economise
were the only result of the effects of enlightened in-
structors. It is pleasant, however, to lit ar that Mr.
Bucknonster's lectures were attended by many lades
who have no occasion, on the score of mere economy,
to look after their husbands' dinners. Few things,
surely, become • lady better than • knowledge of tit
principles and elements of cookery, There is a
charming passage in one of Nathaniel Hawthorn's
novels in which he idealiz-s and glorifies the
needle and thread as the common symbol
of civilized womanwood all over the world,
from the princess to the waiting-maid. To under-
stand something of the coojcing of • dinner ought
surely to be • feminine craft as universal and as
graceful. The finest ladies in all literature—the
ladies of the Odyssey—have the art, and are proud to
show it; and even in books that picture • life far nearer
to our own time, it was still the part of a lady to
understand something of the mystery of preparing •
dinner. Henry Esmond observed with admiration
four of the finest and whitest arms in England, those
of my Lady Castlewood and hlistrees Beatrix, bared
for the work of making pastry and puddings.
Our present systems of dining, among those to
whom mere saving of money is not • Primary
coceideration, are rather too complicated and elabo-
rate- perhaps to allow the lady of the house to take LIN
leading peat in their preparation. Nor would it he
desirable that a lady should devote herself to mere
servile labour from which she might be spared simply
for the sake of maintaining the principle that women
ought to cook. The time when no dignity of rank
exempted a woman from the duty of carving, when
Mary Montagu used to grow faint from ihe sheer

physical exhanation of helping every guest at the
Duke of Kingston's table, hardly seems MOTO strange
to us than the day when the lady of the house had
to wake herself the head cook of every feast.
But there is no more need for setting up an alter-
native of exoessive work or none at all in regard
to domestic cookery, than of arguing that a lady
must either sew all the day like Lucretia, or absolutely
forswear the use of the needle. Most persons are
now quite willing to acknowledge that the better
educated and the more truly refined • wotuan is,
the better housewife she will be. The %log of
France who declared that • woman was likely to be
spoiled if she had any more knowledge than was
required to distinguish a doublet from a petticoat was
a failure in other ways as well as in his theories of
female educ.atiem. The better educated a woman is,
the more readily will she learn the proper way of
000kingis chop ; and we feel convinced that the spread
of school education among the poorer cholera will
bring out in a generation or two a race of housewives
as superior to their anceatresses in the art of boiling •
potato as in the knowledge of history and geography.
Perhaps the attendance of so many ladies at Mr.
Buckmaster's instructive leetures is only to be regarded
as evidence of an inclination for • new form of amuse-
ment. Even so, it is at least a healthy sign that
amusement can be sought in that way; and as in this
country few of us care to learn anything unless we
fancy that our superiors in station are learning it also,
It may be that the mere presence of those who have no
need to study cookery will render a sound instruction
in the art acceptable to those who ought to regard it
as all-important.