Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1867-11-22
American Cookery-A Criticism By
Pierre Blot,


In America the science Of cookery has
been much neglected until Of late years.
Now there are many competent cooks
in the country, and in New York and
Boston especially may be found many
excellent gastrOnOmers. As have be-
fore said, no country in the world pre-
sents greater abundance and variety
Of food than America, and in no cOun-
try are the means Of obtaining good
materials for food so equally distTibu-
ted. If the reform which has cOmmen-
ced in the great cities spreads to the
country towns and villages, America
viii not only conquer IT'S great enemy
dyspepsia, but viii grow rich out of the
savings which scientific cookery affords.
Too much meat is eaten jn America
The AnglO-SaxOn race loves muscle,
and therefore eats most the food that
produces muscle. Beef and mutton,
being the most nutriOus Of animal food
and the best to supply the waste Of
muscular power are the 1nvarying diet
of the majority of the people.
Many intelligent persons who are
wise enough on other subjects, are ex-
ceedinSly careless about what concerns
their very life. When see men who
never or very. seldom use their muscles
live entirely on steaks and roast beef
which is exactly the opposite of what
nature demands, I cannot help plying
them and wishing that they would lis
ten to nature.
The lower animals, with the excep-
ton, perhaps of two or three species,
such as the boa constructor, etc, are
much wiser than man; they do not feed
contrary to natures demand. A man
who has a sedentary occupation, who
does not breathe the pure air more than
once a week, should not eat steak more
other day.
Instead of paying thirty-tiye cents a
pound for often sOle-leatber steak, let
the man who wishes to live a natural
lifetime buy occasionally a good fish
for eight. ten or twelve cents a pound
Instead OF becoming strong on a beef
diet, a man Of sedentary habits Withers
like a leaf in the fall, becomes dyspep-
tive, consuuaptive, and dies before haV-
reached half the age he would have
done if he had paid attention to his
food.
BY eating too much and too often of
the same article of food il naturally be-
comes difficult Of digestion and unpaI-
atable, and requires stimulents of some
kind along with it, at least so everybody
thinks. A change Of diet would be the
right course but instead of that strong
bottled sauces, catsups, pickles, etc,
are largely partaken of, and together
with too much liquor Of one kind or
the other, the food is bolted, and our
poor stonlachs are left TO perform their
{
sla and consumption should set In
Steak-eating is not so general in Eng
land as in this country to-day, and it is
only fair to say that there is here at pres
ent a marked tendency to vary the food.
Tt will surely bring the butchers to
their proper work. There are already
several butchers in New York who
know their business, and nearly all the
butchers Of Philadelphia and Cincin-
natl cut their meat properly. Why
should they not all do the same
I constantly hear housekeeper5 COM
plain that they cannot get the peices of
meat they want, nor have them proper
ly cut. This is too true, and the reason
is plain. A man who was a shoemaker
yesterday and butcher to-day cannot
be expected to know how to cut meat
properly 1t may not always be as
bad as this, but the statement is not
wide of the truth.
But there is another, and / think
the main reason why meat is generally
so poorly cut, and the psices asked for
have such an unsightly appearance. A
large share of the people in the cities
live ON beefsteaks three hundred and
finv days in the year As conse-
qupnce, butchers, in order to supply
the demand for the favorite article, have
recourse to every sort of artifice.-cut-
ting, mashing and bruising the meat
They are Obliged 10 sell three-fOurths
house steak" to satisfy the law of de
nand and supply" What is the result7
Steaks q mean every piece Of meat sold
under that name) command a cOmpara-
lively high price, varying slightly, ac-
cordiug to the name the butcher gives
them.
No matter how large "A beef may be,
it has only two tenderloins, and they
weigh about nine pounds each on an
average hence, as i say, in order to
supply the great demand for steaks,
butchers are Obliged to sell some other
parts of the beef as such. Even the adj
dltion of ''porter-hOuse steak, rump
steak" etc, was not sufficient every
part has been turned into steak.
It is complained, also, that butchers
are unwilling TO cut small pieces that
people are obliged to buy more than
are very simpls, and do not wonder
that the butchers impose large pieces on
them. Buy no meat at all, except
small piece, and that for a week only,
and you viii see If the butchers viii
not lCOndescend to use their knives.
Another very wrong custom in this
country is to have the marketing at
tended to by the only person in the fana-
lily who is unfit for it-the head ofthe faul-
lily, the husband or father. What can
You expect of a man with his head over
filled with business, in O hurry to reach
his Office of a morning, merely says to
the butcher or grocer: ''Send this or
that home" Suppose that the butcher
is sensible man, do you fancy that ne
has time to think for your he has not.
He has to attend to all his customers
But suppose he had2 does he know
your taste, your constitution?
Instead of the husband or father, let
the mother or the wife attend to the
marketing, when the cook is not able to
do it; and let everybody pity the hus-
band and children whose wife and
mother thinks it beneath her dignity TO
attend to her marketing. Let us say
with the philosopher "a little less
fuss and false pride, and little more
comfort"
One word more to butchers: Please,
when one Of your customers buys leg
of mutton, behave like Christians, and
do not under the pTetenee Of trimming